Hello family!

well i put alot of what happened this week into my sound bite, so i wont have to say again what ive already said in the soundclip. that part is basically like a general thing about the week and all, if you are doing a blog you could totally throw it up there if you wanted, i dont know. 

mom,  jenny sounds like me. i always knew what was right and wrong, but i got frustrated sometimes that everyone else had all this spiritual understanding that seemed out of my reach. just help her to pray, and look for her responses. she needs to be like any investigator or anyone, she needs to look for help through prayer. so! about transferring, i think i could get into byu provo. one thought: with this new missionary age, i think byu provo would be in higher demand for students right now, so maybe i could just go straight to there! please look into it for me, we´ll talk more on tuesday. 

dad, that was really nice how you did that for the young men with the preach my gospels and such. you are reminding me of brother millet, who did simple but heartfelt things like this, and i remember it made all the difference. one time he brought me and joe out to ritas, just to talk. something so simple, but i remember how i knew he wanted the best for us. thats what youre doing with them! also, i feel like my entire life has been this sort of furnace of growing. like i just got transferred to apucarana, and its better here, im happier, and its wayyyy harder in regards to missionaries. but like you said, its all preparing me for the next step. my favorite talks have always been those of elder eyring, about always preaparing for the hard times. its my entire life, but thats the way it has to be. i just want to have a wife who can help me through it, that would be a nice help. i really appreciated that quote by president faust, im always loving those type of quotes!

so basically my new area is sweet, as you will hear in the sound clip, and on tuesday. about the skype call..

the time slot that i have been given is 5:00 in the afternoon my time, is that ok? i hope it can work out for you, were using it at the house of the district president, and my companion and one other are going at 4, so its for me to be at 5. i hope that works! its not possible for me to do it at 1 because of lunch, or 7 because i have a dinner that members are giving me. so 5 oclock my time! if thats ok

i wrote down the skype name, and exactly 5 you guys wil be getting a call! i am way excited. 

so this area is basically all hills, all hills! my companion is awesome! he is taller than me (just like one inch), and we are pretty similar in personality, so its really nice. 

i am having trouble being happy recently, and im trying to find it, but its hard. its not like im consciencally sinning or anything that would bring that. i honestly feel like alma, or basically any prophet in the book of mormon. it feels like my soul is being weighed down, or like elder eyring says, being streched. president eyring said that sometimes we have so many mountains that it seems like our soul is being stretched, and thats how it grows. well thats how i feel. so im trying to be happier and all.

i love you guys, and today is christmas eve! its way hot, but that doesnt mean im going to eat lots of sweets, listen to christmas music. also, this morning i was teaching the missionaries in my house to waltz slash swing dance, and that was entertaining. 

i miss you guys, alot. im not getting necessarily "trunkie", but i am already 2 thirds done with my mission, and i only have 8 months left. this is the home stretch, and its going to be the hardest 8 months on my mission (thats the way it always is, the next month is harder, but thats not a bad thing), and so im really excited to be able to just like come home after all of it and see you guys. i also cant wait to study whatever i want in regards to the gospel. 

so thats about all i got for this email, im trying to figure out how ill organize my thoughts in the soundbite and the email, but whatever! until tomorrow, when i get to see you guys for the first time in a year and 5 months! so 5 oclock my time, i really hope its ok for you guys, that was the best i can do. the call is only able to be 40 minutes long this year, but i need to obey because i need any blessing possible. until tomorrow!

Elder Hoskin

so i dont have too much time with transfers and all today, but i am going to let you know a bunch of stuff in order to get everything in order.

i am getting transfered! finally. i am going to apucarana, a city an hour out of londrina. it is the oldest district in brazil, because all the other ones have become stakes, but this one never managed to. so thats going to change! i will have time info and all about the christmas call next week, but i need you guys to tell me the availibility of time. i imagine that it will be in the afternoon, but that is just a general guess.

so onto ther missionary work type of things, we have a white christmas "natal branco" at our church, where we basically had a ton of baptisms together, and made a big event out of it. it was great, the chruch is true, those are other photos of my zone as well..

this week me and elder thomas just worked in the area of an elder called elder griner, the really blonde white one. his companion had health problems for the last 4 weeks, and this was his last transfer, and he was way depressed that they couldnt work slash baptize someone. so last week, his companion got sent to stay in the mission office with the secretaries till he gets better, and me and elder thomas went to his area the whole week, and found someone to baptized. i can explain more at the christmas call, but it was basically one of the best experiences in my mission, going to help him end his well.

i love you guys

Elder Hoskin

ps, i havent gotten grandmas or your package yet, but it should get here real soon.

