November 16, 2013

Elder Kelton Jenkins & Sister Hopkins! These 2 have been friends since the 7th grade! 

Here is a new letter from Sister Hopkins!

This week was so rough for me.  So we are learning tagalog and we have class twice a day for 3 hours each...so not my way to spend a day but that is ok. There are others in my district that are getting a really good hang of the language but so far that is no me. I get so frustrated when I want to say something sa tagalog pero I dont know how to say it. In class one morning, Brother Nordstrom could tell that I was having a really hard time with my myself and the language. He flipped to a scripture in D&C 1: 19-23. this is about how weak things can become stronger. I started to tear up and the spirit testified to me that I could do this. I may be weak but I am progressing so much. If you cant understand my emails im sorry because it is hard to speak english without a little bit a tagalog. I am grateful that I have a teacher who is intune with the spirit and can help me to reach my potential and become a great missionary. 

i am so happy that Brooke is doing good! I wrote her a letter and I hope she got it. REPLY SOOON BROOKE!!!

If anything i have learned this week that the lord knows who I am. Tuesday nights devotions we got to learn from Elder L. Tom Perry. He spoke about the Philippines and what is going on over there. she told us a story about 20 missionaries and a young stake president. the stake president wanted to get his missionaries to safety so he got tickets for all of them. when they got to the airport, they were not able to get on the plane because people want to get out of there so they pay loads of money to get to safety. so the missionaries were at the airport along wondering what to do. A moment later, a filipino pilot asked if they were missionaries. They in turn said yes and willing the pilot took 3 trips on a small jet to fly the misionaries to manila in safety. Talk about a miracle. The lord is so mindful of us. I can see that in the short time I had been here that I have been blessed to see miracles. Miracles in teaching, in speaking, and through prayer. If I could leave you with anything for this week it would be that God hears and does answer our prayers. If we ask with sincerity and a wanting to seek for help, the lord is willing to help us and bless us. we only need to ask. I love the MTC and this is such a place of spirit and love. 

So the food is ok...it does weird things to you..that is all I will say about that. 

In class we learned how to teach the first lesson and that any need that an investigator has can be taught through the first lesson. the principles are:

1. God is our loving heavenly Father

2. God blesses families

3. Gospel in every dispensation

4. the Savior's ministry and atonement

5. The apostasy

6. the restoration

7. The book of mormon 

8. We can pray to know for ourselves. 

If we apply these to anything we are going through, we can find hope and peace. Kind of cool to think about, we can teach prayer with all these and we can teach love of god through all of these. 

I hope all is well with everyone. I hope to hear from more family soon because I love and miss them. You are all in my prayers. And I can feel prayers being sent my way. I love being a missionary and I couldn't be in a better place. 

I love you all! Mahal Kita!!! Until next week. 

Love, sister hopkins

Work of the week: Kapayapaan. this means peace sa Tagalog :)