FELIZ NAVIDAD!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Christmas was sweet.

The best part was that I was able to talk to you!  WOO!  On Skype!  It was awesome seeing everyone again.  I cannot believe it has been almost 14 months without seeing you!  It was awesome. 

Nothing really happened this week that I haven't already told you...  We had a few lessons with Maria Parra and wow.  Elder Gneiting went on exchanges with Elder Jensen on Friday and they finally found out her problem.  This is pretty personal, so it would be best if you didn't forward this part on.  She has had a crazy life.  She was forced into an arranged marriage at age 14 down in Mexico.  She has no feelings whatsoever towards her husband now.  They even sleep in different bedrooms in their house.  Plus, she is in love with another man and has been for the past 15 years.  But, thankfully, she hasn't acted on any of the feelings she has had for this man.  She wants to leave her husband because she doesn't love him, but she also feels obligated to him because of all the things he has provided for her for the past 30+ years.  It's a pretty crazy situation and we have no idea what to do... We talked to President Cook about it and he said that talking to the obispo would be best.  So, that's the update on Maria! 

The other investigators are good.  They are never home for the citas that we set, nor do they answer their phones... But, we keep on trying and trying!  We have found some pretty cool people the last few days that we want to try and start to teach, but as of now, no new investigators last week. 

Exchanges with Elder Belbin were pretty sweet too.  I went to his area and we had a few lessons with some of the recent conversos. 

Saturday was sweet too!  We had a big breakfast planned out.  All the missionaries cooked breakfast burritos for the ward and then we shared a cool Gospel message after.  The plan was to have a bunch of members invite investigators and friends and stuff, but there wasn't much of that... But, it was a lot of fun! 

Monday we had a super cool Christmas conference.  I am kind of sad that my final Christmas in the mission has passed...  I would like another Christmas in the field!  Christmas in the MTC was an awesome experience and so was the one in the field.  I am glad I had one of both!  Monday and yesterday night we just sang to some members in the ward and some investigators.  It was a lot of fun!

I think that is it for this week!

Talk to you next week on Wednesday!

FELIZ NAVIDAD (ayer)

Love, Elder Hunt

Here's a few pictures from the Christmas conference from Monday.

Hermana Schwegler and me and Elder Hansen and Elder Robinson foto bombing it :)

And pictures of my awesome new sweater

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary tomorrow!  I love you both!  You are the best parents in the world!  It was so AWESOME seeing you yesterday!

 

Love, Elder Hunt

Mission wide Christmas 2012

Here is Christmas with the whole mission

Christmas call

This Christmas Skype session was the best 

Domingo, dia de dos milagros

Oh man, domingo was sweet.  We had more than dos milagros, but the only other number that starts with a D is doce (12) and we didn't have that many... So, I just put dos. 

Anyways!  Domingo was awesome.  It started out all normal.  We went to church, called our investigators to see if they were coming to church and they either didn't answer or told us no... :(  So, sacrament meeting ended and we went to talk to some people to help us during the coming week with citas and whatnot.  Then, we went to class, and it was super full, so we couldn't sit down.  So, we started to go to a different class, and guess what I saw?  OUR INVESTIGATOR, MARIA PARRA IN THE CLASS.  OMJ.  She sent us a text during sacrament earlier than said she took a sleeping pill the night before because she couldn't sleep, and so she woke up super late and wasn't going to be able to come to church.  BUT SHE DID.  First investigator at church I have had in this area!  IT WAS SWEET.  

Another miracle was Elder Gneiting and Elder Belbin had a baptism!  It was a super awesome baptism too.  I have taught the guy (his name is Miguel) a few times on exchanges and he was so prepared.  He beams happiness all the day!  He is so cool.  Since it is December and Christmas time, we all go out as a district on Sunday nights and go caroling!  President Cook has prepared something called a "Live Christmas Card"  that we go out and share the story of Christ's birth with a few Christmas songs.  So, on Domingo night, we went to share it with Maria with Miguel! (he had just been baptized like, 1 hour earlier)  She was crying during all the songs we sung, and the Spirit was definitely there.  Then Miguel shared his testimony and it was AWESOME.  Maria was crying during most of the thing and she called us angels!  It was sweet.  Domingo was pretty awesome.

