Email received April 7, 2014
Hola familia!
Man can you just say like the BEST week ever! On Tuesday we got to go to the temple with the zone and do a session and it was the first time I got to see the new video (they tell me there´s two now), AWESOME!!!!! It was such a great experience, I loved it so much. Then I was so excited for General Conference, like serriously though I felt like it was Christmas. I woke up at like 3 in the morning on Saturday morning to go to the bathroom and sub-conciously I thought "yes, only 9 more hours until conference! (because they showed it at 12:00 here)". And boy did it hit the mark! I loved it so much and learned so much too. The family we were teaching wasn´t able to come to President´s house with us so that didn´t work out, but it was great because Dexter and Pedro came and watched and loved it! They are both super excited to get baptized. Dexter accepted a date for the 19th, I just hope that we can get him ready by that day because neither him nor us have a lot of time. Pedro after the conference told us that he was reading in the LDM (that´s the BoM for you gringos) and loved it! He said that it answered some of his big questions and that he´s super excited to keep reading, Dexter did the same thing! Man the gospel of Jesus Christ is so cool!
We have a big week planned for this week. We´re going out tomorrow morning to do a division that´s about a 2 hour bus ride away in a place called Santaní, then Wednesday and Thursday we´ll be on division out about a 7 hour bus ride away down by Brazil in a place called Pedro Juan Caballero, it's a super fun week.
Well I'm about out of time but I would've loved to write about how cool all of the conference talks were. I loved Elder Oaks' talk and pretty much the entire second session on Saturday. I love you all and hope you have an excellent week.
con mucho amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Banner
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
(No Subject)
Hola Familia,
Last week was yet another great week in the “guay”. I love Paraguay so much. We had a busy week of traveling around and doing zone capacitations (meetings). Elder Dickson and I are getting along real well. Tonight we´ll find out if he´s getting changed out or not. He´s been in the office for 5 changes now and he only has two changes left so he´d love to spend them out in the field, but he´s down with whatever. I´m glad you got the truck working, I´m positive that I had no gun fights in or near the truck, but if we´re coming clean about things that happened in the truck... just kidding I think I´ve already come clean about everything before I left. I´m a little nervous to drive again in the United Sates because the laws (or lack thereof) here a lot different and I´ve developed some pretty bad habits on the road.
So we taught a super cool lesson to Pedro about the Word of Wisdom but for some reason he was not able to go to church on Sunday (I think it´s because his member girlfriend wanted him to wait to get baptized, he didn´t but she did, so they all traveled Sunday morning). But he´s super cool and I know he´ll get baptized soon. I got the video of Eli singing. His little voice isn´t as little as I remember it being- it was super fun to watch. These days I don´t think I can even get trunky. I´m so afraid of going home that sometimes it stresses me out. I feel like I just barely started my mission but I can´t even really remember what life was like not being a missionary. As we were traveling with President this last week he looked at Elder Dickson and I and told us, "man, you guys are going home soon", haha (we deserved it because we were giving him a hard time about his birthday on Saturday). But it was nice because we were able to have a really nice discussion just about what to do after to stay strong and the blessings of serving a mission and how great it is being a missionary. I tried asking him about any possible way to extend, he said the chances are not good. That gave me a little hope that there were some chances (even if they´re bad ones) but then he said that our chances are as good as Elder Breadsguards´ were (and he didn´t get them). Dang.
So about the Easter package, don´t worry about sending it. I´m not even sure if it will get here before I go and I just got the package that had my shoes in it (love the package by the way, the sasquatch jerky was AWESOME!) and I think that will suffice. I really like all of the stuff that they have here in Paraguay. So like I´ve mentioned, we traveled this week. One of the places we did a capacitation was called Santaní. From there we had scheduled a division with some Elders that were in an area about 2 hours away (or so we were told) in a place called Santa Rosa. So we hopped on a bus from Santani and headed towards Santa Rosa. Our options for this little more than 2 hour bus trip were watch the movie they were showing, contact the 2 20 year girls on the bus, or take a nap. We were tired because we were working off of just a few hours of sleep and we knew that that night we also wouldn´t be getting too much sleep so we decided that our best option would be to take a little nap. The driver was advised that we were going to get off in Santa Rosa and normally they come and get you, plus we set alarm clocks on our phones to wake us up before we got there so we fell asleep. Well about an hour and 40 minutes later this guy walks back and asks us if we were going to get off in Santa Rosa and we said yeah, are we close? He told us to run off because we just barely passed it! So half asleep we just hopped off the bus and started trying to figure out where we were. Turns out we were about 10 km´s past the city! haha so we started trying to hitch hike back to the city because justito it had started to sprinkle as well! haha after about an hour a member came and picked us up and brought us the rest of the way over. Luckily we are now in fall (it feels like fall outside, it´s super fun) and we were in the middle of the jungle so it was just sooooooo pretty. The Lord really did a good job when He made Paraguay. When it rains here it just gets so green and beautiful. It really makes you think about the true nothingness of man and who´s really in charge. I´ve been studying a lot recently about Priesthood power and authority and I´m starting to understand a little better about just how much trust was put into each Priesthood holder. I did not quite understand the magnitude (as I´m sure I still don´t even come close to fully understanding) of the priesthood covenants. God literaly trusts them, priesthood holders, to act in the name of Jesus Christ, His perfect son. He trusts them to represent Him here on the earth, that´s HUGE! I´m going to try and be a more worthy priesthood holder, after all it is His power to properly perform ordinances necessary for salvation. I hope you have a great week and I love you all very much.
Con mucho amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Last week was yet another great week in the “guay”. I love Paraguay so much. We had a busy week of traveling around and doing zone capacitations (meetings). Elder Dickson and I are getting along real well. Tonight we´ll find out if he´s getting changed out or not. He´s been in the office for 5 changes now and he only has two changes left so he´d love to spend them out in the field, but he´s down with whatever. I´m glad you got the truck working, I´m positive that I had no gun fights in or near the truck, but if we´re coming clean about things that happened in the truck... just kidding I think I´ve already come clean about everything before I left. I´m a little nervous to drive again in the United Sates because the laws (or lack thereof) here a lot different and I´ve developed some pretty bad habits on the road.
So we taught a super cool lesson to Pedro about the Word of Wisdom but for some reason he was not able to go to church on Sunday (I think it´s because his member girlfriend wanted him to wait to get baptized, he didn´t but she did, so they all traveled Sunday morning). But he´s super cool and I know he´ll get baptized soon. I got the video of Eli singing. His little voice isn´t as little as I remember it being- it was super fun to watch. These days I don´t think I can even get trunky. I´m so afraid of going home that sometimes it stresses me out. I feel like I just barely started my mission but I can´t even really remember what life was like not being a missionary. As we were traveling with President this last week he looked at Elder Dickson and I and told us, "man, you guys are going home soon", haha (we deserved it because we were giving him a hard time about his birthday on Saturday). But it was nice because we were able to have a really nice discussion just about what to do after to stay strong and the blessings of serving a mission and how great it is being a missionary. I tried asking him about any possible way to extend, he said the chances are not good. That gave me a little hope that there were some chances (even if they´re bad ones) but then he said that our chances are as good as Elder Breadsguards´ were (and he didn´t get them). Dang.
So about the Easter package, don´t worry about sending it. I´m not even sure if it will get here before I go and I just got the package that had my shoes in it (love the package by the way, the sasquatch jerky was AWESOME!) and I think that will suffice. I really like all of the stuff that they have here in Paraguay. So like I´ve mentioned, we traveled this week. One of the places we did a capacitation was called Santaní. From there we had scheduled a division with some Elders that were in an area about 2 hours away (or so we were told) in a place called Santa Rosa. So we hopped on a bus from Santani and headed towards Santa Rosa. Our options for this little more than 2 hour bus trip were watch the movie they were showing, contact the 2 20 year girls on the bus, or take a nap. We were tired because we were working off of just a few hours of sleep and we knew that that night we also wouldn´t be getting too much sleep so we decided that our best option would be to take a little nap. The driver was advised that we were going to get off in Santa Rosa and normally they come and get you, plus we set alarm clocks on our phones to wake us up before we got there so we fell asleep. Well about an hour and 40 minutes later this guy walks back and asks us if we were going to get off in Santa Rosa and we said yeah, are we close? He told us to run off because we just barely passed it! So half asleep we just hopped off the bus and started trying to figure out where we were. Turns out we were about 10 km´s past the city! haha so we started trying to hitch hike back to the city because justito it had started to sprinkle as well! haha after about an hour a member came and picked us up and brought us the rest of the way over. Luckily we are now in fall (it feels like fall outside, it´s super fun) and we were in the middle of the jungle so it was just sooooooo pretty. The Lord really did a good job when He made Paraguay. When it rains here it just gets so green and beautiful. It really makes you think about the true nothingness of man and who´s really in charge. I´ve been studying a lot recently about Priesthood power and authority and I´m starting to understand a little better about just how much trust was put into each Priesthood holder. I did not quite understand the magnitude (as I´m sure I still don´t even come close to fully understanding) of the priesthood covenants. God literaly trusts them, priesthood holders, to act in the name of Jesus Christ, His perfect son. He trusts them to represent Him here on the earth, that´s HUGE! I´m going to try and be a more worthy priesthood holder, after all it is His power to properly perform ordinances necessary for salvation. I hope you have a great week and I love you all very much.
Con mucho amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, March 17, 2014
(No Subject)
Email received March 17, 2014
Hola familia!
How's it going? This week was a good one. We had capacitations this week so it was a lot of traveling around Asuncion and divisions. One night this guy from PBO called the office and long story short Elder Dickson and I basically had to go take a 6 hour run around trip delivering carbon monoxide detectors to a ton of houses in the mission (it wouldn't have taken as long but we got super lost, haha). But one positive on that is that we had to give one to some Elders in Capiata and they were having an activity in the chapel for all of the less actives and recent converts (Elder Dickson and I both served a long time in that area) so that was a bonus to see everyone again.
So we've been letting everyone know that we are having a baptism on the 25th of this month, but we just haven't been sure who it would be. Well yesterday we were sitting in principios del evangelio (Sunday School class) and the hermanas went up and started to talk with our investigator, Pedro, about his baptism on the 25th( keep in mind that we hadn´t told him our plan yet)! Anyways apparently with them he accepted the date! So later we went by and watched the restoration video with him and it was a super experience. He says he feels in his heart that these things are true and he´s preparing for his baptism on the 25th (pray that all goes well there).
Well I´m out of time but I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! The Lord blesses us when we do what´s right and He loves us. Just think about the incredible blessings we have. Even if everything goes wrong in our life we are still so blessed because we have the Priesthood power and authority on earth making it possible to have the remission of our sins through baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and so we can have the hope of a mundo major (better world) (Ether 12:4). ¡Que Bendición (what a blessing)! What more could anyone really want? Que les vaya bien.
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
P.S. I forgot again this year about St. Patrick´s day but luckily I bought a new backpack today that had green on it (my other backpack is being retired, the bottom is just a big hole now so I bought a new one), A real nice Nike one that I randomly found at this random Nike outlet and they accepted my American dollars so I just bought it with the Christmas money that Grandma sent me! Score! I´ll send pictures next week.
Hola familia!
How's it going? This week was a good one. We had capacitations this week so it was a lot of traveling around Asuncion and divisions. One night this guy from PBO called the office and long story short Elder Dickson and I basically had to go take a 6 hour run around trip delivering carbon monoxide detectors to a ton of houses in the mission (it wouldn't have taken as long but we got super lost, haha). But one positive on that is that we had to give one to some Elders in Capiata and they were having an activity in the chapel for all of the less actives and recent converts (Elder Dickson and I both served a long time in that area) so that was a bonus to see everyone again.
