Monday, January 19, 2015

Another week in Tonala

Hola Familia!
Another week in Tonala! So Monday we went to pay rent to our land lord and he told us we have to start paying more, so I called the financial secretary and basically we need to start looking for a new house.... it totally stinks because our house is dang awesome right now! But were looking around and we still have some good options.
Wednesday was a pretty good day. We had a zone meeting and afterward we ate hamburgers at a members house!!!!!! They tasted almost 85% to what an American hamburger tastes like!!!!! Which is saying something because I’ve had "hamburgers" here and yeah it’s pretty awful, but these were legit! After we ate we taught our investigator Josefat and it was a weird lesson.. when we walked into his house the spirit was not there and so the lesson was just bad. He’s in a hard situation. He lives with his mom and aunt and older sisters, his sisters are atheists, his mom is a hard core Jehovah Witness and his aunt is catholic, so you can imagine what it’s like around the house, anyway me and my companion left the lesson a little discouraged and without the spirit and it was just a bad situation. I sang hymns to myself and tried to think happy thoughts but nothing was changing, so I prayed for help, asking that I could have the spirit again and that I could feel peace, after I said those words an overwhelming sensation of peace came over me and we were able to teach more lessons that day and with the spirit! It was a fantastic experience.
Friday we talked with Jafet finally and talked about getting permission from his mom. At the end of the lesson I felt a prompting to ask him to fast with us before we come back the next day to talk with his mom, so I did and Jafet said " I was thinking the same thing" so Friday we fasted for Jafet.
Saturday we got the Jafet’s house and were able to talk with his mom and teach her a lesson!!!!!! It was awesome!!!! We taught her about prayer and asked her to pray to see if this path is right for her son! It was such a great experience!!!! With fasting and prayer we were finally able to talk with his mom, something we had not been able to do, though we still don’t have her permission, but were working hard, and trying to do all that we can do!
After teaching Jafet and his mom we taught family Gomez and set a date for baptism on the 31st of this month! The family didn’t come to church but we're still working with them. After them we had a mini conference in the church and talked about working together with the members of the church. It was with the district president, leaders of the branches and all the missionaries in our zone. President and his wife were there too and it was great to talk with them!!! And….. I GOT MY PACKAGE!!!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! Thank you so much for the peanut butter, Nutella and pictures and memory card and everything! It made my week!
Sunday Josafat came to church and he said it was good. We’re hoping to teach him in the church since his home situation is pretty bad. After church we had a movie night with one of the families we’re teaching, family Mendoza, and we brought them The Restoration movie. When we watched it with them, it was in a different language for some reason and they didn’t have a remote so we couldn’t change the language settings, luckily the subtitles were in Spanish. Anyway so it was kind lame until the first vision scene came on screen. Even though it was in a completely different language, the spirit was so strong and testified to their hearts that the things they were watching are true.
Even though things are tough here in Tonala and our investigators are struggling to progress, the Church is true, Christ lives, his Church is on the earth again, and I’m so grateful I can share it with others.
Love and miss you all a ton and can’t wait to write you again next week!!!
Love,
Elder Hunt
 

Tonala is HOT!

Hola

So Tonala is getting hotter and hotter... I hoping I get transferred to San Cristobal or something soon because by March I’m going to be scorched. Anyway it was a pretty good week.
Lunes – we found a new investigator named Pablo. He’s 17 and awesome!!!! We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his atonement and he was so interested. We asked him to say the closing prayer and when he did he said "I’ve never felt so much peace and warmth in my heart for all my 17 years" IT WAS AMAZING! So yea, it was a great P-Day.
Martes – after Reunion de Lideres, Elder Garcia (one of our zone leaders) spent the day with us and he, like elder Jimenez is awesome! We did a ton of contacting and we found a new investigator named Josafat. He’s also a teenager and he’s the first person we taught that doesn’t believe in God. It was a very interesting conversation but he wants to know if God is real. He says he prays but just doesn’t know if anyone is hearing his prayers. He’s a good kid and I hope we can help him see that God is in fact real.
Miercoles – we ended our trio and had Kentucky Fried Chicken for Lunch!!!!!!... well it was close enough, ha. It was from a place called Happy Chicken and it was pretty good. We had a hard time finding people because it was New Year’s Eve but we had dinner at the house of Familia Trujillo. They are an awesome family and we ate some great food! We left around 9:00 and started running home because we were pretty far. By9:20 we were almost home and my companion realized he forgot the keys... so we ran back got the keys and ran back home and got home at 9:35. I was so tired! I haven’t ran for 3 months!!!
Jueves – was New Year’s Day and there was literally NO ONE in the streets. It was insane we did hardly any contacting and teaching that day because everyone was gone! About half of our contacts were drunk so that made for some fun conversations!
The rest of the week was a lot of contacting and teaching and finding referrals! Church was great. We have it at 12:00 now and Josafat came to church! He loved it and has a lot of friends in the youth. It was pretty great. We taught Jafet after church too. It was the first time we taught him that week... we stopped by every day but he was never there. It’s hard but we’re still praying for him and his mom.
Anyway thanks for your letters and prayers I love and miss you all so much and can’t wait to hear from you next week. Nos Vemos!
Love
Elder Hunt
 

