Mom's comments in blue, as always.
Second of all I got the
package!! Thanks a ton, Elder P thought the Wisconsin
shirt was the coolest thing ever and was so grateful.
And those socks are super nice, I wore them the following 3 days. (Just to be clear, there were 3 pairs.. haha). I decided I was going to try to eat healthier while I was out here, but between your box of candy and the cookie dough the N--- family got me, that's all out the window haha.
For dinner on Monday, the A---- family (the patron saints of Plano), made me birthday steak.
I have to share this in the middle of Brett's letter... I received a text from Brother "A" with pictures. Oh my goodness - how sweet!
The text:
"Hello Sister Hogg, We are celebrating your son's birthday tonight. All is well and he is working hard with his companion. Thank you for sharing your family with us."
> then I text back with profound thanks and love.. then
"Steak and potato, spinach salad with pineapple blended drink It was delicious! Also another family from our stake stopped by and gave him a tub of cookie dough that they said was from you. Elder Hogg got a big smile on his face and said, "Yep..Mom knows how much i like cookie dough!"
>I texted back thanking them for such a thoughtful meal and so much love for my boy!
Back to Brett's letter...
They really are amazing. I'm pretty sure they do more for the branch/the missionaries than anyone else does for any other anything in the whole rest of the stake. Seriously, they drive way out of their way to pick people up, help people move, temporarily house people, feed people. All of this, by the way, while not knowing a lick of spanish. Well, I should say Sister A doesn't speak Spanish, they're white but Brother A served his mission in Argentina, so he speaks spanish. She's the young women's president, which works because all but maybe 1 or 2 of the youth speak English better than they speak Spanish, even if the parents speak little to no English. Well, while we were eating steak, the N--- family came to visit and brought Cookie Dough and good tidings from the fam! That was super cool, they're super awesome, and always say hi to me when we see them at the church building and stuff.
Here is the Facebook post to our Missionary Mom group that Sister N posted:
Back to the email....
There's one Guatemalan (like they just got here) family we've been working with. There's like 2 people/families in the branch that have helped them out a ton so we got them cards for the Guatemalans to sign, and they were thoroughly confused. Apparently they don't really DO cards in the Central/South America. Either way they wrote little spanish notes telling them thanks (after we explained what they are), and it was pretty cool. Anyway that same mom officially got the go ahead and has a date set for getting baptized! Elder P was over the moon about it, he's been teaching her for a while now and has been working with her from the beginning and been helping her out a ton.
Saturday is where the magic happened. We started off by going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with a sister in the branch and Sister who was baptized a number of years ago, but had been inactive since but since has been super active. That was awesome. I did some confirmations in Spanish! And the worker running the session was a white guy that served in Chile, so he spoke spanish too. Then a member asked us to come to this citizenship workshop thing, because we teach a free english class on Saturdays (lately it's been pretty empty and we've been pretty busy on Saturdays so I haven't been yet). That was cool place to find new people to teach. Then we had a baptism that night for Juan, that was a cool experience. Btw, is there any hispanic in the Hogg family tree? Because the baptism started at 7 and nobody showed up until 7:15 lol. Hispanics tend to run late, and so we like to joke about that mormon (Mormons run on mormon standered time) Hispanics never EVERY begin on time. Anyway that was super awesome. We where joking that there might be well not even be a veil, we're working both sides today! Like that line in Spirit of God: "the Veil over the earth is beginning to burst!"
Oh yea and I got beat up by Chinese people. Elder P told me about this thing that the Chinese group does every other Saturday, we're at the church building they slap each other on specific parts of the body for up to 20 minutes, to "release toxins". I've seen pictures of big bruises that other Elders have gotten from it but I kind of wanted to try and didn't think it would really hurt, or that they would just show me. But when we got there they were in the middle of slapping each others faces (picture Chinese people sitting in chairs in a circle, and different Chinese people standing behind them, rhythmic slapping the seated people cheeks. It was kind of a weird thing to happen upon). Well anyway Elder P told them I wanted to check it out so the Chinese Elders started doing it to back of my elbows (which hurt), but apparently he wasn't doing it well enough because another Chinese guy (who I think was one of the instructors) came over and started doing it and then a Chinese lady (another instructor) came over and started my other arm, and it hurt, and I was like "oh okay well that's probably enough" and they said no, and wouldn't let me get up! They were also telling me i shouldn't drink cold water/drinks. Elder P was egging them on, telling them about my cancer, and telling them in Wisconsin that all of our water is cold. When they saw the bruising, they were like "oooh, look at all those toxins". Anyway, I don't think there's any toxins left in my arms.
I'll make sure Scott and I throw you the best 52nd birthday party ever.
Also! I'm not sure if you got the pictures but I gave President T the cheese tie, he thought that was awesome, and wanted me to tell you thank you so much, from him. He got the pictures so hopefully you got them! (I didn't get the pictures yet.. I'm hoping soon!)
Thank you so much, I didn't think you'd actually go all the way to Kenosha to get those pants! I thought you would look online or in stores around there. You guys are the best.
(Took out paragraph about reminders about random things to send him and such.)
| Subject: | Week 3: Bursting the Veil |
|---|---|
| Date: | Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:44:02 -0600 |
| From: | Brett Hogg |
First of all:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!! (I turned 50 this week.. lol)
And those socks are super nice, I wore them the following 3 days. (Just to be clear, there were 3 pairs.. haha). I decided I was going to try to eat healthier while I was out here, but between your box of candy and the cookie dough the N--- family got me, that's all out the window haha.
For dinner on Monday, the A---- family (the patron saints of Plano), made me birthday steak.
I have to share this in the middle of Brett's letter... I received a text from Brother "A" with pictures. Oh my goodness - how sweet!