So we've been letting everyone know that we are having a baptism on the 25th of this month, but we just haven't been sure who it would be. Well yesterday we were sitting in principios del evangelio (Sunday School class) and the hermanas went up and started to talk with our investigator, Pedro, about his baptism on the 25th( keep in mind that we hadn´t told him our plan yet)! Anyways apparently with them he accepted the date! So later we went by and watched the restoration video with him and it was a super experience. He says he feels in his heart that these things are true and he´s preparing for his baptism on the 25th (pray that all goes well there).
Well I´m out of time but I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! The Lord blesses us when we do what´s right and He loves us. Just think about the incredible blessings we have. Even if everything goes wrong in our life we are still so blessed because we have the Priesthood power and authority on earth making it possible to have the remission of our sins through baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and so we can have the hope of a mundo major (better world) (Ether 12:4). ¡Que Bendición (what a blessing)! What more could anyone really want? Que les vaya bien.
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
P.S. I forgot again this year about St. Patrick´s day but luckily I bought a new backpack today that had green on it (my other backpack is being retired, the bottom is just a big hole now so I bought a new one), A real nice Nike one that I randomly found at this random Nike outlet and they accepted my American dollars so I just bought it with the Christmas money that Grandma sent me! Score! I´ll send pictures next week.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
(No subject)
Email received February 25, 2014
Hola familia,
How´s it going out there in the frosty winter cold? I´m LOVING the heat (no joke) and am always so glad that I don´t have to be out in the streets where it´s nice and cold right now (you know me, not a big fan of being cold). This week we did more traveling for some divisions, it was pretty fun. We went out to the campo, (countryside)- good times and we had a lot of success. I´m still loving my area a ton. The members are so great in this area. The investigators are also really awesome. We were worried at first because it sounded like the members didn´t want to work but so far we haven´t really had any problems with not having members to work with. There was a really cool area devotional from Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband that he gave to Melchezideque Priesthood holders and President let us go if we brought a less active priesthood holder or an investigator. It was super. They talked about how other dispensations may have had time to wait around for the second coming of Christ but we don´t. It went right along with my scripture study in 1 Nephi 14. Also he talked a lot about how many people are going to be there on the other side of the veil to thank us for bringing the gospel into their lives. It went hand in hand with this super amazing dream that I had. A few nights ago I had a dream that you guys came down here Mom and Dad, and all of the people that I´ve baptized in my mission so far were there as well, and we were all going into the temple together. We were all so happy and hugging each other and it was one of the neatest experiences I´ve ever had. As I´ve thought about it I realize the chances of that actually happening any time soon are very slim, but I´m looking forward to being able to do that in the Celestial Kingdom and I know that thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ it is possible.
Well I´ve had a really good week and I´ve learned so much. I´m learning a ton from the Book of Mormon and from the people around me. Today for example as I read 1 Nephi 15:13-16 I realized how cool it is that me and Spencer are both fulfilling that prophecy! Perhaps one of the most impactful moments I experienced this week was yesterday however. Here in Moroni we have the Patriarch in our ward. This guy is amazing. He was the first Paraguayan mission president and is just a super amazing guy. He´s on his death bed so we were asked to go and take him and his wife the sacrament. When we were ready to leave we asked him who he wanted to offer the prayer before we left. He said he would like too. He didn´t even have strength to say complete sentences, but as soon as he started praying the Spirit entered the room super strong. Then as he spent all of his strength offering his prayer, he said nothing but thanks to the Lord. He is suffering on his death bed and using all of his strength to thank the Lord for the blessings that he has received. I realized between that and a few other things from the week that my prayers could be a lot better. Elder Ballard said that personal prayer is either one of our most powerful tools or the most powerful one that we have. I realized as he explained a little what we should pray for that as we ask for help to help others instead of asking Him to help others for us, our prayers change into powerful tools of righteousness. I´ve set the goal to have more effective and more powerful prayers with others and when I am alone. I love you all very much and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hola familia,
How´s it going out there in the frosty winter cold? I´m LOVING the heat (no joke) and am always so glad that I don´t have to be out in the streets where it´s nice and cold right now (you know me, not a big fan of being cold). This week we did more traveling for some divisions, it was pretty fun. We went out to the campo, (countryside)- good times and we had a lot of success. I´m still loving my area a ton. The members are so great in this area. The investigators are also really awesome. We were worried at first because it sounded like the members didn´t want to work but so far we haven´t really had any problems with not having members to work with. There was a really cool area devotional from Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband that he gave to Melchezideque Priesthood holders and President let us go if we brought a less active priesthood holder or an investigator. It was super. They talked about how other dispensations may have had time to wait around for the second coming of Christ but we don´t. It went right along with my scripture study in 1 Nephi 14. Also he talked a lot about how many people are going to be there on the other side of the veil to thank us for bringing the gospel into their lives. It went hand in hand with this super amazing dream that I had. A few nights ago I had a dream that you guys came down here Mom and Dad, and all of the people that I´ve baptized in my mission so far were there as well, and we were all going into the temple together. We were all so happy and hugging each other and it was one of the neatest experiences I´ve ever had. As I´ve thought about it I realize the chances of that actually happening any time soon are very slim, but I´m looking forward to being able to do that in the Celestial Kingdom and I know that thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ it is possible.
Well I´ve had a really good week and I´ve learned so much. I´m learning a ton from the Book of Mormon and from the people around me. Today for example as I read 1 Nephi 15:13-16 I realized how cool it is that me and Spencer are both fulfilling that prophecy! Perhaps one of the most impactful moments I experienced this week was yesterday however. Here in Moroni we have the Patriarch in our ward. This guy is amazing. He was the first Paraguayan mission president and is just a super amazing guy. He´s on his death bed so we were asked to go and take him and his wife the sacrament. When we were ready to leave we asked him who he wanted to offer the prayer before we left. He said he would like too. He didn´t even have strength to say complete sentences, but as soon as he started praying the Spirit entered the room super strong. Then as he spent all of his strength offering his prayer, he said nothing but thanks to the Lord. He is suffering on his death bed and using all of his strength to thank the Lord for the blessings that he has received. I realized between that and a few other things from the week that my prayers could be a lot better. Elder Ballard said that personal prayer is either one of our most powerful tools or the most powerful one that we have. I realized as he explained a little what we should pray for that as we ask for help to help others instead of asking Him to help others for us, our prayers change into powerful tools of righteousness. I´ve set the goal to have more effective and more powerful prayers with others and when I am alone. I love you all very much and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
(No subject)
Email received February 17, 2014
Hola familia!
How`s everyone doing? This week was pretty crazy with the changes of all of the missionaries but it was also pretty great. Elder Brown did go home and that one was sad, he was one of the best missionaries we had in the mission so it was sad to see him go. But on the plus side I did get my card from Elder Hansen. It`s definitely different working in Moroni, but I really like it. Elder Dickson and I have set a goal to baptize an entire family this change so we have talked with every family that we`ve seen so far. We also had an opportunity in church yesterday to introduce ourselves and share our testimonies in sacrament meeting and we both mentioned our goal and we had some cool responses. We went and met with the bishop, Bishop Bernabeo (from France) and he told us the ward has not had a lot of animo lately to do missionary work so we`re going to try and change that. Any ideas? It`s super different because most people up here speak English. Elder Dickson and I are having the time of our lives out here. On Saturday we went out looking for old investigators and trying to get to know the area all day and we talked with so many people but only got into one lesson, but we were having so much fun talking with everyone that it didn`t phase us at all. We also got some pretty solid return appointments so it`s all good. Yesterday we went and a member brought us over to a friend`s house to teach him and his wife (they are old investigators). It was one of the coolest lessons ever! We were talking about the restoration and they were just eating it up. It made perfect sense to them how throughout all of history there have been apostasies and God always called another prophet because He loves us, so it makes sense that we would need a prophet today to be able to follow God correctly! It was super cool and they both accepted the baptismal invitation and committed to read the entire Book of Mormon with us in 4 months! That`s 2 chapters a day! They were telling us about how they felt an emptiness lately and they realized that they felt really good when the missionaries would stop by and talk with them and they feel like this can fill that emptiness! I was so excited! In the past they were having a hard time attending church so we`re going to pray a ton for them that they can attend church and keep their commitments and gain strong testimonies. Their names are Guido and Carolina Martinez (They`re already married!). In the lesson we had with them last night the Spirit was so strong and I realize it because I was learning so much as we were teaching and I got so many desires to keep studying and learning more. We also found a couple more families that are looking like they have a ton of potential to progress so we`re praying for them too. There is this one family, Jose and Gabriela, that seem pretty cool too. Jose is the son of a less active member and his wife used to be a nun but left that to get married (they`re married too). Gabriela invited us to a piece of cake because she admired the missionary program so it was a great way to start talking. She was telling us how it`s hard to find the balance between loving your children and your spouse and putting your spouse first. It sounded like a great question for the Book of Mormon to answer so we flipped open the part in 1 Nephi 4 where Lehi is comforting Sariah while their sons are on a dangerous trip to Jerusalem that the Lord commanded Lehi to send them on. It seemed to catch Gabriela’s attention and she committed to reading 5 chapters by Saturday so hopefully there`s some cool progression there. We also have a lesson planned for tonight with a part member family (the wife is a member and the husband not yet) and I`m excited to see what there is there. I`m loving my mission so much right now. Helping families through the Book of Mormon is the coolest thing ever! I started the Book of Mormon over today and as I was reading I decided to focus on a couple of questions. One of them was how can the Book of Mormon actually strengthen and bless families. Elder Dickson was studying about how the gospel blesses families. As I read the first 2 chapters, where Lehi leaves everything behind and flees Jerusalem, I realized something really cool. I started thinking about how Lehi obviously saw how dangerous it was raising a family in wicked Jerusalem, so I`m sure he went to the Lord for help. He being a worthy priesthood holder was ready to act as patriarch of his family so the Lord was able to tell him to take his family out of Jerusalem. He left everything but his sons were protected from a lot of wickedness and some of them, Nephi and Sam, were even able to gain strong testimonies and be converted to the Lord. That`s just one of the many classic examples of how the Book of Mormon teaches us how to keep our families safe in an unsafe world, turn to the Lord and fully trust in His counsel, no matter how hard it seems. We can also look at the fact that Lehi was a prophet so as we listen to the prophet we can also protect our families. The Book of Mormon is so cool! I hope you are looking for families to share the Book of Mormon with because it really does change lives. I love you all so much. Thanks for the pictures, glad Megan and Eli had happy birthdays. Until next week!
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hola familia!
