This is Aubrie not Joel writing, I just wanted to apologize for being such a slacker on
Elder Hovey's blog. I was WAY behind but hopefully now I am all caught up and hopefully I can stay caught up.

Enjoy all 6 or so letters that Elder Hovey has written oh and there are a couple of pictures.

Aubrie

Ok, my comps name is elder Aguirre. I don't know his first name to be honest I forget people have first names here, and every now and then i hear someone call out Joel or something that sounds like Joel and I get all weird ed out. But, ya he is from Honduras, Tegucigalpa. Its actually my second companion from Honduras. I have come to realize that people from Honduras have really strong tempers. You think dad´s temper or my temper are bad, than you should see Hondurans tempers. haha no but really I love my comp. remind me to tell you a story on Sunday about me and my comp getting angry. and my new area is called puente alto 1. the ward is huge. to walk from one side of the boundaries to the other is more than 2 hours walking so we get in plenty of walking, and its helping me get more organized cuz we have to schedule all of the appointments somewhat close or we will never get to them on time. and honestly its really hard to find new investigators here that will come to church and progress cuz its so far away, but that's no excuse. we have been working a ton with less active members and families that have problems to help strengthen them and were capacitating them to help us find new people to teach at the same time. most people think that it is the responsibility of the missionaries to find new people to teach but really its the members responsibility, and the missionary´s responsibility to teach them. so you need to do your part, send the missionaries to make them work with our family and then take them to people you know that could use the Gospel. seriously without the members help in missionary work it is nearly impossible to find people to teach. so do your part and ¨lift where you stand¨ as elder Ukdorf said last year in gen conference. and do whatever you can to help Jemima Dustin and Colt, I know its hard but i worry so much about them, really about everyone but especially them. I have a lot of work to do when i get back on our family.
so ya I was reading the ward newsletter thing and it said Emily Peterson got married?? What the??? Isn't she like 19 years old?? ha-ha and she has a missionary out who is a friend of mine, man I have no chance of seeing Branda in a year and half ha ha. no there is a slight chance she will still be there when i get back. but whatever happens happens. so that's kinda weird to think that your going to have strangers move in the apartment instead of Janet living there. who are they? are they members? if not you better get them baptized!! ha ha but really what better opportunity to share the gospel than that.
did you say the missionaries spoke in church on Sunday?? we have missionaries in our ward?? I don't ever remember them speaking in our ward or let alone ever seeing them. oh which reminds me i kinda feel bad now for all the times i avoided the missionaries when they wanted me to go on splits with them, now i know what it feels like. so here is something you need to write down so when i get back you can pull this out and make sure i do it...... when i get back i am going to go on splits all the time with the missionaries and take such good care of them.
ok and mothers day.... so here´s the deal. You are going to need to call me again if you could and here is the number 569-8902-3738.
and i need you to call me at 8:10 CHILEAN TIME. ha ha. once more that is at 8:10 CHILLEAN TIME Sunday night. and ya if you could contact Branda that would be nice. and tell whoever is not there that I will have God send down some lightening bolts to strike them. So if they don't want to get hit with the wrath of God by his lightening bolt send with love from Elder Hovey then they better be there.
I cant really think of anything I need this week but I know there is something I need but I'm sure I'll be ok until then. Oh but you could go tell Dave at Mr mac that those pants that he sold me are terrible, all three pairs have holes in them. and the gloves I bought from Missionary Mall have a hole in them and I have only used them twice, ha ha.

Well I gotta run but I'll talk to you on Sunday at 8:10 my time.

love you!!!!

