Week 26

Thank you for all of the pictures.  Ana Paula Augusta (who is the mother in the picture) was really excited to see that stuff on facebook.  We ran into them on their way home from school and work and they pulled over to show me what they had found on facebook.  It was really cool and I happened to have cookies in my bag that i was able to give to them so it was a pretty good little strengthing of our recent convert and her less active parents in the street mainly thanks to your help there.

So to answer some of your questions this week, the Phippens are heading out this week.  They are moving their bags to the Office on Saturday and right after Church on Sunday theywill head out to end their mission and go to Spain for a quick tour before going home. It is really sad to see them go they are really fun and helpful but it is good that they are heading home Elder Phippen is already 78 years old and they need to go be with their families after 4 missions.  Sister phippen threw a little party for us during our ward corrdination meeting where she made a bunch of american food and especailly pumpkin bread which was really good and will be sad to not get american cooking every once in a while now.  Hopefully President will stick to the plan and send the new casal here and they will get here soon.

I know that I have recieved a package becuase we ran into the Ransoms the casal that works in the office and I assume that it is the one you sent for my birthday but it is still in the office until I go to the office on wednesday with elder alves so he can go and see the doctor about the old noggin.  so I will get it soon,  I also got a birthday card from granny this week! Thank you for that.

Also I will go ahead and tell you now that I am going to be a little late on your card for your birthday mom.  sorry this month has been really fast.  But It will come eventually.

As far as matt I think that he is pretty ok with it.  He is more focused on having a rough time with his first comp with lots of time in the mission that is trunky and dissobedient.   But he also was discurraged that witney wasent all that impressed with what she has seen of the new guy of jenna,

That is a sweet idea with the TV will it be all just open or are you going to put like cupboards on the back? and thank you so much for all the pics of the house.  It is super awesome to get to see how much is already done.  I have had a hard time trying to imagine what it is looking like but now I know. Also It looks great!!  I am really excited to get to see it here in a year and a half now that I am days away from 6 months in portugal.

We had interviews with president this week. It was a really fast interview for me which was a little dissapointing becuase last time we had an interesting conversation and I learned alot.  But this time he basically just told me that I should be getting ready to train a new missionary because we will be having a lot of newbies coming in here soon.  so if that really happens that will be interesting. haha

This week we had a division with the lideres de zona  and I stayed here in Alverca with Elder Da Veiga.  We were able to have lots of success that day and it was a really good experience.  We were able to run into investigators that we have we have been trying to teach for quite some time and we had good lessons with them.  We have two of which are older ladies that are really interested and have clearly been prepared by the lord.  We are working on improving our follow up with them so that we can more have more consistent contact and good lessons so we can start seeing more aggressive improvement.  

Candida one of them is reading the book of mormon fairly quickly but she is reading the Index first becuase she wants to make sure that she understands all of the words and terms so that she can read it more smoothly.  Its pretty funny but she is reading it pretty quick so we will let her do her thing.

We had a powerful spiritual lesson with Ibe this week.  The phippens visited with us again which was nice becuase it made it so that I was not completely alone since we teach him all in english.  We started out following up on his doubts about the preisthood and poligamy which he seems to be more comfortable with now.  But then he started in on more doubts about Baptisms for the dead and how eternal families work.  For the baptisms for the dead he shared a scripture in the bible that said that the dead cannot benefit from things in this life once they have passed on.  This was in the New world version of the Bible in English.  He also had another bible in english which was a different translation that in that verse the way the word benefit, that was causeing the doubt was changed and the scripture clearly did not have the same message.  It made me very greatful that we have the Book of Mormon and modern profets to clear up these doubts and mistranslations that the bible has so that we can have the fullness of the Gospel. Quickly after that we began to testify of how the book of Mormon is true and that he needed to act with faith and get baptised.  I invited him with a date then but as an investigator with lots of time without being able to go to church was hesitent to move out of his comfort zone. We then turned to the importance of doing this as a family and the blessings that can come through the gospel as a family.  He accepted to pray about the 8th of March as the date of the baptism of his family with his family and we will be able to talk to him again this friday to see if he recognized the answer he got.   He has just a few weeks after his work contract that has kept him working all sundays ends on Feb. 28 until he leaves for africa and then england.  His wife and children were supposed to have already moved to England but becuase of a doctors appointment will be staying until after he leaves for africa.  so they will be together long enough to go to church twice and get baptised and confirmed.  I know that the Lord has given him and his family the opportunity to get baptised in those few weeks. And I know that he this is his will for them to be baptised on the 8th. The spirit testified that to me strongly in that lesson and I know that It will testify to Ibe as well.  The Lord needs baptisms and so we can and will baptise as long as we are putting our faith in the Lord.

Alright have a great week yall Love you all and hope the ole homeland america is still treating you all well.  Talk to you soon 

com amor.

Elder Hobson

Week 25 Vintage Joey ....

Ok to answer those questions first.  We go to one sacrament meeting.  We are 6 missionaries assigned to this one ward.  all wards here have atleast one set all to themselves and all branches too.  there is a lot more missionaries per member here then at home.  they are less selfsufficient. Yes elder alves was here for a month before I got here. they sometimes have two new missionaries in an area and this is called a whitewash.  President tries to avoid it but it happens quite a bit still becuase of missionaries coming and going in the mission with different numbers so areas have to close and get opened all the time.

So things that you could do for me please.  get on my facebook and make sure that it is all totally public and put somesort of river picture on there so I can explain what I did for the members here. also they are trying to add me and see stuff and it isnt working so that could be verry nice to have.  Also  I want to see pictures of the house please.  If you can just send them on the emails I would love to see the weekly progress. and I can always move them onto a memory card and print them off here for pretty cheap too if I want or just look at them through my camera. Also did dad get his birthday card?  and one other update apparently matt might be getting slowly dear johned right now as jenna is asking about marriage advice with some other dude.  fun fact.

