WEEK #40 Happy Mother's Day

Hey everybody!!  How are ya??  I hope everything is going well in Utah and that your all enjoying the booming thunder and rain right now!!  Sounds super legit!!  Sorry I didnt get the opportunity to send you all an email last week cause I was with my comp and he was saying goodbye to some people in Chamelikon and in Pimienta, 2 of his areas that he had before because he finished his mission this past Wednesday!!  So thats what I was doing last Monday!  Anyway gonna recap some funny and cool stuff that happened these last 2 weeks!!

What a cute kid!

 

Last Tuesday was el 5 de mayo!!  My little twins birthday!!  So Happy Birthday to them and I hope they had a good day!!  Also I was trying on some sandals in the morning on are way to the District Meeting and the girl that was helping me was totally trying to flirt with me.  It was pretty funny.  She complimented me on my eyes right off the bat and I was like thanks.  I continued to try on these sandals and she emphasised again like enserio sus ojos son tan bonitos regalamelos porfa which means like no really your eyes are so beautiful!  Give them to me please!  So i kind of just laughed again and the sandals didnt fit well so I said thanks and started to leave and she was like so your not going to give me your eyes??  haha i was like nope, sorry see you later.  It was pretty funny, but thats actually happened a lot here in this country.  Girls love blue eyes here.

 

Wednesday we had a sick day of contacting and divisions!  I went with the ward mission leader and my comp with a different member of the ward, and we found 8 news in total.  Me and the mission leader contacted the whole day and it was pretty fun.  I kept asking people if they knew Luis David Lanza (which is the name of the mish leader)  and they were like no and then I would say oh dang well we had this great message about the family that we wanted to share with him and continue from there or one of the times I said do you know Luis David?  They said no and I was like oh well here he is!  The mission leader had know idea what to say so I just said Im kidding and continued.  But contacting can be fun sometimes!  I just wish these people would stick that we find!

 

Our Subway meal:)

 We actually did find this super sweet new investigator named Jonathan and he understood the Plan of Salvation so good and we left him with the restoration and he read it all but he left to work for 3 weeks so we gotta wait for him to get back but he's super pilas!! 

 

Last Friday we went to San Pedro Sula for my comps final interview with President!  It was super cool and he took an English test and was trying to get me to help him at some parts haha but I said just do it man and it was funny to hear his answers in English cause it was an oral test.  Also I shouted my comp some Subway on the way back home and it was so good!!  First time eating there for 10 months!!  Last time I ate it was with the bros in Bear Lake haha.  Such good food though!  But heres the funniest part of that day!!  On the way home we were riding home in the Bus and my comp was asleep and I was just awake just chillin and thinking about stuff and out of the corner of my eye I see water flying towards my comps head!  I look to my left and realize that its not water thats all over my comps head now and running down his back but that the little girl behind him is throwing up all over him!!  It was crazy!!  I hurry and got up and got out of the blast and he wook up and had a face of like you gotta be kidding me.  It was so so funny.  I couldnt stop laughing!!  He just sat there and didnt move and then the girl did round 2 all over him.  His back was drenched with throwup and it was in his hair and everywhere.  Even a little got on me which was gross but at least I didnt get hit with the main fire!!  It was so funny!!

 

Our throw up pic!

Saturday we milked cows!!  It was a pretty interesting experience!  The first time Ive ever done it!  Pretty cool though, and pretty weird.  The guy was really cool though telling us all the facts about cows and the milk and he evened milked us some fresh cow milk in a cup and we all drank fresh cow milk from the utter.  Tasted pretty good, but a little warm and frothy.  hahaha good experiences here in Honduras

 

Sunday I got to talk with my family which was so good!!  Such a good day being able to talk with them and talk with my Mom!  I love her so much and I feel so blessed to have the family that I have!  They are doing so good and the whole family was over uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, and my buddy Waylon.  Super cool to talk with all of them and just to see how good they are doing!!  Im so grateful for my family! 

 

Happy Mothers Day to all of those wonderful mothers out there!!  Im gonna write what happened this week on the next email titled this week!!  Love you guys!!

