September 15

Sounds like I wasnt the only one with miracles this week, im so very glad to hear jacob is okay. i hope he is doing well and the other family as well. i know my family is being watched over, and that is very comforting. 

este semana... gwoooah.. im not sure where to start!! so many miracles. We had Elder De Hoyes que is the presiding 70 over mexico come and speak, i have a NEW TRAINER HERMANA ARRIAGRA y the most exciting.. TANIA WAS BAPTIZED!!!! I cant even begin to tell you how much of a miracle this was. this week was super fun teaching her, things were going so well, we would go and she would explain to us the 12 chapters she read every day in the LDM. Taught her mandamientos y todo. Saturday we had an appt, with her a las 4 y when we arrived she was crying and talking on the phone. Come to find out her mom is not doing well at all and she made the decision to return to Veracruz for 4 months to help care for her and was leaving the next day. My heart was literally breaking when she told us this because she has progressed SO much these last couple of weeks and we had planned for a mexico fiesta on sunday lunch in honor of dia de mexico!! and now she was going to leave.. but right after she told us this while we were all crying, she asked if she could be baptized in the night. Of course me and hermana martinez didnt hesistate to say YES. there was a baptism planned at 6 pero it was cancelled because the parents of the young girl changed thier mind so at this point tania hadn{t had her interview for baptism, the font was as dry as a bone, and she had no white clothes but we knew that the Lord would provide. We started calling everyone, bishop, the leaders de the zona, hermanas in the ward, everyone. All odds were against us, but we had the lord on our side. and i am more than grateful,happy,speechless to say Tania Diaz Suarez was baptized at 8:40 that night. I have never experienced anything more beautiful. Me and martinez walked into the bathroom to find her on her knees praying to heavenly father all dressed in white right before she was going to be baptized.. i cant even put into words what i felt.. so much peace in my heart. so much peace porque she is a true fruit... we left her with tons of pamphlets and extra LDM becasue she is eccited to share this gospel with her family in Veracruz. I promised her as well that I wouldnt leave Daniel solo. he returns the 23 of this month and i am hoping and praying that lord is preparing his heart while he is away and that I can be an instrument in converting his heart unto the Lord to complete this family.

My aproxima news.. I have a step mom!! Hermana Arraiga de Norte Mexico about 1 de McAllen Texas! she is so sweet and i am so excited to have her! and also soooooo scared. haha. I am now showing her the area, (Im still in Kanasin) explaining everything with the invesigators, introducing her to members, leading in the lessons, everything.. All this week I kept having the thoughts about the story of Brigham Young and the rescueres when he asked for people to go for the saints and asked when the brothers would be ready and (ephraim i believe) said, I am ready now. I kept having the feelings that I needed to prepare myself so when the Lord calls I am ready. this was the spirit working in me. but at the same time i kept thinking there is no way that they will change me or my comp! im still in my trainging, hardly know the language, opened the area, etc. If anything, pres. will change me to a new location and leave hermana martinez here. but as always, the lord had different plans for me. So, Im ready. ready to work hard, ready to really let go of myself and my fears. theres no room for that here. Our call of transfers came at 11 p.m. sunday night and my first reaction was tears when i heard the news.. hahah both of joy and fear. i have loved being comps con hermana martinez. she is the new sister training leader of campeche. so that tells you how amazing she was. i learned a lot from her that i want to apply into my work. we were talking after while packing her bags. Never before had she been in an area for only 1 cambio and how this has been her cambio of milagros as well as the most dificil. Tania was our miracle. and hermana martinez said that she is convinced that she was in Kanasin solo for Tania.. and that there is nothing more for her, that I am ready and here because i am needed because there are hearts here for me. so no time to be afraid, only to rely on the Lord, for he calls the weak and qualifies them. 

