WEEK 26, 6 Months! 1/4 of the way through

Tomorrow I hit my 6 month mark! Time sure has flown by. I am not getting transferred, so I will stay put right here in Williamsburg/Greenpoint for another 6 weeks. This transfer is going to be a lot of fun as we are going to get a Movie Night with the branch and watch 17 Miracles since many of them haven't seen it, get a Music Night going (idea courtesy of Grandma Eva Hooper), and hopefully some more activities with the branch so we can work with the members some more and also give them opportunities to invite their friends to fun activities!

Skyping home yesterday was a blast! It was so fun to see all of your faces! I miss you all soooo much. You are a huge inspiration to me as I go through difficult days. I thought I would get homesick after skyping, but it only made me want to work even harder to have you guys be that much more proud of me! I am already counting down the days until Christmas so we can skype again. By the way, Happy Mother's Day mom I didn't even tell you! By the way, it is getting so hot here! It really isn't that hot, but it is just so humid. I am not used to not having anything dry and always be wet. We played basketball on Saturday and I was sweating like CRAZY and it never dried! Eww!

This week was pretty tough for my companion and I. People seemed to be really harsh and rude this week and I am not sure why. We did many activities like playing games in the Subway, street sweeps, lots and lots of street contacting and doing everything else to find someone to teach. Something new my zone is doing is keeping track of how many people we invite to church. President Calderwood promised us that if we would invite 10 people to church a week, we will always have a new investigator at church. I was 6 short at 64 invites last week. It is actually pretty tough to invite that many people to church. I really had to push myself to hit that. There was one day specifically, that Elder Lewis and I were just super discouraged during a difficult proselyting day as nothing was working. We knelt down in prayer and I prayed aloud a very heartfelt prayer and basically just poured out everything we were feeling to God. Afterwards, both of us felt uplifted and our burden that we had was lifted. It was really nice to feel Heavenly Father helping us carry our load that day.

I had a really cool experience a few days ago with a man in the street. This man, named Talvin, came up to us and respectfully shook our hands and gave us a warm smile and made a funny noise and started to walk away. The noise that came out of his mouth sounded like one deaf people unconsciously make, so I turned around and asked if he was deaf in sign language. His face just lit up and he excitedly signed that he was! He was so happy that I was one of millions of people that actually understood him. I was able to get his information and pass it along to Elder Wilson and DeCreshendo, the ASL Elders. I pondered on that experience that night and it made me realize how similar this experience is to our relationship with the Savior. Out of all the people in the world He is the only one that "really" understands. He is the one who "really" loves us. I had the chance to be in the Savior's shoes when I turned to that deaf man Talvin. I have been having a lot of opportunities to use my ASL out here and I love it!

We had a lesson with an investigator of ours who I love! He is a super cool guy. He is the really intelligent one I have been writing about lately. We read the Book of Mormon with him about King Lamoni's father who was asking Aaron lots of questions regarding God. We related this story to our friend and helped him see how the BoM can come to life for him. Being led by the spirit, I was able to ask some really good questions that helped us to see what he was looking for regarding religion and what he has been thinking and feeling. We found out that he has been meeting with other religions too, to research his theory about Evolution and how religion can basically enhance his understanding. He says he actually likes what we are teaching and thinks that the Book of Mormon is true! I learn so much when we teach him. I teaches us with his thought at answers to questions and also by the questions he asks us! I wish you could meet him! He also came to church again too.

We also have been meeting with a less-active member and have set some goals with him. We have been going walking with him and helping him reach goals and developing a really good relationship with him to help him feel comfortable with the church again.

So for Mother's Day, we made some super cool homemade flowers and vases for the women in the Branch. They loved it. I will send some pictures of what they looked like. The vases were made from pass-along cards.

I am really looking forward to this next transfer and the success we will have. We have two investigators that will most likely be baptized within these 6 weeks. I love my mission and everything about it. I love the people here, even the hipsters and the ones that always come up to us and say blasphemous things (those ones are especially fun!!!)

I do have to get going now! I love you all so much and look forward to writing to you next week. I will work on getting pictures too.

Love,

Elder Hooper