Facebook Mission

Hey friends and family!

Sorry this email has taken so long.... its going to have to be quick too haha. There have been some crazy cool things going on here in our mission. The reason why I havent sent the email yet is that I've actually been on facebook all morning. Nope, that wasn't a joke. President has recieved the OK for our mission to start implementing facebook in our proselyting efforts. This doesn't limit to just my confined geographical area either. Through facebook and skype, we will be able to teach anyone in the world that is willing to learn more about the gospel. So say I have some friends back home that are interested in learning more, well I can facebook them and start up a conversation. But what if YOU have a friend that wants to learn more about the gospel? Well I can be in communication with you (through facebook) to set up online appointments and you can even be present in the online lesson. The objective is for me and my companion to help them gain enough of an interest and knowledge in the Gospel for them to want to meet with the missionaries in their own area. So elder Heagren and I have been pretty overwhelmed this morning with changing our facebook profiles to meet the new standard. We will have about an hour a day to do online missionary proselyting. basically, everything is free game as long as I can answer well this question: "Is what I'm doing fulfilling my missionary purpose." We will be getting mini Ipads october 29th. Yep, thats the day I end my mission. Haha I'm excited. Well, sorry for the abruptness and shortness of the email. My mind is still spinning a hundred miles an hour. Love you all!!

Love, Elder Hogge

Creative Mission

Family and Friends,

 

As far as outward success goes, Elder Heagren and I have seen absolutely none of it. It has been a very baffling time of my mission. I feel like I have really hit my stride as a missionary. I can speak the language decently well, I am very (perhaps overly) comfortable with talking to strangers, and I have developed a sincere love for teaching. But after all we can do, we are seeing no lessons to teach. Its really weird. The zone as a whole had one of the best weeks i have seen on the mission. there were a lot of very solid people at church from all the other companionships. But the mission goes on. Nothing can or will stop Elder Heagren and I from working ourselves to the ground.

 

The mission is taking really cool strides in how we work with the people in New York City. We have been doing a lot of service here in woodside with the districts of english and spanish missionaries working together. There is this woodside icon named Dave Rosasco that is kind of the vigilante of service here. He goes around painting over graffiti and planting and cultivating the flowerbeds in his free time. So we have been working very closely with him to make Woodside a prettier place. This has caught some attention and the New York 1 news station came and interviewed one of our district leaders. Also, we have been doing flash mobs as a zone on the trains. Our entire zone of missionary will dress up as regular people and get on a subway car together. One missionary will start singing a childs prayer and more and more missionaries will jump in until there is an entire chorus of seemingly random people in the train singing a primary song together. It is soooooo cool!! After we finish singing the train errupts in conversation and all of us get to talk to most everyone on the train car. Talk about an ice breaker haha.

 

I am thoroughly convinced that mine is possibly one of the most creative missions in the world. The work is just amazingly different here. But that is why I love it. At times it can be very tough, but I really feel like all this has been refining me. I absolutely love the mission. It is very strange to think that there are only a few more of these emails left for me to write. Time is just all out of whack for me right now haha.

 

Well, I love you all. Here's to a great week!!

 

Love, Elder Hogge