October 22, 2012

Hey Family!

   So this week went by really well. We got to watch general conference yesterday and on saturday. We broke record numbers in our branch for attendence on Sunday. 131 people! We need a new chapel fast!

   Elder Hyde and I spent a lot of time contacting people on the street. It was really cool, because we found a family that already had a copy of the Book of Mormon, but had never sat with missionaries. We're really excited to start teaching them.

   So, transfers have come. I get to stay in the area as district leader, but Elder Hyde is leaving for the provinance of Lubango. Also, I don't have a companion! haha, yea, but I'll probably start working with many of the branch missionaries here. Also, there is a fair possibility that I'll work with Elder Domingos (Ventura, our old branch mission leader. He's the one on the right in the picture). He's part of the Mozambique mission, and he has to come to Angola for his visa. So it is very probable that I'll work with him for a transfer. But I am really happy that I get to see the people in this area progress still.

   We're going to get a new house! The Abdos (Brazilian Casal that is in charge of mission housing), found us a nice new place that won't fault energy or water! Plus, it's super close to where we shop, it has an elevator and an indoor futebol-basketball court... heck yea! We're all excited.

   I'm learning a lot how to cook! I'm super excited! I attached a picture of me making sweet rice. It's the first thing that I've ever cooked all by myself without mom's supervision!!! I. told me how to make it. I think that We'll plan a family night with her and I'll have her show me how to cook some Angolan plates. It'll be awesome. (Sorry mom I'm not getting fed by members right now... they were working on getting the missionaries a lunch list, but our chapel got robbed, so I think that may have dropped in priority a little... but I eat alright.) I want to come home and make you guys some of the food here. It rocks!

   So we played some good ole futebol today. I was goalie, and we totally beat some of the local aaronic preisthood here! Nothing gets past my hips or hands! So you had all learn to play before I get back, because I'm starting to love futebol!

   I sent you guys some letters. One has kwanza in it, so I'm not sure if you'll get it. Let me know.

   I love you guys a lot! I miss ya, and I pray for ya! I'm happy to hear that school is going well for everyone. Sorry about the football Owen. You ought to try out for futebol. See what happens. It's a sport to play right?

   I can't wait for Christmas to talk with you all!

Love Elder Hobbs

October 15, 2012

Família amoroso,

   Haha, wow! Life at home sure sounds like it´s a lot of change and a lot of fun. First off, I want to offer weston a few pointers: Don´t talk about Avatar. The end.
   Just kidding. It´s so cool that Chris is getting tazed, Dad´s rocking the tests, Weston´s talking to girls, and Owen is doming up the football!
   The week was really cool. We´ve been teaching a man named K. He was known as the crazy drunk man of the area. Now he´s a week sober, and comes to church. SOOO many people have wanted to know who we are now. He hands out our number to people and bears testimony to them as well. Very cool there.
   Water and Electricity have gotten better this week. We still fault sometimes, but it´s better now, and we should be getting a new house soon.
   There was a little bit of sadness this week... R and P moved. They´re in a place called Viana. It´s kind of like moving from Ammon to Idaho Falls, but they´re in a different branch now. I´m hoping that I´ll get transfered there in a week! haha But they´re doing well. They have a bigger house, and will get to start going to school again in January, something they´ve wanted for the last 10 months. It´s good for them!
   A is going to get a calling really soon now! We´re very excited. She´s also going to teach us how to make some Angolan dishes, like funge, arroz doce, and some peanut butter sauce stuff. I´m extra excited for that!
   I have lost some weight, but we just got some more money, so now I´ll be fine. I did pull out about 40$ this week because I was broke and wanted some milk and taxi money, but now we´re recharged, so I´ll be fine.
   I´ve been missing you all lately. Halloween with you all was definitely a highlight, but we´ll do that here in a year or two. :)
   Lots of love to you all. Say some prayers for President Thompson.  He´s been sick.. He´ll find out soon that his role is CENTRAL to this mission.
   Hey, I need to know what kind of cool African stuff you all want! I know where to go for it now, so let me know alright!

