1-23-2012

Baptism of Bryan

CTR Rings (Linsey's Christmas present)

Hermana's Hunt and Green

Just had to try on normal clothes! We're pointing to our area.

We LOVE fans! (Our apartment)

¡Buen dia!

Well... there´s not a whole much to talk about this week except Bryan did get baptized and comfirmed, which was awesome!! Also, Lucas was able to make it to the baptism which was also awesome.  Even though Lorena is still living with her aunt, we are seeing big changes in their family.  When she´s not there, they are happy and really act like a family.  Then all the drama comes when she shows up, haha.  She just needs a little growing up to do I think.  But all is well!  

This week, Hermana Heyman (our president´s wife) sent us a little gratitude exercise to do. Sooooo, I have a little assignment for all of you! :) If you are reading this right now, you now have the duty to take a couple minutes and make this list.  I promise it will be worth it!  Here it is... (I have a changed a couple of them but it´s even better now!)

GRATITUDE--100 things

1) Write 10 things of NATURE for which you are grateful

2) Write 10 MATERIAL things for which you are grateful

3) Write 10 THINGS ABOUT TODAY for which you are grateful

4) Write the names of 10 DECEASED PEOPLE for which you are grateful

5) Write 10 PHYSICAL ABILITIES that you have for which you are grateful

6) Write 10 FOODS OR DRINKS for which you are grateful

7) Write 10 PLACES for which you are grateful

8) Write 10 POSITIVE EXPERIENCES for which you are grateful

9) Write 10 DIFFICULT EXPERIENCES for which you are grateful

10) Write 10 THINGS OF THE GOSPEL for which you are grateful

Ok... now the real test.  You have to email me your list!  I want to read them all!  Send it to Linsey.Hunt@myldsmail.net .  After making this list, my companion and I shared ours with each other and talked about how it is so easy to forgot how much we have to be grateful for.  It has motivated me to now write 10 things everyday for the rest of my mission... things that I´m grateful for.  Seriously... take a couple minutes to do it, and send me your lists.  :)  

We have SO many things to be grateful for.  Life is absolutely incredible.  The gospel offers SO MUCH for everyone.  I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve and be a representative of Jesus Christ.  This week I was reading in Mosiah 5 which is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon.  If you have a minute you should read it, it´s only 15 verses.  But it talks about entering into the covenant and taking Christ´s name upon us... just like we all did in our baptism and we all do each week when we take the sacrament.  And it talks about being his children.  Because we take his name upon us, we become his children, and his name is like our last name.  On our name tags as missionaries we carry our family name and the name of Christ.  Each one of us carries the name of Christ on us... we are his disciples, his followers, his ´children´, his representatives.  Later on in the chapter it talks about the name being removed by transgression.  Lets make sure in every decision we make, we are honoring his name, and not causing ourselves to lose his name.  

Thank you all so much for your support! For real... I will be waiting your gratitude lists next week. :) I promise you it will be worth the couple minutes it takes to do it... our Father in Heaven has given us so much and we need to take the time to recognize all that we have and thank Him for it.  Love you all!  Have a fabulous week!

--Hermanita Hunt

1-16-2012

Buen dia!

Well... me quedo!  I´m still here in the Lavalle for at least another transfer!  That will make 4 transfers that I will be here.  Estoy contenta. :) I love this area and I am in love with the people here.  I know I need to be here for a reason, and I am excited to keep working here and helping the area progress.  Not a whole lot happened this week except that we had 8 people in church yesterday, which was really great!  It doesn´t matter how crappy a week is, it will always end up fabulous if you have a lot of people in church! Not that the week was crappy.. haha, but having a lot in church made it better.  I have been kinda sick the last 4 or 5 days, I have a pretty bad cough/cold and have been SIN energia.  But I´ve taken some time to rest and I think I´m finally starting to feel better.  I had to speak in church yesterday and all of the members were worried about me after because I was coughing a lot haha.  Oh silly Argentine people... they freak out about the smallest things, it´s great. :)  So good news of the week.. we have a baptism this week!  Bryan, Ramona´s 14 year old son is getting baptized this Saturday.  Things are going well and improving with their family... Lorena is still being super weird and hasn´t been at church for awhile, which is really disappointing. :( We keep trying to visit her at her aunt´s house and she makes excuses to not let us in.  But I´m sure she will change and things will improve with time!  Lucas the dad told Ramona the other day though that if Lorena decides to come back and live there again, he´s going to leave.  We are working with him... we are focusing more on him and giving him the lessons and I know that his heart will change.  We came up with this brilliant idea to bring Miguel our recent convert and I´m pretty sure they are going to be great friends.  Miguel is still rock solid and awesome, he just pulls random things out of nowhere every time we talk to him which just amaze us more.  He was talking to Ramona yesterday and pulled out of nowhere how he made the goal to read the BoM in 4 months... we were both like ´what? where did that goal come from??´ haha.  He received the aaronic priesthood yesterday and is now working towards receiving the melchizidek.  He is on fire!  Mabel our other recent convert is also doing well.  She was pregnant but lost her baby :( but is still staying strong and coming to church each week.  Her husband will definitely be baptized, we are starting to focus on him more and it´s been a lot of fun spending time with their family.  Also in church we had a guy named Oscar.  He was a reference.  Funny story... so the guy seriously gave us bad directions, and we searched for this reference probably 3 or 4 different times until we found it (wayyy off from where he told us!).  One day we passed by and Oscar was there so we talked to him.  He started out by telling us that he has a mental sickness.... then went on to tell him all these things God has told him, such as how he needed to be baptized in the Evangelical church but still be a member of the catholic church to bless the members even though the catholic church isn´t true, haha.  He is actually really nice and sincere... just a little mentally ill, like he told us!  We were kind of worried about having him in class but he just listened and learned and we are going to work with him more.  Always fun finding the crazy people here in Argentina. :) Y bueno!  That´s about it!  Sorry.. nothing exciting this week!  But I am so grateful to be here as a missionary.  There is no other place in the world I would rather be.  My spiritual thought this week is BE ACTIVE IN THE GOSPEL!   I spoke yesterday in church about this... the church offers soooo many good things we can do.  3 hours of church every Sunday, scriptures, magazines, activities during the week, the temple, family history, service activities... so many good wholesome activities that are there for our benefit.  Not only should we take advantage of these things, but we should make them a priority over other things in our lives because they are all things that bring us closer to the Lord and not only help us reach our final goal--eternal life--but help us receive real happiness in this life. The kind of happiness we can´t receive from the world, but a real JOY that only comes from LIVING the gospel, not just being a member.  I love you all and thank you so much for your support!! Have a fabulous week! :) Chau-cito!

