December 17, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail for this week! I always love hearing about everything cool that's going on back home. I feel like this past week went by really quick as well and there were heaps of good things that happened. We witnessed a lot of miracles this week that I'll mention. The family I mentioned last week who's three kids are preparing to be baptized are really great when we went to see them this week. They were very nice and the kids seem to be really excited for their baptisms. We set the date with them on Tuesday when we taught them for the 22nd of December, which was awesome! Talking to our Ward Mission Leader yesterday, though, he said that when he went by to see them and just confirm some things for the day that the Mom said they may have to push the day back a week because they're unsure if the Father will be able to make it on that day, so we'll find out for sure later today, but even if they have to push it back that's of course ok because it will still be great for the family and obviously will be a special day no matter what day it is. The next miracle we had this week came on Thursday. We were at the library for our weekly 30 minutes on the church website and towards the end of our time there, there walked in a African man who looked familiar. After a few seconds I realized that it was Puot! (If you remember him, the Kenyan man who was about to be baptized but got kicked out of his house and we lost contact with him) So we waved him over and he came and talked to us for a little while. He said that he was only in Pakenham for the day so we were very lucky to catch him! We were able to get his new address (in a town called Cranbourne which isn't too far from here) and said that we'd be able to have the missionaries there come visit him. So that was an awesome blessing and we were very happy to see Puot again, as he was as well to see us. The third miracle for the week had to do with Rodney. Last week we taught him about the Word of Wisdom, which we had been told had been his only real issue in the past (just with coffee and tea and he would have an occasional drink for social reasons). So when we taught him this time he understood really well and at the end the spirit was there so we were able to challenge him to live the Word of Wisdom for at least the rest of December. He said he couldn't make any guarantees but he would try his best to do so. So we considered that a really good blessing to get him to commit to that. When we saw his wife, Sister Dean, yesterday she told us that Rodney has been doing really great so far with the challenge to live the Word of Wisdom! So we thought that that was a big miracle for us, and we really look forward to seeing him this week and getting his opinion on how he's seen it help him both physically and spiritually already. And now for the fourth miracle of this past week (heaps this week, eh?) which happened yesterday at church. During Sacrament meeting, about halfway through, there was a lady who I didn't recognize that came and sat down next to us (we were sitting on the row closest to the door). After Sacrament meeting was over, we found out that her name was Karen. She was actually a non member and had just decided to rock up (come) to church yesterday for the first time to see what we were all about. She said that she'd seen it heaps of times just driving past and it intrigued her so she decided that she'd like to just come check it out. Now obviously that's an incredible miracle in and of itself, but it kept going with her. She not only stayed and came into the gospel principles class (the missionary class) but also went to relief society as well! Some active members have a hard time wanting to stay all 3 hours, haha! Obviously we didn't see her in the Relief Society hour, but throughout the missionary class (the lesson was on charity, a perfect and low-key principle of the Gospel to introduce someone to) she was very attentive and was following along in the book and everything. The members that joined us to help in the class told some great stories as well which helped the spirit to be there. So after the 3rd block, we went to talk to her again. She said that she really loved church, and that she hopes to be back next week as well!! She also mentioned she's interested in joining the ward choir (they sang in Sacrament that meeting) and that after the busy holidays are over she's keen to have us around to teach her more about the church and the Gospel! Wow! That was definitely one of the most incredible things that's happened to me on my mission so far, and is awesome to see that she had courage enough to come on her own to check it out. I'm sure we'll see many more miracles to come with her in the near future. She and the Relief Society president exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses so they'll be in contact with each other for the time being. This transfer has really been filled with miracles thus far and it's been really great to see. This next week will be packed as! We have heaps of lessons and appointments planned out and we will be constantly busy (hopefully, at this point not everything is confirmed). Also, this Thursday there will be the big missionary Christmas devotional which should be really fun. All the missionaries from the Melbourne mission, except those in Tazzy (Tasmania), will be there and it will go from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. I'll save all the program details til next week when I can give you all the specifics of what went on. So anyway, our week was excellent and we are really excited for this next week and all the exciting things that are going to be happening this time of year! Thanks again for the wonderful e-mail and especially all the love, support, and prayers on our behalf! I love you and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead as well! I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