Hello family! 

Dad, thats sad to hear that hockey may not happen this year. Without me being selfish, if it has to happen, im willing to accept it this year. it sounds like the stake choir went really well. that is CRAZY about the increase of missionaries in the mission, especially with regards to the sisters. its going to change the dynamics of all the missions! thats awesome that Amanda murray is going on a mission! i hope the best for her. that scripture she used in john 14:18 is one of my favorite bible scriptures, which is a nice coincidence. 

mom, i havent gotten my packages yet, maybe today because we have two elders who have to go to londrina and back today. so if its there, ill get it today. anyways, i wont use anymore money, this week was rough because we had to pay for a lot of stuff with all the work that went around opening a new area and moving all the stuff. i am needing to buy more garments, but that will literally be the last thing i use money for for a while, so its all good. also, garments are cheap. i have had a ton of experiences like you did, where peopel say stuff that makes no sense, and you would never imagine saying anything like that. its a test of patience, i just hope there werent investigators listening. 

so! there arent enough computers for all of us to use them at the same time, so im going to have to be relatively short in my email.

basically this week has just been a bunch of chaos, like last week. i worked in my area just one day today, because we have been with another missionary there in another ward in maringá. 

we had a family come to church this week, olivio and juliana with their little kid. they are awesome! they need to get legally married in order to be baptized, which means that i wont be here to see their baptism, but whats important is that they will be. they totally got to know everyone in the ward and everything, and they loved church, so they are going to start attending weekley now, and this week we are going to go with bishop over to their house and make some more concrete details on their marriage dates and all!

that was like the best part of my week. this last month has been the most stressful of my life. there are alot of missionaries with certain things going on which will remain nameless, but at least i am getting to talk alot with Presidente Tavares.

this last week was christmas conference! that went extremely well. our mission president gave a presentation on the atonement of jesus christ that was one of the more spiritual experiences of my mission. i remember lehi, when he had his vision, he went back to his house exhausted, and went right to his bed. well the day after i was sooo tired, it was ridiculous!

also, the wife of president tavares asked me to sing a duet with a sister, like an hour before we had to. we sang as the last song after al the training "lord i would follow thee" in portuguese. it went well! i was nervous, its not like ive ever sang for anything, but i think it was alright.

so this week was really rushed, and this next week seems just the same. i am 100% sure that i am leaving next week, just to give you a heads up. i cant say negative things about anything in the emails, but there are problems in about every area in our zone, with missinaries. as i was talking to president again yesterday, he told me "when tranfers come, you wont have to deal with these exact problems anymore, but you will still have other problems as you lead other missionaries" so im going to get a little head start on packing my bags. 

i love you guys! sorry i couldnt write more! until next week

Elder Hoskin

Hello! 

Dad, i think that america has so many good traditions, that its easier to do activites with the youth or in general in church. for example, you made wreaths, and i dont even know what people here would do as a christmas activity. i didnt get to see that christmas devotional, but im sure it was great! here in this city, there are a ton of christmas lights, which was not happening there in marilia, so that a good thing. about the only sign i have of christmas here! yes, that was my companion in the picture i sent. that sounds like the temple was wonderful! we will totally do that once im home. 

momma, i didnt see the devotional, but i read a talk by elder eyring a couple of weeks ago called gifts of love, that talked about how to give a gift with love, and talked about christs gift to us and all that, so yeah ahah. that is truly a universal truth, and axiom as ayn rand calls it. people think capitalism means big business, and taking over an industry. but its really justy making something for yourself. thats why wee need practice, nothing is or should be free. just like if you were to practice and become a tennis pro, or i was to design and build my own house by myself, we can also look back on years of activity in the church (or in my case, the mission) and see the testimony we have developed, and how we are progressing. i have a quote by Elder Maxwell that is one of my favorites. he says that in a mortal world, we are immortals commanded to live immortal principles. woo!