How`s everyone doing? This week was pretty crazy with the changes of all of the missionaries but it was also pretty great. Elder Brown did go home and that one was sad, he was one of the best missionaries we had in the mission so it was sad to see him go. But on the plus side I did get my card from Elder Hansen. It`s definitely different working in Moroni, but I really like it. Elder Dickson and I have set a goal to baptize an entire family this change so we have talked with every family that we`ve seen so far. We also had an opportunity in church yesterday to introduce ourselves and share our testimonies in sacrament meeting and we both mentioned our goal and we had some cool responses. We went and met with the bishop, Bishop Bernabeo (from France) and he told us the ward has not had a lot of animo lately to do missionary work so we`re going to try and change that. Any ideas? It`s super different because most people up here speak English. Elder Dickson and I are having the time of our lives out here. On Saturday we went out looking for old investigators and trying to get to know the area all day and we talked with so many people but only got into one lesson, but we were having so much fun talking with everyone that it didn`t phase us at all. We also got some pretty solid return appointments so it`s all good. Yesterday we went and a member brought us over to a friend`s house to teach him and his wife (they are old investigators). It was one of the coolest lessons ever! We were talking about the restoration and they were just eating it up. It made perfect sense to them how throughout all of history there have been apostasies and God always called another prophet because He loves us, so it makes sense that we would need a prophet today to be able to follow God correctly! It was super cool and they both accepted the baptismal invitation and committed to read the entire Book of Mormon with us in 4 months! That`s 2 chapters a day! They were telling us about how they felt an emptiness lately and they realized that they felt really good when the missionaries would stop by and talk with them and they feel like this can fill that emptiness! I was so excited! In the past they were having a hard time attending church so we`re going to pray a ton for them that they can attend church and keep their commitments and gain strong testimonies. Their names are Guido and Carolina Martinez (They`re already married!). In the lesson we had with them last night the Spirit was so strong and I realize it because I was learning so much as we were teaching and I got so many desires to keep studying and learning more. We also found a couple more families that are looking like they have a ton of potential to progress so we`re praying for them too. There is this one family, Jose and Gabriela, that seem pretty cool too. Jose is the son of a less active member and his wife used to be a nun but left that to get married (they`re married too). Gabriela invited us to a piece of cake because she admired the missionary program so it was a great way to start talking. She was telling us how it`s hard to find the balance between loving your children and your spouse and putting your spouse first. It sounded like a great question for the Book of Mormon to answer so we flipped open the part in 1 Nephi 4 where Lehi is comforting Sariah while their sons are on a dangerous trip to Jerusalem that the Lord commanded Lehi to send them on. It seemed to catch Gabriela’s attention and she committed to reading 5 chapters by Saturday so hopefully there`s some cool progression there. We also have a lesson planned for tonight with a part member family (the wife is a member and the husband not yet) and I`m excited to see what there is there. I`m loving my mission so much right now. Helping families through the Book of Mormon is the coolest thing ever! I started the Book of Mormon over today and as I was reading I decided to focus on a couple of questions. One of them was how can the Book of Mormon actually strengthen and bless families. Elder Dickson was studying about how the gospel blesses families. As I read the first 2 chapters, where Lehi leaves everything behind and flees Jerusalem, I realized something really cool. I started thinking about how Lehi obviously saw how dangerous it was raising a family in wicked Jerusalem, so I`m sure he went to the Lord for help. He being a worthy priesthood holder was ready to act as patriarch of his family so the Lord was able to tell him to take his family out of Jerusalem. He left everything but his sons were protected from a lot of wickedness and some of them, Nephi and Sam, were even able to gain strong testimonies and be converted to the Lord. That`s just one of the many classic examples of how the Book of Mormon teaches us how to keep our families safe in an unsafe world, turn to the Lord and fully trust in His counsel, no matter how hard it seems. We can also look at the fact that Lehi was a prophet so as we listen to the prophet we can also protect our families. The Book of Mormon is so cool! I hope you are looking for families to share the Book of Mormon with because it really does change lives. I love you all so much. Thanks for the pictures, glad Megan and Eli had happy birthdays. Until next week!
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, February 10, 2014
(no subject)
Email received February 10, 2014
Hola familia!
Hola familia!
Como esta todo? Sounds like you all had a fun week last week. Happy birthday Eli, I hope that he completes the year very happily. This week was pretty fun. After we got back from the chaco we had more travelling to do. Basically I traveled from Bolivia to Argentina (because my area boarders up with Argentina) then out to Brazil (without actually entering any of those countries). I was driving out in Pedro Juan Caballero (that´s the city that boarders with Brazil) and it was super sketchy, but it was super fun and I was super careful. I´m now never going to be afraid to drive anywhere in the United States. So changes are happening this week and Elder Dickson and I are staying together but switching areas. We are now going to be in an area called Moroni. The temple is now in our area! I´m a little bummed because we were finding some super cool people in Trinidad and yesterday for example there was an entire less active family, mom dad and children, that came back to church. After we had a lesson with them with our branch president and the branch president invited him to prepare to baptize his son and he accepted. He also said the closing prayer and just started crying, it was a super cool lesson. There is just so much potential there and I just hope that the new missionaries that are there can really see it and capitalize on it and work super hard, because I really love that branch. But I´m super pumped to go to barrio Moroni! It is probably the best functioning ward in Paraguay. It´s pretty cool because I´m going from one of the poorest most dangerous areas in the misson (I can say that now that I´m not there anymore) to one of the nicest areas. The people up in my new area speak English and drive cars, it´ll be an interesting adventure and I´m super stoked to go do it!
So this week I was a lot of traveling and capacitations so I don´t have too many more stories to tell. But I do have an even greater found love and stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon. I love that book. I´m convinced that if we really take the time to study that book, tanto personalmente como con la familia, (both personally and as a family) then we will have our foundation upon the rock of our Redeemer. It really does answer questions. You can study it with any question in mind and find the answer as you study with prayer. I´m learning so much as I read it and I really do believe that it is true. Elder Dickson and I also realized that if you open the Book of Mormon to any page, you will find something about repentance. The Book of Mormon has a special softening, converting, and re-taining power in it. I invite you to read it with questions. If you have no questions read it with the question of who could you give a copy of it to and how can you do it and then pray for the courage to do so. i promise you that you will see great blessings and changes in your lives, especially in regards to overall happiness and peace in your daily lives and animo to do all that you have to do. I hope you have a great week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
So this week I was a lot of traveling and capacitations so I don´t have too many more stories to tell. But I do have an even greater found love and stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon. I love that book. I´m convinced that if we really take the time to study that book, tanto personalmente como con la familia, (both personally and as a family) then we will have our foundation upon the rock of our Redeemer. It really does answer questions. You can study it with any question in mind and find the answer as you study with prayer. I´m learning so much as I read it and I really do believe that it is true. Elder Dickson and I also realized that if you open the Book of Mormon to any page, you will find something about repentance. The Book of Mormon has a special softening, converting, and re-taining power in it. I invite you to read it with questions. If you have no questions read it with the question of who could you give a copy of it to and how can you do it and then pray for the courage to do so. i promise you that you will see great blessings and changes in your lives, especially in regards to overall happiness and peace in your daily lives and animo to do all that you have to do. I hope you have a great week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Rescue in The Chaco
Email received January 5, 2014
Hola familia!
So this last week was actually pretty crazy all around, but the craziest part was the chaco. So let me start from the beginning of this. So as I'm sure you've read there was a whole tribe of Nivacle Indians that all got baptized in the 80's. They are deep in the chaco (about 15 hours away from Asunción) up almost to Bolivia. In our mission there are about 250 missionaries. Of those missionaries probably about 200 of them are here in Asunción or in cities nearby. About 40 of them are in areas in between Asunción and Brazil, but there are only 6 in the chaco. This place where the nivacle live is way out in the chaco so they don't even have missionaries out there (the closest ones are about 6 or so hours away) and once in a blue moon a companionship from the chaco will get to go out there, the assistants haven't been there since I believe they were baptized (that could be an exaggeration but like my father always says never let the details get in the way of a good story). So Friday we were doing zone capacitations while President McMullin was in interviews with the missionaries in Luque when I got a call from a missionary in the chaco letting me know that the Nivacles were nervous about the river picomayo flooding and blocking off the roads and they wouldn't be able to get anything in or out of the community (called Mistolar) for a few months. So anyways I told him I would talk with President, but the elder called me about 6 more times before President came out, so I felt like it was a little urgent. Eventually President finished everything and I told him to call the Elder. The next morning we had a staff meeting and President said that he was thinking and the only thing he can think to do is go out ourselves and get them the supplies they need before Wednesday when the roads close for 2 to 3 months. So that day we bought all of the supplies and borrowed some brand new little trucks from PVO (the distribution center) and loaded them all up.
The next morning we went to church in Trinidad and it was really nice. Then we ate lunch with some members and packed up some things and headed out. Our plan was to go pick up some missionaries that are in the chaco then stay the night in filadelfia then make the 6 hour drive out to mistolar and deliver the supplies and help them sandbag and prepare. Then we were going to camp that night right there in mistolar with them and leave at 4 in the morning and make the 15 hour drive back to Asunción. So we got to filadelfia and stayed the night in a hotel. Then the next morning we got up and started driving. We got to this little german town called Neuland and it's pretty much the last of anything until you just hit the dirt road and get to Mistolar. So we got through the little town there was a check point and we asked the guy how the roads were looking and he told us everything was perfect. he also told us that the roads getting to mistolar would ever only be closed 2-3 days max! So we were getting a little nervous that maybe the nivacle had exaggerated a little bit and we had come out here for nothing. but we decided to carry on anyways. After a few hours we got to a little military stop and we got out of the car to talk to some of the men over there. Their report was very different from the first one we got. They said that the rains had been coming in from bolivia and that the roads would be shutting down real soon so we needed to hurry but that we shouldn't have too many problems. So we kept driving a while longer and we the guy that accompanied us told us that the water was higher than usual and that there was water where there hadn't been a few weeks ago. So we kept going and then out of nowhere we saw a little dispensa on the side of the road. we stopped there to see what they knew and the man there was named leguizamón. he told us very clearly that he didn't reccomend that we spend the night in mistolar. He told us that we should be able to get in just fine but get out by the evening. His wife was telling us that we should be fine if we spent the night and we were kinda just hoping that this leguizamón guy was a little crazy. So we went on our way again and stopped and had lunch by this little bridge. After lunch we started going and realized that the nivacle hadn't just called wolf. We got to this giant mud puddle as wide as the road and about 30 meters long. I got out with this other Elder from the chaco named Elder Zilm (he's exactly like Boo Boo) and we started poking the mud to see how firm it was and to try and figure out the best way through it. Elder Zilm and I concluded that the best way would just be to gun it on through there and push it hard until we got out. President McMullin though had to varify that one for himself, but he also arrived at the conclusion that that was our best option. So we backed up and high tailed it on through. We kept going and then there was another mud puddle even trickier. President McMullin got out and told us to hit this one slowly. Elder Dickson and President were in the back truck at this point and I was in the front truck with a member of the stake presidency in asunción and two other Elders. We went first and went nice and slow but eventually Elder zilm, Elder maidana (elder zilm´s comp) and I had to actually get out and push the truck to get out. We had got all dirty doing this so we had the stake presidency guy (gustavo marmol) pull forward and we were going to help push president´s truck out, but all of the sudden we heard president´s truck and he had decided to hit this one super fast! So we ran out of the way and hopped in our truck and just hightailed it through for another while coming in and out of these mud piles (not many people get to go mudding with their mission president for a p-day activity haha).