December 10, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks once again for another great e-mail! I really enjoyed it! This week was incredibly busy and eventful and Elder Hirata and I saw a lot of miracles. Well on Wednesday we did get to go to the Temple and that was an incredible experience as always! It was wonderful to be able to feel the spirit there and receive heaps of personal guidance and revelation. I learn so much each time I get to go through the Temple and my resolve to be better grows each time as well. After the Temple on Wednesday, one of the member couples in the ward took us out to dinner. We got permission from President Lifferth last Sunday to go with them because they wanted to take us to a restaurant in the city. So that was really cool to experience a bit of the city! It was just a little street restaurant that served souvlakes (I'd never heard of them before but they're really good!). We weren't quite in the city center but still close enough were it felt as congested as the city haha. It's unbelievable how busy it is there. They said that on the weekends the traffic can make you take about 2 hours just to go a couple of blocks! The area we were in also had some incredible houses as well which I'm sure would cost a fortune. But that was really fun to go up there with them. This past week Elder Hirata had quite a bit of bike trouble haha. On Thursday towards the end of the day, he got a flat tire. Now Elder Hirata had never changed a tire before and it'd been so long since I'd done it that I'd forgotten how to. So he just called up some other missionaries and they walked him through it step by step. We had to walk over to the nearest shopping center (which was quite close to our flat) to buy a new tire and a little repair kit just in case. So we got the old tire off and the new one on just fine, so we thought everything was all good once again. However, when we went to fill it up with air again the next day it was still remaining flat. So we inspected it again and when Elder Hirata used a kitchen knife to pry off the old tire he had accidentally poked a hole in the inner tire tube as well! So we had to walk back to the shopping center to buy some more supplies before we finally got everything fixed. So the whole ordeal took us about 4 hours, haha. But the Elder Hirata vs. Bike match still had round 2 to go. When we were riding down a steep hill coming back from an appointment, he took out his planner to check something and while he was looking at it he didn't notice a big bump on the sidewalk. I was behind him a little way and I just saw him fly a few feet in the air and fall almost in slow motion! Haha. He just fell in the grass though and he wasn't hurt besides a scratch or two. We realized later that he must've lost his bike lights when it happened because, come nighttime, his light appeared to have broken off the holder. So today we stopped by the shopping center again so he could buy a new light. So that was quite a crazy week for him, haha. Now on the actually missionary side of things, it was a really good week. Despite us not having a lot of time to work this week, because of the Temple and city trips and the whole bike thing, we ended up still getting in heaps of lessons, and saw some of our main investigators make some great progress. Melissa nearly quit smoking this week, she'd given it up for two days but then had one again. She said that she's down to just one a day though which is the best she said she's ever done! So that's been really good news, and we're helping her to pick a day to fast to help her receive extra strength, spiritually and physically. Also last Sunday, our investigator Rodney Dean fasted, and throughout this whole past week he was reading and praying individually and with the family every day! So that was huge progress to see with him and we can see that it is blessing his life. Hopefully soon he'll feel ready to make to the commitment to be baptized. Yesterday, at church, we had the biggest miracle of all. One of the less-active families who's just been coming back to church the past 2 or 3 weeks, has requested us to come teach their 3 unbaptized children (ages, 9, 10, and 11)  and baptize them before Christmas! Wow! So that was a huge blessing to receive that request and that will be so wonderful for the family and especially for the children. We'll be seeing them this Tuesday and will set a baptism date with them then (likely the 22nd of this month). So that'll be a great Christmas present for the Pakenham Ward! So we're really looking forward to begin to teach them this week. So a couple days within the past few weeks have been really hot and made us appreciate more the fact we had an air conditioned car! The hottest it's gotten so far in Pakenham has been 44 degrees Celsius (about 111 degrees Fahrenheit!)! That was just brutal, haha. But we've slowly been getting used to being in the heat here so hopefully it never gets too bad for us. Well we're really excited for all of the great things coming up this holiday season and continue to hope to see many miracles as we work hard. I hope that you continue to enjoy the winter and the holiday season back home! Thanks again for the wonderful e-mail. I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

 Elder Hopkins and Elder Hirata on their bicycles.

