September 23, 2013 A Miraculous Week with my New Companion: Elder Valdez, of Springfield, Oregon and Ending the Week By Helping Two of God´s Children Enter the Waters of Baptism

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week started out a little crazy with my companion Elder Hawkes being emergency transferred out of our area of Vila Oficinas. In place of Elder Hawkes, I received as my new companion Elder Joseph Valdez of Springfiled, OR who is 100% filipino, as his parents were born in the Philippines. This past week Elder Valdez and I saw many miracles. On Monday night , our first night teaching together, we taught Eliza once again, who we encountered clapping at gates two weeks ago, and taught the word of wisdom. As we taught the Spirit was very strong and she said she already didn´t use drugs, tobaco, alcohol or black tea which are prohibited in this commandment of God. She informed us that she drinks coffee, which is another substance God prohibits to help us be healthy and keep this commandemnt, daily and has been suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes. We promissed her that her health would improve if she obeyed this commandment and stopped drinking coffee and she agreed to stop drinking coffee to be healthier and keep this commandement. I was amazed to feel the Spirit strongly as we taught her this commandment and promised blessings, truly the Word of Wisdom is a true commandement of God to help us be healthy.

On Tuesday we were clapping at gates for the entire afternoon and didn´t enter into a house until about 6 pm when we encountered  16 year old, Gabriel who we taught the restoration of the gospel and church a of Christ and he informed us in the end of the lesson that we were an answer to his prayers because he had been struggling with family problems and his self worth- being somebody in the world- and said our message was the answer and help he needed.

On Wednesday Elder Valdez and I did a division with some elders from a neighborhood nearby. As Elder Calderon, of Lima Peru and I went to visit Giane, who is the granddaughter of Arilinda who was baptized two weeks ago, we encountered Giane´s mom, Giseli. As we were planning on holding Giane´s baptismal service on Sunday we passed by to confirm with Giseli that we had her support. We she attended us at the house´s main gate, she told us that Giane would´t be baptized on Sunday because she needed more time to get to know the church and its´ teachings and was too young to make a big decision that quickly. When she said this I almost gave up hope, but Elder Calderon asked if we could talk to her a little more. She accepted and we promissed a lot of blessings that Giane would gain from her baptism and the church, then we invited her to pray to confirm that her daughter should be baptized. She prayed and when she finished, we stayed in silence for a few seconds and asked her what she felt. She told us God wants her to be baptized this Sunday. We testified that she was right and Giane was baptized yesterday aftr church, with her mom, grandma and siblings present. In additionto this Alberto, the 27 year old brother of Jessica, who was marreid and baptized last month, was baptized yesterday after numerous trials of faith and trusting in the Lord that he will help him stay strong in the gospel after the baptism. 

 I love my new companion, I love this work and I love you all....HAVE A MIRACULOUS WEEK!!!!!!!!!! :)

Love,

Elder Jonathan Hokanson 

   

September 16, 2013 Seeing the Spirit Confirm the Truthfulness of the Restoration to Our new Investigators, An Emergency Transfer

Dear Family and Friends,

You guessed it, once again this week I am short on time, but I just wanted to let you all know that the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored on the earth today, Joseph Smith saw God, the father, and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove and through him Christ´s true and perfect church was retored to the earth once again with a living prophet, who talks to God face to face, 12 apostles and power and authority of God. I had these facts confirmed countless times this past week, as Elder Hawkes and I put into practice a new counsel from President Monteiro in order find the true elect of the Lord. The counsel he gave us was to challenge every new person we teach in the first visit, after we teach the restoration, to pray and confirm with God the positive feelings of peace and love that they felt as we taught. We also challenged each new person to confirm in prayer that Jopspeh Smith was a prophet and that our message is true. As Elder Blanco, a missionary from a neighboring area,  and I were doing a division on Thursday, we put this counsel yet again into practice as we taught Eliza. When we challenged he to pray, she accepted and when she asked God to confirm the truthfulness the Spirit testified to all of us that it was true. We then asked her waht she would do to follow the answer she gained from God, and she responded that she would go to church and invite her whole fmaily as well. Tonight we have an appointment with Eliza, her husband, son and daughter in law. Truly the spirit testifies of truth.

Last but not least the big emergency transfer news...Elder Hawkes has been called to serve in a different area and my new companion is Elder Valdez from Eugene Oregon. I´ll tell you more about my new companion next week.

I love you all thanks for your love, support, forgiveness and prayers!

