I'm staying in Frisco!

Subject:	I'm staying in Frisco!
Date:	Mon, 11 Jun 2018 17:05:35 -0500
From:	Brett Hogg <brett.hogg@myldsmail.net>
To:	Susan J. Hogg <shogg@wi.rr.com>, Sue <sueh@wi.rr.com>

And I'm staying with Elder Tornow!!

First of all thank you for the socks! They're perfect!!

Second if you could turn your attention to the picture bellow of Elder Tornow's homemade tandem bicycle. Now you might be wondering, "why is Elder Tornow riding a homemade tandem bicycle?" Wellllll, it all started with a communist revolution in nicaragua. Turns out, the Nicaraguan President does not like when people protest his government, so he kills them instead. So the church pulled all the missionaries out, and we got one for a couple days! Originally, we borrowed a bike for him from a member. After two days and a complicated network of rides, we wound up having to bike home without our Nicaraguan friend, leaving an extra bike. Elder Tornow, a future robotics engineer, rigged up this beautiful towing system for this extra bike. I was more than a little impressed!!!

We also saw a couple tender mercies this week. One, we didn't have dinner one night, and we were thinking of calling this one family that always helps us out. We decided against it even though he's told us to always call him and not to feel bad when we do, but lately we have called him for a lot of rides,  and we were feeling lazy and didn't want to bike all the way to his house, but just then, the moment we were saying, "Nahh..." the phone rang. It was him! His wife told him to call us because she had a feeling that we needed something. You could say that her missionary senses were tingling. Needless to say, we did not starve that night. Two, as we were biking on a sweltering, Texas day, a member stopped us and handed us two ice cold gatorades. Immediately following this tender mercy, a mexican man named Heriberto waved us down and asked if we had something that he could read. He told us that he is in the Dallas area for work, painting. In Mexico, he is a firefighter and is taking the lessons, recognized us, and was excited to see that I spoke Spanish. We gave him a pamphlet, the Libro De Mormon, got his contact info, and bid him adieu. 

Investigator wise, things are chugging along very slowly. But! We had a huge breakthrough with a part member family. They are middle-aged but newly married. He is a proud Jesuit Catholic, and she is a completely active Mormon. For the sake of his kids and the blended family dynamic, she didn't want the missionaries and everyone else hounding him and pressuring him to get baptized. In the mean time he goes to church sometimes with her, and love the the missionaries, they just haven't shared a formal message. But this week, we didn't really know that, so we went by and pretty much just asked if we could teach him. He said sure why not, he basically said we're not going to baptize him, but he's open to listen. She got emotional and said that this felt like the right time for him to take the lessons and everything, it was awesome. So we taught him a couple days later and he liked it, still a very proud Jesuit, but it was still a really good breakthrough I think. And they made us grilled cheeses! I've never gone over there and didn't eat haha.

Anyway,

That's about it, love yall!

Elder Hogg 👱🏾‍♂️

Also I went on exchanges with the other Frisco elders and their apartment is just down the street from the Dallas Major league soccer team, F.C. Dallas', stadium. 

Also a novelty No Soliciting sign a man aggressively pointed to before slamming the door on us lol.