We found a new investigator last week too!  His name is Mario.  He has been to jail a few times before, for long amounts of time.  He said he was raised Catholic, but never read the Bible or studied scriptures or anything.  But, when he was put in jail, he read the Bible a lot a really developed a love for it.  So, we shared the Book of Mormon with him and he showed a lot of interest!  We have another cita with him tomorrow, so hopefully he has read!  He works a lot as a manufacturer of baseball equipment (him and Elder Jensen get along super well jaja).  

Something else that was super cool that happened this week was that we reached out goal of 50 contactos!  In our area, it is kind of difficult to reach our contacting goal because of all the streets there are because there aren't many people outside.  Plus, we have  like, 3 o 4 apartment complexes in our area, which makes it hard too, because if that is where we can get more contacts, but we don't have very many of them.  But, Elder Jensen and I made the goal that we would finally reach it and we did!  HOORAY!    We also made the goal of knocking 1,000 doors this transfer, which is going to be hard because we have to knock like, 40 doors a day and we are already 60 behind...  But!  We are going to reach this goal too and it will be AWESOME.  

We also taught Maria last night, and we think we finally found her problem:  she knows everything already, but we think that she is waiting for a miracle.  She has asked every member we have brought over, "What was your conversion like?  How did you know it was true?"  We think she is looking for a miracle answer, but we have to teach her that she has already found her answer, and she just needs to recognize it!  We have some super sweet plans for a lesson with her tomorrow, so hopefully by the email next week she will have a baptism date!  WOO!

So, the weather in Cali has been poor recently :(  Ever since last week, it has rained at least once a day :(  But!  Rain > Snow, so I am okay with rain :)  I love the rain!  I will have to admit though, Christmas just isn't the same without snow...   Christmas just isn't complete!  Hopefully the snow you sent me will make up for it ;) jaja.  

Sounds like James had a super good talk.  I cannot wait to receive a letter from him!  Colin had his farewell talk on Sunday too, and I heard it was pretty good.  I cannot believe they are home now! Time goes by soooooooooooooooo fast...  It's cool that he talked about the obedience thing.  Yesterday at district meeting we had a huge thing on obedience.  We decided that we aren't being bad missionaries, but we aren't being 100% obedient. But, that is going to change!  We all want the Spirit to be with us more, and the only way we can do that is through obedience.  So, we are going to do it!  And to start it off, the alarm didn't go off this morning at 6:30, so we actually woke up at like, 6:40.  What a good way to start off the obedience streak, huh? jaja  I will look for that scripture for you!  I know there are lots, but I don't know them off the top of my head.  Lots of them are found in DyC.

I have been reading my blessing more frequently.  I hadn't read it for such a long time (a few months) and I was talking to a member that just received his a few weeks ago and it gave me the desires to read mine again. It's super awesome, and I really need to read it more to help me to become a better person.  Thanks for the reminder too! 

I received the package!  It's sweet.  I have only opened like 3 presents, so I am waiting for Christmas! I have only eaten 10 Snickers from my tree because it is too cool to destroy!  I will wait until after Christmas :)

DeVere and Toni were in San Marcos?!  That's crazy!  San Marcos Blvd is a long street, but if they crossed another street called Mission, or Woodland Parkway o Vineyard, by the library, then that is super close to where I live!  That's so crazy!  

Hopefully Grandpa gets better soon!  Maybe I should get my gallbladder taken out too.  It seems like the new, cool hip thing to do nowadays. 

