Last week was absolutely fantastic! Full of general conference, birthday, and temple, It really brought me a lot of happiness. For my birthday, it was deep clean day. So we spent most of the day at the pad cleaning everything. Its like a once a transfer spring cleaning. (And I'm dearly sorry but I forgot to bring my camera to emailing so the pictures will have to wait till next week. Sorry to torture you like that.) We had Little Caesar's Pizza and homemade cupcakes for the party whilst cleaning. It was really fun! And then the rest of the day Elder Wilkinson just got out there and worked. The temple was absolutely marvelous!!! It had been a little over 10 months since the last time I had been able to go into the temple. I have so much more appreciation for the temple now that I have felt what its like to have an absence of it. My goal is to be able to work in the temple when I get home. It was just the most beautiful feeling inside that building. All the hustle and bustle of New York City just dissipates as you walk through the doors of the temple. I really didn't want to leave by the time we were finished. But I recognize that I have been called to work for the salvation of the living at this time so I'm content :)
Mom, my past companions will be thrilled when they get those packages!! Their names are Elder Jason Warhurst and Elder Geoffrey Lunt. And I absolutely LOVE my new beanie. All my padmates went crazy when they saw me open it cuz they already knew the awesomeness of my other homemade one. (Everytime I live with new people they question me where I got my blue and green beanie. When I respond with "My mom made it". I always get the Napolean Dynamite-like reply of "Luckyyyyyy!") To now have a bright yellow beanie at hand is just the best!!
It looks like you all had a blast at apple hill. I especially enjoyed the story about Mari saving the pumpkin. I cannot believe how old they are getting!!! I haven't even met Trudy yet and she is almost one! Oh and that just made me laugh that Dad got Botox for headaches. I can just see President Williams and Taylor giving him a hard time on that one haha. Maybe Willie should get some Botox as well seeing as it worked so well on Dad ;) I am super excited to hear about Neal preparing to head out! (I hope he gets sent to New York South!!!!) Oh, Missionary Mall sent me a clothes hamper... That was random. I needed one ten months ago and have gotten two replacements since. But now I have this brand new white hamper haha. And mom I loved that snippet that you sent to me from Elder Maxwell's talk. That's really how we have to look at every single person we talk to. We all have such amazing potential and to disregard that aspect of someone is to disregard one of God's greatest gifts for everyone.
We have been working a lot with an investigator named Jose. He is from Puerto Rico and is progressing very well! He loves having us over. We are working with him to go to church. He is separated from his wife and the only day that he has with his two teenage sons is Sunday so its hard for him to sacrifice that time for church. But his testimony is growing in the Book of Mormon and he thinks Joseph Smith is the man haha. Its been really cool to be able to teach him. We have been getting members involved in the process as well. I'm so excited to see how everything turns out with him.
Also, Elder Wilkinson and I have been focusing on talking to families. There are a ton of Ecuadorians here and a lot of them are from an area in Ecuador that eats something called Cuy. Well actually its Guinea Pig. But they absolutely love it haha. So everytime we bring up that we want to eat Cuy they open right up to us because we show that we appreciate a part of their culture. So we have been able to talk to a lot of cool families. We hope to be able to meet with some of them this week. We'll see how it goes.
Well, I love you all so much! I hope this is a great week for you. Fall is in the air! (Its been in about the 70's so I cant complain.) This gospel is so true!
Love, Elder Hogge
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