WEEK #51 The Hump

Hey guys!  Hit the year mark this week!!  Crazy to think its already been a year!!  Crazy to me to imagine being in the MTC a whole year ago and with my Distrito David and all the bros from the MTC, not knowing Spanish and just trying to go with the flow learning everything!  Crazy to think that I havent seen any of you for a whole year.  Crazy to think about that vivid experience leaving all the buddies, my home, my family at the airport and leaving behind everything that I ever knew or loved and heading out into the unknown not knowing what to expect.  Well I dont think anyone could of ever told me what to expect.  But I can tell you one thing, that when I entered that plane heading for Guatemala on the 23rd of July last year, that was the best step Ive ever taken in my life.  I took a step into the dark and as a result recieved more light than I ever thought possible.  The miracles Ive seen, the experiences that Ive had, the Joy that Ive experienced representing Jesus Christ and preaching his gospel have been undescribable and I wouldnt trade them for anything.  Im not gonna lie , its hard being a missionary.  But as Ive done it and am doing it, Ive come and coming to know more about my Savior Jesus Christ.  The path he walked wasnt easy by any means.  But what he did enables happiness for everyone that has ever lived!  And thats why its so great being a missionary!  Helping people to be able to come to know their Savior Jesus Christ and sharing his gopsel which enables us to be happy not only for this life but for forever!!  

So Tuesday I had a sweet interview with the Mission President!  That man is just so inspired always and always helps me so much!!  I honestly have the best Mission President in the world!  and his wife makes the best peanutbutter chocolate fudge brownies in the world as well!  Very blessed to have them as my Presidents!!  Wednesday I gave our convert Johan a prayer rock to remind him to pray and it was funny when we came back Saturday and him telling me just how many times hes stubbed his toe on that rock, but that  its working!  Its a pretty big rock!  On Thursday we had a sweet lesson with our investigator Wendy and she had actually read the Book of Mormon for like 3 hours and prayed about it and she told us that right before saying amen that she felt chills run all up and down her body and her heart was burning too!  It scared her a little she said but we told her that that was a definite answer from God confirming the truth of our message and of the Book of Mormon!!  We challenged her to be baptized and she said yes!!  Just gotta get married!!  On Friday we visited Noblia, Mirari, Jessica, and Oscar!  It went well but the both of them got half their heads shaved like Miley Cyrus or Rihanna and well there mom was real mad about that and its not good cause they look like some girls from a gang now.  They also didnt want to come to church with their hair like this.  So definitely a bummer there.  But theres hope for them!!  They read everything we leave and really have been learning really well!!  There little brother Oscar is such a stud though and is getting baptized this next Sunday!!  He honestly reminds me of my cousing Hunter Shaw with his voice and everything!!  Such a special kid, he like the Nephi in his family!  He understands everything so clearly and perfectly and is always striving to do the right and this Sunday he didnt even have a ride or anything to get to church but he just started walking and found a ride there!!  We also have Dunya who is the daughter of Isidra who is a recent convert!!  We taught her about temples this week and both her and Isidra are so excited to be able to do the work for their ancestors!  Really been cool to see her progress and come to know this truth!

Im super stoked about this next week!!  Were gonna be having the baptisms of Dunya and Oscar!!  So excited for them and to see them take this step in their life!!  They are both so amazing and Im so happy that weve been able to help them get to this point in their lives!!  They are both so pilas and ready!!  Im just very grateful to be a missionary here in Honduras and feel so blessed always.  I love you guys so much and hope your all enjoying life right now!!  Have a fun week!!

Love Elder Hunt

P.S. Shout out to my buddy Tanner Davison for getting his call to Brazil!!  Stoked for you man!!

WEEK #50 Joya Grande

A fun P Day!

