Best Week of My Mission!

Ok…so this has just been probably the best week of my mission and was one of my favorite birthdays ever! Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes! I can’t believe I’m 20 either. I still feel like a goofy teenage kid. So my birthday started out like a normal day until the night when a sister in the ward invited us over for a ''family home evening'. When I walked in, they had it all decorated with a cake and piñata! I almost started crying because I felt like I was with my family again.  I felt so much love from them…and the lady kind of looks like you mom, so that’s awesome too! They are probably my favorite members here in this ward. Oh mom… start preparing our El Salvador 2015 vacation because I’ve already promised a lot of people down here that I’m going to come back to visit and I HAVE to keep that promise!!! 

The rest of the week was good too. Thursday we had short interviews with President Spjut and he said he’s noticed a good change in me, that I’m doing a lot better and working a lot harder. I really am and I’m way happier! So that was cool to hear from him.

Everything this week was leading up to Saturday for the wedding of the century! It was so great and we had a great turn out of people to support Rene, his wife and Maria and her son Anthony for their baptisms. It was so great! I almost cried when I saw them get married and it made me want to get married really bad… but now isn’t the time to think about that ha-ha. It’s been such a miraculous journey with that family and we know it wasn’t us that did the work! We were just the Lord’s hands in the work. It’s safe to say that this has been one of the best weeks of my mission! I love you all and hope y’all have as great a week as mine has been! 

Much Love

Elder Hoy

 

 

 

More Changes

August 18, 2014

Ha-ha… another crazy week full of changes! So I’m back in the other area and I’m no longer with Elder Paravato!  Due to some problems in the other companionship,  I was put back in the other house that I was in before with an elder  from Guatemala named Elder Gonzalez. He is way cool and we are working well together. 

We had a great ward conference yesterday and a surprise visit from the mission presidents which was cool. I officially have been out 16 months! Yeah I got my package!  To say I loved it would be an understatement!!  The ties are so cool and you definitely scored on the deluxe honey roasted cashews and the jack links beef sticks.  I’ve almost eaten all of them already… ha-ha!  It’s weird to think that this is my last birthday that I’m going to celebrate here in El Salvador. 

Hopefully this week, we will baptize a family that has been preparing, and we are also going to baptize another lady named Maria and her son.  So we are very happy here!  Yesterday in our ward, the mission president  told the ward that the missionaries are the full time teachers and that the members are supposed to be the full time finders! So I hope that you guys are at least trying a little to find people for the missionaries to teach! I know that the more you guys help out there, the more the members out here are going to help me!  I love everyone and hope y’all have a great week!

Much love
Elder Hoy

Another Great Week!

HELLO FAMILY! Well there is nothing better than having a good week followed by a better week! On Monday night after I wrote you guys, Rene made the choice to get married and to be baptized. We will baptize them on the 23rd!! We are so excited. Prayer and fasting... ANSWERED!!! Way cool!!!

Then we went to the temple on Wednesday with some of our investigators.  Rene and his wife and kids also went.  His son who was baptized a couple weeks ago, was able to go and do baptisms.  So they were there waiting for him when he walked out and he was super happy. It was soooo cool!

We also found a really positive new family to teach! The mom lived in San Diego for a long time so she speaks perfect English.It was really weird teaching a little bit in English.  We are so excited to start teaching them more. 

The laundry room looks really good and so does Ashley’s baby ha-ha. Wow, and that’s soooo great for Travis. I still remember when he dropped me off at the airport and he told me to work hard and have fun on my mission. I told him to get married! Glad to see we’ve followed each other’s counsel ha-ha. 

Well, I’m just going to keep working harder and finding more people to baptize! ‘‘A missionary that baptizes is a happy missionary.'' is what one of my friends here told me and it’s soooo true. I didn’t feel that happy for a long time because I wasn’t baptizing, but now that we are helping people to come unto Christ, I’m way happier!! 

