Mormon Missionary & Cancer Survivor!: Mexican Referrals, Gorditas, and "Rauliny"!

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	Mexican Referrals, Gorditas, and "Rauliny"!
Date:	Mon, 14 Aug 2017 13:46:11 -0500
From:	Brett Hogg

We got robbed this week! We met several cool people this week, but none of them lived in our area, or even our mission for that matter. We sent a referral to Fort Worth (spit), one to Arkansas, and two to Mexico. Mexicans are not very good at describing their addresses by the way, they give it to you backwards, and they include, what I assume is the equivalent to a county. So we taught them all and then we find out they're just visiting or they're moving. But they're super cool and super solid, I hope they get baptized one day wherever they are.

Note from Mom: Scott and I thought he literally got robbed (financially)... turns out he meant spiritually! Sheesh!

Like 2 weeks ago I talked to this lady outside of an appointment that fell through, who was holding a bag of dough. I asked her what she was making and she said gorditas, so naturally I said if she needs help eating them we could come by. She said if we want some we could come back on Sunday! So we went back last sunday and she hadn't made them, but we did talk to her about what we do as missionaries and showed her the Book of Mormon and gave her a restoration pamphlet to read.

Well we went back the next Sunday (yesterday), and she wasn't there. BUT her husband handed us a plate of gorditas she had made for us! They were the best gorditas I've ever had. They were Al Pastor (pork) and Barbacoa (beef). And she gave them to us on a plate, so we have to come back to give it back to her (I wonder if that was on purpose). A gordita is like a papusa, except instead of cooking everything inside the dough, they stuff it after, OR a sister missionary who eats to much (spanish joke).

some amazing gorditas

Otherwise, most everybody else has been really flaky. Either not coming to church or not keeping appointments (or are just visiting from Mexico). So not much progress investigator-wise.

We gave several blessings this week as well. I gave my 2nd and 3rd Spanish blessings Ive ever given, and I did surprisingly well I think. Blessings/praying in Spanish is hard becuase as a missionary, we only ever use -usted- form and not -tu- form, but we are to specifically pray in tu form. Usted shows respect and is the formal version of tu. Tu shows casualness, how you address friends and family. Blessings are also kind of tricky because you kind of jump around 1st and 2nd person, and plural/singular and stuff like that.

I also got to do my first baptismal interviews this week. They were 3 kids from the Hermana's area, they get baptized this saturday I believe, and then their mom gets baptized hopefully in September, and dad is already a member. Baptismal interviews are kind of cool, because they're not a test, and you can still kind of explain things in the interview. Its more to be a witness that they are ready and worthy, partially to help them know themselves that they are ready and worthy.

We also had this couple come to church, that haven't been to church in years. They own a pancake house (kind of like that one by us that mom doesn't like, with the really long roof), so they are open on Sundays. They have active family members there at the church and the other part of the problem is that he's a fan of the drinkin. They also have two daughters that live with them that have non-member, live-in, significant others (one of them IS married). Well we've been stopping by them trying to get them to church, and they love us (everyone loves the missionaries), but they never made it out, and last week, after we left, the wife called us to come back and when we came back he asked (or she told him to ask, not sure) to give him a blessing to help him overcome his temptation to drink (he hadn't drinken in a couple weeks, but really wanted to that day)! Then after we did that they made us chicken wings. I kind of felt like an old timey apostle, where they would show up and preach and perform miracles then would be fed and housed and stuff lol. But they came to church this week!! One of the family members there at church was getting all teary eyed. Cool experience.

On Friday, a member gave us money for dinner, so we went to this little pizzeria thing pretty close to our apartment. We thought it was weird because it was a pizzeria thing that had mexican soda advertized right on the main sign. So we went in and talked to the guy, who was a super nice mexican guy, and ordered some pizza and stuff. We ordered a lot, and were a couple dollars short, that we were going to put on our card but he said not to worry about it, I guess he was the owner guy, who's likeness was used for the logo (see attached picture), "Rauliny"!

We like that he just added -iny to his mexican name, so that he could name an italian restaurant after himself. Anyway, while we were waiting for our pizza he brought out a Watchtower and asked us if that was the religion we were from, we said no and gave him one our pamphlets and he said he loves visiting and learning about other churches. He didn't come to church but he was really cool and we'll stop in again.

An update on Mohamad: We were driving by a Mexican supermercado with a member, after visiting a few people, and we saw his motorhome outside! We stopped and knocked on it and he was very happy to see us! We haven't seen him in like a week and we lost our phone that he had the number to, and we've been worried about him. Anyway, he has been having to buy a gallon or two of gasoline everyday to run his generator flor air conditioning and TV. As we've established, he dosent like expenses, SO he showed us the 100 ft. extension cord he bought from Home Depot that he's running through the back door of the grocery store to siphon off electricity for free lol. He also got it all registered and got plates and everything! Hes growing up!

Well thats about it for this week!

Love yall!

Elder Hogg

Pics:

A crazy truck