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