time goes by too fast!

On Saturday, we had a member (hermana Mosqueda) from Ramona (a city close to Escondido that used to be in our mission but was taken out and given to San Diego about a year and a half ago) call us.  She told us that she had someone for us to teach!  So, Saturday night, we went over.  It was a family of 4: Fabrisio (dad, from Chile), Yolanda (mom, from Mexico), Denya (19) and Allen (13).  They said they had been taught a little by missionaries before, about 6 months ago, in Escondido.  Then they moved to San Marcos and lost contact.  Hermana Mosqueda from Ramona met them about 4 months ago and started to become their friends.  She said last week that she had a really strong impression to call them up to set up an appointment with the missionaries.  Denya has some sort of cancer and hermana Mosqueda said she was thinking of Denya and that she needed to bring the missionaries over to teach the family.  We taught them about faith and that through faith and doing the things God asks of us, we can be healed.  At the end of the lesson, we gave her a blessing!  it was sweet!!!  The family is really cool.  The mom is a little duro, but I could see them being baptized soon. 

On Friday (the day before), we got another new investigator!  His name is Elias and we talked to him about Wednesday or something.  He seems pretty cool. 

Yesterday we were knocking on one street and we ran into this guy named Raul.  We were talking to him about eternal families and he got really interested in the power of sealing families together after death.  He has a wife and a 3 year old daughter.  He also told us he was looking for a church to go to because the one he goes to now isn't satisfying.  So, we are going to introduce him to the BEST church! 

That's really all that happened this week.  It was kind of slow, but it's flying by!

So, with the caterpillar... It wasn't cooked, I don't think. I chewed it and it was dead.  And it tasted disgusting.  But, now I can say I have eaten a caterpillar!  WOO!  Like I ate menudo!  WOO!

Elder Acaro is good companion.  I have started to lose some Spanish because I speak so much English with him!  haha.  We get along pretty well.  His area before was like, jam packed 100% Spanish people, and now that he has moved here, he thinks it's the same, but it's like jam packed 90% white people.  So, that causes some conflict because he wants to do things like he did in his old area, but we work it out pretty good.  I just figured this out the other day, but I am greenie busting!  Crazy!  Greenie busting Elder Nealy's brother!  (because Elder Driaza trained Elder Nealy and Elder Acaro, so they are brothers)  But, being with Elder Acaro is like teaching English classes all day!  It's fun!

Only one new Spanish missionary came in, and Elder Driaza is training him!  But, not for long because Elder Driaza goes home at the end of this transfer... I haven't met any of the English ones though.  But that's okay, who needs English missionaries? ;)

I did receive all the packages!  Thank you!  I was going to send some pictures today, but I forgot my adapter thing... So, next week!  Pinky promise!

Congrats to Maddy and her soccer team!  The championship is super good!  That's too bad they lost though :(  Maybe next year!

I didn't send anything about the BYU game?!  Maybe it was because I was so angry... haha jk, that's too bad they lost :( good thing they didn't play on Sunday though!  ;)  why did they lose to Boise State?!?!  YAY Westlake!

Have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Hunt

P.S.

The weather here is still perfect and I can never go back to Utah.

New companion: Elder Acaro!

So, I have another thing to add on my super weird items that I have eaten list.  For a part of zone activity last week, we ate... Caterpillars!!!  YAY!  They were kind of gross and didn't taste very good, but now I can say I have eaten a caterpillar!  WOO!

So, I am getting a new companion today.  Usually we don't know who they are until Tuesday night during transfer meeting, but Elder Acaro is actually already serving in this ward, so they just decided to tell me so that he could just move his stuff here and not have to go through the big hassle of taking everything to transfer meeting and then bringing it all back.  I don't know if I have told you anything about Elder Acaro before, but I worked with him for like, 4 or 5 hours when I was in Vista.  He is from Peru, so he is learning English.  He has improved a lot from when I saw him last!  His area down in Escondido is PACKED with Spanish people.  So, it's going to be a good learning experience for him with all these white people in San Marcos! 

I was in English work again (for like, 6 hours).  Elder Lewis received a call to be District Leader, so he went to a meeting on Friday.  there is another Elder close by to us (in English) that received a call too, so Elder Lewis and the other Elder went to the meeting together and I stayed with Elder Campbell, the companion of the other Elder.  It was a lot of fun, but I am so glad I am in Spanish work!  We had a cool few lessons and I met some cool people. 

