Monday, April 30, 2018

Good-bye Lufkin :( Off to... Frisco!?

Subject: FRISCO
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2018 15:12:05 -0500
From: Brett Hogg 


Well family,  I'm outta here. I'm off to Frisco! What the heck?? Never in one million years did I think I'd be going to FRISCO. It's an English area even! What the heck!  I only have like 3 transfers left, so it'll probably be my last area too... I'm pretty sad actually, I really love the people here, and we had some good work rolling here too. I'm nervous about this new era of upper-middle class English work. My new companion will be Elder Tornow, don't really know him. Man, I'm going to miss Elder Nelson, he's the best!

This past week we found like 9 new investigators! We also had a really good lesson that didn't go at all as planned. Originally we went with the intention of teaching the five parts of Gospel of Jesus Christ. We left them with Alma 32 to read, and the mom/wife read it but the husband/dad did not. We both felt impressed at the same time to read it together with them. It was an awesome lesson and the spirit was there for sure. It was a stark contrast to the two times this week someone handed us back the Book of Mormon. One was a militantly Catholic guy who really just wanted to bash. The other was the Rhode Island mexican guy! He was super nice and told us that he spoke really highly of us with some other people, but he got really hung up on Joseph Smith. He really seemed to like us though, he was really cool.

Then we went super hard this week to get people to church. That's what's really hanging up our investigators, we are teaching a lot of cool families, we just can't get anyone to church! Well Sunday rolls around and we stop by before church to one of our most awesome investigators, she's really cool, and really is trying to get close to God. Well we knocked on her door and from the second story window told us she was getting ready to come! We were stoked. Well church came around and nothing. We had an inactive family that we are reactivating came, but no one else... Well during the second hour we get a Facebook message from her that said she's lost. We facebook called her and it turns out she was lost and drove around with her kids for like an hour looking for it. She couldn't call us or anything because her phone cut out. We were super crushed! So she didn't come to church (but she definitely tried). And I don't blame her, the building is in the back of an neighborhood at the end of a dead end. It was super sad. After church we stopped by to apologize, and her mother in law who is also an investigator said they were all dressed up and ready to go, so we felt really bad. It was super sad. Hopefully I can come back when shes baptized, because she's totally ready. I love these people.

Anyway other than that, not much new. We went out onto an English members property to help him out with some maintenance and stuff. Here's a post he made about it.

Anyway Love yall!
Elder Hõgg

I have no idea what this is!? -Mom






Monday, April 23, 2018

Food and the Book of Mormon :D

Subject: Sorry this is so late!!
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:45:16 +0000
From: Brett Hogg 


Hola Familia!

A good week. It started off with a 4.5 hour drive (+1 hour for traffic) to Dallas for trainee graduation! It's a new thing President Dalton is doing were everyone that is finishing being trained comes and teaches everyone else the lessons and we critique each other. It was pretty neat. We got a ride from an awesome member in the English ward. It was another 3.5 hours back, so we spent a lot of time in the car that day. We did get to stop at the famous "Bucee's" gas station. It's a big giant gas station with just about anything you can imagine.

We also have this cool family we are teaching that owns a Mexican fruteria/snack place. It has another restaurant attached and they invited us to come over for lunch it was really good. And afterward he made us this big ol ice cream sundae, but with CHURROS on the bottom, it was awesome. They're really cool, and started reading the Book of Mormon. They're really good friends with a lot of the members of the Branch.

They also had a little street festival thing called Springfest that we went to to try and contact some people. Well we saw our lunch friends there with an awesome food truck they have, and they gave us ice cream, they're the best! We also saw another guy that we found that was baptized in Mexico as a youth, but has now been a Jehovah Witness for the last 20 years. Speaking of JWs, we ran into some and offered them a card. Apparently they don't "interfaith" with other religions as they said, but they did spark up a lively discussion and tried arguing with about some stuff, we just testified and were definitely the calmer ones! A good discussion though.

A member also made us Menudo!! Elder Nelson first time, and he surprisingly didn't mind it. I on the other had wasn't the biggest fan. It tastes fine actually, it's just the meat is sooooo weird and chewy and bouncy and gets stuck in your teeth. And the worst part was I added some Jalepeños to it with my hands and later rubbed my eyes and it really burned, I had to go to the bathroom and wash my eyes for a while, and my nose was running a ton, it's what I imagine being pepper sprayed is like. It was an experience for sure.

Other than that we have been teaching some cool families. They're not particularly progressing a ton, but they are really neat and I love them. And they love us! We're helping them read the Book of Mormon and they seem to like it. I love the work and I love all our people, a lot!

