August 6, 2008

Note from Jeff: Mindy will be released from the mission on August 20, but she will stay in the DC area for a few days with Kim, Spencer, and me. If everything goes as planned, she will arrive at the Sacramento airport on Delta flight number 1535 at 8:41pm on Monday, August 25.

Dear family and friends,

I thought I'd begin with a few updates...We finally met Danella on Sunday. She is so cute and an amazing person. She is confident, poised, and loves the Lord. She is also excited for her baptism and will be baptized August 17th. We love her and it is especially fun for Sister Garre to have a Brazilian to talk with.

David is doing so well. He also came to church on Sunday with a white shirt and tie on. He looked better than most of the guys at church. He is taking this very seriously and it shows in his attitude and his reverence. After sacrament meeting a member of the bishopric usually invites all those who are visiting or new to introduce themselves. David introduced himself and told his story and how grateful he was that we talked with him and invited him to learn more about the Book of Mormon. He then bore his testimony about how everything that we are teaching him is true and how it just keeps getting better and better. Everyone was amazed. I sat grinning from ear to ear, I was so happy. He fit into the ward perfectly and the members loved him! We had another lesson with him last night. He is progressing so quickly and he has already told his family about his baptism. He said the most sincere prayer last night. His prayers are a conversation with his Heavenly Father. He has always had a good relationship with Heavenly Father. We continue to prepare him for his baptism on August 17th.

We taught Laura this past week. She is the friend of a member and has been attending church in another ward for some time. She has read through the Book of Mormon once already and is now reading it again. We went to her home for lunch and she made us Maryland crab cakes, delicious! After discussing the Restoration she told us that she is excited to learn more and knows that she will receive an answer from Heavenly Father. She is reading the Book of Mormon every night and we invited her to ask Heavenly Father what He would have her learn as she needs. She has already seen miracles as she has done so. We love her and we are excited for her progression.

Veronica is not ready for baptism and is too connected to her own church back in Africa. We talked with her about it this week and we knew that it just wasn't time now. We told her that she is always welcome and we expressed our love and said our goodbyes for now. I feel good about the whole situation. If they're choosing not to progress, then we must move on. Through everything we continue to see miracles every day and I love it.

Sister Garre is practicing her driving and it has been an interesting experience. I feel that it is a tender mercy of the Lord to help me be light-hearted. Luckily I also know that I am protected ; ) Besides the times when we've almost died, it's been a fun and actually pretty funny!

My prayers are with you all. I love serving the Lord and I pray to have the energy to sacrifice and do all I can these last two weeks.

With Love, Sister Hogge