So, 15 on 15... Not even close.  There was one on 15 though!  WOO!  A little 9 year old girl was baptized, named Liahona.  There's a long story to go with that name too... One of our ward members (we are pretty sure he is one of the three Nephites because he has so many crazy stories about missionary work and life and stuff) baptized this little girl's mom about 10 years ago.  She was prego back then, and she still hadn't decided a name.  So, this hermano told the mom Liahona would be a good name.  She fell in love with it, and then named her baby that.  But, then she went inactive in the church and stuff, stuff, stuff.  But, then her daughter was baptized!  So, at least we had one baptism on the 15th!  YAY!  (not from us though; Elder Gneiting and Elder Hansen)

Yesterday we had a cool experience.  We were knocking in one complex and we knocked on this one door and this lady answered.  We started to talk to her about the Gospel and stuff, but she didn't seem interested.  So, we asked her if there was anyone else around that might be interested.  She pointed to the door across from her and so we went and knocked it and taught a lesson!  That's the first time that has ever happened to me!  In all my time as a missionary (which is a lot), I have never seen that happen before.  So, that was super cool.  Sadly, the kid wasn't interested in us returning back, but it was still SWEET!

Yes, we are still teaching all of our new investigators we found!  Sadly, we haven't seen them in like, a week...  But, we are still trying!  We actually got another one, but we are going to pass her off to the English missionaries, because she said she was more comfortable in English... Psh.

Angel Reyes was like, the #1 pick a few years ago in football.  He was going to go to Texas, but had a fight with another player and got removed... He lived in Vegas, but moved here and was here when he got into the fight.  That's all I could tell you about him.  We haven't taught him anything yet, but hopefully soon! 

I haven't received any packages yet, but I will tonight!

YAY! Take a picture of my plaque!  I want to see it!  Did you ever put up that picture of Christ that I sent home?

Tell Maddy congrats for me!  And tell her when the soccer season is over and they are champions that she should BURN that shirt!  omj  (jk)

Why does Westlake suck this year? :( 

Well, I hope you have a wonderful week!  I am excited for this next transfer! 

love, elder hunt

p.s. I hope you like the pictures!

A few families that we have noches de hogar with every Monday night. Last one with Elder Lewis

My district- Elder Gneiting, Elder Hansen, Elder Hunt, Elder Lewis

Elder Lewis & I at the temple grounds

MILAGROS!

This last week was packed full of milagros! (miracles for you non-Spanish speakers)  This week we got 4 new investigators!  FOUR!  That's more than I have had my whole first 4 four weeks here!  We found this one lady, Patricia, in our complex about 2 weeks ago and told her we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ.  That's one.  A few days later, we were contacting in our complex again and we found another lady named Idilia.  Guess what?  She rents out a room in her apartment to Patricia!  So, 3 of our new investigators live in the same apartment!  The other one is Alberto, the husband of Patricia.  So, when we went and taught them, we got to know them a lot more.  They are Catholic (like almost all Hispanics) but hardly ever go (like all Hispanics).  So, since they don't go and since they study the word for themselves, they hardly know anything about even their own church... Like, they didn't even know what the Ten Commandments were... But, that's okay!  Since they don't know anything about religion, they might as well learn the right stuff the first time!  So, that was a cool miracle.  We found three new investigators in the same house the same week!  Our other investigator is Cecilia.  Her husband was supposed to be in the lesson with us too, but he went to Mejico for something.  His name is Joel.  He is the cousin of one of the members of the obispado here.  They seem like a really nice couple too and hopefully we can contact the husband too. 

OMJ.  The best thing happened on Sunday.  We found... ANGEL REYES!  YAY!  Elder Lewis and I were both thinking that we hadn't tried to contact him in a long time, and WE FOUND HIM.  Turns out the number he gave us was the number of his girlfriend, with whom he broke up like, 2 days after us talking with him.  So, all the times we tried to call the number he gave us, it was actually his ex-girlfriend.  We also forgot to write down his actual house number (we had the street), so we could never find him... BUT WE FOUND HIM!!!  Remember the questions about baptism he had last time?  Well, he still had those questions, but made himself even more golden by saying, "Oh, I think this life is just something where we are born, we work, pay bills, and then die."  What fun would a life like that be?!  Not fun at all!  So, Angel is so ready for the Gospel right now!  Oh man, it's going to be sweet when we finally are able to teach him.   

So, yeah.  That was the miracles for this week.  This is the last week of this transfer, so we are expecting to see a lot more miracles this week!  Everyone tells me I am going to be training this next transfer, and we will find out tomorrow!  I kind of hope I do, because I love greenies and their greenie fire.  They are just so dang cool! 

