HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! / The joys of panaderias and positive attitudes

September 29, 2014  HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!

Hello there!

I hope everyone is doing well and that Dad is partying it up for his 23rd birthday. That's cool about your new temple job mom, I'm sure you'll be great at it!

No, we didn´t see any [church women's] broadcast, didn't even know about it.

Well if there´s something important I learned this week, it's that an alfajor (or factura) [gingerbread:)] a day keeps the  blues away. Please remind me if I get married when I'm 65 that I will only marry someone who owns an Argentine panaderia [bread shop/bakery].

This week was still pretty hard, we still didn´t find anyone new to teach, but my attitude was a lot better. It helps that my comp is very positive. Sometimes it´s rell funny...for example, some lady wagged her finger at us through her window and then disappeared, and we waited for a minute because... I don´t really know why... and Hna Platino said that maybe she was just getting us cookies and soda. Also someone asked through the door who was there and after we answered, she locked the door, but Hna P said "I think she's still trying to open it..." I don´t know if those stories make sense but they were funny to me, haha.

One cool experience we had this week was working well as a team to receive revelation. We were walking home one night and Hna P said, "We need to go back and talk to that boy," so we did. We ere talking to him and it turned out he and his family were already members of the church and attend a different ward. We were about to leave when I knew I needed to ask him how old he was to segue into the topic of going on a mission. He said he was 21 and so we talked with him about going on a mission. He said he just didn´t have desires to go, and I hope we were able to help, and that maybe us talking to him was just what he needed to decide to go, who knows!

We´ve been focused on giving out libros de mormon with the goal of 2 a day... We have had some pretty cool experiences so far but pretty much every good contact we make is with someone who just happens to be in our area but doesn´t live there. But there are lots of other missionaries who owe us a thank you. :)

I am officially legal in Argentina [she has her visa!], so that´s the good news. Also I think my hair is growing fast. Also we made empanadas for the 1st time yesterday. They were very good even though they were filled with hot dogs and pizza sauce, because that's what we found in our fridge, haha. Also good news, we had 3 investigators at church yesterday, including Bro and Sis Aguero! [Thanks for your prayers, everyone!] Their daughter gave a talk too that was very good.

Starting the week after general conference, we will start meeting our little group with a ward in a neighboring town, Ciudad de Milagros. I think it will be good to have more people, but now there are different problems. For example, one new convert will not be able to come to church now because she works in the mornings and our church met in the evening, but now we will be meeting in the morning. So we need to figure out what to do about that.

I guess these are the highlights of the week! Also, Salta has the most beautiful sunsets every day!!! I learned how to say sunset, la puesta del sol. Anyways, hope you are all doing well, I LOVE YOU!

Hna Hooke

HOLA!!! [Ups and Downs]

First Mission Conference: Hna Hooke is just to the right of the adults in the second row:)

September 22, 2014

Hello on my 2nd p day in Salta! [p day = "preparation day"--write letters, do laundry, grocery shopping, etc]

Sorry I will do my best to write a good letter but it literally took a half hr to load my email....pretty sure this computer has every virus known to man. Anyways.

Hope you are all doing well, and thanks everyone for the emails! I love to read them and know that I do read them even if I don{t have time to respond! 

This week was very up and down, as probably every week on the mission will be. Oh also sorry for saying last week that I was sick, it probably worried "Abuelita Lori" [Em's little nickname for me...], but don{t worry I{m fine now. 

Anyways, this week we got to go to Vaqueros, a nearby little town in our area. It is much poorer and more rural with random goats and sheep running around. But I love it there, it{s my favorite place so far because it is beautiful and the people are soo nice and humble and good, and the kids run up and hug us when we pass by. Probably kind of like Guatemala, mom! The sad news is that we found out also this week that Vaqueros is no longer in our area. [Missionaries are assigned to certain geographical "areas," and sometimes the boundaries are changed.] We even had an investigator [a person interested in learning more about the church], a really nice lady named Rosio, who is getting baptized. Maybe we can get special permission to go to her baptism.

I think I mentioned Facundo last week, the bf [boyfriend, for all of you older generationers:)] of a recent convert who didn{t believe in God. Well we invited him to pray to ask if God exists and he said that after he prayed he got really happy and energetic like he just wanted to start running. So he called his friend and they went running. Haha. So we will keep working with him. He was our only investigator at church yesterday. Speaking of church, it's a group of about 10 people who meet, I played piano, Hna Platino directed. Everyone is very nice though, and gives us good food. [ A "group" is the smallest organized unit in the church. Larger congregations are branches or even larger are wards.]

