In addition, I want to see the object when the hover state changes but can't figure out how to freeze the states so that i can see the object when hover is activated. As soon as I move my mouse the object turns back to null.
If you create a query that opens the modal component and bind it to On Hover action of the mapbox component, the modal opens when your mouse hovers over a point.
Regarding to your second question, what object are you seeking to see? You can probably use console.log in your hover query to log it in your console.