Granada

So, this week has been pretty uneventful :( We didn't even teach one investigator... We had appointments with them, but then when we passed by, they were never home... And so when we tried to pass by unexpected, they never had time to sit down with us... So, we haven't taught any investigatores this week :(

 

We have spent a lot of finding time this past week. Sadly, the only things we have found are a bunch of white people and a bunch of Spanish people that are not willing to accept the Gospel... But! One thing Elder Toronto told me my first transfer has really stuck to me in my time here. He said, "Contacting and rejection are fuel for miracles." We have had a lot of both, so we are bound to be seeing a miracle soon!

 

Thanksgiving was fun too. I was on exchanges with Elder Belbin, Elder Gneiting's son. We had tamales for dinner! They were super good.

 

On Friday, we had a follow up meeting for trainers and their new missionaries. It was a big help in giving me ideas on how to help Elder Jensen become a better missionary.

 

So... That's really it for this week. 

 

A member on Sunday gave us some granadas (pomegranate) and they were HUGE! So, I took some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope everything is well and you have a fantastic week!

 

LOVE, ELDER HUNT TNUT REDLE

TEMPLO!

So, we went to the templo today. It was sweet. The San Diego temple is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo awesome. We will have to go sometime.

 

So, I forgot my journal at home because we went straight to the library after the temple, but I have kept a pretty detailed agenda this transfer, so I can tell you what happened.

 

Tuesday: P-Day! Then we had a lesson with los Mendez. They gave us dinner and oh man, it was soooo good. I want to marry a Mexican so that I can have Mexican ALL THE TIME. Or maybe I could just learn :) we didn't really get anywhere in their progression. :( Lalo was out with his friends, and so we just taught Roselio, but he is pretty set in his ways right now, so there is not much progression with him... Hopefully one day though!

 

Wednesday: New investigadora! Her name is Maria. She is an antiguo. We had talked to her a lot of times, but finally had a sit down lesson with her. She's super awesome and seems really prepared. We are going to go and teach her this Friday! Can you say BAPTISM?

 

We had a mission wide conference on Friday. Since our mission is so small, all the missionaries gathered up and Elder Schwitzer (?) from the 2nd quorum of the Seventy came and talked to us. IT WAS SWEET. We did a few practices on how to improve our work and Elder Schwitzer taught us some pretty cool doctrine on how to improve ourselves too. It was a lot of fun! And since it was mission wide, we were able to see all the missionaries! All my missionary friends! YAY!

 

We also had some pretty cool miracles this week. We had a ward activity this week on Saturday for Thanksgiving. We tried inviting invesitgadores and menos activos so that we could get a huge turn out. We invited this one member, Guadalupe. Since I arrived in the area, we have tried like 2 or 3 times every 2 weeks to pass by. We taught her one time like 2 weeks ago, but before and after that, nothing... But! She and her husband (non-member) came to the ward party!!! And there was a baptism before that and they came to that too! WOO! It was awesome.

We also ran into this one guy named Flavio. He is super awesome. We asked him a bunch of questions of the soul like, "Where were you before this life?", "Where are we going after death?", "What is the purpose of this life?". He seemed really interested, but then told us that his friend is a testigo and gave him a book about those questions too... But, we didn't give up! There is a section in PMG about las preguntas del alma and there is like, 10 or so questions. So, we wrote them all down in a LDM and gave it to him and told him that this book is way better than any book the testigos could ever give you. He was really hesitant to take it (I don't know why), but he finally did. He is a super prepared man, we just need to attack him with the TRUTH!

 

Oh yeah, Elder Gneiting and I had exchanges Sunday and yesterday :) It's fun training, but it was nice to have an experienced missionary as a companion for a change.

 

So, pretty much everyone here calls me Elder Cazador (Hunter). It's pretty dang cool.

 

That's cool Maddy got glasses! I looked at the picture and she looks like a little miny Kelsey with glasses! jajajaja

 

Elder Hilton was the artist for the English class two weeks ago. I really liked doing it that way instead of the usual way I do it. Maybe this week I will have to draw some more pictures to go along with the words!

 

The weather this week has been perfect! Like usual. It gets kind of cold during the night, like 60s, but other than that, I love it! I don't ever want to go back to Utah :( It's November 20 today and there is no snow! It's basically like heaven here.

