Week 49 Joel

This week was a challenging week.  Every day we fought to mark things
with investigators and with members and every single day without fail
almost all of our appointments fell through or the member could not
come which made our plans impossible to fulfill on foot.  So that was
really frustrating but also humbling and I have never gotten contact
information from sooo many new people in one week in my entire
mission.  We are changing how we work.  We have had lots of trouble
getting people to the church and so we have decided that we are going
to focus all of our efforts close to the Chapel and our home so that
we can take really good care of them and get them ready to be
baptized.

One really bright spot is a guy named Joel.  He is about our age and
he lives in his home with two older brothers but his mom lives in
texas and his dad and grandmother who raised him have already died. He
is a really special person because he is super independent and
responsible and is really good about communicating with us.  It is
like texting a buddy back home and i think that it is makeing a big
difference the friendship that we have with him.  We haven't been
pushing that hard still because he has not been able to get to church
because of previous commitments but this week is looking good and he
texted us saturday night that he thinks that his decision is getting
clear so we really are hoping that that is good news.   He is a really
awesome kid that has to really work to even have food to eat and
listens and understands the lessons better then pretty much anyone
that I have worked with.  We have high hopes for Joel.

To answer your question dad.  I didnt really wright out anything for
my talk I just got up with a couple stories in mind and a list of
scriptures and the order I wanted to present the information.  I used
the examples of King noah and king Lamoni to talk about humility.
also I am officially sustained now in the branch presidency. And as
far as the language there are still lots of random objects that get me
and I am trying to work on my translation skills but yeah I do not
have troubles with understanding or expressing myself in diverse ways.
I only read Portuguese scriptures and we study 30 min per day the
language.

Estou a fortalecer meu testemunho das coisas pequenas  e como elas tem
grande influencia em nossas resultadas.  A cosia em particular que meu
colega e eu estamos a melhorar em esta semana são nossos pensamentos
seja durante exercícios, almoço, ou a noite depois de planeamento  e
antes de 11h00.  Não importa se nos nem estamos na rua nosso chamado
nunca tem descansa.  Durante esta parodio de dois anos para realmente
cumprir com nossos chamados sabemos que não temos tempo de deixar
nossa mente de voltar as coisas de mundo mas sim precisamos sempre
ficar com nossos olhos e mentes fixos na gloria de Deus.  Eu quero
mostrar para o Senhor que ele possa confiar em nos para cuidar dos
eleitos, os querido filhos escolhidos dele aqui em Angra.

So we had an experience with an investigator that was getting brain
washed by some people from the universal church that we had to talk to
to help him not fall into their trap but they are really truly
confused and even after he called me a sinner and a laier and
basically spat in my face telling me I dont know Christ, we tried to
help them understand authority but they do not have open hearts to
hear anything and ended up ending our night praying for them so that
one day they could be prepared to here the truth. I am so glad that I
am not lost in such confusion and I really do feel terrible for them
because I think they are honestly convinced that what they are doing
is right but unfortunately they are sadly confused.  I want to help
everyone but unfortunately and thankfully we have to want to be
helped.  I think it is interesting the things that we have to go
through to  understand the atonement and what Christ did for us.  I
know that it is not even close to comparable but we all need to feel a
little molecule of those pains to really come to see how he sees.

Anyways I love you all Have a marvelous week!

Week 48

This Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament on humility.  I would love to
be able to send you a copy of it but I don't have one and we were
given a full day to prepare it which did not even include any of our
study time which meant we didn't get to prepare really but I think
that it went over well.  Well right now in the Branch I am supposed to
be getting sustained as the second councilor but the mission president
is waiting to authorize it for some reason.  Unfortunately we are
still having to help with tithing and do some other things that we
need to be members of the presidency to do, but unfortunately there is
just nobody else to do it with since the first councilor  went to the
temple for the next five weeks.  Also I am getting trained by Elder
LeSouer to do an audit on the Branch on the other side of the island.
It makes me really not miss school studying that stuff and reminds me
how awesome the mission is.

As for Lurdes. Dad (She had been baptized but never was confirmed and
it has been years now.)  She has been nothing but stress this week.
She ended up not showing up to her baptism and instead ran away to the
other side of the island for the day so we couldn't even talk to her.
It was embarrassing especially because we had a bunch of members
already there just waiting for her baptism and everything.  She
basically just does not have any support from anyone but us and she
lives in a horrible neighborhood where a good influence does not
exist. So she eventually just gave in to the pressure and ran from us.
It is sad because she said that she gets filled with doubts when we
are gone but as soon as we come back she feels comfortable and calmed
down ready to go through with it again...  Sounds like the spirit,
the Church is true..  We are going to have to give her some time and
just take even more members over there so that she can get some good
influences in her life.