Well it was a good week!  Got some good stuff done!  Pretty hot this week though, but saw some cool storms as well and had to plan by candle light one night.. closest thing we get to romantic here in the mish lol.  Today we went to the zoo called Joya Grande and it was really cool and flippin huge!!  I was very suprised to see such a nice zoo here in Honduras.  It was clear up in the middle of nowhere too in the mountains and I saw some pine trees.  Seeing a deer might have been my favorite thing!  Been a while.  We also explored this cave and didnt have any flashlights or anything so we were using the flash of our cameras and walking blind.  I have a sick pick of what we didnt see haha perfect timing!

I had to go to San Pedro this Wednesday to get a nail taken care of.  My same one that got ingrown in Santa Barbara grew back bad so I had to get it out again!  So we went to the clinic and got there at 4 but the doctor had already left even though he wasnt supposed til 430 so we ended up staying the night in San Pedro with the APs and Secretaries!  It was pretty fun chilling in their house!  Its so huge!  Felt good to get out of my clastrophobic house into a nice big open house!! They also had a guitar so that was fun jamming with them!  Then the next morning we went to the Doctors and got my nail cut out!  Gotta love injections in your toe they feel so weird.  

Crazy bat!

Anways had to take a little break on Thursday cause your not supposed to walk on your nail the day of the surgery!  We started a movie night at the church and watched the minions.  It was pretty cool and all in Spanish which was pretty funny.  Had some investigators show up though which was good!  Also we had a sweet lesson and put dates with a family this week!  The children all said yes and we set dates for the 2nd!  The mom and dad still got to get married or split but the mom was crying and told us that she was ready to make this change in her life!  It was so cool and it was one of those moments I felt close to Christ seeing her see more light in her future through his gospel!

Anyways good week all and all!  Didnt have the good dats at church like we did last week, but I finally got this one little kid to show up by promising him a box of cookies!  Definitely worth it!  Anyways love you all and miss you tons!!  Keep having a great summer!

Love Elder Hunt

P.S. guess we didnt know these little guys were swooping right past us!

WEEK #49 HONDURAS

Hey everybody!!  Good to hear from alot of you this week!  Always love hearing whats going on at home!  Sounds like your all having a great summer though and doing great!!  Things are going pretty good here in Brisas!  We finally were able to see this week the results of our work!  We were able to get a lot of the people or are mains to church this week and they all loved it and had a great experience!!  Today was chill and we went to San Pedro Sula to do some shopping and look at some cameras and we went to this sweet Nike shop too that was legit!  Also best part of today was definitely the burger I had at T.G.I. Fridays!  Probably the most expensive meal Ive bought here in Honduras but worth every penny!  Got me pretty baggy for the states though being there as everything is Americanized if thats a word haha.  So delicious though and the lemonade too wow!!

So Tuesday I had divisions with my DL and it was super chill!  First time getting out of my area in 4 months and it was great being able to see other people and help other people away from my area!!  Our DL is super legit from El Salvador and we were talking loads about Lifting and all that good stuff!  Hes probably one of the most legit Latinos ive met here in the mish!  Funny story with him as we were walking down the road this drunk guy was trying to get us to stop and we were like if you wanna talk come here and so he was riding his bike and couldnt stay up and like ran into Elder Colindres twice and we were just laughing our heads off as it was raining a little too!  Had a good time with him and the other guys in La Victoria!!

The rest of the week was pretty chill.  My comp is getting lazy on me and is ready to go home is what hes telling me!  I sure hope my next comp is just ready to tear it up.  But we went out early in the morning to pick up our investigators before church which starts at 8 and so we got up at 6 and went out and all the investigators that we went to pick up that had promised us to go were either still sleeping and the other had to go bring firewoood from the mountain but promised us again hed go the next week for sure!!  The good news though is that all the other investigators were able to make it with out us going to pick them up!!  We had 4 in church was is a record for here!!  We could definitely be seeing 3 baptisms before i leave this change!!  I sure hope they keep coming!!  They all loved it and had a good experience in the church and we have dates for 3 of them!!  So keep praying for our sucess here and that the people can be motivated to change their lives and have greater faith!!  Will keep working harder!