 

Thanks for the BYU scores! however, it is a huge disappointment that they lost... Oh well. Next game!

 

I hope you have a wonderful week! LOVE YOU.

 

Elder Hunt :)



Elder Hunt & Elder Simmons- companion from the MTC

Elder Hunt & Elder Nelson

 

 

One year has passed. No puede ser!

My mind is absolutely blown that one year has passed... It certainly does not feel like one year... A lot less... But, we are still moving along en la obra del Senor! It is a lot of fun. This past week has been fun. Yesterday, we found a new investigator. His name is Margarito. He's strange. He is Apostolic. He believes in the Rapture. He believes that God and Jesus Christ are one Being and that when the rapture happens, Christ will come down and say, "Ha, just kidding! I was God and Christ the whole time! There's only one Being!" (exact words) Kind of strange. But, he kind of has an open mind about learning. He said he was going to read the folleto about Jose Smith before reading the Book of Mormon in order to find more about Jose.

 

This past week we also taught los Mendez, Roberto Avila, and Fabrisio (I don't remember if I told you about him. Probably.) So, the lesson with los Mendez was good. We mostly taught Roselio about the Plan de Salvacion so that he could know what we taught Gerardo too. We were getting ready to invite him to be baptized, we invited him and then he went on for like 20 minutes saying that he believes in his baptism because God has blessed him so much in his life and he doesn't need to be baptized again. He said he believes in all that we are teaching and he really likes that we come, but he just isn't going to be baptized again... But, on the bright side, when we were teaching, Gerardo actually helped us teach! He remembered all the things that we taught him! OMJ! That was awesome! even the spirit world! Nobody remembers the spirit world! So, we are going over again tonight to teach again. It is going to be sweet!

 

On Sunday we taught Roberto Avila. That was a super good lesson too. We talked about the Plan de Salvacion with him too. We taught him about baptism and the purpose of this life. We invited him to be baptized for the 8 de diciembre, and he said kind of yes! It was a soft date (not super yes nor not at all), so that's good. At the end of the lesson he said he wanted to spend more time with his family, so next Sunday: temples! YEAH.

 

Yesterday, we taught Fabrisio. He is the step-dad of Denya, the girl that has cancer. We haven't seen them very much, so we decided to start to try to see them more often. When we taught him, he basically said the same thing that Roselio said :( They go to some Christian church and are happy there and are going to stay... But, he said he likes us coming over and the spirit we bring, so maybe we will keep visiting and see if something happens.

 

Everything else is pretty much the same. haven't had any crazy contactos or anything this week...

 

Thanks for the package! I received it yesterday. It's awesome! This year has been the shortest year of my life!

 

Well, I think that is it for this week! I hope you have a fantastic week and I will talk to you next Tuesday! :)

CON AMOR, ELDER CAZA

 

Our zone before half of us were transferred or went home

 

Our last week's English class. We talked about weather!

Elder Jensen, My HIJO

Well, Elder Hunter Jensen is my hijo. He is from Moultonboro, New Hampshire! Elder Simmons was from North (or South, I don't remember) Carolina, then my next 4 companions were from Utah, and then Elder Lewis from Missouri, Elder Acaro from Peru and now Elder Jensen from New Hampshire! So, that's cool. He is a big baseball player. He had a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Virginia, but they wouldn't hold it for him for his mission, so he gave it up. (He's famous!)

 

Being a trainer is pretty scary! I have to teach a brand new missionary EVERYTHING in the mission. Everyone remembers their first companion the most, so I have to set a SUPER good example for him. This first week has been super crazy long because I have been worrying about how I am going to do everything, but now that it has been a week, everything has gotten a lot better.

