Alma Chapter 7 and No Possum for Dinner

Unfortunately, no I haven’t got my package from you guys but on Thursday I got a package from the Showalters!!! It was filled with candy and toys and letters and fun stuff for my birthday. I almost started crying when I got it. I miss that family so much. I think that’s one of the first things I want to do when I get back is go visit them.

But yeah this week was good. We had some powerful lessons with this lady named Mary and her husband Hector. She didn’t want to read the Book of Mormon because it ''didn’t call her attention'' so I read her the summary of Alma 7 and asked her if that called her attention. She said yeah and committed to read that chapter and pray to know if it is true. That was yesterday and so we are going to go see her today and follow up. Please pray for her and her husband for me. I really want them to progress and get baptized.

We were eating lunch at a members house yesterday and she told me I look like I’m getting fatter  ...ha ha ha. I couldn’t believe it but I think so too. I measured myself the other day and I’m like 5'11'' now. I’m catching up to Dad fast.

Last week we caught a possum that has been coming to eat our trash a lot. Our neighbors had a trap and they loaned it to us. Supposedly they eat possums here so we wanted to eat it. But it was so small and I felt sorry for it so we let it go.

 

Yeah... that little girl in the picture from last week that I sent is like my favorite person here. I love her. She’s so crazy and funny. Hope everything is all good there! Love you guys! Elder Hoy



Possum Anyone???

Cats and Dogs

Sorry momma, still haven’t gotten the package. I’m praying that it shows up this Thursday. NOOOOOOO NOT THE FISH!!!) That’s so sad. (Our fish died)  The other day we were in a bus waiting to leave, and when the bus started moving we heard a really nasty sound and it turns out there was a dog sleeping under the bus, and yeah it died and I almost threw up/cried cuz it was so sad and gross.

On the bright side, we did  have good lessons this week. Oh and I saw a really awesome sunset! It reminded me of home! We also had a multi zone meeting with President Kevin R. Duncan, a member of the first quorum of the seventy. It was really good. Some of the quotes that I really liked from his talk (translated to English)
``The Lord doesn’t expect a lot from us, he just expects everything``
``If you want charity, pray for it. If you really want it, Practice It`` (This one is helping me a lot.) 

 Alright funny story of the week. This explains the pictures. So on Thursday night, I got woken up at like one in the morning to the sound of breaking glass or something. I always leave the light on in my bathroom, and I saw that something was moving in there. I thought someone was in our house for a second, and then a cat poked its head under the door. It went crazy and tried to escape and was running around our house for a few minutes until it went out the door that it had come in.  My companion had left it open by accident. That was the craziest thing that happened, along with the dog thing. But the work goes well, as do my studies. I love you all and hope y'all have a great week!

Love Elder Hoy

Beautiful sunset that reminded me of our Arizona sunsets

I love the children!

Our visitor in the night

I guess he needed some place to sleep

 

A Baptism and Hauling Trees

Hey mamasita! Nope still haven’t gotten the package! I’m kind of getting worried now but hopefully this Thursday it’ll be here! It might be here, but my zone leaders haven’t gone to pick up the letters and stuff!  I hope the other one gets here safely too!

Alright story time! So this week we got to have a baptism in our area, but not one of our investigators! But it was awesome! The other elders couldn’t baptize him in their area because they don’t have a chapel! So they came and I got to participate in the service with my guitar.   I played and sang with Elder Griffin, another Elder from Arizona!  He’s the one on the far right with the glasses! He’s really cool and has less time in the mission than me!

The guy that got baptized is named Francisco and he’s super awesome. He has been listening to the missionaries for years! He just never wanted to give up coffee! But he did finally and the baptism was super awesome!

OK… so after the baptism we went to visit this family and ended up doing some hardcore service! We walked with them like 20 minutes to find some tree to cut down because that is how they make their money! And of course while we were out there it started to rain really hard. We didn’t have umbrellas or anything, and the trunks were like 100 pounds or more. We had to haul them on our shoulders back to their house!