--Hermanita Hunt

1-09-2012

Hola a todo!

How is everyone? Well this week was an interesting one.. definitely the saddest of my mission so far.  But first...

Updates!:

• hit my six month mark. WEIRD.
• transfers this week... ahhh only time will tell!
• interviews with President=awesome.  He had some great advice I´m gonna share in a little bit
• last week for p-day we got to go to centro. I bought a harmonica. yes, I am really going to learn the harmonica. 
• awesome story for the week:  you know you have a convert and not a baptism when you tell your recent convert (Miguel) that he should bare his testimony in Sacrament Meeting and he says ´well I think we would need 10 Sundays to do that because that´s how long it would take to bare mine!´  He is so great.  It´s a really good feeling knowing that someone really was changed and not just baptized.

So this week I have a story.  One of our investigators Ramona was supposed to get married and baptized this last week.  Everything was looking good and like it was really going to happen this time (she has been trying to get baptized for like 3 months but her marido is realllly up and down about getting married and they have had a lot of family problems).  So we go to her house on Monday and she just starts crying when we ask her how she is.  She was bawling, and telling us a million words a minute what was going on.  Sadly, my companion and I didn´t understand a thing because she was crying so hard... so we were just hugging her and mouthing to each other ´I have no idea what´s going on!´... we left completely confused.  So we planned on going back the next day, hoping to find out what happened.  We went back again, only this time it was worse.  She was sobbing, completely bawling, and we were too.  We had no idea what was going on... but we could feel her pain.  It was the saddest week of my mission so far.  Her house felt so dark... not like the evil kind of dark, but just sad and painful and dark.  We all sat there and cried for probably an hour.  In the middle of it her daughter came out and started crying too, and then she took all of her stuff and left with her aunt.  It was the weirdest feeling in the world.  Both my comp and I were sitting there bawling our eyes out while thinking at the same time ´I have no idea what is going on.  Why is Ramona crying?  Why is Lorena moving out? What´s going on??´.  Bueno... after about an hour, things calmed down and we talked and finally understood what happened.  I guess Lorena broke a house rule and lied to everyone about it and then Lucas (Ramona´s marido) found out and freaked out at her and told her he never wants to see her again in the house and all of this really bad stuff.  So Lorena was mad at him (she really hates him) and she moved out to go live with her aunt.  So Ramona and Lucas were deciding whether they should get married or separate, and now everything is just in this weird state.  Lorena is out of the house, and her other son Bryan has been with his dad for 2 weeks, and her other son is staying with his grandma, so she´s just home alone all day, lonely and sad and worried about her family and what´s going to happen.  What struck me the most was when we were talking to her that night and I am absolutely in awe at the faith this woman has.  At the end she just said ´I have to keep going, I have to keep going strong, the Lord will help me´ ... she was telling us how all she wants, her only desire and her biggest dream, is that she just has her family unified and in the gospel.  All she wants is for them to get married and all of them to get baptized and be good members of the church.  She has the biggest testimony and the most faith of anyone I have ever met.  She is incredible and the biggest example to us.  It was super sad... the whole next day my companion and I just felt crappy.  All we could think about was Ramona and we were worrying about her all day, which really stumped our work for that day because we couldn´t focus on anything else.  Not to mention the huge headaches we had from crying the night before, haha.  Anyway... It was really a sad week because of that.  I know things will work out for her eventually because she has the most righteous desires anyone could have, but it´s so hard to see her in so much pain with so much worry for her family.  Please pray for her!!

