Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Okay, my week has been really awesome.

Last Monday, we went and visited the Apple Campus, We ate at a really cool Cafe over there, but all in all it was pretty boring because there were so many secret buildings there we were not allowed to see very much, but it was fun hanging out with some of the Stanford YSA members.

On Tuesday I had planned a Christmas District Meeting for my district then another District Leader came and said he had planned nothing so he and his district had their district meeting with us so we had like half of the zone their, it was fun, however a little intimidating.

On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, the whole mission got together and had a talent show and we watched a movie called Ephraims rescue it was fun, we also did a white elephant gift exchange, and as fate would have it both me and my companion got rubiks cubes, so I have been teaching him how to solve one. I saw Nate Mella again at the Christmas party and also Elder Jake Hogan who went to Orem High and just got into the mission last transfer, so I snuck a picture of him from the crowd. We then spent the night at the zone leaders place along with the elders from Red Wood City.

Christmas day was great we all opened presents together, we skyped family in the morning, we then spent the afternoon with a Part Member family and some of their friends. We spent that evening with another family, it was fun. 

On Saturday, I went on Exchanges, I went with our zone leader Elder Kerby, although he is recovering from his Kidney stones, so we stayed inside all day long. So I just got like 8 hours of scripture study. But hey I finished the book of Mormon, now I get to start over again!

Well that is about all

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and hoping for a happy new year!

Love you all

Elder Hopkins

GOOGLE!!! Also it is almost Christmas.

We toured through Google! It was so cool! It was pretty much Technology Disneyland. There were so many awesome random things there. We toured through with a man from our ward that owns a 2.6 billion dollar project at google. He bought really cool Tshirts for us. 

Work has been really slow for us, we are really trying to find new people to teach that will actually progress, so we are hoping for a christmas miracle. We went to the first ward christmas party this last weekend and that was really fun. We have been making Christmas plates with treats and delivering them to different members.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! Love you all, thanks for your support!

Elder Hopkins

 

 

A downpour of rain and of the spirit too!

Hi everyone! This week has been really good. We got 7 new investigators which was sort of a miracle, our recent convert J. Wallace got to play guitar at the 2nd Ward Christmas party, it was super fun. We went on exchanges last Thursday and there was this huge storm with a lot of flooding and we were stuck inside all day. Also we fasted on Tuesday and I took a picture of our final feast Monday night!

Love you all, sorry about the short email.

Thankyou for the love and prayers and letters and emails, you are all amazing!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

Baptism!

Alright I am way out of time so I will be brief. This week was great, we had a baptism and we had a guy on the street tell us he would be interested in us teaching him and his family and he invited us to dinner tomorrow so hopefully that leads to something.

Pictures this week include a couple from the baptism/setting up for the baptism. Some pictures of the California hills I took when we had to drive way up the hills for a random service. And a couple pictures we took on Sunday of the Christmas Creche (Nativity thing we are doing at our church)

Love you all! Thanks for the support and prayers, have a great week!

Elder Nathan Hopkins

Thanksgiving!

This week has been pretty amazing!

I don't really know where to start. Lets see we put up some really lame Christmas decorations they make our little cottage feel very festive. The sisters had a pool table they were sick of so they gave it to us. We haven't had more than about 10 minutes to use it so far but it is still really cool.

Thanksgiving was really great we had two dinners, one in first ward with a woman named C. Roriguez and with the recent convert family the Hillis's and one in second ward with the The's (pronounced Thays with a soft TH). Then after our dinner appointments we figured we wouldn't get into any houses so we went over to Stanford Hospital and visited members from our wards for the rest of the night, It was really cool, the members really appreciated getting an extra visit on thanksgiving. Also Thanksgiving day we found this really cool guy on the street named Adrian and he is now a new investigator, hopefully that goes somewhere.

Our investigator J. Wallace is doing so well and he is going to be baptized on December 6th for sure. His lessons are all done, he was interviewed and he passed and now we are just getting ready for the baptismal service.

On Friday night we got a call from the APs (Assistants to the mission President) and they told us that they were going to come over the next day by special request of President Mella to study with us and see how we were doing. I freaked out. I wondered why President Mella thought we needed to be checked on. What was I doing wrong?! We cleaned our place super well the next morning and waited for the APs to arrive. They showed up and said "JUST KIDDING!" We are here because you two have some of the best numbers in the mission and are doing so well and we wanted to make you Waffles. So the APs made us waffles, that was a huge relief and a really fun morning. We still studied with them and we got a lot of new ideas on creative ideas for missionary week. 

