WEEK #33 1/3 of the Mish

Nice day today!  Probably in the high 80's.  Today is my 8 month anniversary so that means Im 1/3 done with the mish.  Pretty crazy.  This morning we played some Ultimate Frisbee at the church which was fun!  I also just had some carnitas which were delicious!!  This week was good!  We found some pretty cool new investigators and dropped some that we've been holding on to for much too long.  Just not their time right now I guess.  

Elder Hunt 8 months in and Elder Purcell 1 year in!

Anyway heres some highlights of the week!  On Wednesday we decided to try a part of our area that we've never been to before so we went out to Caulinas and well basically we didn't find anything out there and I don't think that missionaries have ever been out there before because no one knew who we were so that was cool to touch a part of the earth where missionaries have never walked before!  But its a little too far away from where we live and costs a lot to get there so maybe missionaries will get assigned there one day cause its huge!  But we did figure out the reason we felt like we needed to go out there because on the way back we stopped at a bus stop in ILama and while we were waiting for the next bus to take us home we sat down and watched this little kids soccer game that was going on, on a big field below us.  These kids were playing barefoot and some with cleats and were wrecking eachother, it was crazy.  But we were sitting with one of the parents in the stands, (the only parents) and were talking and then the guy next to us was like, Hey! Whats up Guys?  You all know English huh?  So we started talking to this guy and evidently he lived in Boise, Idaho for 17 years and had just got back here to honduras 4 months ago.  I was talking it up to him about the states and Meridian Idaho cause thats where my family  the Andrews live!  It was sweet!  We also were talking about lifting a lot and all that fun stuff!  We started talking about the church and he told us that hes been to church a lot of times and just never got baptized because he was always busy with work up there, but he loves our church.  He said that he has a lot more time now in his life and that he would love to have us over and go to church and everything!!  So that was a sweet find!  I guess Gods hand guides us everywhere we need to go even if we have to take a trip out to Caulinas and back to find this family!

Friday we did a lot of service which is always fun!  We chopped in the morning one of our investigators yards!  Im getting pretty dang good with a machete!  Also on Friday I had divisions with my DL Elder Woods and it was so fun.  We went to this new investigators Rockys house and he was chopping some wood so we asked if we could help.  The axe he had was no good so we started chopping these logs with his machete!  We basically got all the way through the log  but the middle was super hard so Elder Woods had this great idea to lean the log up and drop it on the stump nearby.  What he didn't take into account is that there was a river below us full of poop.  So Woods dropped this log on the stump and it hit the stump and didn't even break and started rolling down the hill and went into the poopy river.  I was like you idiot haha.  So Woods had to try and pull this log out of the river and got his hands all gross and we ended up tying a rope around it and dragging it up.  Rocky was like alright you guys are done and then got upset with us cause his machete was a little bent too.  Pretty funny though.

Church was good on Sunday we had our investigator Karina there who is probably going to get baptized in like a 2 weeks!!  So thats exciting!  We also made some progress with Cory this week!  So everythings good here in Santa Barbara!  Probably going to be having changes here soon though so will see who everything pans out!!  Also super cool to see Uranya who is a recent convert of the Elders that live with us teach our recent convert Jose Luis in Gospel Principles class.  Just strengthed my testimony to know that this church is growing!  Anyway love you all and hope you all have a great week!!

Love Elder Caza

P.S. my boy Elder Purcell hit his 1 year mark this week!!  Us burning his shirt!!

WEEK #32 Apostle Anderson and General Authorities

So this week was so good!  Lots of crazy cool stuff that happened!!  First off, its getting so hot here.  Thank goodness the sun is starting to go down earlier is all I have to say!!  Getting some mean missionary tan lines though!  Today we went to the Speed Ball Cancha and played some fútbol!!  It was pretty legit!  

Cool bridge!

