Transfer

Surprise!!!

Its a holiday and I can still email! Turns out here in my new area we use an internet cafe. Its pretty cool. It has a nice ambiance about it (must be the Chinese rock playing in the background haha)

Hello Family and friends!!

I have been officially transferred! My 42 weeks of Bushwick is finally over. But who knows, I may go back haha. So my new area. Its pretty sweet. The Lord has transferred me tooooooo.... Dyker Heights! Yep, I am still in Brooklyn. (Yay!) But now, i am in southern Brooklyn. My area is Dyker Heights- Sunset Park. It has the Greenwood Cemetery in it, where the Battle for Brooklyn was fought. My companion and I strolled through it to get to the other side of the area. It is soooo beautiful. (Wow my companion just burst into incessant giggling.... hope he's ok.) This area is suh-weet! I am finally in a ward!!! Oh what a blessing from the Lord. I love my branches that I have served in, but there is just something special about being in a ward. We now have plenty of priesthood to accompany us to any visit. There are plenty of families here that come to church every week. It was weird to see the pews full of people by the time church started. I am still marveling at all the people we have on our side here in Dyker. Also, this is the first time in my mission that I have had sisters in my district. They are pretty cool, but It still weirds me out because I have been in the Man Zone for so long. But it is definitely a blessing having them with us.

So my companion. His name is Elder Goates. He is on his 3rd transfer, but because of Sandy two transfers ago we are finishing up the 12 week program together. His dad is active in the church, and his mom is active in the Catholic church. Elder Goates jokes that if the pope could be a woman, it would be his mom. So he has an interesting dynamic about his family. I've talked to him a lot about it. He said that he grew up active in both churches and really received an answer in college at BYU that this was the church God wanted him in. Oh yeah, he is from Orem and both of his parents are chemistry teachers at BYU. So he isn't your typical Utah Mormon. But both of his parents are happy that he is out on the mission because it makes him happy. Elder Goates likes to sing, dance, act, and quote chick flicks haha. Sometimes I give him odd looks, but we get along just fine. He is definitely the companion most unlike me that I have had thus far. We will learn a lot from each other.

We are teaching a few different people, but there is one couple in particular that I want to talk about today. Their names are Wilfrido and Roxana. Elder Goates old companion fearlessed them in the street a few months ago. The couple told the missionaries to come back with them to their apartment and there they began teaching them. This is a younger couple in their later twenties and they are super super cool. They are really eager to learn and to experience what we have to offer. There are just a couple of walls in the way. First, they arent married. And second, they feel really rooted to their catholic background and like they are disrespecting their parents and God by switching around religions. But they are both committed to coming to church next week AND Elder Goates has a very deep catholic background so I think there are a lot of things going for us.

So that in a nutshell is my new area. Huzzah! I am in love with it. Oh also, as a sad note, there are no usb ports in this internet cafe :(

Anyways, I love you all! Thank you so much for being there for me!

Love, Elder Hogge