What else what else...I don{t have time! I guess I will say that the saddest part of the week was a lesson we had with a lady who entered the temple, served a mission, and is less active in church now. She KNOWS the church is true and she knows it is her responsibility to teach her daughters but she has just hardened her heart and she would rather deal with the consequences of not doing so. It was very sad to see. Please pray for the Aguero family. The daughter is already a member and her dad wants to be baptized but something happened and he was too embarrassed to come back to church. It{s too bad. Some things like this frustrate me. 

Anyways, enough negativity, this week we worked a lot and couldn{t find new people to teach, but we will continue working and next week will be better!

Love you all! Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!

Hna Hooke 

HELLLLOOO from SALTA!!!

September 15, 2014 [keyboards are different in Spanish!]

Buenos Aires Temple

 Well, after about 40 plus hrs of traveling, I finally arrived in Salta at midnight on whatever day that was [maybe the evening of the 10th?], then we went to eat dinner at Pres Chaparro{s house, and got to bed about 3am before waking up to go to an all day transfer meeting and a member of the 70 [Elder Zaballo] talked to us too.

President and Hermana Chaparro, Emily's Mission Presidents

 

 

Picture from Sister Chaparro's blog--the new group of missionaries!

My trainer (mi mama) is Hna Platino and she is great! She is from Peru but lives in Manaus Brasil, didn{t Tommy or Jon serve there? Sometimes I forget that she doesn{t speak English because she often serves as a translator between me and other people....I don{t know if it{s her accent or what but I can understand her way easier than anyone else here. I{m learning Castellano fast (not espanol, castellano) and I{m able to contribute to lessons minimally.

One of my first impressions of Argentina...we were outside waiting for a colectivo (bus) and we were across the street from a hospital and a teenage boy ran down the sidewalk by us holding an IV rack that was still connected to his arm. Haha.
 

Que mas. I was pretty frustrated the other day because we walked for over 30 mins to go to an appt at a lady{s house and she wasn{t home so we called her and she was at work. Why didn{t we call her before we went all the way there? I don{t know. I{m starting to realize though that whether we had a fixed appointment or not people usually aren{t home or are too busy doing something.

The people here are so nice! Always friendly and out of every person we talked to all week only one person said he wasn{t interested, everyone else said we could come back. Pretty crazy! I guess my prayers were answered that I would go somewhere where people would listen.

There{s a new member a teenage girl and she came to a lesson with us to teach her friend Nicole and she brought her boyfriend too. At the beginning of the lesson he didn{t know if he believes in God but by the end he accepted a Book of Mormon and agreed to pray to see if God exists. That was pretty cool.

I{m going to teach piano lessons for free to whoever wants to come and the students can play simple hymns in church. We are in Huaico, a very new area that Hna Platino actually opened and there aren{t enough members for a branch even, it{s just a group of people that meet. I haven{t actually been to church yet because I was very sick yesterday.

These pictures are Grace and I in the MTC (Idk what{s going on with my shirt), the first sunrise over Argentina, the Buenos Aires tmple, Buenos Aires from a distannce, Hna Platino and I, the view from the front window of our pension (a little apartment) but it{s nice inside, I am trying to figure out how to send them.....hopefully I can. Well I love you all! Hope life is good!

Hermana Hooke

I'm going to Argentina on Monday!!!!

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Hola,

Yes, the rumors are true, I am indeed leaving Monday morning for Buenos Aires! I'm starting to get nervous because some other hermanas going to Salta told me that Salta is the hottest mission in the world, it gets up to 130 degrees (but don't worry, after 115 it all feels the same), and that there is a 30-hr bus ride from Buenos Aires to Salta. Hopefully these rumors are misinformed, but if not, as dad says, it's a good thing I'm tough. And Cath, no more complaining about how hot it is in La Quinta! haha. Oh and I can call from the airport...I have a 5 hr layover in Atlanta so I probably will then. I will probably call mom's cell cause she birthed me and stuff...sorry Cath unless I can make more than 1 call. [She WAS able to make more than one call! And it was GREAT to talk to her!]

Thank you so much for the book "Em's Mems!" I love it!!! I have already looked at it like twice a day since I got it and it makes me so happy! Thanks Mom for all the work you did on it and thanks everyone who wrote letters and stuff!

Hmm what has happened since Tuesday? We have had some terrible lessons, some wonderful lessons, cleaned the campus at 6:15 am a couple times, oh and I saw Grace Everton yesterday when we were on main campus!!! One of said terrible lessons was with "Jonathan" and he was trying to hint to us that our lesson was boring him by looking at us through 2 half closed lazy eyes and Herrmana Velazco and I could not stop laughing for the life of us....haha hopefully that doesn't ever happen in real life...but then the next day we taught by the Spirit for the first time and we could feel SUCH a difference!! It was amazing. The key is to listen to the investigator and the Spirit, ask to be guided by a prayer of faith, and most of all, teach people, not lessons. Focus on their individual needs.