So we got within about 8 kilometers from mistolar and we were facing a giant river. The water had already blocked off these last 8 kilometers and there was absolutely no way our trucks were going to make it. President McMullin started thinking of the options realized there was only one. He threw a couple of liters of water on our backs and in a very Brigham Young-like way told us to go bring in those nivacle. He sent us hiking through this water to go and find the nivacle and have them come out as far as they can with their tractor and to have all of them that could come with us to unload the trucks and get them their supplies. So the 4 of us missionaries started walking down this river picamayo. It was pretty slippery(Elder Zilm fell twice) and about up to our knees at some points. Eventually we ran into some of the nivacle on the trail. They had been expecting us to come and had been waiting there for us for a few hours but eventually figured that the water was too high and that we weren´t going to come. They had turned around and started walking back but after a few kilometers they saw some clouds of dust and tiny specs and turned around and started coming back in hopes that we had come with their provisions. We turned around once we met up with them and walked back to the trucks. We backed the trucks up about 30 meters and started to unload everything. We got everything out of the truck and on the ground and the nivacle started bringing it to their tractor. After about 15 minutes the water had risen up to where the food was, they got the last bag of flour up right in the nik of time. We then said by to the tribe and high tailed it out of there. Basically the Lord was taking such great care of us. Had we have gotten there a little earlier we may have tried to enter and gotten stuck with the nivacle for a few months and had we have gotten there any later we probably wouldn´t have been able to get them their supplies. There were a lot more details to the trip but that will have to wait until otro dia no mas. It was really cool because driving home I got to ride with President McMullin (about a 7 hour interview) and it was super cool. Being with the indians really got me thinking and it really softned my heart. They came out without shoes walking on these paths to come get their supplies. My heart really goes out to them and I really want to help them however I can. President McMullin and I were talking and he told me what they need to do is keep the commandments. Last year a general authority went out there and told them that if they would pay their tithing then mistolar would never flood. We were talking about that and about how they really need testimonies of the Book of Mormon. It´s tough because they don´t really speak spanish (they speak nivacle) but President has a plan, and God has a bigger and more perfect one and I know that this truley is a special land I´m in. I´m super glad for this oppertunity that I have to serve the Lord and I´m loving it so much. I hope you have a wonderful week. I´m not sure when I will be able to write next because next week is changes so that could mean I don´t write on Monday. But I love you and see you later.
Hola familia!
So this last week was actually pretty crazy all around, but the craziest part was the chaco. So let me start from the beginning of this. So as I'm sure you've read there was a whole tribe of Nivacle Indians that all got baptized in the 80's. They are deep in the chaco (about 15 hours away from Asunción) up almost to Bolivia. In our mission there are about 250 missionaries. Of those missionaries probably about 200 of them are here in Asunción or in cities nearby. About 40 of them are in areas in between Asunción and Brazil, but there are only 6 in the chaco. This place where the nivacle live is way out in the chaco so they don't even have missionaries out there (the closest ones are about 6 or so hours away) and once in a blue moon a companionship from the chaco will get to go out there, the assistants haven't been there since I believe they were baptized (that could be an exaggeration but like my father always says never let the details get in the way of a good story). So Friday we were doing zone capacitations while President McMullin was in interviews with the missionaries in Luque when I got a call from a missionary in the chaco letting me know that the Nivacles were nervous about the river picomayo flooding and blocking off the roads and they wouldn't be able to get anything in or out of the community (called Mistolar) for a few months. So anyways I told him I would talk with President, but the elder called me about 6 more times before President came out, so I felt like it was a little urgent. Eventually President finished everything and I told him to call the Elder. The next morning we had a staff meeting and President said that he was thinking and the only thing he can think to do is go out ourselves and get them the supplies they need before Wednesday when the roads close for 2 to 3 months. So that day we bought all of the supplies and borrowed some brand new little trucks from PVO (the distribution center) and loaded them all up.
The next morning we went to church in Trinidad and it was really nice. Then we ate lunch with some members and packed up some things and headed out. Our plan was to go pick up some missionaries that are in the chaco then stay the night in filadelfia then make the 6 hour drive out to mistolar and deliver the supplies and help them sandbag and prepare. Then we were going to camp that night right there in mistolar with them and leave at 4 in the morning and make the 15 hour drive back to Asunción. So we got to filadelfia and stayed the night in a hotel. Then the next morning we got up and started driving. We got to this little german town called Neuland and it's pretty much the last of anything until you just hit the dirt road and get to Mistolar. So we got through the little town there was a check point and we asked the guy how the roads were looking and he told us everything was perfect. he also told us that the roads getting to mistolar would ever only be closed 2-3 days max! So we were getting a little nervous that maybe the nivacle had exaggerated a little bit and we had come out here for nothing. but we decided to carry on anyways. After a few hours we got to a little military stop and we got out of the car to talk to some of the men over there. Their report was very different from the first one we got. They said that the rains had been coming in from bolivia and that the roads would be shutting down real soon so we needed to hurry but that we shouldn't have too many problems. So we kept driving a while longer and we the guy that accompanied us told us that the water was higher than usual and that there was water where there hadn't been a few weeks ago. So we kept going and then out of nowhere we saw a little dispensa on the side of the road. we stopped there to see what they knew and the man there was named leguizamón. he told us very clearly that he didn't reccomend that we spend the night in mistolar. He told us that we should be able to get in just fine but get out by the evening. His wife was telling us that we should be fine if we spent the night and we were kinda just hoping that this leguizamón guy was a little crazy. So we went on our way again and stopped and had lunch by this little bridge. After lunch we started going and realized that the nivacle hadn't just called wolf. We got to this giant mud puddle as wide as the road and about 30 meters long. I got out with this other Elder from the chaco named Elder Zilm (he's exactly like Boo Boo) and we started poking the mud to see how firm it was and to try and figure out the best way through it. Elder Zilm and I concluded that the best way would just be to gun it on through there and push it hard until we got out. President McMullin though had to varify that one for himself, but he also arrived at the conclusion that that was our best option. So we backed up and high tailed it on through. We kept going and then there was another mud puddle even trickier. President McMullin got out and told us to hit this one slowly. Elder Dickson and President were in the back truck at this point and I was in the front truck with a member of the stake presidency in asunción and two other Elders. We went first and went nice and slow but eventually Elder zilm, Elder maidana (elder zilm´s comp) and I had to actually get out and push the truck to get out. We had got all dirty doing this so we had the stake presidency guy (gustavo marmol) pull forward and we were going to help push president´s truck out, but all of the sudden we heard president´s truck and he had decided to hit this one super fast! So we ran out of the way and hopped in our truck and just hightailed it through for another while coming in and out of these mud piles (not many people get to go mudding with their mission president for a p-day activity haha).
So we got within about 8 kilometers from mistolar and we were facing a giant river. The water had already blocked off these last 8 kilometers and there was absolutely no way our trucks were going to make it. President McMullin started thinking of the options realized there was only one. He threw a couple of liters of water on our backs and in a very Brigham Young-like way told us to go bring in those nivacle. He sent us hiking through this water to go and find the nivacle and have them come out as far as they can with their tractor and to have all of them that could come with us to unload the trucks and get them their supplies. So the 4 of us missionaries started walking down this river picamayo. It was pretty slippery(Elder Zilm fell twice) and about up to our knees at some points. Eventually we ran into some of the nivacle on the trail. They had been expecting us to come and had been waiting there for us for a few hours but eventually figured that the water was too high and that we weren´t going to come. They had turned around and started walking back but after a few kilometers they saw some clouds of dust and tiny specs and turned around and started coming back in hopes that we had come with their provisions. We turned around once we met up with them and walked back to the trucks. We backed the trucks up about 30 meters and started to unload everything. We got everything out of the truck and on the ground and the nivacle started bringing it to their tractor. After about 15 minutes the water had risen up to where the food was, they got the last bag of flour up right in the nik of time. We then said by to the tribe and high tailed it out of there. Basically the Lord was taking such great care of us. Had we have gotten there a little earlier we may have tried to enter and gotten stuck with the nivacle for a few months and had we have gotten there any later we probably wouldn´t have been able to get them their supplies. There were a lot more details to the trip but that will have to wait until otro dia no mas. It was really cool because driving home I got to ride with President McMullin (about a 7 hour interview) and it was super cool. Being with the indians really got me thinking and it really softned my heart. They came out without shoes walking on these paths to come get their supplies. My heart really goes out to them and I really want to help them however I can. President McMullin and I were talking and he told me what they need to do is keep the commandments. Last year a general authority went out there and told them that if they would pay their tithing then mistolar would never flood. We were talking about that and about how they really need testimonies of the Book of Mormon. It´s tough because they don´t really speak spanish (they speak nivacle) but President has a plan, and God has a bigger and more perfect one and I know that this truley is a special land I´m in. I´m super glad for this oppertunity that I have to serve the Lord and I´m loving it so much. I hope you have a wonderful week. I´m not sure when I will be able to write next because next week is changes so that could mean I don´t write on Monday. But I love you and see you later.
Con amor,
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Important Notification
Hola, I just thought I would write you a quick note right now letting you know that I will not be writing you all on Monday this week, I think I am going to try to do it on Wednesday. There was a flood up in the chaco and the roads will be closing down for a few months and the Indians need some food so President is taking Elder Dickson and I up there to prep the place and bring them some supplies. I will explain it all next week but don´t be expecting any emails on Monday. Love you all.
con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, January 27, 2014
No Subjext
Email received January 27, 2014
Hola familia!
This week was so fun. We went on a ton of divisions all around and it was super fun. I love going on divisions and working with the missionaries. Elder Dickson and I worked really hard to help them be able to use their area book to find new people to teach and in every division that we went on we were able to find whole families that accepted what we were teaching! It was a huge miracle and it was a ton of fun. Elder Dickson is from Ogden, Utah and he just has one more change than I do in the mission. He goes home in June. He is also going to Utah State so we talk about that sometimes. He´s a really good missionary and we compliment each other really well because I tend to think very in the moment and black and white and he looks a lot on bigger scale things and getting there so it´s a really great balance. Luckily we´re both obedient and like to work so we get along great. We went back to the couple that we prayed with but the wife was busy and the guy had changed a little for the worse, but we´ll keep working with them. We had a super cool lesson last night though with a family that has been progressing a lot and are just waiting on a few little things to get baptized and the husband will then get baptized. It was really cool because the wife is a member already and we just baptized the daughter a few weeks ago and anyways last night they said that they were watching some videos about missionary work and they just thanked us so much for helping them really get to know who their Heavenly Father is and for helping them make covenants with Him. It was super cool and they said that we can feel good about our work here and that we didn´t come in vain because we got to help them. It really makes you feel good hearing that. You know that you didn´t really do much, but sometimes it´s hard to keep animated all day when it´s super hot and hard, but the Lord always blesses you if you just keep pushing through it.
So now for the adventure of the week. So right now I´m going off of about three hours of sleep. Today we had a big leadership meeting that my companion and I were in charge of so we were working on that getting it ready for today. We didn´t get everything finished but we had a visit that we had to do si o si last night so we just planned on waking up around 5:30 to get it finished. Well we had been in bed for about a half hour when we got a call from President and apparently two Elders had gotten in a fight and one of them locked the other in the room and peaced on out. So President had my comp and I go to look for him in the airport and make sure he didn´t try and fly home. Meanwhile President and a couple other missionaries went over to the Elder´s house to get his comp and look for him around there. So we were just looking around the airport and such until about 2 in the morning when finally President called and said that we need to rest and that church headquarters was informed and now we just need to go home. The Elder finally showed up to his house around 6:30 in the morning, about an hour after I had woken up to go finish everything up in the office with my comp. Right before the meeting started President looked at us and told us we all look like zombies but the the Lord will sustain us to get through the meeting, haha. The meeting actually turned out just fine and now everything´s taken care of. I really think the big things to avoid problems like this are communication and obedience. I feel like if you´re applying those well then you probably won´t have problems to that caliber. I sure love you guys and I hope you have a great week. Don´t worry about me. I´m healthy and I´m safe and I´m happy.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hola familia!