We found 2 families this week that im super excited about. Edwin ( contacted him because he was playing catch with his son and wearing a boston red sox hat, so we talked baseball for a bit) and Maria de Carmen. We havent had a lesson with Edwin yet, but with Maria de Carmen felt the spriti super strong in that lesson.. we invited her to pray for the closing prayer and never before had she prayed in her life, but it was the most beautiful prayer ive ever heard. she was in tears when she finished and i asked her how she felt and she all she could say was peace. Testifies that it was the spirit. Hopefully we{ll have a baptism soon. 

I love being a missionary! Glad to hear Jake is still being a missionary too! Love all you. cool story as well. people in merida know me! hahah one of sams mission comp. has been asking about me with Hermana Sanchez that we went to lunch with before the mission. I saw her at the conference and she was saying how there have been like 3 people in her ward who have asked if she knows me. So hopefully one day ill get to meet him! It was fun to hear that. Hope the family is doing well. love you all more than anything, pray for you every night! Quick recovery to jacob! 

read your scriptures!! 

mucho amor,

hermana hobbs

September 8

ah que cosas!! sounds like the fams been busy with brocs wedding. loved the pictures!! everyone looks great :) and HESTON. so proud of you!! sounds like youre the allstar of the team! keep working hard and continue to better yourself. in total aspects :) 

i can´t believe i´ve been in mexico for a month! this week will the last of week of my first cambio! so crazy. i don´t know what to excpect. i don´t feel like im going to be transfered but we will see! so many changes in so little time. this week was filled with tender mercies - i think my favorite part of being a missionary is seeing how the gospel works in others. seeing how god´s love can make someone whole. 

this week we were super excited because we were meeting with Daniel and Tania and hoping to continue on with them. Tania´s baptism was set for this week but it didn´t happen.. and from this ive learned that the lords timing is not always the same as ours. tuesday we met with tania and it was one of the most powerful lessons. we taught about faith and the atonement. spirit was super strong. that night we recieved a call at like 10:20 which was weird from the esposa de obispo. i answered because its my job to attempt to talk on the phone with people but quickly handed it to hermana martinez because i knew she needed to talk to her. come to find out Tania had gone out to buy comida porque she was going to cook lunch for us the approx. day and saw her husbands mototaxi outside of the bar. tania has a very strong character and went into the bar and yelled at him. one thing led to another and he beat her pretty badly.. when i heard this i could hardly believe it because he is the most calm sweetest guy - but thats what alcohol for ya. she was bruised pretty terribly.. it broke my heart. but im really glad this all happened. that sounds terrible, but i mean it in the best way. sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to realize that we need to change. and thats what needed to happen. Daniel and Tania have come to this fork in their marriage and from the last couple of lessons we have had with them have been bien poderoso. They both want to work together to fix this. Daniel as well accepted a fecha baptism. its been sooooo humbling and soooo amazing to see this change take place. to see how the gospel has worked how the atonement is working. even though we didn´t have the baptism at the time we hoped for, this is the lords plan for them. Sometimes he brings us low so he can lift us even higher. 

weve been finding lots more people to teach, just sifting through the ones who truly have desires to change their lives. there´s lots of menus activos that are starting to come back to church too which is super good. the family we´ve been working with - our neighbors, nearly all have dates for baptisms. the two jovenes Ivonne y Julio are super excited about everything. we are working really hard with the parents right now because they arent married and they don´t believe its important to be married. they think if they get married they will just want to be divorced and they don´t have money to do that. but theyve been together for 30 years. its going to happen though, i have faith!! 

we had intercambios this weekend with one of our sister training leaders, Hermana De Leon (from tampico!! sams mish. can´t remember the actual ciudad she was from thought) she was the companion of my companion from the mtc before she went home. she is super solid! taught me a lot. mostly to be direct and sort of blunt with people. we were teaching Jose Oscar on sunday, he´s 26 and he drinks alot and she was so blunt in the most loving way about how he needs to stop drinking. i need to work on a little more direct with people. hhaha 

ahh so many things to say, but these were some highlights of our week. im starting to feel better about my spanish! it´s starting to be fun, specially when i make funny mistakes. i literally feel like im in the best 2 years sometimes in mexico. i love it here! 

hope you all have a fantastic week, keep up the good. find someone to serve everyday, and pray for opportunities to share the gospel. i can promise that our father in heaven will give them to you! te quiero mucho! 

hermana hobbs

September 1

Well...I can't believe how fast time goes!