Love y'all too!!
Elder Hogg

Also I bought Elder Nelson this huuuuge High Priest Tie for a dollar at a thrift store. And our district taking pictures in the bed of our sweet truck! (for those that aren't LDS - a high priest is typically an older man... Eric is a high priest.. hahaha)







Monday, April 16, 2018

Motorcycles, non-Jews, and Mexicans2

Subject: Motorcycles, non-Jews, and Mexicans2
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:16:14 -0500
From: Brett Hogg 

What a week!

Tuesday. Tuesday night we had a lesson with an investigator. We originally went with the intention of teaching her and not setting up a return appointment, to have her call us when she's ready. Well, we get there and the house is all crazy there's extra people there, and they're in the middle of doing a bunch of other stuff. She babysits and 2 of the moms for whom she babysits were there. One of them was very impressed by 2 white guys speaking good Spanish, and was pretty curious about the whole situation. The other new about missionaries and Mormons and such, because she had lived in Rexburg, ID for 2 years with a Mormon family. What are the odds?? She wasn't particularly interested in any religion, but we were talking and gave the first lady a Book of Mormon. They both said we could come back though. They all live in the same complex, so we will going back tomorrow! 

Wednesday. We have been going on splits (each one of us goes with a different member for visits and lessons that night), and Hermano Roberts is one of the guys that comes out with us. He's an American guy that served his mission in Argentina, so he's been called to help the branch. He takes us in his 1969 Chrysler Newport convertible. It's awesome and people love it. People on the street offer him money for it, and our investigators think it's awesome. And it's awesome to ride in.

Thursday. On our way home for the night were rear ended! Like less than a half mile from our house.  It was a kid with a truck (1999 Ram 1500 to be exact lol), in the exact situation that happened to me that time I (supposedly) rear ended someone. We were at a stop light and it turned green and he started going before I did. I think he hit the gas though, because he dented our bumper pretty well. After we exchanged information and everything, we talked for a sec, and he said missionaries could stop by his house and share the message. We hope he's actually, at least, a little interested and not just saying that because he didn't want us to get him in trouble haha.


Saturday. So Friday night by we were walking through downtown Lufkin. Surprisingly dead. Well there was this guy on a really loud but cool motorcycle. He stopped at a stoplight and we offered him a card, he shouted over the engine "I'm Catholic", we told him to have a blessed day and he sped off. Well Saturday comes around and we are walking near that same neighborhood where we found the Russian Mexican, and the other borrachos we talked to Super Bowl Night. We went back to where he was and knocked, and it was the Motorcycle guy! We noticed it outside but couldn't tell if it was the same bike because the the first time we saw it it was night. He opened that door and said the same thing, but we asked if he was the same guy we saw the night before and he said yes. We asked him a question or two about this motorcycle, and he says  "hold on a sec I'll let you hear it". He closes the door and comes back out with the key and turns it on and even lets us sit on it and rev it. He said it was a limited edition one from the factory, they only made 100 of them and he can get up go to 90 mph and still have 2 gears left. He was spouting off a bunch of other jargon I didn't understand,  but it was awesome. He said we could come back and share some stuff with him, and even let us give him a pamphlet. 

The set up of his place was really weird, but in the weird house building behind his was the drunk guy that started talking to me, in the middle of the Russian Mexican experience, about the Virgin Mary in Mexico, that could supposedly be found in the Bible. So we found him and set up a time to come back, nice guy. He said he didn't know where the Russian lived, and hadn't seen him since that night. So we are still on the hunt for him haha.

A little bit down the street we felt prompted to knock a door, it had that jewish prayer thing they keep on their door frame. A kid answered and we chatted, turns out they are Non-Jew Jews! I think because they weren't ethnically Jewish, they refer to themselves as Torah-followers. But they also believe Jesus to be the Messiah, but he didn't really say they consider themselves messianic jews. I was a bit confused, but it really interesting. He had the little undershirt prayer tassel things, but I couldn't tell if he was wearing a Yamaka. Super neat. He said missionaries used to come by forever ago, and that we could stop back again another day. Really interesting!

Sunday. So Sunday we had expected a ton of investigators to make it to church. I mean, we invite people every week, and if everyone came who we invited, we would fill up the chapel. Our Branch President said on his mission in Veracruz, he had 50 investigators at church one week! Mexico missions, what the heck?! Anyway, this week we had made plans with them all and it all felt really sure, but alas, only one of them actually came. I think last week I told you about that big tree that fell down in one of our investigator/less-active's yard? Well earlier this week we stopped by with the other missionaries and helped take care of/clean up a bunch of it. We invited them to church and they said yes! She is already a member, baptized in Mexico, and when she came here, 20 years ago if I remember correctly, Lukin didn't have its own Spanish branch yet, and she didn't understand a thing in the English, so she just kind of went in active, remarried a very Catholic guy, and now goes the Catholic church. Her husband is super nice, but is out of town for work most of the time. We taught him The Restoration and he's been taught a little bit before, but he happened to be in town this week for something with his health, and we were able to help him with his tree and invite him to church. It was awesome when they came. He's never been and super Catholic, and she hasn't been probably about 20 years and now effectively Catholic, so that was neat to see them come. I think they were a little shocked at how small the congregation is. I think they used to go the Catholic church.