 

Halloween was super exciting! (not) It was fun though. A misionera from the ward returned home on Wednesday night, and so we went to go and meet her. I have heard lots of stories about her and her mission for the past few months, so it was cool to see her return and what she was like! After we had dinner with that family, we had to go inside... But, it was actually fun! Elder Jensen and I studied Spanish for a while, helped him unpack his stuff, got to know each other better... It was fun. Definitely not something I want to do for a while though! Staying in at night is not fun! Sadly, nobody came and knocked on our door to ask for candy :( We decided we were going to give them Books of Mormon, instead of candy ;)

 

So, we taught some of our investigators this week. We taught la familia Mendez about the Restauracion again and then we taught Gerardo (the son) just by himself one time. It was AWESOME. We taught him about the Plan de Salvacion and the happiness we are able to receive from it. We asked him to talk to his family about him being baptized, and he said he would! It was a super awesome lesson. We kind of have a date with him for the 24, but it's really soft. He was going to come to church on Sunday, but his mom wanted the family to eat out at breakfast :( next week though! We also taught Roberto Avila about the Restauracion too. He is super interested in finding about which of all the churches is true. he knows there needs to be only one true church, but he just doesn't know what to do to find it. So, we taught him! Yay! :)

 

We have also had a lot of cool miracles out contacting and knocking doors. We were contacting one day and ran into this guy sitting on his driveway, chilling. When we approached him, he said to us, "You're Mormons, right? Well, I was raised Catholic and because of that now I am Agnostic. So, I don't have anything to say to you." So, we started to talk to him about his life and stuff, and we found out he played professional baseball! So, him and Elder Jensen made an instant connection. It was sweet. After that, he was telling us more about his life, that his lawyer is Mormon and how he really likes him because he is such a good guy and stuff. It is cool to see that everyone out there has this little love button and once you find it and push it, you can talk to them about anything!

 

We were out knocking doors on Sunday, and we knocked on this one door, and the dog started freaking out. So, the owner (a white guy) opened the door, saw that we were missionaries and said, "As you can see, my dog doesn't want to talk to you." Then he shut the door. People are crazy.

 

We haven't found any new investigators this week, but we are working hard to find them! We have had a few super awesome contacts, so we have some good potenciales this week.

 

Friday... 1 year... Shh! Don't say that! James is coming home sometime in December, along with Colin. I cannot believe they have been gone and are coming home! Time goes by too fast!

 

The weather down here is still super nice. It gets chilly during the night, but that's okay! I received my sweater from Elder Price! He gave it to me when he left :) it is really nice!

 

Today is Election Day! CRAZY! I didn't even know until we were driving to the library and everywhere had yellow signs that said Election Poll or whatever. WHo is going to win?!!?! You would be surprised by how many times I have been asked about Romney... Once. Way back in August, when I first came to San Marcos. But, I never see any Obama signs anywhere, only Romney! That would be so cool if he won!

 

I hate Daylight Savings. When we run in the mornings, it feels like 8 or 9 and like we should be inside studying... I don't like it!

 

Well, I think that it is it for this week! I hope you have a wonderful week! I don't have any pictures this week, but next week I will have some for sure with my hijo so you can see him!

 

Love, Elder Hunt

My new son

So, Elder Acaro is leaving. Guess who is going to be my companion? I don't know! I was on exchanges with Elder Gneiting last Wednesday and President Cook gave us both a call and told us we were training... So, Elder Gneiting is training again and I am going to have a son! Woo! I am freaking out a little right now because he is going to be a brand new missionary fresh out of the MTC! OMJ! I'm scared. But, it will be fun! Elder Gneiting is staying here in San Marcos, so that will be cool. We had a meeting yesterday with President Cook about being trainers and it's a lot of stuff. We have to help them learn to be better missionaries than we are because in a few months, the number of missionaries is going to BOOM. President said right now we have about 175 or so missionaries. But, come February ish, we are going to have 250! OMJ! He also was talking about the MTC time that new missionaries are going to have. Like, English missionaries used to go for 3 weeks, now they are only going for 12 days, 8 of those days which are only training. He said the Church has even been talking about shortening it even more, like a week, or just sending the missionaries straight to the mission; no MTC. Crazy! The missionary numbers are booming! It is going to be an awesome thing to witness. 

 

This week was pretty good for us. Sadly, los Reyes always seem to be "busy" and we aren't able to teach them... We saw them once on Saturday, but it was someone's birthday, so we weren't able to have a lesson with them, but we helped them set up for the party. We have had a few lesson with los Mendez (Roselio and his family). They are doing good. The son, Gerardo, seems really interested. We shared with them the Restoration on Thursday. We brought a member with us, which turned out to be really good, because Roselio likes to talk A LOT. So, we arrived to the Apostasy part, and Roselio just talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. So, we let him and the member talk between each other and taught the Apostasy, Restoration and Pray to know to Gerardo. He had some pretty good questions. They also offered us coffee (it was really cold that night) and so we taught them a little about the Word of Wisdom too. It was sweet. Other than those few investigators, we haven't really taught anyone :( We always seem to find new investigators, teach them a few times, and then they disappear! Why?! Maybe they need a little greenie fire ;)

 

It has been SUPER cold here lately. The mornings are FREEZING and no me gusta. Good thing I have a sweater!

