General Conference is coming

This transfer is almost over!  Sorry I am so late with today's email.  We had district activity this morning at the time when we usually do emails.  That went to about one and since then, we have been busy!  But, thankfully we had some time left to email! 

I hope you had a good birthday, Mom!  I am glad my card got there!

So, I have some news.  The Post Office isn't forwarding our mail anymore.  What usually happens is that the mail gets sent to the Mission Home, and then forwarded to us from there.  But, the Post Office just passed a law that forwarding mail is a no-no.  So, what that means, is that we will only be getting mail a few times a transfer.  It's a bummer, but that's life!  So yeah.  Now, you don't have to send a package a certain way!  Just send mail whatever way is easiest :)

I forgot my journal today, so I will try my best to remember what has happened this past week.  Really, not much has happened.  I don't know if I told you this or not, but we have this investigator named Nico.  He hasn't progressed very much.  But, we started reading the Book Of Mormon with him again.  Only this time, we are having him do what we are doing while reading.  (If I haven't told you what we are doing, we are marking all the names of Christ in red, his words in blue, and his doctrine in green. It's a lot of fun!)  Anyways, we had him start marking all of the names of Christ, and he really seems to like it.  He told us that it helps him focus in what he is reading even more.  So, hopefully he will start progressing soon!  Also, I think I told you about la familia Cortes (the eternagators).  We started teaching them again, and had them do the same thing as Nico with the Book Of Mormon.  They really seemed to like it too, and are progressing!  They are always really excited when we come over and I think that they might get baptized soon!  And that's about it.  Being a missionary, all the days mesh together and it's really hard to remember things sometimes! :(

I am SO excited for Conferencia General!  Elder Price and I downloaded some older talks and they are so cool!  The first session starts at 9 (really weird! I have never watched Conference earlier than 10!)  and then it's just normal.  We are going to our stake center to watch it (in English, thank goodness!)  That will be really weird too.  Going to church to watch it instead of home...  But, I am so excited!  I can't wait to hear what Elder Holland has this time!  (most of the talks we downloaded were by him; he is such a FANTASTIC speaker!) 

So, since this is the last week of the transfer, Elder Price (because he is District Leader) will get a call on Sunday telling him what missionaries are leaving.  He is pretty sure (90%) that he is leaving, because President Cook likes to separate greenies and their trainers after the first three months.  But, there is still a chance that he could stay!  Or I could leave!  We don't know!  But, that's what happens during transfers.  I hope none of our district gets transferred.  This district is so awesome.  Next week I will send you a picture of them.  :)

So, you think I would have gained a lot of weight from eating a lot of food, and riding in the car all the time, right?  Well, nope!  I have actually lost some weight.  My first belt stopped fitting, so I had to switch over to my stretchy belt!  The food here is sooooooooo good.  And authentic!  Hispanics eat a lot of things that I never thought of.  Like, shrimp.  There have actually been a lot of dishes with shrimp.  None of them were any good, but I ate them!  Haven't had anything super rare yet, like menudo.  And we have actually had lasanga twice!  (with the same family haha).  The food is really good!

I hope everything goes well with Dad's surgery!  That does not sound like any fun.  Neither with Jaxon!  I really hope he gets feeling better!  Do none of the doctors know what is going on?

Oh man!  I have seen magazines with Hunger Games pictures in them and wanted to see them so bad!  I hope it was a good movie! 

Spanish is coming along good still.  I really need to talk more in Spanish, otherwise I won't learn!  Listening is still the hardest part.  But, it's coming little by little!  One day!

That's it from me!  I hope you have a super fantastic week!

Love, Elder Hunt :)

P.S.  I am excited for the package :)

I was an English missionary!

I don't know if I am doing my math right, but has it really been four months?!  WOW!  Where does the time go?  Sometimes, it feels like this is my life and I have been doing nothing BUT missionary work.  But, other times it feels like just a few days ago that I was at home, doing nothing. 

So, I got a haircut!  It looks so good.  Guess who did it?  Me!  Haircuts here are so expensive...  Elder Price has some clippers.  I put the longest one on and cut my hair!  I am having such a hard time keeping the ladies away,  Wow. 

