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!