Email received August 12, 2013
Hola Familia!
Hey sorry I really don´t have hardly anytime today because we had a big zone barbecue today that went really late, but I´ll try to get the good stuff in. Last week was really fun at the TGI Fridays, they made me do the chicken dance but then they gave me a brownie for it so it was all worth it. I´ve got another drunk story from the same guy that told me I have a number 4 on my face. He was listening as we were reading Galatas 5 about the Holy Ghost and as we read each characteristic he would nod his head and say "Approved". Haha so now me and my companion keep joking about that and saying "Aprobado" at every little thing. I feel like I´m making progress on my language, my companion is helping me a lot realize the little things I can change to fix my accent, and there´s a lot so there´s a lot to do. Sometimes I feel like my mouth just cant make the sound, but it has to be possible so I'm going to keep trying. This Sunday was pretty interesting, but one of the coolest experiences of my mission. So church starts at 8:00 Sunday mornings and at 8:45 there were 7 people in attendance (4 missionaries, an active young woman, her friend visiting from another ward, and this less-active young man my comp and I are teaching)! I couldn´t believe that no body came. We have sacrament last and by the time we were doing the sacrament there were about 62 people in attendance, but the cool part about that was about 15 of those in attendance were less-active members that haven´t been to church in at least a month (for most of them it´s been years)! I was so happy to see them coming back and they all said that they are going to keep coming back. It was a really cool feeling for me to see all of these people trying to change and do the right thing. As I hit my year mark in my mission I thought back about all of the things that I´ve learned in the past year. I still haven´t seen the gold plates or the sword of Laban and I still am not sure where Kolob is, but what I´ve learned about faith and repentance and baptism and the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end, and the relationship that I´ve been able to develop with my Savior are incredible and to me far more valuable. We were teaching a lesson this week and the lady started telling us this story about how this soldier didn´t know how to drive a car but then he read the bible and prayed and all of the sudden he was able to drive and that this was a great miracle. I told her yeah but I realized that those miracles are great and they come from God, but the greatest miracle can be accomplished is the forgiveness of our sins. There´s a story in the New testament where Christ is brought this trembling kid and the first thing that Christ tells him is that his sins are forgiven him. The pharisees begin to say that that´s not what the guy needs, so then Christ says that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins I command you to walk and the kid was healed. So many of us, myself included, seem to think a lot that the most miraculous things that Christ does are heal us or help us get through a hard time, and these things are huge and great and are miracles given to us because Christ loves us and wants us to be happy, but I realized that in the long run a lot of those things aren´t that important because as long as we have the forgiveness of our sins it doesn´t matter how are health is or what we´re going through because we will have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God (D&C 14:7). But like I said Christ wants us to be happy and to enjoy life so he also blesses us with great miracles that make life a lot better and they come from Him, but I realized that I had really taken for granted just how big and important the remission of sins really is. I hope you guys have an awesome week!
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
P.S I can´t believe Josh Torgerson is already coming home, that´s wild! Tell him hi for me.
