(No Subject)

Email received January 28, 2013

 

Hola familia,

 

I´m sorry that this letter is going to be short, I wanted to use more time to write to dad. I´m so sorry to hear about the passing of grandma, I hope you guys are holding up okay. Even though we know that it´s not the end, it´s still sad because we´re not with her now. But I´m praying for you all. So last week I got a great package from Aunt Lisa, Thank you very much. The photo album was perfect and has actually helped me a lot. The Paraguayos love photos so much so it´s a great way to connect with the people. So somehow I have been the only one that has kept my health out of the 4 elders that live in my apartment. The other Elders have all been sick with different things. I have a bit of a cold but it´s really not anything. I started chuckling inside when you told me you were shovelling snow mom because I completely forgot about shovelling snow. The past couple of nights have cooled down a little bit, I´ve been using my blanket (It´s just a fleece blanket like the ones that you guys all have), but it´s still super hot during the days. I was using this hat that the bishop gave me, but this lady we were talking with wanted it so I gave it to her. Lets see, I´m having a really hard time thinking about anything special that happened this week. We walked through the jungle, clapped some doors, and taught some people. I did cut down some tree branches with a macheti and I had a great barbeque.

 

So I´ve been trying to think about the lessons that I learned from you mom and dad that have been helping me alot on the mission. From Mom I would say the biggest lesson you´ve taught me that has really helped has been to be part of the solution not part of the problem. There are a lot of times where I just deciede to do something, like the dishes (even though I don´t have any) or things like that rather than complain about how the house is messy. It´s helped me be happier and get along better with my companion. From dad the lesson that I would say is key is that teaching someone a lesson never works. There have been a few times where I´ve tried to teach my companion a lesson by doing or not doing something. Then there have been times when I have decided to just do what I need to and what will help us both out and then we get along better and I feel good. There is a scripture in Mormon that talks about how the wicked punish the wicked, so I feel like if I´m trying to punish people and teach them lessons then I´m actually being wicked myself. I love you guys so much and I hope you have a great week.

 

Con Amor,

Elder Hulsey

 

P.s. the picture is the plaque I got in Guarani

P.s.s I also just got a hand written letter from Jeff that I´m excited to read

 

(No Subject)

Email received January 21, 2013

Hola Familia,

 

Hows everything back home, hopefully great. So this week was pretty great! First off we baptized Yonny on Saturday! It was way cool and his sister who's not a member came! Also I got to get in the water and baptize him! Everyone was laughing because it was very clearly my first time baptizing anyone and Yonny also tried to go under face first so I had to muscle him down the other way. But it was great and when we got in the bathroom to change he jumped because he was so excited. He also made it to church on time for his confirmation and a guy in the ward that came to Yonny´s baptism did the confirmation then gave a sweet talk in church that I think helped Yonny. I took a picture of Yonny with my plaque and I´m going to print it off and give it to him to remind him of his goal.

 

So this week I think I got roped into the illegal animal trafficking business. Last P-day an Elder from my district called us and was like hey I bought a monkey but it can´t stay here for the night, can you guys keep it for the night and tomorrow I´m going to give it to a member family. My companion was all for it so that night they brought it over but it wasn´t a monkey. My companion started laughing because it turns out the thing is actually some type of Mongoose! My companion was totally down to keep it for the night, but the first elder didn´t want to give it to the members anymore because it wasn´t actually a monkey and it would´ve eaten all of their chickens. So Elder Morinigo volunteered to send it to his family (without telling them by the way that he´s sending them a mongoose!). So the next morning we brought it over to this family that always carries packages to Elder Morinigo´s family for him and they brought it over there! Could you imagine if a mongoose just showed up at our house! Haha you´ve gotta love Paraguay and the Paraguayan way of life.

 

So as far as your questions mom, transfers are every 6 weeks, interviews with President are every 3 months. We will have transfers in 3 weeks but a lot of times they do special transfers and shuffle people around, and those would be occurring today. We have district meeting weekly, but the first week of the month we do zone training which is where the 2 districts in my zone have a meeting (without President). We have a huge zone conference with like 3 zones combined every other transfer and these usually take place in Asunción. This is where President and his wife and the assistants speak (and last time we even had a member of the 70 speak).

