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.

21 Aug 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been a little slow. Two of our investigators have been in and out of the hospital, one is getting a lot better, the other I think she's improving but she's going through cancer treatments so it’s been tough on her.

We met the Hallenan family again, and they are doing pretty, well. When we stopped by they were all outside, a black widow was sitting in their kitchen up in some spot where they could really squish it and they were trying to devise a plan to kill it. They did its dead now. But we also talked to them about the importance of scripture study and family prayers. It was a good meeting and we showed them the gospel Library app which they were pretty excited about. They a really nice young couple and they have two kids that are about 3 and 2 and they are funny little kids. One likes to act like animals and give you "flowers" (Normally weeds and leaves). But they are a really good family and they are making steps back towards the savior, which is awesome to see.

There’s been a lot of excitement about the eclipse that just took place. We were just out of the Totality range, so it got pretty dark but we didn’t get the full night time effect. You could see the darkness over by IF, if you looked north well we were on top of a mountain to watch it so we could see the darkness move across the Valley. But it was pretty cool. We went and bike/Hiked up Kinport which is the tallest spot in Pocatello if I remember right. And it was a good hike, we walked the bikes most of the way once we started ascending and then we hid the bikes and just cut through the brush so we could more or less just go straight up the mountain. It was pretty cool though. The ride down was pretty fun though.

I'd send pictures but I just realized this computer can’t upload them so I’ll get them to you guys later.

14 Aug 2017

 This week was good,

We had zone conference up in Blackfoot; it’s always good to hear from President Hancock. He did a Q&A session at the end, and it was like write a question, so some one, I think it was someone going home, but someone submitted the question what time is a good time to get married. President’s reply was....... *drum roll*........ After the mission. Then he moved on to the next question, which happened to be "what do I do if imp attracted to a girl in my area"...... These were very deep questions, the answer was you don’t do anything or you get a new area. There were better questions like questions about how to help investigators progress and all that good stuff.

The big thing he wanted us to was to improve our studies. The sentence that stuck out to me in PMG is "while learning from a teacher is good, it is more important to have meaningful spiritual experiences on your own." I reason that it’s because when you have that independent witness, you become a lot firmer in your faith, where as if your faith is based in someone else, what’s going to happen in that person goes through a difficult time.

We also had a really good lesson with Tammy, one of our investigators. I've really been trying to work on explaining things simply. So we read a lot of scriptures with her but throughout the lesson we stopped and made sure she understood, and took a minute just to emphasize the key points.

The tough part about this week we had a family we were trying to meet with that got evicted suddenly, due to a disagreement with the land lord. It was raining and they had nowhere to go and there wasn’t much we could really do for them except just be there. They have found a place to stay temporarily but we aren't sure where they are.

The rain was actually a really good thing though, with all the fires many people were fasting that it would die down. Then it rained the next day, so the fires around Pocatello at least are under control.

We also went mountain biking this morning that was fun.

7 Aug 2017

Hey everybody!

This has been an interesting week weather wise, There have been wildfires like all over the state I think there's like six going on through out the state. But there's a pretty big one outside of Pocatello and we've been getting smoked out from it. Sunday we woke up and there was ash all over the valley. They are really good at controlling it so it doesn't hit Poky though so I'm not to worried.

The rest of the week has been pretty good.  We had a good lesson with Dawn and she attended church this week so we are pretty excited for her. We were suppose to have a lesson the other week but she was admitted to the hospital so that's understandable. But the day she got out she gave us a call to set up the appointment which is pretty exciting.

We got to volunteer at a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, we were scorekeepers. That was pretty fun but some of the teams got a little intense for a fund raiser event. But no one got hurt.

Its been a pretty good week all and all

Love you guys

Elder Hoffman

Below is what a picture of the sky normally looks like and a picture of all the smoke. None of that is clouds just smoke. We also found a mantis outside our apartment.​​​​​

31 Jul 2017

 This week has been pretty great!

We got to talk in sacrament this sunday so that was fun. We also got pushed into performing for a talent show at a ward picnic, and now a different ward wants us to do it. Id rather talk than perform infront of people but owell, were going to do that too in a couple weeks anyways. The thing that really made me ok with doing the performance at the talent show, Is it came to the last act and they were just looking for people to perform because they didnt have enough. Anyways 10 mins before they started one of the young men signed up and didnt say what he was doing. Then he got up there and had the dj put on "i feel like a monster" by skillet or whoever, and sang to it. So i felt like the ward talent show could end on a more uplifting song

We had a lot of appointments fall but a couple kept and they went really well.

Hope you guys have a good week.

17 Jul 2017

We went mountain biking this morning. we me this guy named Dax the other day he was on his way up to the trails, and he passed us and was like when is your p-day. So we ended up meeting him this morning to bike. It was a blast Elder Gatlin's bike wasn't exactly a mountain bike so that made it a bit tough for him but it was good!