Elder Hunt

 

 

WEEK #39 It's May!

I'm loving Honduras!

Pretty sweet week!!  Well a storm rolled in Tuesday night and it stormed super hard the whole night and its been cloud coverage and perfect weather ever since!!  So this week was a super nice break from the heat!!  So nice!!  Looks like we've made it past the hottest part of the year, so thats nice to hear!!  This week we worked hard and found lots of news and got lots of lessons in!  Things are progressing here, slowly, but progression is always good!!

So my package that my family sent like 6 weeks ago finally got here!!!  So good to get that!!!  They even sent me a little piece of carpet cause like no one has carpet here and I've missed it so much!!  It feels so goood!!  A little piece of home!!  Wednesday we had divisions with the Zone Leaders and so they came and my comp went on divisions with the bishop to go out and find more so they contacted the whole day and me and Elder Pauu the zone leader went to all the appointments and also found a lot contacting!!  Had a final total of like 12 lessons and 4 with a member and 8 news!!  Not bad!!  Gonna be visiting a lot of the new contacts tomorrow so pray that everything goes well with them and that theyll be interested in the message!!

Saturday we had a ward activity that was kind of a failure cause all the organizations were supposed to come up with an act but only the primary did and us as the missionaries so that kind of stunk but it was fun nonetheless.  I told some jokes, and juggled, and did some magic for them which was funny and we did a skit as missionaries which was pretty funny.  So I'll send some pictures of that and we also found a less active family this week, and did a Family Night with them and some of them came to church this Sunday which was cool to see.  The son is not baptized either so were gonna start working with him and the family a lot to get them reactivated and get him baptized hopefully!!  Also this next week we offered to do some service milking cows with an investigator and a less active!! So hopefully that goes good!  Excited to milk a cow being as Ive never done that haha I'll send pics!

Anyway were just trying to put in the work here in Brisas and my comps getting baggier and baggier but I'm still making him work though which is good!  Trying to get this ward moving!!  Hopefully we can do it!!  Keep praying for us and this area Brisas del Plan we sure need it!  I love you all and this Sunday Im so excited to be able to talk with my Mom and my family!!  Cant wait!!  Seems like this time has flied since the last time I talked with them on Christmas!  Pretty cool!  Miss you guys and much love from here in Honduras.  

Elder Hunt

WEEK #38 El Horno

My Elder Hunt

Hey guys!  Another week hotter than the last!  I guess its gonna be like this til like June but hey we might have some rain soon!  Gotta love getting out of the shower and then starting to sweat again as soon as you start ironing!  Its all good though!  My comp described this heat though pretty good he said its like putting a magnifying glass under the sun and pointing it on Honduras!  I wish you guys could feel this heat for just a day!

So this week we were having a Family Home Evening and I was sitting in a chair by a fan and this huge insect came out of nowhere and was flying above us.  This thing was massive and it came towards me and started buzzing around me so I stood up and tried to smack it out of the air and missed and then they were all saying its on you!  Its on you!  Lift up your arm!  So I was like trying to get this thing off me and it I guess it wasn't even on me but had fallen to the floor and they were all teasing me.  It was pretty funny!  But ya this beatle was pretty huge!  Also I have these 2 little kids that like to attack me with karate moves every time we go over to their house cause they were watching Jackay Chan or something like that so thats always fun!  They never give up either!  Its crazy!

Cow intestine soup- YUCK!

Tuesday I probably experienced the hottest day of my life the 21 of April 2015.  We were walking home from lunch and the sun was scorching us for like a mile and a half.  It didnt help that we ate sopa de mondogo (cow intestine, stomach soup) for lunch which was also really hot!  Ill send pictures!  But ya it was probably the hottest ive ever been in my life and we all hopped in the pila after!  All 4 of us!

We've started these Plan of Action Papers here with the members where they have to write down like 5 names for references that they can give us and they have to introduce the gospel to them give them a Book of Mormon and then invite them over for a Family Home Evening and invite us too and then from there we are going to teach them the lessons and have the members in the lessons!!  Hopefully it works, cause we dont have a lot right now!!  Our ward mission leader is pretty cool too and he came out with us to go check up on all the members and there plan of action!  Pray for this area Villanueva so that we can have more success and find the people that are waiting and ready to hear the gospel!! We need your prayers out here!!