So, the 15th is this weekend... I have no idea if we are going to have 15 baptisms or not... But, from what everyone has been saying about their investigators, probably not :( There are lots of marriage problems (divorce, people living with people with who they are not married but they cannot get married because their spouse still lives in Mexico and divorce papers take forever and Hispanics are lazy and don't want to get divorced...).  So, I think the most we will have is like, 8 or 9.  Which is still really good! 

I haven't received any packages yet... Probably not until Friday or Saturday.  I am excited though!  Thanks for the sweet stuff!

Time goes by too quickly!  It certainly does not feel like 10 months since I have been out!  But, then at the same time, it feels like all I have done my whole life is just be a missionary!  I cannot even remember what it is like to do things other than missionary things!

Well, that's all this week!  We came early today because we have a zone activity at 11.  It's going to be SWEET!!!

Have a super wonderful week!

Love, Elder Hunt

Being a missionary is the best!

We had another super awesome contact this week (like Angel Reyes however many weeks ago).  But, this time, we were able to find him again after we contacted him :)  His name is Jose True, and he had a lot of the same problems that Angel had.  He feels like he has a ton of anger inside him and that he can't be forgiven of the things he has done.  But, guess what?  He can!  YAY!  So, we told him that and he seemed really excited!  He has a daughter of 1 1/2 years and said that he also wants to try to be a better example for her so that she can be raised better.  Also, when we introduced the Book of Mormon to him, he just understood it right away.  He was like, "Yeah, it makes sense that God would give us more words because he loved all his children!"  So, that was sweet.  That was last Wednesday, 29 de agosto.  We taught him for the first time on Saturday, 1 de septiembre.  We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he really liked it all.  Then we invited him to be baptized and he said it was a huge commitment and he wanted to learn more first before taking such a big step.  So, that was kind of sad, but he is still super interested!  We have another appointment with him... Tomorrow, I think?  I am not sure... But, we are going to teach him again!  We wanted him to be one of the 15 baptisms, but we think he has a lot of things to go through first...  He does marijuana for "medical purposes" and he has a girlfriend living with him... So.  We will work on that.  Speaking of the 15, as a ward and as missionaries, we have seen so many miracles happening.  I don't remember if I told you this, but during the last transfer meeting we had, President Cook gave the mission a special blessing; something he has never done before.  He said that with the keys that he held (because he is the mission president) he blessed the mission that everyone would have a successful transfer if they worked hard and did the correct things.  Everything is all just falling into place for this 15 on 15 to happen.  It's going to be SWEET!  Maybe we will even get in the Liahona!  That would be cool! 

Our ward mission leader (who served with Hermano Hardy in Fresno) taught us a cool way to obtain referrals from members last week.  So, we have been trying this out and we have seen some pretty cool stuff.  We went to go teach this one lady in our area who has lots of friends to share the Gospel with.  So, we did this thing (called ATM: Awaken The Members) with her in order to get a reference from her.  While we were saying the final prayer before we were about to leave, she said a name of one of her other friends just popped into her head.  She said that she never would have thought about this person before.  So, that was a awesome milagro!  We haven't received the info from her yet about her friends, but hopefully soon!

Another cool little miracle is that we have been trying to meet with this less active to get him on the road to the Melquisdec Priesthood (I can't even spell that in English or Spanish!)  Anyways, we have been trying all transfer in order to meet with him.  We finally got in with him on Sunday to talk about getting the priesthood.  It was really cool how it all worked out.  We started to ask him first about how he knew the church was true.  Then why he went still.  Then somehow it ended up on the sacerdocio and he said he had talked to obispo that very day about trying to get on the path to the priesthood!  That was cool how that all worked out.

Then yesterday we had a super good zone meeting about just getting back to the basics.  The mission is pretty old right now (mainly English) and it is going to become pretty young soon.  Next transfer, there are going to be like, 20+ new missionaries. IN ENGLISH WORK.  I don't even know how many in Spanish work!  It's crazy.  So, we had a meeting and did some practices about just getting back to the basics so that we, as older missionaries, can help the younger missionaries be even better than we are now.  It was a lot of fun.  Someone shared a quote from Elder Holland that I really liked too: "Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience."  This church is a church of sacrifice.  Everybody has to sacrifice something in order to become like Jesus Christ.  That's the whole point in life.  To become like our Brother, Jesus.  To do that, we need to sacrifice our time and our efforts in further progressing the church.  And what you were doing this past weekend is exactly that.  Through all the flooding and mudslides that happen, you and all the other volunteers sacrificed their time and other things in order to help others.  That's what life is all about.  I am so glad to hear about all the volunteers that showed up!  I would have loved to show up, but there are people that need my help here in San Marcos. :)

So, that's all I have for this week!  I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Hunt