Hello!

Hey Everyone!  

Thank you for all the wonderful emails that you sent me.  I really appreciate all the time that you put into writing those letters for me.  So thank you Mom and Dad for sending in my applications to all those schools.  I know that class picking for the fall semester has already started and so i don't know if i will get in.  I hope so BUT at the same time i would not mind coming home going to MCC and working and then going up to BYU in the Winter semester and living in Elder Awerkamp's condo.  His parents bought a nice little condo up next to campus for elder Awerkamp and they are going to rent out the other rooms.  So I talked with him and maybe that would be a nice way to go.  Live there and go to school.  Also we could just work it all out with the Awerkamp's opposed to the school.  I really am just excepting whatever happens as a blessing.  I really hope that all turns out well and that there is no issues in the future.  In anycase thanks for everything that you do and everything you are helping me with.  So yeah that is that.  Honestly thank you so much. :)  Speaking of the Awerkamp's, the also wrote a similar email to Elder Awerkamp about seeing connor at the Easter Pageant.  They told him that they thought connor was awesome and that he was a very nice looking boy :)  Small world i love it.

So news from me and the mission.  There is some fun news from Limoges actually!  First one is that a member from down there, a daughter of the Garant family is getting married to a member from our ward up here in Bruxelles and so the entire family will be up here and i will get to hear from them and talk to them about Limoges again which i will really enjoy.  Also even better news a girl that we taught for about 3 months down there before i left, Qiong-ji, who i remember talking so much about, will be GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 14TH!!!!!!!!!!!!  How fun is that! After 10 months finally she came around and is getting baptized!  I honestly can't tell you happy i was.  In fact, first thing that i did was call elder Awerkamp and told him and we basically screamed and spiralled into a crazy hysteria of JOY!  I was so pumped.  She is just the best and to this day is still probably my favorite investigator i ever met.  She was just searching searching searching.  She didn't even know who God was when we started and through reading the Book of Mormon and Praying and Church She came to know that one God is real and he loves us, two Jesus is the center of the entire human history and beyond, and three that he leads and guides his church today through a living prophet.  Such an awesome conversion.  I just wanted to share that with you all.

Now onto Bruxelles.  Same old same old.  PARADISE!  We just set two more dates for this transfer with two friends of, yes you guessed it, andrew.  Of course the rest of the brothers too but Andrew is the one who started it all.  Ones name is Carlos.  Fun story.  He is 17, from cameroon and here on his own.  He is super intelligent.  He really didn't want to be baptized again.  We taught him three times and each time he declined baptism and in fact the last time he just told us no that is not what i need, i was already baptized.  Ok no biggy.  So we left it in the hands of the brothers.  I told Charles, you make sure this boy knows you have a testimony.  and So what do they all do.  that night the brothers hold a testimony meeting.  This is all done and run by them and we had no idea.  the next day we were teaching with Andrew and as we were walking there he said so did you hear about the good news for Carlos.  We said no what?  Remember he rejected the invitations only two days prior.  He says yeah he wants to be baptized.  He wants to know if he can do it tommorow.  HAHAHA We said um no but we will baptize him ASAP.  So then we called Carlos to make sure everything was factual and he said yeah I felt the Spirit tell me that it was true and so i can't resist i need to do it.  So yeah his faith is so large that he just immediately acts on promptings of the Spirit.  How cool huh?  So he will baptized on the 21st of April.  

That is just good old brussels for you.  Paradise.  This weekend was also the Easter weekend and i am so thankful for the chance we had to reflect and feel the overcoming power of Christ's atonement.  Super nice in fact.  I loved this weekend.  We were able to celebrate/commemorate this day with Three american families in the ward.  We went and ate at their place and it was just like home!  Mashed Potatoes, Spiral Ham, ROLLS, green beans, salad, everything because they get to shop at the american army base here in bruxelles.  So everything was american.  It was delicious and i decided that when i come home, first thing i want to eat will be a Burrito from Filebertos, Second i would love to just have a typical american dinner.  I missed that so so so so much.  So yeah it sounds like the easter weekend was great for all you as well.  I miss you all so much and can't wait to talk to you soon.  I love you all so much.  


Elder Hoopes