SMILE this week :)

Love,

Elder Jonathan Hokanson 

Trials of Faith and Arlinda´s Baptism

Dear Family and Friends,

 

This past week Elder Hawkes and I had our faith tried numerous times as we are putting in to practice the counsel of President Monterio and use 80% of our time searching for new invesigators and teaching the restoration and using the other 20% of our time to tech the Lord´s elect that we encountered. The majority of the time this week we knocked on hundreds of doors searching for the Lord´s elect and found a lot of rock hard catholics and lazy people that didn´t want any commitments. I am learning more and more every day on the mission that I am a sinner, far from perfect and for this reason I need to humble myself and rely completley on the Lord so he can make my weaknesses become strengths as is stated in Ether 12:27. 

However, yet another miracle took place, as yet another one of God´s children entered the waters of baptism yesterday, Sunday afternoon. Arlinda, a 51 year old single mother of 4 children, who we encountered after Elder Hawkes met and talked with her daughter at the end of July in the street. We first started teaching Arlinda´s son Luan, but he lost intrest and didn´t want to make any commitments with us, but in the middle of August Luan´s mom, Arlinda sat in one of our lessons and a fire was sparked within her. In our first visit with her, we could tell that she was a smoker and wasn´t too happy. I asked her if she were to die today, would she receive eternal life and salvation. When I asked this she nervously responded that hoped she wouldn´t die becasue she had a lot of changes to make in her life and wouldn´t receive salvation. We then invited her to continue to receive our visits and prepare for baptism, which is the ksy to eternal life. She accepted  the invitation and these past few weeks, with the Spirit and the Lord´s help, we helped her gain a testimony of the restored gospel, fast, stop smoking,  repent and enter the waters of baptism, gaining the key to eternal life. 

I am loving this missionary work, it is a very tough, faith trying, refining, fulfilling and humbling work and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to be one of the Lord´s servants. I just want to publicly apologize to you all for any unrighteous or dishonest thing I have ever done or said to you, and ask your forgiveness. I have learned on my mission that  I am far from perfect and without the savior, I am nothing, but through repentance, daily prayer and scripture study I am cleaned from my sins and become even more like my Savior.

 

I love you all, thank you for all your love, prayers and support.

 

Love,

 

Elder Jonathan Hokanson

 

PS- Attached are pictures of yesterday´s baptism of Arlinda        

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September 2 - Edil´s Miraculous Baptism, Being Called to Serve the Next 6 Weeks As a Zone Leader Alone

Querido Família e Amigos,

As I am short on time once again due to my slow typing skills and my various responsibilites as zone leader, I am copying and pasting my letter I sent to the President in portuguese and I hope you can understand when you put into google translator. 

Querido Presidente,
Eu sou muito grato pelo conselho que você deu para nos e sou ainda mais grato pelo Espírito do Senhor nesse trabalho. Como eu comentei para você em minha entrevista, seguimos os sussurros do espírito e encontramos na terça-feira anoite, em Capão da Imbuia, Edil, quem foi na igreja no domingo retrasada com a mai, que é um membro e trabalha no templo. Edil primeiro conheceu os missionários em Ponta Grossa mais que 30 anos atras mas não ficou interessada em ser batizada porque a família dela tinha raízes bem forte na igreja católica. Porem, ela continuou de receber visitas dos missionários de vez em quando, a mai dela batizou-se, a irmã e varias outras parentes batizarem-se nos anos que seguirem, mas ainda Edil não teve interesse. Isso foi até nós fomos guiados pelo Espírito até a casa dela na terça anoite quando ensinamos ela pela primeira vez sobre a restauração e batismo. Perguntamos ela o que estava impedindo ela de ser batizada e ela respondeu que não sabia. Convidamos ela a ser batizada no sábado, ela aceitou e disse, ``Não sei se vou estar pronto, mas eu vou preparar-me.´´ Nós passamos todos os dias na casa dela, ajudamos ela a parar de beber o pouco de café que ela acostumou-se de beber e foi batizada no sábado e confirmada no domingo. Essa obra é uma obra de Deus, de Salvação e de milagres quando vivermos dignos, eu sei disso. Estou muito animado pela confiança o Senhor tem em mim para liderar essa zona sozinha como líder de zona e sei que muitos milagres e batismos acontecerão este mês de Setembro.

Tenha uma semana milagrosa, obrigado por tudo, eu amo você e sua família.

