ok family so here is the letter!

starting off with basically where i left off, my new companion is elder de jesus. and let me just say that he is an amazing companion, and missionary, it is unbelieveable how much i have learned from him in just this first week. he actually corrects me when i say something wrong, and already things that i was saying wrong i say right now subconsciously, its just amazing. our personalities get along really well, were actually very similar, and he likes to work like an iron bull, so we have just been slugging it out, and i love it!

he is half black, which just makes him all that much more sweet, and he is from the capital, brazilia. he has been a member for 2 years, and was baptized in 4 days, the missionaries taught him on a wednesday, he recieved an answer from god the next day, and was baptized that sunday, before he had even been to church. he is an amazing teacher, and is teaching me a ton. he worked in a butcher shop for 2 years, so he knows how to cut any meat like a champ. it has been really good with him!

one of his biggest things, that was also something that i wanted to do that i can do now, is we are really focusing on working with the ward. we are going to buy a big map, and pins, and mark all of our references, investigators, and members in our area to help work with all three, and this will make our work much more efficient.

because of transfers, we literally have 10 missinaries on our house this week from monday to friday, it was crazy! i locked all of my stuff in my suitcases, and it was always crowded and nuts, but dont worry michelle because i still wrote just as much erre day, and will be sending it tomorrow!

i got to watch the restoration movie (in portuguese :/) the other day because we were watching it with an investigator, it really made me miss america but at the same time was also nice to see america, so i really enjoyed it.

turns our president has said that we can use the hour for dinner that they dont use here in brazil to take a break during the day if we want to. so me and elder de jesus on really hot days take about a 15 minute brake at a little ice cream shop, where a 2 scoop cone is only 1.5 reals, about a dollar, and that little break really does wonders for the whole day. its just been really efficient and great this week to be honest.

one of the americans who stayed at our house when there was 10 of us thought i was brazilian for an entire day before i spoke to another american in english, what the heck!? i dont know why, he said just because he thought i looked brazilian, but i look exactly the same as usual, dont worry, i am still nice and white.

we had a baptism for this week, but it didnt work out for the worst reasons. isabela is 16, and has a great desire to be baptized. she lives with her mom and aunt, and her aunt on the day of the baptizm forbid her to be baptized. her aunt is a less active who smokes and all, and she literally destroyed the work of the lord. it was sad to see, but there wawss nothing else we can do

i hope everyone will have a great thanksgiving, we have so much to be thankful for this year. i am thankful for michelle, the love of my life! and my family, who are also an amazing support to me, and the oppertunity i have to be on a mission, and my new companion who is absolutely great. i just am so glad to be where i am right now, i have everything i will ever need for my entire life! the gospel, my family, and the woman i am going to be sealed for for eternity. i really am greatful for everything guys, i hope that i display it because i really feel it. and being here is hard, but that doesnt mean that it is wrong, this is where i am supposed to be, and while i have yet to actually think about coming home at all, i know that something like that would only be bad for every single one of us, so i dont even think about it

one thing that has been a big improvement for me this week has been in my prayers. going along with the sacrament story, my prayers have really improved this week, and they are helping me out alot in feeling better, and doing the lords work.

until next week, you guys are all in my heart, thoughts, prayers, everything! until next week family, michelle :) i love you!!!

elder zachary paul hoskin

dear family, let me start off by saying that i am sorry!!!!

there was a problem with the computer that i was at last week, and it wouldnt send the email via internet, but i still typed it up and saved it as a draft, and just send it before this one, so i hope that that makes it ok. im really sorry for the mix up, everything is fine with me, just a crappy LAN house that i will never go to again, i am here in my favorite spot, a lan house near the brazilian version of wal mart, called MUFFALTO. WOO!

anyways family,

thank you grandma and grandpa for the email first off. i am very happy to hear snake river is the state champions, i need to get me a snake river t shirt, and become a fan of the team of my family! im glad to hear that everything is going well, thanksgiving should be an exciting time for everyone, i am going to try and make myself have some sort of a thanksgiving this week, we will see what happens.

dad, thank you very much for the email. i am EXSTATIC to hear that you got the job at Tiaa creff! and can also heal up around the house. i dont know many details at all about this job, but i just feel good about it, so i am happy for you. i am also very pleased with how the devils and penn state and even oregon are doing. if they win the stanley cup while im gone, it will be hard to forgive them. same goes for sucess for penn state and oregon. but the mission requires sacrafices, so all is well, my dream of a 2 year lockout so that i wouldnt miss anything has come and gone. i will keep praying for your arm, and for everyone, i think its going to be nice to have you home around all the holiday times, i can only imagine how nice and cold it is there, with some nice turkey... well ribs for ben, but all the same for me, things i will need once im back! thank you for the email dad, i will keep you in my prayers