 

So that´s pretty crazy that Spencer is working on his mission papers! I realized this week how much progress I´ve made in my life since the beginning of my mission. It´s crazy because you do a lot of growing really fast and it´s hard, but then you come out of a hard time and you are so much happier and so much better. These past couple of months have been pretty hard but the most rewarding months of my life. It´s kinda weird because you´re thrown out here and you quickly learn that you have to depend on the Lord for everything, but it´s so cool when you consciously give up your will for His. A lot of things that I thought would be hard aren´t. Like I thought it would be hard to deal with people that don´t like Americans, but it´s actually kinda fun. Like just yesterday I got on the colectivo and this guy looked and me and said Get Out Yankee! I smiled and ignored him but he was pretty persistent, so I looked at him and asked him his name then asked him if he believes in Jesus Christ. I told him that I´m here in his country because I have an important message from Jesus Christ for him. He told me that Paraguay doesn´t need our dumb American message and I told him it´s for all of the world. He didn´t really have anything else to say after that. I tried inviting him to church but he quit listening to me. Haha those kinds of people make me laugh, but it´s really not hard. You can combat anything when you´re a missionary by simply bearing your testimony. I´m sure it works for people that aren´t missionaries too. The things that have been hard are having to humble myself and having to always think of your companion. I feel really bad for my companion because I´ve recently realized how prideful I am, but after some hard humbling experiences I´m so much happier and I feel so much better. It´s weird how easy it is to become prideful about things, even when your whole purpose is preaching the gospel. Pride sneaks in everywhere, but you can always pray for sincere help and it´s always worth the hard humbling process. As far as companions go it´s actually been pretty cool being able to see how everything I say and do has an effect on someone else and ultimately on our success. I´m sure my future wife will thank my companions because they have had to exercise a lot of patience as I try and figure out how to think of others before myself and working as a companionship. But it´s been great and Elder Morinigo has been super patient with me.

 

Well I love you guys a lot and I hope you're still doing all you can to live the way Heavenly Father wants you to. We´ve got great investigators and life is excelente here in Paraguay! I´m loving the people, the culture, the language, everything! Keep me in your prayers and my cousins on their missions too, and tell them I say hi.

 

Con Amor,

Elder Hulsey

(No Subject)

Email received January 14, 2013

Hola familia,

That´s so funny that you guys are dying of the cold up there, it´s so dang hot here. A member told me that the hottest day of the year passed last week, but I was in the nice air conditioning of the hospital in Asunción (I´ll explain in a little). But I showed this same member family our family picture and the hermana was pretty much in tears. The members here are pretty nice, but they are a little difficult to get to help us in the work. Pretty much we walk around in the sun all day and clap doors. That´s how we do most of our finding but lately we´ve been getting more references from the people we´re teaching so it´s been pretty helpful. Yonny (Johnny) came to church again and he also went for us (not with us but for us) to look for an investigator that lives close to him. He´s so great. He didn´t have enough money to pay for the colectivo to get to church but he had enough faith so he made it. He´s 15 years old but he already dropped out of high school, but he told me that he really wants to go on a mission so he´s going to do a program that will get him something like a GED I think so he can go. I think he's going to get baptized soon (maybe this Saturday), I´m super excited.