-Elder hovey

hey mom hey dad!!! so I'm glad you had a good time down in mesquite. what were you doing down there?? did Dustin have a softball tournament or something? oh and before i forget, did you send the office my insurance information. and what is the insurance company wanting now? are they trying to make a claim??
but hey my comp is awesome!! he helps me a ton with my Spanish and I'm trying to teach him English a little too, but its hard cuz i still have so much to learn about Spanish. well......... i mean Chilean, because honestly the Spanish they speak here is terrible!!! there is Spanish, then there is castellan(which is another form of Spanish) and then there is Chilean(which is a mix of all 3, and you double the speed that they talk and mumble all your words together and poof you get the Chilean language). but no my Spanish is getting better and better everyday but its frustrating cuz I'm a perfectionist and hearing my comp who is from Honduras speak perfect Spanish and then hearing an imperfect Spanish come out of my mouth is frustrating. but i know got is helping me.
he has had a very tough life and it makes me really thank full for all the countless blessings i have and have had my entire life.
so you wanna hear a funny story?? ya i was walking down the street the other day talking with my comp while on our way to an appointment and there was this guy just inside his fence washing potatoes..... so the funny thing is that the mashed potatoes that we eat here(which is not very often) are amazing!!! i don't know what they do but they are really good(and just in case this gets to my mom they aren't as good as her mashed potatoes). so ya i love mashed potatoes here and this guy that was washing them wasn't really washing them like most people do..... he had them in this little Chilean rigged pool like thing and he rolled up his dirty Chilean pants and washed the potatoes with his dirty Chilean feet hahahhaha. i started laughing so hard when i saw it and pointed it out to my comp and he died. its pretty much been what has cheered us up this last week when we get shot down, we just say papas which means potatoes and we are magically laughing and happy again.
so anyways this sector is HUGE!!! and there are also 4 missionaries in this ward, but we need it cuz there's no way 4 missionaries can cover this much territory. but we don't have many investigators to be honest. the missionaries here last change i don't know what they were doing. we have one lady named Silvia who has been to church twice on her own and she hadn't even talked to the missionaries and we have been teaching her this last week and things are going good. only she is very catholic and likes do drink so we've got our work set out for us but she is going to get baptized its just a matter of time. ill let you know next week a little more about my investigators, i just don't know them that well up till this point and we haven't found many new investigators this week. well i take that back we found 3 newbies this last week but none of them came to church and none of them really understood anything we taught them. not because we struggled to teach them right, but because they really just couldn't grasp a simple concept or maybe cuz generally they just weren't that interested. but there is still hope they will progress you never know. so pray your guts out for them and me if you would.
so i don't have Kata´s email or her address or anything right here on me but ya you should totally send it to me and ill make sure she gets it. that would be awesome thanks mom!! and i don't have the Padilla´s email on me either, i have it written in my agenda from last change so ill send it to you next week. but hey i gotta run i love you all so much thanks for all your support and prayers. i really can feel the lord blessing me as a result of them.

-Elder Hovey

Hey mom hey dad!! i here your in mesquite?? whats going on down there?? and dad I'm glad your healing so fast, but don't hate me if i sound like a parent but what would you say if i had just got done with surgery and i was running around like you are right now??? ya I'm pretty sure you would say Joel you need to take it easy, and probably get a little frustrated. Ive learned now how much of a beating my body has taken my whole life and wish i could have taken it a little bit easier now. But moral of the story is you need to slow down or in 2 years your gonna be right back in the surgery room, or in a wheel chair.
so how are the jazz doing?? any other sports news? its hard not getting to see any sports here and the one sport that the people really like here is soccer. Don't get me wrong i like soccer but its not basketball or football. so this computer I'm on is so slow I'm gonna kill it. and I'm trying to figure out how i can upload my pictures from the baptism but its not letting me so maybe next week if your lucky. So i had changes today and i got moved..... only it wasn't what they told me it was going to be. I didn't get moved into that sector i was telling you about with the gringo that has less time with me, but i didn't get moved to a new zone, and a whole new sector. My new companions name is Elder Aguirre, and he is from Honduras like my second companion. He also doesn't speak a lick of English so I'm gonna improve a lot of my Spanish this change, I'm excited. But leaving my last sector was so hard. Last night we had a family night and we made waffles(thanks mom) and had a short lesson, but we said by to a bunch of my favorite people here and it was really hard to say bye. I wont lie i got kinda emotional. Especially when i had to say bye to Kata( the girl who i baptized last Sunday) and Erick. I was so close to them and i have to settle for a handshake when saying bye to them when i care about them so much. man that rule is hard sometimes about not hugging converts. so anyways I'm in a sector called punte alto 1 which means tall bridge, but i haven't seen a single bridge here so i don't know why its called that. but I'm right next to the mountains and I'm way excited to maybe go up in the mountains. I guess our sector is huge and there are 4 missionaries in this sector just like my last one. Elder Frost stayed in my old sector so I'm at least glad he is going to stay there and keep an eye on our converts and the families we were working with. We found this family this last week that is awesome!! the dad smokes and is trying so hard to stop and the rest of the family was soooooo excited when i explained the book of Mormon to them. They wanted to read it right then and there. I'm positive they are going to get baptized in a few weeks. I'm so excited. and we found another girl who is getting baptized the 3rd for sure. she knows what she wants and she is working so hard to get to the baptism. I was teaching her about Joseph smith and i looked down for a second and when i looked back up at her she had tears streaming down her face. It was so cool the spirit was so power full. She is really easy to teach cuz she is so receptive to the spirit. We actually re-activated her boyfriend too so this last change was awesome. I feel like i left my last sector with so much left to do. Its really hard to leave all these people you are worrying about and praying for all day everyday in the hands of other missionaries, i mean i know there gonna do really good job with them but still its just hard not being able to talk or see them progressing.
well hey mom if you could send me some of that face wash in the next package you send my way i would very much appreciate it! no hurry.
oh and sorry i cant send any pictures this week i cant figure out this computer its not working right. but hey i love you all and ill talk to you next Monday!

