Week 40 teaching Matt from Colorado!

First off Nathan looks like all the kids that run around out here with
that nice soccer lacross haircut.  I cant believe that tyson got
hitched!  Also that is cool that you are a ward missionary.  does that
mean that you are going to be going out to work with the elders there
a lot?  and it is about time that amanda got to go and do the adult
stuff instead of being assigned baby sitting duty.

This week we as a district we decided to fast and pray that we could
mark people for baptism. And during our fast we had 2 people accept a
date. Unfortunatly neither of them came to church and then fell. I am
still grateful for the experience that we had to show us all that the
Lord will answer our prayers and that we can and will have sucess. I
have seen the power of recent converts in finding new people to teach
recently. They have such a desire to share the new joy of the gospel
that they have in their life with everyone especially those people
that they love with family members and closest friends. I believe that
to be the key of real gowth as we can help new or weak members switch
roles and be the ones teaching and inviting, helping them to truely
live the gospel.

This week studing to meet with a guy named MATT from COLORADO who is
studying to be a preacher I have been really trying to expand my
knowledge of the spirit world and of the preisthood and why everything
is the way that it is.  Teaching him and studying the scriptures with
him makes me deeply grateful that we have modern profets and
revelations that we can always rely on to clear up those areas that
are sometimes not the easiest to get out of the scriptures (especailly
when you do not have the Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants)
But anyways the church is true and even though he has studied the
bible for years and everything even to the point of learning greek so
that he could read the bible in greek he still does not have to
clarity and surity of things that we have and only can get through the
spirit and modern revelation.

So today we had a district p-day and we went into lisbon and I had to
lead the group around to see some things but I really had no idea what
I was doing because I had never been there before and it is really
hard to keep all them sisters happy   and everything but it was pretty
fun and in my fake confidence wandering around down there we say some
cool stuff and it kindof seemed like I knew what I was doing.  Good
stuff.  But anyways it did kindof cut short on the old mailing time
today.  So basically I love you all!!!  I am happy and healthy!

Love Elder Hobson

Week 39

Well as I look at all of those pictures and review all of the building
stages that you have sent me pictures of I am really glad that the age
change happened and I was able to be away on a mission for every
single one of them!  You all are doing a great job getting everything
nice and organized again. But even still I do wish that I could have
been there to take some of the load off.  But it sounds like Christina
and Jesse have been doing a really good job of steping up to the
challenge and getting the work done.

I am so excited that the Demers moved to Bosie.  That will make it
easier for me to visit them when I come home.  I am pretty sure that
they are indistructable or something getting in car accidents and
stuff at their age and lack of sight levels and coming out fine. I do
miss them and am sure glad for all that I learned from those years of
visiting with them and getting to know them.  Being with them really
taught me the blessings of being able to visit people and be a home
teacher.  I find it to be a great responsibility that I am glad we
have.

As a district we are a ways off of our meta this month still as we
have yet to baptise and we do not have any marchados.  I do believe
though that the sisters are doing what they need to be to go out and
find the people that will progress and are already prepared.  We had a
big change in our sucess this week with having 9 investigators in
church this week in the district which is a drastic improvement over
the previous weeks and we are going to work to get all of those people
marked.  As for the bem estar of the district, I believe that the
sisters are working hard and having less conflict.  Vila Franca B had
a division with the STLs this week however I did not recieve a report
on it from the STLs until I several days later when I found out about
it and called them.

Elder Suttons training has been going well still.  He is focused and
has a real desire to his best. We are trying to improve his relations
with the members so that we can work more effectivly with them and
that he can work side by side with them sucessfully and gain their
respect and trust.  I have been really trying to help him learn how it
is that we need to act as missionaries and as preisthood men for that
matter.  It is tough to try and help someone quickly lose bad habits
and learn temper control which is also a challenge because it is a
really humbling experience to know how that it is then nescisarry to
always be a good example of those attributes.