Bueno... that´s pretty much it for this week.  I have been studying a lot lately about agency, self-control, the atonement, decisions, and change, and it has been super awesome seeing how the spirit teaches me.  The best days are when I learn something new and realize that all of my studies tie in to each other in all of this complicated different ways.  Man, the gospel is so awesome :).  When I get it all put together I will share what I have been learning about... right now it´s all up in a big unorganized mess, haha.  But for a thought for the week... in my interview with President Heyman this week he talked about success and how can we know if we are having success in the mission. He said you ask yourself this question ´Am I a better disciple of Christ now than I was when I started?´.  I really like that, and it definitely applies to life too.  That is our main goal in life... to become like him.  So we should always be asking ourselves, ´Am I a better disciple of Christ now than I was one month ago? Or a couple months ago? Or a year ago?´... if we are always working on progressing, the Lord is pleased with us. :)

As my dad always says... Make it a great week!! It really is up to you!

--Hermanita Hunt

 

OH YEAH! Shout-out to Haley for her MISSION CALL! Congrats my little hay-hay I am sooo excited for you!! You are going to be the best missionary Cali has seen!  And shout-out to Jenna for her ENGAGEMENT!  Holy moly sista... your life is always exciting! I´m excited for you and wish you the best! :) You better send me pictures!  LOVE YOU BOTH!

01-03-2012

Kids helping me make banana bread

Scorpion in our apartment

Moldy Meat - Gross!

Hola familia y amigos! Feliz año nuevo! Espero que todo esté bien con todo alla! Acá es mi lista para esta semana:

AWKWARDS INCOMODOS Y CHISTOSOS

• scorpions. in the apartment. we found one crawling on our floor 2 nights in a row. not kidding!! Thank goodness they are only the size of a spider.. haha
• calling a member to come with us to a lesson and then showing up where we were going to meet to find a different member there. wait... what? this isn´t the guy we called...? hahaha, turns out they live in the same house, and I totally thought I was talking to someone different on the phone.  So instead of Hermano Saracho, Hermano Zalazar was there.  Bueno... he ended up being perfect to bring to this lesson!  The Lord works in mysterious ways! :)
• making banana bread at Miguel´s house this week.  We were about to leave when Mauro runs out of the bathroom, completely wet and COMPLETELY naked, and stands there with his lips puckered and says ´besitos besitos?! :)´  Yep.. we got besitos from a little wet naked 4-year old. Ohhh goodness I love that family
• we´re sitting on the bus when out of nowhere a guy stands up and starts speaking a million words a minute and starts pulling out all this jewelry from his bag and showing it to everyone.. like an infomercial.  We sat there and watched in awe as he presented his product, and then like 5 people actually bought it!  Haha we just looked at each other like ´did that just really happen?!´
• we´re sitting at the bus stop talking about what we can improve on and Hermana Green tries to say ´well we´re having a lot of success´ but instead she says a different word that sounds like success but definitely is not success.  I´ll let you figure out what she really said... haha, lets just say I am glad most Argentine´s don´t understand english or that would sound pretty bad coming from the mouth of a missionary!
• also this week we heard a 10 minute talk from a guy about how our god is Satan and his god is God.  Haha whewww... it was so great.  Usually I am pretty calm during those but this time I started getting a little impatient.  I just said ´gracias hermano por compartir con nosotras pero tenemos que ir...´ and then he responded with ´no, no somos hermanos! porque tu dios es satanás´...., ohh it was so great
• we went to find this guy from the old area book and he was out of town but his 2 brothers were there.  I thought they asked if we wanted his number (the number of the guy we were searching for) and I said yeah that would be good so they gave me a number and then another number... turns out they were giving us their numbers. awkward...

AWESOMES

• new years eve with Mirta and Miguel´s family. we ate steak. not kidding. mmmmmmmm!
• waiting for a bus for an hour on new years eve. we spent midnight on the corner, watching everyone dance and shoot fireworks. haha ok maybe this shouldn´t go under the awesome column... but still, it was great.
• Miguel. he. is. awesome.  Since his baptism he has been so rock solid! It is so incredible to me to see the change in him and also in Mabel after their decision to be baptized they are both completely faithful.  They are willing to make whatever sacrifices they need to in order to go to church.  The other day Miguel told us his whole story, parts that we didn´t know before, and it is incredible the changes that have happened in their family and the blessings they are now receiving.  Seriously, he is going to convert all of his friends haha because his testimony is rock solid!  We video´d him sharing his story and testimony.. someday you´ll all have to watch it! Some of his friends at work are already quitting smoking because of his example and he is inviting all his friends to church. Awesome!!

Bueno, think that´s it!  Have a fabulous week everyone!!

--Hermanita Hunt