Monday, September 14, 2015

More adventures

It was an adventurous week . . . ish
So Wednesday we had ANOTHER meeting with President George but this time in Comitan (not complaining. I love it when President comes). It lasted from 10:00AM until around 3:00PM and it was fantastic. He said so many things and shared so many experiences, it was so great. He really focused on keeping the Sabbath day holy. Recently the church has really pushed for having the members better keep the Sabbath day holy, it is especially a problem here in the mission, so we talked about how important it is to sanctify the Sabbath day. As I look back on the years before my mission I think I could have done a better job at keeping the Sabbath day! Anyway it was a great conference and we’ll be applying what we learned in our area here!
Thursday was interesting. We went to Ana’s and as we were teaching her, her dad came . . . . wow! The first thing he said was "Who invited you here?!" We were like "uhhh we were just giving your daughter a message." then he was like "DONT YOU RESPECT THIS CROSS!!! (pointing to a cross painted on their house). “In Mathew . . . . blah, blah, blah, . . . it says . . . .blah, blah, blah!" We were kind of stunned and so was Ana Isabel. We told Ana we’d stop by on another day and then left. It was an experience that was really annoying and it kind of ticks me off that Satan can be such a pain in the behind sometimes. She’s going to get baptized anyway, even if it takes a couple months to do it.
Then on Friday we got a call from the Finance Secretary and he told us we had to go to Tuxtla, that day, to renew my green card. The problem was there is some strike going on with the workers between here and Comitan. So we had to take the highway down to Motozintla, then to Huixtla, then to Tapachula, and then on to Tuxlta. You can map it out if you want to but let’s just say that because of the strike going on our trip was 12 hours instead of 5! We had an adventure day on Friday and got into Tuxtla at 1:00 in the morning!
Saturday after we got everything worked out with my green card we got home around 6:00, just in time to have a family home evening with Rosa and her kids and a family in the branch. It went pretty well. Rosa and her sons came to church on Sunday and sacrament meeting went really great.
Overall it was a little harder week and we didn’t have much time to work with our investigators, but this week we are definitely ready to put in some good time, find some new investigators and get these investigators that we have progressing.
I love you all very much and miss you tons. Thanks so much for the support and the letters and prayers.
Love
Elder Hunt
PS: a drunk guy kissed my companion on the neck yesterday! It was funny!!! Ha ha ha!

Another miracle week!

Holy smokes!!!! this week was AWESOME!!!!!!
Ok, so .... so many prayers and fasting was answered this week and were so excited!!!
I’ll start off with our meeting in Tuxtla... IT WAS GREAT!!! I got to see so many friends from the MTC and it was just terrific to be with them all and the other elders I’ve got to know! We ate pizza, told our weird mission stories to each other, it was the best! The meeting with president was awesome! He and the assistants talked about so many things! Basically this was the gist of it all:
1. If they’re not ready or don’t want to be baptized, DONT BAPTISE THEM! (ya don’t say)
2. Why pray if you don’t have faith.
3. Inspired questions invite the spirit.
4. If you ever have problems with your companion, just remember he has a loving family too, and he’s making a sacrifice too.
The meeting was a lot better than the way I just described it, but there was so much that happened it’s difficult to explain.
When we got back, the miracles started to happen ….
Wednesday night we went to visit Milton’s mom, Rosa. She’s the one who was in the hospital last week and we gave her a blessing. We went to her sister’s home to see how she was doing and as we got talking she said, "elders, while I was in the hospital I had a lot of down time, I was able to read the pamphlets you gave my kids and I also read some of the Book of Mormon. I was able to also do what it says, pray and ask God. when I prayed, I had a very strong peaceful feeling wash over me and it was almost like I heard God say, this is the correct path... elders I know this is the path I should take." We were almost speechless! We committed her to baptism and we have a date for the 26th of September, but were going to try to get her baptized sooner, she’s already been to church 3 times! so we COULD do it in 2 weeks, but we’ll see what happens, she came to church this Sunday and was as happy as could be!
The other miracle was Ana Isabel. Remember her? Elder Cabrera and I found her a month ago or so. We had a great lesson with her but every time we stopped by we could never seem to find her in her house. And every time we called her she never answered. Well, one day we were planning on who to visit and she came to mind, so we put her down and went to visit her. When she saw us she was like "where have you guys been?!?!?!" so we apologized and told her we could never find her at home but we taught her the first lesson and it went REALLY well. She said yes to baptism and also came to church this week!!!! When she left church, she said "I absolutely loved it, I’ll see you guys next week! She has a baptismal date for the 3rd of October.
Lastly Augusto. he’s been kind of a pain lately and has been really hard-hearted about the Book of Mormon. We share scriptures from the bible and the Book of Mormon and he still doesn’t accept it. But this week we brought a member to his house, his name is Hugo, he is a counselor in the branch presidency, and he really seemed to soften him up with his testimony about the Book of Mormon, it was a great lesson. Augusto didn’t come to church, he wants to do more "studying" first, but it was still great.
Anyway, it was a fantastic week. All in all, we have 2 sure people getting baptized this transfer and we doubled the attendance in church this week so were pretty happy... it has been a week full of seeing the prayers and fasting answered. I love being a missionary. The church is true, God loves and prepares his children! Love and miss ya all a ton!
Elder Hunt
ps. SHOUT OUT to my nephew Sam!....I know it’s a little rough right now but can’t wait to meet you in a year!

Elder Ramos

OK, right now I’m in a crappy cyber cafe writing on a computer that still has Windows 2000, and about to leave to Tuxtla for a meeting with all the DLs and ZLs in the mission. We’re leaving in a little bit so sadly I’ll have to make this email quick.
First of all my companion is AWESOME!!!!! his name is Elder Ramos and he’s from Tijuana and speaks 50 or 60 percent English. He’s a super funny guy and we’ve been getting along great! And for a greenie he teaches with the spirit so well. For example, one of the first things that happened when we got back from picking him up in Tuxtla was to contact a family that Marina told us that we should visit! They are the Perez family. The member of the family who’s most interested in our message is the dad, his name is Agusto. The lesson we taught was one of the worst organized lessons I’ve participated in yet it was one of the strongest where the Spirit was there. The rain slamming on their tin roof couldn’t drive away the peace that was felt during the lesson. It was awesome! And a lot of it was due to my greenie companion. Also, 3 times this week people have told us that we look like angels . . . awesome random thought.
We helped a lady in the ward move her house . . . literally . . . . we tore the roof off and took the kitchen apart and took the pieces of her house to another piece of land they had. We really enjoyed helping them.
Finally, I want to tell you about Carlos. We found him yesterday and he loves to talk! He’s a carpenter and talked so much that we couldn’t get too much in. While we were teaching him about the restoration, his wife peeked her head around the corner and said something to the fact of "this is interesting; can I listen in on you guys?" HECK YES YOU CAN! We’ll be seeing them again this next week.
Anyway it was so nice to work with my new companion and to be able to teach him what I have learned. He is a very teachable elder, I know were going to do great things this transfer!
Thanks for the letters. Love and miss you all so much!!!
Elder Hunt