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