so, this week was one of the craziest weeks on the mission. let me start out with some inital things to say so that mom or no one gets scared. i am completely unharmed, as well as my companion, or the people we were in the car with, or anyone else. 

but! yesterday, i got into one of the more serious car accidents of my life. let me explain!

so i got to church 9 am on sunday, and got a call from the missionaries in cianorte, one of the outlying cities that is part of our zone. they had a baptism that was arranged for the branch president to do the interview, because of the distance from us, but that same morning one hour before church his wife went into labor, and had the baby. so, because of this, we had to find a way to interview the baptismal candidate.

so there was an older couple who were in the other ward who shares the same ward building as us, who knew the woman being baptized and were going to drive up there to see the baptism. so we asked them for a ride, and traveled the hour and a half with them by car up there. the baptism went really well, it was all spiritual, i did the interview (ps, i am doing tons of interviews lately! just this weekend i had 7, i am getting proficient at it), and all went really well.

so we ate lunch there, and started on home like 2:30.the car ride was just like the one out there, and about halfway home it started to rain alot, and the woman who was driving was sort of driving fast. anyways, we are on the highway, and we get to a part where we are like 10 minutes out of Maringá, and there is a semi truck that is in front of us, going really slowly because its a semi truck. so there were like 8 or 9 cars behind it, including us, and the woman who is driving the car decides to drive on that part of the road that is on the side of the road, its not really the street, but still is asphalt. where when you pull over, you stay. 

so she went on that in an effort to pass some cars, and eventually the semi truck, and she did that 2 times, each time it went well, she passed one or two cars, whatever. so she does it a third time (my companion is sleeping) and while she is side by side with a car going in the same direction, we see up ahead a part of the side of the road that is wayy raised up, like a huge bump. 

so we all start sort of freaking out as we see it, and she cant pull back into the road because shes side by side with a car. so we go over it, and you hear this horrible noise right underneath the car, and then once we pass it the car starts turning lightly in the direction of the field slash ditch on the right side of the road, and she yanks at the steering wheel to correct herself. as she does this, we stop curving to the right (the field), and fly to the left, where we cross both lanes of highway, in doing this, we hit another car that is coming in the opposite direction of the side of their car, and then pass, continue drifting accross the highway to the right, drift off the road, and into a ditch, where a tree stops the momentum of the car (see the other picture,of that silver car in the grass. i was seated inthe back with my companion)

and so thats basically how it happened. i am completely fine, and i know that i was protected by the lord. when we went in to the ditch, i felt the feeling like we were going to roll, the car i mean, but the tree that was there stopped us from doing so. the car was really small, and i am tall, and so the car not rolling really was a life saving blessing.

so i called President and Sister tavares afterwards to tell them about everything that went down. president tavares told me this "Elder Hoskin, i promise you that your life was saved, and the others with you, only because you and your companion are following the rules of the mission and the commandments. it is because of this that you were protected" crazy, right?! the more i think of it, there are so many small details that if they would have been changed my only fractions of seconds or things like that, it would have been a whole lot worse. if it was delayed a half a second, we would have hit the car going in the opposite direction head on, ect. but i am ok! i know the lord protects me. so that was a nice experience, what matters is that we baptized.

onto the next great part, so monday night my companion was opening his journal, and he opened it, and there was a bug that jumped onto his hand, without him realizing. he then went to casually itch his eye, and the bug released some sort of liquid directly into his eye. he said that it burned like nothing else before in his life, and he started screaming, literally doing anything to wash it or get the pain out, he was going nuts! so i called Sister tavares, and then called a member (this was 10 oclock at night), and we went to the hospital, where the doctors washed out his eye for like 20 minutes. well, it literally burned the skin around his eye, and luckily they washed his eye. his vision was blurry for about 2 days, and now its almost all better. he couldnt go out in the sun for 3 days, and even after has had to use sunglassed for a week, and has a burn mark on the skin around his eye. crazy, right?

third part of the week, the assistants to the president are working in all the zones on the mission, so this week was our turn here. the entire week, i worked in my area only sunday night 6pm to 9pm. all the other time, i was either in the hospital with my companion, traveling and getting into a car accident, or in other areas in our zone, helping missionaries, interviewing investigators for baptism and all that. it has been one of the craziest weeks on the mission! 

whats important is that im okay, and doing well. i love you guys, have a great week! and dont get worried, its all done. on monday morning last week, i prayed for mountains like elder eyring did, and oh how they came! i love you guys! have a great week, and until next week!