Its starting to rain soooo much here. which is my favorite type of weather. its lots better than sweating your eyeballs out. haha. so for a little experience this week we were at a members house eating this week and on our way walking back it started to DOWNPOUR. the kind of rain that in 3 minutes could flood the whole world. while we were running in the rain  another member hollered for us to come inside to wait for it to clear up. we were super glad because were were probably 20 minutes away from our next appt. house. as we were waiting in the house she shut the doors and the windows because the rain was muy fuerte meanwhile cutting onions to make salsa. hahah if you remember my eyes are super super sensitive to onions. so there we are with 9 people crammed into a little room and me crying my eyes out becasue they stung so bad. they were getting a kick out of it! i wish i would have brought my camera because my eyes were literally bright red. even when we left they were watering for like 10 more minutes. hahaha

This week has basically been a roller coaster ride with lots of ups and downs. Last week was pretty hard because we didnt have many people interested in hearing us and had a lot of people shut us down. So me and hermana martinez decided to buckle up and work hard this week, so we did just that! We contacted more in the streets, and started using Jake{s technique of singing a hymn and having the members let the spirit work in them and write down someone who needs the gospel in their lives. We had lots and lots of references which is what we need. we set 9 new dates for baptism this week!! we were really excited. i hope it all works out.

We are working really hard right now with Tania. Her baptism is set for this thursday so we are trying to get her all ready. We had a little miracle with her this week. Like I said, her husband came home this week from his work and they have been having problems. We had lunch with them on friday and it went really well! His name is Daniel and he was really receptive to our message. They both came to church with us this week and it was so touching to see how different their little boy Paulo acted as well as Tania. Usually Paulo is super crazy during church and is running all over and Tania is a little irreverrant trying to calm him down. But with Daniel their all Paulo wanted to do was sit on his lap. I could tell Tania was much more at ease as well.. It was a testimony to me about families and the roles of parents. Marriage is meant for man and wife because they compliment each other and are there to support one another. I think its really hard for Tania to have her husband away for work, as well for Paulo. This is a good family - the temple is the goal. for them to be together forever.

Weve also been working hard with our neighbors. We contancted the mom the other day, Asuncion, and had a lesson just with her. She has 9 kids the oldest is 29. We only know him, Juan Carlos, the second oldest, Ivonne 17, and Julio 10. The mom is pretty hard right now. She believes her baptism is correct and she doesnt need another one, but none of her other kids are baptized. She really likes us and likes talkign to us which is good. We are going to work on her. Ivonne and Juan Carlos both accepted a fecha which we were super excited about!! Ivonne and Julio, the two youngest are so cute. Ivonne is very timid and quiet but so willing to do everything and really has a true desire to know about this gospel. Julio reminds me so much of Cy! he is so cute and funny and carries his soccer ball everywhere. We invited them to a ward activity thursday and they were both super super excited to go and they came to church with us on Sunday as well!! Funny story. So Ivonne, Julio, Tania, y Daniel all came with us to the church. Daniel is a taxista (those little carts that nacho libre drives in the movie is what a taxi is here) so Tania offered to take us to church. So all 7 of us piled in. hahahha it was a sight to see!! i think we were only going like 2 miles per hour because the thing weighed so much. it was way fun though. the family is pretty poor and ivonne hasn{t had many friends. she bonded instantly with another YW member and it was perfect! she is now going on a little overnight activity with the young women and wants to come to church every sunday. it reminded me so much of all your little young women girls, mom. keep working on all those in west weber who need the gospel!! invite people to activities because it all can start there! We are really excited to see what happens. They are good.