In our area we have two people that we have plans to baptise this
month. We have Paula who we had marked but fell because of church last
week but went this week and is just a hesitant to accept a date again,
but we are close with it.  Next we have a young man named Marcelo who
we recently met who has a desire to be baptised he just wants to learn
more before commiting.  We know that we really do have prepared people
out here that are ready to accept the gospel and we are excited to be
finding some.  I have learned alot about faith and how if we telling
the Lord that we have faith to find the elects but are not putting all
of the council that we have recieved from our mission leadership and
preach my gospel in action we are lacking the action and therefore are
lacking in faith.  I am immensely grateful for PME and other
instrutions we have been given so that I can always know that I am
doing all I possibly can to show the Lord my Faith in him to guide his
work.

I have also been studying about how Christ has instructed the
missionaries that he personally sent out as his apostles and the
seventy.  I love reading the insights and detailed discriptions that
they have in Jesus the Christ.  It has really helped me to get to know
our lord and savior more and I am grateful for every single time that
my relationship with him improves. It is interesting how much you can
learn each time from studying the same things over and over and how
the spirit really can adapt the message to our needs in the moment.

Anyways we are happy and healthy my new question for my sisters every
night. Thanks mom :)

Com tanto amor
Elder Hobson

Week 38 Fun week after Mother's Day Skype

Well this was a fun week. as I talked a little with you about on Skype
we have been really just inviting everyone to be baptised and it is
pretty fun and a really useful way to see if the person is really
interested or if they are going to shut the door on us quickly.  We
were at a lunch with some members and I was sitting on a couch next to
Bete and she told me that I would be recieve my recompence for the
service that I am doing to help develop ole elder sutton into a
missionary and a man.  It was cool that she is able to see some
improvement it helps to know that the efforts are paying off.  I have
definatly been learning alot about how i can teach by my example and
do be a loving leader when I have do really apply that scripture of
sharp reproofs and and A SHOW of INCREASED
love afterwards.  not easy but it is a commanment and is nessicary for
us to be exalted.  I am greatful for all the experiences that the lord
has trusted me with to help me grow and to be able to try and help
others around me grow as well.

Figureing out how to love everyone is one of the biggest struggles for
me every day.  It really is not easy for me when someone is does not
even respond to us or answer our questions when we need directions or
some sort of help or when I am talking to someone and it is going well
and then the spouse or some sort of friend comes up and slams the door
or takes them away.  I try to think how Christ was able to love his
people when the spit apon him and denied him, betraying him to death,
that is one christlike attribute that I still need to work on becuase
I often get the ugre to hit those people still. Good thing I always
have a comp to keep me from doing that!  and christ did it all alone.

Ola Presidente
Esta semana tivemos nossa marchado caiu porque ela não foi a igreja.
Ela ficou doente e também ficou com temor para falar com as familiares
sobre a decisão dela. Quando ela cancelo nosso compromisso com ela
para sábado a noite em nossa ligação de verificar o compromisso sábado
de manha nos oferecemos para dar uma benção de saudê e ela finalmente
aceitou mas estava a dormir e não abriu a porta para nos na hora que
ela escolheu.  depois ligamos de novo Domingo de manha e ela ainda
estava muito doente e dizemos que podemos dar a benção agora mas ela
estava na casa da filha dela fora de Alverca.  Ela ainda vai ser
batizado.  Para melhorar esta vez nos vamos ensinar mais com outros
membros que vão nos ajuda a lutar nos momentos mais importante  em vez
de só aceitar desculpas.

Elder Sutton's training is continuing to improve.  The 12 weeks fit
his needs perfectly this week because we were teaching the comandments
at the beginning of the week and he did not feel comfortable with his
understanding at that point to teach them but we have studied them all
together this week and he has shown much more confidence in the
lessons.  We were really motivated by the zone leaders semana de fé
desafio and we did all that we could to put everything in practice and
exceed the expectations that they had set to show our faith that we
will baptize.  We saw lots of small miracles and I leared alot about
what it really means to be a challenging missionary and I really feel
that the way I will go about the rest of my mission has taken a turn
this week.