This week has been full of exchanges.  Wednesday-Thursday, Elder Chavez came to my area and Elder Price went to Elder Gibbons' area.  It was so much fun!  I finally got to drive again!  Elder Chavez did so much contacting.  Being a new missionary, he is really good at it!  And, being the older missionary, I couldn't let him stand me up!  So, I uped my game too :)  that really helped me in my contacting too.  Greenie exchanges were a lot of fun.  Friday-Saturday, since Elder Price is District Leader, we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders!  I went to their area.  It was really different being in English work.  The funny thing is that I think I contacted more people in Spanish than I did English!  haha.  That really helped boost my confidence in speaking Spanish because I didn't have a Spanish companion to lean on.  Sadly, we didn't teach any lessons...  I haven't ever taught in English before!  Since day one in the MTC, it's been 100% teaching in Spanish!  Maybe next time.  Being on English exchanges helped me realize even more so how lucky I am to be in Spanish work.  Learning Spanish opens up a whole new set of people that I can share the Gospel with.  It's so crazy how a bunch of different words and pronounciations can make up an entirely different language.  And they still understand!  It's mind blowing. 

On Sunday, we had two super good contacts.  We met a Buddhist guy.  First Buddhist I have ever met!  He was really calm and mellow.  He said he converted to Buddhism from Christianity.  The Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and so he had the philosophy that he should treat every living thing like his mother, because it's very possible that anything could be his mother.  It's kind of a weird thing to think about, but it's a good method of thinking!  He has a brother that is Mormon too, so he knows a lot about the Church.  Then, like a minute later, we ran into another cool guy (Patrick)!  He is 37 and a construction worker around this area, and he used to live in Vegas.  When he was 20, he was living in Vegas and had a Mormon friend.  His Mormon friend was so kind to him and did all he could, that whenever Patrick saw some Mormons, he would always talk to them, because of how much he liked the way they lived.  He also told us a story, that when he was behind on his rent and car payment and things like that, his Mormon friend lent him money and never wanted it back.  Even though that was 17 years ago, Patrick had tears in his eyes because of what his friend did for him.  It's so cool to hear stories like that; about how much of an influence had on one person.  And, even though they don't stay in touch anymore. Patrick will always have that memory of his Mormon friend, Jake.  It was a pretty good night Sunday.  And now here we are at today!

By the way, I always forget to tell you this, but I remembered now!  Elder Daniel is in my zone here!   And also, a new Elder that came in three weeks ago that went on Heritage Tours with me!  And also, there is another Elder that went on Heritage Tours with me too!  But, he has been out a while.  And they are both English speaking :(  but, how crazy is that?!  Out of all the missions in the world, three people from my Heritage Tours group came here to Carlsbad!

Sounds like you had a crazy week!  You were right.  Everyone else was feeling sick, and I felt left out! haha.  Hearing about things at home doesn't worry me at all.  I don't mean to sound mean, but I usually forget!  I read my emails, and then most of the time, I forget what I read until the next week!  Maybe it's a blessing haha. 

Zack still hasn't emailed me :( tell him to do it!  :)

I still send out letters to a few people, when I have time.  I have TONS of envelopes and paper, and a pretty good amount of stamps too.  I usually write letters to whomever sends them to me.  I have been staying in contact with everyone in my MTC district too.  But, P-Days are usually so busy!  It's supposed to be a "day of rest" of sorts.  Yeah right! haha. 

Sounds like Kelsey has a pretty sweet job!  I am jealous!

When I get home, I am going to build a four square square somewhere.  I miss four square so much!  The top 3 things I miss about the MTC are: 1. Tuesday and Wednesday Devotionals, 2. Four Square 3. Something else.  Four square was so much fun!  Where is Kristi's sister going?

Thanks for trying to get Elder Brown's address :) I really want to send him a letter :)

I love you all!  Hope you have a super fantastic week!

Love, Elder Hunt

P.S. I will send some pictures next week :)

Hola!

Hola!

So, this weekend was pretty exciting!  But, in a not so good way :(  On Saturday, we had two baptisms (yay!).  On Friday, we asked one of the members to invite Olga and her daughter to the baptism.  So, she did so and on Saturday, she told us that Olga did not want anything to do with the Church or the missionaries or anything.  We were really bummed out :( she was such a good investigator!  But, we also talked to Hermana Valdivia (Olga's friend) and she told us that it was because of her daughter, Michelle.  In their house, it's only Olga and Michelle and they have a really tight bond.  And Olga does just about everything for Michelle, because she doesn't want to lose her to drinking and partying and all that bad stuff.  And so, Hermana Valdivia told us that Michelle is pretty controlling.  She said that Michelle didn't like all the rules and standards that the Church has and told her mom that she didn't want to learn from the missionaries anymore.  So, Olga said okay and that she would just learn and go to church.  But, their big "bonding day" is Sunday (because neither of them work that day), and Michelle said that if her mom would go to church, then she would just leave and hang out with friends.  So, Olga dropped us in order to spend more time with her daughter.  She still wants to learn, but right now just isn't her time, I guess.  But, I can still see her getting baptized.  Just not now, sadly :(

On Sunday, I got sick :(  We think it might have been some food I ate on Saturday night, or maybe the HUGE change in the weather (Monday was 40 degrees and the rest of the week was 70+ and Saturday and Sunday was 90).  So, Sunday, I threw up a few times, but now I am all better (almost).  I still feel a little sick, but not enough to stop me from working! 