I have some pictures!  One is our contact number, which was awesome.  Another is a picture of our FIRST INVESTIGATOR AT CHURCH.  And the other is a picture of the tree that Elder Jensen's family sent him.  I bought a sweater and took a picture to send today, but it is on my other SD card...  For some weird reason, my other SD card said it was full, so I switched them and forgot to bring the other one with me...  So, next week you can see my AWESOME sweater.  Good thing I bought it too, because it is COLD.  Like, 50 degrees!

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Hunt

P.S. I don't know what superbalicios means; I just made it up :)

Christmas Call ASAP :)

If you could respond quickly, that would be awesome.  If not, that's okay too.

We are trying to coordinate our Christmas calls home, and I was wondering what time would be best for you to call or Skype (I am trying super hard to find someone with Skype!)

Elder Jensen said for his family would be best 3 o 4 California time.  If that works for you, that would be sweet.  If not, that's okay too.  Just tell me when is best for you.  

Thanks Mom!

Love, Elder Hunt

New transfer!

So, transfer calls were last Saturday and we are all staying!  There was one hermana that is going home, but other than that, our entire zone is staying!  I will most likely be leaving at the end of this transfer, so I have about 6 weeks left in San Marcos. Time is going to fly by :(

So, this week was pretty good.  We found new investigators!  We found one through the hermanas, when they were in our area for the blitz.  And actually, we haven't even taught her yet... But, the hermanas taught her and said she was pretty cool!  Her name is Irma.  We have tried to have a few lessons with her, but she has cancer in her eye, so she has lots of citas to go to and is hard to find in house.  Our other investigador is Luis.  We found him knocking on some doors.  We had talked to some other people on the street a while back, and so we went to go check up on them, and we found Luis!  He is from Vera Cruz, Mexico and has been here for 7 o 8 years.  And his family is still in Mexico and he hasn't seen them since he came to the US!  How crazy is that?!  He says he talks to them every day, but not seeing your family for 7 years would be super difficult...  He goes to some Apostolic church in Solana Beach, but has only recently started to go there.  We are going to get him to change that though!

Do you remember about Margarito?  HE was an investigator we found like 4 o 5 weeks ago.  We finally were able to see him this past week and he dropped us.  HE was like, "You know, I read the pamphlet of Jose Smith and I think you are all crazy for believing that.  I am fine in my church and I am not willing to change."  SO, that was kind of sad, but at least he was honest and didn't waste our time.

Yesterday was sweet.  We had some appointments during the day, but they all fell through, so we went knocking!  We knocked 23 doors!  It was pretty awesome.  Most of the houses were white people, but the a few of the Spanish people we found were awesome.  We were talking to this one lady, Alma.  We gave her a Libro de Mormon!  It's difficult to give out a LDM on a door contact.  What makes it even cooler is that she has been going to some Christian church for 25 years!  It's super difficult to give a LDM on a door contact and even more so to give it to a person who has been going to their church for such a long time!  We had a super good contact with her and made a return appointment for sometime this week.  I am excited to see how it turns out!

Yesterday was a pretty big eye opener for me.  I kept on thinking about how Colin and James were going home and how fast the time went.  Two years is NOTHING, especially when doing the work of the Lord.  Then I was reading from my journal after planning last night and I had a huge wave of feelings and the Spirit come over me.  I almost started crying!  I realized that I have been blessed so much in this past year, more than I can even imagine.  I thought that I haven't been doing all that I could, and I needed to improve in the work.  I read about the baptisms of Enrique, Manuel and Jennifer and realized all the miracles that had happened in order for those baptisms to occur; something I didn't notice back then.  I have been blessed so much this year and I can't flatline now!  I have to endure to the end and do all I can!  And that is what I am going to do :)

So, I haven't counted exactly how many ties I have, but it's close to late 60s.  I only need like 15 more in order to wear a different tie every day for 2 transfers!  That would be SO SWEET.  Out of all the people in the Escondido zone (Spanish), I do have the most ties.  Most people have very few, like 10...  I got blessed at the beginning of my mission with dying missionaries that gave me a lot of their ties :)  And 50 cents a tie was too good to pass up!  I originally was going to buy, like 6, but when she said 50 cents a piece, I couldn't turn it down! 

