Hi Mommy! I am so excited to get to email you today. My companion is Sister Clayson from Utah. We are living with members in a super small "pad' as they call it. They are really old, we call them grandma and grandpa. They are the grandparents of the surfer girl on the I'm a Mormon. Sister Clayson is different from me in a lot of ways but no annoying ways, we have had a lot of fun together. And she is really good at making me feel better. 

There are a lot of homes in Kahala where I am. It is the Hawaiian version of suburbia. The houses are pretty different here. Our area is more wealthy and there are a lot of gated homes. There is a little beach park down the road and we go and sit there sometimes. The first night all of the sisters-including that girl that the sister in your ward knows sister Hagberg- stayed at a members house which was AMAZING! If they sold it it would be like 2 million dollars or more. It backs up right to the beach and it is amazing! I slept right in front of the window and woke up to a postcard.

 Apparently the PCC is off limits until the end of your misssion which is lame, but whatever. I have had a little bit of Jet lag but it has not been bad at all. I did get a lot of sleep on the plane.

 I have been tracting....It is the hardest thing for sure. President Dalton said we won't get a lot of closed doors...well not in my area. At least in the richer areas we get a lot of slammed doors. And a lot of people just ignore us. We do tracting differently though.  We call it Windows to Heaven. We go up to doors and say " Hello we are representatives of Jesus Christ and he has sent us here to leave a blessing of peace and hope with your family, Can we say a prayer with you to leave this blessing?" And if they say yes we say a prayer and then ask them how they felt and ask them to be baptized right there! YUP SCARIEST thing EVER!  But it works pretty well. If they are not interested at least we made them happy that day. And I have learned that tracting is not selling anything, it is just a process to find the Elect-the people the Lord has prepared. We only have one progressing investigator, her name is Reo and she is from Japan so we have to work through an interpreter to teach her. She didn't even have a concept of God before, so we teach her very simply. We have had a few canceled appointments and one lady who was COMPLETELY annoyed with us being at her house.

My ward is mostly elderly, and they don't really do missionary work, so we don't get many referals. But we did Mormon Helping Hands on Saturday and painted a parking lot and did some landscaping, And I made friends with Kenzie who is in 7th grade. 

Hawaii is very diverse. I am not used to so many different types of people. Even ethnicities I have never seen before like Chuk. They have their own language. We went to a Chuk Waptism last night, It was a wedding and a baptism. It was really sweet.  I didn't understand most of it but it was pretty awesome. 

I have eaten at a members house every night expept for 1. I have only been over fed once, and she wasn't even Hawaiian  There are a lot of single women in our ward or their husbands are inactive so we get to be with them a lot. They take us out to dinner a lot. We went out Friday to a Vietnamese place and I had PHO, GROSS!!!! It was fine except for one ingredient that made me want to die! But last night I had vegetable Lasagna. That was really good. And a salad with grapes in it that made me think of dad. 

Ok are you ready to laugh? This is for Sam, In my ward there is a big deaf group and it would have been very useful if I would have learned some sign language ;\. I guess Sam wins with being awesome. 

I have also adjusted to the humidity really well, I don't mind it at all. Plus we have a car...and it turns out my clothes will work just fine. I sent you a postcard with all of the addresses on it I hope you get it soon. I also thought I would share with you some Hawaii-isms- Choke means a lot. Instead of saying I have the Goose bumps they say I have Chicken Skin!

 I have to go but I love you soooooo much and I can email again tomorrow so you should write back today. Plus tomorrow I get to go to the temple. I will try to print out some pictures for you and send them in the mail because I don't have enough time to get them on the computer.  I just want words of encouragement and I don't want to go the whole week without hearing from anyone. I would like more people to write me.

 I hope I answered all your questions. I miss you a lot and I hope that everything is good with you guys. I am happy to hear that everything is going well.

Love you all, Choose the right

Talk to you again tomorrow

Love Sister Hoskins

HI! Today is my P-Day but my next one will not be for two mondays from now. So that means everyone should Dear Elder me. It is a lot better because I will have more time to read and respond to those. I am a little disappointed that I only received letters from my Mom, the Searings and Anne VanWie(thank you to them!). You should encourage everyone else to Dear Elder me. I won't be able to check Email in a long time so I need some real letters! 

But anyways, Sunday is really different here we have class, studying and sacrament at 2 and there are only 40 of us in sacrament meeting. And they call random people up to the front to talk. Then we have devotional.  This week was the head of media for the church and his talk was awesome! He showed us all of the pictures of the Mormon.org campaigns they are doing in the cities that the Book of Mormon Play is in. It is completely amazing, you should look it up and see. Say mormon.org london tube stations. He told us that the church is pretty much DOMINATING! And they even have a page in the play book and it says "now that you have seen the play read the book it is better". The church is so awesome!

