Email from Aug 25

I feel like I have just been so tired this week. So it's hard to remember what's been going on. Mainly just office stuff seeing as how we just started a new transfer change. So I've been a little busy right here at the beginning trying to get a lot of stuff done quickly and correctly. But it's fun. It's always a big rush in the first few days, but then everything gets a lot calmer.

I think something that has really worn me out is that we had to go to 2 sessions of church on Sunday. Here in my area, we just had to split 2 wards into 3. So I now work in two wards. Meaning investigators have the potential to come to both wards and we never know, so we have to be there. And this Sunday, we had investigators in both sessions. So we have church from 10-1 and then from 2-5. yea! It makes for a reaaallly long day. But it makes me happy to see the growth of the ward and the progress of the work of the Lord. The goal is to one day have like 5 wards here in Boca del Monte. It started as one, went to two, and now it's three. It's totally possible and I know it'll happen. It'll just take a little while. One ward had the attendance of 110, the other 123, and the other 220. Also, we're about to start construction on the church building to make it bigger.

Elder Hernandez and I are having so much fun together. I feel like I've really refined my sarcastic comments in Spanish, it's awesome. So we go around having a lot of fun and always laughing. Time truly does fly when your having fun. Maybe that's why I feel as though my time here in the office has really gone by so fast. There's always something to do and people tend to be in good moods, not always, but usually. Elder Hernandez is such a buena onda. He just likes to serve other people. It makes it really nice to be his companion ;)

There was a miracle on Sunday. Out of nowhere, a member brought her neighbor to church. A family of three, the dad, mom, and a 9 year old child! yea! I love when things work out like that. If your diligent and obedient, God blesses. You might not know how or when, but He does bless-because He's obligated to do so. But it's a really cool family because their from the mountains but came to live here. So, they don't talk Spanish very well, I love it. Nothing is really feminine or mascule. Words don't end in -a or -o, they end in -e. It's the best. Also, their tone of voice is a lot different so it's interesting. I love talking to people from the mountains.

We just keep chuggin a long out here. Everything is good. I'm safe and healthy. Just needing a nap, but what's new? I'll be home in 8 months. I can't believe time has gone by so fast. The sisters that entered with me go home in 2 months! That makes me feel so old!

Love y'all!

-Elder Hunt

Email from Aug 18

This week, once again, has been crazy. It was the week where changes went down. Change week is always the most interesting week of the change. We are so busy, worried, stressed, happy, excited, baggy, tired, animated, etc. For this week, we have all the emotions in us. But, now that it's Friday, I can say, in reflexion: Mission Accomplished. Everything went smoothly. There were minor problems, but with minor problems come quick solutions without a bunch of hassle. I have a new companion! I don't remember if I mentioned early to y'all, but a couple of weeks ago, I got to choose my companion. Out of all the missionaries, I chose Elder Moises Hernandez. He entered the mission with me, so we've got a special bond. He's from Nicaragua, and he's awesome. It's interesting to a see a companionship when the two of them have been District Leaders and Trainers. We're two leaders put together that mesh well. You know what that means? Miracles. I love this kid, he's so fun. We get a long super well. My trainer, Elder Aragon, has left the office and entered back into the real mission field...poor fella.

Last Saturday, we had our District P-Day. Normally, it's against the rules to have P-Day on Saturday, but it was President Markham's idea. He wanted to go to a place called El Tejar in Chimaltenango to make bricks. It doesn't sound like much fun, but we made it so fun! So really, you get some dirt (clay) and add water to make it into a finer clay. To make it fine, you have to walk in it and get the clumps out with your feet. So the mud pile was like 8 inches deep and it was super fun. Since we're all 20 year old young men, mud wrestling was inevitable. Normally, you get a little dirty, with our mud wrestling, we were covered from head to toe with clay. So fun! Attached is a couple pictures of the day.

On Tuesday, we got the new missionaries, the ones entering the next day. Our goal as an office is to walk a ton and absolutely destroy the news that have come. Mission Accomplished. All the news got back that night absolutely destroyed. Why? Because that's what we do in this mission. We don't have cars or bikes. We have our two legs and we walk fast. There is urgency in all things. We taught the news that we give all of ourselves, every day. Until we can't go much more. Then we go to bed, wake up, and do the same thing over again. For two years. The Lord blesses us with health and strength to do it. At about 8:15 at night, I went down a huge hill. Imagine a hill twice as big as the one from the cemetery on 8th East until past Grandma Hunt´s house in the cul-de-sac. That's what we went down. Why? So we'd end the night coming up it. We started running, but after about 10 seconds, they were dead. So they busted it out, step by step, until we got to the top. It was so fantastic because they didn't complain. All the news were destroyed, but there were no complaints. Maybe because we bought them all Domino's that night for dinner.

That Tuesday night, we still had to come into the office to get stuff done for Wednesday. I got to bed at 2:00 AM and we got up Wednesday morning at 4 AM. 2 hours of sleep! No need to say: it was a long day.

After the mission, read this day with me. Something really...interesting happened. So, put that on your list of one of the first things to talk about with me when I'm back home.

Well, since it's such a busy week, I don't have much time to write. Just enjoying every moment as much as I can and am loving serving the Lord.

I'm His representative, and I testify that He lives.

--Elder Hunt

Pictures from the train museum

Email from Aug 10

Literally, in the office, I have nothing to do these days. Literally, like nothing. I just kind of show up to the office just so I'm not home alone. Everybody else has stuff to do but me. It's hard. I just sit around and try to keep myself occupied. So, I'm going through my memories and old pictures and deleting some stuff and organizing other stuff. Today, I got to the point of boredom where I decided to clean the office. I took out the trash, vacuumed the carpet, and generally organized the place up. You know I'm bored when I voluntarily clean. I guess me puse las pilas this change and got way ahead of schedule. But I can't not come into the office because I can't be home alone.