So this week I have been studying about Nefi and how his brothers were
so ignorant and they would rebel and then have a divine manifestation
that brought them unto repentance just to quickly fall back into sin
and murmering.  It makes me think about how frustrating it can be when
the people we come to love from being out here working with them do
not improve even after the perfect scripture to answer their question
or the most spiritually powerful lesson or experince that does not get
them to actually do anything.  Knowing that pain and saddness it gives
me a lot of respect for Nefi as he was able to pass through that
throughout his entire life with his own brothers and always continue
to treat them with love.  Even after being tied up for 4 days exposed
to a strom that was literally directly coming from the wrath of God,
and then be able to fall to his knees and ask for a blessing apon for
the storm to pass so that they could be saved, doing so without
thinking of his own pains or bitterness against his brothers for their
foolishness, and then staying in prayer, for an extended period of
time, to bless them all and calm the storm.  and always continue to
try to help them when they are always trying to kill him.  I hope that
i can show a little bit of the same love when dealing with people in
my lifetime.  I love the scriptures and all the things that I get to
learn from them every day.  I hope we are all taking advantage of what
we have been blessed with.  enjoy the week!

Com amor
Elder Hobson

Week 37 "Most exhausting week ..."

ok well this has officially been the most exhausting week of my
mission so far.  one of the duplas in our district has been haveing
all sorts of companhionship problems and it has been causeing lots of
problems, distractions and stress for me.  The mission is not meant to
be filled with girl drama, atleast that is what I thought but
apparently not.  Anyways I am really sick of that stuff and would love
to have them end here soon so that we can get back to just worrying
about they people that we need to teach and baptise.

We had an investigator in the district that I interviewed for baptism
and he was not ready to be baptised and therefore wasen't.  It was an
intimidating sitiuation to say the least to have that happen and to
have to decide to wait but I know that the Lord has his time for all
things and one day hopefully he will get himself ready to actually be
baptised.

We are working really hard with a woman that was a very strong
catholic and did all sorts of things to become basically a preist.
her name is paula.  she is also an international judge that is working
on a case in Belgium so she has had to go their a lot, but we have
been really seeing miracles with her.  She has been accepting all of
our challenges and has a really strong desire to be baptised.  She is
a very interesting person and it is funny to teach her because she
lived in england for half of her life or more she goes back and forth
from portuguese to english all of the time which is kindof funny when
we have members with us that do not speak english.  I have found it
interesting that so many people that acutally study and live in the
catholic church have things that they do not agree with but they
continue on anyways.  I just cannot really understand that.  She for
one never agreed that it is right to baptise babies by splashing water
on thier heads and wondered why we are not baptised as the bible
teaches that Christ was baptised, but she continued on in the church
for years and years.  Anyway she is a really special person and we are
going to work really hard to help her get passed her challenges and be
baptised as soon as possible.

This week we have been fasting and praying alot as we have been
looking for new people to teach and to know what to do with the people
that we have been teaching whether or not they are going to start to
progress.  It has been a powerful and helpful tool to do everything
that we can to see the changes that this area needs. The ward has been
helping a lot recently.  We finally have ward council running as it
should talking about people and it is consistently every week.  we are
also really getting going with english class and indexing night.  It
is cool to see the ward really excited and getting lots of work done
helping out the people all around them.

This week I have been studying about the nefi's visions and it really
does amaze me how much he was able to see becase of his faith.  I hope
that our faith can be suffiecient enough so that we can always have
the revelation, guidance and experiences that we need.

Love you all and see you sunday!!!
Elder Hobson

Week 36: Another transfer in Alverca

So the big news for the week is that I will be staying here in alverca
for another transfer with Elder Sutton which will put me here in
alverca for almost 7 MONTHS  it is a dang good thing that I love this
area.  We also got ANOTHER dupla of sisters that are going to be
working in Alverca for this transfer becase Sister Camacho will go
home a little early in this transfer and so they will close the area
when she does but for the majority of the transfer we are going to
have a district of us, the brodericks and 3 sets of sisters.  Talk
about relief society president. this makes me also the leader of the
biggest district in the mission BY FAR.  considering that there is a
full zone that only has one more dupla.

