Well... here it goes. My last email home from my mission. I can´t
believe it!! 5 more days and I will be seeing you all!! I have a huge
mix of emotions, obviously, but I am pretty dang stoked! I´m sure when I
get home I will be missing the mission big time... but I´ll worry about
that when it comes, haha.
So this week! Unfortunately Jaqui and Daniel
couldn´t get married yet due to problems with their documents, but
either this week or the next week they will get married and baptized
depending on how everything goes with their papers. I am so excited for
them!! Obviously really sad that I won´t be there, but of course my
presence isn´t important! They are so awesome and I am going to miss
them a lot... but I am so so happy for them.
It was another lovely week in Argentina, with 100
degrees and 90% humidity (oh please let it snow in Utah before
Saturday!! haha). We had some great experiences... the familia Jaime
made a goodbye dinner for me, where we ate ostrich egg. Hahaha. Their
neighbors found a bunch in the campo and brought them home, and they
cooked it and put it in the empanadas. Definitely wouldn´t recommend it
to anyone. It tastes really..... well..... campo, hahah, and it made me
really sick! I woke up that night with REALLY really bad stomach pains.
So here comes the best part... I go into the bathroom, of course to
find a giant cockroach. Well, I was already... ya know, busy, and
stuff... haha, so I couldn´t kill the cockroach. It went and hid under
the door and afterwards I went to find it and it disappeared! I
searched the whole apartment quietly to not wake up hermana ovando and
couldn´t find him! So I went back to bed. I wake up in the morning and
go to the bathroom, being extra cautious (how do you spell that?? man
spanish has ruined my english!) thinking that I was going to find the
cockroach.... but he´s not there. So I go back to my room to make my
bed, and what do I find?? The cockroach. In my bed. Omgomgomg. Hahahaha.
So evil!! It´s like he knew I was searching for him to kill him so he
wanted revenge and climbed right into my bed! Luckily I found him there
afterwards, instead of feeling him crawl up my leg while sleeping haha.
There was also a big lizard living behind the switch
to turn on our A/C for a couple of days. You can imagine how loud I
screamed when I went to turn it on and he jumped out at me, hahah.
So this week is going to be short... today is p-day, tomorrow
is district meeting, wednesday is transfers and then thursday I head to
Resistencia! Unfortunately I won´t have my final interview with
President Heyman. We found out last week that he is now in the states
with his Hermana Heyman so that she can recover there from her stroke. I
am really worried about her. So for now we have a re-emplacement..
Elder Di Giovanni and his wife from the area 70. In about a month
President Heyman should be back if all goes well. We met the Di
Giovanni´s this last week and they are really great, so it should still
be good!
Yesterday in church our bishop asked me to give my
testimony and talk about service. It was a sad goodbye, I even got a
little bit teary eyed. All of the members were so sweet and were all
telling me goodbye and giving me gifts and stuff... even the ones from
the ward that I don´t really know since our branch just combined with
the ward. I have been thinking a lot obviously about the last year and a
half. About everything that happened, all of the experiences and
emotions and changes, everything. A mission is a very interesting
thing... different than any other experience. At the end, one always
wonders if they did everything they could. If their mission was a
success. In the mission there is always a lot of pressure to be better,
to work harder, to keep improving, so that we can have more success.
What is success? To each missionary, that word means something
different. Some believe that it means baptisms, some believe that it
means good numbers, obedience, being a preach my gospel missionary,
following the spirit, converts, being diligent, improvement, etc. In
reality... all of those things can be different kinds of success.
President Heyman told us the way that we should measure our success as
missionaries. He said that we should ask ourselves ´am I a better
disciple of Christ now than I was before?´. We spend all of our
missions giving every minute to others. But when we leave the
mission... we don´t take those people with us. I will always hope and
pray for all of my converts and investigators and all of the members
here, that they can continue in the truth. But they have their agency,
and really it is not up to me. When I walk off that plane this Saturday
to go home, the only thing I carry with me, is myself. When we return
home to our Heavenly Father, the only thing we carry with us, is
ourselves. The person that we have become after all of our experiences
and choices in life.
I had an interesting little experience this week
that to me was an assurance from my Father in Heaven that my mission, to
me, was a success. We were teaching Hector, the deaf investigator. He
made a few signs, pointing towards me, towards his face, and something
about Christ. I didn´t understand what he said and I turned to my
companion and asked if she understood. She said to me ´he said that
your face makes him think of Christ´. Now... I don´t know if that´s
just because I have light skin and blue eyes, haha, but to me it meant a
lot. I am not perfect. I have not been a perfect missionary. Often
times I felt that I just couldn´t compare to the rest.. that I just
wasn´t good enough. I still have a long ways to go. But I am so proud
of the work I have done here in Argentina, and especially, the person I
have become by devoting myself to others. When I look at myself in the
mirror, I see more of Christ´s face in my own than I did before. I have
changed. That change may not be visible to others, but to me it is,
and to me it means the world. Life is difficult. The mission is
difficult. But when we focus on Christ and learn to love as He loves,
when we learn to see people as He sees them, when we are constantly
striving to improve... even if there are ups and downs, even if we more
forward and backward again, as long as we are looking towards Him, and
trying, we are a success.
I love my Savior so much, and am so grateful for
this opportunity that He has given me to change myself and become more
like Him over this past year and a half. Really, there´s a lot more
that I could say. But I will just leave you with a scripture...
2 John 1:12
¨Having
many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink:
but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may
be full.¨
Les quiero mucho a todos. Gracias por todo. Nos vemos MUY, muy pronto. :)
-- Con mucho amor y agradecimiento, por la ultima vez, Hermana Hunt
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