And, Elder Toronto came out with us again.. He is so cool!

And, while with Elder Toronto, we contacted this family that was taught by the missionaries about five years ago.  When Elder Price and I went to go visit them, we had such a good talk with them!  They even had all their children come and talk with us!  Not even all member families do that with us!  It was so cool!  While we were talking about the Gospel and families, the dad even started to cry and told us he really felt the Spirit!  It was so awesome.  (that he felt the Spirit, not crying)  We have another appointment with them tomorrow night, and we are going to extend baptism dates!  Elder Price is going on exchanges with Elder Gibbons, in the other area, tomorrow, so it will Elder Chavez and I teaching them!  Two greenies!  Wish us luck!  Haha

I am glad to hear Jaxon is doing okay now!  I still pray for him all the time.  Hopefully he can catch up in school!

Sounds like C.E.R.T, classes are super fun!  How come you started to take them?

Maddy is getting ready for 7th grade?!?!  OMJ.  She is so old! 

What did UVU call for?

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  I love you!

Love, Elder Hunt

P.S.  Included is proof that it snowed here last week.  In case you didn't believe me.

It's cold here.

On Friday and Saturday, it was like 80.  It was soooo nice.  Sunday was 60s and it was still nice.  Then BAM.  Monday came and it rained all day and hit 40.  FOURTY DEGREES.  I thought I was going to die.  It was so cold.  I am a baby now :(  And on our way over here, there was some mountains in the back.  Guess what we saw?!  SNOW.  IT SNOWED.  What. The. Heck.

Anyways, not much happened this week.  Elder Anderson and Elder Morgan left and in came Elder Gibbons and Elder Chavez.  Elder Chavez is a greenie (like me!), but his parents are from Mexico, so they speak Spanish.  But, Elder Chavez can't speak Spanish, only listen.  It's a weird feeling not being the youngest missionary, but it's a good one too!

English classes are getting better and better.  We started pairing off in groups, and so it's one missionary with 2 or 3 other people.  I got paired in a one-on-one situation with one of the members, and it was such a neat experience!  I think I like it a lot better that way because I really have to focus in on what the person is saying to try and help them learn what is correct and what's not.  They usually just ask questions about different, random things.  I love doing it though, and teaching is improving my Spanish SO much!  It's awesome.  I love Spanish! 

Also had exchanges for my first time!  I went with Elder Gibbons and Elder Chavez went with Elder Price.  Elder Gibbons is a super good missionary; a lot like Elder Toronto.  He's not afraid to talk to everyone about the Gospel, even if the conversation is super awkward.  And we had some VERY awkward conversations.  But, it was actually a lot of fun!  And, slowly, I have come to start doing that more as well.  It's a good feeling. 

Yesterday was SUPER rainy, so we didn't have much opportunity to contact or teach.  One of our investigators, Olga, was supposed to come to a noche de hogar with us, but she had something at work come up.  She's a nanny. 

And that's my week!

I hope you all have a super wonderful week!  Sorry the email was so short this week!

Love, Elder Hunt

Start of the second transfer!

Somebody lied to me. They told me California was warm!  Almost this whole past week has been 40's :( I am just a baby, but that's cold!  I am going to be in so much trouble when I go back home next November!  I will need at least four jackets!  Utah is FREEZING.

So, a transfer is a six week period in the mission.  I don't know how to explain it...  Like, Elder Price has been here for two transfers and his starting his third.  Meaning he has been here for three months.  So, hopefully that makes sense. 

This week was a pretty exciting week for our ward here!  Last Saturday, we had four baptisms!  Four!  It was super awesome.  Three of the baptisms came from the other Elders in our area and the other one came from the Hermanas.  Saturday was crazy!  We had one of the baptisms at 12:30, because he had to work during the evening, which is when the other baptism was.  Then we had the other baptisms at 6.  I never realized how much work there is to do for a baptism! 

