17 Apr 2017

 Things have been pretty good this week! Things have been a little slow in the area but we set some good goals and plans to get things going again, and with a lot of prayers and help things are starting to move along.

We had an investigator that just disappeared after his girlfriend and he broke up, but we've been praying for him and his friend reached out and got him his own quad and talked to him a bit and he's going to start investigating again.

Easter was really good, and I like the videos the church put on mormon.org. The great thing about Easter is that we know that Christ rose and that he is alive to help us through our struggles and to give us strength. To change us from our fallen state to something better, so we aren't just going to be raised from the dead, but we will rise as something better, and we can have that image of Christ in us.

But anyways I love you guys, sorry for the short e-mail

Elder Hoffman

We found a 5 legged cow

3 Apr 2017

This week was awesome! Especially the last two days, it’s always good to hear from our prophet and apostles! Plus they announced a Pocatello temple! We must be doing a pretty good job here, haha. I really did enjoy the session though and I've noticed that of late a lot of the talks have been focused around basic truths of Christ, the atonement, and our spiritual identity, which means that’s probably things we need to make sure we are holding closely to in these days. President Monson didn’t say much but did speak on maintaining a strong testimony of Christ. The commitment that I heard him ask of us is to study the Book of Mormon daily. If we realize it right now or not we need the spirit to be with us especially in these times, and I don’t think there are many better ways to feel the spirit each day than to spend some time enveloped in the scriptures.

 The other thing that has been on my mind is that of Charity, this last week I was reading out of 4th Nephi and verse 13 stuck out to me. "And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus." But when I read this the thought came to me that as we are loving and charitable, which means there will not be contentions, we will see mighty miracles in our live and in the lives of those we love! I think the world is in deep need of charity, people are so quick to find fault, even when among other missionaries I see them finding fault at times given missionaries aren't perfect but if anyone should understand that people have struggles shouldn't it be us. People are so eager to know that they are "better" that someone else, or just to find reason to be upset with others, and it gets nobody anywhere. I had a psychology teach who once said he didn’t believe that love was real; people only love others when it’s a benefit to them. I suppose that there is a part truth to that, but not that love isn’t real, but love isn't natural. We often talk about the natural man and the natural man is selfish and never really loves others just what they give him. So to be charitable is to put of the natural man and to truly become like Christ! To put another’s needs before yours, to be patient and loving towards those who have struggles, to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. As you do those things the Lord wouldn’t be able to stop blessing from coming into our lives.

Anyways, it was a good week with lot learning. I hope you all had a good week!

27 Mar 2017

This week has flown by and we received our trnsfer information.  Elder Holmes and I will remain together.  The only change is that I am now the district leader.

Things went well this week.  We did some service for Terry, one of our investigators.  He needed an irriagaion ditch cleaned out.  Most of the week however was just meetings with ward leaders.  We have a rather finite pool of just non-members in the area so we spend a lot of time trying to meet with ward members on how we can help them be missionaries in day to day life.  Sunday was really good.  We had Daniel show up at church again.  We talked with him a bit afterwards and he agreed to start meeting with us for the lessons.  We are looking forward to teaching him.  We tried to approach him a couple of other times but the friend he comes with is brought by his grandfather.  The grandfather has always made it a little hard to comfortably talk with Daniel.  He's a great guy with a good heart but he just says whatever goes through his mind.  So it was always a little awkward.  The very first time we met Daniel, the grandfather introduced him and talked about how he was already going to pay for his missiona dn all this stuff and we didn't even know Daniel had any real interest.  Things have progressed well in any case.

Something that has been on my mind recently has been reaping what you sow.  How iif we want joy we should bring it to others.  If we want to feel the Spirit we need to make opportunities where the Spirit can dwell.  Or even better, share spiritual insights with others.  Besides the obvious part of that, I think in our lives we are constatntly sowing, it doesn't really stop.  Many times we are not mindful of what we sow; especially as a missionary.  There are times when we are just going between appointments or houses and my mind isn't really on the work and I've started to poinder how much would improve if even when it wasnt' study time, I was pondering things of the gospel or how we can help different people.  With that last part, there's a scripture that I read this week that really impressed me.  Luke 6:45 "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringesth forth that which is good; and an eveil man out of the eveil treasure of his heart bringest forth that which is eveil:  for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh."  If we want to be kind, uplifting and happy people we must trasure up that which is good and good about others.  Pharisees and many others found fault with Christ who was perfect.  Even so how much easier is it for us to find fault one with another, we being imperfect.  But that's not what life is about.  If we are fault finders we will treasure up to ourselves that faults of others.  We will not speak kind things because that is not what is in our heart.  Thus we will sow faultfinding and it will return to us.  So treasure up that which is good and positive and uplifting and we will be good, positive and uplifting people beacuse that is what is in our hearts.  Then we can expect the goodness, positivity and upliftment to come back to us.

Anyway, that's my rant for the week.  Hope it can help someone somewhere along the way.