Anyways thats all I can really think of for this week I forgot my planner again so its hard to think of everything!  Ill bring it next week!!  Nothing better than doing the Lords work though even if its hard at times!!  Im grateful to be a missionary out here in Honduras teaching Gods children!!

Love you all! and Miss you tons!  Have a great week!!

Love Elder Haden

WEEK #48 Happy 4th of July

A little pest control!

Hey whats up everybody!!  Hope your 4th of July was sweet and that you all had a great time barbacuing and shooting of fireworks!!  This is probably the first year in my whole life when I didnt see one firework go off on the 4th haha.  Maybe on September 15th though when its Independence Day here!  Ill be repping my Honduras tie for sure!

So not a lot happened this week.  I had divisions with our ZL on Tuesday and that was pretty chill and fun.  I learned a lot from him and we had a good time and got some good work in and even placed a date for one of our investigators Dunya!

On Wednesday I had to go to migration to get my Honduras residence card cause I think ive been here illegal for a little or as they say mojado!  But its all good now cause im getting my residence card which means ive been here for a while.. which reminds me that this day next year July 6th Ill be coming home haha I definitely got a lot of work to do in 1 short year!!

Then Friday was my comps birthday and we went to Dunk N Donuts to have a little celebration in the morning and then he was pretty sick the rest of the day and we just went to the house to let him rest.  Then Saturday he got better and I started getting sick and I was down Sunday with the same stuff.  A little fever, sore throat, pain in my body, and kind of like allergy systems as well.  But it went away this morning and were both feeling good to work hard this week!

This Saturday the other Elders had a baptism and it was a pretty cool thing to see.  This guy was a raging alcoholic before and his life was a mess and his family was falling away from him.  But the Elders showed up at his door one day as a reference from a member and started helping him and little by little he gave up the alcohol and the cofee and his life got changed around.  A complete 180.  So cool to see and to hear how his family is coming back to him and how this gospel has changed his life.  Anyways love you guys and miss you tons!  Keep having a great summer!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #47 Badtizmi

Hey everybody!!  So this week we had changes.  Im still here in Brisas with my comp Estrada haha.  It was a really good week this week and we finally were able to have our first baptisms here in Brisas Del Plan!!  It was super cool and Ill tell more about it later!!  Its been a while though and it felt so good to help these young guys come unto Christ and take their first step back towards him!!

So Monday we had our English class like normal and it went good except for the fact that we didnt have a whiteboard so that was hard but we got to the end of the class and I asked if there was anything else they wanted to learn and of course Noe and Johan wanted to learn a bad word in English and so me and Elder Oxborrow tricked them and told them that Baptizeme is a bad word.  Anyway when we got over there Tuesday the first thing they said when they saw me was "BaptizeMe!  Baptizeme!" It was so funny!  They kept asking what it meant and I told them I would tell them after their baptism on Saturday haha but they looked it up and found it Friday and it was pretty funny.  But they spelled it in my agenda BADTIZMI.  Pretty funny!

But ya this week we worked with them a ton and had tons of lessons with members and were just helping them get prepared good for their baptism!  We had a pretty intense lesson with them and their parents as their parents werent quite sure if they wanted to give them permission to be baptized, but they decided it was a good thing at the end and gave them the permission!  So that was good, I just hope that their parents can be supportive of them and were actually gonna start teaching the parents as well!!  Should see some good things with them!!

There older brother Allan had a date for this Saturday too but still isnt ready.  Hes just gotta make some decisions right now and basically hes got to get married or leave the girl thats hes with.  Were gonna work with him a lot this week though and see what we can do cause he wants to get baptized as well!!  Hopefully all goes well!