I don't really feel ready yet to be going to Argentina already, but I'm like 28x more ready than I was a week ago, so that's good. Wellllll I love you all dearly and hope life in your respective homelands is swell! Mom and Dad and Grandma have fun visiting the Hookes in Ohio! And Cath and Jon keep having fun and Jon good luck with school this week! Have you had any races already?

Also thanks everyone for the Dear elder letters.* I always love to hear from you! I sent a package to Ventura so I hope someone will be there to get it. PS the pictures at the temple are me with my district. Coincidentally, I know Hermana Tate's identical twin from BYU! The hermanas in my district are me, Hna Velazco, Hna Tate, and Hna Makin. Our district is great, I'm giong to miss them! 3 elders will be on my flight with me though, and elder Cruz is going to my same mission. Espero que tengan una buena semana! Next time I write I'll be in ARGENTINA!!!

Besitos,

Hermana Hooke

*[You can write to Emily at dearelder.com for free! Mail leaves Salt Lake City every Friday. Go to dearelder.com, select mission (Argentina Salta), click "write a letter", fill in your return address, select title (Sister), then Emily Hooke. Write the letter, then click "send"]

MTC District

MTC District Hermanas

                                                         

Hermana Hooke & Sister Everton--reunion at the MTC!

Hola familia y amigos! [MTC life...]

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Hello!

Hope you're all doing well! Cath I am so jealous you are in Hawaii. Have lots of fun but remember to not die......you know what I mean! [Probably referring to Cath's sky diving adventure...] That will be so fun for you Mom to be in Ohio too! Tell everyone in Boise and Ohio hello from Hermana Hooke!

I'm at the west campus MTC which I like because 1) everyone here speaks (or is learning) Spanish, and 2) it's so pretty! It's in an apartment complex with a little river and stuff. I suppose my visa has come...there was a problem with getting my flight itinerary because they still have it in their system that I'm here for 6 weeks (thank heavens I'm not, I might go crazy) but they are fixing it so I will fly out the 8th or 9th.

My companion is Hermana Velazco, from Mexico City but now she lives in Idaho. She is going to the Iowa Des Moines Mission. She is really nice and funny and we get along well, and she is also very patient with my Spanish which is a plus! My district is really funny, we all get along well.

                                                             Hermanas Hooke & Velazco

 Today is Preparation Day so we don't have classes. Which is a nice break from 9 hrs of class a day! We went to the temple this morning.

On Sunday we went to a devotional and guess who spoke? Bro and Sis Holzapfel, who were Jon's mish pres for a while when he was in Alabama! We also watched Elder David A. Bednar's talk called "Character of Christ," which was the most powerful talk ever written I'm pretty sure, and recommend that everyone watches it! 

On a normal day, we get up at 6:30, get ready and eat breakfast, go to class for 3 hrs, eat lunch,  do some sort of exercise, have 3 more hrs of class, go to dinner, have 3 more hrs of class, go home and pretty much just go to bed. It's pretty much like spiritual boot camp, and at first I was struggling with wanting to not sit in class doing personal study for 3 hrs at a time, for example....because I like to do fun things...but it's getting better now and I'm learning to make my personal study times more meaningful. I think a huge part of this life is using the Atonement of Jesus Christ to become a saint from a "natural man", and a mission is forcing me to progress faster by not letting me go to the beach, take naps, etc. But it's good. It's been a lot of ups and downs but I like it and I'm doing well.

At first I didn't think I could teach anyone anything but we have had I think 5 or 6 lessons already, and while I'm definitely not good at teaching anything in Spanish I'm improving I guess. I feel so bad for the missionaries who had to learn a language from scratch, because I thought I knew Spanish but I now I feel so inadequate at it, but that's just because I'm comparing myself to the native speakers around me which isn't good.

Thanks Mom and Tommy (I mean Bradley) for the letters!

Hmmm what else...I don't really know, there's not too many exciting things happening in Provo. I'll try to attach a few pictures if we can figure out how!

Love you all! All mail is welcome! :)

Best regards,

Hermana Hooke

Pensamiento de la semana: vea Mateo 4:19 - la unica diferencia entre un pecador y un pescador es Jesucristo. [A play on words in Spanish--pecador is a sinner, and pescador is a fisherman...the only difference between a pecador and a pescador is Jesus Christ.]