January 13th 2014

Here's this weeks update from Hermana Hopkins. Be sure to check the side bar for her new address!

I have seen so many miracles this last week, I think you will thoroughly enjoy reading about them.

Mom, this email that you have written to me is an answer to my prayers, let me explain why. I will admit to you, I worry about you and the kids. I want the best for you. But I know I can't be there physically for you... So I pray for you! I prayed the other day as I began my personal study that the Lord would show me something. I know it's not always a good thing to ask that haha but I asked him knowing that this was a righteous desire. I felt as though I had just run away from my problems and had abandoned you all. In fact, a man we were teaching told me to my face that I had done just that and that I was a coward for leaving you all. But Mom, when he said that I felt a surge of power and said in a firm voice, "I have been called of God to leave my family so that my other brothers and sisters can experience these same blessings," and I don't remember what I said after that but boy it got me thinking! So all of this happened and I prayed and I asked God to help me to see how my family was being blessed for me being out here. God loves me and has shown me through your email alone that you truly are being blessed.

I have been extremely blessed as well.

I am THRILLED that you are all getting together each night to pray and read! I know that the Lord is smiling even bigger than I am right now to know that you are doing that together :D

Elder Bednar came to our mission this week and we got to meet with him on Thursday. His words answered many of my questions and directed me as how to be a better missionary and a future mother. I will remember what he shared with us forever. The spirit taught me during that meeting with him that I can receive answers to my prayers and act as an agent to receive spiritual knowledge. Also we should treat others as agents instead of objects, meaning we don't just teach and lecture and preach to objects, we are teaching agents, people, children of our Heavenly Father who should be taught to act like agents and make their own decisions and receive answers to their own prayers as well.

Immediately after the meeting the sister missionaries in Eagle Pass told me that Ruben had a gift for me. They got it out of the car and I knew exactly what it was. A ukulele. I almost cried. My thoughts were "He did noooot. He did not! Haha, yes!" I have been playing it everyday. We play it and sing a primary song together for companionship study and I play it before I go to bed to relax. I was surprised at how easily I remembered the chords and I know this is a huge blessing.

I am now in the Alamo 1st YSA ward in San Antonio. It's a Young Single Adult ward and everyone is white and my age! It's different ha. We cover all of east San Antonio and all the YSA who live in it haha. My new companion is Sister Call from Morgan, UT. She was a Rodeo queen and is just awesome! She makes me really want to learn how to ride a horse and buy some boots haha. There is a great place out here to buy boots called Cavenders but it is super expensive of course haha. Her mom should be calling you soon, she thinks we may be related somewhere down the line! I think you will just love them.

Yesterday we went to dinner at a members house and they had Michael Mcclean playing and I almost cried. I didn't realize how much I loved that music, it reminds me of you! She said she is going to burn us a CD and give it to us tonight at Family Home Evening. I'm so excited! I also was thinking of recording some songs on the little tapes of myself singing with the Uke for yall. 

As Sister Training leaders we are giving two training this week about putting the Lord first and burying our weapons of negative thoughts or doubt in order to show God that we love Him.

Also tell Holly that I got the package from them finally! Thank you so much!!! I have been eating fruit by the foots everyday haha and also I sleep with that awesome blanket every night :)

Hmm, am I mission anything? I love my new area, check. I love my companion, check. I love my life, check. I love God, check. I hope I didn't miss anything!

I love you so much.

Happy Hermana Hopkins!

January 6th 2014

Haha with the dog we just saw him and he came right up to us and I loved him and he loved me and it was love at first sight basically haha. I have a lot of those experiences but they all happen to be with people's pets or small toddlers hahaha.

 

Yesterday I shared my testimony in the English ward and the words flowed so well that I knew it was the Spirit for sure. I remember saying this, "I know who I am and I know who you are. We are children of a Heavenly Father." I know that as we share our testimonies that they are strengthened. I want to share with you my testimony that I do know that I am a child of a Heavenly Father. I know that we are all His children and that we should treat one another that way. When we fail to treat others as children of God it is because we do not completely understand who we are and who they are.

We received transfer calls yesterday and I will be transferred this week. That was fast! I was only here in Pleasanton for 6 weeks! I will also become a Sister Training Leader. If you are not familiar with what that is I will explain. This leadership position began when I was serving in Austin and the Mission President called a few sisters to be Sister Training Leaders to go on exchanges with other sisters to help and advise and serve them in their areas. My companion, Sister Alfaro was a "STL" and would spend one day each week with a different companionship or one of those sisters would come to our area and we would do a little companion swap for a day. So that's really cool that I get to serve the other sisters now as well! 

Yesterday we taught a man that we met last week. Now this is kinda funny because of the similarities with other experiences that I have had on the mission. Remember Ramiro who got baptized in Eagle Pass? Remember that I met him because we saw him on his porch and decided to go talk to him? Well, last week we were looking for a former investigator (just like we were doing that day in Eagle Pass) and we drove past a house where a man was standing on his porch. I felt that we needed to go back. We continued down the street to find that the address which we were looking for didn't exist and I knew exactly what we needed to do next. I turned the truck around and parked next to the house where the man had previously stood on his porch. We knocked on the door and he came out. We talked to him, his name is Ramiro as well, and when I shared my testimony that I knew that this is the only true church on earth he said, "I like that you said that. I want to come to your church." That response is pretty rare. We set up a return appointment with him for a few days later but he didn't answer the texts or the calls and didn't come to church so we figured we would stop by another day. Yesterday we made plans to go teach him and we pulled up to his house and before we even turned off the car he was coming to see who we were. "Its the Sister Missionaries!" I said (it was dark and I know that there are some sketchy people in that area and he had commented before that they had to be careful with whoever came up to their house so I didn't want him to think we were scary people). He said "Oh!" And came to the window of the car. We taught him right then and there without even getting out of the truck. He talked about how he was just thinking about us and if we would ever come back. He said that he wanted to come to church on Sunday and that he wasn't doing anything that morning and didn't have a car and his mom wouldn't take him so he felt hopeless. He went inside for a second and returned with the King James version of the Bible and talked about his desire to be baptized but he went to other churches and didn't feel they were right. He talked about his desire to be married to his girlfriend before having children and how his dad has helped him to understand the commandments and that he used to do bad things but wants to be completely changed. We gave him a Book of Mormon and marked a scripture for him to read and set up another return appointment. He said he would read right when he got into the house again.

