Connor in California--Mission Blog: Week 19--Moved Again And A New Companionship

Hi Mom!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

Sorry my email is so late, we had a crazy preparation day :) Oh my gosh, I'm sooooo glad I get to email you on your birthday!!! Was it good? Did you do anything exciting?! I was so worried that I wasn't going to get to email today but I made sure it happened :) And don't worry, nothing bad happened, just the computers were full and I only got to read everything and then we had to take off for a while. But I'm back :)

So I feel bad that I didn't get you anything for your birthday... You just need to know though that you are the BEST Mom ever :) I saw a little link on lds.org that referred to Elder Holland's talk, and it said "Mothers, you are doing better than you think you are". And I think it's so true. If it's anything like being a missionary, I'm sure you feel inadequate at times, and worry if you do a good job as a Mom. But let me tell you right now that I couldn't have dreamt of a better mother. You've done so so so so so much to make my life so good and I'm so grateful. I've realized that you raised me perfectly, to where I was around the gospel so much that I learned to love it, but you never forced me to accept it or anything. You always gave me my agency, but showed such a perfect example of living the gospel, that I ended up loving it and having a testimony of it like you do. So thank you, for all of your sacrifice and your love and time and effort and everything that you've done that I don't even realize. I love you so much!!!!

So yah, this week has been crazy. I'm still living out of a suitcase; we don't want to waste proselyting time so we haven't really gotten everything organized....or assembled yet :) It's been good though! We moved back into our own place, in the same apartment complex that Elder Jones and I lived in, but our apartment is a bit smaller..... My new companion is Elder Ashcraft! I know, he looks really young, but he's actually 20! :) He's a super cool Elder, and I'm really excited to work with him! Near the beginning, when we were getting to know each other, I brought up two of the most important things to me: obedience and companionship unity. He agreed wholeheartedly with both ideas, and I thought "If he's gonna work hard to be obedient, and work together, I can handle any other problem that might pop up" you know? He's super mature and has incredible thoughts and perspectives on different parts of the gospel. And there have been several times where he bore his testimony, and the Spirit witnessed really strong whenever he did. He's got stuff to improve on, like all of us, but I'm really happy about it! :)

So the picture on Tuesday was our final pictures before Elder Jones took off. The other two Elders are Elder Moreno and Elder Lopez, our Zone Leaders that we got to be really good friends with. The picture yesterday was after our baptism that we had. I'll send a picture of the baptism! Her name is Rita, and her boyfriend Tom baptized her! They're both special needs (she's probably about 11 mentally and he's about 18) so the baptism had to be done several times before it was done right, and it was actually super cool! They both have such incredible Spirits about them, and it's been such an incredible opportunity to work with them. She was so so excited to get baptized, it was really cool to see :) So that's the update with the baptism! We hopefully have another one this week, but things are a tiny up in the air. If you could pray for Ken and Kenneth, that would be so fantastic! We have a couple other investigators that we're kinda working with, and a lot of young families that have kinda expressed interest but we haven't gotten to teach them yet.

We did have our ward Christmas party on the 4th, and our Mission Devotional is on the 24th. I'm going to be accompanying a Sister in our District, so that should be fun! I'm really excited for it! I did hear about the football game at dinner yesterday actually :) That's a bummer but at least they put up a good fight! That's super cool about President Warnick! If it's not weird, tell him congratulations/good luck/whatever's appropriate there for me :) He's going to do an incredible job!!!

I'm so excited to talk to everyone!!!! Ahhh I've been waiting for this for four and a half months!! :) Thanks for the advice to write things down, I definitely need to do that! Only 40 minutes...ugh.... So with the Christmas presents, I had to pack it all up, and haven't had the time to take it out...so in the next couple of days, I'm going to have a super good day where I unwrap like 5 :) But I got the flash drive and I love it so much!! One more time, thank you so much for that package!!! It has been so fun and special and it really meant a lot to me!!!

Well, I should probably head. I love you so much! HAPPY BIRTHDAY again!!! I hope it was an amazing one! You deserve the best! I hope this email answered your questions and everything! I'll try to make sure we can skype around 3 our time, or after. I'll have our member call you! I'm so excited!! :) Ok, well have a fantastic Christmas! Enjoy the snow for me, we only get rain :) I love you so much and miss you but I know everything's happening the way it should be and the Lord will take care of all of us! Let me know if there's anything I can do for you. I LOVE YOU!!!!

Love,
Elder Connor Hopkin

We got this text picture from Sister Palmer.