hello!

so my voice recorder got a virus, and i have to get it formatted for it to work again. which means, sadly, that ill have to get rid of the clip i made, but now it will work next week, so i am sorry! i will actually send two next week, one from this that i do today, and one from next week. 

i always wanted to go to phipps! thats cool that you guys got to go.

mom, i know what you mean about teaching and helping them to feel the spirit. thats something thats talked about often here, is eliminating distractions and making an environment where the spirit can testify and everything. it is indeeed difficult! i already figured the plan b in being an institute teacher is a must, so dont worry, i most certainly will! haha. also, it looks like ill have to get married quicker than i thought. we will see how it goes, but talking about getting interviewed and all the stuff it requires just makes me more excited slash determined to do it well. so yes! ps, i did the scholarship questionairre

dad, i have that talk by elder maxwel! i printed it out about a month ago, and have read it twice. i made a wallet out of pass along cards, and inside i have all the attributes we need to develop named in that talk, the ones we should be like, and their respective "not ___, not __". i read it multiple times daily, and measure how i am doing. that talk is truly the best dad! i agree. also, i am currently reading the lectures on faith., and a bunch of other talks that a professor put into a cirriculum with the talks. with every lecture there are scripture passages as well as other talks to read, and it is really helping out my general understanding of everything. but i will also go back into other talks! the olive press by truman g madsen, thats one of my favorites. march madness! i completely forgot about it to be honest. i will fill out a bracket with desmond next year. for each machup, i will put out both my hands, each representing one team. the hand desmond touches is the winner. i put it in the bracket, and do likewise for the entire bracket. he will win! 

its funny that as i write, my companion is freaking out to himself about his computer being slow. but things are indeed going well with us, we are helping eachother out alot, and we are finding alot of success. we have had some really good experiences this week, and i will tell you about them in full detail this next week when i send the email full of sound bites.

so just to say it quickly today, we have started a group in presidente epitácio, which is a really nice small town on the border of a big river that ends our mission boundaries. you should look it up on google maps! we had to travel 3 hours by bus to get there. the thing about the buses here is that they stop in all the little cities, so it takes way longer than it would by car



but just to let you know, im going to have to take out a little bit of money today, because i am waiting to get reimburced on all the bus travel we have to do, and that takes like 2 weeks to go through! im sorry.. it wont be too much either. 

i love you guys, and im grateful for all that we have as a family. i loved the pictues of desmond! i cant wait to see him. i hope you guys have an excelent week, i will send you two voice recordings next week to make up for the hiccup that happened today

have a great week! remember easter, and the lord and all that he did for us in those garden walls

Elder hoskin

hello everyone!

so i was completely overjoyed to hear that everything went well with alayna and the birth and DESMOND! let the name be known in all of hoskintown. anyways, so i cant wait for more pictures! the internet house i am at stinks, so i cant even save the pictures you sent me this week. joseph, if you havent sent the pictures yet, is there anyway you could do a favor for me? could you send me as well 2 ctr rings, size 11? if you could, that would be awesome! and if you cant, that is also completely fine. those kinds that are like silver and all that. 

so i also got very excited to hear that alayna and joseph and desmond will be in pittburgh when we get back! so ill be able to see him real quick. he looks adorable in the pictures! the photo joseph sent me makes him look like he´s going to be a boxer. 

i just want you to know, that i learned in psyschology that if you talk to toddlers and babys normally, instead of the "cooochy coochy coo", they will develop alot of communication skills more quickly, that eventually will pay off when he is serving a mission, and proclaiming the restored gospel with clarity and power, SO i will talk to him like that, and we will read preach my gospel together, and the pearl of great price. 

dad, the reason why some people come to get their kid in the last week is because of the plane ticket. SO if the church can change my plane ticket to one week after, (in the situation where we would stay the week AFTER my mission) that would be better, and if chelsea says its better, then we follow her! also, that recent news of the last date being the 21st instead of the 28th makes it work out perfectly. so do it like she says then! 