 And last night we had devotional and the guest speaker was.....drum roll please.....Richard G. Scott!!! It was amazing you would have thought that Justin Bieber was there because people were climbing over chairs to get a good seat and everyone was super hyped up saying "Who is it going to be?....I bet it's the prophet". And when we walked in everyone was star struck. It made me laugh. Our celebrities are different from the rest of the world that is for sure. His talk was amazing! I loved it!

 To answer questions: I did like the cookies, I shared them with my district and they were very happy, the only problem is that we don't have much time to eat it.

My Companion is from Tacoma Washington. There are 8 of us in our district Elder Toone, Hill, Rigby, Faitau, and me, Sister Grow, Truman and Hanks. I love all of the sisters. They are so much fun. We do everything as a district  We eat together walk together, go to the Temple together (which we did today). We have also been naughty and we have been talking and having too much fun instead of studying as much as we should.

My investigators are George, Eder, and Claudia. George was he easiest EVER! He is an inactive and he went in there and we committed him to stop drinking,read the Book of Mormon,pray, and go to church. I don't think we will have anyone like him ever again. The other two are harder and will take a lot more prayers and work. 

I am so happy Sam is going to prom! I wish I was there to see all that go down.  Good luck! I love you all. I have to go.Write me so I can say more.

Sister Hoskins

I Have one more second. I just wanted to say that I love the MTC and it is such a great wonderful spiritual experience. And I love being Sister Hoskins. I love representing my wonderful family and Jesus Christ. Thanks for everything you do for me. Sorry if these letters are not good. I don't have enough time. I love you all so VERY VERY much and miss you every second. Please continue to write I need letters to survive. I will try to print some pictures and send them to you. Love Sister Hoskins

Amy's first letter from the Missionary Training Center:

Hi everybody!

So it turns out we can write you anytime we want in the MTC, so I am going to take advantage of that.  Otherwise, I couldn't write until Wednesday.  I actually feel really good.  I didn't even get close to freaking out.  It was amazing!  I get sad and homesick every once in a while, but we are soooo busy, there is not much time to think about anything else.  We eat, go to class, study, have 1 big meeting, have zone meeting, and study some more, and say prayers for everything.  I feel the Spirit all the time, and it makes me really excited.
 My companion is Sister Grow.  We have 6 beds in our room, and there are only 4 of us.  The two other girls in our room are the only ones not going to Hawaii in our district.  They are going to Washington DC Visitors Center, and the Winter Quarters Visitors Center.  It's hilarious, everyone here is super jealous of us. I love it.
The hardest thing for me in the MTC is calling Elders Elders.I call them guys all the time, and they say "Do not call anyone guys!"  So yeah...that is hard.
I have seen a lot of people I know.  The Branch 1st Counselor is Bro. Lauritzen's uncle.  I have seen Elder Felsted.  He works here now.  I also saw Haley Bateman, and she recognized me.  I also saw Taylor Teeples this morning.  We had one of those moments where you run and scream towards each other.  It was fun.  I have also met a bazillion people going to the Colorado Springs mission.  One of the Elders in my shuttle from the airport is going there.  Elder Boyle is going to be there in a few weeks, and he is amazing!  I hope you get to talk to him.  My district leader is Elder Faitau.  He is the guy from the video we watched (mission call opening video).  He is awesome!  We called it yesterday that he was going to be District Leader.
I have loved the food.  I don't know if I have been very healthy about it, but they have thousands of choices. So far I have had steak and potatoes, a sandwich, cereal (surprise, surprise!), BYU Creamery Ice Cream, and last nights was awesome because I had Hot Wings and Jell-o.  It was wonderful!
I am writing this letter randomly throughout the day, so sorry if it is choppy.
We are starting to have a lot of fun together.  You get to like each other when you spend 24-7 together.  I really like everyone in my district.  I am learning to find the silly spots in everyone.  Satan still works on us a lot, and we have been told that he will work on us the most.  So with how much work fighting Satan is, I have had amazing experiences with feeling the Spirit.  I know this church is true, and I know my Heavenly Father loves me.
I taught my first lesson today to Eder (who is really my teacher), but we treat them like normal investigators, and pray for them and what to teach them, like normal investigators.  I love my teachers.  One of them has a stutter, so he's kinda hard to listen to, but he is really good at teaching.  The other teacher, Bro. Madsen, he always looks like a kid in the candy store.  He is always SUPER excited to teach us.
To end, I had a great experience with an Elder in my District, Elder Hill.  We have to "channel" a non-member or someone who is struggling with the gospel, and try to understand them with the investigator's perspective.  Elder Hill did himself from 3 years ago, and he told me that when I was talking to him, I said things he really needed to hear and he cried, and we just talked for 20 minutes about  how the gospel has changed us.
Well, I love you all.  The Church is true.  Be strong!
Love,
Sister Hoskins

Here is Amy's address in the MTC:

Sister Amy Sharleen Hoskins
MTC Mailbox #84
HIHON 0423
2008 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1799