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!

Best week yet!

So, this week has been the best week yet! (so far) So, let's start with last Thursday.  (Last Tuesday and Wednesday weren't as exciting).

We were driving to go somewhere and we were stopped at a stoplight.  There was this man, probably 22-ish, walking through the crosswalk, and he looked at us, and started waving and pointing over to the parking lot that was nearby.  So, we drove to the parking lot and started to talk to him.  His name is Christopher and he said he wanted to learn more about what we teach.  Being a greenie, I thought it was so cool that he would flag us down like that and ask us to learn more!  But... That wasn't the case.  Anyways, we told him we would meet him later that day, but that didn't happen because we had a previous appointment, which is another cool story.  We didn't meet him Friday either.  Here's a little tanget, but it will relate 100% to the story.  Last Friday, I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time ever!  It was so awesome.  I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me know that it was true, and he did give me an answer!  And so, back to Christopher.  We met with Christopher Saturday night and turns out he was a BIG basher.  He just wanted to say a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't true about the Church and that we didn't confess that Jesus Christ was the Savior and blah, blah, blah.  We wasted too much time talking to him (about a hour).  But, during the whole time we were talking to him, I kept on thinking how misguided and lost this kid was.  He had good intentions about teaching people about Christ, but he was going about it the totally wrong way.  I realized how lucky I was to have the TRUTH about the Gospel.  And then I realized that Heavenly Father was answering my prayer right then and there!  I never expected an answer to come through a basher!  So, we told him that he was wasting our time and we had to be other places.  He went out willingly, but kept on pressing that we didn't know who Jesus really was.  And, somewhere in the Bible he said that it was a sin to have graven images and pictures of Jesus or something, and since we were in a chapel, there were pictures of Jesus everywhere and he said it made him sick to see so many pictures of Jesus around.  WHAT?!  He was messed up.  But, he went on his way and we went on ours.  I think he thinks his church is causing more harm than good to the missionaries, but it's totally opposite.  What he did was made me think of how lucky I am to have the true Gospel in my life. 

But wait, Saturday was even better than that.  The Christopher thing happened at night, when we were going home.  Earlier in the day, we helped someone move!  The Torrez family was moving to Santa Ana to be closer to their family.  The wife is a very active member, while the husband is so-so.  When we told Christopher we would meet with him on Thursday, it was over the Torrez family.  So, we decided that the Torrez family was more important.  We went over there, and they were packing up things.  We talked to them for a bit and asked if they needed help moving on Saturday, and they said of course.  So, we came back on Saturday, and helped them move.  Hermano Torrez works for Oakley and he gets free Oakley stuff all the time.  He gave Elder Price and his previous companions some Oakley sunglasses for Christmas, which are pretty expensive, almost $200.  And so, when we were done helping them move, he took out four pairs of Oakley sunglasses and told me to pick a pair.  I was like, "OMJ!"  So, I picked a pair, gave him a LOT of thanks, and he was like, "I don't want to rest of these glasses."  So he gave another pair to me and Elder Price!  OMJ! 

So, to summarize Saturday, BEST DAY OF THE MISSION SO FAR.  I got some SWEET sunglasses and strengthened my testimony even more so!  How AWESOME is that?  Plus, we were able to wear regular clothes (P-Day clothes) for most of the day. 

Not many other days had anything super exciting.  Yesterday though, we met this lady, Laticia.  She was taught once or twice by missionaries before, but for some reason, they stopped.  So, we went to meet her yesterday to set up an appointment for later.  When we knocked, we expected her to say something like, "I'm a little busy right now, but you can come back this day."  But, nope!  She let us right in and we talked to her for a little bit.  She seems really prepared by the Lord and is so excited to learn more!  It was awesome. 

So, the members here have been feeding us TONS, but I keep on seem to be losing weight... It doesn't make sense!  We exercise in the morning, but other than that, we don't exercise much. And we are full time car!  It doesn't make any sense at all... But, I can't complain!

I love when you send news articles about stuff!  I really miss sports and it is always good to hear about things like that.  But, don't worry, it doesn't distract me :)

The Parkins are moving?!?! How sad :( or in Spanish, Que triste! :( Do you know when or where they are moving to?

I am glad you like your new job, Mom!  Are you doing the same thing?  Do any of the same people work with you?

My watch is fantastic!  I never realized how much I missed it until it was gone... I think it was just the battery, because I haven't had any problems. 

I think that this is all for this week.  Do you have my friend's emails to forward this to them too?  I think they would want to hear stuff like this too. 

Well, I hope you have a fantastic week!  I love you all!

Love, Elder Hunt :)

Week #2 in Cali!