So, I think I told you about Olga, the referral from the Valdivia family that we had dinner with last Sunday.  We gave her a BOM and some other reading materials.  We went and visited her yesterday, and she has been reading!  She is so prepared.  She has a daughter too, who is 18, who is pretty interested in the Gospel too.  They both have a lot of questions.  It was pretty cool.  We are going back over this Wednesday to teach them some more, and hopefully will set a baptism date. We visited her yesterday, and she told us that if we had knocked on her door, she would have maybe invited us in, but probably would have said come back another time.  But, because she had a friend who was a member, and invited her, we are teaching her now!  I have grown a strong testimony of member referrals and how important they are.

Other than those few things, not much has happened here.  The days go by so quickly, and our area is so big!  Some days, it seems like we didn't get any work done!  But, over time, we are seeing lots of cool things happening.  Being a missionary is SO COOL!

So, just during my first six weeks here, I have already doubled my tie collection.  We went to say goodbye to Elders Anderson and Morgan yesterday (because they are going back home today), and they gave me like, five ties each!  And Elder Price has given me five ties too.  I will have to take a picture of my new tie collection, so you can see them all.  There's so many! 

I really hope Jaxon is okay!  I keep on praying for him, and hoping that he will be okay.  Whatever happened to him does not sound like fun...

I hope Maddy had a good birthday!  I cannot believe she's 12!  OMJ!  She's old!  How does she like Young Women's?

Sounds like a fun play you had!  I wish I could have seen it! 

You'll have to tell Zack Hunt Happy Birthday for me on Saturday!  I saw his picture on my calendar, and was going to send him a card, but I don't have any way of sending one :( :( :(  so, tell him Happy Birthday for me! 

And, when you get the chance, could you send some more BYU tape? :) haha.  You should see how much stuff I wrapped.  I saved those two Pringle cans, washed them out and got rid of the Pringle smell, and wrapped those in the BYU tape to hold my sunglasses for when I put them in my bag for transferring and stuff.  Elder Price showed me how to make a cardboard case for my BOM and I wrapped that too!  When you get my SD card (whenever I send it), you will get to see how cool all my things look now! 

That's all for this week.  I hope you have a super fantastic week! Love you!

Love, Elder Hunt

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! 

So, this is the last week of my first transfer.  It's pretty insane how fast the time went.  I did not think time could go by so quickly!  But, it sure does!  There are two Elders in my district right now that are about to "die".  In missionary times, "to die"  means ending a mission.  So, they are both about to die and they have given me a lot of good advice.  They know how to work hard and what things work and what things don't work.  They taught me a lot of good things that will definitely help for the rest of my mission.  Everyone has told me that the first transfer is always the longest, and once that ends, time goes by even faster.  I don't know if I can believe that!  Time has already gone by so fast!  What the heck?!

This week wasn't a super exciting week.  Had my first Zone Conference on Wednesday; that was pretty cool.  President Cook, his wife, the assistants, and the zone leaders all gave trainings on different subjects: mainly the Book of Mormon.  Out of the two zones there (about 30 missionaries), my district was the only Spanish speaking (6).  I am super lucky to be in Spanish work!  After Zone Conference was over, Elder Toronto came out with us!  He is such a stud.  He has no fear of talking to anyone, and I have really tried to work that into what I do too.  He is a super good example, and it's going to be sad when he leaves :( He leaves in 3 or 4 months. 

And on Sunday, we had dinner with la familia Valdivia.  And they invited one of their friends to come to eat dinner!  YAY!  I have realized how much member work is important.  Most baptisms come from the member referrals.  We taught her about prophets and about the Book of Mormon and she said she wanted to learn more!  We are going to go to her house, along with la familia Valdivia, next Sunday for dinner.  I am super excited to see how it turns out!

I cannot believe I have been out on a mission for three months... It feels like so long, but other times it feels like I was just at home.  CRAZY.

I hope Jaxon gets to feeling better!  I pray for his health every night and that he will get to feel better. 

Send me some pictures of Dad's "new" office!  I haven't seen it clean for a loooooooooooooooooooong time! 

Zack never emailed, but that's so cool to hear he's going to Alabama!  I am guessing he is just doing English, because you didn't tell me a language. That's so cool!  Tell him congrats for me!

I did get the package!  Thanks so much!  The duct tape is actually perfect :) I was going to go buy some today, but now I don't have to!  With those new sunglasses I got, I wanted to protect them, so I put them in little boxes from pass-along cards that we had lying around the house.  They are just boring white boxes, so now I can decorate them with BYU! YAY! :)  And those little scriptures were EXACTLY what I wanted!  Thanks!  I like having the little one, so I can use it throughout the day and not have to carry my regular English scriptures :)

My companion is super cool.  He is from Denver, but his family moved to Utah right before he left for his mission.  His Dad works for Larry H. Miller marketing, so he travels a lot.  He comes from a big family; 5 kids.  He is the second oldest, has one older sister, and two younger sisters and a younger brother. 