so i am really liking my new area, its always sort of stressful the first week or two getting settled and all, but that is always the way it is. i love the state of são paulo, the only time i was in this state on the mission before was Marília, my favorite area. so i already knew i was going to like the people here, because people from são paulo are just a better fit for me, i dont know why. 

my companion is good, he is brazilian, from the north, he has 0 patience in anything, but thats not me complaining, just me saying that i already have some idea of why heavenly father put me with him, now i need to figure out why he put him with me, and what i have to learn. woo!

i am going to londrina this week for leaders council, so that is always fun! from my new area its babout a 3 hour bus ride.

im sorry that i didnt get a voice recording, i will next week, i love you guys!

CONGRATS AGAIN TO JOSEPH AND ALAYNA (moreso alayna, she giving birth) and DESMOND! i am already planning uncle nephew activites for the next 18 years of childhood development. i will not be able to live far away.. 

until next week! i love you guys!

Elder Hoskin

Good Morning Mom and Dad.  It is March 11, 2013

Its like 6:35 in the morning.   And, today is the day of transfers.  Yeah, this week has been a pretty crazy week.  We went out on divisions again, and we’ve been working a lot.  Its been raining a lot, which is a good thing.  Things have been able to go pretty well in our zone.   Everyone seems pretty excited to work and everything.

 I sent you guys a letter from mission ties.  It has a little more detail on how the trip will be.  As it gets closer, I will give you more detailed information.  But, yeah.  (Big yawn)  Any more questions you have about that, please tell me. 

Today is transfer day, so at 11:00 is the time we will get our transfer information.  I think I might get transferred, but I am not sure.  But, we have a lot of people here who are really progressing!  So, even though I will probably get transferred, I would like to stay, because we have so many people here who are doing so well. 

Yesterday was a pretty big adventure.  (Laughs) Yesterday was a pretty crazy day, in regards to helping someone be baptized yesterday.  There was a douple, a companionship,  in a place called America that hadn’t baptized in a couple of weeks.  So, they told us they had someone who was going to go to church again, for multiple times.  And, that she was living all the commandments, but that she was not ready for baptism; just because she was scared, you know?  So what happened is, I slept at their house,  we did a division Saturday night, I like slept at their house.  Then I woke up and went to church with one of them.  She was there at church, so I was like, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? And, I did the whole, like, baptizimal interview thing.   And, that ended up lasting like an hour.  Maybe an hour and a little bit.  By the end of the interview she was like, ‘okay, I am going to go home today, and I am going to pray about it, and if I get a response, then I’ll get baptized today.’  I was like, okay!   We will pass by and see how your prayer was.  We had lunch afterwards, then we had to get a bus just to go to her house cause she lives really far away.  And, so we show up there around 4:00, or 4:30.  And she was like, ‘I said a prayer, and I felt good!  But, I don’t really know if that means I should do it today or not. “ She was kindof sortof being soft about it, like a lot of people are.  So we sat there, and we talked with her about what her response is, and what her response means, I used scriptures and stuff, so we were there for like another hour and a half at her house.   And, by the time we left, which was around 6:00, she was like, “okay, I will get baptized today.” So we took a bus, and ran to the chapel.  Then we had to fill up the font.  But, the only thing is, it takes a while to fill up, right?  And, it was already 7:00 when we got there.  And, the baptism was set for 8:00.   So, we had to get buckets and everything… We turned on the baptismal font, but at the same time we would fill up buckets, and like, keep throwing in the buckets, you know.  Just so we could fill up the baptismal font faster.  And then, around 7:50, it started raining ridiculously hard.  Like, crazy, ridiculously hard.  She called, and was like, “yeah, I just missed the bus, so we will catch the next one and be there around 8:30.  She said, ‘no, but its like raining, and maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t!  blah blah blah  So, we had to find a member, frantically, and he had to give us a ride through pouring, pouring rain, just to get to the bus stop where she was.  And, we got them, her and her sister I think it was.   We got them, finally around 8:10.  And, we went to the chapel.  And, it was still raining really hard, but it got a little bit better.  Then, we got the chapel, and it just happened, she got baptized.  Then, the baptismal service ended at 9:10, then we had to run to our house.  Cause we were in another chapel, which Is not our chapel, which is 20 minutes away from our house.  So, it was a pretty crazy day.  But it ended up being really good.  She was excited and really happy about the whole baptism thing.  I was one of those days that was like,…..  it was just crazy.  But, it was really worth it.  So, I’ll let you know if I get transferred or not, .  That’s kindof how my entire week has been, just running around like that. 