Elder Hoskin

hello family!

Mom, i got the package! thank you SO MUCh. i am sending pictures of how my thanksgiving went, i made a thankgsiving feast on friday, because we didnt have a lunch appointment, like we did on the actual day. but it turned out really well! also i love the PMG, it is very handy, and now when i travel to londrina, or district meeting, ect, i dont have to lug around the big one. ALSO that camera you sent me is awesome, just thank you very much for everything! i like alot that talk by elder uchtdorf, his talks are always excellent, and seem to be just what i need to hear. about you coming to brazil, i understand if you feel like it would be difficult here, that was one of my biggest concerns was how you would be able to eat, because the food here is probably very heavy and such, so if you decided not to go i will be ok with it, as long as i can give you a big hug in the airport. also, i dont know how your thinking about it, but if you would want to send joseph in our place, that would be cool. but just figure out what is best for you guys!

dad, its depressing to hear that notre dame is number one in the country. i dont even know what to say. it sounds like the trip up there was quite the long haul, next time theyll need to come down to pittsburgh! haha. the internet capibilities will be fine i think for skype, i heard that it depends where you do it. if i stay here in maringá, it will be totally fine because the member that ive already planned with has internet in his house because he works from home, so its reliable and stable, i think. i remember that talk by elder christofferson, his talks are indeed wakerupers. i really miss the temple. we have to go together when i get back, because after going through in the MTC, ive been deprived now. 

soo to start off, yes i got glasses. this will be one thing you see in the photos ive sent this week, and i have to use them all the time. things have gotten alot more clearer than i thought they would be, i knew that i was having headaches and difficulties and all, but it wasnt until i got the glasses that i really noticed how my vision was blurry and all. but now its all good!

this week i went to londrina for the leaders council, and it was one of the marking experiences of my mission. President Tavares gave a training about the doctrine of crist, and how the doctrine changes behavior, and it was all things that i knew before, but just something about how it was discussed this last week really strengthened my testimony, it was one of those rare moments when you feel like you are significantly converted, seeing as how it usually comes line upon line, and you barely notice. but this week i noticed.

we had a man come to church this week who we found last week, his name is olivio, and he his i think the most prepared person i have ever come across on the mission. he loved church, and he is totally progressing and getting to know all the members. i wanted to ask you guys to put him in your prayers this week! (oh-leee-vee-ohh) i would be grateful.

this week i well be reading the following 2 talks: 

the wind beneath your wings - Elder Uchtdorf

our moral test - D. Todd Cristofferson

truth restored - Elder Uchtdorf


onto the plans for picking me up on the mission. i have an update! so i found out this week that normally how picking up a child works is that we use the last week of my mission to show you around. before, i thought it was after, but how it would work is that you would get here one week before my plane flight home, and we woud go around and see all the stuff, and then come back to londrina, have all the ending stuff with president, and then we go back to the states just like if i had left normally. so we gotta get on that! 

i got to give a talk this last week on the theme "christ, our leader and savior". i talked about how he leads us by example, both in word (or commandments, such as baptism) and caracter (who he was as a person). it went well! and was also very very easy.

i love you guys, and have a great week! until next week, and just to reaffirm we need to get on the plans for you to come out here, the quicker the cheaper! until next week!

Elder Hoskin.

family!

mom,  im glad to hear that the grandparents are going well. it us true that one time grandma barrowes wondered if i was anorexic, but i am eating alot here, so im not sure whats going on. haha. that is cool that you took a one day trip down to the deaf branch! it would be way cool to learn sign language, maybe ill ask for some basics when im home. im going to londrina today, so i will get out the package, as well as get a consult about needing glasses more, so we will also se how that goes. 

dad, it sounds like you are working alot! good thing work is one of the principles of the church. gifts of the spirit is always something interesting that i have wanted to look into more, i will let you know how that studying goes next week. i was able to pull off extending my mission, because i am almost in brazil 1 year and 4 months, and my visa still hasnt been extended, which i believe gives me more time, because im waiting for the papers to go through the goverment, something like that. i was sad to hear that oregon lost, but ill be there to see them win next year. 