So I had to decided with the APs how we are going to divide up alverca
for the next 5 weeks and that has been a real big problem because it
dose not have a very clear solution, but hopefully what we got drawn
out today will be a good plan and bring us lots of sucess and make the
most out of having so many missionaries in one ward and such a small
area.  All of these changes has make my last two days the longest and
most stressful days of my entire mission so far.  we have been running
around shuffling sisters and their luggage all day on top of trying to
get our own p-day stuff all figured out which we basically just didnt
get anything done. we also have been trying to get all the things that
the sisters will need in their house figured out so that they can make
it work for 4 sisters instead of 2.  anyways my mind is going all over
the place and so we will see what comes out in the letter this week.

That concrete is really cool and you are right that will be really
nice and i am glad that you decided to go for it and also basketball
for dayz!!  also i just read through all the intro and stuff in the
front of the book of mormon because I jst started over this week too!
that is cool that we are in the same spot.  just a different language.
ahah

So this week we were able to meet again with a man that I contacted in
the first week with elder sutton here who was an atheist.  We
basically just told him that we wanted to share our beilefs with him
and taught the first lesson.  We then basically lost contact with him.
But the other day I was looking throught the phone and I felt like I
should call him even though it has been a while since I stopped becase
he was not responding.  so i did anyways becuase it felt right and he
answered and told me that he decided to read our pamphlet again and
then decided that he needed to start to read the Bible.  So he was
acutally already getting into luke from starting the new testament.
so then I asked him if he wanted a book of mormon and that is how we
were able to get a meeting with him to give him a copy.  When we say
him he looked like a completly different person becase his face looked
like it was almost glowing becuase of the happiness and hope that
Christ has brought into his life how much more open and humble he was
the second time around.   We then  taught the book of mormon and now
he will start to read the BOM.  I know that as he does that with an
open heart and everything he will beable to know that there really is
a god and that this is his church and all that other stuff is true.  I
love the BOM and I completly trust that it is the most powerful tool
that we have.

I also am well on my way of makeing a goal to convert a preist more or
less..  we have a lady that is a judge and has done all the stuff in
the catholic chruch to be able to teach as a woman and do the
communion and everything which requires years of paying and studying.
but we found her and taught her and she is really firm that she wants
to be baptised and everything.  she has already told her bishop and
they are of course fighting it and everything but we are going to win
because our church is true and the sprit has already told her that.
Also she is a long lost friend of Fernando who alos is a recent
convert from the catholic church.  they have a whole bunch of stuff
that she has to do to be FREE to change her religion which is
completely made up Crap to try to keep her.  also she wants to help
her youngest son get baptised with her and he really was the actual
investigator that we were trying to find when we found her for the
first time. Anyways she has a really awesome stroy that I would love
to tell you more about but for right now I will just go out and work
with her everyday to get her to the water.

I may already have 5 months here but there is alot more work for me to
do.. a lot more sisters to train..  and we are really making progress
with the leadership of the ward trying to really make things happen
here.  I am excited and now Alverca really will be my home here in the
mission.

Ola Presidente

Esta semana com os mudanças na área de Alverca vai ser muito
interessante para ver como tudo vai ser para usar esta bênção de mais
missionarias aqui o melhor possível.   Na ala estamos a ver muitos
coisas com o liderança que estão de mudar tudo para melhor e nos
estamos muito animado para ter o oportunidade de trabalhar aqui mais.

O treinamento de Elder Sutton esta indo.  Esta semana Eu estava a ver
o necessidade de ajudar lhe com o conhecimento de pontes o mais
importante do Evangelho de Cristo e como ensinar especificamente
arrependimento e também oração e como deve ser para nossos
pesquisadores e também pessoalmente.  Mas depois  algumas boas
conversas tiramos algumas duvidas e melhoramos juntos.  Eu sinto que
nos precisamos ainda mais com o doutrina e vamos continuar com o
idioma por meio de somente falar português em todos os momentos.

Eu sou grato por o oportunidade que tenho para trabalhar com todos
estas sisteres. Eu tenho espectivas altas por esta transferência e
estamos pronto para ver mais milagres aqui.