This week has been great, I cannot believe that it is already December!

Thank you all for your prayers on my behalf. I invite everyone to watch to new video by the church "He Is the Gift" and to make this Christmas season a great one!

Elder Hopkins

Here comes Thanksgiving!

Lets see. This week has been really good. We got the most Non-member lessons I have ever received. We had 18 this week, which is awesome. The zone leaders called a surprise zone meeting last Thursday and told us they wanted us to triple the number of new investigators we were finding weekly. As a zone the 13 companionships usually got about 15 new investigators weekly. They challenged us to work towards 45. So on Thursday night, Elder Ramirez and I were planning our Friday goals and I said, Lets try to get 2 new investigators tomorrow. He was unsure because we usually in our area get one new investigator a week. Honestly I was not too sure either but I told him if we had faith we could get those two investigators. The Lord totally sustained us in our work, we got 3 new investigators that day and a total of 5 in the week. Towards the end of Friday night we already had two and we were about to head home and this woman started yelling at us across the street asking us if we were the Mormons who said prayers and stuff. We taught her a short street lesson and then got her info and set an appointment to return for tonight actually. We will probably have to pass it on to the sister missionaries though, but still it was amazing. Also our lessons with James W. have been going very well. In our last lesson he told us that nothing would keep him from baptism except for death itself. So I am praying for his safe driving. He was a miracle, he is just so well prepared.

The pictures are of a puzzle we have been doing with the residents at the senior center that we have been doing little by little for some months now, it is finally done. And the other is we have been trying this new thing where we bake and deliver cookies to less active and inactive members, it is going really well.

Thank You all for your love, support, and prayers!

Love Elder Hopkins.

 

 

Very very good week

Where do I start. This week was really quite amazing. I spent the first couple days after Elder Harper left with the Zone Leaders. Elder Maxwell and the new Zone Leader, Elder Kerby. Elder Kerby is from Orem Utah, by the way. He went to Timpanogas. We all had a really good time being companions.

Then I went to the New Missionary meeting and picked up my new companion, his name is Elder Ramirez. He is really awesome and really excited to work, his teaching is a little shaky but he will get there really soon. He is so fun to be companions with.

Then I had my first District Meeting as District Leader, that went really well, we talked about our own district culture and the things we are going to do to set us apart from the other districts in the mission it was fun.

On Saturday we went to Oakland all day long to hear from Elder Bednar. It was really amazing, he talked a lot about how to teach and treat people as agents rather than objects. It was really inspiring. Guess what else? Elder Mitchel Nelson (one of my best friends) was there because he is in the Oakland Mission. He was playing piano, it was really cool seeing him and catching up with him.

On Sunday Elder Neil L. Anderson came to our ward and spoke, because his son is in our ward, so we got two apostles in one weekend. On Sunday we had a miracle. A man name James W. felt inspired to go into our church. He came in and we took him to classes and he got to shake hands with an apostle. then we taught him a lesson right after church, he was super prepared and he said he wanted to join the church, so before he left we set a baptismal date with him for December 6th and taught him again that night. We are teaching him again tonight. He is really amazing. He is the most prepared investigator I have met. He already stopped Smoking, stopped drinking coffee and felt like he should live the law of chastity, he felt like that was what he should do.

Well this week has been great. Thank you all for your love and support and for all of your prayers.

Elder Hopkins

Elder Hopkins & Elder Nelson

Elder Hopkins & Elder Ramirez

Changes!

Okay this week has been pretty crazy.

Last P-day we visited Stanford Campus, I will send some pictures. I went on Exchanges with Elder Reid and that went really well.

The biggest stuff though is Elder Harper is transferring tomorrow and I got called as a District Leader and also I am going to be a trainer. So on Thursday I will meet a new companion, fresh into the mission like I was three months ago. I am pretty nervous about these two calls and also taking over the area without Elder Harper. 

There was also a Zone Training meeting this week and two of the missionaries that are about to go home "died" which means they had their ties cut off by their companions in a very ritual manner.

Also I got sick again, with something else, a lot of the missionaries have been sick.

Overall this week has been pretty good, we met most of our goals and we got a whole lot done.

Thank you all for your love and support!

Love Elder Hopkins

 Stanford University

Zone Training Meeting

 

 

Exchanges with Elder Reid

Elder Hopkins and Elder Harper