to start off, let us try to get together skype for the christmas call! i am thinking we should definately do it. i just need an account that i can login to, and an account that you all log into, so that we can communicate, but i cant remember my skype account. so if you guys want to give me the password to abby or jennys or someones, and then you guys have moms, something where theyre already "friends" on skype, it will work out well.

so this past week was basically awesome! me and my companion are working a ton. i worked with Elder Sena, but me and Elder Thomas are in the same group, aka we have the same time remaining on the mission, so were both just living it up. he is from weiser, idaho, and we already found alot of great people. 

one person that sticks out is a man named olivio, we made a bus contact with him, gave him the book of mormon, and eh already read 3 nephi 11 before we taught him for the first time! he is totally accepting of everything, and it seems like his family is going to really become part of the church. great experience

im going to londrina for the leaders council tomorrow! so i will get the package, get to have a great training, and tavel a little bit, which is always nice. all the chaos of people entering and leaving in regards to transfers has also left, so now thankfully its just us and our area to work in.

so three talks im going to read this week:

1. atonement, agency, responsability - Elder Boyd K Packer

2. cast not away therefore your confidence - Elder Holland

3. Meekly Drenched in Destiny - Elder Maxwell

im real excited, and they should all be really good!

im way excited for christmas, its already coming up. i cant wait to call, and see how everyones doing. its going to be my last christmas without snow in my entire life, at least i hope. 

today i read alma 26, and i really loved that chapter. it talks about how he became an instrument in the lords hands to bring thousands of people unto christ. missionary work is going to be part of who i am, and what i do in the church for the rest of my life, any calling i have has to have some influence with missionary work! woo.

i learned this week that when it all comes down to it, the only person who really benifits from commandments is us. god is all powerful, and can do anything he wants. but when we follow his commandments, the only benificiary is us, because we get his blessings. it helps me have a greater vision in why its important to follow commandments.

well, until next week all, send more photos if you guys take them, and i love you guys! 

also, mom, can you send me recipe to make mashed potatoes, and if possible, homemade stuffing? you dont need to if one of those things is found in that package, ahah

bye!

Elder Hoskin

ps, one more cool quote "the purer the sacrafice, the quicker the progress" yessh

Hello family!

Well im real rushed today in regards to transfers, so its going to be
a little short but still good.

mom, im sorry romney lost. but i know that the lord wont let the US
collapse, because its in the book of mormon! also, im excted for the
package! the other package came, but the secretaries of the mission
called me and said that i have to pay a 205 reais (100 dollars about)
in import tax to liberate my package. so electronics make it pricy.
thats cool that you guys had joes farewell. it sounds like the maloney
family has changed alot since they left pittsburgh, and im very happy
for joe!.

dad, i loved the story that you sent me about tim bird. its those
kinds of stories that make me even more excited for the mission and
such! im sure that experience also helped you to prepare as my dad,
which helped me be here as well. also, im sorry psu lost.

so onto everything else

well first of all, the church department has officially approved, and
i am now 100 percent ending the mission august 27th, as opposed to
july 14th. my mission has been extended. i repeat. it has been
extended! but now that we know this we can get on the plans for you
guys to come out here, the earlier the better,  in both cost and
logistics, so i would get on it as soon as possible! plan to be out
here for 4 or 5 days, however seems better, most expensively buy the
plane tickets first to see what days we will have, and then i can plan
some city to city sorts of logistics, and we can get it all planned!
but i am way excited to be here another month and a half

SO transfers, i am staying here! as was predicted. but something not
predicted. my new companion is Elder Thomas. he is one of my, if not
my, best friends here on the mission that i have made. seriously. and
now that my mission is extended, we are in the same "group" because i
am now leaving with him. so that is way exciting!

i wanted to tell you probably the strangest and grossest story of my
mission as of now. well, i own a copy of jesus the christ in
portuguese, its 800 pages, as you know. it sits on my study desk, with
an equally large dictionary and another sound box on top of it. well i
went to get it one morning this week, and what did i find?

a cocroach had entrered IN MY BOOK, between two of the pages, a fully
grown cocroach. he supported all of the weight of that book, and the
other, and the sound box, and manged to sneak in between two pages of
my book. is that just disgusting, or what? HORRIBLE. how can it enter
into a crevice like that? are you kidding me?

you could see the tiny gap that his body had created, it was gross. i
cant even describe it right, but i cant get over the fact that a
cocroach entered into a freaking heavy book, with weight on top of
it.ridiculous.

thats all i can throw down for this week! i love you guys, and until next week!