So Tuesday was pretty sweet!  It was Elder Estradas birthday and we all pitched in and bought him a nice little guava cake!!  Which we shoved in his face but It was delicious!!  Its also a tradition here in Honduras that on someones birthday you have to egg them!!  So we did!!  We bought some baleadas from Pres. Yanes and then bought some eggs while Estrada wasnt looking!  We walked up the road a little and told him that we wanted to make a video for his birthday to send home to his family!  So we started filming and then my companion made a distraction and while Estrada was looking over there we all smashed eggs on his head!  It was hilarious and it smelt so bad!  Pretty funny tradition though!  Then on Wednesday morning at like 3 in the morning I woke up to go to the bathroom and stepped on the ground only to have my foot covered ankle deep in water.  I was like what the heck am I still dreaming and then I realized that the house had flooded again.  So I hurried and picked up all my stuff from off the ground, and the next morning we swept it all out.  So that was fun.  Its gonna be nice when I have a house without a pila in it!

Thursday we found some pretty cool new investigators!!  Some random kid came to church last week with his girlfriend whos name is Blanca and he lives in our area, but we didnt know where and we ended up finding his house as we were contacting a random street that we had never contacted before so that was cool and were gonna teach all of his family soon too!  We also found the house of the guy that drives the bus to church every sunday and his family is huge!! Were gonna go teach them soon and see if he'll stay for church this next sunday!!  Friday we also found 4 news and 2 of them are a missionary couple from another church who have been struggling and not been recieving any support from their church and loved our message!  So maybe will convert some missionaries!!  

So happy to spend time with Elder Measles!

Saturday was the big day that we got to go to San Pedro Sula and see an apostol and general authorities talk to us!!  This event was so big that the East and West mission combined together to listen from these general authorities!!  We had to wake up at 3 in the morning and then caught a bus at 430 to San Pedro Sula and ate some quick McDonalds to start the day off good!  Then we went into the big chapel and I saw some buddies from the MTC from the East mission!! It was so cool!  I walked into the chapel and then I saw ELDER MEASLES!!  I gave that kid such a big hug!! It was so awesome seeing him and just whack!  It was like having a little piece of home with me for a little!!  So good seeing him!!  We all got to go up and shake the hands of the General Authorities who were Elder Richard Maynes from the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop Dean Davies, Elder Ochoa and from the Quorom of the 12 Elder Neil L. Anderson!!  It was so cool being able to shake their hands and look into their eyes!  You could just feel the spirit so strong listening from them.  Elder Anderson speaks like 5 different languages and he asked when he was beginning his talk for the powers of heaven to be lowered to help him to be able to deliver his message in Spanish.  He did it without a translator or anything and you could hear exactly what he was trying to say even though he would mix in a little bit of Portugese and French on accident!  But the gift of tongues is real!  He did such a good job and basically told us that its not just about baptizing but making sure that our investigators have a change of heart and experience the atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives and feel its cleansing affect.  We have to make sure they feel that or otherwise they will go inactive!  That guy also had like the whole Book of Mormon memorized and knew in each chapter what it was about off the top of his head!! Way too cool!  Hearing his testimony and all the others just strengthened my testimony even more and I just wanna say that I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that we have a prophet and apostoles today that recieve revelation to let us know what we need to be doing in our lives!!  

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #31 Semana de Bautismos

What a great week we had this week!!  I got to see and experience some amazing things this week and cant wait to share them all with you in this letter!!  Where do I start??  

My little friend Fanny:)

So Thursday after lunch I got a call from one of my converts from my last area Dony Gallegos!!  It was so good to hear from him!!  He is now the new ward mission leader and starting the process of getting his papers ready for the mission!!  The bishop told him that he could turn his papers in in September and that he could be leaving on his mission as soon as November or December!!  Which means that a convert that I baptized on my mission will be serving his mission while Im still out here on mine!!  So crazy to think about that and it strengthened my testimony even more of this work!!  I could also tell that Dony has gained a stronger testimony as he was sharing with it to me over the phone while we are talking and telling me how he knows that God answers all of our prayers!  He told me that he prayed to be able to find a good job so he could start saving money to go on his mission and that he now has a job with concrete and knows that God answered his prayer!!  It was so good being able to talk to him and hear how great he is doing.  He even commented that my Spanish has gotten so much better being as he could barely understand me when I was in Puerto Cortes and now we were just talking!!  So that was so cool to hear that too and man am I happy to hear how great and the progress that Dony is making!!