Wow!  This past week has FLOWN by!  Where did it go?! 

Last week we had some awesome experiences.  In our mission, we have three Assistants to the President: two English and one Spanish.  The Spanish Assistant goes around the mission every so often and helps out the Spanish missionaries achieve their goals.  Elder Toronto is his name.  Elder Toronto came out with us last Tuesday and Wednesday.  On Wednesday, we had so many cool miracles with him!  He is such a stud.  We found this one complex on Wednesday, and the first door we knock on is a lady named Perla.  After we (mostly my companion and Elder Toronto haha) started talking to her, she really opened up and told us that her son had died the past year and was wondering why God would ever do that to someone.  It was so cool she shared that experience with us!  We then told her she could be with her son again one day!  And she said she needed some time to think about it and we set up an appointment for the next week!  It was so cool! And later we met another lady that was playing with her kids on the playground and we started to talk to her too, and she really opened up too!  I couldn't understand a whole lot of what she was saying, but I know it was good because we set up an appointment with her too!  Last Friday, we had another training for all the greenies and their trainers.  I got to see my old district (the ones that came to Carlsbad ;) )!  It was really weird because in the MTC, I saw them all everyday, almost all day, for ten weeks!  Then, when we arrived in Carlsbad, I never saw them anymore!  It was really good to see them all though. 

There is this family that are "eternagators" which is basically investigators that just like the missionaries to keep on coming.  This family is super nice, but the parents aren't married, which is really weird, but Elder Price told me it happens a lot in Hispanic culture.  Some people are going through a divorce with some other spouse and they just decide, instead of going through all the way with the divorce, that they just get a new "spouse" and live with them and start a family with that "spouse".  It's super weird.  Anyways, they can't really progress because of that, and so that's one of the reasons why they are "eternagators". I hope I didn't confuse you haha.  But, their kids seem really interested in the message we have!  We taught them on Saturday and it was really cool.  Since missionaries have been coming over to their house a lot, they said the missionaries have all become really good friends with them and have been people they could trust in their lives.  It was really cool to hear that. 

So, Sunday was really cool too.  We had stake conference, but stake conference was being broadcasted from Salt Lake!  It was broadcast to 88 different stakes in Southern California.  We had Steven E. Snow of the Presidency of the Seventy (who also came to the MTC!); the second counselor of the Relief Society (I don't remember her name :( ); Paul V. Johnson of the Seventy and Elder L. Tom Perry!  It was pretty awesome.  And Sunday night, I ate something really not very good... Have you ever heard of menudo?  It's a soup with those Corn Nut things that we always eat at Cafe El Lago with the special ingredient of... Cow stomach!  YAY!  I knew what it was before I ate it, but I still had to try it!  Now, I can say I ate cow stomach and never will again! 

And that brings us to today!  Today, we went to the Newport Beach Temple!  It is a smaller temple, and I got so used to renting clothes at the Provo temple, and I didn't remember to bring mine... Luckily, they have some to rent out.  It was a really pretty temple.  The grounds were awesome and so was inside!  And then the rest of the day has been a lot of relaxing.  We went shopping, wrote letters, watched a movie about Joseph Smith and washed the car!  It's been a lot of fun.

Thanks so much for the package!  Another good thing about being stateside is that I actually receive my package and all the contents inside it haha. I love the calendar and it feels so good to be wearing my watch again!  I didn't realize how much I missed it until it was gone :( And I knew Jimmer was going to a bad team, but he's going to do a lot better, I know it! 

Yesterday and Sunday, we had TONS of rain.  It rained all day yesterday, so we didn't get any contacting done :( And Elder Price drives everywhere because he is the "Designated Driver".  And you never sent my papers in to the mission!  During our meeting on Friday, the guy who is in charge of the cars told me that I didn't have any of my paperwork in order to drive :( Did you send it in?  Because if you did, you will have to send another one, because they don't have it.  And if they don't have it, I can't drive :( :( :(

Our area is pretty dang big.  Since we only work with Spanish speakers, we have to drive around a lot in order to get to their homes. 

We are fed by the members every night!  We go shopping for food that we eat for lunch and breakfast, but we usually have dinner with a member.  They always make such good food too!  It's a good thing we exercise every morning, or I would get FAT, FAT, FAT!

Thanks for sharing what Grandpa said.  I received a letter from them today, so I will have to tell him thanks too. 

I don't think I need anything!  Only that I need to understand Spanish more quickly so I can teach more people!  I don't have anything else to say.  I brought my journal this time, so I am not forgetting anything :) I hope you have a wonderful upcoming week! 

Love, Elder Hunt

Letter from the Mission President