So about the hospital... Last week one of the Elders that I live with, Elder Behymer, got really sick and had to go to the hospital. He couldn´t take any medicine because he threw it up, so he had to be admitted to the hospital and have an IV (and the poor kid hates needles and hospitals more than anything). So President didn´t want his area to not be worked for all the days he would be in the hospital, so we did a division. I went to the hospital and stayed with him and his companion and Elder Morinigo went to work. It was pretty boring because we couldn´t watch tv or anything, but it was still pretty fun. We studied, talked, and did a lot of preaching to the nurses. A super nice member family brought us McDonalds and then we ordered Pizza Hut twice! I got a huge confidence boost in my Spanish because Elder Behymer speaks about as well as I do, so it was the two of us figuring out the hospital and I feel like we did pretty well. It made me feel bad for anytime I´ve ever been impatient with Hispanic people that might take a little while in front of me in line, it´s pretty tough. But it was way cool, I talked to this one nurse and her family was from Italy. I told her mine too and we started talking a little bit about family history work. I got her name and number and she said the missionaries can come by and teach her a little more about the wonderful resources we have for family history work and the Book of Mormon (also I did get the money grandma sent in my pocket. It almost made me cry when I found it because that´s a lot of money down here). I also had my interview with President this week. It was nice talking with him, he´s such a great guy (watch out for him in conference someday, I bet he´ll be a general authority after his mission). He told me that it´s cool if you guys mail me a copy of the film of your ward Christmas Party, he told me I can watch it on P-days.

 

Well my time is about up, but I want to tell you something that I am learning. This week Elder Morinigo did a division with the other elder and the other elder told me that Elder Morinigo seemed upset. It was the same when I got back with him, but I just started praying that things would get better and I felt really good. But there were still problems and I had no idea what was going on. But on Sunday, yesterday, I was talking with another elder that I live with. He´s had some struggles on the mission and has even talked to President about going home, as I talked with him I realized that he really just wanted someone to listen to him. So I sat and listened and tried not to talk too much and it was really neat. I decided that I would try the same with Elder Morinigo. It took a little while to get him to start talking, but once he started he didn´t stop! We talked for about 2 and a half hours and I just tried to listen and laugh as he told me stories. Today has been a lot better, he´s been joking around and everything. I think there are a lot of us that have things to say, but not a lot of us just listen. I decided that I´m going to work on being a good listener and I think it will help me get along with people a lot better. I love you guys and I pray for you often. I will keep grandma Marla in my prayers and send her my love.

 

Con Amor

Elder Hulsey

P.s. I decided that it´d probably be best if you just deareldered my cousins and friends letters once a month. Also the pictures are of a sunset (not in the jungle, just from my house so it´s not that great) and the "whithcraft" that Elder Morinigo drinks when he doesn't feel good.

 

(No Subject)

Email received January 7, 2013

Hola familia!,

Hows everyone doing? did you pass the year new good (that´s a direct translation from Spanish, ¿pasaron el año nuevo bien?) New years here was interesting, but first off, changes. Elder Morinigo and I are together, and the other Elders that we live with are together too, so changes didn't really affect us. Most of the changes that happened were pretty small, a lot of people changed companions but stayed in the zone. But Cayden Brown joined the zone! We played soccer this morning then had lunch, now he´s sitting right next to me in the cyber. That will be a lot of fun I think. We normally play soccer as a zone on P-days then sometimes we do stuff together, then we always have district meetings on Tuesdays but the two districts in our zone have their meetings in the same chapel at the same time so we always get to see the people from the other district. It´s great, my zone is awesome!

So for new years we went to a huge bbq at the bishops house. They had every type of meet you can imagine and just tons of food. The problem is that the people here eat dinner at like 10:30 or 11 (tell Spencer they follow T-bone´s eating schedule), but the bishop was nice enough to let us eat at 9:00. Our rule is home by 10:00 if you´re in a lesson or something so it worked out good. We were supposed to keep our normal schedule but that´s almost impossible for the holidays. But it´s cool, we talked to the zone leaders and we were home around 10:30 I think so we were good. The streets were packed all night long and they were covered with people selling fireworks! Fireworks are a little more tame here. They don´t have big lights, they´re just loud, but it was still fun. They will sell fireworks to anyone too, even to like 6 year olds, and the kids think it´s super funny to throw them at us and yell at us to cover our ears (and it really is funny because the fireworks don´t do anything but the kids just love it). It´s really fun. There was this one firework though that was so loud that it set off a car alarm! But yeah so the next day, January 1st, there was literally nobody on the streets! Everybody was sleeping (most were sleeping off hang-overs). And on top of that it was a bit of a rainy day too! It was so weird to not hear or see anybody except for other missionaries going to district meeting. We tried going out and just visit a less active family but they were asleep. So we went with the other Elders to a member's house and they made us little smokeys and a lemon pie! It was the first pie I´ve had in Paraguay (I miss pie a lot).