Also Sunday night we had a couple cool lessons. One in particular was with a guy we've been slowly teaching. Him and family are learning Catholic. The kids are getting ready to be baptized and stuff, and they're going through classes to get Catholic married (they're already legally married). Usually we teach him outside, but it's been a little cold, so he invited us in, and his 10 y/o son joined us. We taught the plan of salvation, and the son was asking a ton of awesome questions, and kept calling us Sir. lol. He asked questions about Jehovah, Angels, Spirits, etc. He's a super smart kid! We also had to explain that when we pray we don't use pre-written prayers (Matthew 6:7), and that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are 3 distinct and individual people. And the week before we talked about why we don't baptize infants. Then afterwards they fed us Espaghetti! Hispanics are the best at random acts of food.

Anyway that's about it for this week,
Love y'all!
Elder Hogg

PS: All the other Elders were pretty blown away by all the snow pictures. Particularly Elder Hadley from Arizona. He keeps the heat on in their apartment lol. Elder Nelson says they get snow up in Utah but never that much haha. Making me miss home haha

We've been trying to be more healthy around here, but its super hard when we get fed 2 dinners sometimes. And we were lucky this week, we even had 2 lunches this last wednesday lol.

By the way, my official come home date right now is September, which is only like 5 months away! I get a bunch of anxiety just thinking about it!! I've started applying to UVU and BYU-I. I'm going to apply to BYU Provo too, don't think I'll get in but its the same app, so might as well. If I don't have to pay out of state tuition I'm really considering UVU. Did you know Dante is there now?? I think I'll be starting January 2019. So I'll get home for a couple months, go up to Christmas then probably leave right after. Its really weird to think about!! 

PPS: Elder Mears caught this cool lizard that stuck around with him for several hours. Then he said "if you love something, let it go" and the lizard at that moment suicide jumped off his arm and ran away. His name was Grirmelgoren (prounced Grimel-gorn). He pooped in his pocket shortly after the photo. 

(I didn't get a photo yet unless it was this one... which I thought was just a stump. -Mom)

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Random Pictures

Below are pictures received in between emails! ~Mom

Opening the eggs we sent for Easter with our hilarious notes!!


Some of these are such inside jokes, they are hard to explain! haha. 
But if you are super curious I can share! ~Mom

...and a blow-up elephant and some play-dough. haha

Supermodel hay hauler. He loves goofin around.


I love this picture.. such a dude.


These guys look like they have so much fun when they are working. 
I wonder how much they actually get done? haha



Monday, April 9, 2018

Stormy here in the Deep East

Subject: Stormy here in the Deep East
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 16:13:07 -0500
From: Brett Hogg 

Hola Fam squad!

Fist of all as you can see by the pics we've had some gnarly storms! The first was Tuesday, on our way back from Longview for a meeting. I was driving the truck and the clouds looked kind of weird, and we were like, "those clouds look kind of weird" then all the sudden, BAM a downpour and crazy wind! We thought it might have been the beginnings of a tornado. We could only really see the tail lights of the guy in front of us and we hoped he knew what he was doing because we couldn't see anything else. We had to swerve a couple time to avoid fallen trees and a trash can in the middle of the road (not sure where it came from either, because there really isn't much between Longview and us, there certainly wasn't any houses around that we could see). Also small sticks were and things were hitting the windshield, and giant thing of mud or something hit the windshield, we thought it was a rock but it didnt crack or anything so I guess not, it was really loud though! 



Well eventually all traffic stopped and we sat there for a bit and while it cleared we saw it was a fallen tree blocking the road. So we sat there for a while until someone could come move it. 



While were sitting there we took some selfies and contacted the guy behind us. He was a nice guy with a nice truck. Elder Mears knows everything about trucks so they talked about that, turns out the guy is in High School! Anyway he said missionaries could come by, and the Nacogdoches Sisters are going to get in contact with him. Can't believe God sent a tornado through East Texas so that he could meet missionaries. Anyway we made it home and all it was good.



Then Friday it stormed again, but not until we were in for the night. It didn't seem that bad, the power went out for a sec a couple times, but that was it. The next day we went by an inactive member/investigator family and a huge tree was totally ripped up out the ground and blown over by the storm! They also said we were on Tornado watch. Crazy!

