November 6, 2015
This one is from a member in Tracy. She has sent a couple of pictures from this same food court, so I am assuming she treats them for dinner. She assured me that they ate their veggies before their dessert. Love how they take care of my boy!
November 4, 2015
This one is of Connor, Elder Jones and Elder Griffin. He was one of the Elders from the other companionship that they shared an apartment with. He was transferred on this day. Connor really liked him and was sad to see him go. Aren't they all so handsome--and don't they look happy too!?
The explanation of this picture is found in Connor's letter below. Pretty cool story, actually! We pray for Mary that she will continue to progress and will be baptized.
Hi Mom!!! :)
K there are a couple pictures for you! The first is of me, Elder Jones, and Elder Griffin. He's the one that has the uncle that works at BYU with Dad. He was here in Tracy in the Spanish ward for all 10 months of his mission so far! That's the picture we took the day he got transferred. We were super sad to see him go, cause he's seriously the coolest, kindest person ever, but these transfers are inspired, so not much we can do about it :) The second is that sign I told you about! It's the woman that stopped us in the street when Elder Jones felt like we should go back - her name is Mary. It used to say "Jehovah Witness and Mormons" but she crossed out Mormons after she started talking to us :) I'll talk about her in a little :)
Anyways, it's so good to read your email! I'm so disappointed you couldn't come up with a clever title ;) Thank you soooo much for getting that coat shipped! I haven't gotten yet, but hopefully it'll arrive soon! And in the meantime, my incredible ward mission leader let me borrow one so I'm all good! :)
So now that I think about it, we had a pretty eventful week! Elder Jones and I got moved to our own apartment on Wednesday because President Palmer supposedly doesn't really like 4 missionaries being together (which totally makes sense). So we got a brand new apartment with new materials and extra space and we're super excited about it! It's a little weird having two 18-year-olds living by ourselves (we don't know lots about life) but it's kinda fun too. Also, this last week, we actually got to teach people! The week before, no one had been available, but this last week we had two lessons with Mary and a few with some others! Mary has committed to be baptized in several weeks, and she came to church yesterday! There's still a lot we need to teach her and a lot of things she needs to do, but she seems real about it! And! We had been praying for a way for Amelia to come to church....and Mary said she could give her a ride! Like I explained, Amelia's mom doesn't trust anyone to take her to church, and she won't ever take her herself...but she said that Mary is the only one that she trusts! Amelia didn't come yesterday (we don't really know why) but Elder Jones and I were SO excited when we found out that was a possibility! It's really amazing how the Lord works; I can kinda see over the last several weeks how He arranged things so that this could work out! Hopefully things continue to work out like that....we'll see. For now though, we're pretty excited! Also, as I was reading my emails just half an hour ago, our Bishop called us and said that a recent convert's husband (who we've been talking to a bit but not teaching) wants to get baptized!! Of course, there are things that could go wrong, but things are looking up and we're pretty happy about it. So that was kinda my week. Elder Jones got sick for a while but impressively pushed through it a lot! So yah!
Thank you for all your thoughts! Ammon and Aaron are definitely such impressive examples of missionary work! Dang I wish I could just teach like them! I've actually been ponderizing (kinda poorly :) ) that scripture, because I just want to be able to teach with power and authority! I hope that I can become that good! :) I do love though, how Aaron's success came after soooo much trial! It's like Ether 12:6, which I love. The witness comes after the trial of our faith.
I haven't heard a whole lot about this new policy. A less active brought it up to us, and we hadn't heard about it and kinda refuted it....oops :) We'll talk to him later. But I talked to a member about it yesterday and then looked online today and learned more about it. It's super interesting. The things that Elder Christofferson said about it were so on point! At first I was a little questionable about it, but it totally makes sense now! And of course, even if it didn't make sense, I wouldn't have had a problem with it...but that is nice when it's logical :) But no, we haven't run into any problems with that yet. I do love how the Lord directs this church and how we have such inspired, wise men to lead us. I know that God is at the head of this church!
Thank you for always telling me about my strengths! It's super nice to hear them from someone; I really appreciate that always! I can't really think of anything specific for the holidays...maybe a sweater? I've noticed that some people wear them in the cold and that might be nice? I've never been a sweater guy though...I don't know :) I trust you! Just whatever! Thank you! :)
K I gotta go :( I love you so much! Thank you for everything! You're the most PERFECT mom ever!! I miss you and love you and thank you for everything you always do and have done for me! I'll be excited to talk to you next week! Bye! :)
Love,
Elder Hopkin
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