 Cruiz and Chelsea at their wedding, with Elder Hopkins and Elder Hirata.

 Rodney and Angie Dean and family.

 Cruiz and Chelsea with Afa and Lisa and family.

 Vince Sekene and his boys with Elder Hopkins and Elder Hirata.

 The Melbourne Temple at night.

 (Left to right) Elder Hirata, Elder Hopkins, Ward members, Barry and Joan Willmott.

The ugliest spider Elder Hopkins has ever seen.

Elder Hopkins' District, Zone Leaders, and assistants from the last transfer.

December 3, 2012

G'Day!

 

Thanks for the wonderful letter this week, I really loved reading it! I'm glad that there's been a lot of fun things happening back home! Unfortunately I'm a bit short on time this week so it will have to be a brief letter but I'll include heaps of pictures from the past little while as well, so hopefully that will make up for it. Last night was the Mission President's Fireside again and it went really well, they just did a Christmas program with a lot of really good musical numbers so it definitely helped everyone get into the Christmas spririt. Hard to believe it's Christmas in just a few weeks! Santa will probably be wearing shorts and a t-shirt over here, so it will be different not having a white Christmas this year. Also, if you can e-mail me what time you would like to do the Christmas day call/skype and what time it would be over here that'd be great, then I can talk to some of the members to see who would be available to lend their computer to us. Church also went really well, we had 8 of the less-active members we teach come to church again so that was a huge blessing! The most progress in the Pakenham area I think are coming from the less-active members which is great, so hopefully we'll be able to increase the investigator side of the work to catch up with them. This coming week we get to go to the Temple again so that should be really enjoyable and help re-invigorate our spirits. I always treasure the experiences at the Temple since we only have the opportunity to go once every 3 months, so it will definitely be wonderful to be back there again. It's been difficult lately to find any solid new investigators which has been a bit discouraging. However, as we work more with the members to try to get some good referrals from them it should bring some blessings there. Right now it's actually the start of the summer break for the school kids here (weird, eh?) so hopefully we'll be able to get a lot of the young adults out with us to help teach. So we're excited for that, however, their summer break is just 6 weeks so we'll have to make the time count! Well unfortunately I have to end the letter already, but next week I'll be sure to make it a good e-mail! I hope you enjoy the pictures that I send though! Thanks so much for all the continued love and support and especially the prayers! It makes all the difference. I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead and I love you very much! Talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