The text:
"Hello Sister Hogg, We are celebrating your son's birthday tonight. All is well and he is working hard with his companion. Thank you for sharing your family with us."
> then I text back with profound thanks and love.. then
"Steak and potato, spinach salad with pineapple blended drink It was delicious! Also another family from our stake stopped by and gave him a tub of cookie dough that they said was from you. Elder Hogg got a big smile on his face and said, "Yep..Mom knows how much i like cookie dough!"
>I texted back thanking them for such a thoughtful meal and so much love for my boy!
Back to Brett's letter...
They really are amazing. I'm pretty sure they do more for the branch/the missionaries than anyone else does for any other anything in the whole rest of the stake. Seriously, they drive way out of their way to pick people up, help people move, temporarily house people, feed people. All of this, by the way, while not knowing a lick of spanish. Well, I should say Sister A doesn't speak Spanish, they're white but Brother A served his mission in Argentina, so he speaks spanish. She's the young women's president, which works because all but maybe 1 or 2 of the youth speak English better than they speak Spanish, even if the parents speak little to no English. Well, while we were eating steak, the N--- family came to visit and brought Cookie Dough and good tidings from the fam! That was super cool, they're super awesome, and always say hi to me when we see them at the church building and stuff.
Here is the Facebook post to our Missionary Mom group that Sister N posted:
Back to the email....
There's one Guatemalan (like they just got here) family we've been working with. There's like 2 people/families in the branch that have helped them out a ton so we got them cards for the Guatemalans to sign, and they were thoroughly confused. Apparently they don't really DO cards in the Central/South America. Either way they wrote little spanish notes telling them thanks (after we explained what they are), and it was pretty cool. Anyway that same mom officially got the go ahead and has a date set for getting baptized! Elder P was over the moon about it, he's been teaching her for a while now and has been working with her from the beginning and been helping her out a ton.
Saturday is where the magic happened. We started off by going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with a sister in the branch and Sister who was baptized a number of years ago, but had been inactive since but since has been super active. That was awesome. I did some confirmations in Spanish! And the worker running the session was a white guy that served in Chile, so he spoke spanish too. Then a member asked us to come to this citizenship workshop thing, because we teach a free english class on Saturdays (lately it's been pretty empty and we've been pretty busy on Saturdays so I haven't been yet). That was cool place to find new people to teach. Then we had a baptism that night for Juan, that was a cool experience. Btw, is there any hispanic in the Hogg family tree? Because the baptism started at 7 and nobody showed up until 7:15 lol. Hispanics tend to run late, and so we like to joke about that mormon (Mormons run on mormon standered time) Hispanics never EVERY begin on time. Anyway that was super awesome. We where joking that there might be well not even be a veil, we're working both sides today! Like that line in Spirit of God: "the Veil over the earth is beginning to burst!"
Here's a YouTube to the hymn and lyrics:
Oh yea and I got beat up by Chinese people. Elder P told me about this thing that the Chinese group does every other Saturday, we're at the church building they slap each other on specific parts of the body for up to 20 minutes, to "release toxins". I've seen pictures of big bruises that other Elders have gotten from it but I kind of wanted to try and didn't think it would really hurt, or that they would just show me. But when we got there they were in the middle of slapping each others faces (picture Chinese people sitting in chairs in a circle, and different Chinese people standing behind them, rhythmic slapping the seated people cheeks. It was kind of a weird thing to happen upon). Well anyway Elder P told them I wanted to check it out so the Chinese Elders started doing it to back of my elbows (which hurt), but apparently he wasn't doing it well enough because another Chinese guy (who I think was one of the instructors) came over and started doing it and then a Chinese lady (another instructor) came over and started my other arm, and it hurt, and I was like "oh okay well that's probably enough" and they said no, and wouldn't let me get up! They were also telling me i shouldn't drink cold water/drinks. Elder P was egging them on, telling them about my cancer, and telling them in Wisconsin that all of our water is cold. When they saw the bruising, they were like "oooh, look at all those toxins". Anyway, I don't think there's any toxins left in my arms.
Here is a video of the pictures of him experiencing this Chinese therapy...
I'll make sure Scott and I throw you the best 52nd birthday party ever.
Also! I'm not sure if you got the pictures but I gave President T the cheese tie, he thought that was awesome, and wanted me to tell you thank you so much, from him. He got the pictures so hopefully you got them! (I didn't get the pictures yet.. I'm hoping soon!)
Thank you so much, I didn't think you'd actually go all the way to Kenosha to get those pants! I thought you would look online or in stores around there. You guys are the best.
(Took out paragraph about reminders about random things to send him and such.)
And one
last funny thing, Hispanics pronounce "Popeyes" as
"Poe-pe-yes" lol.
Anyway I love you guys and I'm sad I'm missing mom's birthday. I know Heavenly Father's got you guys covered though!
Love,
Elder Hogg
NOTE FROM MOM: I'm super grateful to the Brother and Sister A and Brother and Sister N. Just so sweet to go through so much trouble for our son!! I can't wait to meet these sweet people!!
Another note about the Chinese slapping therapy... I'm still horrified... but realize that it's an experience he won't forget and it won't kill him since he's likely to never do it again! haha
Anyway I love you guys and I'm sad I'm missing mom's birthday. I know Heavenly Father's got you guys covered though!
Love,
Elder Hogg
 |
| filling the (baptismal) font I love this picture! |
 |
| us with Hermano P after the baptism (For the non-Spanish-speakers.. Hermano means Brother) |
NOTE FROM MOM: I'm super grateful to the Brother and Sister A and Brother and Sister N. Just so sweet to go through so much trouble for our son!! I can't wait to meet these sweet people!!
Another note about the Chinese slapping therapy... I'm still horrified... but realize that it's an experience he won't forget and it won't kill him since he's likely to never do it again! haha
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