This week was so fun. We went on a ton of divisions all around and it was super fun. I love going on divisions and working with the missionaries. Elder Dickson and I worked really hard to help them be able to use their area book to find new people to teach and in every division that we went on we were able to find whole families that accepted what we were teaching! It was a huge miracle and it was a ton of fun. Elder Dickson is from Ogden, Utah and he just has one more change than I do in the mission. He goes home in June. He is also going to Utah State so we talk about that sometimes. He´s a really good missionary and we compliment each other really well because I tend to think very in the moment and black and white and he looks a lot on bigger scale things and getting there so it´s a really great balance. Luckily we´re both obedient and like to work so we get along great. We went back to the couple that we prayed with but the wife was busy and the guy had changed a little for the worse, but we´ll keep working with them. We had a super cool lesson last night though with a family that has been progressing a lot and are just waiting on a few little things to get baptized and the husband will then get baptized. It was really cool because the wife is a member already and we just baptized the daughter a few weeks ago and anyways last night they said that they were watching some videos about missionary work and they just thanked us so much for helping them really get to know who their Heavenly Father is and for helping them make covenants with Him. It was super cool and they said that we can feel good about our work here and that we didn´t come in vain because we got to help them. It really makes you feel good hearing that. You know that you didn´t really do much, but sometimes it´s hard to keep animated all day when it´s super hot and hard, but the Lord always blesses you if you just keep pushing through it.
So now for the adventure of the week. So right now I´m going off of about three hours of sleep. Today we had a big leadership meeting that my companion and I were in charge of so we were working on that getting it ready for today. We didn´t get everything finished but we had a visit that we had to do si o si last night so we just planned on waking up around 5:30 to get it finished. Well we had been in bed for about a half hour when we got a call from President and apparently two Elders had gotten in a fight and one of them locked the other in the room and peaced on out. So President had my comp and I go to look for him in the airport and make sure he didn´t try and fly home. Meanwhile President and a couple other missionaries went over to the Elder´s house to get his comp and look for him around there. So we were just looking around the airport and such until about 2 in the morning when finally President called and said that we need to rest and that church headquarters was informed and now we just need to go home. The Elder finally showed up to his house around 6:30 in the morning, about an hour after I had woken up to go finish everything up in the office with my comp. Right before the meeting started President looked at us and told us we all look like zombies but the the Lord will sustain us to get through the meeting, haha. The meeting actually turned out just fine and now everything´s taken care of. I really think the big things to avoid problems like this are communication and obedience. I feel like if you´re applying those well then you probably won´t have problems to that caliber. I sure love you guys and I hope you have a great week. Don´t worry about me. I´m healthy and I´m safe and I´m happy.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, January 20, 2014
(No subject)
Email received January 20, 2013
Hola familia!
How´s everyone doing? Last week was quite an adventure. I went out all around Paraguay and it was soooooo cool. Paraguay is such a pretty country. It was a ton of fun getting to go and visit all of these places and all of the missionaries. I got to talk for a little while with this one elder from the Dominican Republic and it was super cool. They have such a fun accent. It was a really cool trip because it was basically like 18 hours in the car getting to pick President Mcmullin´s brain about all sorts of things. My companion and I had made a little deal with him a little while ago that if we don´t write him, then he doesn´t interview us (which is funny because whatever we would write to him we just tell him in person, and we have interviews all of the time, they´re just not scheduled formal ones). Anyways this car trip was kinda like an 18 hour interview. He told us all about how to be a bishop and a dad and a husband and how to manage your time and have happy and successful children. The trick is organizing your time and planning out in advance. Also one of the biggest things he showed us was that family always comes first. He said his family always has a trump card in anything that he´s doing. It was super cool listening to that and it made me super happy to be a missionary and not deal with all of that stress yet. It was also fun traveling because I got to do some fun divisions. We found some super cool families for other missionaries to teach and it was really fun teaching with them. We ate really well because president bought all of our dinners and he´s not a big fan of just getting a couple of cheap empanadas on the street. We went to some really good places. We stayed two nights in a hotel and one on our cots that we have for when we traveling.
Trinidad does have a ton of slaughter houses, but at this point I´m mostly used to it. During the siesta though when it´s a million degrees outside and all that meat is just sitting there cooking...haha it has quite a smell. I love Trinidad so much though. It´s a little tough being there now because we don´t get to spend very much time working in it (just a few days a week) and there is so much potential there. But we´ve been putting a big focus on helping the members to do visits even when we´re not there so that work still gets done even when we´re not there. We´re making great progress with some of our investigators. We have this one that is super excited to get married and we´ve just got to work through a few more things and then they´re set. We did have one pretty sad experience though. We have one investigator that´s had a rough background but was really shaping up and changing. But some things happened and he got arrested on Saturday night. We kinda laughed about it and went to visit him today in jail but when we got there it was super sad. I guess they´re really not treating him well and he´s pretty shaken up about things. He was just crying and it was really sad. He might get out in about 10 days and we´re going to try and help him more. He´s a great guy just had a rough lot thrown at him. On a happier note though Elder Dickson and I had a super cool experience that just increased my testimony even more about obedience with exactness. We got into a lesson with a young couple (a man and his pregnant wife). They were super friendly and let us right in and it turns out the lady had actually talked a lot with missionaries before (she requested that we sing praise to the man to begin). After we sang that the guy started asking some great questions about if the prophet in that song was Joseph Smith and why he was so great. He also commented about how we´ve lost some things because of all of the times the bible was translated. So we started talking about the Book of Mormon and we thought they were just going to eat it right up, but quite the opposite. We tried presenting it to them in a variety of ways and using it to respond to their doubts and they were just having none of it. The guy just kept rejecting everything we were saying. Finally at one point he told us that we didn´t even know this stuff for ourselves and that we´re just following because our parents are members. We stopped him right there and explained to him just a bit of what the life of a missionary is like and about how if I weren't convinced I wouldn´t do what I do. We then bore the purest testimony we could about the Book of Mormon and he couldn´t really say anything against it, but he didn´t really accept it either. So in our mission we have a rule where we invite the head of household to offer a kneeling prayer at the end of every lesson so since the lesson had pretty much come to an end, we knelt down and invited him to do similarly and to pray with us. He knelt down and offered a fine prayer and when he stood up his whole countenance had changed. Him and his wife were both completely surprised and he started telling us that what we did was super symbolic of the Savior. He told us that it took a lot of humility to do what we did and what we do and that as we knelt down and prayed with him he realized that we really were convinced of what we were doing. He said we deserve his respect and that he is going to read the Book of Mormon and find out for himself that it´s true like what we´ve done. He also invited us back for this Saturday to come and teach them again. It was a strong testimony to me to always keep all of the little rules. I´m having a great time and I´m super happy and safe. I hope you have a great week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hola familia!
How´s everyone doing? Last week was quite an adventure. I went out all around Paraguay and it was soooooo cool. Paraguay is such a pretty country. It was a ton of fun getting to go and visit all of these places and all of the missionaries. I got to talk for a little while with this one elder from the Dominican Republic and it was super cool. They have such a fun accent. It was a really cool trip because it was basically like 18 hours in the car getting to pick President Mcmullin´s brain about all sorts of things. My companion and I had made a little deal with him a little while ago that if we don´t write him, then he doesn´t interview us (which is funny because whatever we would write to him we just tell him in person, and we have interviews all of the time, they´re just not scheduled formal ones). Anyways this car trip was kinda like an 18 hour interview. He told us all about how to be a bishop and a dad and a husband and how to manage your time and have happy and successful children. The trick is organizing your time and planning out in advance. Also one of the biggest things he showed us was that family always comes first. He said his family always has a trump card in anything that he´s doing. It was super cool listening to that and it made me super happy to be a missionary and not deal with all of that stress yet. It was also fun traveling because I got to do some fun divisions. We found some super cool families for other missionaries to teach and it was really fun teaching with them. We ate really well because president bought all of our dinners and he´s not a big fan of just getting a couple of cheap empanadas on the street. We went to some really good places. We stayed two nights in a hotel and one on our cots that we have for when we traveling.
Trinidad does have a ton of slaughter houses, but at this point I´m mostly used to it. During the siesta though when it´s a million degrees outside and all that meat is just sitting there cooking...haha it has quite a smell. I love Trinidad so much though. It´s a little tough being there now because we don´t get to spend very much time working in it (just a few days a week) and there is so much potential there. But we´ve been putting a big focus on helping the members to do visits even when we´re not there so that work still gets done even when we´re not there. We´re making great progress with some of our investigators. We have this one that is super excited to get married and we´ve just got to work through a few more things and then they´re set. We did have one pretty sad experience though. We have one investigator that´s had a rough background but was really shaping up and changing. But some things happened and he got arrested on Saturday night. We kinda laughed about it and went to visit him today in jail but when we got there it was super sad. I guess they´re really not treating him well and he´s pretty shaken up about things. He was just crying and it was really sad. He might get out in about 10 days and we´re going to try and help him more. He´s a great guy just had a rough lot thrown at him. On a happier note though Elder Dickson and I had a super cool experience that just increased my testimony even more about obedience with exactness. We got into a lesson with a young couple (a man and his pregnant wife). They were super friendly and let us right in and it turns out the lady had actually talked a lot with missionaries before (she requested that we sing praise to the man to begin). After we sang that the guy started asking some great questions about if the prophet in that song was Joseph Smith and why he was so great. He also commented about how we´ve lost some things because of all of the times the bible was translated. So we started talking about the Book of Mormon and we thought they were just going to eat it right up, but quite the opposite. We tried presenting it to them in a variety of ways and using it to respond to their doubts and they were just having none of it. The guy just kept rejecting everything we were saying. Finally at one point he told us that we didn´t even know this stuff for ourselves and that we´re just following because our parents are members. We stopped him right there and explained to him just a bit of what the life of a missionary is like and about how if I weren't convinced I wouldn´t do what I do. We then bore the purest testimony we could about the Book of Mormon and he couldn´t really say anything against it, but he didn´t really accept it either. So in our mission we have a rule where we invite the head of household to offer a kneeling prayer at the end of every lesson so since the lesson had pretty much come to an end, we knelt down and invited him to do similarly and to pray with us. He knelt down and offered a fine prayer and when he stood up his whole countenance had changed. Him and his wife were both completely surprised and he started telling us that what we did was super symbolic of the Savior. He told us that it took a lot of humility to do what we did and what we do and that as we knelt down and prayed with him he realized that we really were convinced of what we were doing. He said we deserve his respect and that he is going to read the Book of Mormon and find out for himself that it´s true like what we´ve done. He also invited us back for this Saturday to come and teach them again. It was a strong testimony to me to always keep all of the little rules. I´m having a great time and I´m super happy and safe. I hope you have a great week.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
(N0 subject)
Email received January 13, 2014
Hola familia,
Hey so like I said, I don't know how long I will be able to write for today but just so you know I'm safe and happy. Last week was pretty cool, the Lord blesses us so much. We pretty much couldn't work in our area until Friday, when we had a super cool baptism. This girl named Marcia got baptized and it was super cool. She asked me to confirm her on Sunday and it was actually the first time i confirmed someone so it was pretty neat. Today we had a super fun P-day. We went mountain biking then we went to Burger King, it was super fun.You can check elder Brown's blog for pictures because i think he got some. The driving is going well, I'm learning stick shift just fine, I only stalled once and it was because i thought I was in neutral but i was actually in 4th. It was fine because it was at a red light so it didn't matter. Anyways I'm still loving the mission. I believe the words of President Uchtdorf about hit it right, I'm ''blisfully overwhelmed''. There is always so much to do but it's super fun so I'm loving it. We have been doing a ton of contacting with other missionaries on our divisions and I've been having a blast doing it. I really have a strong testimony of talking with everyone. I got to talk to a guy here in Paraguay that is from Belgium that has lived in Utah for the past some odd years. It was super cool and he knows a lot about the church. I wasn't able to get where he lives but I showed him really well where the church is so i hope he comes by. We also on Sunday had a cool experience. I was sitting in sacrament meeting when i saw this little kid run through the outside gate then a lady follow him in. So then i went out and talked with her and she was super nice.She said her little nephew loves coming and running around the church but she had never entered in before. I invited her in and she followed her nephew into the gym. She stood by the curtain separating the gym and the sacrament room and she looked in but wouldn't enter. Finally her little nephew ran in through the curtain and so we brought her in through the main doors and invited her to sit down in the air conditioning and watch her nephew from there. She actually really liked it and said next week she is going to come back with her sister and participate. the Lord is working great miracles. This week I'm going to see the country and visit some missionaries, it should be pretty fun. Sorry this letter is so short, I will try and write more next week. Just know that I'm safe and I'm happy as could be. Tired as all get out but I've come to really enjoy that super tired feeling knowing that you've put in a good day’s work and you can rest at night. I really love my mission and I really love Paraguay and Spanish and pretty much everything about what I'm doing. My mission is the best. I've gained a huge testimony lately of the Book of Mormon and it's converting power. I love the Lord and know He lives. have a great week and remember i love you all and pray for you all daily.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hey so like I said, I don't know how long I will be able to write for today but just so you know I'm safe and happy. Last week was pretty cool, the Lord blesses us so much. We pretty much couldn't work in our area until Friday, when we had a super cool baptism. This girl named Marcia got baptized and it was super cool. She asked me to confirm her on Sunday and it was actually the first time i confirmed someone so it was pretty neat. Today we had a super fun P-day. We went mountain biking then we went to Burger King, it was super fun.You can check elder Brown's blog for pictures because i think he got some. The driving is going well, I'm learning stick shift just fine, I only stalled once and it was because i thought I was in neutral but i was actually in 4th. It was fine because it was at a red light so it didn't matter. Anyways I'm still loving the mission. I believe the words of President Uchtdorf about hit it right, I'm ''blisfully overwhelmed''. There is always so much to do but it's super fun so I'm loving it. We have been doing a ton of contacting with other missionaries on our divisions and I've been having a blast doing it. I really have a strong testimony of talking with everyone. I got to talk to a guy here in Paraguay that is from Belgium that has lived in Utah for the past some odd years. It was super cool and he knows a lot about the church. I wasn't able to get where he lives but I showed him really well where the church is so i hope he comes by. We also on Sunday had a cool experience. I was sitting in sacrament meeting when i saw this little kid run through the outside gate then a lady follow him in. So then i went out and talked with her and she was super nice.She said her little nephew loves coming and running around the church but she had never entered in before. I invited her in and she followed her nephew into the gym. She stood by the curtain separating the gym and the sacrament room and she looked in but wouldn't enter. Finally her little nephew ran in through the curtain and so we brought her in through the main doors and invited her to sit down in the air conditioning and watch her nephew from there. She actually really liked it and said next week she is going to come back with her sister and participate. the Lord is working great miracles. This week I'm going to see the country and visit some missionaries, it should be pretty fun. Sorry this letter is so short, I will try and write more next week. Just know that I'm safe and I'm happy as could be. Tired as all get out but I've come to really enjoy that super tired feeling knowing that you've put in a good day’s work and you can rest at night. I really love my mission and I really love Paraguay and Spanish and pretty much everything about what I'm doing. My mission is the best. I've gained a huge testimony lately of the Book of Mormon and it's converting power. I love the Lord and know He lives. have a great week and remember i love you all and pray for you all daily.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, January 6, 2014
(no subject)
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
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
Monday, December 30, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received December 30, 2013
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.
