Monday, April 25, 2016

His week has been crazy!!

We started working in our new area, the Stewart Place ward. This area is completely different. There are so many people outside I didn't even know what to do with myself.. We went to meet with the new bishop at the beginning of the week and he is really focused on missionary work! We are also pretty close to his family so we will have a great time working together and we will be working hard! There is a lot of work to do here and a lot of less active members in our ward that we will be working with as well. We only have one week left in the transfer so we need to get to know the area well so that I can get ready to take it over when Sister Vaaie leaves and I get a new companion. So this week will be another crazy one! We also really need to learn Spanish because most of the people we talk to speak Spanish..

One of the biggest blessings we have from this area is apartments!

Most of the people in the apartments come to us before we even get a chance to say hi and they ask if we have a church! The first time it happened I was shocked. In the area we were in before people ran away from us! In this one they are running to us! It's awesome! 

The other thing about apartments is that some weird stuff happens sometimes..

The other day we were knocking on a door and I was just standing there and all of a sudden a diaper came from the apartment above! Literally 6inches away from me a full baby diaper fell from the sky and landed right next to my feet.. I was 6 inches away from baby poop being dropped on my head. Apartments are great.

This week we got to go on a couple of exchanges! We got to exchange with the STLs and the MSTLs! An MSTL is a mission sister training leader.

Sister Hutchins and Sister Thornock!!

So basically sister assistant to the president. With the STLs I got to stay in our area with Sister Loveless and Sister V went with Sister Campbell. We had a great time working in the new area and trying to get to know the area a little better. Sister Loveless and I found some amazing people and got to talk to a lot of people as we were walking to appointments. On Saturday night we did exchanges with the MSTLs for a couple hours. I got to go with Sister Hutchins to her area. I love exchanges because I get to learn from amazing missionaries and I get to find ways that I can improve.

On Friday we had a baptism! Because of the boundary changes we had a baptism this week! He is 8 and he was so excited to get baptized! But he is apparently afraid of water and when he went under he got so scared he didn't go completely under! When they told him he had to do it again he started crying and ran away from the water. It took about

5 minutes to get him to come back so he could do it again. When he finally came back he was so happy that he got baptized! It was a funny and a spiritual experience. He's such a sweet little kid and I'm excited to serve in his ward and see him grow even more!

This week we are planning on setting 3 people with a baptism date so by the end of the week we will have 4! We have one with a date right now because the elders had to pass him off to us. So we are excited!

We are seeing lots of blessings here!

This ward is going to be working hard with missionary work and we are going to be very busy building the mission program in this ward. I love this ward and I love this work! I'm excited to see this area succeed and to see the members get excited and involved in the work!

I hope you all had a great week! I love you all!

Sister Eliza Hopper

Monday, April 18, 2016

So this week was pretty great! We got to have zone conference and we got new phones! And the little black boxes in our cars that make sure we aren't driving like crazy people! So that's fun..

Then we got a big announcement! On April 29th an apostle is coming!!

Any guesses on who it is?

ELDER HOLLAND!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!! It's going to be such an amazing experience!

The rest of zone conference was great. We had some really awesome trainings!

On Thursday sister Vaaie and I got to go to the temple! The Las Vegas temple has become one of my favorites! I'm so thankful to be living so close and that we get to go so often. I always try to have a question with me as I go to the temple and I have always gotten an answer! The spirit I feel in the temple is so strong and I always feel so much love from my Heavenly Father!

We got this amazing investigator this week! Her name is Shawn! She actually lives in California but she has been visiting one of our members for a few weeks. She used to be a member but called salt lake years ago and got her records removed. She wasn't completely sure if she was a member or not so she called salt lake to double check. After she called them she called us to let us know what she found out. We asked her if she was still a member or not and she said "no, but I need to be one." She is awesome! She has been reading the Book of Mormon and relearning all of the things that she learned as a kid.

Yesterday I surprised her with a new CTR ring just like the one she had when she was a kid and she was so excited! She has been such a blessing in our lives and her testimony has grown so much in just a few days! We sadly will need to refer her to missionaries in California this week but we will be keeping in contact with her and encouraging her as she works towards baptism! Her goal is to be baptized on May 7th!

Yesterday we had a special stake sacrament meeting.. In that meeting they completely changed the stake. Only one ward stayed the same and all of the rest were dissolved. So now there are three new wards in the stake! And we have a new area! We are now in the Stewart Place ward and we have so many more houses in our area! Finally! We had like no houses in our are before but now we have huge neighborhoods! And apartments! And two weeks to left in the trAnsfer to figure everything out.. It will be a busy couple of weeks!

That's pretty much all for the week! Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all!