Beautiful sunset

I got sick Saturday which was a bummer and my stomach was killing me all day and so we stayed in and I slept like the whole day with the fan blowing on me.  So that was fun but Sunday I wook up and was feeling a lot better which was good.  Sunday we ate lunch at this members house and he showed us this video on youtube of people like blowing up a baloon with a bottle and stuff and he was all excited to try and it and had all the stuff ready so we tried it!  Semi worked!  Hes a funny guy though and always has funny stuff like that that he wants to try!  Also Sunday I got to know some of our investigators a little better and found out that this lady Sonia that we have has been investigating the church since 2000.  She said 2000 and I was waiting for like 2014 or something but i guess theyve had the missionaries for 15 years now and still arent baptized!  Crazy!  Also we had a sweet lesson with a lady named Jessica and talked to her about how she can live with her family for forever and just because stuff happened in the past it doesnt mean that it will happen in the future!  We can learn from the past and the trials that we have and have a better life in the future and know how to make better decisions!!  I really think shes gonna progress!! Shes just gotta get married like everyone else here in Honduras!  

So that was this week!  Hopefully theres some good progress this next week!!  My comp is starting to get super baggy saying everynight 17 days left!! 16 days left!!  me voy!! im leaving!!  haha hes sick of this heat!  funny little guatemalan!  anyway just wanted to talk a little about what are mission president told us this last week!  he talked about the importance of Sunday and that he was in a conference with 3 members of the seventy, and the 3 members of the seventy were counseling them about what the 12 aposotles and prophet were counseling them on and what Jesus Christ was counseling them on which is the importance of the Sabbath Day.  That just goes to show how important the Sabbath Day is!!  A day to put aside all the wordly things and focus on the atonement of Jesus Christ and how he can clean and purify us even though we live in a world of turmoil.  A day to focus on the most important things.  Pretty cool to hear how that line of revelation works.  Anyways love you guys and hope you all have a great week!!!  Enjoy the weather in Utah for me and I cant wait to talk with you all next week!!  Miss you all a lot!!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #37 Sauna

Loving life here in Honduras!

Middle of summer here in Honduras!!  Feels like Im in a permanent sauna haha.  Have you ever heard of excercising in Saunas??  I did that this morning lolz!  So we made some progress this week and found some pretty cool new people!  

On Tuesday and Thursday we taught this guy named Santa Ana and hes the husband of this recent convert here named Isidra!  Anyway we taught him twice this week and hes difficult.  He kinda likes to just argue everything we say and then after just says man i love talking about the bible with you guys haha so will keep working with him!  Its gonna be a hard one but Im actually learning a lot as hes testing our knowledge!  But my comp keeps saying once we convert this guy hell be a great leader in the church cause he knows alot!  So pretty cool!  

A scorpion we found!

We also found this new girl Angelina who used to live in Miami, Florida!  It was kind of like a best 2 years way of finding when we were having nothing and I said well lets go check out those hats and eat some chips and drinks at that store right there.  So we went over there and ended up finding this girl.  Shes way cool and wants to know more and has a huge family as well that we can teach!!  Im also gonna help her with her english and her grandchildren too!  30 minutes of lesson then like 30 minutes of english practice!  Hopefully it works out well!!  On Friday we also found some other sweet news who live right by us!!  I hope they all progress well!!  We also have these pretty good investigators Allan Vallecino and Jessica Mejia who were gonna put fechas with hopefully soon!!

This was a way cool day!