well to start off i will start with the bitter news this week. this week was a bit of a ´hard pill to swallow´ week, for two reasons, two rules that are now in my missionary life that have been difficult to accept, but i know are the lords will, so i have been trying my best to accept with and make the best of. the first one is the hardest for me. well i would write michelle everyday during my free time at night and in the morning, and i was approached my a zone leader in my house who said that that might be agaist the rules, since it is writing here even though its really just a journal. so he said he would ask the mission president the next day to clear it up. well he talked to him, then president talked to me, and i am not allowed to write like that anymore to michelle. this is extremely hard for me, because i want to write her every day, and it doesnt affect a second of my missionary schedule, but i will only be able to write one big letter on p-day now. this week has been hard for me accepting it, i literally sit there and am not doing anything, but i cant write her, it was near torture. but i have been praying for the comfort that it is the will of the lord for my mission for me to imply that rule, and i have felt better since. i know even tough its hard i will still send you a letter every week michelle, about everything i did, i will just write it on monday. and it will likely be shorter, but i will do the best i can, we just need to keep putting our trust in the lord, and it will all be fine. so that is the first one that has been a big depressing change for me this week. but the letters will keep coming, and all will be well! i promise, i love you m!

the second rule is a new rule for the whole of brazil. normally, if there is only a woman in the house, we can teach her outside on the property, because normally brazilians have a gated property with chairs outside and such. but now there is a rule that we cannot be on the property of any house that only has women, or male or female under the age of eighteen. a man has to be there for all occasions, we cant even teach on the property anymore. this will literally drop the baptisms, lessons, all of the ´numbers´ and really success that brazil has, it already is showing with us. we passed by literally 27 houses yesterday, and only 2 had a man in the house and recieved us to teach. its a hard rule to follow, but it is a necessary rule for some reason, thats why its there, same for all the rules, so i will follow them and hope that everything ends up ok.

the brazilians in my apartment looked at my family pictures the other day, and told me that my family, mainly my parents, look like they could be brazilian. haha! what the heck? i dont know where that came from, but i thought you would appreciate it

its been really cold here some mornings, and i have been loving it. i truly am missing the holiday feel right now, and anything to make it feel more like the holidays the better!

my companion told me to teach him some of the commandments in english the other day, in order to help him learn english, as i started, i was literally having serious trouble saying complete, gramatically correct sentances. it made me sad, and also scared the crap out of me. i literally hadnt talked outside of casual conversation in this email for a long time, and i was having so much trouble that i stopped completely, and didnt teach anymore in english, i need to keep emailing, to write the love of my life, to be able to keep my english

i had a bar of chocolate here that had toasted coconut in it, i dont know if they have this back home, but everything here has coconut in it (which i love) and that chocolate bar was really good, so if they have it in america look for it, because i was tasty! speaking of which, i had another fast this week, i fasted for help with these new rules that have come to pass. it was a really good fast, specifically because i literally had revelation about them, to help me cope, in the scriptures. its a scripture that i came accross that i like alot, michelle it will be in the letter you get for this week!

i got to do some service this week! a sister in my ward needed a big bench whitewashed, and so while my companion did nothing because he cant paint, i got to paint the whole thing. it was SO NICE. i have always realy liked doing things with my hands, fixing things, making things, painting things like now, just howard roark capitalism, making things out of my own capacity. so it was really almost therapudic, and also looked really nice afterwards haha

im sorry that i used the card somewhat this week, our bi weekley money that we usually get just didnt go through last week, so no one had anything and i had so use the card a little, but all is well now so good for that. also, my hair is extremely long, like fro long, and i need to cut it, so i am going to use the card one more time to buy a hair cutting maching today so that i can just do it myself during my whole mission. that will come in handy!

i found a little gold mine two days ago, i found a stack of enlgish ensigns in our house! i read the april one from 2010, all about the atonement of jesus christ, and it made my sabbath day so much better, i will continue to read them and be edified because ensign is really a great resource

guess what i got my hands on this week?! two things; first, a brazil soccer jersey! for our team, called the corintians, their emblem has two oars very similar to that of MTL crew, and they are black white and red. also, i got a hammock! the one in the picture that i was in the other week of me in a hammock, that exact one, because the missionary left it for me who got transferred somewhere else. i will keep it and bring it home, my first brazilian things to bring home to america! ps dad, i will get you some jerseys, i was going to surprise you but someone very special to me has got me in the habit of not caring about surprises ;)

so me and my companion are doing really well. we get alot really well, like good friends. he listens to the same music i do, like 30 seconds to mars, even oldies like journey and such, so we just sing while we walk and it keeps me happy. being more tight than other companions i have been with has also improved our teaching, i am learning a ton from him, about portuguese and teaching alike. i have this stack of flash cards that i bring with me and study like a little dork as we walk as well, and that is really nifty because i can just turn them over, and he can learn the same words in portuguese.

i hope that everyone has a great thanksgiving, being with family. enjoy it! because i cannot, and i really wish that i was with michelle, my family, everyone, just together and happy. but i will be with you guys some day. so EVERYONE give EVERYONE an i love you for me, maybe a hug, or just a happy thanksgiving, and lets keep praying for eachother! i love you all, until next week!


Elder Zachary Paul Hoskin