For Halloween this year I am going to be a Missionary!

This week has been great! We set a goal at the start of this month to get 100 lessons. We are supposed to get 20 a week, 80 a month. We set the goal of 100 so we would be getting a whole extra week of lessons. We have seen so many miracles since we set the goal and the Lord has prepared so many opportunities for us. Today is October 27th... I think... anyway and we are currently at 101 lessons for the month. It has just been really good.

The 2nd ward was having a trunk or treat activity and we offered to be apart of it. We did not have candy or decorations for our car, then out of nowhere I got a Halloween package from home that had everything I needed in it. It was perfect, we had candy, bags, and decorations. The activity went well, we handed out Book of Mormon pass along cards with every single candy.

I also got to eat some authentic sugar cane. We helped this Tongan man in the ward pull it all up and he showed us how to open it up and eat it.

Also there is this less active man we have been meeting with, Johnathan Bradshaw. It is kind of crazy, Palo Alto is a very clean, very nice town. Right in the middle of a nice neighborhood, there is a row of trees that goes back with a driveway, and back there is where Johnathan Henry Bradshaw lives. How do I explain it? It feels like stepping out of California into Lousianna. He plays old bluegrass music and has really old vehicles parked all around. There are lots of plants growing all over and there is a bog on the corner of his property. He gave us a business card from his fiddle band. Every time a helicopter or a plane flies over he hides under a tree. I still can't believe it, I wish I could have got a picture. Anyway he is really awesome, and he has a saxophone that he wants me to come over some time and jam with him, we'll see.

I think that is it for this week. It has been really great! I love the work and the people we have been meeting!

Thankyou so much for everyone at home's support! Thankyou all for the emails you have been sending and the love you have sent!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

Sugarcane

Ups and Downs

This week has had a lot of ups and downs. So we were going to have a baptism this saturday for our investigator, Brandon, but his mom decided he could not be baptized, so we cancelled it. However on the upside our Ward Mission Leader, who has a nonmember family, and has a daughter, Samantha, we were working with, accepted to be baptized and she got baptized this last Saturday, so that was amazing.

Also we had some issues with our car so we had to take it into the shop and it took a while for it to be done, so we had to be on bikes for about a week. Which was pretty rough, because our area is huge, so we had to cancel and forsake more than half our area, especially up in the foothills, because it would take us an hour to just bike up there. Our car is supposed to get done today.

We had a general authority visit us yesterday, Elder Pino of the 70. That is why P-day is Tuesday this week. He was really good, Also we learned that Elder Bednar will be visiting our mission and the Oakland Mission next month, that will be really cool.

Also you will see in one of my pictures, two of my friends from High School, Tucker Camp and Cade Young, one of whom is from my home ward, visited the Palo Alto 1st ward. They did not even know I served there so it was really amazing to see them. Cade is related to Steve Young so that is why they were visiting.

Also I've been learning ASL (American Sign Language) more and more, and I finally got to meet Elder Domingo, he is a deaf elder in the mission. I knew enough sign language to carry on a short conversation with him. He also gave me a name sign. Which is a faster way to address someone than spelling out there name, but you can only get name signs from actual deaf people. So that was pretty great.

We also got a new Investigator from a member, named George. We taught him one lesson and he said he will be baptized, so over all this week has been really good, looking bad.

Thankyou all for your love and support

I hope everyone has a great week

Elder Hopkins

Amazing Week

This week has been super amazing! First off, last Tuesday we got called right in the middle of our personal study time and a Less Active member's son told us his mom had just been taken into the ER. So we ran over to the Stanford Hospital and gave her a blessing, I am not too sure what happened to her, she couldn't really tell us because the drugs they gave her made her really tired and woozey. It was a cool experience though. As I gave the blessing, it was really weird I can't even remember anything I said, I just spoke like it was not even me speaking, it was a powerful experience,

Last Wednesday we went to the Oakland Temple. That temple was so gorgeous and so amazing. The session was awesome and it was just a really good day.

Last Thursday we got to watch Meet The Mormons. If you do not know what that is or if you have not seen it, I strongly urge you to go see it, it was the best Church movie I have ever seen and I cried like three times when I watched it. They showed it to a bunch of nonmembers a while a go and 74% of nonmembers that watched it said it opened them up to the missionaries and they said they would recommend it to another nonmember friend. Seriously it is amazing, go see it, tell others about it and then see it again! If the movie does really well in theaters it will spread further.

Also our mission president told us we will be getting IPads next month and we will begin Internet (Facebook) proselyting next month too. I am really excited about IPads, I do not know what I think about Facebook proselyting. I will keep everyone posted.

Also yesterday we met with a man that is the only member in his family, the other members of the family are somewhat closed off to the idea of the church, but he really wants them to be baptized. Anyway the mom mentioned in passing that her young son needs a math tutor, I told her that I did math Tutoring at my High School, so we are going to start going over weekly for an hour to have tutoring sessions, we will see where that goes.

