Hello Family!

Jenny, i think the smarter siblings club is getting along great! also
jenny i have met and been able to help many great people out here :) .
its getting cold today now that you ask! you are incredibly smart for
knowing exactly why the seasons are reversed here and there, and there
are monkeys here! i have yet to see one, but i will. There are also
other strange animals. Basically there are no american animals here,
like squirrels or deer or stuff like that, just brazilian ones.

Maja, thank you for sending the package! its true that im staying, so
it will all work out okay with that. happy birthday abby! i am jealous
of your german chocolate cake, but more happy for you than anything
else! fifteen??? are you kidding me? one more year and you will start
to date.. but that doesnt matter because i need to meet them first, so
really its one year and 3 months. im sorry mom that you are still
struggling with the fatigue, have you found out exatly what it is?

Dad, thank you for the wonderful news about the devils. i have nothing
to say about the flyers, but lets hope it goes well. im just going to
throw in a quick comment that the west side of the playoffs looks
completely ridiculous. 12 families leaving the ward? holy crap. that
is a ton! are they dental students still, or what? i think you will
probably get a new calling in the future, that does seem like some
time significantly being in the high council. mothers day call! well i
dont know exxactly where it will be yet, but i will mark 4:00 for the
time as of now for me to recieve the call. make sure michelle is in on
the planning too! i will find out the number and send it to you all
good next week.



ok now onto everything else!

so ill start out with the highlight of my mission so far, which was
seeing an apostle this past saturday, Elder Cook! well let me explain
how it all went down. so i woke up at 2:45 am in the morning, to walk
45 minutes to where the bus was going to pick us up. then we all as
missionaries got in the bus, and traveled almost a 4 hour bus ride to
londrina. we got there at just about 9 after all of it, and the rule
was by 9:20 we had to be seated reading scriptures silently, in the
chapel. then Elder Cook, Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the presidency of
the 70, and 2 other are 70s of brazil entered a little after, and
before anythign started, Elder cook requested that we all shake his
hand. so i got to shake his and all of their hands! and then so the
conference started, and he talked alot about different things about
missionary work, and it was really really helpful. i learned about
´real gowth´in the church. one of the interesting things both Elder
Cook and Elder Clayton said were that missionary work now needs to be
50% baptizing and 50% reactivation, which is a change to mostly all of
the missionaries at least in my mission. then towards the end he gave
us 2 ´apostolic blessings´ that seemed like they were pinned right at
me.


anyways, so that was basically the more or less of what happened. i
can explain it better to yo all outside of email in the future, but as
soon as it was done we got sent into the buses and took the 4 hour
trip home. and it was totally worth it. it was the highlight of my
mission, and a huge testimony builder. i even got to ask him a
question and have him respond and everything, it was just a great
experience.

so let me go on to the other parts of the week that arent as great,
dad, i would like to inform you that i found out the same time i am
ending my mission, and you and mom and who else are coming out here to
pick me up (if you still do), it will be exactly when the confederates
cup happens here in brazil. just wanted to let you know :)

also, in case you havent noticed, i am staying here in palmital! so
now i know 100 % that i will be leaving four weeks  from tomorrow, but
i will be here for the call and that package you sent and everything,
so all is well.

i have started a tradition where every week on the mission, while i am
here on the web i print out a conference talk from last conference. i
think its a great way to keep applying conference to our lives, and i
think that keeping conference with us until the next one is something
that we all need to do! (see Mosias 5:1-5). but i would suggest it to
any of you, its just a nice thing to have.

that picture that i sent is one of my ´trainer´, me, and my trainee at
the conference. so, 3 generations if you want to call it that. i got
to see all the missionaries that i have ever seen there

well i lvoe you all, and im out of time! but know that youre always in
my prayers, and i look forward to next monday, i hope you guys have a
great week! i love you!

Elder Hoskin