I LOVE you all so so much,

Elder Alex Hobbs

PS tell Owen that today we went to a member-oil worker´s house today and played Dominion. I used Owen´s strategy of Villiage-Smithy and I won!!!

October 8

Família Hobbs,

   I'm glad to hear that you are all doing so well! I'm also very excited about the conference announcement. (If Elder Hyde's girlfriend decided to go right now, they would get back at the same time haha) The missionaries were all invited to President Thompson's house on Sunday to watch the missionary announcement and the Preisthood session. We've all been talking about how the Lord is speeding up His efforts to gather Isreal. Imagine what the Lord's voice would have been like in that moment: ''Thomos, it is time to hasten the harvest.'' Crazy right? But I was very excited to hear about that.
   The week went very well. It was a little slower because Elder Hyde and I got a little sick, but now we're all better. We've been focusing efforts on finding more people to teach, because we're low on investigators, and 2 more just got baptized! S (2565) and drum roll... I! (2568) The baptism was great. When it first started, I still had not shown up. Elder Hyde and I were praying like crazy! She arrived, we got her dressed, took a quick pic, and then headed to the font room. She seemed really stressed out about something while she was waiting, but after she got baptized, she was very happy. Her and S both described that they felt ''light''. They were both excited. S came up to Elder Hyde and whispered ''now it's time to endure to the end''. haha he's studied well!
   Don't worry, the pictures and debit card finally got here. It turns out that they were missent to Anguilla. I don't know where that is, but it must be far, because it took a while for them to get here, but you guys can activate the card whenever you like. :) That same day was a very neat one. I don't remember if I ever wrote you all about a man named J L back in Cassequele. (He's a man who I swear will be the Stake Patriarch or Temple President someday. He's not baptized because he's been working on getting his documents for marriage done. HE IS AWESOME. He might as well be a member, but he's litterally been fighting with the government to get married. He rocks) His son, A, as well as our ward mission leader, V, left for their missions that day. A went to Cape Verde, and V went to Moçambique. Technically, he's always lived in his misssion. ;) It was neat to see two more people that I knew well go out on their missions!
   Sunday, I felt the Spirit very strongly during the confirmations. It was great! To be honest, Sunday was one of the best Sundays of my mission! Everything felt good, we had the confirmations, plus we broke the Luanda 1 branch record for frequency: 123 people! It was great. Also, President Bautista told A that she'll be getting a calling next week, which will be great for her. That is exactly what she needs to be retained, so we're very excited. Also, we brought 2 investigators to church together. O and K. They are really neat (they don't know eachother other than from yesterday). O is a big, nice man who's going through a divorce with his wife. He found the church through mormon.org and was my first reference from church headquarters. He's really interested in the doctrine and was exited about the Word of Wisdom and how families can be together forever.
   Remember when I talked about how we found a drunk man who fell in front of me and I saw emptiness in his eyes? (check back a few emails) That was K. There was one day when he stopped us on the street, drunk, high on marijuana, and asked for a Book of Mormon. He read the whole thing. We've been teaching him and are working with him to quit drinking now. He came to church, sober, and said that he felt the Spirit for sure. They both loved Sunday.
   Next, we've got C and his girlfriend's sister planned to be bapitzed on the 20th. It should go well. We just need to get permission from their mom (R: C's girfriend, Nice: her sister).
   Make sure that you all keep writing me like you have been! I've been loving all of your letters. Keep em big, and I'll keep mine big ok?

Love you all, can't wait to see you again,

Elder Alex Hobbs

PS 2559 is a picture of how we do baptisms: Mission Angola Luanda style. Yea

 Please pray for rain... aparently almost all of Angola is dependent on Hydro electricity, and the rivers are way low this year. Power is failing a lot and so is water! (We're ok, it's just a little hard... but yea, pray for rain!) :)

PS, mom, if you want, you can pretend that this is my new area! (It's not, but you can pretend) (2570)

And this is Elder Bene. He is from Mozambique and will head home in 2 weeks! He has the absolute most INTENSE faces. (you can call him Elder Bene on the blog if you want, because that isn't actually his real name...) (2422)

LOVE and AMOR,

Elder Alex Hobbs

 To my family,

   I'm sorry that I haven't gotten letters out to any of you. It's a little hard to get to the office, plus it costs 3$ to send a letter. And lately their net has been down, so they haven't sent to the US. (I think someone choked on the red tape back there, haha) Love you all!

