This is a transcribed voice recording from Elder Zachary Hoskin. 12/30/2012

Hello Family

Good Morning, its like 6:50 in the morning I am going to be sending this in apucarana.  So the Christmas call was pretty awesome, we will do that next time we do a call.  I remember thinking before we did the call, I hope I don’t regret not skyping the first two times, but yeah,  that kind of happened.  But, we will just do it on skype next time, and that will be fine.

So, what happened the rest of the week, on Thursday I got to travel to Londrina.  I got to accompany an elder in our zone, who is one of the more difficult missionaries there is, he was called by the president to have an interview with him.  So, I got to travel to Londrina with him.   I got to be there in the mission office for two hours while he got interviewed.  And then, we were there the entire day cause we like traveled there after lunch, then be there, then travel back.   It was actually really good because I got to know him a lot,  and talk to him, so I will be able to help him more.  So, that was really cool.  Also I got to talk to president a lot because we were right there.  That was also really nice.  Also, we have this family that are recent converts here.  The man’s name is Jose Antonise.  His family of 7 has already been baptized.  But, last week we baptized his parents in-law, his wifes parents.  They got confirmed today, so we went by there today after church, or yesterday after church to see how they were doing.  And they had their whole extended family there because the grandparents will be (going to be?) baptized and they have like 7 kids.  And they all have little families now.  So we talked to two of their sons who were ther with their families.  One of them had already decided to start going to church just because of  what they already said about it.  Also, there is another one who played soccer at the church like 17 years ago, so he already knows a lot about the church.  Its funny, cause like in the US they play basketball, but here they play soccer like every Wednesday night, and there are always lots of people who aren’t members.  Its really cool..  And so we are going to keep working with this family to see if they can be baptized.  We are going to fill out a pedigree chart with them, which is going to be sweet. 

And, then, what else happened good this week.  It has been raining a lot here, which has made it colder, which is really nice.  It looks like its going to rain today again, which means theres not going to be any sort of sun, which is awesome.  I have almost already eaten  the entire Christmas package already.  But that’s all right.

I was thinking of names for Joseph and Alayna’s kid.  I don’t know if you want to go for any ‘out there’ names, or like, typical names.  But if it had to be a typical name, I like the name Joel, that’s a pretty cool name for a guy.  I also like the name Charles or James.  I love the name James.  I think the name James would be a pretty cool name.  But, I am sure you guys will figure it out. 

So I am on top of a really big hill, its high altitude or whatever.  And I don’t know why, but here, we have so many mosquitos.  And, mom, you guys know I have always got eaten alive by mosquitos.  So, like, so far on my mission I have always gotten mosquito bites, but its never been bad.  But like, here, I am getting eaten alive.  But is okay cause I am getting use to it. But, every time I wake up I have like, a lot more.  But, its actually pretty good.  Cause, that’s the worst that’s happened to me in regards to like health, so its okay.  So, I have been thinking about the BYU provo, BYUI type thing.    Whatever you look into mom will be pretty….  I just want to get transferred to byu utah, but I k now  a lot of people who are going to byu Idaho, so I feel like it would be okay if I had to keep going there.  But the priority is going to byu utah.  And the reason I want to go to BYU utah is because, I just feel like I need to go there.  I just feel like I could meet a lot of cool people there. 

And, Yeah, so that’s basically how I spent my week.  I probably sound tired right now, that’s because I just woke up.

So, this week is going to be good.  We are going to start teaching those two families I talked about.  And, we are just going to keep doing missionary work.  I started to read the book of mormon in English.  I talked to my mission president., I said hey, do you think I should start reading the book of mormon in English.  Because  what happened is at district meeting they always ask one missionary to bear their testimiony in Portuguese and one in English.  So, recently I bore my testimony in English for the first time in a while, and I could totally tell there was a lot more conviction, and lot more sincerity by what I was saying.  I could tell my testimony had grown inbetween that time when I had said it last.  That was a really cool experience, so I thought it would be cool also to read the book of mormon in English, so see if my general understanding and my general knowledge of the scriptures has grown.  So, I asked him, and he said that was a totally good idea..  so he gave me a normal copy of the book of mormon in English.  He said that General Authorities, they usually say that you should always study, when you do personal study, you should always study in your native language.  No matter what happens, you will always pick up more with your native language.  So, I am going to start reading the book of mormon in English, and that will be pretty awesome.  Two days ago, I read 3 nephi 27.  Its really good in English now.

 So, I hope everything is going well for you guys.  I hope the winter is not too harsh.  I think Joseph and Alayna are going to be going back to school these days.  So I hope the best for them. 

I love you guys,  and this is my voice recording for this week, and I will talk to you next week.  And, I love you.

Bye.