There's lots more things and people I want to write about but I dont have much time left. Thanks for all the words of encouragement and help. Everything is going well, i have good days and bad days with the spanish but im learning line upon line precept upon precept. The temple looks beautiful!! i love seeing the pictures of it. I still have my bottle of water that you gave me from the open house. im saving it for a special day when i need the holy water. or clean water. haha :) love you mucho! hope the wedding goes well! wish grandma happy birthday for me! love you all more than anything.

con amor,

Hermana Hobbs

p.s. mom & dad i am teaching english classes. which are way fun!! what is the sound about apples and bananas and vowles?? do you know any good activities to do or have any good ideas? i need my creative parents help once again :)

August 25

ahh good luck to all those who start school!! haha so happy for your new escuela mama, i bet the kiddos are just super happy about having such a new school. que bueno. welcome home jacee for me with open arms.. love her so much! i can´t wait to hear how everything goes for here and the hancock fam. sounds like a busy week for ya´ll!

wow this week. hahah so many funny things I could tell you! i wish that i had one of those gopro´s so i could record everything and send it to you all! i now understand the analogy everyone uses about being born again in the mision and having a mom and cosas asi. for the most part everyone treats me like i am two. we had study session this week with a nonmember who needed help with english to pass a test to get a scholarship. so me and my comp were helping her learn which was really fun! one of the days we were there the mom brought in these little fruits that were the size of a cherry. they are green and have a hard shell that you pop open and then its a pink fruit inside. (muy muy rica) so they were trying to explain to me how to eat it becaues the seed inside is huge!! of course i couldnt really understand what they were saying. something about a seed in the middle and to be careful so i plop the thing in my mouth and the mom start having a panic attack screaming at me and my comp was freaking out too and i start getting super worried and scared becaue i have no idea what they are saying to me. i thought the seed was poisenous or something so i spit it out. they wouldnt let me have another one after that.. hahah later when it was me and my comp she explained it was because the mom thought i was going to swallow the massive seed and choke... haha i thought it was super funny :)

this week has been really good but really rough as well.. tania is having a hard time feeling the spirit and her husband comes home on wed from his work. he only comes home 2 a month. she found out he has been having an affair with other ladies. she has invited us over thurday to talk to him.. she still has her baptism set and is still working towards it.

It has been hard finding people to teach. a lot of the member referrals aren´t in our area because our ward is split into 3 different areas. hardly anyone was home this week because it was the last week of summer and most people were in centro getting ready for school so a lot of our appt. fell through. we are trying to keep a positive attitude, we are setting goals to contact more in the streets and find different ways to find the prepared. it´s been hard work this week but really rewarding as well. its been my job to initiate the contacting. haha so that has been fun! i have made so many mistakes but im starting to get the hang of it. one of the times i was introducing our iglesia and forgot to say jesus christ. so i only said we are the saints of the latter days. hahah my comp is so patient and loving with me.

One of our other investigators, Genny her two daugthers accompanied us to a baptism on thurs. of Elder Bahr and Echeverria. Baptisms are my favorite here. We haven´t had one yet, but we will soon!! my comp. plays the flute and we all sing as missionarie. its really powerful. the members are so funny too haha they record us on their phones and take pictures of us. they love the missionaries and take such good care of us! i know your schedules are busy, but seriosly take the opportunity to go with the missionaries to their appointments! or feed them one night in our house. I wish i would have done more of that before my mission, because now i see how valuable it is. EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY!

We had stake conference this week which was amazing. Our visiting general authority was Elder Jesus Tirada. He spoke as well with our mission pres. Garcia & his wife on saturday ALL about missionary work. we had the opportunity to sing in the choir the medly of armies of helamen and sisters in zion. i could hardly sing because i was so full of emotion.. that has always been one of my favorite songs, and to sing it in spanish with my fellow missionarie and with the youth who are the future missionaries was so powerful! its a privlidge to be a missionary and to represent my savior. in the meeting they talked a lot about missionary work and the goal of the temple. seek out and PRAY for opportunities to serve. concentrate your prayers and seek for inspiration on who to help and god will always alway answer and provide opportunities for you. the works great! thanks mom for your uplifting words always. i love my family so much. keep pushing along!!

con amor

hermana hobbs

August 18

ahhh familia!