Love

-Elder Hovey

Hey everyone!!! this week has been an awesome week!! we found 7 new investigators this week, had 24 lessons and overall it was a really good week. dad I'm glad to hear your doing so much better!! you ll have to use my camera and take some pictures of Jesse and Tate playing baseball and send them to me. Oh and speaking of tithing....... have you talked to Jemima and Nate, and Aubrie about that??

INTERUPTION FROM AUBRIE...I just want to make it clear that Tom and I ARE full tithe payers as for the rest, I don't know so that is all I have to say about that so on with the letter...

So i have some really good news. i had a long interview with my president and i was explaining to him the situation oh Kata our investigator and Erick. And we got everything worked out and SHE GOT BAPTIZED THIS LAST SUNDAY!!!!!! I was walking with her and Erick and i was talking to her about all sorts of stuff and she stopped and said hey when do i have to decide who is going to baptize me? so i said whenever you want to. and then she said she already knew who she wanted to baptize her but she didn't want to hurt the other persons feelings.... so i said to her that it doesn't matter who baptizes her just the fact that she is getting baptized is the coolest thing in the world. So she finally worked up the courage to say well i want you to do it. As much as i want to say i didn't care who baptized her, i would be lying if i didn't say i wanted to baptize her so bad!! she was my first convert and i had worked so much and so hard to get her to change some things. We had a total fight this last week to get her baptized but it all worked out in the end. She ended up having to have and interview with the president of the mission to get approved to be baptized cuz she has had some really serious sins in the past. but she was honest about all of them and she has truly repented and that's the coolest part of the atonement, she is totally forgiven from all the dumb choices she has made. I love this gospel so much, and even more importantly i love Jesus Christ for the love he showed to all mankind in giving EVERYTHING he had, not just half, or a part...... but EVERYTHING he had so we could be saved and our sins could be forgiven. But I'm sending you some pictures of the baptism and everything, and the coolest part is that Kata and ERICK are most likely going to get married in the future and they are really seriously thinking about moving to Utah. so we are all going to hang out after my mission. Erick is 20 and Kata is 18. but seriously the way she has changed is unbelievable. Erick got up at her baptism and bore his testimony which is something on its own(he has piercings everywhere and all sorts of tattoos, but he was dressed in a suit and a tie). but when he bore his testimony he started crying and so did Kata and it was honestly sooooo amazing!!! I'm so happy for them its not even funny.
So Easter was most definitely the best Easter i have ever had in my life!!!! we remembered Christ, renewed our covenants with him, brought someone unto him, served him the entire day and then we topped it off with some good chocolate at the end of the day. not to mention we had 130 people show up to church this week. and normal amount of people in the church every Sunday is about 100 in this ward. we have been working our butts off and its finally starting to pay off. Changes are coming up this next Monday(a week from today) so I'm most likely leaving this ward but i feel good about saying that i have left this ward better than what i found it. This change is been a ton of fun, but we have been working really hard to. Believe it or not i have to turn to elder frost alot that we need to focus more on the work. And coming from me that's kinda surprising cuz I'm king of screwing around and as they call it her in Chile ¨painting monkeys¨or screwing around. But ya I'm kind of a fun hater now and I'm really serious now, and i never joke around.........ok so maybe I'm lying but really elder frost loves talk about everything and believe it or not I'm kinda mature sometimes and direct our focus back to the mission. So I'm getting a new companion next Monday to and I'm really nervous, i have had really good luck with companions this whole time, i haven't had a companion i wanted to kill, or maybe my patience has really grown, but i have a feeling that I'm going to get a companion that is really going to try my patience, so if you hear I'm coming home in about a week or 2 its probably because i have killed my companion. haha no jk i promise i wont do that.
We ate dinner on Sunday with the family Padilla who are pretty much my family away from home and i said the closing prayer and they know I'm most likely leaving next week and the mom of the family started crying and had to walk out of the room when the prayer was over, i guess I'm just really good at saying prayers or something...... but for real she was really sad cuz I'm leaving and it hit me so hard that in this ward there are so many people i don't want to leave. i have been with them for almost 4 months now and i love them to death and its gonna be really hard to leave and get put in a different ward. but its ok wherever I'm called i know its from the lord and I'm gonna be happy wherever He puts me.
but hey i need to go. I'm out of time but thanks for the support and everything you do for me.
i know i was gonna ask you to send me something but now i cant remember what it was. next week i hope i remember. haha love you all bye!!