Other than not much new. Our one investigator who was the neighbor of a member on a mission, we'll he texted us and told us he won't be coming to church anymore :( Last time we met with him we asked him to talk to his dad (who doesn't live with him but is technically kind of in charge of him I guess) about baptism (he had a date to get baptized), and like the next day he texted us that he is going to be going to church with his dad somewhere else. It's kind of funny because he never went to church before that...

We went on splits this last week, and Elder Nelson got to go with a member that has an awesome 1968 Chrysler Newport convertible, it looked awesome!! We also had a service project at the church. The church is kind of in a neighborhood, and the people that live around of have some old leaning or otherwize broken fences, so we had a service project to start tearing them down and building new ones. That was the day after the storm, so we got all muddy and had to wash our shoes and socks and stuff. Then they hot dogs after. Dang I love Mormons. We saw a thing that had to get done, so we just said hey everybody lets all come together, spend a chunk of your Saturday and let's do this thing, and heck we'll have food, make an event out of it. It was awesome!





Other than that we just had a slightly drunk guy at dinner (at a burger place) try to get us to come to a monster truck rally, a hispanic guy we contacted on the street that knew a ton about history, even Mormon history, and a conversation with a Hardcore Catholic (the hardest core I've ever met, and I spend all day talking to Hispanics (who are 99% catholic) about Jesus), that turned a little Bible Bash-y unfortunately. But man was that guy Catholic. He just could not even consider even the concept of any other anything. He was almost aggressively Catholic!

From Mom: It's fun to hear about other religions and it might sound funny to hear stuff like above - but Brett loves every minute of it.  He loves all religious people and loves talking to them!! 
Anyway, that's about it this week, love you all!
Elder Hogg

Monday, April 2, 2018

Conferences 📣 & 5K run

Subject: Conferences 📣
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 09:08:29 -0500
From: Brett Hogg 


Wow! What a powerful General Conference. So eventful too! I was for sure a little hyped when I heard the name Suarez, I'm a big fan of Hispanics. But then I looked it up and it was Soares, BRAZILIAN. So he's not Hispanic but at least he's Latino. He's awesome and I love him, but Brazil is not Mexico. Also Elder Gong seems really cool. And how about President Nelson?? What a guy! Cool changes and temples. The priesthood session was awesome by the way. I wish more people met at the chapel for it, more powerful that way for sure.

From Mom: Click on the underlined link above to go to our General Conference talks page. All of them were so great! Fun to listen to!! 

We watched it in the chapel by ourselves, no investigators came to watch it there. One session a member of the Spanish branch came, but that was it. 

I can't really pick a favorite talk, they were all awesome. I'm always a big fan of Elder Bednar of course. Then the talks about Home teaching and priesthood are all awesome, and the WWII one. But of course, PRESIDENT TAYLOR! How cool was that!! A member in Nacogdoches invited a friend to watch General Conference with him at their church building, and he started crying during President Taylor's talk.

Brian K. TaylorFrom Mom: If you follow this blog - you'll remember that President Taylor was Brett's mission president when he was in the hospital and was still serving when Brett returned.  Last July, President Taylor was called to be a General Authority in the Seventy (for non-church people - he's been called to have more responsibilities).  He spoke at our General Conference.  Click on the link above to go to his talk.. it's SO GOOD!! 

We also had Zone Conference, that also was awesome. We talked about the Doctrine of Christ, and as a mission we will be studying the Atonement.

As far as investigators go, we had some cool lessons. The coolest was a chapel tour we gave to a couple we've been teaching. They really liked it. It was also the day that members were cleaning the building so that was neat for them to see, and meet some members. 

We also had a lesson where a rat ran across the room! We've heard them there before rustling in boxes by the couch and in the ceiling but that was the first time seeing them in there. Anyway, he's probably going to be baptized. (I wasn't sure if he meant the person he was teaching or the rat!  Knowing Brett's humor.. .he meant the rat. LOL. ~Mom) His family is moving to Mexico soon, so we are trying to help them make sure they don't get lost in the mix of moving countries!

Also! Last night we went to go stop by a former investigator we had some notes for, and it turns out the wife was a member at one point. Now she goes to a baptist church, but super nice lady. They were outside cooking a ton of gorditas, with a bunch of family, when we walked up. They rig t away offered us some, and they were delicious! They were spicy though, not what I'm used to from a gordita. Usually they are just meat, or beans, they don't usually have a bunch of spicy stuff. 

Anyway, that's about it!
Today we are running a 5k as a mission, we'll let you know if I survive,
Love yall!
Elder Hogg

Looks like he survived!! 😁