 

Wednesday (Halloween) is going to be SWEET! (but not really) It will be my first day with my verdecito! We have to go in at 6. We study from 8-10, then we have district meeting 10-12, then we have to go to the store and buy food, finish studying (because now that I have a new missionary, we have to study 1 hour - personal, 2 hours - companion, 1 hour - language. It's crazy!) Then we have to go in a 6. So, we will only have like, 4 hours of actual work! But, it will be fun :) Send me pictures of Halloween!

 

 

OMJ! I am not even close to a year mark! Don't say that! I'm old :( but, my hijo will never know how much time I have! jajajajajaja! There is no such thing as too many ties! There is this one Elder in my zone (but he's leaving) that has like 80! I only have like 60! :) But, for my year mark, we can't burn clothing :( it's against the rules! :(

 

I think that it is it for this week. Have a wonderful, fantastic and fabulous week!

Love,

ELDER HUNT

Last week of the transfer!

Wow. This transfer has gone by so quick! WHY?!?! (That's my new favorite word; Elder Acaro says it ALL the time! jajajaja he's so funny) Anyways, this is the last week of this transfer, and I am pretty sure Elder Acaro is going to English work. During my interview with President Cook, he said he really wants Elder Acaro to learn English, and so he is going to be putting him in English work. It's not 100%, but it's pretty certain. Hopefully this transfer with me has helped him out!

 

This week was pretty good. We found a few new investigators.

- We found this one guy, his name is Roselio. He is a super awesome guy. He collects stuff (clothing, food, etc.) to take down to Tijuana in order to donate it to the poor people there. He does it like once a month. He's a SUPER nice guy; he would make such a great Mormon! So, we met him about the first week of the transfer. We have helped him out a lot with his collecting and cable stripping (for money) and other stuff, and we finally had a sit down lesson with him on Friday. He is a super awesome guy, and hopefully will be baptized! We are teaching his son too, who is a lot like his dad.

 

- We received a referral from some English Elders of a guy named Roberto, like 40s. He is really cool too. He has a lot of questions about what the differences between all the churches are (especially catholic and Mormon). Also why there are so many churches. We taught him on Saturday. ANd guess what?! When we were shopping at Target today, we saw him! It was sweet!

 

- We were contacting in this one trailer park, knocking on doors that other missionaries had found before. We knocked on this one door and found a guy named Denis. He is about 25 years old and just invited us in right away! (Spanish people are so nice. I have yet to meet a white person that just lets us right in their house) Anyways, we taught him too! We don't know much about him because it was a quick lesson because we had to get home, but he was really excited to learn too!

 

The investigators we have now are... Good. They just don't want to progress! Los Reyes went like, crazy on Sunday when we taught them. They never really said they were Catholic before, but this visit they were saying that they were Catholic and they go to church every week and they believe in the Virgin... It was crazy. Alicia has a son that is SUPER Catholic and he was asking us crazy questions like: How many angels fell with Satan and Lucifer when God banished them down to the earth? How many times does God forgive us of our sins? Apparently, he thinks Satan and Lucifer are the same person and that only six angels fell down with them when God banished them here. He said he received that information from the Pope himself... Yeah. Also, that God only will forgive us once or twice. No more than that. If we sin once or twice, then God isn't going to forgive us because he knows we will just return to do it again. So. Crazy. But, apart from that, we are still going to teach the Reyes! Still haven't taught Angel though :( he's always busy playing football!

 

I don't know if I told you about Hugo. He is the spouse of a member. His whole family is baptized, except him. We picked him up about a month ago and have been teaching him every so often. But, when we reach the subject of baptism, he becomes mad and ends the lesson... So, we had hermano Tippetts come with us to a lesson. And the same thing happened :( So, we are still going to try to teach him, and just avoid the topic of baptism and hopefully, with time, his heart will soften up.