ohhh and mom!!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! You are honestly the best mom ever and it sucks that it takes me being out here away from you to realize how much i really do love you but thanks for everything. i couldn't ask for anything more than what you are and i can only hope and pray that i can take some of the amazing characteristics and qualities you have. i love you so much!!! and i hope you had the best birthday ever!!

Hey Family!! how are things going at home?? things are about the same with me. this whole week was crazy, we didn't really have hardly any time to work in our own sector this week which was hard cuz we had a couple investigators that we didn't get to stop by and visit this week. I went with the assistants to the president to their sector and did divisions to learn the sector up there and the president told me to learn the sector fast and do whatever it took to learn it, so he pretty much told me that's where I'm going next change without actually saying "Elder Hovey you are going to San Luis." my investigators are doing good, Kata is probably getting baptized this week or the next.......but we had a little set back with her so well see. but hows your hip dad?? oh and mom are you still getting knee surgery?? thanks for the package Easter candy. i just listened to Sam Strong's talk while i made myself lunch. I'm so excited for him. He seems like he has already matured a lot!! general conference was so awesome!! man i cant believe all the times i slept through conference....... i was dumb. but hey i gotta run. i love you all and I'm sorry it was super short this week. talk to you next week

-Elder Hovey

So me and my comp elder frost do talk alot about stuff from home, cuz after all we do know a lot about each other from before the mish. but to be honest we are working our butts off. this last week we found 9 new investigators and we have a baptism scheduled for the 29th of this month and a few for the next week. which is GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! freak ya!! haha i know I'm a loser and probably sound like a such a nerd but i never once in my life realized the real life importance of having a living prophet today. there real live men today that speak with god and he tells them what we as sounds and daughters of god need in our lives and they then turn around and teach us. how sweet is that!!! i wish so bad i could go back and listen more attentively, and more importantly listen with the spirit. listen with the intention to learn something and then put in practice, and act upon what GOD is communicating to us THROUGH his servant the prophet. ya back to my investigators haha, man you just had half of lesson 1 of the missionary lessons haha. I'm such a good missionary I'm teaching through email.
so it seems like I'm always giving you a report on my health haha. but ya it was nothing serious, i took the drugs and I'm all better now. and I'm really sorry if my English sucks now but I'm really thinking in Spanish now, well for the most part. and my mind went from at the first of my mission, from thinking in English trying to translate to Spanish and now its almost the other way around., to where I'm having to translate to English. this last change really helped me having a comp that didn't speak a word of English besides the few words i taught him, like jinks(when you say the same thing at the same time), and psyche and a few other pointless words. haha. but ya so i am pretty much the luckiest missionary ever, I'm living a dream of my whole life by getting to serve with one of my best friends from home. and I'm having a blast while sharing the gospel with the people here in Chile. i honestly think this is going to be my best change(6 weeks) on my mish. so i have no more time to write I'm sorry. Well hey about the ring if there is an Internet site i can just go too, to just send me the Internet site or the pamphlet thing and ill just give it to the person that needs the ring.
tell Jesse congratulations and happy birthday for me. i love you jess!!! that's so cool that he has the priesthood of god already!! i cant believe you are 12 years old bud, it seems like 2 years ago you were barely walking around with your big head making you tip over as you tried to run or walk haha. Jesse you better serve a mission, its so much fun and its honestly the best thing you could ever do in your life. so start getting ready now and you will be the best missionary ever.
so mom that's awesome you found a diet your loving huh?? whats it called??' this lady here started talking to me about how she wants to lose weight she wants to know. oh and PS i got the memory card. thanks so much!! man i gotta run sorry, man my hour on here flies by every single time and i don't get to write all the people i want to. but sorry i gotta obey the rules so i gotta go and ill talk to you next week.