November 26, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks so much for the wonderful e-mail this week! I was so thrilled to hear from all of the family! I'm very grateful for all of their great comments and am grateful for all of their continued love and prayers! Reading all of those definitely put a big smile on my face! So I guess first of all I should mention the transfer news. Drum roll! Elder Hirata.........he is staying in Pakenham! And Elder Hopkins......he is also staying in Pakenham! So not much of a change haha. We're both really happy and excited to keep working together in Pakenham! Especially I'm glad that I'm staying so that I can spend Christmas and the holiday season on familiar ground and with all the people that I've developed a strong friendship with and a great love for. I was definitely surprised at the news though, because for one, companions usually aren't together for 3 transfers (unless their both in a leadership position, such as Zone Leader) and two, I've been in the area for a long time now! I'll now be the longest serving missionary in the Pakenham area, although there's only been a Pakenham area for just over a year, but still something that amazed me! I've loved the area so much though so I have absolutely no quarrels with staying here another 6 weeks! Also, on a side note, Elder Rafferty actually got transferred again from his area so he's moved 3 times in the last 3 transfers haha. Don't know where he's going yet though, we'll hear on Tuesday. So that was definitely the big news of this past week and transfers are always a very exciting time! The rest of the week was really good as well though, although we didn't get as much accomplished as usually since we were riding around on bikes. I happened to actually enjoy riding the bikes around, however, because it was just a nice change from the car and it also helped get my leg muscles quite huge! Haha, just kidding. I did hope at some point in the mission to get the classic missionary experience, and my wish had been granted! On Saturday was probably the most difficult though, because the temperature was about 34 degrees Celsius, which would be about 93 degrees Fahrenheit! So we were quite roasted at the end of the day, but thankfully no bad sunburns! We were able to teach several good lessons this week, but we were unable to make too much more progress with our investigators. We were unable to set a baptismal date with Joan Willmott this week, so that was a bit disappointing after she told us last week that she was ready to be baptized, but I'm sure within this next transfer we'll be able to set a firm date with her. We also found out yesterday when we went to see David and Melissa (who are planning on their wedding happening in May) that David didn't want to come to church anymore. Not that he wanted to be separated from the Gospel, he just didn't want to come to actual church anymore. So we had an extra long lesson with them just talking about the reasons why David didn't want to come to church and trying to just create a good environment for the Spirit to be felt. It ended up going quite well and afterwards David didn't come right out and say he wanted to still come to church but he did say that he felt much better about it and that he felt the Spirit. We'll try to go around to see them more frequently and just encourage him and try and help him have a lot of good spiritual experiences. On a brighter side of things, this past week while we were tracting one day, we ended up tracting into a less-active lady (named Melissa) who had just moved into the area a few months ago. She said that she was baptized several years ago (about 6 or 7) and that when she came over to Australia she stopped going to church (why does that keep happening to everyone?). However, she said that she's keen on coming back to church, especially since the chapel is so close, she just has to try to get some Sundays off of work. She also has 3 kids, one of whom is of baptism age! So that was a wonderful miracle to find her this past week, and we hope to begin having lessons with her this week. There have been all sorts of members that haven't been to church in a while that are just coming out of the wood-works because there was another less-active family that's been in the area a while who just came to church again for the first time yesterday, so we'll try to go round and see them this week as well. So surprisingly that's all I can think of that's noteworthy from this past week, hopefully it will suffice, haha. But Elder Hirata and I look forward to having another great transfer together here in the great area of Pakenham! Thanks again for the great e-mail, and I hope all of you have a great week ahead as well! I love you, and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

November 19, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks for another great e-mail this week, which I enjoyed reading! It sounds like it was an eventful week! Elder Hirata and I had a pretty busy week as well. We kicked off this past week with Zone Conference which was fantastic! In case you don't remember much from the other one about 3 months ago, Zone Conference is where two zones get together and have one big meeting together which President Lifferth and his wife attend as well as the APs. There are several talks and trainings that are always inspiring, and it goes from 9 am to about 3:30 pm. We had lunch in the middle of it, about 1 o'clock which was prepared and served to us by some of the members from the Pakenham stake. So the two zones that were there were the Pakenham zone, which we're in and that is all the missionaries from the Pakenham stake, and the Braeside zone, which was all the missionaries from the Braeside stake. In total there were probably about 60 missionaries there! It was an awesome meeting and there were some great talks given by President Lifferth and Sister Lifferth that really inspired us and motivated us to work harder. Also, President Sanders, the stake president of the Pakenham stake, gave a really great talk to us that really inspired me a lot personally. In President Lifferth's talk, however, he mentioned some very interesting and exciting facts. He mentioned what you'd already told me about the missionary calls per week jumping up from 700 or so, all the way up to 4,000! That's just incredible! Also he talked about how our mission, the Melbourne mission, would be affected by this new surge of missionaries. Right now, the mission has a total of 161 missionaries. But come January and February time, the number will jump up to 250 missionaries!! That number being the maximum number of missionaries that a mission can have at one time! That's pretty amazing! He said that there will be many new areas opening and that there will most likely be no less than 4 missionaries (two companionships) per ward. He also mentioned that because of this massive boost of missionaries that almost every missionary that's been through training themselves will be training these new missionaries! So that will be pretty interesting! That was definitely the biggest announcement of the day, and has all of the missionaries looking forward to that big wave of new Elders and Sisters. So after a big missionary gathering like that we were all really motivated for the rest of the week. Elder Hirata and I were able to have a really good week and see some wonderful progress with some of our investigators. One of the greatest things worth mentioning was that when we saw Joan Willmott this past week she told us that she was finally ready to be baptized! Woohoo! haha. So that was wonderful to hear and we're really excited for her to take that first big step in the Gospel. She'll most likely have a baptismal date set this coming week that will be for early next year, so I'll keep you updated with that (as long as it's still possible for me to keep you updated, who knows what will happen with transfers!). Speaking of transfers...yes this is the last week of the transfer and it has just flown by so fast! I can't even believe that  it's already been another 6 weeks here in Pakenham and I feel it's just gone to fast! It's been a really great transfer, however, and Elder Hirata and I have really worked hard and well together. His English continues to improve heaps each week and it won't be long before he'll sound like he's spoken it his whole life! So this past week we finally were able to have another lesson with the two people we'd met last transfer, Moana and LIna, who we were able to set baptismal dates with. Now obviously they won't be baptized yet since we still have heaps to teach them and they will have a lot of progress to make, but they still are keen as (or super interested for the non-Aussie speakers, haha) and have expressed a desire to start coming to some of the church YSA activities that are held quite often. So hopefully there are good things in the future for both of them. We also will find out within the next 2 weeks or so the day that Melissa and David will be able to be married so we can set a date for her baptism as well! So the fruits of our much labor are beginning to show forth and hopefully this last week of the transfer will bring forth even more blessings and miracles! So those are the main things of note that happened this past week and we look forward to working harder than ever for this final week of the transfer! My next e-mail will have the transfer news, so bring your popcorn for that one! Again, I appreciate so much all of the love and support and especially the prayers on my behalf and the behalf of the other missionaries. I know that it really makes all the difference in our missionary work! Well I hope that you all have a fantastic week ahead and a great Thanksgiving! I'll be celebrating by eating as much food as I can (although not many people will understand why!) to try and keep the spirit of Thanksgiving alive in Australia! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