This morning started out pretty exciting when I started a grease fire making popcorn.  It is all good though becuase the smoke quickly cleared and the alarm stopped and the danger of burning the house down went out the window when I just chucked the pot out of our third story appartment building window. ahaha fun times when elder alves is in the bathroom.  I ended up making something less dangerous chocolate chip cookies.  Also I had fresh bakery bread that I bought warm with some expensive cheese and smoked salmon for lunch today going fancy thanks Dana!

So dad you did have a more busy Sunday then I did.  We had church then ward council which was hectic then an almoco with the ward mission leader and his family including his less active son that lives in england so that was cool.  then after some proselitismo and passing some people in our area we went to the sisters area for a FHE with an investigator family that they have.  They are africans and we had some Papa which is basically gritz to eat with fresh milk which was exciting a good lesson with the proclomation to the world about the family and then we danced.  HAha I have a video of the black african ladies teaching me how to shake it and move to the rhythm ahaha.  they kept trying to partner dance with me which is clearly not something that a missionary can do but they did snap a picture of me when the lady grabbed my hands for a few seconds.  It was a lot of fun and some really hardcore laughs and good memories.  

Ibe's visit went well this week with the Phippens. I love working with the Phippens they have so much knowledge and experience I always learn alot and sister Phippen always gives cookies. :) They brought some good positive material to help him with.  We will continue to focus on the Book of Mormon because he says that he does not have any issues with the book of mórmon and believes that it is true.  I will work on trying to get him to go to church here and make it ser that he can get baptised before leaving by making some more specific plans with him this week. 

We are trying to get our eternal investigators João and Rosaria to make some strides so that they can get married and baptised.  They are more then willing to come to chruch and know it is true so we will work on making them feel the urgency of repentance and the importance of getting on the path through baptism immediately.  We are using all of the ideas that we can in the missionary agenda to find news and we were able to have some sucess through family history and english class.  We will do what we can to get these new investigators to start progressing towards baptism.

I liked your comments about praying for a specific date with the house.  That is something that we are doing with Rosaria and Joao to help them get over the hump and get baptised.   It is always a good thing to be specific with the lord.  Like the brother of Jared and if it is his will he will show you some miracles.  But you have to have the faith that it can happen which is the hard part.

Scripture for the week: Alma 57:25.  We might get the snot beat out of us in this battle of life but in the end we will come out alive if we are faithful and obeidient to the Lord he will protect us and bless us with more then we can imagine. 

I will make sure to be praying especially for Hailey and Kyle this week and all of you else too as usual.  I love you all and wish you all an amazing week.  

Love Elder Hobson

Week 24 Staying in Alverca with Elder Alves

So this week was transfers and I am staying in Alverca with Elder Alves which is cool with me becase Alverca is a sweet ward.  If what happens what should make sence I would think that means that I will problably end up staying here for one more after that atleast to keep consistency so I am gald that I am really liking this area.  

So that is awesome that you are working hard on the Morning family prayer thing.  I know that it will be kindof tough but it definatly is worth a feather.  (as the direct translation for "worth it" is in portuguese)  and will help you all have better days and resist the temptations of the world.  I will make sure that in my morning prayers I am mentioning the house too.

Glad that the super bowl was sucess and that everyone sounds like life is good the house is going up quick and that big man jess is tearing it up on the hardwood!!!  Keep gettting more aggressive and faster and all that good stuff.  I will let you know about the white sauce but for now, I dont cook food really I just make biscuits and then buy oatmeal and fruits and veggies and the members do all the rest! vida boa aqui 

 This week we have really been trying to use all of our resources as missionaries so that we can have sucess in finding the truely elect of God.  It has been a challenge as we have been trying to clean out our investigator pool so that we can help those that really want to progess progess and find the ones that the Lord has already prepared.  Hopefully our prayers and efforts will be answered and we can start to have more new investigators that will progress.  We have been having lots of sucess from our aula de Ingles and hopefully we can continue to use that to strengthen our menos activos and our investigators that are coming to that. 

We have one investigator that is named Ibe.  He is a man that we pass by once a week to teach because he has been taught for a long time by the missionaries and has a desire to be baptised he just works on sundays.  His contract will end here at the end of the month and he plans to move to london and get baptised with his family if he can get over his doubts about blacks and the priesthood and poligamy.  He has an issue with sever comments that past apostles have made and has a notebook were he keeps all of them documented. He has had these discussions with many missionaries and african members but he still is holding the doubts.   We are really concerned that he can get past them so that he will go through with his baptism when he moves.  We are going to talk to Elder Phippen about visiting with us so hopefully that will be a sucess. 

So for the spiritual thought this week I have to first say that this week has been a tough week as far as success with our investigators.  More or less all of our marked lessons with people have been falling and we have been cleaning out or investigator pool because none of them were progressing.  It is really tough but it is missionary work and it never has been easy.  But thismorining I was reading about Captian Moroni and the chapter where it talks about how if everyone was like him that the devil would not have power.  I thought that it was really cool becuase I have never really studied the verses early on that discribe what kind of man he was.  I had to take a step back and look at myself to see where I really stand on each of those traits so that I can have the same power of spirt that they had.  When I get frustrated with lack of sucess I have to think about how the everyone has their freedom and I cannot force anyone to be more happy and accept eternal glory and endless joy.  But I know that i can control what happens with me and that I can only work harder and be more obeidient so that I can have a more powerful spirit with me as I teach.  

 I am excited to be able to continue to work here in Alverca and hopefully we will be able to have more baptisms and strengthen this amazing ward.  Love you all and have a an amazing week as always1

Love Elder Hobson