I've shared a document with you called "Elder Joel Hovey 15 day Fast for a Miracle":http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rpvhP5i30Wf5W8nR4XJHEvw&inv=aubrieh25@yahoo.comIt's not an attachment -- it's stored online at Google Docs. To open this document, just click the link above.Friends & Family:


Elder Joel Hovey is having extreme health issues and is scheduled to return home July 14, 2009 from his mission in SantiagoChile. His desire is to be able to continue his mission in Chile. Wewould like to invite you to participate in a Family &friends-continuous 15 day fast. We are expecting a miracle. What themiracle is, we are not sure, but will put our faith along with yours,for the benefit of ElderJoel Hovey and those working with him to keep him in the Mission Field,(hopefully Santiago Chile East Mission). To add your name to thedocument, decide what hours you are able to fast. Then double click inthe space under 'Name" correlating with the hours you will be fasting.After you have typed inyour name hit 'enter' and your name will be saved on the document forall others viewing. More than one person can participate during thesame hour(s). You can add your name to the hour by double clicking onthe name already listed, make sure your cursor is at the end of thename already listed. Type your name and hit enter. You will have toenter your name on each line for each hour you fast. If you make amistake, you can use the 'undo' or 'redo' tab. or call Marianne801-636-4668 and I will correct it. We love & appreciate all of you andall you have done to support Elder Hovey. Thank you for participatingand serving the Hovey family & Elder Joel Hovey.

---Note: You'll need to sign into Google with this email address. To use a different email address, just reply to this message and ask me to invite your other one.

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