Thought i would just toss my president letter in here today.  see how
much makes sence.

Com amor para todos vocês!! Boa sorte com os mudanças de casa!!!
estou animado para vocês!
Elder Hobson

Week 35 - Elder Bednar

Dad on your mission did you give and recieve beijinhos (the kisses
thing)? no i havent been playing any more then just some prelude at
baptisms.  Sister broderick the new senior couple plays the piano so I
will not have too for the rest of my stay here, which could only be
one more week since we have transfers coming up again next monday.

Yeah I have emailed john a little but it has not been to frequent.  He
is doing good but is really in need of an adventure...   problably
because everyone else is out on a mission spread out throughout the
world and he is in mosco.

And wow christina!  PROM AND BOYS!!! what is this!  But you looked really nice.

that is awesome about the temple.  I am super jealous. we had a casal
that are recent converts that we work with a lot go and get sealed and
endowed this week.  Fernando and Vera Moquinho which was really cool
but really makes me miss the temple.  sometimes I just do temple
studies so that I can feel that familiar spirit.

Also mom just know that your three pies definatly made it into the
letters home for those missionaries too.  and I would take those three
pies over the feast that we had any day without hesitation.

This week was really full of highs and lows.  We had days where we had
miracle after miracle happen and then some days where we really had to
search for the tender mercies as we pushed through more difficult
times, but that is a blessing of this life that we get to experience
all of those changes.  I know that as we keep pushing and really
applying the atonement and the training that we get every week and
through PME we will have sucess and be happy.

This week in our training we have been studying a lot of the district
videos as directed and we have really been trying to apply the things
we have taken from them.  Elder Sutton has been taking a the lead more
and more as we are walking from appointment to appointment and also in
our daily planning sessions.  This has been helping him to really
learn the area better.

So this weekend we had our special stake conference with Elder Bednar
and it definatly lived up to the expectations. He is such an amazing
speaker. He taught about a lot of really important stuff.  one thing
that he did was about the conference talks and what we should do when
we get the ensign conference edition.  He said that we should go into
all of the talks from the 15 apostles and look for three things (this
is what he does and gave it as a suggestion for us)
1. what is the principle or docrine that is being highlighted or focused on.
2. What are we invited to do.
3. What are the promised blessings.
Then he takes this paper that has the answers to these questions for
all of the talks and puts it in his scriptures and studies it
frequently becuase it is what the Lord wants for us RIGHT NOW.

So I would like to extend the same invintation for you all to do this
with me and really enjoy the blessings of having modern revelation in
our lives through the guidence of living prophets.

He also taught about how we all need to keep studying the atonement
for forever becase there is really no other thing to move on from in
the gospel other then the atonement and Christ.  Also that there is a
lot more that we can all learn even though we will never really have a
full understanding of the eternal significance of the atonement.

There was a lot more about puting off the natural man and becoming a
saint and remembering that we are not doing this alone and it is not
meant to be done alone or without difficulties, but sometimes God
trusts us to learn things the hard ways. One of my favorite parts of
conference was that Elder Bednar let sister schill, who is a sister in
my district here that had her mother pass away during the last month,
went home for a week and came back then her mom passed away after she
had come back to portugal for about 4 days, (yeah she is a pretty
awesome and inspiring sister) know that they have her in their
prayers.  That really touched my heart and that along with everything
else that happened at that conference made me grateful and
strengthened my testimony of leaders called by God with the authourity
to lead and really serve the people. sister bednar taught about how
being a parent teaches you christlike attributes which I believe whole
heartedly.  So thank you Mom and Dad for having to deal with me to
become more christlike.

  It was an awesome conference all around and we even got to run into
people from our old areas. I talked to some members that I have missed
from Costa which was cool and made me really happy.

Today for pday we went as a district to Sintra all day.  It was soo
cool and we visited some really awesome things including caves tunnels
castles, and a giant well!  I have some pics but Elder and Sister
Broderick took quite a few and they have a blog for their mission that
you could problably see some of them on and some other interesting
stuff about thier expericnce in Alverca.  It is
castingournets.blogspot.net.

