29 May 2017

So we things were really busy on Friday so we forgot to get pictures, but that’s ok. Friday Lexee got baptized and it was a really awesome program, she had a lot of support in the ward and it was just amazing. It was years of preparation and we just happened to catch the harvest, but she's really a special kid and throughout the lessons and baptism we think it’s really softened her mom’s heart. Her mom isn’t a member, so we are hoping that she'll recognize that she was feeling the spirit at the
baptism.

We have been finding that a lot of the recent converts out here never received the new member lessons so we are doing a lot of work with them.

Another awesome thing that happened is we were out knocking some doors, and we saw a family that we have tried to meet with but the mom tends to flake out on us. But we saw them doing some yard work for a rental home that the grandma owns. So we offered to help and they were like we don’t want your nice close all ruined, so we biked home changed and went back, then spent a couple hours helping them. At the end we were having a pretty good time, they are an awesome family and hopefully we will get to see them some more this week.

It’s just been good all-around we calculated one day that we biked about 25 miles. But that was a more than normal day. I was with Elder Lasalosi that day (not elder Turner) and he got tired so he decided to grab my bag as we were riding and I towed him about 6 miles all together so hopefully im not putting on any weight.

22 May 2017

It’s been a crazy week. So since last Friday we have been teaching Lexi every 2-3 days, we made preparations for Landon's baptism, had zone conference, and exchanges.

Teaching Lexi has been awesome she is a stellar kid and has an awesome grasp on the gospel. While I was on exchanges with Elder Boatwright we had a lesson with her on the plan of salvation and I think a bit of what we said went over her head, but I think it was a good one for the parents to hear. Friday we taught the rest of the plan of salvation and then the gospel of Jesus Christ, this time it involved a lot of pictures and drawings and Lexi really enjoyed that. I think kids have a much better understanding of the gospel than we tend to give them credit for. She is preparing for her baptism this Friday and we are pretty excited for her!

On Thursday we had Zone Conference with Elder Sitati. He had a very happy personality; he talked mostly about improvement and the importance of having the spirit in a companionship. When he talked about improvement he had us do a few things from the Christ like attribute activity in preach my gospel. Mostly those focused charity but also around faith, virtue, patients and diligence. Any ways in PMG you give yourself a 1-5 rating five being you always act in that manner, 1 being never. So he talked about the progression of improvement. If you’re at a 2 you don’t just jump to a 5 and become depressed if you can’t, he said you move step by step and celebrate with each improvement. You move from sometimes doing something to doing it often, then celebrate that you are doing better, then often to almost always, and celebrate and then you strive to always have that attribute. It was a good meeting and Elder Sitati is certainly an inspired man.

Saturday was an amazing day. Landon had his baptism and was confirmed the following Sunday. His family has been less active long enough that he's about ten and hasn't been baptized, but with the temple open house coming he had a strong desire to go and to start getting into church. He planned to have his grandfather baptize him but then dad realized it’s something a father should be able to do. So the family has really benefited just from Landon's desire. The service was great, I could see how happy his aunts and uncles were that he made this choice and helped his family through it.

It’s been a great week and the Lord has prepared so much for us, we just have to go and do.

15 May 2017

Things in the mission are going good! A lot is happening and it’s just an exciting time in the area. We have a boy named Landon and he is preparing to be baptized this Saturday. We had a good review with him and it’s been awesome to see his desire to be baptized help the rest of his family. They have not been active recently and his mom and dad are members but have never been to the temple. So it’s been really cool to work with the entire family. 

We had a huge miracle this week.  Wednesday when Elder Turner came in, Bishop Dalley gave us a call so we went over to meet with him. I figured he wanted to talk about Landon, but he brought up a girl named Lexi. She has been attending church with her neighbors since she was about 7 and she is 11 now but her parents never really approved of baptism. With the temple dedication coming up, she was in tears because she couldn’t attend because her parents never permitted her to be baptized. This caused a softening of their hearts and they are now in full support of her choice to be baptized. Over the next couple of weeks we will be teaching her a lot to prepare her for baptism next Friday. It’s awesome to see the miracles that have come about with the temple dedication, and also to see the result of several years of preparation come to pass.

 The Lord’s work is an awesome service to be engaged, and it’s the coolest thing to see the gospel enter or re-enter the lives of these families.

On a different note we have had a good number of service opportunities. We have helped a couple times in building a greenhouse, and we also got to help in a color run that the stake put on. It’s been a pretty great week. Plus the call home was pretty sweet.

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

Elder Holmes and I also went to the potato museum for his last P-day​

8 May 2017

Sorry I haven't sent anything the last couple weeks; sometimes I just get really bored with e-mailing it’s not like actually talking to people so it gets boring at times.

But things have been good recently we have been finding new investigators, and we have a boy named Landon on date to be baptized. His family got really busy for a couple of weeks, but we were able to catch them and prior to this he already accepted the invitation to be baptized. We talked with them and we were able to get a date set and they were able to make it to church again for the first time in a couple of weeks. So we are excited to see the progress they are still making!

Transfers are upon us once again so Elder Holmes and I will be splitting up and Elder Turner will be joining me in Thomas. I don’t know much about him but I've never been with a companion that I have known prior so this seems to be the usual. All and all things are going well.

I've really enjoyed the challenge that president Monson has given us to read the Book of Mormon each day. It’s pretty easy as a missionary but I love the why behind it. He can see the difficulties in the world especially the opposition against our faith.  Reading the Book of Mormon helps prepare us for the trials of the world but more importantly when truly studied and not just read, it keeps our foundation in Christ solid. There are so many things and people in the world today that oppose Christ for one reason or another and honestly I think that’s why the world is in such disarray, because people either don’t believe in Christ or don’t act upon that belief. I feel Christ is more of just a nice idea to many people in the world today and not a role model or example as should be. The idea of Christ is nice, but just doesn't bring much into our lives unless we act upon all his teachings. It does take a bit of work and sacrifice to really follow the savior’s teachings, but the blessings are far greater, and the person you become is a truly joyful person.

Anyways that’s my little update to everyone

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

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.