Week 70

Interviews!

Hey everyone really quick this week was great!  Not much to really report, so ill be quick.

On tuesday we had interview with president! and the entire time my companion and I had simulations with other missionaries to see how they are teaching, and I got surprisingly tired, it has to be extremely difficult to be a mission president or a bishop, or have interviews all day long.  It was fun to do though, because we learned a lot about the way we were teaching.  When Doctrine and Covenants says we dont teach without the spirit, it means we dont teach without the spirit, so we have been focusing on that as a zone in this week.  

 

Besides that not much interesting happened!

 

Love you all!

Elder Hodson

 

 

Another Facebook Find!

Week 69

Frio en Poza Rica

So this week was i think the first week of real cold I´ve felt in poza.  It got down to probably 40-45 degrees this week, it was basically a miracle, but of course as soon as it got cold, our hot water broke.

Besides that fun, we went to Xalapa for Mission council.  Its always fun to be a part of that.  Lots of things that we learn in council, and its usually missionaries that actually care about the work, so we can focus on what is actually important.  

 

That kind of took us out of our area for a little bit though, so we werent able to work as well as we could have, but we had some nice little miracles on sunday.  On tuesday we went out to a little area that we hadnt been to before, and started contacting.  After a few houses and no success, some little kid saw us yelled out "elderes" and ran up to us and gave us hugs.  That was a nice little surprise.  So we got to know him and his mom, and they are members that are newish in the area, but had recently gone less active, so we taught them, and excited them to go to church.  And of course on sunday they showed up, and ending the testimony meeting the little kid wanted to bear his testimony, so he pulled the "hey if you go up ill go up" so i accompanied him to bear his testimony.  Him as well as a few other kids bore their testimonies, and it was nice to see.  There are some very faithful children coming in these last days.

 

All is well, Love you all!

Elder Hodson

 

 

Week 68

Happppy New Year

Happy new year everyone!  It felt like we were in the middle of world war 3 or something on new years there were so many fireworks.  The fireworks and parties lasted until we woke up sunday morning around 6, the party never ends here.  They have a weird tradition here where they buy a giant old guy and they explode it, but we had to be in our house super early, so we didnt see much.

This week was fairly slow because of all the parties and stuff, but we got to work with some other missionaries and sacrifice our own area for them.  We only really worked 2 days in our own area this week, and sacrifice brings blessings!  Our ward has really helped us out a ton.  

Our zone is slowly getting better, weekly they are hitting higher goals, and working harder.  Its a slow process, but its all uphill from here.  Our president trusts us a lot here in this zone, and sometimes i feel like its the blind leading the blind, but something we are doing is working right haha.

 

Not much else happened this week, on wednesday we go to xalapa for mission council, so im fairly excited for that, it´s always nice to get new ideas, and things to help us.

 

Love you all!

Elder Hodson

Our Best Christmas Gift!

We had been looking forward to this ever since Mother's Day!  Best Christmas present EVER!

Week 67

A White Christmas

Merry Christmas from Poza Rica!!!!  It was only 95 degrees outside yesterday for christmas hahaha!  I love it.

So for Christmas we ended up baptizing!  It was actually a miracle!  We found this hermana the first day i showed up.  Her 3 older kids are members already of the church, and she wasnt able to get baptized before because she was living with someone, and he didnt want to get married, nor leave the house.  But when we found her, her husband thing had just left for good from the house!  So since we started teaching her she has just been golden, and she already knew everything.  But on saturday she ended up telling us that she wanted to wait until the 8th of january to get baptized, but we explained to her that we didnt want satan to win, so she got excited again.  Later that night we got a call from a member in the ward who went to visit her and she told him that she didnt want to get baptized again, so we just decided okay, we wont pressure her.  So we showed up to sacrament meeting and there she was sitting with her backpack full of extra clothes and towels, and she was ready to be baptized, and she just said "were going to beat satan right?" so we had a little mini heart attack fill up the baptismal font, and run to the house for baptismal clothing, and at the end of the day she was able to be baptized by her 16 year old son.  Really fun baptism, and a huge blessing.

Oh and I talked to my family, that was cool.  

 

Besides that one of my best friends in the mission just got sent to my zone ! so thats gonna be fun haha.  

 

Love you all!

 

 

Week 66

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Its kind of hard to remember that sunday is going to be christmas when its always hot outside, but were trying to get into the christmas spirit by serving and working as hard as we can, and of course baptizing!

This week was once again slammed, on monday we had to send some missionaries to xalapa at 4 in the morning, and babysit some other missionaries for a few hours, tuesday we were in the bus station from 5 am until about 3,  wednesday I got a random trip to xalapa and back for my visa, thursday we had to take care of the assistants, friday we had our zone christmas conference, and saturday we finally had a day to work hahahah!  But after so much stuff saturday we were kind of worn out.  But even though we had about 2 days of working hours, we  still ending up having better results than almost the whole zone!  We are trying to learn to get rid of excuses in our zone, excuses are just a lack of faith.

 

This week we were also able to baptize!  Argelia was able to get baptized, as well as a little girl named Allyson, but she counted for the ward because she is only 8 and her mother is member.  But it was a great baptism, and we had tons of support from our ward.  This family was inactive for about 15 years, and the missionaries before me found them, and started to reactivate them, and Argelia´s husband was able to recieve the priesthood and was able to baptize his wife.  The family has changed 100% since they got back to the church, and its a great blessing to be able to be a part of that change.
In this christmas week I just want to invite you all to learn what true christmas spirit is... Serving your fellow being!  For those who have yet to see this years christmas video from the church, go see it on Mormon.org!  Follow the ideas that come from each day in these last days before christmas.  Do everything you can to be able to serve someone else, Make Christmas great again.. 

Love you all and merry christmas!

 

Elder Hodson