Email received January 6, 2014
Hola familia!
Haha this week has been pretty wild. I feel like this week was sooooooooooo full of things to do but it went by soooooooooooooooo fast. I got to learn how to drive here in Paraguay (just imagine mario kart in real life) and plan a training meeting for the leaders of the mission. It´s been a super weird experience here in the office because I´m not used to sitting behind a desk, but I´ve already learned so much. I´ve already got to know a whole new side of President McMullin and it´s been super cool seeing the administrative side of the mission. I also love being back in Trinidad. The branch president gave me a huge hug when he saw me and just started telling me all these people that he wanted me to visit. It was cool because I got to see a lot of the people that I had helped while I was in Trinidad. I was super nervous that nobody would remember me but everyone recognized me and seemed genuinely excited to see me again which made me feel really good. New years was pretty cool because there was this super less-active lady in Trinidad and I met her once right before I left and did some service for her. Well it turns out after I left she got active and is now the relief society president and we had a new years dinner with her and her family. It was pretty cool. Also we have some pretty cool investigators that are progressing super well. One of them named Marcia is getting baptized on Saturday and then her parents are getting married on the 25th then the guy will be getting baptized. We also visited them on New years too. The guy is named Cesar and he is super funny. The hard part is that we don´t have a lot of time to be working our area. President told us that Trinidad has been spoiled to have us for so long so he wants us to put our program in Trinidad on back burner and he wants us on the road doing divisions to train the missionaries. We got some little bed rolls and he wants us 4 times a week out in the field doing divisions. I also get to go tour all the zones in the mission next week to give a training to all of the zones with my companion and President. It´s been a great experience learning things from him. I´m learning so much about the running of large organizations and it´s super fascinating. My Preparation day is still on Mondays but I´m not sure if I´ll always be able to write home on Mondays because this is a busy day in the office. Our Preparation day used to be Saturday with the rest of the office elders but a few months ago it was changed to Monday so that we can visit people on Saturday and help them come to church the next day and with the limited time we have to work in our area I´m happy with it. I honestly don´t really know how much weight I´ve lost, it´s been a while since I´ve stepped on a scale, but don´t worry because the mission office is right next door to a burger king and right in front of a super nice grocery store so whatever weight I may have lost will most likely be coming right back on (plus when you´re on divisions you tend to eat a lot of empanadas and lomitos which aren´t the healthiest things for you).
I really get along well with my new companion. Like I said I lived with him in capiatá and so I already know him. He´s from Ogden and planning on going to Utah State after the mission too. He´s super nice and thoughtful, my first day he polished my shoes while I was in the shower for our new missionary and trainer meeting. He also has been super patient with me as I´m mastering my stick shift abilities and my new assignment. It´s also really nice being with him because he´s a great missionary and a really good teacher so we had some super cool lessons. Yesterday for example we were preparing some stuff for our presentation today and President came out of his office and said there were some kids playing basketball out front and he wanted to go talk with them. We went and talked and President told them that Elder Dickson and I would give them a church tour (which neither of us had ever done before). Haha it turned out okay and we got some solid references. President had snuck back into his office and we thought he had left but after he came jumping out to see how it went. haha he´s a really funny guy. I´ve been learning so much about my missionary purpose and just about whose work this is. I think my motivation to keep working hard is as high as it´s ever been because there is so much to do there´s no time to think about anything else. I love the Lord and I love this work. I am super pumped and tired at the same time, but my prayers have gotten so much better lately so at night I always have a super nice prayer and fall right asleep. I´ve got to go now but I will talk to you next week.
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