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
Monday, December 23, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received December 16, 2013
Hola familia, hows it going? Como van con las preparaciones para la navidad? We`re preparing a full down here for la navidad. Sounds like you guys had a busy week, I had an interesting one but a pretty great one. So I finally got really sick! It was funny because last Monday or Tuesday I was telling Elder Ellefson that I`m made of steel and that I`ve never gotten hit by the double headed dragon, and that at this point I probably won´t get sick because I´m totally used to everything... boy was I wrong, haha. On Thursday night I was having a hard time sleeping because every time I moved I thought I was going to throw up, but I also thought that was all in my head. Finally around 4 am I just decided to go to the bathroom and see if that would help me feel a little better and as soon as I stood up I realized that was a good idea. I barely made it to the bathroom on time. Then for the next hour my insides were coming out of both ends of me! It was the first time I had thrown up in years! Then I cleaned everything up and took a shower and went back to bed around 5:30 and slept another hour. Then the day of Friday I had a fever. The fever went away though but I still don´t really feel like eating anything. Don´t worry though I´ve been talking with the nurse and I`M FINE, I´ve still been able to go out and work so I´m doing a lot better. Anyways the other super funny part of the story was then on Saturday for lunch some members made us the exact same rice with chicken and tomato sauce that I had thrown up the day before, yummy! Haha it was quite a weekend. Haha when I was explaining to Elder Ellefson how I had thrown up and such but not to worry because I cleaned it super well and sterilized the whole room super well he told me, "I guess that´s how you know you´re really a grown up, when you have to clean up your own vomit" haha it was so true. Luckily it´s super easy to clean up here because it´s all tile floors and the shower just sticks out of the wall so I just had to turn it on and rinse all of the vomit down the drain then just sterilize the floors really well. Sorry for all of the nasty details I was just super pumped that I finally got sick! I was expecting this months ago. Don`t worry about the mosquitoes because I`m actually really good about putting on bug repellent and as far as sunscreen goes... yeah we`re not going to talk about that. It`s better that I don`t use it because the smell of it makes me think of the pool I lived at, I mean worked at, before and fun happy summer time memories. But don`t worry because I invested in a nice sombrero that keeps me safe from the sun and I wear that all the time so I`m fine. Elder Ellefson has the exact same skin as Dad so he´s really good about putting on sunscreen everyday. He´s doing a lot better, doesn´t seem to be missing home as bad anymore which is great. His language is coming along. I got really blessed because I had a Latin trainer and the Lord blessed me so much to be able to just remember what I had studied about the language. At this point I´m focusing a lot on getting my accent really good (it´s hard because Paraguayans have a pretty funny accent that I don`t necessarily want, I this point I`ve kinda developed a half Mexican half Paraguayan accent, we´ll see where we go from here) and learning new words and phrases. The people love if I can say little idioms in Spanish like "it´s a piece of cake" or "be careful, he´ll talk your ear off" and fun little things like that. Also I don`t study guaraní but I´ve learned enough just from talking to people to be able to trick people for a little while that I speak it (I understand probably like 12 percent of what they say in guaraní but it´s enough to where I can just kinda guess at some way to respond and it´s a lot of times an acceptable response). I didn´t get the package that President Harris brought yet but I´m planning on going to the office as soon as I finish writing then I will go to the office and look for it. That`s cool that you guys got to see a pic of Elder Hulsey in the DR, I still haven`t seen one yet. He really is a great guy and I know he´s doing an awesome job in the spreading of the gospel out there in la República Dominicana. Also last week I told Megan the wrong day about los reyes, it´s actually January 6th.
So we had some super cool experiences this week with that family we´ve been working with. David, Rosa´s boyfriend, has really opened up a lot more to us and seems like he really wants to progress. Rosa came to church on Sunday! But David didn`t because he had a little too much beer on saturday night... but this week we´re going to talk to him about the word of wisdom and rosa says she´s si o si bringing him for next week so that should be really cool. They´re a super awesome family and I`m super excited to see them continue to progress in the gospel. The gospel truly does bless families. Something that Elder Ellefson has really helped me to recognize are the blessings of church attendance. I`ve had a pretty solid testimony for a while now about the blessings of the Sacrament which is the biggest and most important reason we need to attend church each week, but Elder Ellefson always points out just how good it feels being in church on Sunday. I never really appreciated just the calm and peaceful feelings you can have in church if you go in with the right attitude and if you look at it as a blessing to be able to attend the Lord´s true church on the earth every sunday. There´s always craziness happening around you with children and you get busy trying to prepare and teach classes and talks, but regardless of all of that we have to opportunity each week to completely set apart 3 hours or our time to worshiping the Lord and we can be 100% confident that there is absolutely no better use of those three hours at that time. We can go in and feel the Spirit and just feel peaceful. A lot of people use the excuse that Sunday is their only day off so they want to rest, well what better place to go and relax than the church! Others say that they want to spend that time with their family, but there is nothing that will bring more family unity than worshiping the Lord together, and that includes going to church. Elder Ellefson also always points out to me that the church is the same everywhere and that he loves that. That you can feel the exact same Spirit in the USA and in Paraguay and in Argentina and wherever you are. It´s a cool way that binds each member of the church throughout the world. We can all know that we all feel the exact same way as we happily attend our church meetings every sunday. I´ve really come to view it as the blessing it is rather than the chore that I thought it was. I´m super grateful for all of my leaders who worked so hard to help me have positive experiences growing up in the church, it´s different being on the planning end now. There are some amazing leaders down here that have taught me so much, but you also find others that it´s like pulling teeth to get them to fulfill their calling and I was always super blessed to have leaders and teachers that I felt like weren´t there for obligation but rather out of love. I invite you all to really try and focus on the blessings of being able to attend the true and restored church every single week and to invite someone else to be able to participate in the same blessings with you, you´ll notice that you enjoy it even more. I hope you all have a wonderful week and we will talk next week so prepare yourselves... Haha.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
P.S. so we´re doing our branch Christmas party next Friday (a little after Christmas) and they want us to prepare some kind of traditional american dish. If you could send me some recipes for next monday of some traditional american dishes that would be easy to make that would be great. Maybe things such as mountain man breakfast or some of my favorite casseroles that I used to like or maybe home made mac and cheese or spaghetti or tacos or stir fry (I know those things aren`t necessarily american but that's fine) that would be great thanks.
Hola familia, hows it going? Como van con las preparaciones para la navidad? We`re preparing a full down here for la navidad. Sounds like you guys had a busy week, I had an interesting one but a pretty great one. So I finally got really sick! It was funny because last Monday or Tuesday I was telling Elder Ellefson that I`m made of steel and that I`ve never gotten hit by the double headed dragon, and that at this point I probably won´t get sick because I´m totally used to everything... boy was I wrong, haha. On Thursday night I was having a hard time sleeping because every time I moved I thought I was going to throw up, but I also thought that was all in my head. Finally around 4 am I just decided to go to the bathroom and see if that would help me feel a little better and as soon as I stood up I realized that was a good idea. I barely made it to the bathroom on time. Then for the next hour my insides were coming out of both ends of me! It was the first time I had thrown up in years! Then I cleaned everything up and took a shower and went back to bed around 5:30 and slept another hour. Then the day of Friday I had a fever. The fever went away though but I still don´t really feel like eating anything. Don´t worry though I´ve been talking with the nurse and I`M FINE, I´ve still been able to go out and work so I´m doing a lot better. Anyways the other super funny part of the story was then on Saturday for lunch some members made us the exact same rice with chicken and tomato sauce that I had thrown up the day before, yummy! Haha it was quite a weekend. Haha when I was explaining to Elder Ellefson how I had thrown up and such but not to worry because I cleaned it super well and sterilized the whole room super well he told me, "I guess that´s how you know you´re really a grown up, when you have to clean up your own vomit" haha it was so true. Luckily it´s super easy to clean up here because it´s all tile floors and the shower just sticks out of the wall so I just had to turn it on and rinse all of the vomit down the drain then just sterilize the floors really well. Sorry for all of the nasty details I was just super pumped that I finally got sick! I was expecting this months ago. Don`t worry about the mosquitoes because I`m actually really good about putting on bug repellent and as far as sunscreen goes... yeah we`re not going to talk about that. It`s better that I don`t use it because the smell of it makes me think of the pool I lived at, I mean worked at, before and fun happy summer time memories. But don`t worry because I invested in a nice sombrero that keeps me safe from the sun and I wear that all the time so I`m fine. Elder Ellefson has the exact same skin as Dad so he´s really good about putting on sunscreen everyday. He´s doing a lot better, doesn´t seem to be missing home as bad anymore which is great. His language is coming along. I got really blessed because I had a Latin trainer and the Lord blessed me so much to be able to just remember what I had studied about the language. At this point I´m focusing a lot on getting my accent really good (it´s hard because Paraguayans have a pretty funny accent that I don`t necessarily want, I this point I`ve kinda developed a half Mexican half Paraguayan accent, we´ll see where we go from here) and learning new words and phrases. The people love if I can say little idioms in Spanish like "it´s a piece of cake" or "be careful, he´ll talk your ear off" and fun little things like that. Also I don`t study guaraní but I´ve learned enough just from talking to people to be able to trick people for a little while that I speak it (I understand probably like 12 percent of what they say in guaraní but it´s enough to where I can just kinda guess at some way to respond and it´s a lot of times an acceptable response). I didn´t get the package that President Harris brought yet but I´m planning on going to the office as soon as I finish writing then I will go to the office and look for it. That`s cool that you guys got to see a pic of Elder Hulsey in the DR, I still haven`t seen one yet. He really is a great guy and I know he´s doing an awesome job in the spreading of the gospel out there in la República Dominicana. Also last week I told Megan the wrong day about los reyes, it´s actually January 6th.