On Saturday Elder Mcneely (my comp from the MTC) and Elder Ochoa had a baptism!! The girls name is Astrid!  Pretty cool getting to see my comp from the mtc having a baptism!!  We got some pics too of that!!  Really cool though and now everyone in that family except for one is baptized!  The Dad baptized Astrid so that was cool to see as hes a recent convert too!  It was funny to watch him try and unplug the plug after the baptism as he did a diving motion like a swan dive but couldnt get the plug undone for a while cause he was a little too chubby and couldnt sink in the water!  Hes a really funny dude!  Also Sunday I had to give a little suprise talk/testimony cause the bishop called me up to share my thoughts about missionary work after McNeelys talk and I had no idea he was going to do that haha so that was fun but I think I did alright!

Anyway pretty chill fun week this week and hoping to get alot accomplished this next week!!  Life is good here though can't complain!!  Learning a lot every day and trying to build the Lords kingdom here in Honduras!!  Its hard but worth it!!  Sure miss you guys and love you all!  Til next week!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #36 Super Caliente

It's been so hot-this is how we cool off!

Something weird that I drank!

Yes, this is a tarantula!  

Man is it hot!  Definitely the hottest week of the mission so far.  My comp says that were living in Infierno.  Pretty true.  The humidity here is pretty intense.  Anyway this week was pretty good!  We got to work and found some new investigators to teach!!  Me and my comp made some pretty intense goals that are gonna push us to work super hard and talk with everyone!!

Lets see on Tuesday it was Elder Ochoas birthday!! Hes Elder Mcneelys comp from Mexico!  This kid is so funny!  He always makes us laugh just doing funny mexican things I guess.  Hes an interesting guy!  In the night time its still pretty hot so sometimes we all jump in our pila to cool off!!

On Thursday I saw the fattest little Honduran kid in the world.  He was only 2 and bigger than his 5 year old cousin and I guess this kid started walking when he was 9 months old!  I couldn't stop laughing I wish I would have had my camera!

Saturday I met this family that gave us lunch and the lady had just gotten back from Utah and showed me on her Ipad all these pictures of St. George, Mount Timpanogas, etc.  Ive forgotten how beautiful Utah is with the mountains and snow!!  She was really cool though and nice.  She kept telling me just how much she loved Chuckarama and Olive Garden and Tucanos haha.

Sunday was cool!  It was fast and testimony meeting of course so I got to go up and introduce myself and bare my testimony!  One thing thats way cool here is that the members dont just go up one by one.  If one person in the family goes up the whole family goes up and stands with them and they all bare their testimony one after the other and support each other.  I thought that was really cool.  Something I've never seen before! 

Another cool experience Sunday was that me and my comp were going to a members house and they have a dog outside on a chain that likes to charge you and get pulled back on the chain went it can't reach you.  So me and my comp were sneaking up on it and it was sleeping and then I pushed my comp a little further and it came charging us and we jumped back and it almost got us haha but the chain caught it.  We were having a nice little lesson with that family and then the dog saw a bike and started to chase after it and this time when the chain should have caught it the chain broke and the dog went free.  That just strengthened my testimony that we are protected out here as missionaries.  The chain could have broke with us but it didn't.  We probably shouldn't test the chain any more though! 

Anyway that was about it for my week.  Hope you all have a great next week!!  Go over the conference talks again and mark what sticks out to you!  Yo se que esta iglesia es la iglesia verdadera sobre todo la faz de la tierra!  No hay otro!  Jesucristo Vive!! I love you guys and miss you tons!! 

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #35 General Conference

Hey, how are ya?  Hope you all had a great week in Utah or wherever you are for spring break!!  Life is too good here in Villanueva!  I love this place!!  My new companion is awesome and the members and the area are so good too!  I hope you all were able to listen to the talks and the words from the living prophet and apostles this past weekend.  If you didn't get to make sure you go back and watch them!!  They're too good to miss!