I love you all so much!

Thank you for your support, love, and prayers in my behalf, I have been so blessed!

Love,

Elder Hopkins!

I will add other captions when I find out who is in the pictures.

 

Elder Nathan Hopkins

Oakland Temple

Elder Maxwell, Elder Harper, Elder Hopkins and Elder Reid

2nd Month

Everything is going really well here! One thing that was really cool is a few weeks ago we met a man named Felipe on the street, he only spoke spanish. So Elder Harper and I, both only knowing a basic knowledge of spanish were able to teach him a very shaky lesson about prayer. Then we gave the spanish missionaries his info, guess what? He is getting baptized next month!

Elder Olsen and Elder Hathcock, the spanish missionaries, told us that after our lesson with him he decided to stop smoking too. We did not even teach about that, he just felt he should quit. It proves that the Holy Ghost is a better teacher than we are.

Conference was super good. I got alot of answers I was looking for and I learned a lot of things that I am going to try to apply in my life. My favorite talks were Lynn G. Robins, Jorg Kerinblat (I think that is how it was spelled), and elder Hollands about helping the poor.

If you watched conference I would suggest finding ways to apply these things in your life, This conference there weren't a lot of jokes, the speakers were very bold and told us we all needed to seek personal revelation and improve our testimonies.

If you missed any part of conference, you should watch it. It was amazing there were so many great things to learn.

I love you all, thank you for your support and aid, I could not do this without you! Keep seeking ways to come closer to Christ!

Love,

Elder Hopkins!

 

Nate did not really say who anyone in these photos are; except there is one of him.  

 

Elder Hopkins on Hopkins Street!

 

The first transfer comes to a close

Well this week has been really good, we reached almost all of our goals and we got higher than some of them. I went on exchanges again this week with the other zone leader, Elder Maxwell. The exchange was really good I learned alot and we got more lessons than I have ever got in a single day. I was nervous about the exchange though because instead we stayed in my area, which meant that I was in charge of the area, I had to make the plans and choose who and what we would teach. In the end it all went off without a hitch, it was really good.

It is weird to me that this transfer is just about over already, it went by pretty fast. I think back to my first day here and I feel like I did not know anything and now I am much more comfortable with the work.

One thing this week the sisters in our area set us up for a 3 hour service where we had to babysit an old man with dementia. It was the pretty bad, he was really paranoid and he kept forgetting that he was in his own house and he kept trying to leave. I won't go to far into detail about the experience, but needless to say he and has wife have a really hard time.

Also fun fact, I keep forgetting to email, there are a few ASL (American Sign Language)

missionaries in the zone. So I decided I wanted to learn, for the past few weeks I have been learning bits and pieces of ASL from different missionaries. I can only piece together a few sentences like "My name is Elder Hopkins I am a missionary from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", "That picture is beautiful." "Where is the kitchen?", "Lets make peanut butter chocolate cookies." Just a few sentences like that. It is really fun though. Elder Maxwell learned sign language while he was out here and he ended up spending a couple transfers in the deaf branch so you never know.

Also, Brandon, a young kid who is preparing for baptism on the 18th, has a little sister named Crystal, who recently agreed to be baptized on the same day, we still need to talk to the parents again, but it would be so cool if that brother and sister were baptized on the same day.

I'll leave you with a couple of quotes that I really like.

"Pray like everything depends on the Lord, Work like everything depends on you." -Thomas S. Monson

"Faith is knowing when you step out into darkness that one of two things will happen, you will step onto solid ground, or God will teach you how to fly."

I love it here, I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I love seeing what it can do for people and their families. Thanks for everyone's love, support, and prayers!

I sent just a few pictures. A few of Elder Maxwell from exchanges, one of Elder Harper from District meeting, he plays his guitar a lot, and a picture we took of the cars odometer when it reached exactly 30,000.

 Elder Harper

Odometer at exactly 30000

Elder Maxwell and Elder Hopkins

Elder Maxwell

Exchanges

This week was great! I went on my first exchange with Elder Reid, he is a zone leader, last Wednesday. It was honestly one of the most fun days I have had on my mission. The zone leaders cover Stanford Campus and it was so fun walking around over there and meeting all of the students. I'll send some pictures from campus, it is way cool looking there. That day we went to our dinner appointment with a member that lived in an area of East Palo Alto I have never been to before, it was really nice, most of EPA is kinda dumpy but this one area was super nice. I learned that the neighborhood was nicknamed "MormonVille" because a lot of members live in that neighborhood, go figure.

There is a new bishop in the 2nd Ward, Bishop Miner, He is really cool, we have been trying to do more work in the second ward because most of it came from the first and he gave us a huge list of names of people to visit to get us started, he seems very missionary work oriented which I am looking forward to.