So we had some super cool experiences this week with that family we´ve been working with. David, Rosa´s boyfriend, has really opened up a lot more to us and seems like he really wants to progress. Rosa came to church on Sunday! But David didn`t because he had a little too much beer on saturday night... but this week we´re going to talk to him about the word of wisdom and rosa says she´s si o si bringing him for next week so that should be really cool. They´re a super awesome family and I`m super excited to see them continue to progress in the gospel. The gospel truly does bless families. Something that Elder Ellefson has really helped me to recognize are the blessings of church attendance. I`ve had a pretty solid testimony for a while now about the blessings of the Sacrament which is the biggest and most important reason we need to attend church each week, but Elder Ellefson always points out just how good it feels being in church on Sunday. I never really appreciated just the calm and peaceful feelings you can have in church if you go in with the right attitude and if you look at it as a blessing to be able to attend the Lord´s true church on the earth every sunday. There´s always craziness happening around you with children and you get busy trying to prepare and teach classes and talks, but regardless of all of that we have to opportunity each week to completely set apart 3 hours or our time to worshiping the Lord and we can be 100% confident that there is absolutely no better use of those three hours at that time. We can go in and feel the Spirit and just feel peaceful. A lot of people use the excuse that Sunday is their only day off so they want to rest, well what better place to go and relax than the church! Others say that they want to spend that time with their family, but there is nothing that will bring more family unity than worshiping the Lord together, and that includes going to church. Elder Ellefson also always points out to me that the church is the same everywhere and that he loves that. That you can feel the exact same Spirit in the USA and in Paraguay and in Argentina and wherever you are. It´s a cool way that binds each member of the church throughout the world. We can all know that we all feel the exact same way as we happily attend our church meetings every sunday. I´ve really come to view it as the blessing it is rather than the chore that I thought it was. I´m super grateful for all of my leaders who worked so hard to help me have positive experiences growing up in the church, it´s different being on the planning end now. There are some amazing leaders down here that have taught me so much, but you also find others that it´s like pulling teeth to get them to fulfill their calling and I was always super blessed to have leaders and teachers that I felt like weren´t there for obligation but rather out of love. I invite you all to really try and focus on the blessings of being able to attend the true and restored church every single week and to invite someone else to be able to participate in the same blessings with you, you´ll notice that you enjoy it even more. I hope you all have a wonderful week and we will talk next week so prepare yourselves... Haha.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
P.S. so we´re doing our branch Christmas party next Friday (a little after Christmas) and they want us to prepare some kind of traditional american dish. If you could send me some recipes for next monday of some traditional american dishes that would be easy to make that would be great. Maybe things such as mountain man breakfast or some of my favorite casseroles that I used to like or maybe home made mac and cheese or spaghetti or tacos or stir fry (I know those things aren`t necessarily american but that's fine) that would be great thanks.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received December 9, 2013
How´s everything going up there? That´s so funny to me how cold it is up there, it´s super nice and hot down here, just the way I like it. Sounds like you had a good week. I really liked dad´s coaching video story, teaching is hard I know it. So the weather wasn´t as bad this week but it was still stormy. In fact the same thing that happened to us last week happened to us again this week where the power shut off in the cyber so we had to come back, but this week we anticipated it so we have a bit more time. Last week was pretty fun. We did a division and the areas in this zone are all super spread out so I had to travel an hour away and the buses were taking forever so when we finally got to the house of the missionaries to pick up one and bring him back to my area for the division it was super late so I just slept on the floor at their house and left in the morning. It was a fun little sleep over and the division was super fun too. The weather was nice on Sunday but sunday was also December 8th and down here in Paraguay that is the day of the virgin of caacupe where everyone goes to make promises with her in caacupe and that took its toll on some of the members we have that aren`t too strong yet. But we now know one thing to help them understand a little better so it`s all good. So anyways last week thanksgiving was a fine day, I also got your package and those little pies were perfect. This week we had some super cool experiences with some super cool investigators. So we`ve been working with some families that we found contacting and it we had a super cool lesson on Saturday. We were talking and they are two sisters, Rosa and Carolina, and their husbands and one of the sisters, Rosa, prayed last time and started reading in the Book of Mormon and loves it all and she and her husband really want to come to church. The other sister, Carolina, had a lot of questions but she had heard a lot of stuff about demons coming to you as you read in the Book of Mormon and pray and such so she hadn`t kept any of her commitments. We shared a couple of scriptures with her and I knew that this girl had a mighty prayer in her heart that she needed to express but she was so afraid. So then her sister Rosa shared her testimony about how she was afraid the first time and how it was super hard but that she felt so good after and she loves it now. She also helped her sister think of some reasons she has to pray for and finally we all knelt down and she offered a prayer. The prayer was so simple and direct but the Spirit was so strong. Carolina stood up and started crying and said she never imagined it would feel that good. She then shared with us some very personal stuff about her past and we just sat and listened. She said that she hasn`t felt comfortable sharing that stuff with anyone but that she just trusts us. We told her we`re here to listen and show her how she can start a whole new life in Christ. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life and me and my companion afterwords were just so happy. We were talking about how those moments make all of the tough ones completely worth it and more. We`ve found some other really cool people that seem super prepared. There was this one guy and everytime we talk with him we just notice how prepared he seems. So he`s got like 4 college degrees (so he`s super educated) and knows a lot of stuff. Our first visit we asked him what a prophet was and he told us a man called of God to represent him on the earth and teach his children. He also told us that not just anyone can be a prophet, they have to be called of God (first person I`ve taught that understands that). Then he started telling us about how Christ taught us about something called the plan of Salvation, which is God`s plan for us to be able to live with him again. He also told us that a very important part of this plan is something called free-agency, or the ability to choose between lo bueno y lo malo (yeah, he explained this to us and this is the first time he`s ever talked to missionaries from our church). We explained about the apostasy and he already knew what it meant and everything. We then explained to him the restoration and how Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God and given Priesthood authority to act in God`s name in things such as baptism. He then commented to us how interesting that is because it lines up just right with what Jesus Christ taught through his example of being baptized by John the Baptist who was an authorized servant at that time to baptize. We then told him it was that same John that gave Joseph Smith the authority to baptize. Anyways this guy is super cool, the only hard part is getting him to pray about the truthfullnes. He wants to know and understand it all first so that he can be more qualified to ask God if these things come from Him or not. But he keeps reading the Book of Mormon and he`s really interested in the history aspect of it so he and I get along pretty well. Anyways yesterday we had another lesson with him and he told us how he thinks that most of the world`s problems today are here because good family values are under attack and the family is being destroyed (prepared or what!). So we talked a bit about that and he told me something that he uses to raise his kids that really caught my attention. He said "No busco la perfección pero si busco la excelencia" meaning I don`t look for perfection but I do look for excelence. That really caught my attention and I realized I think that`s really similar to what our Heavenly Father expects from us. He knows we won`t be perfect in this life but He can expect excelence. I looked up what the word excellence means and a sinonim was superb, and the definition of superb I think describes it pretty well. The definition is of unusually high quality. The Lord expects his children to be of unusually high quality, and I think we can achieve that here in this life. I also decided to add my own little expectation and it`s that of excelence and constant progression. I believe that if we are excelent children who are constantly progressing that the Lord through His grace will make us perfect one day and we will be able to live with Him and our families forever.
So about calling home for Christmas, we are allowed to call home December 23, 24, and 25th before 6 pm Paraguay time for 40 minutes. My companion would prefer not coming to the cyber on Monday the 23rd to skype so if it`s possible the 24th or 25th would be great. I don`t know who to skype because in the past I always skyped to Spencer`s account but he won`t be there this time so if you want to figure that out then let me know or add me on skype and I`ll confirm it that would be great. I would love to talk with Spencer too but I think that might be a little difficult and he`ll probably want to be able to share all about his mission too and 40 minutes isn`t a lot of time for 2 missionaries to both share all about it so it might be wiser to do it at different times. I write to him every week that I can so we get to talk and next Christmas I`ll make sure I`m home to talk with him. I`m trying to help my companion not feel so homesick but it`s kinda tough especially during the holiday season, but I don`t think that should affect too much when I can or can`t talk with you guys because we live pretty close to some cybers so worse come to worst we just do it on different days. So if Monday is better for you guys I don`t mind at all. I`m pretty excited for Christmas this year because I`ve really been able to make some really cool connections with some members here so I`m hoping to be able to pass it with them. The members here are so awesome and I love them so much. This is a really interesting area because some things work really well and others not so much. We finally had a ward council on Sunday and the branch president put us in charge of coming up with the ward mission plan to present to the ward mission leader then he would present it to the branch presidency on Saturday. ¡Crazy! A little while ago I didn`t even know what a ward mission plan was but after studying Preach my Gospel and lots of praying I feel like I`ve come up with a half decent plan. The branch president just wanted our ideas and he`s going to try and see which ones he likes to make the final plan. I also asked him what we were planning as far as the ward Christmas party and he told me absolutely nothing and that we would talk about it in a few weeks. I pointed out that Christmas was in a few weeks and se asustò un poco and put us in charge of planning the ward Christmas party as well. So I`m thinking about doing a live nativity scene type thing where we have the youth and primary children present the story of Christ`s birth to their parents. I was thinking this could be a good way to get less-active families involved and recent converts along with active members so hopefully everything goes well. I also am planning my zones Christmas party for the missionaries, the last zone leaders forgot to do it I guess. So I think we`re going to go to an old person home and read to them Christ`s birth in Jerusalem and in America and eat some candy and pan dulce with them (one of my favorite parts of christmas here that I forgot to tell megan about. They all eat this really good bread with fruit in it called pan dulce around Christmas time and their big dinner is always a super fancy bbq). I`ve learned so much about being able to manage seemingly hard situations with the help of the Lord and managing my stress too. Can you imagine that I haven`t even stressed about this stuff yet and it`s basically all planned out now, yeah me not stressing, crazy huh? Well I`ve got to go now, I`ve got a birthday party to go to for this recent convert and I was in charge of making the cake, I sure hope they like brownies. ¡Que tengan semanas divertidas!