Maria is doing good!  We have had two lessons with her this week, and they were both super good.  During our last lesson, she said the prayer and started crying!  She said she doesn't feel worthy of being baptized or prepared enough to do so, so we are going to work on that.  During one of our lessons, she said hermano Tippetts (the nephite)  made her feel really good at church one time when she went, so we are going to have to bring in his Nephite powers during one of our lessons this week :)

I did receive the packages!  Thank you!  I have a fun time opening a new picture every day :) Where is the 25th though?!  

I also received a wedding invitation from Elder Gibbons; remember him?  he is being married 3 days after Christmas.  Crazy!

That sounds like a dang cool stake conference.  I wish I could have heard Elder Rasband speak!  Elder Jensen said he came to the MTC when he was there.  I do know a girl named Jennifer Palomino!  That's cool she is going on a mission!  When did Jordan McGregor return?  James sent me an email last week telling me he was going home.  Time goes by way too fast!  It feels like just a few months ago I was at his house after his farewell talk...  

Sounds like Jaxon had a fun adventure!  Good thing that will never happen to me because I am staying in Cali forever!  This morning it was like, 45 degrees and it was FREEZING.  I cannot return to Utah!  

Send me some pictures of the snow so that I can realize how much I LOVE California!  :)

Send me some more pictures of the doggy too!  I want to see with whom you replaced me!  ;)

That's super awesome about your new calling!  Find out more and tell me! I am excited to hear about it!

I didn't take many picture this week, but there are some of Elder Jensen and I during weekly planning (YAY!) ANd a sweet picture of the Christmas Tree!

That's all I have for this week!  HAVE A SUPERBALICIOUS WEEK.

CON AMOR, Elder Cazador (jaja that rhymes, even though that isn't my real name :) )

TIE LADY.

So, today was pretty dang awesome.  There is this lady down in Escondido.  She is called "The Tie Lady", and for good reason.  She has OVER 20,000 ties.  OMJ.  It's like missionary heaven.  She usually sells her ties for a dollar each, but we brought four other missionaries with us (Elder Belbin, Elder Gneiting, Elder Goulding, and Elder Warren (the last two are English missionaries that live with Elder Belbin and Elder Gneiting)) and we told her we were from San Marcos, so she sold us our ties for 50 cents.  FIFTY CENT TIES.  OMJ.  So, I spent like, 10 bucks and bought 20 ties.  TWENTY BEAUTIFUL TIES.  Missionary heaven.  All the other missionaries bought about the same amount too.  The Tie Lady made some good money today ;)  jaja.  Now I have like, 60+ ties that I don't know what to do with... Jajaja jk!  I am going to wear them! Duh! 

Last week was pretty sweet.  Elder Gneiting and I had exchanges again last Tuesday.  They were pretty long too; almost two days.  This area has been struggling a little bit recently, so we had a few ideas on how to improve the work here.  We taught a few lessons and met some pretty cool people. 

We taught Maria Parra last Thursday!  Guess what?  She did her reading!  That means she is PROGRESSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  She is the FIRST progressing investigator I have had in this area, so Elder Jensen and I were pretty dang excited.  We stopped by last night to see how she was doing and she read the other chapter we gave her, so she is still progressing!  HOORAY!  We are going to teach her tomorrow and see when we can set her baptismal date for :) :) :)

Most of our other investigatores are pretty lazy.  So, we are still working on them.  But, they will progress!!!