Anyways we are out here just enjoying the people and food and culture
but more then anything else the spirit and the blessings of the gospel
in out work.  It is a really wonderful esperience out here and is
going by really fast.  Today marks 8 months since I entered the MTC
and it is also the 200th day that I have had here in Portugal.  Even
though I love and miss you all a lot it is going by too fast!!  I love
you and hope that every day this week will be a blessing for you as
well.

Com Amor
Elder Hobson

Week 34: Rosa and Rosa

So this week has been pretty awesome.  We have been having all sorts
of success.  We actually had 2 people that accepted baptismal dates
and we have been working with them.  We have been meeting other cool
people and the cat lady Patricia is showing so real potential.  We as
a district have all been seeing sucess as we had 2 women named Rosa
get baptised and confirmed this weekend.  One of them, the one that is
in the pictures that I baptised, was a lady that we contacted in the
street a long time ago on a raining and windy day, I wrote down the
wrong house number and we had a hard time getting in contact with her
on the phone, but she kept reading the book of mormon every once in a
while so we worked on finding her agian and finally after a month and
a half or so found her, taught her the first lesson, and then gave her
as a reference to the sisters since she is a single lady.  She is
really amazing, she had to go to her boss to quit her job so that she
could go to church and everything but she fasted and prayed and got an
answer that it was nesicarry, and then her boss came back to her and
just moved the time so that she could get to church.  She bore her
testimony after the baptism and it was really powerful.  She will be
an awesome member here.

The other Rosa I gave her my first ever baptism interveiw.  And it
wasent exactly the simplest interveiw, but long story short after a
good couple hours of interview we got her to the water and she had a
really good experience.  Problably the most intimidating language test
that I have had to do so far was giving someone an interview that has
their salvation weighing on it, it would have been nice to get it
started out with one that was a little less complicated but whatever
it happens.

So yeah basically the whole district has been on fire this week and it
has been really fun to get to be right in the middle of it and I have
really been feeling the load of being in a leadership position when my
district has a bunch of people that are marked for baptism and all
that stuff to organize when the mission is really struggling,  I dont
think I got to bed on time once this week.

The power of the Book of Mormon in conversion has been very apparent
in our work here and my testimony of it has been strenghtened this
week through the trainings and our experinces applying it in our work.
One of our sucess stories is Borge.  He is a guy that Elder Alves and
I contacted about a month or two ago now that is friends with one of
the members here.  We never got his contact but we were able to get
him a Book of Mormon and the restoration pamphet.  We then since he
didnt show up to church the day that he said he would all that time
ago, we have just been asking about him whenever we talk to Jorge (the
member friend).  Anyways we finally got ahold of him through Jorge and
we got an appointment with him.  We found out as we were asking him
some questions that he had been reading the Book of Mormon for the
last month or so and has made it all the way to Alma 54!  He said that
several times as he was reading he was crying because of the way he
was feeling, and said that he has been taking up a lot of his spare
time to read. We also found out that he has a huge burden weighing on
him that he lost his mother when he was only one year old and then his
grandma that raised him and was basically like his mom passed away
when he was 18.  He is now in his 30s and it is still somthing that
hurts him everyday. We then taught him about the plan of salvation and
how he can have an eternal family through the temple and he then, in a
very powerful spiritual moment accepted to be baptised so that he can
get to work on rejoining his family together.

After church and the baptism on Sunday we had a meal with a recently
reactivated family with the sisters and the brodericks and everything
that was the most rediculous banquet that I have ever seen.  She had 4
main dishes that each one of them would have been enough for all of us
and then 7 deserts. and she was one of those ladies that thinks
somehow Elders can eat 3 times as much as a regular person based off
of how much she kept giving us.  Î am still pretty full and havent
really ate anything since.

Anyways the work is coming along and life is good here.  I love you
all and you all seem to be doing awesome. Especially Jesse who looks
way older.  I love the new pics of the House.  Super cool. get job
with everything so far that you have in there.  Elder Bednar is coming
to our stake conference here this next weekend so we are super excited
for that.  Love you and have a good week!

Elder Hobson