Con mucho amor y un abrozo,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, December 2, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received December 2, 2013
Hola familia! Como están todos? This week was pretty fun and pretty great. It rained so hard for pretty much the whole week except for a few hours Sunday morning so that people could easily make it to church, it was quite the miracle. It was actually pretty funny because all of the electricity went out and it`s pretty much been out since. We got half of our electricity back in our house but actually right as I was typing this email the power cut out again. I`m finishing this email now about 4 hours later. We`ve been doing tons of service trying to clean everything up because the storms have been pretty big. We`ve been cleaning up trees that have fallen over and everything. We actually were on our way over to the cyber when we found a guy trying to cut up a huge tree (with a hatchet and machete) so we helped him clean up his yard for about an hour and a half. It was pretty cool though because it really helped soften their hearts and the family was asking us tons of questions about the church and they committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon so tranquilo. I`m super glad hermana cristaldo wrote you mom, that makes me super happy. I`m also pretty glad Brother Harris is coming down this week because justamente I have to go to the mission office this Thursday so maybe I`ll be able to find him there. We have Elder Zeballos from the area presidency I believe coming to talk with us so that should be super fun. The area is great and I am incredibly safe and happy. It`s definitely been tough trying to get everything figured out but I like hard things because they help me learn to rely more on the Lord. We had some really tough days this week but the Lord blessed us so much that it was all worth it. On Saturday we didn`t get in to anything all day and all of our appointments fell but I knew that if I prayed and kept at it that at some point the things would turn around and they totally did! We finally got into a lesson and they were liking it so much that they said they really want to come to church and learn more because they love what we were teaching. They also presented us to some more of their famlies so it was a great experience. Then I ran into a family from my last area and they were visiting some non-member family members in my new area and it they presented us to them and we had a miraculous visit. The Lord is continuing to soften the hearts of the people here in Mariano Roque Alonso as well and I`m super glad about it. I`m sorry but I have no time to write so I`ll try to write more next week.
Con muchísimo amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Hola familia! Como están todos? This week was pretty fun and pretty great. It rained so hard for pretty much the whole week except for a few hours Sunday morning so that people could easily make it to church, it was quite the miracle. It was actually pretty funny because all of the electricity went out and it`s pretty much been out since. We got half of our electricity back in our house but actually right as I was typing this email the power cut out again. I`m finishing this email now about 4 hours later. We`ve been doing tons of service trying to clean everything up because the storms have been pretty big. We`ve been cleaning up trees that have fallen over and everything. We actually were on our way over to the cyber when we found a guy trying to cut up a huge tree (with a hatchet and machete) so we helped him clean up his yard for about an hour and a half. It was pretty cool though because it really helped soften their hearts and the family was asking us tons of questions about the church and they committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon so tranquilo. I`m super glad hermana cristaldo wrote you mom, that makes me super happy. I`m also pretty glad Brother Harris is coming down this week because justamente I have to go to the mission office this Thursday so maybe I`ll be able to find him there. We have Elder Zeballos from the area presidency I believe coming to talk with us so that should be super fun. The area is great and I am incredibly safe and happy. It`s definitely been tough trying to get everything figured out but I like hard things because they help me learn to rely more on the Lord. We had some really tough days this week but the Lord blessed us so much that it was all worth it. On Saturday we didn`t get in to anything all day and all of our appointments fell but I knew that if I prayed and kept at it that at some point the things would turn around and they totally did! We finally got into a lesson and they were liking it so much that they said they really want to come to church and learn more because they love what we were teaching. They also presented us to some more of their famlies so it was a great experience. Then I ran into a family from my last area and they were visiting some non-member family members in my new area and it they presented us to them and we had a miraculous visit. The Lord is continuing to soften the hearts of the people here in Mariano Roque Alonso as well and I`m super glad about it. I`m sorry but I have no time to write so I`ll try to write more next week.
Con muchísimo amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
Monday, November 25, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received November 25, 2013
Hola familia!
Hola familia!
This was a pretty crazy week. So it turns out I wasn´t white washing the area but I´m opening my new area! That was a big surprise that I wasn´t told. So we had a brand new house with no area book, no cell phone, and pure strangers all around us. But then we got our cell phone working and it turns out that some hermanas had been working the area a few months ago and we were able to find their old area book. I´m still not sure why the area got closed down before but what I do know is that I´m loving it. This is probably the nicest area I´ve been in my entire mission. Also the members here are fantastic! Our house is this super goofy apartment that I actually really like (it has a real hotel feel to it) and right in front of us live 2 member families. One of them has a son that just got his mission call to Columbia and he has left with us all day everyday since I´ve been here. It´s like we´re in a trio. It´s made it super nice. We´ve been trying to work a lot with the members and that has turned out to be successful. We have been able to set up lunch appointments everyday and we received a ton of references from members this week. One of them was for this super cool kid named Santiago. he´s about 15 and I´m pretty sure he just lives with his dad but his dad drinks a lot. Santiago lives next door to an active (except for the dad) member family and they are his friends. They gave us the reference then invited him over to be taught and we taught him the restoration with the rest of the family (including the less-active dad). Then he went to church with them and now he´s preparing to be baptized. The less active dad didn´t come to church but I asked the wife about it and she said that it´s been years and normally he won´t even accept the visits from the missionaries so the mere fact that we were able to visit him was a huge miracle asi que I´m already seeing awesome miracles here in Mariano Roque Alonso. Mariano is a branch that could easily be a ward but it´s part of a district and not a stake so it can´t become a ward. The district is the district that has chaco paraguay (like filadelfia and all of the indian tribes) in it so that´s pretty sweet. The hard part about that is that the missionaries in the chaco are part of my zone and they area about a 6-8 hour bus ride away so zone unity is really hard. But we´re organizing some divisions to go out there and see how we can help. It´s wierd being in this zone because I´m going from being the youngest senior comp in my last zone to the oldest one in this zone. Most of the senior comps in the zone have about the same amount of time as Spencer and they´re training and finishing up training of other missionaries. Then there are a few that have about nine months then a few of us that have a little over a year. It´s really different because people now look to me to help them and I still feel super new myself, but the Lord is helping a ton. My new companion´s name is Elder Ellefson. He´s from Joplin Missouri which is part of the Oklahoma Tulsa mission. He got baptized about 2 and a half years ago and is super pumped to be here in the mission. He reminds me a little of Alec Olson from next door and Dad a little bit too. But he actually more than anything reminds me a lot of myself at the beginning of my mission and it´s super cool to see because I feel like I know exactly what he´s going through and I can see the huge progress I´ve made. He´s a really fun guy and likes to work. I feel bad because I´ve been trying to do a million things this week helping all of the new missionaries in my zone and trying to get to know my area and a handful of other things so my companion is probably super confused about what the mission is, but things should calm down a lot this week and we should be able to work hard. He´s got a super great testimony that he just loves sharing with everyone. Dad I´m actually super glad you check people´s blogs because I always tell people to put pictures up in hope that you guys some how can find them. It probably was me in the picture because we did go mountain biking last week. Well I can´t think of too much more that happened (even though there was a lot to start would be very difficult to end. It´s kinda like this song I heard the other day called the never ending story. Haha it was playing on the streets and I remember Mom and Dad used to sing that and this was the first time I had actually heard it).
I have been studying in the book of Mormon a lot lately and I was in 3 Nefi right before the signs of Christ´s birth and I noticed some things that were super important. When the people were united they prospered in the land and had continual peace (and I don´t think the peace referred to here means sitting around at ease all of the time). But then they would loose their unity because Satan would puff up their hearts and then they would loose all that peace. I was thinking a lot about the importance of unity in the success of missionary work. Missionaries have to be united with the members and the members with them. Then together they need to be united with the Lord through prayer, fasting and studying the scriptures and obviously receiving revelation through church attendance to know the will of the Lord so that all three are united. As soon as one of these three is no longer united with the rest the growth and "prosperity in the land" starts to end. I´ve got such a strong testimony of unity. The lema of the mission, and least when Presidente Madariaga was in office, was United in Purpose. I think it is super important to make sure we are united within our families, within our companionships and most importantly with the Lord. The Lord has said if you are not one you are not mine. He also has said that he called his people Zion because they were of one heart and of one mind and they dwelt in righteousness and there was no poor among them. I´ve got a super strong testimony of the power of unity. That doesn´t mean that everyone is equal, in fact it´s kinda the opposite. Each person has their unique talents and abilities that they bring to the table that others don´t have and that has become very apparent to me on the mission, but I believe unity is being to take all of the individuals with their strengths and weaknesses and looking forward to the bigger picture or the main objective and overcoming and looking past weaknesses and harvesting and using strengths. I have never had a companion that was perfect, and I know for a fact that I am not a perfect companion, but when we can look past each others weaknesses and work together with each others strengths than we have success. So I invite all of you to try and be a little more patient with one another and really focus on seeing people with eyes of charity and find and focus on the strengths of others and not their weaknesses and figure out how to work together better in unity to achieve goals such as happiness. ¿Lo harán? Les prometo que al hacer eso van a ver un cambio en sus vidas que les va a conducir más cerca a nuestro Padre Celestial y Salvador y Redentor Jesucristo. Yo sé que esta es su iglesia verdadera y que Él la dirige por medio de profetas vivientes. Tell David Rapier congratulations and that I´m proud of him. Have a wonderful thanksgiving and eat a nice big slice of pie for me.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
For some reason the compute won´t recognize my camera but here are some pictures that were emailed to me
I have been studying in the book of Mormon a lot lately and I was in 3 Nefi right before the signs of Christ´s birth and I noticed some things that were super important. When the people were united they prospered in the land and had continual peace (and I don´t think the peace referred to here means sitting around at ease all of the time). But then they would loose their unity because Satan would puff up their hearts and then they would loose all that peace. I was thinking a lot about the importance of unity in the success of missionary work. Missionaries have to be united with the members and the members with them. Then together they need to be united with the Lord through prayer, fasting and studying the scriptures and obviously receiving revelation through church attendance to know the will of the Lord so that all three are united. As soon as one of these three is no longer united with the rest the growth and "prosperity in the land" starts to end. I´ve got such a strong testimony of unity. The lema of the mission, and least when Presidente Madariaga was in office, was United in Purpose. I think it is super important to make sure we are united within our families, within our companionships and most importantly with the Lord. The Lord has said if you are not one you are not mine. He also has said that he called his people Zion because they were of one heart and of one mind and they dwelt in righteousness and there was no poor among them. I´ve got a super strong testimony of the power of unity. That doesn´t mean that everyone is equal, in fact it´s kinda the opposite. Each person has their unique talents and abilities that they bring to the table that others don´t have and that has become very apparent to me on the mission, but I believe unity is being to take all of the individuals with their strengths and weaknesses and looking forward to the bigger picture or the main objective and overcoming and looking past weaknesses and harvesting and using strengths. I have never had a companion that was perfect, and I know for a fact that I am not a perfect companion, but when we can look past each others weaknesses and work together with each others strengths than we have success. So I invite all of you to try and be a little more patient with one another and really focus on seeing people with eyes of charity and find and focus on the strengths of others and not their weaknesses and figure out how to work together better in unity to achieve goals such as happiness. ¿Lo harán? Les prometo que al hacer eso van a ver un cambio en sus vidas que les va a conducir más cerca a nuestro Padre Celestial y Salvador y Redentor Jesucristo. Yo sé que esta es su iglesia verdadera y que Él la dirige por medio de profetas vivientes. Tell David Rapier congratulations and that I´m proud of him. Have a wonderful thanksgiving and eat a nice big slice of pie for me.
Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
For some reason the compute won´t recognize my camera but here are some pictures that were emailed to me
Monday, November 18, 2013
(No Subject)
Email received November 18, 2013
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)