Here are some pictures. A selfie in front of the temple, a way cool family in our ward, and some drawings I did in my journal and stuff. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Much Love,

Elder Hoy

Great Week Filled With Small Miracles!

Well it would be safe to say that this has been one of the best, most testimony-building weeks of my mission, full of small miracles and big ones. I am just so thankful to the Lord for all the wonderful things He does for us. My testimony of the power of fasting and prayer has been strengthened soooo much. I really am just so happy to have seen the hand of the Lord work in our area this week. 

We have a man that we have been working with for a while. His name is Rene and he has been progressing really well. We had started our fast, and asked Heavenly Father to help us with them. We really want to help him get baptized and reactivate his (common law) wife. We had a really good lesson with them on Saturday but at the end of the lesson she said that she didn’t want to get married anymore. (She had wanted to for 10 years and he never wanted to, but now HE wants to and SHE doesn’t.)  We told them to pray that night as a family and that Heavenly Father would help them decide.

Then yesterday at church, they both came and during the testimony meeting she had tears in her eyes and at the end, they told us that they are going to make the decision to get married. So now we're preparing everything for the wedding and the baptism! We are so happy because we have really seen firsthand the changes that they have been making to come closer to God and it is just so wonderful to see the happiness coming into their lives. 

Their son was baptized about a week ago so I think that has helped them feel the spirit and keep progressing. There were a lot of other awesome little things that happened too. I’m growing to really love my companion, and we are getting along and working together great. We had a good week of work with the members and yesterday we had a ward council to plan an activity and the ward is really excited to help and participate. I feel like this will be something that will help activate the ward a lot and get them working with us more.

For the meantime, we are just going to keep doing what the Lord expects of us! My companion and I are getting along great and I think we are going to finish this time together being one another’s favorite companion. I really can’t believe that I’m about to have my last birthday in the mission and that I’m going to be 20!! So crazy! I definitely don’t feel that old! Here are some pictures. A guy we found gave us cool hats so we took some "selfies" (yes, that word has reached El Salvador too) and I had a crazy cool wildlife encounter!

Love, Elder Hoy 

HEY FAMILIA! I LOVE YOU ALL!

We just got a new zone leader in our area. He is from Gilbert too. His name is Elder Baker. We did an interchange last Friday and stayed up all night talking about old stories. He lives on Val Vista and Queen Creek so he went to Perry High School .We knew a lot of the same people before. 

Rene’s baptism went super good. A priest in our ward baptized him but they didn’t fill the font up very much so his knee kept popping out so he had to do it 4 times. He was super nervous but it was cool. We are going to try and put a date with Rene's father to be baptized. He is soooo ready to get baptized but right now he has to work Sundays. He is looking for a new job so he can be baptized this month. Elder Paravato and I are getting along great and our area has a ton of potential this month. We are going to work super hard and baptize a ton of people!!! I’m way excited. 

OK... story time.  

First, we had this lady ask us if our church had some type of device to communicate directly with God. She said that someone had told her that and so she was a little confused. We told her YES... Yes we do. It’s called PRAYER!!! She laughed a little but then we explained to her the power and importance of prayer. 

Second, this little kid was playing with a balloon and knocked his little sister down two stairs in their house on accident. His mom came running out and hit him really flippin' hard. My companion and I were just like whatttt??? That is NOT how you teach little kids. I’m really glad that I was ''born of goodly parents'' that didn’t beat me. I realized that these countries in Central America have so many family problems because they really don’t understand love and charity. It’s really sad because these people say they have so much faith in God but then they don’t understand the most basic principle of the gospel...which is love.

Ha-ha... oh and I accidentally punched my companion in the nose. We were joking around and I fake punched him but he moved and I hit him in the nose...oops...!. But yeah this week was good so I love you guys!!!!! A LOTTTTTT!!!

Oh and my camera isn’t broken after all! I can send pictures now!

My New Zone Leader Elder Baker

Rene's Baptism