So much to say.. this week was really great. the work continues to get better better. but like the subject line, i am truly grateful for speedbumps. 1) because busses here in merida are insane and if it wasnt for the speedbumps, i would have probabaly been thrown from them by now. i think the goal of the drivers is to see how fast they can go in between them. 2) because this work is challenging & hard. there are many obstacles placed before missionaries. but the speedbumps are humbling. they make you realize that this work is not possible without the help of our god. 

The progress of tania is going so well! she is our only progressing investigator right now. we have tons of future investigators but it is really hard to get people to commit to things here. they like to listen to our messages, but they won´t do things for themselves which has been hard because we can talk all day, but if they don´t act they wont know the truth for themselves. we teach tania almost every other day. she is scheduled to be baptized the first week of sept. which is great!! on thursday i had a really humbling experience during the lesson.. during the lessons i don´t say much. haha. i mostly testify and try to explain things and usually my comp. fixes or tries to translate what i am trying to say. this lesson we were teaching about the atonement and having our burdens lightened. i think i maybe said two words because she had tons of questions and i couldnt understand what she was saying. as my comp was talking about yoking ourselves to the savior i was thinking of how much i personally have needed my savior and his powers..and how much i have relied on him to help me through this and help me understand. pretty soon it was the end of the lesson and my turn to bear my testimony. the cool thing about being the only white girl and not speaking the language is people really listen to you and give you their attention 100 percent. so as i was starting to bear my testimony of my savior i told her how i was truly feeling. i started crying and i couldnt control myself because i realized myself how much i NEEDED my savior in this life. how much i needed his power of the atonement because i can´t do any of this on my own. i can´t even tell you the spirit i felt there.. that was the strongest witness i have felt of my saviors love. we had the bishops wife with us in that lesson and as she said the closing prayer she began to cry as well. through my broken spanish, tania understood how powerful the saviors power and love can be. she just hugged me and cried with me. haha. it was really a special moment. it´s funny how we think we are the teachers, but we are actually the ones being taught instead. 

Being out here has made me realize just how much i have needed these people in my life. these people who are so different yet so similar. i am in love with them. it makes everything worth it. the bugs that are everywhere, the chicken i have to rip apart with my hands because there is no silverware, the scorching hot sun, the sweat on my face, it is all worth it because these people are my brothers and sisters. they are god´s children and he loves them just as much as he loves me. and i KNOW that he loves me and i KNOW how important that knowledge is to me. i want nothing more than for others to recognize that same love from him. i´m so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and to be here in merida. it´s so humbling to be apart of this great work!! 

This morning we had a multizone conference and boy was it sooo cool! i can´t tell you how much i love my mission pres and his wife. they remind me so much of you mom and dad. Pres. Garcia has such an unshakable testimony and is so calm and quiet and his wife is the definition of a spicy latino woman who is so LOVING. so so so loving. they have made me feel so at home and so cared for. we started by eating breakfast in a way nice hotel in merida. we had to wake up at 4:30 to get to the conference on time but the breakfast made it worth it :) our AP´s are literally some of the most amazing powerful missionaries i have ever seen. they taught all our break out sesh´s and the president spoke to us at the end and beginning. i feel like they planned everything around me because everything that was said today were things i needed to hear and apply into my work. it´s so crazy how perfect the spirit is, how perfect this church is!! us as human beings may never be perfect and may fall short a lot of the time, but this gospel will always be perfect. 

I got some sad news that my companion from the MTC went home last week. please keep her in your prayers if you could. 

PAZ AFUERA

hermana hobbs

August 11

MAISIE ARRIVED IN MERIDA MEXICO!!!!

ahhh bienvenidos mis amigos!

well so much to say about so much. haha. first, i love mexico!! it is everything i imagined it to be yet so different at the same time. especially the heat, i had no idea what was ahead for me. it literally feels like im in a hot steamy dishwasher 24/7. the humidity is real. i will start from the beginning.

the plane ride over here was awesome! so so so pretty. we arrived at like 8ish right when the sun was setting and the sky was a burning red pink color. the sunsets here are amazing and so beautiful. everything here is beautiful. especially the vegetation, it is like living in a jungle! and basically that is what i am doing. i am in an area called Kanasin. its on the outskirts of Merida. its a pretty calm town. the people live in cement houses and are very poor. but so nice! the ward im serving in has 6 missionaries because its so big!