One member that lives right behind us (we talk to him most nights out
of our bedroom window into his window)  got the Melchizedek priesthood
this weekend.  He was converted from being a drug addict to some heavy
stuff and it has been a long fight of almost 2 years for him to be
able to finally get the priesthood.  Literally a fight.  He got
stabbed in the face by his younger druggie brother this week when he
was trying to stop his brother from hurting their mother.  It goes to
show that the law of opposition is a real thing.  There always comes a
tidal wave of temptations and problems right before you take the next
step or receive a big blessing.  I know that it really is a fight
worth fighting and I am glad that we were able to comfort Marco
through his challenges in this last week (even though it cost us some
sleep every night) to be able to see the joy on his face as he got the
priesthood this weekend.  And for Lurdes we are going to keep up the
fight so that she can one day get passed all the things that are
stopping her from receiving the blessings of membership in the church.

Esta semana estou a tentar a melhorar os contactos que estamos a
fazer.   Estamos a esforçar de deixar todos os outros coisas e entrar
logo com o espírito nas corações das pessoas com quem nos tralhamos.
Eu sei que o Senhor vai colocar as pessoas certas em nossa caminho
quando nos estamos a fazer as cosias certas que ele possa confiar em
nos para cuidar dos filhos dele.  Eu vou continuar e esforçar cada dia
que o Senhor possa ter confiança em nos e usar nos como as mãos dele e
verdadeiro representantes aqui em angra.

We almost hung a cat on Sunday that we had to catch because it was
causing problems right before sacrament meeting it was quite an ordeal
but we ended up just tying it up in a hidden location until after
church and it all was fine it was pretty crazy.

Also I had an amazing testimony builder of repentance when we had a
contact that we had end up going too long and we ended up wasting time
with that man and should have listened to the spirit and moved on
faster but didn't.  But once we did we could feel that the spirit was
not with us and so we stopped and prayed and begged for forgiveness
and for the spirit to return and once the prayer ended and we started
walking back I could feel the spirit rushing back into my body. IT is
such and amazing feeling and I never like it when I do stupid things
to drive it away.  I am so grateful that we can truly repent and be
clean enough to be temples where the spirit can dwell in us. I know
that we cannot do anything out here with out that spirit and I am so
glad to know that it is real.

Love
Elder Hobson

Week 47 July 13

"Marking" appointments

Lina's smashed cigarettes

Well thank you all for the detailed updates that you all have give me
so that I can to take part in this difficult time for the family. I
am grateful to know that so many of you are all out there doing all
that you can to take care of the family and I am amazed every time
that this family is tested how quickly it passes through the tough
times and come out so much stronger and united.

The senior couple here shared a really cool story with me about Elder
LeSouer's 3x great grandfather that had his brother die young also in
a tragic accident. Then he actually was able to have an out of body
experience where he went and visited his brother and got too see where
he was and what he was doing. While he was there with his guardian
angel he actually talked to his brother and his brother introduced him
to a girl and asked his brother to go and ask her parents if they
could be sealed in the temple together, and that is what happened. It
was cool to compare it to things that were taken out of his
patriarchal blessing and it is amazing to see what miracles true faith
can bring. I know that Hayden is up there working to save a bunch of
people that we didn't get to while they were here in this life and to
honor his memory I will just have to work even harder to get them
while they are still alive to help lighten the load up there. I am
excited to be able to see him again one day. They gave me that to
read on the plane ride over Friday morning which really helped me to
get through the day. I had an amazing experience telling me that he
really is doing that work right now.

So to give you my update for the week we had our zone conference with
out new president. He and his wife are great people, good teachers
and really talented speakers which made it really entertaining and
uplifting to hear them speak. He has an interesting outlook and as a
Brazilian has a very aggressive approach to dramatically increase
baptisms. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed with the
interviews because it really wasn't all that personal and it was clear
that they both had basically a speech that they were giving instead of
really trying to take the time to get to everyone personally (good
thing it was a decent speech)