The rest of this week was a little weird. Elder Morinigo was sick and and one of the other Elders we live with got some jungle virus (not contagious) this week so him and his companion had to go to the hospital. They´ve been there for a few days and I´m still not sure how he´s doing, but I think he´ll be okay. Oddly enough I´ve been pretty healthy. No major stomach aches or head aches (just the usual) so I´m glad I´ve been so blessed. So we weren't able to go out every day but on Tuesday I got a Liahona in English with the talks from the last general conference so I was able to read all of those talks. I learned a lot, it was pretty great. But my companion is interesting when it comes to how he cures himself! We went to this random lady who sells weeds and sticks and he bought some and put water in it and started drinking it! It didn´t work, but he told me he bought the wrong ones so we´re going back today to buy different weeds. As a joke I call it his brujeria (witchcraft) and he just laughs and says we´ve got to buy a different witchcraft. Haha also the bishop´s wife had all sorts of remedies for him (like putting this water-flour mix on his stomach) it´s funny. We went to this pharmacist and the Bishop´s wife said you just tell the guy your symptoms and he´s got something for you, but he only speaks guarani (so that means his medicine is a little sketchy) but that all of the missionaries should go to this guy because he hooks it up. They were getting my companion all of this stuff and they felt bad for me, so they bought me chocolate milk and cookies. But yeah we´ll see if the brujeria that we buy today will make him better, haha. It´s fun but I think that when I´m sick I´m not going to let anyone know.

So this week even though we couldn´t go out and work very much we still had 4 investigators in church! We had a family (not married yet) and that was great, then we had our investigator that´s progressing the most, Joni (Johnny), too. Johnny is awesome! He´s Antonia´s son and he´s 16 years old. He came to church last week and I didn´t think he really liked it, but I was praying the whole time that even if he didn´t understand some of the things that he would feel good and recognize his good feelings. When we went and visited him this Wednesday he had read the pamphlet we left him twice and he perfectly understood the importance of the priesthood and the restoration! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he´s been reading it faithfully. He´s super excited about the church. He got a little backpack that perfectly fits his Book of Mormon and pamphlets that we leave him and he carries that around! We asked him if he´s been praying to know specifically if this church is true and he told us that he´s been trying to be super specific. He prayed to know if Joseph smith was a prophet, if the angel Moroni really showed him the gold plates, if he translated them, super specific! He´s scheduled to get baptized on January 26th so I hope things keep going smoothly with him. We´ve got a couple of pretty great investigators, it´s really nice. Things are going pretty great in good ´ol Marambure B.

Well my time is almost up. With all of the time I had to study this week I learned a lot. Perhaps the most important thing that I realized is that I need to live up to my potential. For example I´ve got faith, and I would say that I use it too, but not as much as I could. One lady turned two dried sea-biscuits into a pot full of food because of her faith in Christ. I realized that I´m doing good, but I can be doing so much better in developing the Christ-like attributes (luckily there is a whole chapter about that in Preach My Gospel). I love you guys so much, keep studying and increasing in testimony and more importantly conversion (see Elder Bednar´s latest conference talk).

Con amor,
Elder Hulsey

P.S. I´ve hand written a couple of my friends but I can´t email them (rule from Pres. Madariaga). So if you could just forward their letters through dearelder that would be best then I will hand write them letters. Thanks.

(No Subject)

Email received December 31, 2012

Hola mí familia,

How is everyone this week? I got super lucky with my computer this week and the keyboard that i´m using is brand new and says exactly what each key is so it´s a lot easier to use. That´s cool that Spencer and Caleb are watching stand and deliver, it seems like just yesterday Andrew and I were watching that same movie, but we were´nt cool like them so we didn´t have girls come over and watch it with us. I can´t believe you guys bought new couches! I´m not going to recognize a thing when I get home (just kidding, congratulations).