November 12, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail! I always cherish every minute of reading them each week and love all the things you're able to include. This past week was a pretty good week. Definitely not as snowy as Utah right now! I'll definitely miss the white Christmases for the next 2 Decembers. Melbourne weather continues to just be a guessing game as this past week we had a couple of hot summer days, but mixed in were some rather rainy days (plus hail!). So you can never quite put away the winter clothes throughout the summertime. This past Wednesday was a pretty fun day because we went on exchanges for the day with the Zone Leaders, so Elder Rafferty and I were once again able to work together in Pakenham! We went around to see all of the main people that we taught when he was still here and they were all very happy and surprised to see Elder Rafferty so soon again. We had a lot of really great lessons as well and were able to make a lot of progress with many of our investigators. Working with Elder Rafferty again made me realize the big adjustment it's been working with Elder Hirata as he's still learning english. Not to say that Elder Hirata's english isn't good, because it is quite good, it's just sometimes more difficult for the investigators or the people that we teach to understand exactly what he's trying to say. But then I can't imagine now having to learn an entirely new language in such a short amount of time and being able to teach the gospel with it, so he's definitely doing a great job! You asked in your e-mail about us having the opportunity to do service projects, and to answer, we have heaps of opportunities for them! There are several opportunities per week for us to provide service so it's been really great to help out. One of the things that we help out with a lot is with what are called 'self-dig gardens.' Some people in the ward came up with the idea a little before I got to Pakenham and they're just raised garden beds that you build a certain way so that when you put in plants they just replenish and re-plant themselves after each growing cycle. So it's a really effective and good system and they produce heaps of vegetables. They're trying to get at least one garden bed at each member's home so we help out with that about once a week, or once every other week. Also, lately it's been getting into a tradition of helping someone move house each Saturday, haha. The past two weeks (as well as a few other weeks in the not too distant past) we've helped two different families move. Last week we helped a nonmember family move house, who'd met and become friends with a couple of the sisters in the ward, so that was good for us to be there and kind of introduce ourselves. This past Saturday we actually helped David and Melissa move house as well! Luckily they were just moving to a different house in the same general neighborhood so they're still in our area! We've also had many other opportunities to provide service and I really enjoy each change we get to help out. Not only does it provide a break from tracting, haha, but it always feels good to be able to give service to whoever may be in need. Church was really good this week as well. We were able to have several of the people we teach attend this week again, however, not quite as many as last week but still a good amount. Cruiz was able to be ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, so that was a really special moment! The next step will be to get him and Chelsea each some sort of calling. We've also begun visiting another new less-active family as well, called the Sekene (pronounced Sakaynay) family. They're an awesome family and have just barely been coming to church again the past few weeks for the first time in a few years. Vince Sekene (the husband/dad) was baptized back in New Zealand several years ago but they all went a bit less-active when they moved over to Australia (seems to be a very frequent trend with the less-active members we visit, haha).  But they've been going very well too, and hopefully they'll be able to progress towards getting to the Temple as well. Well unfortunately I'm out of time, so I'll have to end there for this week. But we look forward to the last two weeks of this transfer! It's really flown by so fast so we'll try to make every moment count! Thanks again for all the wonderful love and support you give and especially all the prayers on our behalf! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon! Have a wonderful week ahead!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