Jose's baptism

On Saturday we had both of our baptisms and they both went great!! Ill start with the first one which was Jose Luis!!  His baptism was at 10 in the morning and we got there and he was already there with President Lopez and we had to wait for Jose Luis girlfriend and her family to show up (who are members) and then we started with the service!!  We had 2 talks on baptism and the holy ghost and then I got to bear my testimony right before he went into the water and it was a super cool experience!!  Then him and President Lopez (President of the Rama) went into the water and Jose got baptized!  Nows hes kind of a quieter more held back man but I could tell when he came out of the water that he was happy and it was so good to see that!  As you recall he was a reference from President Lopez and that weve been working with him and teaching him the last month!!  What I didn't know is that this man had been being prepared for a long time leading up to his baptism!!  He first came in contact in 2009 with President Lopez as they worked together and were staying in the same living quarters!  How Jose Luis became interested was that he saw Pres. Lopez saying his prayers every night and morning and saw him reading weird books like El Libro De Mormon and the Liahona.  This sparked some curiosity in Jose Luis and he started asking questions to Lopez about the church and it all is history from there!  Lopez said that he always just had so many questions to ask him and that he would always respond gladly!  Anywayy that just goes to show how a little example goes a long way and leads to a soul being able to come back to God!!  Be that example!!  Jose Luis also bore his testimony and told us all how grateful he was for everyone helping him being able to take this big step in his life!  He said I know this church is true and am just so grateful to have all of you getting me here!!  Way cool!

Keylin's baptism!

So that was a perfect baptism and then the next one was a little bit more wild!  We had Keylins baptism at 3 and she got baptized with her cousin Jeremy!  Her uncle Dennis was able to baptize both her and Jeremy cause she wanted him to do it which was pretty cool!  Dennis is a convert as of 4 years and it was cool to see him being able to do this ordinance for his family with his preisthood!  So what was crazy about the baptism is that the Pineda family is wild!  The kids were all running around the whole time and it was hard to keep reverence in the room!  Dennis wasn't quite sure how to do the baptism words and all that too so we were teaching him too and he had to try it several times before he finally got it good!  Then Keylin went into the water and she was so pretty reminding me of Marla from my last area and she got baptized good!  Her crazy grandma though the one that tried to put her arm around me on Valentines was talking during the baptism prayer and we were trying to get her to shhhsh.  But it went good and despite the craziness the spirit still managed to be there thankfully and we got to hear both their testimonies after!  A Honduras baptism to remember for sure!  

What a sweet girl- we are so excited for her!

So Saturday was such a good day and Sunday too!  I got to bless the sacrament and Jose Luis got confirmed as well as Jeremy.  Keylin didnt show up til a little later so they werent able to confirm her, but were doing it next week so thats cool.  Another cool experience I had was while I was sitting up at the sacrament table looking at Jose Luis and his girlfriend and I had like kind of a day dream, zone out moment, maybe a mini vision of them all dressed up in white outside of the temple.  That was so cool to see and I know it will happen in the future!!  

Anyway I just cant tell you how rewarding and how great it is to be a part of this great work!  Missionary work!! Theres nothing better!!  Although theres up and downs the weeks like this and experiences are worth it without a doubt!  I cant tell you how great it is to be a missionary.  I also want to comment that you dont need to be wearing a badge or be dressed up in a suit and tie to be doing this work.  Like Pres. Lopez you can just set examples for your friends that you work with or maybe neighbors that are members and you can be doing missionary work at home helping the missionaries!!  Im gonna tell you all a great iniative we are starting on March 29th next week.  Its for the Latin America countries and im not sure if it includes the whole world but i know we can be doing it at home too!  Every member a missionary!!  