Something really cool happened yesterday too.  We had a blitz!  A blitz is when all the missionaries go into an area and just attack it to find more people.  So, all the missionaries came to our area and blitzed it!  IT was sweet.  Now we have TONS of potentials to go and visit over the next few weeks.  But, sadly, Elder Jensen became sick with some kind of bug yesterday afternoon... :( so, while all the missionaries were out working in our area, he was sick :( jaja it is kind of ironic having all the missionaries come to our area and work and then having us not actually doing anything.  Well, not not anything.  I was calling people and made two return appointments :) oh yeah!  But yeah, the blitz was pretty cool.  They don't happen very often, so it was sweet to be a part of one.  (kinda. jaja) 

So, with the pomegranates, I broke them apart and put all the seeds into a bag to snack on :)  And I got 3 shirts dirty doing it!  You think I would have learned after the first shirt...  Thankfully the stains came out quickly.  :)

Thanksgiving was pretty normal.  We had tamales, some kind of Mexican fruit salad, and some pie!  It was pretty good.  Then we made a big circle around their dining room table and everyone shared the things for which they are grateful this year.  It was pretty awesome and the Spirit was definitely there. 

Elder Jensen is doing fantastic.  He has definitely improved in his time here.  Trainers and their new missionaries are usually together for 3 months (2 transfers) and then President Cook usually splits them up.  If I stay this transfer (which I probably will) this will be my longest area!  6 months!  I hope I do stay.  I really like this area, even though it is super white.  My favorite area is definitely my first- Rancho.  They say that your first area is always the best because that is your first experience with missionary work and you come to love the people like your own family.  I hope to return back there sometime during the mission!  With Elder Nealy ;)

That's so cool you are friends with Elder Hansen's mom!  I miss Elder Hansen. He was awesome. 

That's so crazy everyone is getting married!  Tell everyone congrats for me P.S.  Don't tell anyone this, but Adam is going to propose to Brittney sometime soon!  Everyone is getting married!

That's so cool there was a convert baptism!  And I had no idea Addison's girlfriend wasn't a member... Crazy!  Baptisms are the best.  Our ward is going to have 2 this weekend.  This is the 7th weekend in a row that we have had a baptism!  It's sweet.

Our apartment is nice.  We live on the first floor.  It has a living room, bathroom and bedroom.  It isn't super big, but it's nice.  I will take some pictures one day for you!

Christmas presents... I think something good for me would just be some money.  I was thinking about buying a sweater sometime because my other one is really baggy... Maybe a watch too... I think that would probably be the best bet for me; just some money and then I can pick some things out that I would need. As for Jaxon... I am not sure!  Mission stuff would probably be the best!  I will start asking around about Skype!  There are a few technological families in our area, so I think we might be able to do so.  That would be SWEET.

I haven't received packages yet, but probably on Saturday!  I am excited! 

Pictures: 

1.we went ice skating last week as a zone activity!  It was sweet, even though I am not meant to be on the ice :)

2. our awesome zone (kinda weird, I didn't know what we were doing...)

3. our awesome zone

4-5. Ties

Well, that's all for this week!  I LOVE YOU ALL!


Love, ELder Hunt

granada

So, this week has been pretty uneventful :(  We didn't even teach one investigator...  We had appointments with them, but then when we passed by, they were never home...  And so when we tried to pass by unexpected, they never had time to sit down with us... So, we haven't taught any investigatores this week :(

We have spent a lot of finding time this past week. Sadly, the only things we have found are a bunch of white people and a bunch of Spanish people that are not willing to accept the Gospel...  But!  One thing Elder Toronto told me my first transfer has really stuck to me in my time here.  He said, "Contacting and rejection are fuel for miracles."  We have had a lot of both, so we are bound to be seeing a miracle soon! 

Thanksgiving was fun too.  I was on exchanges with Elder Belbin, Elder Gneiting's son.  We had tamales for dinner!  They were super good. 

On Friday, we had a follow up meeting for trainers and their new missionaries.  It was a big help in giving me ideas on how to help Elder Jensen become a better missionary. 

So... That's really it for this week.  I haven't received a letter for this week, so I hope everything is all right!  A member on Sunday gave us some granadas (pomegranate) and they were HUGE!  So, I took some pictures. 

I hope everything is well and you have a fantastic week!  LOVE, ELDER HUNT TNUT REDLE

TEMPLO

So, we went to the templo today.  (pictures coming)  It was sweet.  The San Diego temple is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo awesome.  We will have to go sometime. 