My new companion Elder Gomez

So this week flew by in a flash and I have lots of pictures to show you all what went down!  Tuesday I went around saying goodbye to everyone in Santa Barbara and Uranya (Elder Cerros convert) had us all over for a huge barbecue.  I thought it was gonna be the average Honduras stuff, but she went all out and there was so much food!!  Reminded me of a barbecue from the states it was so good!  On Wednesday we all got up at 430 in the morning and headed out to San Pedro Sula for the changes!!  I got to hang out with my boy Elder Fackrell for a while which was nice!  He's headed to my first area I was in which is cool!! Puerto Cortes!!  Took the bus here to Villanueva and met my new companion Elder Gomez!  He's my second latin comp from Hue Hue Tanango Guetamala!!  Hes a funny little guy and this is actually his last change in the mission thens hes off to his house!  Crazy!  He knows a ton though about the gospel and is teaching me a lot already!  Its also way cool to be speaking spanish all day every day!!  I love it!  We walked to the top of this huge bridge here over a river and because it was Semana Santa everyone was out at this big river playing in it like the ocean!  It was funny to watch and tons of people were bridge jumping!  Made me want to flip it!

My new area is beautiful!

My new area is way good as well!  The members are legit!  They all feed us and take turn feeding us for free!  They give us tons of food too and its way good!  We don't have a ton of investigators right now cause Gomez last companion went home early and he was in a trio with other missionaries and couldn't work for the last 2 weeks in our area so right now were gonna try to get it back on its feet!  I'm excited to be working somewhere new though and being able to share the gospel with these people here!

Just some quick thoughts about general conference then Ill send some photos!  We heard a lot about the family and how important it is and how we can strengthen it.  We learned more about the role of our Savior Jesus Christ and how through his atonement the doors of heavens are opened and the windows of heavens are unlocked.  His atonement not only cleanses our sins, but it lifts us up when we fall and strengthens us and expounds our capacities to be more than we are.  There were many other things that we could have learned and many other ideas expressed to help us in our lives.  Now as we know its good to listen to the talks but thats not the main point.  The main point is what are we going to do now that we have heard these talks?  Are we going to say I'll try to change tomorrow or are we going to start changing today?  So my challenge to all of you is to go over the talks or check your notes that you took and find things that you thing you could change in your life to be the best you that you can possibly be!  Ask like Uchtdorf said last conference Lord Is It I?  I know that as we all do this the Lord will reveal to us the things that we need to better in our lives and as we change we will have greater peace and joy in our lives.  There is no greater joy or peace on this earth than that that comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ!  I bear testimony that this is his restored church and that he loves us and wants whats best for us!  I love you guys and hope you had a great Easter Weekend!  Miss you guys tons and Ill talk to you next week!

Love Elder Hunt 

WEEK #34 Happy Easter and Adios Santa Barbara

So Cute!!!

Beautiful Santa Barbara

Well looks like I'm getting transfered!  It's been a cool experience here in Santa Barbara and I've learned a ton!  Gonna miss some people here for sure!  It's been real.  I'm super excited for this next area though.  The new place where I"m going is called Brisas del Plan in Villanueva.  My new comps name is Elder Gomez, I think.  I'll let you all know about him next week.  I"m pretty stoked to be getting a latino comp again though!  Gonna get my spanish down even better.  

Not much happened this week being as the holy week is starting (Easter)  so everyone is headed out on vacation and no ones in their houses.  On the bright side it hasn't been as hot this week!  These last 4 days theres actually been some rain storms which is weird.  But I guess my next area is super hot.  Thats gonna be fun!  

                                                                                                                                                                 This week was cool.  On Saturday we did a service project and went to one of the little schools here in Santa Barbara and got to help paint some of the classrooms!  It was a lot of fun!  I'd actually never been in one of the schools here yet so it was cool to get a feel for what its like.  A lot different from the States thats for sure.  They have like a main court yard and then all the class rooms surround it.  It was kind of ghetto.  Ill send some pics!  But we painted these classrooms and painted a little in the bathroom which was interesting.  They don't have janitors here I dont think...

Honduran School

Saturday we also had a Fathers Day Celebration at the church cause they do Fathers Day here earlier than we do in the states.  We had to come up with a skit as missionaries to do and being as my comp is somoan we ended up doing the Haka.  It was so sweet.  I think we might have scared some of those Dads.  Even though Elder Purcell explained it a little I dont think they thought that was coming!  Pretty sick though!

Anyway we will see what this next week brings!!  Have a Happy Easter at home!!  I miss you guys and love you guys ton!! 

Love Elder Guapo