Hola familia,
I know I say this every week but this week really was wow! So many things. First off it was super nice talking to you all. I feel bad like I should´ve thought of better things to say but I was just so happy to see all of you guys (even though you all look like strangers haha). Then Christmas eve we had permission to be out until 11:30 if we were eating the traditional GIANT Christmas eve feast with members or investigators and a family had invited us over so we went with them. Then I got home and made my companion cinnamon rolls from scratch (because there is nothing pre-packaged here) and they actually turned out! I mean they weren´t Sister Allphin quality but I enjoyed them. Then Christmas day we got some cool visits in, lots of work with the less-actives. Then the next day we had the branch Christmas party. I decided to take your advice mom and invite our investigators, one of them showed up and they actually gave him a part in the live nativity, it was super fun. We brought pancakes that I also made from scratch, I´m learning how to make breakfast! Anyways when I called home I told you that I thought I would be finishing up the misision here in Mariano but it turns out I was wrong. So tommorrow I´m going back to Trinidad, but this time Trinidad A instead of B and it will be as the assistant to the President! I didn’t sleep at all because I was so nervous. So Elder Ellefson is getting a new companion to finish up his training, someone that has about the same amount of time as Spencer. I´m super excited to go back to Trinidad because Elder Beus is still there and he´s with my MTC comp, and my companion will be Elder Dickson and we lived in the same house in my second area so that will be pretty fun being his comp. President said that he wants to put a big focus on obedience with exactness, espeially since our mission is so young. It´ll be interesting to see what kind of adventures and challenges await me. Like I said I was super nervous but I started studying my patriarchal blessing and I found a lot of peace and confidence. I´m kinda bummed in some ways because we´ve been finding some super awesome people lately and we had our highest church attendance since I´ve been here yesterday, and we had a super cool investigator come to church and some super cool less-actives too but the Lord calls us to do things for His purposes even if it doesn´t necessarily make sense to us.
So this week I also had some super cool Spiritual experiences. So on Saturday we were doing our best to be able to visit everybody we could to get them to come to church the next day and we were pretty much running from appointment to appointment, but I felt inspired to go visit this girl that we hadn´t actually met yet, we just knew where her house was. I tried ignoring it but the thought was pretty persistant so I decided to just go. On the way down we crossed paths with this less active lady and we talked to her for a second and I felt like that was why the Lord wanted us to walk that way and I felt good about following the original plans again that we had put. Well the next day I was walking away from a visit from some american baptists (that was an interesting experience and it was something else teaching in english) and I saw this lady sitting in front of her house. She kinda looked at me funny so I waved and kept walking but then I felt like I needed to go and talk with her, so I did and before we even introduced ourselves she had us sitting down. She said that she has a son that is in deep with drugs and vices and she has a hit a point where she just doesn´t know anymore what to do to help him. She said she was talking to someone and they said to talk to the guys that always walk around. She said that a few days ago she was sitting down and some walked in front of her and didn´t talk with her and she thought they must not be the ones to help her. So she was praying a ton for something to help her son and when she saw us she thought that we were the answer but it looked like we were going to keep walking too, but then when we turned back and came to talk with her she knew we were the ones that could help. Then later that night we were walking home and I saw a girl with a baby just sit down on the side walk. I waved and was just going to keep walking because I usually try to avoid talking with girls but I felt like I should go and talk with her. So as I approached her I realized that she was crying. I presented my companion and me and I told her Jesus loves her. I asked her why she was crying and she just broke down. She was only 17 years old and she lives with her mom but in awful conditions and her and her mom don`t have a great relationship to say the least. She had gone to her baby´s dad´s house to ask him for some money to buy the baby some stuff and he started hitting her. She was so sad and I felt so sorry for her. She said she had to go because her mom would yell at her if she got home late but she gave us her address and said to come by and share with her, she has been to church before because the lady that lives behind her is a member and invited her once. I feel like had I not have followed the spiritual promptings the first time I might not have been as receptive to them the next times, where I was able to be the hands of the Lord in helping people that really needed it. I´m so happy to be a part of this incredible work and I know it´s what the Lord wants me to do. It´s hard to be trunky when there is so much to do so don´t worry about that, I´m fine. There are lots of people that the Lord is preparing and all I have to do is follow the Spirit and talk with everyone so I can find them. I´m not here to convince anyone or force our message on anyone either. I´m here to help people by inviting them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. The Spirit does the convincing and the preparing, I am just a messenger in the Lord´s hands (that´s not an excuse to not be persistent or diligent by the way). I think if we can really understand what is our role than we will do all we can to work hard and talk with everyone and have the Spirit (which comes by our preparation and obedience) and we will not get down-hearted. We will be sad when people don´t except the message or the blessings offered them but we never have to feel discouraged. I love this work and I love the Lord. New Years will be spent in Trinidad and I have until 11:30 at night again to be out and luckily I´m getting changed to an area where I already know the members and my comp so I won´t have to pass new years with strangers. I hope you have a prospero año!
Con muchísimo amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Con muchísimo amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