So, I forgot my journal at home because we went straight to the library after the temple, but I have kept a pretty detailed agenda this transfer, so I can tell you what happened.

Tuesday:  P-Day!  Then we had a lesson with los Mendez.  They gave us dinner and oh man, it was soooo good.  I want to marry a Mexican so that I can have Mexican ALL THE TIME.  Or maybe I could just learn :)  we didn't really get anywhere in their progression. :(  Lalo was out with his friends, and so we just taught Roselio, but he is pretty set in his ways right now, so there is not much progression with him...  Hopefully one day though!

Wednesday:  New investigadora!  Her name is Maria Parra.  She is an antiguo.  We had talked to her a lot of times, but finally had a sit down lesson with her.  She's super awesome and seems really prepared.  We are going to go and teach her this Friday!  Can you say BAPTISM?

We had a mission wide conference on Friday.  Since our mission is so small, all the missionaries gathered up and Elder Schwitzer (?) from the 2nd quorum of the Seventy came and talked to us.  IT WAS SWEET.  We did a few practices on how to improve our work and Elder Schwitzer taught us some pretty cool doctrine on how to improve ourselves too.  It was a lot of fun!  And since it was mission wide, we were able to see all the missionaries!  All my missionary friends! YAY!

We also had some pretty cool miracles this week.  We had a ward activity this week on Saturday for Thanksgiving.  We tried inviting invesitgadores and menos activos so that we could get a huge turn out.  We invited this one member, Guadalupe.  Since I arrived in the area, we have tried like 2 or 3 times every 2 weeks to pass by. We taught her one time like 2 weeks ago, but before and after that, nothing...  But!  She and her husband (non-member) came to the ward party!!!  And there was a baptism before that and they came to that too!  WOO!  It was awesome.

We also ran into this one guy named Flavio.  He is super awesome.  We asked him a bunch of questions of the soul like, "Where were you before this life?", "Where are we going after death?", "What is the purpose of this life?".  He seemed really interested, but then told us that his friend is a testigo and gave him a book about those questions too...  But, we didn't give up!  There is a section in PMG about las preguntas del alma and there is like, 10 or so questions.  So, we wrote them all down in a LDM and gave it to him and told him that this book is way better than any book the testigos could ever give you.  He was really hesitant to take it (I don't know why), but he finally did.  He is a super prepared man, we just need to attack him with the TRUTH!

Oh yeah, Elder Gneiting and I had exchanges Sunday and yesterday :)  It's fun training, but it was nice to have an experienced missionary as a companion for a change. 

Don't worry about a Thanksgiving package :) I already have tons of cool stuff from you!  :)

So, pretty much everyone here calls me Elder Cazador (Hunter).  It's pretty dang cool.

That's cool Maddy got glasses!  I looked at the picture and she looks like a little miny Kelsey with glasses! jajajaja

Elder Hilton was the artist for the English class two weeks ago.  I really liked doing it that way instead of the usual way I do it.  Maybe this week I will have to draw some more pictures to go along with the words! 

The weather this week has been perfect!  Like usual.  It gets kind of cold during the night, like 60s, but other than that, I love it!  I don't ever want to go back to Utah :(  It's November 20 today and there is no snow!  It's basically like heaven here.

Elder Jensen is still super awesome.  His Spanish needs some work, but he has made TONS of improvement in the past 4 weeks (or however long it has been)

Thanks for the BYU scores!  however, it is a huge disappointment that they lost... Oh well.  Next game!

I hope you have a wonderful week!  LOVE YOU.

Elder Hunt :)

P.S.  More pictures

Elder Gneiting, Elder Belbin, Elder Hunt, Elder Jensen

Temple!

ELDER SIMMONS!!!!!!!! He was at the temple today too!

Elder Nelson!!!  (the companion of Elder Simmons)  He was being trained by Elder Ochoa when I was in Vista. 

San Diego Temple