My compañera is from Mexico city, so.... I am being forced to learn the language. hahah.i absolutley love her! her name is Hma. Martinez and she reminds me so so much of jacee! its been so comforting. during our interview pres. garcia asked me what i wanted in a comp and i told him someone who is hardworking, loving, has a passion for the work and who can help me catch on to the vision of the mission- i got everything i asked for. i have been so impressed by her and her positive attitude. she is so patient with me and it has been so fun with her! she is what gets me through the discouraging times. its been fun to because as she teaches me spanish i teach her english. she actually knows a lot and has such a desire to learn so i havent had too much of a problem talking with her. its been good for me too because i talk in complete spanish. if i would have had an american i know that i would have just talked in English, so its been good. its pretty hard too.. the first day here we had our interviews with the mision pres. and his assistants gave us the deets of the mission and i was feeling pretty confident because i could understand everything. thats because they were being nice... the people here speak sooo fast! even my comp here sometimes can{t understand because they have a yucatan accent. its nuts and kinda frustrating at times because i feel helpess. something that jacob said to me has been ringing in my ears about how it is more important how we make others feel than anything we could ever say. and that is what i{m striving to do. i have gotten used to the weird looks i recieve when walking down the streets. hahah i kinda enjoy being the minority. we were walking home yesterday and a little girl ran up to me and said something (which i didnt understand because the kids speak lots faster than the adults) so after i asked my comp and the little girl told me i looked like a barbie. haha it was cute.

The members here are very strong. me and my comp knew nothing about the area when we first started. we had no cell phone, no records of where members lived, basially no information about anything. we both opened this area, there havent been sister missionaries here for about 10 years, so we are both going in blinded. there are 2 other sets of missionaries, elders, serving in this ward as well. so we cover three different areas. there are lots of inactive members as well. thats mostly who weve been trying to target to work with. we met the bishops wife the second day we were here. the bishop is working on the temple in tux right now and is going to be returning in a week or so. she is awesome!! she is a RM as well and has been going to the lessons with us with one of our investigators named tania. tania is awesome. she has a 2 year old little boy who is CRAZY!! he reminds me a lot of Ty when he was a little boy - full of energy. haha. so in the lessons is basically become my job to be the babysitter and keep him entertained. she came to church with us yesterday and me and hma martinez were running around the capilla trying to get him to go to primary. he wouldnt. so basically we didnt really attend sunday school or relief society because we were in and out with him hahah. it was funny because earlier that week me and martinez were talking and saying how much we loved kids and how many we wanted. i told her i wanted 5 and then after that i told her that maybe i will only have one and see how it goes. hahahah it was funny. but i was really happy to do it and tania really enjoyed church so it was awesome. also paulio (the little boy) loves us now and always wantes to play with us so thats been good! 

The members feed us really well. weve had lots of people sign up to feed us or just while we are teaching lessons will buy us food or give us things. i only eat lunch usually and maybe a banana in the morning and night because they feed ya so much! and all i want is water all the time. haha. i dont think i have to worry about gaining weight because you just sweat everything off. the people here are so kind and so happy with what they have. it is so humbling. this is exactly what i needed in my life. this has honestly been the hardest week of my life. full of ups and downs, doubts and fears, but when it all boils down to it, it comes to the Savior. this is why i am here. i may not be able to understand everything that is being said but it is crazy at how strong my desire is to help them understand. basically all i do in lessons is testify. testify testify testify. and i am happy to do that because i want them to know the same things that i know. one of the other boys from the MTC, elder bahr is in my district and ward here and that has been such a comfort. he is such a nice kid and so happy all the time. its nice to see him to speak english with him and to know that we are both struggling together. you forget that other people feel this way or have felt this way before, but the most comforting thing is praying and using the atonement. my savior knows how i feel and for that i am so grateful. i could not do this without him. i love the work and i love learning. even though i don{t feel like my spanish is improving, today during our zone conference during practices sister manning (shes been out for like 8 months) was saying dont even fret because i speak well. hahah oh goll. i am just waiting for the day i wake up fluent. :) 

