Elder Jonathan Garth Hunt: Loving Tonola

Hola!

La Semana (The week)

Monday - It rained all day. Like literally all day! Sunday and Monday was nonstop! It was awesome! I’ve never seen so much rain in my life. I was completely soaked by the end of the day but it was totally worth it. We got a referral to visit a family who live out aways. Familia Bosa... it’s like 30 minutes to walk there. So we went and it was worth it.

The family was so nice and so willing to listen. As a missionary you CANNOT teach a lesson unless the Spirit is present and unless you follow the promptings. We were planning on teaching them about the Restoration but it didn’t feel right, so we bumped to the Plan of Salvation. As we were teaching the Plan of Salvation it still didn’t feel right so we started to talk about another topic. We did this for a little while and it was choppy, unorganized, and we didn’t know what to do. I said a prayer in my heart to get help to find out what to teach. I know my companion did too. Right after that, the mom of the family asked a question about baptism. BOOM! It came to us, Gospel of Jesus Christ focusing on baptism! Just like that. It was a great lesson. The spirit was there. They want to get baptized. I love it

Tuesday - All our appointments fell through in the morning and we couldn’t figure out what to do. We saw this girl we contacted a while ago on the street but wasn’t interested. I had this feeling that we should go talk to her. She was far away but I told my comp and we went to go talk to her. She turned a corner and we lost her. I thought " what was the point of that" but then we saw a friend of Jafet, one of our investigators, and we had a great lesson with him and his super catholic grandma and his 2 siblings. Bottom line... Listen to the Spirit. He knows what he’s doing!!!

Wednesday - District meeting. It was awesome! I love the missionaries in my district. We did service for Hermana Flor, another one of our investigators. She told me she didn’t want me to help her rake her yard because she said I’m white and probably have never worked a day in my life... holy smoke did I show her how a white guy rakes leaves (thanks dad for the years of labor in the yard) She was impressed and we had a great lesson.

Thursday - Really hard day. Not much success at all and me and my companion were fasting for Jafet. It’s hard to fast and be constantly walking and trying to find people to teach, but it was totally worth it.

Friday - We went to a sick member’s house and sang him some hymns. He loved it and said that I’ve really improved on my Spanish since I first got to Tonala. It helped comfort me from the previous day of not a lot of success. We went to see Japhet again and played him in game of soccer for who gets to say the opening prayer... we won! Against him and 3 other little kids! It was so cool. There was a bunch of them cheering me and my companion on and after the victory we taught them all about prayer. We got a picture with them and they flipped out! They love the missionaries!

Sat and Sun - We taught Carlos' mom and dad again. They’re so awesome. I wish Carlos didn’t work so much so we could teach them all at the same time. But that family is amazing. After the lesson they fed us dinner. Let me rephrase that... they fed us their dinner. These people are so loving and humble. They gave me and my companion like 3 fish each while they shared 1 fish. We tried to tell them that we don’t need a lot of food and that they should have the majority but they insisted. Such a humbling experience. These people have nothing, but give us everything. I love these people.

I gave a talk in church the next day. I really wasn’t that nervous until I got up there. But it was on prayer so it was easy to bear testimony and share scripture. After church we met this man named Adam and his wife and kids. He was really drunk. We got talking and they wanted to hear more about our message. We talked to them about repentance; that through the help of God we can change and then be cleansed through baptism. They all said yes to baptism and it was a great experience. I hope Adams is sober next time because I don’t know how much he got out of it. But his family loved it. When we got home my companion Elder Reyes Leyva got a call and he’s now the new district leader... of a new district! They’re splitting the district. So we are now Tonala 2!

Great week with great experiences!

Now for the random awesome stuff that happened

The most important is... I LOVE CHURROS! There’s all these people with carts that sell a bag of 5 churros for 10 pesos... that’s like 75 cents! I also saw an ant eater and I met an AZ guy that worked at the Marriot resort in Tucson! It was nice to talk to someone from home!

Love you all and miss you all! Can’t wait for another great week!!!!

Elder Hunt