11-12-2012

       Hermana Hunt with Cesar

                                 Cockroaches and the lizard that we killed in our apartment

Hermanas!

Zone Conference

  Hello Fam!!

Wow... what a week!! Here goes:

AWKWARDS INCOMODOS Y CHISTOSOS

• this week, for the first time in my whole mission, I actually got sick!! what?? Haha... well, not really really sick, but sick enough to stay inside the pension.  I think I got food poisoning or something. I never actually threw up, but needed to all weekend and was really light-headed and had a bad headache for about half of the week. I´m not really sure what happened, but I am feeling better now!
• we had some great adventures with critters this week!... first of all, I was sitting there peacefully eating my crackers, when I notice that they are covered in spider webs and there is a little white caterpillar trapped at the bottom. Ew ew ew ew!!! I hope I didn´t eat the spider without noticing!! haha. Also. It was really humid this week because it was raining a lot. Thursday night we came home to find SIX giant cockroaches in our kitchen!!! Seriously, we were just killing one after another, hahah. We also have a family of lizards living in our pension, and Hermana Ovando accidentally killed one by smashing it in the door.  You can see a lovely photo of all of the deaths in our pension this week... haha

AWESOMES

• this week we had a giant zone conference with Elder Viñas from the 70.  It was so awesome!!! I got to see a lot of old companions and friends, including Hermana Juarez, Elder Reyes, Elder Chafala, and Elder Bartholomew that I haven´t seen in awhile.  The conference was so great.  Elder Viñas is so awesome. He has such a great understanding of the atonement and the gospel and such a positive outlook on life.  He didn´t drop the cane at all (which kind of feels like what we are used to getting in zone conferences haha) but he talked about the importance of having our investigators really prepared to be baptized instead of just baptizing them, and also sticking with them after their baptisms and really  helping them progress and keeping them safe in the gospel.  It was such a good conference... I agree 100% with everything he shared and feel like our mission really needed to hear it.  It made my companion and I feel good about the work we are doing and the attitude we have towards the work.
• I also received a whole bunch of letters after the conference! Thanks everyone for writing me this week!! Grandpa... it was SO good to hear from you!! I loved reading your letter. Can´t wait to come visit you in the new house in just another month!! Also Jeff I got your letter! It´s about dang time you wrote me!!! Haha, jk jk. But it was really good hearing from you! Thanks for writing! And Loag if you´re reading this... I want you know that I am getting like 3 letters every week from you out of the 5 billion that you have written over the past 2 years but never sent. Hahaha! You are such a nerd!! I can´t believe one of them was from when YOU were on YOUR mission!!! But I guess better late than never, right?? haha
• Aaaaaand now, for the miracle of the week! Are you all ready? Drum roll.................... Cesar came to church!!!! Wow! It was incredible! Ok so this week we have seen HUGE miracles with him!! He wasn´t progressing there for awhile so we started seeing him a lot less.  The other day, we had the best lesson.  One of the very best of my entire mission.  We found him with his friend Walter and another friend and we taught them about the plan of salvation and the importance of agency and making decisions and deciding today.  The lesson was so powerful.  I felt the spirit speaking through me and as I spoke the spirit testified to me that I really am a representative of Jesus Christ, standing in His place, saying what He would say.  Walter felt the spirit, and felt a strong desire to change.  But it looked like Cesar wasn´t really getting anything from it.  In the end, we looked at him to say the prayer as always, and as always, he denied and wanted one of us to do it.  He has only prayed in front of us once because he´s really embarrassed.  A week ago we decided to just wait and wait and wait until he said it, but his friend was there so I think he didn´t want to do it in front of him. Anyway... so he promised us he would do it the next lesson, and I made a deal with him that if he didn´t do it the next lesson, we had permission to take away his alcohol and cigarrettes for a month, and he agreed! So in this lesson with Walter and his other friend, he still didn´t want to do it. So we reminded him of the deal we made, and he gave us his cigarrettes and told us he wasn´t going to smoke or drink for a month. Hah! We of course didn´t believe that that was really going to happen, but happily took away his cigarrettes and threw them in the cuneta.  So we went back to find Walter a few days later, and instead found Cesar.  He was in a REALLY good mood... we had never seen him like that before.  The first thing he said to us was that he had been behaving well... that he only drank a little with his brother and that he had only smoked one cigarrette that his brother gave him but hadn´t bought any (usually during our lessons he smokes 3 or 4 cigarrettes so this was already a miracle!).  We sat down to have the lesson and he told us he had already read (which he hadn´t been doing for a week or 2) and that he liked the chapter (Helaman 5).  Then we were about to start with a prayer and I asked Hermana Ovando to say it and Cesar butt in and said ´can I say it?´ WHAT?? We both sat there astonished, seeing if this was a joke or not, hahah. And... well, he said it!! And then he committed to coming to church. And he came.  We went to pick him up Sunday morning and he was already ready to go and had just walked outside when we walked up.  It was a stake conference, and unfortunately, well, I´m going to be honest.. it was a realllllly boring conference. Hahaha. I mean, it was good! But basically everything only applied to members, so I was really worried. But Cesar sat there and listened to everything carefully.  He met a few members, and looked around the church a little bit.  It was so cool.  As we walked in he was so scared and nervous... we almost had to push him in the door haha but he entered and after the conference he told us that he really liked it, and that it wasn´t what he expected.  He told one of the members that he wants to come back. WOW!!!! MIRACLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are so happy.  Usually when someone doesn´t come to church after about 3 weeks we already have to leave them because there are other people who are willing to come.  But we saw something different in Cesar and stuck with him, even though according to numbers and datos he wasn´t progressing.  He always had wanted to go, just needed some help getting there.  He didn´t even go out Saturday night.. which is another miracle because usually we find him drunk with his friends in the street Sunday morning haha. Anyway.... who knows what is going to happen with him.  But all I can say is that I have never seen such a big and rapid change happen in him.  I don´t know if it was because of the lesson we had or something else, but he changed a lot out of nowhere, and I think it´s his time. (or at least I hope so!) I couldn´t be happier!

Ok so this email is already pretty long but just one more LITTLE item of business....... I want to congratulate my BEST FRIEND and wish her and her soon-to-be hubby good luck this week! Leash.... I am so happy for you and wish you guys the best.  It is going to be the best day of your life, and I will be there in spirit and of course thinking about you here!!! I love you so much!!! For those of you who are going to the wedding, please please please take lots of pictures for me and send them to me before next Monday!!! Since I won´t be able to be there, it´s the closest I will be able to get and I´m so anxious to find out how everything went and what it was like.  GOOD LUCK!!! LOVE YOU!!!

Ok... that´s about it for this week! I attached some pictures (we´re in a different cyber this week so hopefully they will work!) A few random ones with different hermanas.... Ovando, Martinez, and Lao and then with Hermana Martinez´s new companion Hermana Adorno, also with Hermana Juarez and Hobbs (the old trio!!) and all the hermanas.  Our deaths of the week (the cucarachas y largatija) and a lovely pic with Cesar.. haha! He looks SUPER evil in this picture but he´s really not that bad when he smiles! :)

LOVE YOU ALL!! FELIZ SEMANA!

-Hermanita Hunt