Iakweee!!

Note from Mom: The pictures that were posted in last week's post are explained in this letter... and now it all makes sense!

Subject:	Iakweee!!
Date:	Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:54:49 -0500
From:	Brett Hogg

Well fam, we're not in Texas anymore!! Oklahoma sure is wild!

First of all a big part of Idabel culture is the Marshallese. Apparently back in the day the Government was testing nukes in the Pacific, and got a little too close to the Marshal Islands. So, to say sorry, they get to all live here (usually in Oklahoma or Arkansas for some reason). They're neat people. The Church over there is pretty well known, so over here a good number of them are either members of the Church or know somebody that is. In fact, this past Sunday we got baptize one! An eight year old whose parents aren't members of the church, but who is being adopted my members. His grandparents gave talks at his baptism, and they were completely in Marshallese. That same grandmother had a birthday a day or two before, and they invited us! Apparently the first birthday and the 50 or 51st Birthdays are big deals. They had it at the VFW place, and made a ton of food. And to our surprise, a couple people we're teaching were there! Apparently all the Marshallese know each other. The islands over there are only like a 1/2 mile wide, and how ever miles long, so everyone knows or sees everyone else. Anyway, it was a neat experience, they were singing Marshallese music, and serving huge trays of Marshallese food. We didn't understand anything that was going on, but at one point they asked us to come up, so we did and then so did a bunch of people, eventually forming a huge line. And they started singing a song that best we can guess was a happy birthday song, except it was going on for forever, and some people were tearing up. Then all the sudden the lady who's Birthday it is gets up and starts dancing around, and eventually starts passing out blankets and scarfs to people. We were so confused. We thought we were just singing happy birthday but then people are crying and she's dancing around and passing things out to people, and then after she sits down again people start heading her money for her birthday. At that point we had leave, but we were so lost. 

Another big part of Idabel is the Chicken industry. Really, it's a big part of all of East Texas/Southern Oklahoma. Here it's Tyson chicken, and that's where all the Marshallese and Hispanics work. Our Elders Quorum President here raises chickens for them even. This week we got to go help him out in his chicken houses! He has six, and each one, if I remember correctly has about 21,000 chickens in it. Right now they're still chicks, so the houses were all incredibly warm. Also, the houses smelled like 21,000 chickens. After sanitizing our boots and hands and everything, we first we had to heard most of them down to one end of the chicken house thing so we didn't step on them, then we walked the whole thing and had to pick up the trays where feed dumps into. It was sweaty and gross but definitely still fun. 

We also had to take a trip up to Sulphur Springs, TX for a meeting with the stake President. First we drove to Hugo, OK to meet another guy that was going to the meeting, and drove the rest of the way with him. It took us a good while, but the brother we were riding with had HAM radios set up and he was telling us all about it. Also hes like a real estate guru, so he told us all about how to buy houses and and stuff. He also told us that because we spent a majority of the trip down talking (Mentoring us) about real estate, the trip was a tax write off, how cool is that?? We didn't get back till late that night, but we learned a lot!

The next day we met this really cool couple. Apparently the missionaries had talked to them a tiny bit before but had never been able to ever meet with them. Well we were about to go knock on their neighbors door, when the wife was outside, yelling at the dog, and said Hi to us. We went over and talked to her, and she invited us right in, where we met her husband who was really cool. After a little  small talk he basically asked us to share our message! He said that he had noticed the change in his neighbor (another really cool couple we're teaching) since he started meeting with missionaries, and said he's felt the pull from God to get close to him again, and said that he feels like he needs that change in HIS life. We shared the message of the Restoration and while talking about getting answers to prayer and the spirit, he said "Im feeling it right now!" When helping him look for a scripture in the Book of Mormon, his wife asked us to find it for him, but he rebutted "I can do it, I'm going to have get used to doing it anyway!" Implying that he has some reading to do! He also asked about coming to church and said he'll be wearing his nicest blue jeans. The spirit was thick, and you could tell they were ready and elect. It seemed like he was on the verge of tears the whole lesson. Unfortunately they weren't able to make it to church, as he hurt his back that morning. But they want us back, and he even said he would he baptized. I love them!

On Sunday we had the mission Presidents Fireside. It was awesome! They have some recent converts share their testimonies and there are some musical numbers and President Dalton gets up and talks as well. Its always super cool. We had a guy from our branch who was baptized about a year ago share his testimony and it was awesome. The other lady was a 70something year old lady who had been baptized two week before and had the brightest testimony. She testified of God's love, and about how the texture or smell of a flower pedal, and the color of the trees, they all testify of God's love. He could have made everything black and white and we would have got along just fine, but he gave us colors to look at and enjoy because he loves us! It was a pretty cool testimony. That was another 1hr45min trip there and back, we spend a lot of time in the car here in this area lol.

Then today we went up to Broken Bow lake, it was beautiful!! Definitely a sight to behold. The pictures don't do it justice.

Anyway, that's about it. Oklahoma sure is a wild ride!!
Love you guys!
Elder Hogg