Meetings plus as much missionary work as we could find

Hello Family, friends, and Whoever else is reading this:

This week was great, as always!

Last week I mentioned I was having a lot of nose bleeds, they miraculously stopped! Yay! We were also to busy to go in to the Stanford Clinic to go get it checked out so hopefully it continues to not bleed.

We had a lot of meetings this week to work around, a leadership one in Sunnyvale, District Meeting, and 3 sessions of stake conference to go to. Stake Conference was really very good, I learned a lot, but sitting in hard folding chairs for 3 sessions was less fun. I saw Nate Mella again, he was at the leadership session.

We are working with a guy who had a baptismal date named Mark, but he sort of disappeared off of the face of the planet, that was unfortunate. In the Singles wards we are working with an investigator named Andrew who just got engaged to one of the members, awesome.

Things are going great, although transfers are coming up soon, and I am probably getting transferred.

So if you have already sent me mail and it is on its way, I should get it before I leave. If you really would like to send me mail before I get to my next area, you can send it to the mission address:

California San Jose Mission

Elder Nathan Hopkins

3975 McLaughlin Ave Ste A

San Jose CA, 95121-2631

And I can go pick it up when I go for transfer meeting. When I figure out my new address I will be sure to send it here so that people can know. I may stay here in Palo Alto 1 more transfer, but I will be able to let everyone know that in next email.

It is really weird to think that this may be my last week in Palo Alto, I have really come to think of it as my home, I love the members I've met so much and the people I have met, it will be weird to be in a new area.

I added to photos, one is the view from our apartment window from the street below and the other is a view inside our apartment, I just happen to be lifting weights in that one.

I love you all, I appreciate your support and I know that your prayers on my behalf really do help!

Elder Hopkins

 

 

Nose Bleeds for Days!

Hello Family, Friends, and anyone else who actually has time to read my weekly emails.

This week has been awesome, although not without its challenges. I did not mention it last week because I did not think it was a big deal, but I was getting a lot of nose bleeds, which was unusual for me, because I never ever get nose bleeds, ever. I can't remember one time before my mission. Over the past couple of weeks I have had 13 or more nose bleeds that have been really bad, a couple led to some funny stories, a couple while I was at members houses for dinner and I end up just laying on the couch while my companions eat.

I called the mission nurse to ask her what I should do, so she sent me to a clinic in San Carlos, where we waited for an hour and were told to go to Stanford Hospital to get an answer, so we are going to call in and set an appointment soon to figure out why my nose is bleeding all of the time, cause it is pretty annoying.

On top of that I was pretty sick again this week, that was a bummer. But now I am feeling much better.\

On the bright side, we had a really good meeting in Los Altos it lasted about 8 hours and it was a lot of changes President Mella is making in the mission. We have had two dinners almost every night because Stanford Meal Calendar and our Meal calender was full before we combined so we eat two dinners a night.

We also went on a hike this morning and it was raining, we saw a lizard, also I included a picture of the spider that lives in our bathroom, we named him Mr. Rogers, he is our friend.

Love you all thank you for your support!

 

 

Facebook, The Bay, and a really awesome Baptism

This week was really awesome. Last P-day I went to Facebook HQ with one of our members and it was so insanely cool. Facebook blows Google and Apple right out of the water. Facebook was like Disneyland. There are like 5 restaurants, several dessert places, and all sorts of other food all over the place, and what makes it the best: It was all free. Everything was free. On the FB campus there was also a bank, hair salon, a hospital, a jumbotron, an arcade, a gym, and much more. It was so unbelievably cool.

Later on in the week one of the Zone Leaders had to go home due to medical reasons, since I am his District Leader, he joined with us, but in all reality we joined with him because we moved out of the cottage into his place which is an actual apartment with a real kitchen, more than one sink and not a bunch of random junk sitting around everywhere it is pretty nice. We will be serving all 4 wards, Palo Alto 1 and 2 family wards and Stanford Singles wards for the next 3 weeks. If you want to send me mail continue sending it to my old place for now, We swing by there every once in a while.

So yeah covering 4 wards now. It is a lot of work.

Also we had this baptism last minute at 9:30 at night in a swimming pool, for S. Kauffman, He has ALS type symptoms so he is really weak so they held the baptism privately it was so cool.

Also I have some pictures when we went down to the Bayside in EPA. Enjoy.

We also had the missionary department come and talk to a handful of missionaries including all of the Zone leaders and some of the district leaders in San Jose about a completely new teaching style that we are looking forward to spread through the mission, although it was a 7 hour training. that was crazy.

Well that was my week, Thank you all for your emails, letters, prayers, and other forms of support, your support keeps me going strong and I thank you all for it.

Love,

Elder Hopkins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ring Out Wild Bells

It's 2015!!!

That is super crazy. This week has been awesome. Some of the members are still out of town, but a lot of them got back which was really great.

A couple funny stories from this week:

1. Saturday: we were walking through EPA when this guy yelled from across the street, "Elders!" We turned and saw a man pulling up on his bike in full winter gear (keeping in mind it is winter here, but there is no snow and it is not very cold). He ran across the street avoiding the cars, he grabbed our hands and began to pray, he offered one of the funniest prayers I have ever heard then he got on his bike and rode off. As he was disappearing I yelled after him, "Are you a member?" he answered, "no." I said, "Do you have a phone number?", he replied, "No." I said "well can we meet with you sometime?" and he shouted back, "I am homeless, but my name is Joshua," and then he was gone.

2. On New Years Eve we spent the night hanging out with the elders from RedWood City, so they came over, but it was too cold and too small, plus part of our power and our heating has been out so we spent the night in the Stake President's attic. And at Midnight, we heard many gunshots across the bridge in EPA. It was great.

Well that's all for now, love you all!

Elder Hopkins