Success with the Language! New Companion! October 16, 2009

Hello Family,

I am so excited to write you this week and tell you what has been going on. It has been quite the exciting week. At the first of the week, we found out for sure that my trainer Elder Boudrero was leaving for San Luis and that I was going to be staying in Colonia Bombal. Needless to say, I was a little bit intimidated at first because that would mean that I would need to be doing most of the leading, guiding and communicating for the first little bit because I knew the area a little bit. This implies more communicating in Spanish. Let me tell you that who the Lord calls, he qualifies. I certainly did not feel qualified to stay in Colonia Bombal and be a leader there, but the Lord has blessed me so much. This week I have felt so much Heavenly help in my communicating and in everything I´ve been doing. I have learned to have a good attitude and an obedient attitude and this is bringing the confidence and faith that everything will work out. There have been two or three times this week where I have been giving a lesson and the Spirit has just taken over. I was speaking in Spanish very fluently and things just kept coming out. The Lord has blessed me so much this week with the communicating and understanding skills to do what He needs me to do. I know that the Lord is helping me...it´s been quite the incredible week.

Today for Dia de Preparacion, we got together as a Zone and played a little futbol and basketball. That was pretty fun. Afterwards we went and made tacos...that was also pretty fun, our Zone is incredible. People here play futbol SO well, it´s incredible. It´s fun to watch!! I occasionally try to get in on the fun.

My new companion Elder Boyd, is incredible! He came here to work and we are so excited to work here in Colonia Bombal together. He is from Atlanta Georgia, has a thick southern accent, and is so energetic, friendly, and the best worker. He is helping me to step up the work here in Colonia Bombal, he is such a wonderful Elder, and I sure do love him.

We had an incredible first lesson this week. We were walking in this new neighborhood that people have been living in for a little over a month or so and we ran into one of our less-active member friends talking with his friends. We went over to talk to them and ended up talking for quite a bit of time about what we do as missionaries. Luis, the member´s friend, really wanted us to come over to his house after we were done talking to him. So we set a return appointment for the following day and that night was one of the best first lessons ever! The Spirit was so strong, everything in the teaching flowed smoothly, the Spirit was directing, and Luis and his wife are very interested in the church. We left them some reading assignments and told them to read and pray. We had previously planned an activity with the less-active member family in which they were going to invite their other friend (not Luis, by the way, the less active member family is called the Familia Fredez) to watch a church movie with us. So we also invited Luis and Estrela (his wife) to the activity at the Familia Fredez´s house. They said they would read, pray, and come with us the following night.

When we came back the following day, they had both read, prayed, and were coming to the activity!!!! This is incredible! We went to the Familia Fredez´s house and watched The Testaments and afterwards had a good talk. Everything is going so well except for they weren´t able to make it to church the following day. We are going to work with them this week and get them to church. They are so incredible, Luis is so interested and wants to know...not only that, he wants to DO as well, his wife as well, but Luis especially. Oh...another bonus, they are married! This is so incredible and you will definitely be hearing how things are going there. I sure do love them.

I tried to make some Brownie, cookie things with some frosting in between for the lesson we had with the Familia Fredez...that was a scary cooking disaster. It ended up being edible, but I sure had quite the experience trying to add ingredients that the recepie did not call for to try to make it work. It was pretty funny! :)

I´m having some fun experiences trying to lead Elder Boyd around Colonia Bombal. I´ll admit that it´s difficult, but I am loving it! We´ve started having a little bit of Spanish study every day while everyone is taking their Siesta. I am understanding most people when it comes to speaking, it´s really fun to communicate with people and be able to speak their language. How fun!
The work is moving along, I am having tons of fun. I had a really good learning experience in which I learned to have a good attitude and an obedient attitude and I will never have a bad experience in the mission. I will definitley have difficult experiences, but they will never be bad because I will always be looking for the good and taking the good out of experiences. This was so helpful to me I hope it´s helpful to all of you. I love all of you so much! Take care until next week.

Love,
Elder Hoglund