So I got the other two packages (the ones to help me prepare for Christmas) the day after Christmas, haha, but the timing couldn´t have been better. I also got a package from the Otterstroms that day that had a pillow case, some treats, and some really nice notes. Cam Carter wrote his in Spanish and it was really fun reading it. He gave me some great advice about learning the language that has actually helped me a lot this week. But what I loved the most were the testimonies in the Christmas tree. I kept them all and I read some whenever I need a boost (also let uncle mike know that I found Elder Seaton. I ate lunch with him at zone conference a few weeks ago and he loves uncle mike. He also knows Andrew´s brother big Steven and I think he stayed the night at their house once, small world right). One of the testimonies was from grandma and it couldn´t have come at a better time. We´ve been working with an inactive guy whose wife is not a member. He´s down to come back to church but he recently was in a motorcycle accident so he can´t walk or get on a bus. They have two little girls and his wife wasn´t really interested in listening to us. But a little while ago we did some service for them during a visit and I think it really touched her heart so she let us start talking with her. I realized their situation was pretty similar to grandma and grandpa´s when grandma got baptized, so I decided to read grandma´s conversion story. After I read it I was still a little unsure about how I could use it to help this family, but then that day I got the package with grandma´s testimony in it and it was super clear to me how to share it. I felt super good about sharing the story and how I could use it to help them. The lesson was super powerful and spiritual, however she told us that she´s not ready to change, she really doesn´t like the idea of not worshipping the Virgin. But when we left I feel like we really planted a good seed and I honestly feel like one day they will be sealed in the temple. But that was hard, losing one of our best investigators. We also talked with another one of our greatest investigators, a family that was pretty interested, but they told us that they don´t want to change because they´re to afraid of what their family will say. People are funny because even if they know it´s true, sometimes they´re still not willing to change. There was this one couple a few weeks ago that straight up told us that they´re going to stop reading the Book of Mormon because they´re afraid it´s true!

 

So I still don´t know what´s going on with changes, we´ll find out tonight. Everyone thinks that my companion will go and that I´ll stay but we´ll see. I don´t mind either way, or even if we stay together another change. I like the area. It´s been different getting along with a Latin companion because he and I think very differently. For example here on holidays, people don´t eat dinner until like 10:00 at night. So last night we got invited to dinner at 10:00 and he was like sure that´d be great! Things like that happen a lot, but we always talk and pray and it always works out. I´ve learned a lot with him. My companion is super patient with me and he´s got some really great qualities about him too. Whenever I start thinking about something annoying that he´s doing I think, I guarantee it´s pretty annoying for him to have an American companion that barely speaks Spanish and I think about what I can do to help him.
 

On Sunday I gave my talk. It was funny because two weeks ago when they asked me they told me my topic was Christmas. When I missed it they did not tell me that I would have the opportunity to speak the next week, so I gave my same Christmas talk and tried to apply it more generally, I think it went okay. Also on Sunday we had an investigator in church! Johnny, he´s Antonia´s son and he´s 15 came pretty much straight from a quince (the big party for you´re 15th birthday) so it was quite a sacrifice. He and his mom are progressing, it´s great! we´ve also been teaching a girl named Mari (she looks just like Mariah Reber) and her boyfriend Abraham (and they don´t even live together! Rare find). They came to the ward Christmas party and even sang 2 karaoke songs! The problem is that Mari´s sister kicked us out twice so we have to get creative. Luckily there´s a member girl who's preparing for a mission, her call should be here any day now. and she lives really close and she and Mari are the same age.

 

Well it´s about time for me to go. I love you guys so much and espero que pasen el año nuevo excelentemente! Things are pretty great out here in the Paraguay. Keep on keeping on the right path and fighting the good fight. Remember that God wants us to succeed. We can be sure and take comfort that everything that happens to us, when we´re trying to live right, is for our good and often times is how God is preparing us for something else and helping us reach our full potential.

 

Con Amor,

Elder Hulsey