Elder Hoskin

hello everyone,

mom! i am going to the optomitrist this week, the mission doctor thinks i need permanent glasses. i am getting old on the mission. we will see. i am going to try to vote. i liked your experience, i was talking with elder sena about this the other day, and we were talking about how our mission president makes quick descisions in the moment in regard to new rules, ect. i explained that i think he gets it from the spirit, and then just does it, and if he had thought about it for a week it could of had an influence. a good lesson indeed! i dont know who my new mission president is, i dont know if i cleared it up but he gets here next july. i will think abou the christmas box :)

dad, i liked the lesson you gave on sexual purity. thats a goodie! also, im glad you liked the mission ties letter. did you guys forward the other to grandma and grandpa? college football is going smooth! and im sure it will be good up there at ben and masacos.

joseph, yes! its a boy! i am excited for a nephew, so thats going to be basically awesome. congrats!

so everything is going well this week, alot of things happened that sadly were out of the missionary work. me and my comanion had to have a couple of interviews with sisters who were (are still) fighting, and that was a ball of joy, and experience haha

also, today starts the last week of the mission of my companion! hahah he got his itinerary for his last 4 days in the mission and all that, and he is feeling it. i am helping him try to stay focused as much as possible, but for some people there just isnt a way to avoid it. so i will very most likely stay here one more transfer, and 100% get a new companion, sadly. he is a great companion, ill never have another as much time as i was companion with him!

so a sister im friends with here, Sister Lopez, introduced to me a sweet idea. she has a voice recorder, one of the sort of ones that dad had when he started work and all. but hers isnt tape, its just a digital track that you record, then the recorder has a little usb place to be able to download it to the computer. and so she records a weekley message for her family, and sends it off on pday, and the communication get a ton better because i can actually tell you guys how its going! as well as write an email still. so thats what i would like for christmas, if you want to find one. it just has to be digital recording, with a usb appendade to download it to the computer. what do you think?! i think its a great idea!

oh so i had to do the voting stuff today, which took up alot of time, so i cant write too much, but i love you guys! and have a great week, i hope that next week we have an LDS president.

tchau!

Elder hoskin

From October 29th:
hello everyone,

mom, your eating habits are going to be difficult here in brazil! but nothing that we cant handle haha. also, questions are one of the best ways i retain what i learn, so congrats! thats good to hear that dan maloney is going back to church! does he go to our ward? i want to see the costumes, at least next week! so send em off

dad, im sorry this week has been real busy for you! it sounds like you are really getting to know west virginia pretty well, haha. im sorry that penn state lost, but at least it seems like they will still continue to do well, they didnt get crushed. also, go oregon. and also, the mission will be getting a new mission presidente july 1, to answer your question. so when i end my mission (17 july) is right after, or when i get extended (27 august) will be like a month and a little after he gets here. so it will be right at the end. 

so! first thing

i was really happy to hear about joes talk in our ward. im really excited for him to serve a mission. its been quite a journey until weve reached this point, us 2 serving missions, and i am sure now that it is going to be really great. i was happy to hear that he is excited to serve, and i only hope the best for him! but i will be keeping in contact with him via letters, so its all good ahah.

so about my mission getting extended, my president still hasnt heard anything. but we are hopeful that ill recieve a response this week, so i willl let you know about that!

as for the talks i will be printing out and studying this week, are as follows:

1. Brad wilcox - his grace is sufficient

2. Elder Holland - never was anyone like him (i think? trying to translate from portuguese, and titles of things often arent the exact same)

3. President Eyring - gifts of love

i bet theyll be good!

the ones from last week were awesome, i like to think of it as im learning to be a good dsiciple. 

this week i have been administrating alot, getting a house set up in another city to have missionaries enter there, and then other things in other cities. its all been very rushed!