Please let my friends know the same. :)

October 1

Família,

   Everything is just so awesome here. I'm not sure that I deserve to be this happy! (Strangely, it turns out that you can be happy without electricity... or water... or money... or a clean house) But seriously, this week has been awesome. We've got 2 people set up to be baptized on the 6 of October. S N and I are finally being baptized. We are very very excited for them. I hope I can get you all some pics, but everytime I try to send any, I get a return email saying that your domain didn't accept it because it was too large. So, I may have to send pics one at a time... Oh well!
   So things, like I said, rock! We've been doing a lot of work, having a lot of fun, and I think our house is slowly getting better. Today for Pday, we went to a praça called the Bem-fica art fair. I got some AWESOME stuff there. Finally some legit African souvineers. What did I get? Well, I'll just surprise you all when I come home. ;) But I had a lot of fun bartering the people down from the ''white'' price to the ''fair'' price. I think I got some good deals.
   But other than that, I don't have much to report on. We've taught lessons, met a ton of new people and are just working with them all. Elder Hyde is almost done training, just 4 weeks left! Wow! That time sure went by fast. Time is crazy here. It's like each day is forever, but when you wake up the next day, the month is done! For example, when we talk at Christmas, I'll be at nearly a year! WHAT!?! That is crazy to me.
   But enough about me, tell me about you all: I like the laundry make-up routine. It made me laugh. Also, mice? There's not much to do but poison EVERYTHING under there. We had a mice problem at my last house, and it was because we had a rat the size of a beaver leading the army. We left before the next Elders finally killed who we called ''Big Ben''. But that's how we took care of that.
   Thanks to Luxana! I always love her pictures!
   Where's Owen? I like never hear from ya more bro! What's up at school? Is sandcreek doing well in Futbol Americano? Who's the latest shammy? Write me bro!
   Since when did Chris start doing law enforcement which involves macing? That through me off this week!
   Weston, I don't have anything for ya this week, but when I do, I promise that I'll let ya know. ;)
   I love you all lots, and I hope that everything is going well. It looks like 1 or 2 pics will attach and send to ya, so I'll get a bunch from last week off to y'all. I love you, miss you, pray for you, and I'll see you in like 15 months or something like that. Love,

Elder Alex Hobbs

 2521: People work super hard here. This is a wheelbarrow type cart, that you see EVERYWHERE! They usually carry water or gasoline jugs.

 2519: A nice view of the ocean with some jammed up traffic on the left.

 2522: There is dust everywhere here, so the government hires companies to sweep it up. Dust workers are a very common sight here. You'll see em dressed up in big green suits, or sometimes just in jeans and a face mask, but it's all day, every day: sweep!

 2523: This is a bridge at a praça. The picture was taken in the morning from inside a car, and does not do justice for how crowded these praças are. I swear, sometimes I think that when you walk through one of these in the middle of the day, I think, hmm. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth! But the people in them are nice. Lot's of old ladies selling their goods on the street. It's kind of like WAL MART threw up.

 2449: Our water tank. Everything is ran by our own pump. We get water from the city to our tank about 3 times a week! If electricity fails, we have to bucket water out from the tank to take showers!

 2448: The sewage river on our street and in front of our house!! YEA!!

 2507: This is a ''taxi''. We ride these puppies everywhere. 100 kw for a route. The cobrador (collector) yells out the name of a praça from the window, you wave him down, and they stop for ya! But you always need to make sure (if in a sketchy area) that the ride is 100kw, not 200! They will try to gyp you of money if you're white!

 2509: A bridge next to the airport. There's traffic, Kinaxixe, noise, and... wait. What's that? THAT'S THE GOOD OLD COLONAL SANDERS WATCHIN OVER ANOGOLA!!! AMERICA!!!

 2491: The road by our house

 2504: Here in Luanda, the streets are lined with random little shops that sell random things. You can find clothing stores, make up, photoshops (all chinese ran), etc etc.