 

The week has been pretty good but a lot of cancelled appointments. That was a bummer. But some good things happened. We were walking down the street towards a lady and she started to stumble and as we approached her she asked for a blessing. Her name was Angela and she was a really nice lady, she's had some rough times and just got done with some surgery. So it was an odd setting for a blessing I guess but we moved behind the building for some privacy and afterwards we just talked to her a bit We didn't say much she just had a lot that she wanted to vent about. Afterwards she was visibly better physically and spiritually. I’m glad that we felt to walk that way; we were actually on the wrong road for where we were supposed to be going. But it all worked out!

As I was studying this week I really enjoyed Alma 7:22-24. He talks about how we should live if we want to see the priesthood take effect in our lives and in general if we want to live after the manner of happiness. It’s more so a list of attributes but as we study these attributes and apply them that’s when things happen and when the joy of the gospel enters our lives.

Have a good week everyone!!!

10 Jul 2017

So last week we didn't really get time to e-mail because of the 4th and the FHC was closed.

But our 4th of July was eventful... So we were still suppose to proselyte but that was a little tough cause it was the 4th. But we were walking around not sure were to go and we wandered past the masonic temple. and there was this lady on the grass, panicking. I'll be honest, at first I thought she was just on drugs. But then she called to us for help and we saw that her legs had all sores that were bleeding. So Elder Gatlin handed me the phone and we call the paramedics. So that was a little crazy. But to be honest, when we first saw her I was ready to just pass her by. Then like I thought to myself man I'm about to be a Pharisee. So the story of the good Samaritan popped in my head and the rest is as written. Then later we went to a BBQ.

The week has been a little slow but we have been setting up a lot of appointments for this week so things should pick up. There's a big push in the mission for the use of the Book of Mormon, for good reasons. The Book of Mormon is a testament of Jesus Christ and when people learn that and the Spirit testifies that to them, then everything else gets resolved.

Love you guys and enjoy your week!

19 Jun 2017

This has been a pretty good week, to start off if by some odd chance someone has sent me mail, and I’m going to be transferring down to Pocatello. I'll be back in old town! Not the same area as last year, but just adjacent to it.

This week we had some awesome things and at least one funny thing. But we have been trying to catch the Moseur family for several months. Never could catch them until Thursday! It was probably a blessing too. Its blended family type thing. But they have a daughter who usually lives in North Dakota but she is spending the summer her. It just so happened that she had been taking the lessons in North Dakota. We didn’t know any of this so we had been talking to the Mother for about 40 seconds and then she told us and asked us if we could come back and start teaching. They have another Child that always lives with them and she said it would be good for him to take the lessons as well. So Elder Frizzell and Turner will start teaching them next week!

Then we were going around with a member just trying some visits, and we pulled up to this address we had. There were two houses on the same drive way so we weren't sure which to knock on. But as we got out of the car this kid jumps out of a truck just ahead of us with a gun in his hand, and asked if we were "Mormons" we said yea and figured out it was just a BB gun He goes well were Catholics. We figured that he lived in the one house so we asked if anyone was in the other house and he said it was under construction. So we turned back towards the truck and the kid points at the house we thought was his and says, "well aren't you gonna tell them about the Mormons." We replied "isn't that your house" Then he says "nope, I’m gonna go shoot some snakes" *kid runs off*. We met who actually lived there he was going through the death of his father, so we left him a plan of salvation pamphlet and he said we could come back.

All and all it’s been a good week.

Love you guys

5 Jun 2017

I don’t have a whole lot I want to say this week, but the big thing that happened is the Idaho Falls temple was rededicated. So we got to watch that Elder Eyring gave a great talk on the comfort temple blessing bring into our lives. He told it a lot better than I will, but as he was working at BYU-I he went down to I.F. for someone’s sealing. As they were leaving the temple matron told his wife that the Teton dam had burst. Two of their children were with a sitter and the others were working on a farm not far off from the dam. The roads closed down and they had no contact to Rexburg. They spent the night at a motel. As President Eyring prepared for bed his wife turned and ask "you’re not going to sleep are you!?” So President Eyring turned to her and said, "we have good children and we have been sealed, no matter what we will see our children again, people will need help tomorrow and I plan to be ready." He went on to say that in that moment the spirit gave him a perfect assurance that the ordinance that they had performed was true and as real as anything in this world. 

It's been awesome to see so much excitement and enthusiasm in the re-opening of this temple and of course that a few years down the road another temple will be built in Pocatello. As I continue to learn and understand more of our Heavenly Fathers plan, his love, and his character the gospel just becomes so much dearer to me.

Love you guys

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