One Transfer Already Monday, August 31, 2009

Hi Family,

This week are transfers and Elder Boudrero and I figured out that we are getting the chance to stay together in Colonial Bombal for another 6 weeks. I am so excited to have the opportunity to continue to learn from him. We are growing to be really good friends and I sure do love him. As for the Google Earth thing. The Colonial Bombal Chapel is the chapel where we attend church and the Pench in which we live is really close to the Barrio Primavera. I got a letter from Sister Blackham saying that some missionaries had placed some kind of mark on those locations and I thought you would love to know all this as well.

It seems like the letters take anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks to get there. Fun stuff.

The following is a picture of where I live. This wonderful Pench is home to me! This thing on top is a water tower for our pench. (No picture) And we also have bars on our windows. Almost everyone here has bars in front of their windows and fences wth giant gates in front of their doors. This is a very calm area from what I hear, but it´s all about security. The church is the same way. They have bars and locks and stuff. The church actually got robbed a few weeks back, a member told us about it and it sounded really bad, but when we went to check it out, it was bad, but not as bad as the member made it sound. She made it sound like they had taken the ceiling tiles off as well, but it wasn´t that bad. The thought I actaully had about that was that regardless of what they rob or take from the chapel. It does absolutely nothing to slow down the work of the Lord. The thing that matters is the truth of the gospel. No matter how hard anyone works, they can´t take that away. It was a pretty calming and pretty amazing thought that no matter what else is happening in the world. The knowledge of the gospel is the anchor that makes everything matter. Without the gospel, regardless of whither someone is rich or poor life doesn´t have a direction or meaning.

This next photo is a picture of Ailine, the little girl of a member named Hermana Vale. She talks so much and loves her little rabbit. They live on a farm and just have very little, but she is always so happy and last week we ate lunch with the family before doing some service with them, she asked us if we wanted her to sing for us so we weren´t bored. She then commenced to sing a beautiful version of something about the Argentine flag very loudly. So cute, I love that girl!

This last picture is just about a dollar of bread in Argentina, a little less. When buying bread, here, the peso goes a long way.

That´s about it, I am out of time. This week was fantastic, we did divisions with some of the prospective missionaries in the ward, that was a really big growing experience to be out on my own with someone who has even less experience with missionary work with I do. J. It was awesome.
I love you all. Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and letters, they all help! J Bye.

Love, Elder Hoglund


Ben's Bed. Oh MY!


A Peso's wrth of Bread!


Ben and his little Argentine friend who likes to sing to him.