I’m getting really excited till you guys come out and stuff.  I only have four transfer now.  So, I have to make the best use of my time, but I’m getting really excited, and having a lot of success in the mission.  So, I have been able to really help people a lot.   And, that’s a good thing. 

And, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great week.  I will let you know more about transfers and everything. 

If Dad could find my priesthood line of authority, I think that would be pretty cool.  I have seen other missionaries with like, who gave this person the priesthood, who gave that person the priesthood, it goes back to Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ, right?  I have never seen that before, so maybe if dad could try to find that. 

Oh, and also mom, could you please send me your bread recipe?  I have kindof had the desire to make bread recently,  So just send me that recipe, and I will be able to make bread a lot.  I will be able to make food a lot cheaper. 

Okay! Bye!

hello everyone!

well i was really excited to hear about how alayna is basically having a baby as i write! you dont have to call my mission president if you dont want, thats fine, but i will want to hear all about it slash see some pictures of him next week! 

i am getting transfered! i will be continuing as a zone leader in a different city, called presidente prudente. its the hottest, and hardest city in the mission. but that, of course, wont get me at all unexcited. i am going to try to make that place the best! haha. i will tell you more about how that goes next week. you guys can look it up on google maps, see it in relation to the other cities in the mission, and where ive passed. actually, you can go on lds.org and go to maps, and make on of the layers "missions" and you can go and see my mission boundaries and all. just go for it! 

my companion is elder Mendes, a brazilian, he is really good. so im really excited for that, its been a while since ive had a brazilian companion, so im glad to have that oppertunity!

i dont have that much time to talk this week, because of transfers, but im way excited for the baby and all! also for this next part of the adventure, that is the mission. i have now only 4 more transfers, or 6 months. its only going to get better and better! woo.

i love you guys!

Elder Hoskin

Hey Mom and Dad!  It’s the fourth of March, 2013, Monday.  I just got done scrubbing all the collars of my white shirts, in the morning.  So, that was pretty nice.  Yeah, this week has been pretty good, pretty crazy, pretty good.  I did a lot of divisions this week again, but it was a good thing.  The month of March has now started, my companion goes home in April.  That will be interesting.  There’s going to be transfers next week.   So, not this Monday, but next Monday is the day we all receive the information, if I am indeed getting transferred or not.  And, I’ll probably be getting transferred.   Because, my companion will be ending his mission.  I will either get transferred, or stay here another 6 months.   Or stay 6 months in another area.   So, I’m pretty sure I’m just going to get transferred…. Please!  But, here is going really well.  I am enjoying the area where I am working.   I have been having a lot of personal progress these last couple of months…. Well, a year and 7 months.  On the mission, in regards to spirituality.  Its really nice.  Its cool because, every month, I grow more spiritually, but, it makes it so that I have the capacity, the next month, to grow even more spiritually  .

 I am getting really excited for Dad to come and pick me up!  That’s going to be awesome!   I am already trying to plan it out a little bit, with the members and stuff.  Its going to be hard, because we’re not allowed to write members inside the mission area that we didn’t baptize.  So, I’m going to have to figure out how to coordinate that.   But, I can just talk to other missionaries who are serving in my old areas to set it up for me. 