So Saturday was the day of their baptism and we did service that Morning with a different investigator.  What we did was we went out into the mountains with him with machetes and chopped down some trees and then chopped them into 3 feet pieces and carried them back on our shoulders back to the road which was super far away.  It was a pretty legit experience though and it reminded me of Deer Hunting a bit!  I liked it but my body took a beating haha super tough work and I feel bad for these people that have to do that every Saturday so that they have fire wood to cook for the week!  Bummer though cause this guy promised us that hed show up to church with his family and they didnt show up.  But I actually just love serving.  Something that Ive learned out here is definitely service.  It makes you feel good doing stuff for others and really shows how much you care about others.  I love service!!

Anyway we had Johan and Noe come over later to try on their baptism clothes and we left with them and their mom to their baptism!  It was a really cool service and the spirit was present for sure!  They were a little nervous but we went down into the waters together and it was an amazing experience being able to baptize Johan and my comp baptized Noe.  Afterwards they both said that they could just feel something special and told us just how great they felt!  So cool to see their eyes just light up in purity.  There Mom also commented just how beautiful everything was!  I really hope that her heart will be opened to us through seeing this and that we will be able to teach her and help her come unto Christ as well!  

I bear testimony that this is the True Church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth today, and that we are doing his work in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

Love you all, miss you all!  Have a great week!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #46 Service!!

Hey everyone!!  Hope your having a great summer there in Utah!!  Hope your all doing some fun stuff and getting out of the house and getting out in the sun!  I met this cool guy from Utah today whos from Salt Lake and he showe me his new Iphone 6 plus and it looked so cool and it was good to hear about Utah and all the crazy weather that you guys had in April like a snow blizzard and such.  Things are going pretty good here though in the mish!

I honestly frogot my planner today so its kind of hard to remember exactly what happened this week, but we got the English classes started this week!!  They were pretty good!  I honestly forgot how hard it is to learn a new language and felt for these people that couldnt get the alphabet down. haha but it takes time obviously and hopefully they like these classes that we are giving!  The first class on Monday was a pretty good turn out cause we had a white board and everyone was interacting alright!  The second class we didnt have the whiteboard cause the people werent home and it as a lot more difficult being as no one could write stuff down as easy.  But it was a pretty good turn out all and all and hopefully we can get more people there and learn how to make the classes funner everytime and be better teachers for these people!!  Gotta love how my investigator Johan whos 14 knows all the english swear words and when he couldnt get something theyd all come out of his mouth. haha good thing the others dont know those!!

Friday was a sweet day!!  Did some divisions with my boy Elder Oxborrow and we killed it!!  We worked in his area and taught some sweet lessons, met some sweet people and found a golden investigator!!  Honestly one of the coolest experiences Ive had on my mission!  We were walking down the street and were just looking for opportunities to serve people and we saw this guy shoveling dirt so we were like lets go help this guy!  So we went over there and asked if we could help and helped this dude out!  He was extremely grateful for the help and we told him we love giving a helping hand when we can.  Then we told him that we are actually missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ and he was like so whats your message for us today and I said well service!  Then we kept on talking with him and actually found out that he had worked for the church earlier helping with construction of like 10 churches but had never met with missionaries before.  Then he said Im ready to listen though.  So that was super cool to hear and then what even suprised us more is that he told us that that morning he had been having a very difficulty day and had prayed to God for the first time in a long time for some help and here we came later in the day to help him.  He told us that we were literally the answer to his prayers and that he knew that he had to make some changes in his life and wanted to start by coming to church with us tomorrow!  So that was so cool to be an answer to someones prayer that drastically!!  Such a spiritual experience!!  Being led by the spirit!!  He and is wife came to church the next day and had lots of questions!  Hopefully Elder Oxborrow and Ochoa can progress with them this week!!  

Also Friday my comp went with Ochoa to our investigators!  They set some baptism dates with Allan and Noe and Johan for the 27th!!  So everyone please pray for them that they will be able to do everything to take this important first step in this life this Saturday!!  Weve been working with them for a while and they all have testimonies of this restored gospel and are trying so hard to have this change in their life!!  I hope everything goes well with them!!

Anyway thats all I can think of for right now and hope lots of good stuff happens this week!!  I love you all and have a great week!!

Love Elder Hunt