Sister Hopper

This is Sister Loveless (our STL) if you couldn't tell.. Haha we had a zone sister lunch this week so all of the sisters got together and we took some pictures together! 

The V**** family! We had to say goodbye because they aren't in our ward anymore :(

Monday, April 11, 2016

Hello everyone!

So this week was a hard one.. Like most but this was probably one of the hardest of my mission. I'll start with the happy part of the week!

We have a baptism coming up!! We just started teaching a kid named Zander and he is so excited to get baptized!! He said yes before we were even able to finish the question! He's an awesome kid and we are so excited for him to be able to get baptized and to continue to grow and to learn!

We might have a few other baptisms coming up too! We are starting to see a lot of blessings in our area!

Sister Campbell! 

We also had exchanges this week and I got to meet a man named Fred who is getting baptized on the 23rd! He watched conference and after that he knew without a doubt that the church was true! We taught him about the word of wisdom and he didn't know anything about it but he said whatever the missionaries told him he knew he needed to follow. So now he is going to stop smoking and drinking coffee! The people that we get to meet as missionaries are so amazing! Hearing the testimonies of people who want to get baptized so badly is such an amazing and special thing! It's such a blessing to be a missionary!

So the hardest part of this week was that a member of one of our wards passed away. He was such an amazing man and it was a surprise to the ward and to his family. He and his wife have been married for about

25 years I think and he got baptized not too long ago. They were able to be sealed together in the Las Vegas temple just a few years ago.

We had a zone training the other day and we had a bunch of members come help us do role play!

This man had such a strong and amazing spirit. When I shook his had for the first time I knew that he was a special man. He sometimes would say things that were a little off but you always had to laugh at it. His name was Brother Golden and his name fit him very well. He was a golden man and he lived up to his name. It was hard to say goodbye to Brother Golden but he has left a lasting impression on everyone he has ever met and he will always be with us in our hearts.

I also gave a talk this week! My second talk in this transfer and we are only half way through.. But I love it! One way that I can tell that I'm growing is that I'm not as uncomfortable when I give talks! I have more confidence and I don't sit there looking down reading my notes the whole time. I write a couple notes and then I look up at the congregation the whole time that I am speaking. If any of you know my family very well you know that none of us (except my Mom and Drew) like to get up and talk in front of people. It has been one of the biggest anxieties I've had in my life. I now look forward to speaking!

Of course I still get worried and scared before I talk but I know that I will be able to get through it and that I will actually end up enjoying it! There are so many blessings that I have had since I started my mission! It's such an amazing experience!

 

We also had rain!!  I loved it!!

Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all!

Sister Hopper

Monday, April 4, 2016

Hello!

This week was kind of crazy.. I started off by falling off of my bike on the ground.. A few other embarrassing things happened that I probably won't mention in this email....

So this weekend was conference weekend! It was so great! For me I learned a lot about families and the temple! My testimony of conference has grown a lot this last weekend. I also learned that apparently we are always supposed to have ice cream after General conference!

Something that I really loved from conference was that they talked so much about the temple! I have the amazing blessing to live right next to the Las Vegas temple and we drive bike or walk past it at least once a day! I love seeing the temple! As I go by the temple I think of all the blessings that have come in my life because of it. The one that I think of the most is the fact that I am part of an eternal family! I love the temple! Something that I loved from Quentin L. Cook was the mirrors that say "see yourself in the temple." We should all be doing that constantly. Always have your sights on the temple and see yourself inside!

I also learned a lot about how I want my future family to be. I feel like my mission is definitely preparing me for my future! It's preparing me for all of the roles I will be taking as I go through my life. I loved elder Ballard's talk about family councils! And I also loved Andersen's talk! He talked about strengthening children and several other people talked about how important it is to help children come closer to our Heavenly Father. We are teaching an 8 year old right now and she is helping me learn how to teach so much! If we learn how to really teach children we can teach anyone. Ava, the 8 year old little girl, is so sweet and so kind. Every time we go there I'm so excited because the spirit she has is so strong. Our job as adults is to help children to continue to grow that spirituality throughout their lives and to teach them about the gospel. If they are taught when they are young it will be such an influence for the rest of their lives!

After conference we got to go eat with members of the ward and they happened to have all of there kids home for dinner! Each one of their children and the parents and the kids spouses are return missionaries!

The spirit in their home was amazing! We talked about conference and we had an amazing experience as we shared all of the things we had learned. I even started crying in front of like 10 people I didn't even know. But the spirit was just so strong and the messages we were talking about were true. I love conference and I hope all of you got to watch it!

I love you all so much and I hope your week was great!

Sister Hopper