Hello family!

Well i just want to start off by saying that for some reason its not letting me upload 2 photos for this week, so i will try to send them off next week if thats ok.

Mom, it sounds like you are really learning alot in the old testament. I have been too! its really an interesting part of scripture to study, i am hoping that when i return from the mission i can study it more in college or something, who knows. Maybe i can just ask you :). it sounds like winter has been pretty soft there haha, not knowing exactly how cold i have been telling people here that it snows alot there and is very cold, because its the truth most of the time! Its great to hear that joe is doing well, i hope he likes my letter, just tell him that he can respond to it with the return address on the back.

Dad, It sounds like that night with michelle and all the family was great! im glad to hear that you guys had a great time, my whole family :) thats also sweet that you got to go toa devotional in that new building, its huge! i remember the first time i can remmeber seeing an apostle was there for the dedication fall semester, when Elder Bednar and Elder Eyring were there, it was really sweet. Thats good that you are doing indexing, i have felt guilt many times here on the mission about that semester in rexburg i had that calling and never did it, but i will make up for it when i get home. the devils just need to get 4th or above, just home ice advantage in the first round and everything will be fine. start those preparations, it will be awesome when you guys come out!

ok so now onto everything else that heppened this week. Well first of all i have sort of made the descision that while waiting for michelle (or together, completely married :) ) i want to change up how i do byu idaho. there i think the rule is that you can take a religion class or go to institute each semeseter, well i think that maybe i just want to do institute! i have been using the manuals here of institute (in portuguese) and it helps me learn things alot more in depth, which is exactly what i like. we will see, just a thought! does anyone know how many days institute is, or how it works in rexburg?

so this week us 4 missionaries here in our ward planned this huge activity for saturday. we told everyone in our ward to bring a friend and such, and it ended up being a huge success! we only had 7 investigators there, but 7 is actually alot, and there were alot of members who showed up as well. we had different things to do, and from the beginning everyone was split up into 3 teams, orande purple and blue. so there were a bumch of activities, where at the end of the day the team who did the best would win a ton of candy. of some of the activities 2 were the most unique i think. the first was that we cut out all fancy 3 sets of the 12 apostles, with 2 of the 70, and each team had to try to first figure out who was the 12, and then arrange them in order! it actually ended up going really well. the last activity was a treasure hunt on the chapel grounds. first of all, our chapel is huge, its the biggest chapel ive ever seen. and so each team had 15 clues that we hid earlier that day around the chapel, and the clues were only scripture references, where each clue they had to go to the scripture and figure out what the clue was. it worked out really well! i spend like an hour looking in the book of mormon for good scriptures that could be a realatively easy clue, and afterwards just went straight to psalms, and it got 80 times easier. but it worked out really well!

and best of all, one of the investigators who we had there her name is vitoria, and we have been teaching her for a while. well after the activity she came up to us and told us how she wanted to be a part of our church and be baptized, so then the next day we had her baptism! she was really happy, and it all went very well, her parents are 100% supportive and they have always wanted to go to our church, so now they are growing in reasons and desire to do so.

so that activity was a huge sucess! and it showed that missionary work isnt just always knocking on doors. we sacraficed alot of our work time thursday to get everything arranged, and while it seemed like ti was making things difficult with ´numbers´ it completely paid off in the end. it was a great lesson to learn

oh one other thing! on a side note, i chipped one of my teeth, just a little its barely noticable unless you are me, so i went to the dentist and have an appointment arranged for tomorrow at 4:30 pm my time. in total its going to cost 160 Reals, which is 93 dollars. the church doesnt pay for dentist work, and its actually really cheap for the whole operation! so i just wanted to give you the heads up, so you would know.

we had zone conference this week. it was really good to learn alot from our mission president. it was about how we shouldnt be afriad to start teaching initially with the book of mormon, things like that. so now i just walk with the book of mormon in hand, and its the first thing i talk about with people! so far its going really well. and the bible is good, but the book of mormon is what separates us from other religions (fullness of the gospel, restoration, revelation, ect) and so it makes sense how we should talk about it initially.

well i have to go now, but i am so glad to hear that everyone had a great time together in rexburg! i love you all, and just keep doing what you are all doing, you guys are great! i love you all, until next week!

-Elder Zachary Paul Hoskin