The picture of my shirt is what it looked like after that. But I felt so good after it, even though I was soaking wet and tired. Those were the craziest and BEST things that happened this last week. I love you guys and hope everyone is all good! I love you! Elder Hoy

 Francisco's Baptism

The Family We Helped

A Labor of Love

My Newest Friend

 

New Companion

Hey Momma! No still haven’t got the package yet but hopefully this Thursday I’ll get it! It should be at the offices now but my zone leaders have to go to pick it up! My new companion is Elder Arizmendi, and he’s been out for 20 months, so he knows a lot. He’s good at teaching the people. I do miss Elder Martinez a lot, but he is still in my zone! He just got changed to a different area! But I get to see him every week at our zone meetings! We got 30 new missionaries this last change and only 3 went home. Half of the new kids came from the new MTC in Mexico, and it is super nice there!

But with my new comp we are staying really busy. We should have a few more baptisms in September!  We are still working with Tiburcio and we are going to put a date for a wedding and his baptism in September. We had some good lessons with the Calsadilla family but when we challenged them to baptism, the dad of the family said he’d already been baptized, so he is already a member! I had suspicions because he was soooo positive. But he wants his wife and two of his kids to get baptized too so we are still working with them. We also have a young teenage kid named Oscar who is progressing too. I challenged him to be baptized and he said yes, but he just has to come to church a few time and then he can get baptized! That’s the update on our progressing investigators!

And I also started reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage and its so good but so hard to read because he writes super intelligently! But if you haven’t read that I would recommend reading it!

 

I want to see some pictures of the Powell kids… all of them! I bet they’re getting so big! I miss Landon a ton. Well I love you guys a lot! Everything is good here! I love you all and hope you have a great week! besos y brazos,

Elder Hoy



My New Companion Elder Arizmendi

My Old Companion Elder Martinez

Yeah...I'm Jim Hoy's Son

Just chillin' on the local park bench

 

Feliz cumpleaños Elder Hoy!

Hey mamasita! Thanks for the birthday wishes! I can’t believe I’m 19 already! I feel so old! Yeah were going to have lunch with some kids in our área and maybe buy a piñata and celebrate El Salvadoreño style! It’s going to be fun! And no the package hasn’t gotten here yet! And the next one put Virgin Mary stickers on it because people here have more respect for her than for Christ which is really sad. The Catholic people are obsessed with her. They pray to her and not to God. It’s super hard to overcome that.

But yeah I’ll be getting a new companion this week! I’m super sad! Elder Martinez has been one of my best friends here and I’m going to miss him so much! I’m staying in the área and he’s leaving. We´ve had some great times together but I’m looking forward to my first new companion! It’s going to be fun! I’ll send pictures next week when I find out who it is! Wednesday is the change meeting. I’m really excited but also super nervous.

This week we had good lessons with HermanoTiburcio and he came to church, but his wife still doesn’t want to get married which is a bummer! But we are working with her so hopefully they will soon. The área is really slow right now, but the next change we are going to get two more missionaries here which will be super fun! I’m going to make this week super good so I'll have more stories to tell next week! I love you all.  

Temple Trip

Hey momma! Glad you got the stuff! And I’m glad you like it! The trip to the temple was really cool! We didn’t go in, but stayed outside with our investigators!  The temple here is pretty small, but really pretty! We had some good lessons with the Calsadilla family, but they didn’t show up to church on Sunday which was super disappointing. Hermano Tiburcio is progressing too. He just has to get married to his woman and then he can get baptized! 

I can’t wait to get my package but I’m sad you had to take out the candy. Tell Ashley that if she put money in the card she sent me it got stolen. Did you put Virgin Mary or Jesus stickers on my package? I hope so, and I hope you didn’t write happy birthday on it or anything because that’s how things get stolen... But I love you Mom and I’ll try and make this week super awesome so I have more to share with you guys next week on my birthday! Love ya!!

Elder Hoy

 

The Power of Prayer

Hey Momma, love you lots but my time is basically up here. So yeah I got Letta’s package. So you can send mine this week. And put stickers of the Virgin Mary or Jesus on it and it shouldn’t get lost or stolen. Send it to the aportado postal 142 address that I gave you.

We should have a baptism this week and we’re going to the temple tomorrow with investigators which will be fun. I pray so much everyday, it’s awesome! I’ve really seen how our Heavenly Father answered our prayers this last week! I’ll send more pictures next week. I love you a lot and hope you have a great week! I’ll do the same!