Hola Querida familia!
Boy what a week, the meeting with Elder Christofferson was super cool. His Spanish is incredible and I learned a lot. His conference was so much different than Elder Bednar´s. Elder Bednar last year talked a lot about doctrine and dropped us some cane but Elder Christofferson was super nice and happy and hilarious. He was saying so many funny things that I wouldn´t have expected from an apostle and it was really reassuring to see because it let me know it is okay to laugh and joke and be having a great time as you are doing the work. He didn´t really have a specific theme for his talk, he pretty much just asked questions and used the panel of guests that he had (the mission presidents from the 2 missions because it was a double mission conference, 2 members of the 70 and all of their wives) to help him answer them. It was cool because I noticed that the way he did his conference is the way we should be teaching a first lesson. Getting to know the people´s needs by asking them questions and helping them see how they can use the pure and simple gospel doctrines to solve their lives problems. I learned a lot and it was super fun because I got to see all of my old comps, even the ones that got switched to south mission. Speaking of switching... I got a call today from the asistentes and I´m being switched areas. I´m going to a new area called Mariano Roque Alonzo A and I´m going to train again and be the zone leader out there. I´m super excited to get to train again and we´ll be doing a white wash so it will be super fun to just start from scratch but I´m super sad to leave Trinidad and Elder Beus. Yesterday we had a church attendance of 117 people, that´s triple the amount that were coming my first couple of weeks! We also had a whole less-active family come back (we didn´t even really have to do much to help them) and we had 8 investigators in church! We have a baptism tomorrow and another 2 on Saturday with another one the next Saturday and two more the Saturday after that! I´m super bummed to be leaving because I´ve learned so much about relying on the Lord since I´ve been here, but I honestly feel like I´ve been able to be the instrument that the Lord wanted me to be here. I really hope that the same miracles that I´ve been seeing here in the past couple of months continue over to the people in Marano because I´ve just been at the highlight of my life lately. There was going to be a kid coming in from the Dominican Republic and I was really hoping to train him but rumor has it that he´s not actually coming in until the next change, but I´ll find out on Wednesday who I get to train. Training is super fun so I´m way excited to do that again and like I said I love white-washing an area and getting to establish your relation with the members and everything. I didn´t want to leave but I kinda knew I would and this was how I wanted it, white-washing and training. My new zone will be super interesting because It´s the chaco zone. My area is real close to Asunción but there are areas in the zone that are 9 hour bus rides away so it´ll be interesting to see how we work out divisions and such. The other zone leader is in one of those areas but it´ll be a super fun adventure and I´m super excited to get to know my new area.
So today I got to go mountain biking and it was sooooooooo much fun! I´m going to try to send some pics that I snapped because it was so beautiful. I now have to goal to mountain bike on every continent. Mom how was your birthday? Soy lo peor de tus hijos por no haberte felicitado en el día de tu cumpleaños, pero felicidades ahora! Also un gran felicidades to Duba doo (that´s caleb in case you´ve forgotten). I think it was a picture of him that you sent me but I didn´t recognize anything. Not Emma´s date (that was weird seeing dance stuff again, brought me back), not Maren not the couch not Caleb, it´s like I don´t know you! Haha but thanks for the pictures, I loved seeing them. Well I´ve got to go and pack up to go to my next area and prepare for my baptism tomorrow so wish me luck. I hope you all have a fantastic week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Elder Beus and I rockin our cerro porteño (my favorite soccer team out here) get up and me riding my bike through the jungle.