I read a talk called, The Olive Press, by Truman G. Madsen, this last week.  That talk was awesome!   I recommend it for Dad or Mom or Joseph or Alayna, anyone!   The Olive Press, by Truman G. Madsen.  You can find it on BYUspeeches.com  or .org, or something like that.  But, its crazy.  He talks about, before he went to Jerusalem, he didn’t really think the setting was important of the atonement.  He thought the atonement was important.  But, when he got there, he learned that everything has a symbolism of what Jesus had intentionally done.  And, I really liked that talk.   So, Dad, you should definitely read it. 

Oh, yeah, there was a missionary who got his hand bit by a dog about two weeks ago.  But, he went to the health-place to get the vaccine for not having rabies or whatever.   And, he didn’t know how to speak good Portuguese, so he left without getting anything.  So the mission president’s wife called us,  and freaked out.  She’s like, “Its been one week since he’s been bit, and he hasn’t got a vaccine yet!”  I was like, Oh no!  Then, she said, “Elder Hoskin, you need to go there with them.  And, you need to make sure he gets a vaccine.”  The way she told it to me, she said I couldn’t leave the hospital until he gets his vaccine.  Ha ha!  So I had to go there with them.  And, like, talk with the people and communicate and everything.  And, it was all right, although we were there until 6:00 in the afternoon.  I guess that was interesting. 

Also, we had an investigator that got baptized this last Sunday that makes ridiculously good ‘natural juice’.  One thing that Dad will realize when he comes out to Brazil, is that here they are all about the Juice.   Whether its natual or artificial juice,  it’s the best juice.  So she made us this really crazy natural grape and pineapple juice: like a mixture.   And, it was really good.  There is a place to buy juice in the bus station in Londrina, and it’s the best juice ever!   I’ll take Dad/Mom there cause its gonna be awesome! 

We have been having some really good investigators recently, that we have been finding.  Theres this young couple….  There is a church called the Christian Congregation of Brazil,  which is the enemy of all churches.  With the Catholic Church everyone is like,   ‘I’m Catholic!’  But the Christian Congregation, they are way intense!   They tell their followers that they shouldn’t even talk to us in the street.  If we say, “Hey! Good Afternoon!” They are supposed to ignor us.  So you can always tell who is from that church because people just straight up ignore you.   Anyways, we have been teaching a family of them that have been really receptive to us, they have really been liking the book of mormon.  So, that’s been a really positive experience.  Because it shows that, who the Lord prepares, the Lord prepares. 

I have been having dreams, like every single night, about baptizing.  I had a dream Thursday night that I was in Marumbee, that city outside of Apucarana that we were opening, and they were like, ‘you are going to baptize right now!’  And, I got really excited to baptize, but I didn’t have a white tie.  Which, you don’t really need, but in my dream I was running around trying to find a white tie to baptize.  It was really cool.  All my dreams have been about baptizing this week.  That’s probably just showing that, that’s my focus now.  Its funny because in the beginning of my mission I would have all these dreams about me and Michelle, just doing normal things, but now its just about baptism.  So, its obviously better. 

I got to go to another place in the middle of nowhere, called VillaHayes.  It’s a little part of the city that about half an hour out.  I went there on a division,  and it literally reminded me of Island Park.  Its like houses in the middle of the woods, hundreds of yards apart from the others, and we were just prosyliting.  It was pretty cool.  We visited some recent converts they had there and everything. 

So, things are going pretty well… pretty excellent.  I can tell I am getting a little more tired every single day, a little more tired.  But, that’s not a problem, that’s natural. 

I was thinking that maybe I want to send a package home with some stuff.  So, let me know if that is something feasible.  Just a little package with some things. 

But, I love you guys, I have to stop with the recording before it gets too big.  I am excited to be an Uncle.  But, I will talk to you later, I love you, Bye!