We have been visiting Pelenaise, a Tongan Woman who we baptized my first week here, and we are teaching her the Recent Convert lessons. She is 82 years old and her English is still a little broken so she calls, Elder Harper, Hama. She calls me Kipson. I am not really sure where that came from but its cool. The rest of the Tongans here call me Hopikini. I guess that is my Tongan name.

We were in East Palo Alto walking to an appointment the other night, around 8. We were stopped by a little girl that wanted to teach us how to Hula (Did I spell that right?). It was awesome we just learned how to hula in the middle of the street, people walked by and stared and stuff, but we did not even care, it was great.

Also another night we ran into a super drunk guy in EPA. He wanted us to drive him home, we said we couldn't but he didn't understand because he couldn't speak English very well.

We tried walking away and he started swearing at us in Spanish, He was so drunk he could barely walk. Luckily one of his friends found him.

I think that is about it. Overall we had a really great week, we taught a lot of lessons, got a lot of contacts, I love you all for your love and support!

I also included pictures from a morning hike and from when Elder Reid got his hair cut in a park, that was weird.

Nate had a second email with some pictures; they did not come through.  I am guessing the hike was in this Email.

Elder Reid

Elder Hopkins and Elder Reid

Elder Reid's Haircut in the Park

Its week 5... and I am already out of good subject lines.

Pictures from the baptism of Richard Hillis from September 6th, 2014.

Palo Alto Missionaries

Elder Hopkins, Richard Hillis (and son) Elder Harper

 

 

Baptism of Richard Hillis

This week has been really great! I attached the pictures from last weeks baptism and some pictures I took on September 11th. The whole zone got together and put our testimonies on Red, white, and blue balloons. That was pretty cool. Also there is a picture of Elder Pese jumping on the trampoline outside of the cottage, sorry that it is blurry. Also, Elder Harper, my trainer, is an artist. He drew a picture of me if I were black.

So last Friday I had a pretty humbling experience. We were at Sunrise Senior Living, an assisting living home where we do a lot of service. It was time to leave for our appointment when the director, Aprielle, informed us that it was national Milkshake day and if we could stick around for 5 minutes she would make milkshakes for us before we left. Elder Harper said we should really get going, I told him that 5 minutes would not really make any difference. I came to eat those words.

Sure enough 5 minutes later we were done and out the door with our small dixie cups of milkshake. We got in the car and a wreck took place in the intersection in front of us. The wait put us  40 minutes behind. If we would have left on time we would have avoided the delay.

We showed up to our appointment late. Our investigator, Vina, a tongan girl who we wanted to set a baptismal date with had been in an argument with her sisters when they got home 10 minutes before we had arrived. She was very emotional when we got there and we could not get through much of the lesson. If we had arrived on time I am sure that the lesson would have gone much better. But it took a long time and we did not get to set a baptismal date.

We were now an hour and 15 minutes behind schedule. We showed up to our dinner appointment late. The family had already eaten and we had arrived at the time when they were putting their baby to sleep. We sat awkwardly in their kitchen and ate the cold food and left without sharing a message. 

Because we were so far behind schedule (now about an hour and a half) we missed an appointment we set with an investigator entirely. He doesn't have a phone so the only way we can set more appointments with him is by setting them at the end of our lessons. So now we do not know when we will meet him.

Then we went to our last appointment and of course we were 5 minutes late and they had already left.

It was very humbling. I felt like Esau who traded in his birthright for a mess of pottage. I had traded in a night of missionary work for a small dixie cup of melty ice cream. I am not too down about this experience though, I learned a lot from it and it was very humbling and the rest of the week was really awesome. I learned to put nothing in front of the work I am doing here.

My mom asked me a few questions in a letter, I think I will answer them here for everyone.

My normal day routine is study in the morning then we try to fill our mornings with service if we can because the morning is not very good for meeting with people. Also because I am a new meeting every morning we have an extra hour of study for training. That is how it is for the first 3 months. Then we just go out all day and meet with different people and meet people on the street. There are so many different cultures and diversity here it is really amazing. We do all types of service ranging from picking weeds to mowing lawns to washing windows to washing peoples furniture in their backyard.

This mission has 7 different official languages, Tongan, Samoan, Vietnamese, English, Spanish, Chinese, and American Sign Language. The districts are usually all of the same language, but the zone is all different types of language from the stake.

The food has been good, we are fed really well here. I have tried a lot of types of new food. We eat breakfast at home, usually cereal. We eat lunch at home sometimes we eat out, but not usually, and dinners are usually provided by ward members.

That is really about it. It has been really fun and we are working really hard to get the ward more involved in the work.

 

Elder Hopkins (looks sunburned) and Elder Harper

September 11th, Testimony Balloons

 

Elder Pese

Elder Harper's drawing of Elder Hopkins