June 21, 2010 The Gospel is a mirror of truth. We see things as they REALLY are.

Hello Family!

This week was really interesting. I can`t believe it`s already the end of another change. Time has flied by here. So Elder Scoville is leaving me after one transfer to go to San Rafael and the other two Elders in the pench are leaving me as well to go to different areas. So the pench changes a little bit this transfer, I`ll let you know how it goes.

Monday was really fun last week. We had an impromptu? Zone Meeting in the night that required all of us to giddiap and get on the bus really quick. We are having a tournament wiht numbers in the mission right now...very appropriate with the World Cup and everything going on right now...and they wanted to have a meeting and discuss everything. Today we played soccer as a Zone and found out the transfers. It was pretty fun!

Tuesday we found this inactive member named Kevin Camargo. He`s incredible and loves the church. He was trying to get his little friend who is 9 years old to listen to us. We`ll see if he comes around and comes to church. He even came to an activity we had this week on Wednesday night when we played soccer at the church with a bunch of people.

That was a mini-miracle Wednesday night. We had a plan of what we should do, but felt really strongly that we should go play soccer with the people at the church. So we changed our plans and invited quite a few people and had in incredbile turnout. I know the Lord wanted us to have that activity because normally that many people don`t come to activities like that. We even invited a kid we found in the street to come to the activity and he came with his friends. He`s our friend now and we`ll start working with him.

A funny story from this week. We were talking to people in the street and we talked to a woman with her little kid. She talked to us and we had a good conversation. But the funny thing was when I went to go shake the hand of her little kid he got this wide-eyed scared look in his eyes and said "¡No!" really loud. I thought it was really funny!

I`m trying to do well this week and have something really cool to share. We were having comapnionship study the other day and this thought came to my mind and we were practicing teaching. The gospel is the mirror of truth and the world in which we live is like a mirror in a clown house. I think I`ve heard this example somewhere before, but anyway. I love it because the gospel is the truth and shows us how things really are while the mirror of the world distorts things and tell us things are ok when really things are not ok and tells us things are not ok when really things are ok. The mirror of truth, the gospel, hurts to look in sometimes. Like when we look in a full-length mirror and see the truth, we see things how they really are. Maybe we have to lose weight or something, but the truth tells us things as they really are. The prophet and the scriptures tell us the truth, how things really are, and sometimes the truth really hurts, so we stop to look at it. My challenge today is to study the words of the scriptures and the prophets and face the truth. It is how things really are. And maybe it hurts, but it shows us where we can improve. None of us is going to be perfect, just as someone can`t look in a full-length mirror and be completely satisfied, but we can look and improve every day. That is the challenge.

I love you all! Keep up the good work! Until next week!
Love,
Elder Hoglund