Hunter's last 2 emails are below:
10/21/13 email
Hunter’s email is short.
Hey first I will answer your question… no, they do not have
spaghetti mixes and things in the apartment but you can buy them at the
market. You can cook in your apartment
whatever you want to cook. You don't need to send any mixes I am good for
now. I'm not feeling baggy yet. Hermana Jackie's cooking is really good and
she cooks a lot for us. Don't worry mom
I'm eating haha! We have about 12 or 13
investigators progressing and everyday we teach people. The work is very different from what you
might think it is. Many people get the
conception that we knock on doors all day but we have a thing called Plan A, B,
and C. Plan A is working with the
leaders of the church to get work done with investigators. Plan B is
working with members of the church to do work such as members during
investigator lessons, and Plan C is solo missionaries. We want to be working Plan A and B all the
time, because it is always more powerful when the investigator sees someone
they know or a native is normal and part of the Mormon Church.
We placed a fecha(date) for a baptism in November, and
hopefully it doesn't fall through. Things are going good here, my companion
is really great and the zone is cool.
I am starting a study journal as I begin reading the Libro De
Mormon again and I am starting to see things that I have overlooked my whole
life.
I am trying to do good over here, and I am surviving! I guess dad is right... I am comfortable
being in uncomfortable place. I am getting eaten alive by bugs as I sleep. I have started using the bug spray and the
past few nights were okay.
Have a good week guys! I will talk to you next Monday!
10/28/13 email
My week was good and we did a lot. I have a few stories to tell you. I got
bit by 2 dogs in 2 different members’ houses. The first is at this lady’s
house named Mama Concha, and she has this chucha (dogs are called Chucho or
Chucha here) from off the street in the back of the house and as we were going
upstairs it bit me in the ankle, but luckily I wear my army boots everyday so
the bite didn't pierce. Speaking of boots, I just realized that these
boots have seen so much terrain in it’s lifetime …. they are really dependable
and it would be cool if you could find a pair for me and hold on to it so I
have a new pair for when I get back?
So the second dog was in a yard of a member’s house in an
area of our area called Potrero Grande. I was walking towards the house
with the hermana that owns the house, and my companion. And
then this Chucha walks up to me sniffs my thigh then bites me, and I thought
for sure that it broke skin because this dog was way bigger than the last one
that bit me, and the bite was really strong. But when I checked my thigh,
I saw that it didn’t penetrate and that it only poked small holes in my pants,
but all in all I just have a small bruise from the bite.
The next crazy story, and this is the highlight of my
week... is that one night when we were leaving the Jardines (area) from a
lesson with a family. We were walking
down this hill to get back to the Joya where we live, and this hill leads down
to a little intersection that all the buses stop at and there are a few small
tiendas(stores) at the bottom of this hill. So we are walking down this
hill and all of a sudden we hear "pop, pop, pop, pop" and then we
freeze, look at each other and we are like "crap, that’s gunshots!" So then we continue walking down this hill,
and people are running up this hill because the gunshots came from the
intersection. A tuktuk (little red moped
transportation vehicles) comes up and we get in, but he can’t get through the
intersection because of all the people, so he lets us out, and we walk through
this intersection and ask people what happened. In the intersection there
was a yellow school bus that is all souped out with paint like all of them are
(the kind we ride everywhere), but people were running away and screaming and
stuff. When we asked what happened they said that a man shot the bus
driver 4 times and ran out of the bus into the night. The ambulance already
took the driver away, and there were many people there, but as we continued
walking down the road towards the Joya, I realized that we had been blessed.
If our lesson had been a minute or two shorter, we would have been in
that intersection, and it is a fact here that if there are witnesses to a crime
and they know you saw their face that they will blow your brains out. So I realized that every question that went on
in that lesson, every pause, every answer, helped to prolong our time there so
we would not be in danger. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and we may
not know why things happen the way they do, or why blessings or opportunities
come at different times and in different places, but everything happens for a
reason. The Lord has a plan for each and every person in the world, and
through obedience and faithfulness, everyone can be blessed and their paths
guided in all that they do.
I don't know why I tore my ACL during that season of
football, or during this past season of baseball, but I know that those things
prepared me and helped me grow. I know that if I had not been injured, I
would not have been able to meet the people I did, or go to the area I am in
now, or experience the things that I am experiencing now. At the time, I
didn't know why, and I admit that I am a little ashamed that at the time my
testimony wasn't strong enough to handle the experience, so I got angry. I now realize that every experience is there
to strengthen you and make you a better person.
Today, guess where we went for our P-day zone activity? BOWLING! Haha it was really fun... Okay, when you send
things don't worry … the system is pretty good here and Elder Trupp said that
he received all his packages. They told us not to put the religious
stickers because it makes you seem like you are trying too hard to bring things
into the country.
We are doing well in Palencia and we have a few
good progressing investigators, but it is really frustrating when people do not
do their part and complete our challenges to pray, etc. We can only help
them as much as they want us to. You can't give someone a true testimony,
they are the only ones that can get it for themselves.
We set another baptismal fecha(date) and we are trying to
work with the other, because she doesn’t come to church, and we can’t baptize
her if she doesn’t go to church. A lot of people don't go to church
because it is too great of a sacrifice, so we have to really teach them the
value of church and what it can do for them.
All in all I had a really good week and still going strong
and not feeling baggy. Hey, I have to go
now time is up have a good week, I love you guys!
No comments:
Post a Comment