Feliz Navidad

What a fantastic week!
So this week we went on splits with the zone leaders. Elder Jimenez was paired up with me and Elder Martinez went to Ariaga with Elder Garcia. Elder Jimenez is from Columbia and speaks really good English. He also was the trainer of Elder Schmitdlein from my batch in the MTC! It was great to work with Elder Jimenez. I learned a lot from him and can’t wait until I have 20 months of experience like he does. With him we found a new familia, Isacc and Maria Gonzalez. A mom and her son. It was great working with him. Wednesday(Christmas Eve) we had district meeting, took pictures, and then we went to Ariaga to pick up my companion. When we got back we ate some pretty dang good food.
So for Christmas Eve in Mexico, everyone does something called Noche Buena. It’s basically a Mexican Thanksgiving... kind of. Everyone gathers together with their family and makes tons of food. Then around 11:00 or midnight, they stuff it! So for our meal appointment we got some of that food, tacos, tostadas and some kind of salad. It was great. We went to Jafet afterward, but he wasn’t there so we couldn’t talk with his mom or him so that was kind of dissapointing.
Thursday was Incredible!! I talked with my Family! That was so great! I miss you all so much. I was glad to hear about everyone and to see snow! I think I forgot what cold feels like, but yeah, it was great to talk with everyone. I can’t wait until Mother’s Day. Hopefully I’ll be able to see Cam and Amber and Brit and Max and Ciera and Seth and my nieces and nephew next time, but seriously it was such a great day! Love and miss you all a ton.
Friday was pretty great day too. We found a new investigator. Her name is Laurelis, she’s great and really interested in our message. After we taught her, we went to the church for our activity navideƱa! We put on a play and sang and played guitar and ate food. It was great. After that it was kind of a hard week. We had a lot of appointments fall through and every time we went to Jafets house, he wasn’t there. This is definitely a trial to test our patience and to see if we will continue to put our trust in the Lord. It’s hard but I know that I’ll be able to reap the rewards "after the trial of my faith".
Love and miss you all a ton. Keep praying for Jafet, Marcos, Adan, and our new investigators. Thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Hunt




Monday, January 5, 2015

Hola Familia!!!!!!
What a crazy week!
Monday we taught Marco, the guitar kid, and it was awesome! He’s so excited about the Book of Mormon and has so many questions. It was a great lesson and the Spirit was strong.
Tuesday was hard. A lot of our appointments fell through but….. we had ICE CREAM!!! Our lunch appointment gave us ice cream and it was glorious!!!
Wednesday was a pretty good day. We had one great experience, we were on our way to a lesson that was really far away but I felt that we should stop and visit a less active member first. I talked with my companion about it and we decided to visit the less active first and then go to our other lesson. We would be risking not being able to teach the other lesson because it was late and we would be really far away, so we followed the spirit and went to the home of the family Dominguez. We taught a really simple lesson about prayer. I don’t know what happened but the father of the family just broke down into tears and said "thank you so much elders for your message, we needed it. We love you elders"... What a fantastic experience.! To be able to see the blessings of following the spirit. God knows what he’s doing. I have learned if you receive a prompting, listen.
Thursday was awesome!!!!! We went to Ariaga for a multi-zone Christmas conference. At the conference I saw elder Burk and elder Crowley from the MTC!!!! It was so nice to see them and catch up. For the conference we put on a little play and I was one of the wise men! Ha, me a wise man. It was pretty fun. We also had a talent show and so our district sang Oh holy night. One verse in Spanish and the other in English and I played guitar. It was awesome. Afterward, one of the elders from the office came up to me and said, "That was awesome! Want to jam with me?" so I had a jam sesh with one of the Mexican missionaries. It was so cool and wow was he good! Then an elder named elder Tuafu from HENDERSON NEVADA started singing and playing guitar with us. It was so fun to sing and play with a Tongan and a Mexican. We ate a ton of food, learned a lot about Christ and ate SCOTCHAROOS! Sister George made scotcharoos for everyone and it was delicious! Though it made me miss home a bit. Thursday was great.