I love you all and sorry if this letter was a little long!  Just means it was such a great week!  This next week is be so great too cause on Saturday we are going to get to here from Neil L. Anderson of the quorom of the 12!!  We are going to be hearing from an apostole!! So stoked!!  Also way stoked to see my buddy Elder Austin Measles at this conference from the East mission!!  Its gonna be too good!! Cant wait!!  Love you all!  Have a great week!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #30 Blooming

Well this week was great!!  We haven't been given planners for the past 3 weeks so its hard to remember exactly what happened this week haha.  In the mission planners are basically like an iphone!  Were always just whipping them out and writing down phonenumbers, dats, planning stuff constantly!  Anyways we got a lot done this week and found some sweet new stuff!!

Crazy kid...

This week we had the oppotunity and privelege to listen from Elder Ochoa who is from the 70!!  It was so cool to be able to listen to a representative of the Lord from the 70!!  We all got to shake his hand and introduce ourselves and I said of course that I was from Utah and he said what part and I said Lehi!  He said yo vivia en Highland, somos vecinos!  Or I used to live in Highland were neighbors!  Pretty cool!  I learned so much from him!  Evidently he used to be the Mission President of this mission back when the East and West were combined and he gave us some great advice on what we need to be doing to be better missionaries!  He talked a lot about faith and how as missionaries we need to have faith and be exactly obedient and work super hard and if we do these things we will have sucess.  He talked about how we need to just find the chosen people that God has prepared for us and how as missionaries we often spend too much time on investigators that aren't really going to progress and how we need to use our time more efficiently on the ones that are chosen.  We were all wondering how to know if the investigators are chosen are not and he said that we just have to do one simple test.  After the first lesson we need to baptism challenge them and if they say Yes, then there the chosen ones and understand what we are teaching them and if they say no or dont really want to then its just not there time and we gotta move onto finding the chosen!  It was super inspiring and Elder Purcell and I were definitely trying to find these chosen people and we baptismed challenged a lot of people this week!  It was awesome!!  A lot of them said yes too so now we just got figure out how to get them to church haha!  But we are seeing a lot of bright things in the future for this area and were working hard and we know that the Lords gonna bless us!

I hope this isn't as dangerous as it looks!

This week we found this guy who was pushing a wheelbarrow full of rocks with his kid in it stopped on the side of the road as it looked like he was tired and we asked if we could help him with it!  He gladly accepted and we pushed this wheelbarrow to his house and boy was it heavy!!  But he was super cool and he told us that he had had missionaries like 12 years ago and we asked if we could start teaching him again and he was like ya I would love that!!  He also told us that his sister next door was really sick and I guess she was like a very inactive member or something but we went over and got to give her a blessing which was so cool too!!  So now were gonna start teaching them both again!!  I love being able to serve as a missionary and as well give priesthood blessings.  We also found some guy that spoke English this day as well who apparently has a sister that lives in Cedar City and is a member!!  Evidentely hes been to Cedar City before when it was snowing pretty hard and he told me that the weather just isnt for him haha!  So were gonna start teaching him and his wife too!!  They were super cool and hes way legit!!  I feel like they could be some really pilas investigators!! Cant wait to teach them again!!

So this Saturday were looking like were gonna have 2 baptisms!! Jose Luis is the first one who was a reference from President Lopez and hes so legit!!  Hes the one that only had one question when we started teaching and that was when can I be baptized??  ever since then hes just been progressing and excelling so fast and he just gets this stuff!!  Also we didnt have our
baptism Keylin this last Saturday because we changed it to this Saturday so hopefully both of them work out!! Im super excited!  Anyways hoping to have another great week and talk to you all next week!!  Cuídense!! 

Love Elder Hunt