Hola y'all! Last week with Companion, Elder Johnson!

Subject:	Hola y'all!
Date:	Mon, 5 Feb 2018 14:56:37 -0600
From:	Brett Hogg

Not a whole lot new this week. We did teach a young man this week and he was really cool. He actually has a neighbor on mission right now! We didn't know him because he's in the English ward, but we are teaching this young man because his mom is puro español. Anyway, last time we saw him we gave him a Restoration pamphlet, and we we came by this time and asked him if he read it he said "yea but I didn't answer the questions in the back." And we were like, oh! Because usually people, especially 14 year olds, don't read the pamphlet, and if they do they don't get beyond the first page. So that was that was cool.

Then we have this other investigator who is best friends with a member, and the member was in Houston on Saturday, and he usually just tags along with them to church. Well he showed up on his own! We were floored. He's a very quiet guy and you never know what he's thinking, or if he likes or dislikes something, so when he showed some initiative we were excited. He's a neat guy, he's young, and he's here by himself from Mexico. He was pretty much adopted by the member family. Anyway, they showed up to but later on in sacrament meeting. 

Then after church, we decided to go knocking. Our branch mission leader drove us around and was excited to show us where all the Hispanics live so we could go knock them. So we went knocking and just kind of street contacted along the way. We didn't realise it was super bowl Sunday, and we were wondering why everyone was outside grilling and drinking. We did meet a couple cool people. One guy specifically was really interesting (and drunk). He got really close to Elder Johnson and started going off about how he's looking for a church, but one that doesn't judge him for having tattoos, or a piercing. Not even in like a confrontational way, but in an unnecessarily serious way. The best part was that he spake Spanish, but he sounded Russian! Like imagine a Russian speaking Spanish. And his hand movements and everything where all kind of Slavic as well (like a mob boss telling a story). I wish I had a video of it. At the same time another, even more drunk guy, was telling me all about the virgin Mary. These are the experiences you only get in the mission haha.

From Mom: Just a note about the following statement.. In the mission, becoming a "Dad" means you are training a new missionary who has just arrived from the Missionary Training Center.. it's his first area. So becoming a "big brother" is that your trainer is training another one!  This can be a weird fun thing... and then there are grandparents - when your trainee becomes a trainer.  So confusing - but funny!

Other than that, the big news is that Elder Rodriguez is getting a baby brother! I'm training again! I'm excited, and nervous, because I've never had a companion with worse Spanish than me, so I've never had to learn like REALLY good Spanish, so i'm nervous about being the only Spanish speaker in the companionship. 

Anyway, that's about it!

Love ya!

 Elder Hogg