 

That's about all that has happened this week. It has been really rainy this past week. But, it's been nice! It has only poured like, 1 or 2 times (we were inside, thank goodness). But, other times it has just been a sprinkle.

 

There is a pond by our house, so last week on P-Day, Elder Acaro and I went and visited! It was nice just to sit on a bench and watch the ducks swim. The next day, a member gave us some duck food (why he had it, I have no idea). So, he gave some to us and today we are going to go and visit the ducks again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I heard about the MTC week change! That's crazy! It will be nice to be at the MTC for less amount of time, and it will really put a bigger emphasis on preparation before the mission. I think it is a good idea! 2 weeks in the MTC for English missionaries... That's like a blink of an eye! Something that has also helped is a program they started (I don't know how long ago) when you arrive to the field. Instead of having one hour of companionship study with your trainer, you have two and have a special booklet that the Church has given us of things you have to go over. I think when I entered the mission it was pretty new, because my trainer didn't really know how to use it... They have put a lot more emphasis in the preparation in the first 3 months too. It's so cool!

 

Well, that's all for this week! HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK! :)

 

 

Love, Elder Hunt

 

I RODE A BIKE

This week was pretty good. I went on exchanges with Elder Hansen and Elder Robinson (another greenie that came in this transfer; Elder Driaza's greenie) When I was with Elder Hansen, we had the STRANGEST contact EVER. We were contacting on this street and we ran into this white guy who was walking really slow. So, we tried to give him a card, and he's like, "No, I already know all about the Mormons." So, Elder Hansen and I thought he was getting ready to bash with his, but then he started talking about aliens! ALIENS. He said stuff like that Noah and the ark was caused because aliens were having children with humans and that the angel Moroni was an alien talking to Joseph Smith and that even Joseph Smith was an alien himself! We talked to him for like, 20 minutes because he was so interesting. He said such weird stuff! We were pretty dumbfounded.

 

Exchanges with Elder Robinson were super good too. I RODE A BIKE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. But, it wasn't even my bike :( It was the bike of Elder Driaza :( But, it was fun! Their area is TINY (really it's like, 9 or 10 streets because it is so jam packed with Spanish people) so it was really easy to find people and talk to them.

 

There isn't a whole lot going on in our area as of now... :( We haven't found any new investigators for about 2 weeks, and the ones we have found, we hardly ever meet with because they never answer us :( but, we have been meeting with los Reyes quite often. Just Alicia and Rosa though. We still haven't seen Angel in forever :( but, Alicia and Rosa are doing good. They like it when we come over to teach, but they are really lazy and don't want to come to church :( But, we are progressing with them slowly!

 

We are also helping someone receive the Melquisedec priesthood! i don't know if I told you about him or not yet. His name is Arturo. When I was with Elder Lewis, we had made a goal to help him receive it. Like the second to last week of the transfer we finally were able to meet with him and he told us he was trying to prepare himself to receive it too! So, that was a cool miracle. So, Elder Acaro and I have been meeting with him and trying to help him prepare to receive the priesthood.

 

Yep, President Cook speaks Spanish! He served his mission in Mexico when Utah and Cali were still a part of Mexico (jaja jk jk). It's not like I am struggling with the language, it's just I feel like I have flatlined and I can't learn anymore. Which is definitely not true! I still have lots to learn! You would think having a companion that speaks Spanish as a native would help, but I don't even speak Spanish with him jaja. It's all in English! He's from Piura. He's really cool. Probably one of my favorite companions. His whole family are converts. He was baptized at 8, by his dad, but his mom and 2 sisters were just recently baptized, like within the past 3 or so years.

 

I hate running. We run for 20-30 minutes in the mornings and we just run around where we live. There is a golf course that we occasionally run through and a sweet dirt path on the side of some road. I still hate running though.

 

Well, I think that is all for this week! I hope I answered all of your questions! If not, you can reganarme next week! ;) Have a fantastic week!

 

Love, Elder Hunt

 

P.S. I had a little surgery on Saturday night. My nametag had been cracking, and little by little it finally broke :( It was on Saturday night with Elder Robinson, and it broke at like, 7 PM. So, I wasn't wearing a nametag for like, 2 hours! I felt naked :( But, I taped it, and now you can't even tell it's broken! (jk) I colored the tape black, so it doesn't look as bad. I am going to have to order a new one soon!