  

If you didn´t understand that letter in Portuguese, to make a long story short. We were led by the Spirit Tuesday night to the house of Edil, who went to church a week ago. As she had already been taught on and off for the past 30 years, without any real desire to be baptized, we invited her to be baptized, she accepted and with a ton of family support was baptized Saturday evening. 

Last night I got the news Elder Valles would be transferred to Capão da Imbuia the old area of the district leader and that the district leader who served there, Elder Joseph R Hawkes of Twin Falls Idaho, who would be my companion, and continue to be the district leader. I was called last night to serve as a lone zone leader of the 22 missionaries in my zone. I accepted the call and I am excited to see the miracles that will happen this month of Setember.

I love you all, thanks for the love and support!!!!!!!!!! :)

Ame,

Elder Jonathan Hokanson

August 26 - Move to Inbox More 69 of about 129 Why this ad? UNC - MBA @ UNC - Top-ranked UNC Kenan-Flagler offers an MBA online to fit your lifestyle. Expand all Print all In new window Elder De Magalhães Last Week in the Mission Field, Teaching Haitians and Having Difficulty Talking in English when a Man from Israel asked me for directions

Dear Family and Friends,

 

What a week it has been. After being in a trio of missionaries for a little over a month with Elder Valles, of Peru, and Elder De Magalhães, of Recife, I am back in a normal missionary companionship as Elder De Magalhães completed an honorable 2 year mission on Friday morning. I am feeling even more burdened down and resposible as now up until September 2nd I will be the zone leader of 21 other missionaries by myself. However, I have faith that all will work out and the Lord and his angels will support me. I have learned that on my feet alone I am super weak and the natural man is strong, but as I am on my knees praying, the natural man is weak and I am strong witht the Spirit on my side.

On Tuseday night we had our third visit with a couple, Judith and Renel, that moved to Brasil from Haiti two years ago after the massive earthquake. In order to help them understand our message completely we watched the Dvd the Restoration in French. Although I didn´t understand the majority of what was said in french I felt the Spirit testify to me that Judith and Renel felt the truthfullness of our message and the restoration becasue they heard it in their native tounge. 

Lastly on Thursday, when we were going to the mission office to pick up Elder De Maghalhães, I aw a man in the bus tube who looked like he was amish. I thought to myself, he must be from that amish town in Pennsylvania. Just after I thought that, he approached me and asked me if I spoke a little english. I told him yes, and he told me that he arrived in Brasil two days earlier from his home in Israel and was lost, as he was trying to go to a Hebrew school. As we continued talking, he asked me how I spoke such good English and I told him I was American. He was like, ``Well that makes sense.´´ I then helped him find the hebrew school her was going to. As I helped him I realized I mixed my English and Portuguese a lot. I guess that´s what happens when you are in a foreign country for over a year. I know kust as Alma 5:38 states, ``I as a representative of Christ, am one of his shepards that has the responsibilty of call to repentence all of the ``sheep´´ or people that I meet. This is the work of the Lord, for the first time in a long time, a increasing number of God´s children are hearing the sheperds voice, repenting and entering the waters of baptism here in the Brasil Curitiba mission. 

 

I love you all, thanks for the love and support. Have a great last week of summer break...all you oregonians! :)

 

Ame,

 

Elder Jonathan Hokanson  

August 19 - Jessica and Diego´s Wedding and Jessica´s Baptism

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow, it is truly amazing to see how fast time flies. I feel like I was just writing an email to you all yesterday, but it is already a new week. The time truly flew by this week as we helped marry Jessica and Diego in the Cartorio, here in Curitiba. Jessica and Diego were first contacted at the end of March. Diego had been inactive from the church for almost 10 years and had been living with his ``wife´´, Jessica,  for about the same amount of time. The two had a son together, Andre- 7 years old, and they had the custom of smoking drinking coffee. The missionaries that first arrived helped them save their marriage, which was falling a part and they helped them stop smoking and drinking. When I arrived in the beginning og June, Jessica and Diego, finally gained the desire to get married legally with the government. The process to help them get all the paperwork for the marriage was long.

 After two months of waiting on the cartorios, Diego and Jessica were married this past Wednesday and Jessica entered the chilly waters of baptism, as the water heater didn´t work too well because we filled up the baptismal font an hour and a half before the baptism, on Saturday night, and was confirmed a member on Sunday, thus fulfilling a long awaited dream of Jessica. One year from now, there goal is to enter the temple and be sealed for time and all eternity. 

I love this work and I know that the fulfillment of the commandments, brings only happiness and peace to the soul.

I love you all, thanks for the love and support.

Ame,

Elder Jonathan Hokanson