but, everything is going well with me this week. i had to use the plastic on a couple of important things, one of which being medicine. yes, medicine haha.

for the last 3 weeks, i have been getting headaches every single day, that last around 5 hours. so i started taking ibuprofein, and didnt work, so then they had me by more powerful stuff, and it has basically taken care of it, for now. but when your sick, getting rid of the cough doesnt cure the flu, so we will see if i actually get better! but all is well, im doing great

also, seeing as how i am camera-less now, i may start looking around to see if there is a reasonable camera. the good news is that everything here is half the number, because of the real and dollar. the bad news is that it is still more expensive than usual, so things are not actually 50 percent cheaper, but maybe like 30 or 40. i will look around! 

this week we got a new bishop, and he called a new elders quorum president, and a new bishoprich, and a new ward mission leader, so everythings moved around, but everything seems like its going to be an improvement! so that is good

my companion is getting trunkier by the day, he is 2 weeks away from going home. and it is starting to get to me  a little, it was inevitable as his companion. i am missing home more, and also am seeing him leave, and satan just uses it, uses it, uses it. but i will live.

but everything is going well, our area is getting difficult in regards to work, but it still is fine. it has been HOT here the last few days, but i have to learn to appreciate the hot, because normally people complain about heat when its hot, and cold when its cold, and itd be good to learn to enjoy it while i have it, because ill never live in a hot place :) haha.

i love you guys! have a great week, and until next week!

also, i sent off that other letter i said i would send thursdaym so it should get there early this week.

hello family,

 

mom, thank you for the package :) im not sure if youve bought that deoderant yet, but if you havent you should look for after hours, if you already have that is fine. im excited for the new preach my gospel! they always told me when i donated blood in high school that we are not allowed to not eat beforehand, haha, it is also kind of cool to have that experience.

 

dad, im glad that youre up for keeping up in reading materials with me! i will keep you updated. it sounds like penn state is going really, really well. also oregon! i will be seeing highlights when i return, or at least hearing how it went. its good that your looking over the activities the young men do, and that theyre worth their time. i remember the times where the activities werent too well planned, and when they were totally worth it, and it made a big difference. i hope i get to see pictures of the house this week! to see it all new. our house seems like a restored car now, everything is new except for the shell, the windows, steps, ect ect haha. also, i have been telling my companion stories of our family (our 3rd transfer together, that never happens so theres lots of time to talk) and he just wanted me to send you a whats up from him, because he tells me that he thinks you would be really cool if he met you haha.

 

now onto everything else

 

well the big news for this week comes from the interview that i had with president on friday

 

i had this subject that was entering into my mind for weeks before the interview, that i should do it, and on friday i decided i wouldnt ask him about it. but when i got into the interview, once again i felt something different that i should ask him if i can extend my mission. so i did. and when i told him that i felt like i needed to do it, and that i felt like mostly it was to help the new mission president, he told me that he felt as well that it was something god wanted. so we talked over a few logistics, the only thing left remaining is just him confirming with the mission department, and he said its 99% sure now, i am going to stay on the mission another transfer! another 6 weeks. i got here 27 of july, my day to leave used to be 14 of july, but now its going to be the 27th of august.

 

i am way excited! and president is really excited too for me, he just needs to confirm with the mission department because he never extended someones mission before, so he needs to just figure it out, but basically it worked out the lords way. he said normally they only let you stay if the next transfer is within 30 days of when you got into the mtc. does that make sense]? i got in the mtc 27 of july, and so it works out for me because i will leave 27 of august. its going to be a different oppertunity to work more! and for that i am excited

 

about you guys coming out here to pick me up, basically we can plan now for the 27th of august, a wednesday, for you guys to land here in brazil, but give me one more week to confirm 100%, he is going to get a response tomorrow, and i will relay it to you guys. but as soon as we know for sure, we need to get on it, or else it will get real expensive

 

so the rest of the interview went really well, i love my mission President.

 

the 3 talks im going to print out and study this week, just to keep dad in the loop are the following: 

 

 

the pathway to discipleship - neal a maxwell

 

the inexhaustible gospel - neal a maxwell

 

the atonement of jesus christ - jeffry r holland

 

the church is true, and i know it,

i love you guys, and until soon!

Elder Hoskin