Dear Mom, Dad, Liz, Kirstie, Ashlynn, McKay, Family and friends,

 

I have got to the point in the CTM where all the days blur together and it seems like deja vu everyday because we follow the same exact schedule week after week. Aside from all the deja vu moments that aren't too exciting I discovered a few exciting and different events that happened this past week.

To start off, last Wednesday was the first day Elder Meadows and I left the MTC grounds. In the morning we went to the Sao Paulo temple, then we wandered the blocks of Sao Paulo around the CTM. After walking around for a little bit we realized we could barely understand the locals because they speak so fast and they don´t use gospel and church related terms like we´ve been learning. Aside from coming to this conclusion, we bought some chips that looked like strips of bacon and I bought a Brazilian fanta with real orange juice in it, american soda tastes better but that´s probably because it has twice the sugar than the soda down here. 

Thursday we taught some lessons in Portuguese and I was getting pretty discouraged and I was thinking that I´ll never be able to learn Portuguese at the rate I´m going. After thinking all this I realized that those thoughts were coming from Satan and that as I put my trust and faith in God, all things are possible.

Friday morning, Elder Meadows and I got our first Brazilian haircuts, and the best part was that they were for free. It was quite the experience having the barber sing in Portuguese and not look at your head while he´s cutting your hair because he´s talking to one of the workers at the CTM, luckily my hair doesn´t look too bad. During the afternoon we had our first recorded teaching appointment with two ``investigators`` and it was our best teaching experience yet. It was after this teaching experience that I began to realize I´m actually making good progress with everything. 

Saturday, all of us missionaries were shocked to go the bathroom and instead of having our normal flow of clean water, there was only a small amount of clean water, then that water turned to to dirt brown water, so not a lot got accomplished as far as getting ready that morning because no one wanted to shower or brush thier teeth with filthy brown water. Luckily by the afternoon they had fixed the problem. 

Sunday was a very nice rejuvenating day, we went to church, took a short nap then had a fireside where we sang the spirit of god in Portuguese, Spanish and English the first 3 verses. Our speaker was a stake president from Sao Paulo and he taught the importance of staying faithful and humble as we serve. 

Monday morning we had our first annual district volleyball game and although we didn´t keep score it was a great bonding time. 

Last night we heard a great devotional that was given in the Provo MTC on Sunday from Elder Bednar and he said that all the answers to the questions of life are found in the doctrine of the gospel, not only yhe applications. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for not just teaching me the applications of the gospel, but all the doctrine behind it.

 

Thank you all for you support, love and letters!!!

 

Love

 

Elder Hokanson  

 

PS are we related to an Evelyn hokanson, tell dad I met Rob Cesena´s daughter form K Falls and I can´t send anymore photos over email-mtc policy.