Email received October 7, 2013

Hola familia,

So this week was pretty fun and pretty crazy. First off we got changes today and me and Elder Beus are staying together here in Trinidad, but I have been called as zone leader now. So today I had a big meeting with President and all of the zone leaders in the mission and it was super amazing. The problem is that due to that meeting I have like no more time in the cyber, so once again this weeks letter is not going to be that great. But I really loved general conference, it was cool watching it in Spanish but you don´t get to hear all of the funny jokes they always tell. We`ll download it in English. My favorite talk I think was Elder Russell M. Nelson´s at the end and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf´s when he talked about how our church requires a lot of time. I really liked that because I realized that true religion should require consecration and that being a member of this church isn´t just being a member of something that you do once a week but rather a way of life. It´s a way to direct your life and live the right way. I also really liked Elder Nelson´s because I like how he talked about controlling our bodies. It´s really hard to eat healthy here in Paraguay but it is important so I will do my best. I really am loving my mission. I´m currently with my MTC comp who also went up as Zone Leader too and he gets to hang out here for a few days so it´s been super fun. I will write you better next week (I hope) and have a great week.

Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey

Email received September 30, 2013

Hola familia,

Espero que todo esté bien con ustedes. We had a really fun P-day today just full of fun activities. I went with one of my zone leaders, the one whose going home next week, and we made the hermanas in my district breakfast at the church. It was fun and we all had a really fun time. Then today I also found a quiznos sub so Elder Beus and I jumped all over that. Elder Beus is still the best missionary ever, I´m still sooooooo glad that he is my companion. We´ve been working super hard and we finally broke 100 asistencia in church on Sunday! The other missionaries have been working incredibly hard too on the otro lado so it´s just a magical time here. We need a lot of prayers and miracles for this general conference because if we can get people to come and watch then we´re looking at a super sweet baptismal service a week from tomorrow (Tuesday). The other Elders have a ton of investigators and we have some too that could all potentially be ready for baptism on that date and that would be super cool because there´s a new group of missionaries coming in that day and the assistants wanted to show them a giant baptismal service for their first day so we´re just hoping that all goes well there. Last week I had some of the coolest experiences of my mission. We were teaching one of our super cool investigators and she told us she was convinced that what we were teaching was true because when she saw Mayra´s baptism she felt something that she had been looking for. It was sweet but it got even cooler because then I started explaining a story from the Book of Mormon and her mom came out and decided to listen because the story sounded interesting. The mom then told us all of these problems that she´s going through and that she´s had with her religion. She started talking about how she doesn´t like going to her church anymore because she feels like there´s something more she needs to learn that they can´t teach her. Then she told us how she feels like the memorized prayer she always gives seems kinda worthless and with out power. We taught her how to pray and after a bit of hesitation she agreed to pray with us. It was one of the most sincere and powerful prayers I had ever heard in my life. I could just tell that she knew she was talking with God and that He was listening. She broke down into tears in the middle of her prayer and afterwords told us that this is what she´s been looking for. She´s got a lot of difficulties to over-come like her job she has to work on Sunday mornings, but I know that as she develops more faith in Christ and takes more confidence in the feelings she had as she prayed with us that she will be able to overcome all of these things. I´m super pumped for General conference. It looks like unless we travel to a different chapel we won´t be able to watch it in English, and it´d be hard to travel because we need to look for our investigators and help them attend conference, but we´ll see how everything works out. They always give us the conference liahona in English anyways, just a few months late is all. Well I´ve got to go and get some groceries then get out to work so I love you all and hope you have an excellent week. Good luck in school all of you and pórtense bien.

Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey