#also one of the missions was in argentina which yay!!!

[vonlipvig]

spent the whole afternoon playing operation tango with my friend. imagine our surprise when the bad guy was revealed to be ARGENTINIAN.

DIVERSITY WIN! the evil hacker mastermind es argentooooo 🇦🇷.

[restrek]

¡Hola Todos!

Transfers!  I am staying in the same area and I'm still with my trainer (we expected as much but it's nice to have it confirmed). Wow I have officially reached the same amount of time in the field as in the MTC! Time is speeding up.

We had a discussion scheduled near one of the borders of our area (Fun fact: since our area borders Paraguay, it was literally on the border--between Argentina and Paraguay!) but unfortunately it fell through at the last minute. We haven't done a lot of contacting where we were, so we thought we would give it a try. We weren't having a lot of success, and we decided to actually start heading back to another appointment. While we were heading back we heard someone say, "Oy! D'you Speak'n English?" That really threw us off-guard. Not only was someone calling to us in English, but it was English English...if that makes sense. He had a very similar accent to Burt from Mary Poppins if that gives you an idea. The voice was from a man across the street. Of course we went over and talked to him. His name is Tony, and he has lived here in Formosa for 15 years! We asked him what his story was, and he said he used to travel the world, but then he fell in love with a girl here in Formosa and they got married and settled down here. But then his wife passed away, and he has come on hard times. He asked us what we are doing here, and we told him that we are sharing a message of Jesus Christ. He was very interested, and we are going to go back and visit him later this week if everything goes well. I am excited to teach him.

I got to see my first baptism here in the field! It was a 9-year-old-girl named Angelina, and we weren't the ones to teach her because she lives in the area of the Hermanas, but her grandpa baptized her and since her grandpa lives in our area we had the baptism at our building. My appreciation for the ordinance of baptism has deepened like crazy since being on a mission. The service was really good, and our investigator Sergio attended the baptism which we were super excited for. If everything goes well, Sergio will be baptized this Saturday (Yay!).

My Spanish is coming along, I am working hard at it, and I feel like I've made a lot of progress over this last transfer. I'm learning another language! How crazy is that!! I still have to remind myself sometimes. This week I have been especially focused on trusting in the Spirit. I've noticed that if I am more focused on saying what our investigators need to hear, my Spanish is better. 

I am safe, I am learning and growing more and more every day, I am happy, :) I have learned a lot here, but probably the most important thing I have learned is how important a family is. I am blessed to have an awesome family! We are more blessed than we can realize, I think. As long as two years is, there is no way I can feel sorry for myself. I have seen people living in poverty--real poverty--who barely have enough to eat and are living in what looks like a pile of sticks. I have also seen people who are poor in Spirit, and I am so grateful for the chance I have to help them realize that there is eternal happiness waiting for them if they are willing to change their lives and have faith in Jesus Christ. This is a wonderful time!

Thank you all so much for your emails! I love hearing from all of you. :) ¡Hasta Luego! Elder Hopkins