I've never been wetter than I was on Saturday. In about 5 minutes, I got soaked to the bone. Literally. We walked into a home of an appointment we had with a family to teach. When we got up to left, we literally were wading in the pool of water that came off of us during the lesson. It didn't stop raining all day. The thing is, here in the capital, when it starts to rain, it gets cold. So my companion and I were shiverring as we were talking to people. We had a good day, just really cold and really wet. But, I got some medicine for free from a member that owns a little tienda to prevent getting sick. Also, a warm shower upon arriving home is a missionaries best friend. God definitely blesses us after the trials, that's for sure. We just have to prove ourselves at times.

Monday was an amazing day. Instead of doing exercises, we had to do a special assignment for the mission. It consisted of us dressing up in all the tradicional fabric/clothes that we could find to look like the indigenous people here in Guate. Everybody got their costume ready and we went to take pictures. Here are a couple of results.

This is the whole district. We found us a cornfield and took a nice picture.

That's me and the assistants. I really like how this one turned out even though nobody was in it. just a test shot, but it's cool.

Monday afternoon, Elder Clouse and I left to run some errands. (Yea, leaving the office!!) We decided to go to TacoBell for lunch. TacoBell never goes well with me, but that's fine. It was quite tasty. Then we went to a Home Depot type of store, then Office Depot, then to PriceSmart which is just like Costco/Sams Club. It's where you find American Brand food and everything. It's a magical place for us. It was my first time going and I just bought a bunch of stuff to make sandwiches for lunch. It's sad when a missionary gets so excited about going to a Costco that he has to put it in his letter home. But, así es la vida de un misionero gringo en Guatemala.

That night, we had a lesson in the house of the Stake President, a Family Home Evening. The Stake President invited 3 people to his house. A brother of a recent convert and two of his children. It was fantastic. We just kind of showed up, felt the spirit, ate dinner, then left. I love when church leaders open up their house for Family Home Evenings, invite the missionaries, invite friends, teach the lesson, then provide food. It just makes a missionary happy. [Dad, do it! :)]. The likeliness of the people accepting the message and progressing towards baptism is incredibly high. Not 100%, but close!

--Elder Hunt

Email from Aug 3

This week was quite interesting. Full of so much that it's hard to explain what all has happened. I hope that as I try to explain, you can understand. I won't have a lot of pictures either because pictures of some things were not taken with my camera.

Last Saturday, I had my English class. It's fantastic. Always full of young men and women and a few adults from the ward. We worked hard on having fun this time. So I taught them Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. I have a video, but it's too big to send. It was a hoot and a half. They loved the motions and I even think they learned a little of the parts of their bodies. Even in English class, I can hardly speak English. I feel as though it's easier or more comfortable to just talk in Spanish. I don't know what I'm going to do back in America. Si quieren, les puedo escribir en español para que sea más fácil.

On Monday, I had a unique opporunity. I went out and worked with my trainer. It was the best and worst thing ever. I had some appointments planned, like one an hour. Lessons only last about 30 minutes, so we can say there's about a 10 minute block between each one with nothing exactly planned. What did we do? Bothered people. For instance, we knocked on a door and a 12 year old girl. She was like, "What do you want?" We told her what we wanted. We said, "We want to baptize you and your family". She got scared, and slammed the door. We left but her mom, a little worried about her daughter, came to the door. Exciting stuff. It is really weird to work with an old companion again. Especially now that I can speak Spanish. It was super funny.

On Tuesday, we had a Zone Activity! We went to Zone 1 in the capital. It's like a really big market with a lot of typical stuff. Anyway, I was with Elder Aragon again, the Zone Leaders, and two sister missionaries. It was super fun. We left the market and went to a train museum. (Pictures taken by other cameras). But that's not what was super good about it. What was awesome is the fact that when we were walking out of the train museum back to the market, we had to pass through a park. In the park there were benches and on the benches, there were people. In the middle of the benches with people on them, there was a preacher. He was going hard with his Bible in his hand. (As you should be able to tell, it's not a good thing when Elder Aragon and I get together). We couldn't pass the opportunity. One of the sister missionaries started filming. Elder Aragon grabbed a Law of Chastity pamphlet and I got a Book of Mormon. We decided to be preachers to. Elder Aragon started going a little ways down from the preacher, but not too far. He was preaching and talking about how everybody was going to be burned unless you lived the commandment (as a good preacher does). Then, I busted in with the good ole Jacob 2:35. But I read and explained it in English. Everybody turned to me and watched me as a North American in Guatemala preaching in English. It was so hilarious. The Zone Leaders couldn't handle it, so they like ran away and were dying laughing. They have watched the video at least 20 times.

This area is so awesome right now. So many people showing great potential. The Lord is going to start the ball rolling here again because we already see it starting. It's fun to be in the office as Executive Secretary because you learn new things each day. I'm learning really a lot of things that I'll be able to apply in my life that other missionaries don't learn while just being in the field. I've learned to be a problem solver and just get things done. It doesn't matter who I have to call, I call them (even if it be the Area 70!). When things go wrong, I'm depended on to get it right. When things go right, nobody thinks twice. Yes, I make mistakes, but it's fine. There's always a way to fix it, even if it's humbling yourself and apologizing. It's interesting how the Lord works in His missionaries. I love that I can see it.

Things are crazy. Life's good. I'm safe and healthy. The church is true. My testimony grows every day.

Love y'all!

--Elder Hunt