How interesting that we found him the same way that we found the other Ramiro and that they just happen to have the same name!

I know that this church is the only true church on the planet and that God lives! I am happy and grateful that I enjoy the blessings ofliving the gospel!

Feel free to share this with your ward or our old ward or your friends or my cousins or whoever. Tell them all that I love the Gospel and am not ashamed of it! Tell them how much YOU love it too! I am excited for my new area and will let you know where I'm at next week. I love you!

Hermana Hopkins

December 30th 2013 (family letter)

Another update from Hermana Hopkins! Can you tell she's been in Texas a while? Almost a year now!

Hello hello! So the small words are giving me a huge headache so I am writing in a bigger font today haha. My eyes are so much more comfortable. Am I getting old??? Who knows. 

Yes, I got a blessing from the Elders on Friday, it really helped. I also talked with the mission President and that helped as well. This isjust an obstacle that will make me stronger. 

We taught the gospel principles class yesterday about talents. It reminded me of you and how you are great as using your talents to bless others lives :) We had our talents before we even came to earth, did you know that? I wonder if Josh Groban and other great singers and I were in the same choir ;) He has just developed his talent a little better than I have here on earth but I bet we sang together in Heaven haha.

We had exchanges this week and I went to work with a Sister in the Singles Ward in San Antonio. It is pretty different! We ate dinner with a member and her parents since they were in town and it was so fun! I laughed the whole time and it felt really good. Then Sister Call, the other Sister, shared a scripture from Doctrine and Covenants 50: 40-42 
"Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost."

I felt the chills through out my while body the entire time she was reading. Heavenly Father loves me. He loves His children, active members, less active members or non members, and he desires that all might come unto Him. He gives us all soooooooo many opportunities. I am convinced that he doesn't (and won't) stop working with each of us even if we decide to stop working with Him.We are His focus.

It was very nice to talk to you on Christmas. Thank you for supporting me. I love you dearly.

Ruben, my investigator back in Eagle Pass, got baptized on Saturday. I am so overwhelmingly happy for him. He has made so many changes in his life for the better and is a wonderful example.

The work here is pretty slow I feel compared to Eagle Pass. White people are rude. And I can say that because I am white. We all ought to be a little more kind and loving towards those we know and don't know.

I dreamt last night that all my clothes were robbed... the night before it was that my car was robbed and all my money too... I don't know what that means haha. The night before that I dreamt that a huge shark ate a whole man. Good thing I'm nowhere near water!

We taught Esmeralda twice this week. She didn't come to church yesterday and she is having trouble reading. She doesn't understand what she reads. Pray for her if you can. We also taught Sylvia and her little grandson that is so cute and he asked us to teach him the plan of Salvation again cause we showed him patterns that we made to teach it and he really liked it. He is so smart and is only 3 years old! Sylvia understood the Plan and we read from the Book of Mormon with her. She is really nice and we got to pet her horse that they are teaching to dance. It is so cool! 

Well, that's all for today, folks! 

I love y'all, till next week,

Hermana Hopkins

December 30th 2013

With holiday time being busy, I'm just now posting these letters. Sorry all!

This is one she sent to me.

I want to share these stories with you of three awesome men whose lives have been changed by the gospel.

Jorge
Jorge showed up at church and that is where we met him. He had been taught before by missionaries about 8 months in the past and he came back because he had been going through some trials. We taught him that day and he expressed his desire to be baptized. We re-taught him everything and each week he showed changes at church. One week he came with a white shirt and jeans. The next week he wore a white button up shirt, the next week a white button up shirt and church shoes and a nice belt. The next week he came with a white button up shirt, dark slacks, church shoes, a nice belt, and if I didn't know better I would have thought he was already a member. I loved teaching and laughing with him and our ward mission leader, Hno Baquedano. He was baptized a couple weeks after I was transferred.

Ramiro
We were on an exchange and I saw a man sitting on his porch as we were getting back into the car. I unlocked the door and looked up again and he was gone. I opened the door and looked up one last time and there he was again. I knew we had to talk to him. We went up to him and introduced ourselves. He let us in and we met his sister in law who is already a member of the church but is less active. We taught him every day and he was baptized three weeks later. He is still active and attends both the Spanish and English branches every week.

Ruben
Ruben made a lot of changes. He was a smoker, had the mouth of a sailor, and told us he would not go to church. We ran with him in the morning to help him stop smoking, we ate oranges with him everyday as we shared from the scriptures, we saw the spirit help him recognize his habits of swearing and smoking and change them, he read and studied the Book of Mormon with pencil and paper each day, we smiled and laughed with him and rejoiced with him as he started to make personal commitments to pray on his knees and come to church. He was baptized this past Saturday by his brother who came out to do that for him and is a ward mission leader in North Carolina.

The Gospel is true!

God loves YOU!

I love you!

Hermana Ally Hopkins