We have spent a lot of time working to help out Lurdes. Our
investigator that will be baptized this week. We had tried to get it
all ready so that she could be baptized this week but then our branch
president went into basically a full on interview with her and gave
here some doubts, which we quickly cleared up but the reason it didn't
end up going down yesterday was because we had to make some plans as
to how we could help her disabled daughter get to church because she
could not be left alone every week for the entire morning. But
thankfully we have some awesome members here that are willing to help
give her rides and take care of here for the foreseeable future.
(Check out the Mormon message lift if you haven't seen it yet we are
basically trying to do that here.) So we are going to make sure that
this time she will have a beautiful well planned baptism so that she
can have that as a testimony builder forever. She actually was
baptized once before in the church years ago but had a horrible
experience because she was not taught, living the commandments or
anything basically the Elders just threw her in the water because they
wanted a baptism on Christmas even though she wasn't even living the
commandments which when she found out that she should not have been
baptized she was offended and refused further contact. Thankfully we
were able to get back around to her and hopefully she will be able to
get passed all the negative influences in her life including her anti
(people in this branch) sister who we home teach. Her daughter should
follow her shortly after once she quits smoking which is happening
really fast. We had a powerful lesson with her daughter to get her to
quit and actually on our first meeting we go her to smash her last
pack of cigarettes which I have invited tons of people to do here,
because everyone smokes starting at about 10 years old, but it was the
first time that everyone has ever shown that kind of dedication for
me. It was so cool to see her mashing them up we even took some
victory pics to prove it. haha

Well I learned a lot this week. I love you all thank you for being
such an amazing supporting family!

Com Amor
Elder Hobson

Week 46 July 5 after Hayden's accident

Well I do not have a whole lot to say today but thank you for all that
you have said over the last couple days.. I hope that you all can
come together and really do what you can to cherish every blessed
moment that we are blessed to have together.

I would like to send more but I have already run out of time
unfortunately today. I will be thinking and praying about you all
this week. I am fine out here and the work is going well I love you
all and sorry that I didnt get you a very good letter this week mom.

Elder Hobson

Comments to Amanda:
Thanks for all the stuff you said about Hayden and all the dedicated
support that you are always giving to this family. You are awesome
and will become an amazing mother one day. Those were good days with
the 4 of us and now they are treasured memories.
love you duh!

Week 45 June 29

So this week was crazy. First off we had out last conference with the
Fluckigers which was cool and also fun to get to fly over to the other
island, but it left us super tired since we had to fly out both times
at about 4 in the morning and on the mission you do not get time to
catch up on sleep. We got to work a lot with the zone leaders on the
other island for a day which was fun as always and a good learning
experience.

When we were working one day, we had been doing a pretty good job of
staying out of the craziness of the parties but we came down into tow
to see that they had a running of the bulls going on and because of
that the whole place was shut down. So we found a really cool
American whose parents are from the acores but he is a college
wrestler from cali whose girlfriend is apparently about to get
baptized, and we just watched the craziness go down. I say a couple
people almost get seriously hurt from this bull. I had no desire to
get out in front of this thing but it was sure fun to watch.

I got a litttle sick becase of the lack of sleep and becase we ran out
of gas and I took a couple of cold showers that put me over the limit
since it is only in the 70s here. But i am mostly better now. Dad I
really wish you would have rejected I have always wanted to see that
happen just so that I could see the faces of the people in the crowd.
Also I bought a really sweet portuguese tie today. the first thing
that I have bought in portugal that is kindof souveniery

Ola presidente
Esta semana por causa de nossa promessa com Deus de contactar pelo
menos 20 pessoas cada dia para que nos pudessemos ter 10 novos, vimos
grandes bencaos. estavamos no outro ilha para conferencia de zona e la
tivemos muito sucesso encontrando com os eleitos mesmo como em nossa
propria area. tivemos uma mulher que que mesmo receber as ordanacas de
salvacao para unir a familia dela depois de so algumas minutes com
ela. Eu sei que o senhor prepara nosso caminho e que temos as pessoas
que ja sao preperados em nosso frente para encontrar. Eu amo esta
trabalho, este povo, e nosso Senhor.
com amor
Elder Hobson

We have been able to work with a couple members and I am getting the
opportunity to do all sorts of interesting things with the church that
I have never done before. I was acting as the branch clerk for a
while as I helped with tithing, reimbursments, and welfare stuff.
Also i will be doing the audit here in the next couple weeks for the
branch on the other side of the island which will be fun to get to do.
Not that I want to be an accountant but it will be cool to see what it
takes to do an audit. We really want to help this branch be
strengthened as the members that we do have have some serious problems
especailly a lot of stuff with the word of wisdom.. But we are making
some progress and we have several families that we are trying to help
get to the temple and finish all of their ordanances. we also are
helping a less active family get ready to move to California which
should be a great thing for them if we can get the youth there in the
church to fellowship well all of the children in that family and
hopefully they will get nourished better there then they have been
here.

Anyways I am loveing reading through all of the conference talks again
and again. they are amazing and I know that those prophets and
apostles are called of God. I am greatful for their leadership and I
am greatful for all of your love and my family and home life, as i see
broken and problem ridden families i become more and more greatful for
all that i have been blessed with.. I couldnt have asked or hoped or
dreamed for any better. thank you so much.

Love you all
com bastante amor