Week 56, 6 More weeks in Staten!

Hey there! I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season! The Christmas Devotional was really good as well last night too. Elder Legere and I were the only ones watching it at the church so we of course sang a little extra loud on the closing hymn :D

So here is the funny story for the week. So we were at a family's home who don't discipline their kids very well and they all have some mental challenges. We were there just to stop in and say hi and such and they had family over as well. Their nephew is probably 9 years old or so and is a bit crazy. So the daughter of the family was picking on this boy pretty bad and at first it was all fun and games until she smacked him! He stops, his face turns red, breathes these short breaths like a bull ready charge, then with his mouth open wide and AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!! The spirit said bye to us and I was a little scared for my life haha. We were waiting for this boy to turn green and start Hulk-smashing us. We left pretty quickly after that :D.I have never heard someone scream so loud in my life.

Skyping Donald's family in Sri Lanka was awesome! Since he translated all of it into his language it really stuck with him and he seemed to better understand what we were teaching as well. His family said that they agreed with what we were teaching and are excited to be able to be a part of it with their father. We are teaching them again on Thursday with Donald. Donald is also still set for the 15th and is very excited. We will teach him the Law of Tithing and then go over the baptismal interview questions. He is so prepared and ready! We also taught another family over skype who live in Manhattan. They used to be our neighbors across the street and I became really good friends with them when they were going through a difficult situation. Their home was damaged in Sandy and they had some structural damage that they recently found and they had to evacuate. They are awaiting permits for the rest of the home to be repaired. In the mean time, I was texting them letting them know their house was safe and what not like they requested. I asked if they would like for us to share a quick message about Christ with their family. We read Lehi and his family's journey moving homes and applied it to them and they loved it. It was neat to see how the Book of Mormon really does apply in all aspects of our lives. So we asked if they would be interested in learning more about the church and where the Book of Mormon came from. We are teaching them again on Wednesday. It is amazing the success we are seeing with skype. My patriarchal blessing talks about the Lord needing me in many places throughout the world on my mission and now I totally understand how that is possible and seeing it come to pass!

Donald and his family are famous now in the mission and the Brooklyn NY Stake. Their Skype stories were shared a few times by President Calderwood and another Elder in presentations. I mean how cool is this- teaching someone who is getting baptized next week, skyping his family in a country thousands of miles away who don't have missionaries, and now they want to come to America and unite with their father and be baptized!? I feel so privileged to be apart of this!

Our district is going to be working very hard to bringing people to the baptism this week Sunday! We are planning on handing out over 300 invitations with the hope of have 30 nonmembers there. It is going to be one of the greatest baptisms ever. We have it all planned out and it is going to be great. We showed Donald the beautiful invitations that were made and he was so happy about it. We are going to skype his family in on it as well! He is amazing! I will have the privilege of interviewing Theo for his baptism as well which I am looking forward to.

Elder Legere and I are staying together another 6 weeks in Staten Island. I am so happy about that. We have so many great things coming up and we were hoping to spend Christmas together as well. My district is basically staying the same except we are losing Elder Eggleston, one of our Zone Leaders. I will miss him.

Well it sure has been a great week. I love Staten Island and everything about it, especially our ward. They are wonderful.

Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Hooper