well. i love you all so very much! i loved seeing jacob. it was the best thing ever.. so glad i had that opportunity. dont worry about me because im doing great and loving it, even the hard times. ive had such wonderful parents who taught me how to  work hard and how to love the lord and those two things are carrying me through this. I LOVE YOU ALL. keep praying and keep reading your scriptures!! also thanks for all the love and support! yall are great.

con amor,

hermana hobbs

July 23

ahhh I can't believe it. jacob comes home today!! please squeeze him extra hard for me until I can do it on sunday.. i am still so humbled and grateful that my branch pres. is letting me see him. such a tender mercy. so congrats to him and please send me some pics of the airport greeting! also wish eddy the best for me! im glad he had a good farewell and temple experience. he is going to make such a great missionary. the lord takes special care of his missionaries. 

oh boy. sooo clap your hands together because i'm heading to mexico on monday!! i fly out at 12:35 at SLC and then go to Houston, then straight to MERIDA. woot woot. I've been having dreams about flying so I can't wait to see what it's actually like. I still can't believe it, it's gone by sooo fast here in the mtc, but when i look back at this past month i have learned so much and grown in so many ways that it doesn't seem possible, with the language and the gospel.  i have learned more about myself this past month then i have my whole life. everyday I see the hand of my savior in this work. even in the mtc. there is no way i could be doing what i am doing without His help. This is HIS work and he promised all of us missionaries that he would never leave us alone, and he is doing exactly that.

so this past week here are some of my highlights: 

on sunday i gave a talk about baptism - they call on random speakers so you always have to have a talk prepared, and i gave it all in spanish. i didn't even have to use my notes so i was super excited about it! i'm not sure if what i said made any sense at all or if i pronounced anything right, but hey I did it and I was excited :) another cool thing - Sunday before sister fowers left to richmond we were able to sit by each other in the devotional!! it was so fun! we caught up for the past month we have been away. I could have talked to her for 50 more hours but the short while we were together was enough for me. it was so fun seeing her and hearing how much she has loved the mtc as well :) she is going to be such a great missionary. 

my favorite thing here has been TRC which is basically teaching progressing investigators or members about the church and all. This past week me and my comp were able to SKYPE a lady from panama! how cool is that! she was sitting on a balcony in panama city at night so she held up her laptop and gave us a grand view of the city. it was beautiful! also it was so exciting being able to actually understand her and feel the spirit so strongly! her name was alejandra! i can't wait to teach the people of mexico.. i already have such a love for them. even with our teachers when we "commmit" them to baptism I always just want to jump up and down with excitement because I know how much it's going to bless their lives! it will be fun to actually have real life experineces like that. I know that this gospel truly blesses our lives. 

I know this church is true and that it truly blesses lives. Heavenly father truly loves all his children and wants nothing more than for them to be happy and return to live with him. life is hard.. muy deficil, pero yo se que con el evangelio, is possible sentira gozo en nuestros almas. yo se que jose smith fue un verdad profeta y hoy thomas s. monson guia la iglesia. yo estoy muy agracido por mi bendiciones y mi familia. yo amo mi familia much y tambien mis amigos. yo estoy muy agracido por la oportunidad a servir un mision en Merida Mexico. 

well i love you all. remember to think WWJF - what would jesus feel + to read the scriptures every day, especially the book of mormon. that is the fastest way to feel closer to christ is by reading his words. continue to do your best, that's all the Lord asks for. i love you all so much and i'm so grateful for the love and support that i've felt! 

con amor,

Hermana Hobbs