November 5, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks for another great e-mail this past week. As always I really loved reading it and hearing about all the things that have gone on in the past week back home. This past week was a great one and we were able to see a lot of miracles happen. Cruiz and Chelsea were married this past Wednesday night and it went really well. Originally they'd just planned on getting married in Bishop's office with just them so they'd have it really low key. But over time the ward heard about it and the Relief Society decorated the chapel up for them and brought all sorts of refreshments as well, so it ended up being definitely more than they expected! It was well attended though and it was a fun evening for them. Their wedding happened to be on Halloween as well which was pretty neat. As a result of their wedding they were able to take the Sacrament for the first time in a very long time this past Sunday so that was a wonderful blessing for them. Back to Halloween for a second, it definitely wasn't as festive as what I'm used to. Australia doesn't really recognize Halloween as a holiday and only a very, very small amount of people will go out trick or treating. So it just felt like a normal day and nothing special, obviously for us it was the same as any other day for missionaries but since we didn't see any decorations up or anything it definitely felt plain haha. Another blessing that we witnessed this week happened with one of Pakenham's long time investigators Joan Willmott (the wife of recent convert Barry Willmott). Since I've been here she's never been very keen on reading the Book of Mormon or on praying to know if the church is true and what not. So we've tried and tried but nothing has really seemed to spark much interest in her. However, when we went to see them this past week she told us that she'd made the decision she wants to read through the whole Book of Mormon, cover to cover! We were quite stunned by that, especially since it was her own decision to read and not an assignment or something from us. We added our own encouragement to her after she told us and then also invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon as she reads. So it seems that the Spirit has been working in her and hopefully we'll be able to see her receive her answer about the truthfulness of the Gospel soon. Another pretty big miracle we had happen as well this past Sunday was that 8 of the less active members that we visit were able to attend church! So that was pretty great to see and most of them stayed for all 3 hours of church as well, which made it even more of a blessing! So that started off Sunday really well for us, and it got even better because the Mission President's Fireside was also this past Sunday night as well. The past couple of months we've been unable to attend because either we had noone to go (you always need to have either an investigator, recent convert, or less active member you teach to come to it if you want to go) or the ride for the people we did have to go had to cancel. So we finally got to go to it again because we had the WIllmotts, Cruiz and Chelsea, and another less-active couple Afa and Lisa attend the fireside so that was great. The fireside itself was really good and spiritual and all those that were able to come really loved it and said they'd love to be able to attend the next month's fireside as well. So we definitely look forward to that! The past week we were able to go much better with our teaching appointments and not as many cancelled as the previous week which was a miracle in itself. We also were able to continue to find heaps of people who were keen to hear more about the Gospel. So we'll continue to be busy this next week and we are constantly seeing the area progress and are developing a greater love for those that we teach as well as the people in Pakenham in general as we grow and learn to be more like the Saviour. Well thanks again for the e-mail this week and I look forward to talking to you again soon! Love you heaps!

Love,

Elder Hopkins