To do email, we come to the library by our house.  Elder Price says I am going to collect a lot of library cards on my mission, because that's where most Elders go to do their email.  We shop at a Target close to our house.  And we found this really cool grocery store called Trader Joe's. 

I have my bike with me, sitting on the deck of our apartment.  I haven't touched it since I got here, which kind of makes me sad :( There are some days I wish I could ride it, but there's no way we could get anything done haha.  Our area is HUGE!

The weather here has been pretty weird lately.  Last Monday, it was about 80 and then Tuesday was the same and then Wednesday was FREEZING!  Like 40s... It was weird.  But the weather is good here!  I haven't needed to wear a jacket or anything.  And I only wear my suit when we go to meetings and church.  :)

That's all I have for this week!  I hope you all have a superb week!

Love, Elder Hunt :)

OMJ! WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

Has it really been a month since I have been in California?!  What the heck?!

So, this week was not nearly as exciting as last week.  I do not know if I have told you this or not, but every Tuesday and Thursday, we teach English classes to people wanting to learn English.  I have come to the realization that English is MESSED UP.  Thanks goodness it's my first language!  We have so many different weird rules and different pronunciations and so many weird things... Like, have you ever thought about words like, "I'll", "you'll", "we'll", "I'd", etc.?  How strange is that?!  Also words like, "taught", "bought", "sought", etc.  They have lots of letters that aren't even necessary!  English is super difficult...  I have a lot of respect for the people that try to learn English!  Also, during English classes, I taught them all how to say a prayer in English!  English classes are for everyone, members or not, so it was a good thing to teach.  I love teaching in Spanish! 

As I said, this week was not nearly as exciting.  Most of our lessons fell through, and all the contacting we did did not turn up any results either.  :(  But!  Yesterday, we had a really good noche de hogar con una familia en el barrio.  We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel.  Elder Price came up with this AWESOME game to explain the Apostasy.  It's a lot like the "Telephone" game.  What you do is you get pieces of paper for everyone, and at the top of the paper, you write a word.  Then, you fold the paper over the word, and the next person gets to look at the word, and then draw a picture.  Then the person after that gets to look at the picture, not the word, and has to write what he/she thinks it is.  Then the person after that gets to look at the word and draw a picture of that!  And so on.  It's a lot of fun and a really good way to explain the Apostasy and how, over time, the truth of Christ's teachings were distorted and changed from what they were really supposed to be. 

So yeah.  That's my week!  How was yours?!

I was looking through some of my older emails, and saw the picture of the Nintendo pins!  What did you do with them?

When you told me about your Primary class learning about Nephi brought a little something to my mind.  A few weeks ago, we had a noche de hogar with the Ward Mission Leader and his family.  He lives with his wife's parents, so we spoke English the whole time (YAY!) Anyways, we were talking about how Nephi broke his bow and how everyone, except Nephi, was complaining that they didn't have any food.  Now, we know that the rest of the bows were also broken (they lost their spring or something).  But, did Nephi ever complain?  Nope!  He had many chances to just break down and start complaining with the rest of his family.  But, he didn't!  And we should follow his example!  The more you complain, the tougher it will be.

President Cook has also challenged us to read the Book of Mormon.  But, when it talks about the Lord, we mark it in red.  When it talks about the Doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, enduring to end), we mark it in green.  And anytime the Lord speaks, we mark it all in blue.  It's a really neat thing to do, especially on a mission.  I hope you read it all! 

I am glad you like the picture!  I really like it too, but it will be in a better place at home, where it doesn't have the possibility of getting ruined. 

I am super sad I missed the Super Bowl :( I am super sad I am not able to watch any sports too :( but, they will always be there for when I get back!  And you can send me important news about things that matter :) I am super glad you do!  I am always so excited to get sports news!  But, it doesn't distract me; don't worry :)

Maybe you could log on to my Facebook and post it as a status for everyone to see and ask if anyone wants to receive my emails.  I can't think of any other way to do it

Tell Zack to email me when he knows where he is going!  Like, A.S.A.P.!

Okay!  That's all I have to say!  Espero que todos ustedes tengan una buena semana!

Love, Elder Hunt :)

We went to the Oakley headquarters in Foothill Ranch. It was awesome!