Dearest Family and Friends,
First matter of business. My new companion is........... Elder Verhagen!!!.......... No I am not joking. And yes, he was my MTC companion. The Lord has seen it fit to put us together once again! Crazy stuff huh? Just as a reminder, he is from Fairbanks, Alaska (or more specifically Nenana, Alaska) is the eighth of nine children and the sixth one to be a missionary. He loves snow mobiling (or snow machining as they say in that upper state), doing construction in his family business, and long walks on the beach (just kidding about the last one... actually he might...). He is a stellar worker and loves to be a missionary. This will be a really good transfer.
So thats the companion update. I was just absolutely shocked at transfer meeting. Its unheard of to have MTC companions put together in the fifth transfer, especially in a foreign language. President must trust us or somethin. Speaking of Prez, he leaves on friday!!! That is so weird to me. Its gonna be really sad, but I know our new prez, President Calderwood, will be awesome.
Investigator update: We havent been able to get in to see Susan and Robert for a while. There's been a lot of busy stuff goin on over there. From what I know Robert is ok tho. On saturday Elder Verhagen and I fearlessed this one guy on the street. He's mexican and he told us his name is Luis. We scheduled an appointment to come over that next day (Sunday). So we head over sunday night and he is there! (Most of the time people end up not being there, or as mission lingo goes, juking us) We get into the house and teach a quick mini-lesson on the Book of Mormon. He definitely felt the spirit super strong. And then during the lesson, he looks at us with a sad face and says, "Im sorry my friends, but my name isnt Luis, its Roberto." That gave me a nice little laugh. A lot of Hispanics out here give us fake names. Probably somethin about two gringos that can speak spanish and look like they could be from some federal agency. I dunno haha. But it was cool that he manned up and told us that. We have an appointment with him and his family on thursday night so we are super excited for that.
As far as Sunday schedule goes, every other week we are at the church by 8:30am for Branch Council. Church starts at 10 (usually about ten people there by the opening prayer and 50 by the sacrament) then after that we either go to the english gospel doctrine class or spanish. Then for third hour, I've had the privilege of attending relief society to translate for the spanish sisters. Its been such a journey learning how to make myself a better sister in Zion. ;) After church we usually head back to the pad to get a bite to eat then we work till 9 o'clock. If we are lucky we will have a sunday dinner with a member. This week we ate at Lorraine Anderson's, a recent convert. She made us kabobs. That was awesome.
And for p-day, its been pretty sporadic. Ooh man. This past week we went from almost 100 degrees with humidity at like 95% to yesterday of 65 degrees with heavy downpours. It was amazing how drastic the change was. The weather is so confusing out here. So for p-day we just chilled at the pad then went to the church and played basketball. Elder Verhagen gave me a nice haircut too. (dont worry mom, it looks fine)
So all in all, the mission is swingin right now. We weren't able to get any of our investigators to church this week, but that dont stop us from trying our best. The Lord is putting prepared people in our paths. I'm excited for all the potential we have for this upcoming week. As long as we strive to diligently achieve our best efforts, Heavenly Father will take care of the rest. I love you all!!!
Love, Elder Hogge
P.s. Willie i just hand wrote a letter to ya so I'll get it out this week
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