The next couple days were busy. I gave a pregnant woman a blessing and ate some clams things. We talked with Jafet; his mom is still being difficult with things. We’re working with him, he needs to be baptized and wants it so bad. I’m going to talk to his mom about it tomorrow. I’m nervous because I don’t exactly what to say, but Jafet needs to be baptised.
Anyway I’m out of time but that was basically the week. Love you and miss you all and can’t wait to talk with you all on CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FELIZ NAVIDAD
Elder Hunt
PS: MOM... Happy late birthday. Love and miss ya tons!
Withy Elder Burk and Elder Crowley

I actually aet this!

Multi-Zone Christmas Conference
 
Querido Familia,
What a hard week!
Monday was a crazy P-day. Elder Reyes Leyva and I were saying our goodbyes to as many people as we possibly could in the short time we had before I went to Tuxtla. At 5 PM we got to the bus station in Ariga and that’s where we said goodbye. Elder Reyes Leyva is such a great guy. He’s now the zone leader in San Cristobol!!! He’s so lucky to serve in San Cristobol, the weather is so nice and cool there. When I got to Tuxtla I spent the night with the zone leaders. It was really fun. We ordered pizza and talked in Spanish. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Tuesday was the day we got our trainees! There are a ton of missionaries from my generation who are training but only 3 of us are white. Myself, Elder Thomson and a sister that was in another district in the MTC, so I don’t know her very well. We were all a little bit nervous. Before we got our new missionaries we attended a meeting. We all talked about how important our job is as trainers, that we need to love our companions, lead by example, and really listen to the Spirit. After the meeting, we got our companions!!!! I’ll be training ELDER MARTINEZ. What a cool guy! Seriously, he’s so funny and he’s a hard worker! We’ll be a good team! He’s from Jauja Durango, Mexico and doesn’t speak a lick of English. It will be a challenge, but I know I will grow from it, and I can tell I will enjoy him as my companion. By the time we got back from Tuxtla it was already 8:30 PM so we unpacked, talked a bit and hit the sack.

Wednesday was my first District meeting. I don’t know if I mentioned it in my last letter, but I will also be serving as the district leader as well. It's a lot of responsibility, but it’s just me, Elder Martinez, Hermana Keaton and Hermana Canalizo! We had a great meeting about faith, patience and miracles! Everyone in the district is new. Either new in the mission field or new in Tonala, so we had a great meeting about how we can work hard and with faith and be able to see miracles. Then we got to work!
One of our investigators is Guadalupe and her boyfriend Jared. Jared is a member but she is not. She wants to get baptized but they need to get married first so we’ve been working a lot with them and everything is almost ready for their marriage. They should be getting married soon and hopefully we’ll be able to baptize her by the end of this transfer.

Thursday we did a lot of service. Macheted a little bit and picked some lemons for a sick hermana. We also visited Adan and his family. They are so close to finishing the house!!!!
Friday was Crazy!!! I don’t know what’s going on with these Catholics over here, but they were up all night with fireworks and beer. It was insane! Something about the Virgin Guadalupe. But yeah, everyone was partying and there was a parade in the park with an ice skating rink, it was weird!
We met with the guitar singer kid from last week and he wants to learn more!!! His name is Marso, and he and his family loved our message.
Saturday was tough, we didn’t get many lessons in but we were able to contact a lot.
Sunday was great! At first it was kind of disappointing. Many of our investigators weren’t able to come to church but jafet did show up. We talked with him and guess what….we can baptize him THIS WEEK!!!! At least it is looking that way. He said his mom is thinking about it. I think her heart is softening!! His grades in school are great so she will to let him get baptized!!! I’m so excited.
After church the missionaries from the other ward introduced us to a family in our area. The dad is less active and the mom and all the kids want to be baptized. They have all been going to church for the past couple of weeks so we should be able to baptize them by the end of this transfer. After church I had the privilege of eating pig head tacos...it was pretty good I’m not going to lie!
Anyway, that was basically my week. I’m out of time so I just want to say I love and miss you all a ton!!! Thanks for your all your letters and prayers!
Love,

Elder Hunt
Leaving Elder Reyes Leyva

My district
My new Companion, Elder Martinez