16 Oct 2017

Things have been awesome this last week. We have things set up for Derrek's baptism next week and he's excited for that! I'll be heading back for it so I'll be home for about a day and then I'll be gone for a few days. We got to go to Idaho Falls for a sealing of someone Elder Hamblin and I both taught. The sealing was amazing and it's awesome to know that they are partaking of those blessings! It was a great day! We had to be quick at the temple since it was out of the mission, so we didn't have time to get a picture 

It still doesn't feel real, but I'll see you guys soon!

Love ya all

Elder Hoffman

9 Oct 2017

 Hey everyone!

This week has been good! Elder Hamblin and I have been having fun and getting along; we've also had quite a few good lessons.

We have been teaching Derick more frequently in preparation for his baptism. He's really excited for it, and it’s been great to see someone take hold of the gospel. He's been really engaged in seminary, and he's enjoyed young men. He was talking to us about his favorite conference address. It’s been a great blessing to have the opportunity to teach him.

We also had a lesson with Jaycee and she's a ball of energy. She's primary age and just a goofy kid. We taught her the restoration and we built a tower with her and talked about how Christ organized his church, but how parts of that tower were taken away, such as prophets and apostles. So we removed some of the bottom pieces and the tower collapsed. But then we talked about how the church was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Church returned the way it was when Christ organized it. She's excited to be baptized as well, but we haven’t set a date yet, we are waiting to see a little more progress from her and the family in keeping commitments.

 Everyone in the wards know I’m short on time so it’s been fun... every time I see them they'll ask not how much longer do I have, they just ask what day do you go home. But it’s been fun we had dinner with the Capson family last night, one of their daughters was just baptized on Saturday and we stood in on her confirmation. They are active but we invited a couple investigators to the stake baptisms. We also taught one of the kids who was getting baptized, Emmit. His family has spurts of activity so we taught him a couple lessons, and also attended his baptism. Anyways we were having dinner with the Capsons, and there little daughters made me a surprise, it was a nice little note and a bag of candy. It was nice.

But I’m not sure I’ll send out an e-mail next week, it'll be pretty busy.

But I just wanted to leave a good message of what I’ve learned.

 So one of my favorite words became awake; at least in the scriptures. Lehi in 2 Nephi 1 he asks his sons Laman and Lemuel basically to wake up before he dies. Three times in that chapter he asks them to awake. They don’t listen and I imagine Nephi was just outside the tent listening, because in 2 Nephi 4 Lehi dies and during a prayer Nephi says to himself Awake my soul. And just the idea of really being awake in the gospel. Some people straight up are a sleep, some people day dream through it, some are just there and just go through the motions. But to be awake i feel takes and active effort. When a player in a sport isnt fully engaged or just seems out of it, its not uncommon for the coach to yell wake up. But to be shorter in writing I've come to realize the importance of daily discipleship and that the gospel is about being humble enough to follow the way the Lord has established, and its about becoming. It says we will be judged according to our works, so are we trying to do the things we've been asked, and the desires of our hearts, so what we are becoming. The Latter part gives a lot of hope, because we aren't perfect, but if we desire to do good it counts for something, but what we truly desire will reflect at least in part of what we do.

So I just encourage everyone to be faithful, desire to follow Christ and let that desire grow with in you or continue to grow. And if you want to know how to be like Christ read about him.

I love you all and am grateful for everyone who has supported me in my mission. Hope you all have a great week and I’ll see many of you soon!

Elder Hoffman

2 Oct 2017

Hey everyone,

I’m going to keep this pretty short. But the week has been good. We got one of our investigators to young men’s and he got along great with the youth, so they have been a great support for him! We did dodge ball and it was pretty fun. We had a good lesson with Maria and she is making progress on quitting smoking. One of our usual lessons fell through she was pretty sick with something contagious, but we encouraged her to watch conference. Conference was really good; I really enjoyed Elder Stevenson's talk on not having spiritual eclipses. Were if we just focus too closely on small unimportant things they can eclipse the love of God and his great light. We also clogged our sink this week so we figured out how to do some basic plumbing. We had a bucket and stuff set up to catch the water from the pipes, so at this point we had everything drained so we moved the bucket. And while we were cleaning the pipe, elder Hamblin got his hands all dirty. So he decided to wash his hands..... with all the pipes undone... so water just started pouring everywhere. We had a good laugh about that. What added, is before we did anything he announced to me "plumber 101 make sure you don’t use the water while fixing it." So what does he do?  He turns on the water haha.

18 Sep 2017

I got my new companion Elder Hamblin on Thursday morning and we had a pretty busy day. Lots of planning and correlating. We taught Derek and the lesson went really well. We also taught him the plan of salvation and he seemed a lot more comfortable than last week. He’s really taking a hold of the Gospel; seminary is probably helping him a lot. But it’s cool to see someone who's sincere.

We've moved a couple people this week. A Lady named Beth; we've helped her a lot. She's a member she's just got a rough life. Then we were just walking and it was one of those right places right times. A moving truck rolled up so we offered help, turns out it was a family that’s working on coming back to the church and they were hoping to find the missionaries. After we helped them move we stopped by Tammy she’s going through a rough time with family stuff. But we were able to help her.

It’s been a good week all and all.

11 Sep 2017

This week has been good! So we got transfer calls, and this is the last one I'll get..... So I am going to "die" in old town, and I'm going to be joined by Elder Hamblin! I served in the same district as him down in MontP, so we know each other pretty well. Should be a lot of fun!

We had a lesson with a young man named Derick and he took seminary last school year and again this year and decided he wants to be baptized. So we set a date with him for Oct 14th! We have several other people working towards baptism but they have to work through a few issues first, but the work is going great!

Sacrament in the first ward was nuts. There were three baby blessings and they reorganized the Elder's quorum and the young men and several other ward positions. By they time the sacrament was passed and the business was finished it was quarter to so the four speakers had about 20 mins collectively.

We've been busy which has been great!

4 Sep 2017

This has been a really great week!

We were able to meet with Maria after a couple of months of trying to catch her. We had a great lesson and got some regular lessons scheduled! Likewise we were able to meet Aaron after a long while of not being able to get a hold of him, and we'll be meeting twice a week with him now.

We had a really great lesson with Tammy! She wants to be baptized and it might be a while before she can be but she has that goal, She has been to church every week, this week  I think she had work but showed up for about 30 mins at sacrament. Which I thought was awesome because a lot of people would have just made a really easy excuse.

Any ways a lot of exciting stuff is happening in the area! And plenty of interesting things but I’ll talk more about those another time. Haha

They are also doing a lot of road work but I’m not sure why they need such strange rocks. Elder Gatlin and I laugh every time we see the signs.

28 Aug 2017

 This week has been good

We saw the eclipse Monday and I’ll send some pics now

We had a couple lessons fall through but we had a really good Lesson with Tammy. We just had a good discussion on faith, and how we can build and nurture our faith. She is making a lot of changes in her life but it’s awesome to see some one that wants to improve.

Likewise we also had a good lesson with a lady named Wendy and she also has been turning her life around and she has to do a couple of things before she's able to attend church so we've been sharing the talks from sacrament meeting this last Sunday was about the temple.

We went up to the Pocatello "P" today and that was fun. Most of our P-days have been mountain biking/hiking. I got a lot of pictures to send of the hikes.

The first ones I’ll send are during the eclipse when it got dark.