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Email received October 28, 2013

Hola familia!

How´s everyone doing with their halloween preparations? I´m thinking this year I´m going around as Elder Beus. I´m going to wear his plaque and his tie and be him, it´ll be a great time. I really have no idea if they´ll celebrate it a little better here in Asunción than in Luque. It´s called día de las brujas (witches day) or they just say halloween (which I suppose they probably assume it´s spelled jalouín).We were thinking about going to this place called God´s Pan (that means God´s bread) with the asistentes for lunch but we´ll see how that turns out. It has been doing a lot of heat down here but I love it. Everyone is always sitting outside and since it´s so hot they don´t have enough energy to run and hide from you when you come up so you can get into a lot more lessons. The bugs are everywhere but I learned a long time ago to always carry around bug spray with me so when I start to see them I lather up. It always makes me feel like I´m camping. The other day we were sharing a lesson and this giant mosquito just plopped itself down on my scriptures. I´m not even kidding it was at least the size of a 50 cent piece! It was so massive but it didn´t get me don´t worry. Our teaching pool is doing well. We received some super awesome referencias from some recent converts this week which was super cool. Also since we´ve been working so much with the less actives it turns out a lot of them have children that never ended up getting baptized but our now more than old enough to be baptized. It´s a great way to reactivate the family by helping them help their children prepare for baptism. We´ve been seeing tons of success working with the less-actives. yesterday we had 19 of them return from our side and about the same from the other elders´ side too (including their children and babies)! It´s really been a huge blessing seeing so many of them return because the branch is getting super excited about it so they´re working even better with us now because they´re seeing real growth and success. I feel like our job as missionaries has been made so much easier because we pretty much just have to go and teach them and they all pretty much want to hear it. The Lord has been doing a lot of work here in Trinidad because the hearts of many have been pretty softened and humbled and they are feeling the need to come back to church to make things better and all we have to do is help them realize that´s what they need. I´m really excited to find out what Elder Christofferson has to say about all that to help us when he comes on the 13th! As far as interesting people that I´ve found there have been some strange ones but mostly just normal paraguayans. They are really cool people that are so generous and really over all friendly. They definitely have some big time quirks about them but so do I so we get along pretty well. For example the cyber we´re using right now the lady just brought us out sopa paraguaya (it´s kinda like corn bread but different, I´ll have to make it for you guys some day) and a giant glass of sprite each to me and my companion. They are super good sharers which I definately think was something that I had to learn how to do better from them. They are always greeting you with a friendly yell of something in guaraní and they always seem to be pretty happy even though they don´t really have much of anything. I imagine in some ways their lives are pretty stressful because they completely rely on their health, the weather, and everybody else for money (the majority of the people either sell stuff, recycle plastic bottles from the street, or work construction) and if they don´t have work one day there is a great chance they don´t eat, but they don´t worry about that too much. They´re kinda just in the moment kinda people. I don´t think that always being like that to the degree that most of them are is right, but I definitely think they have something with not stressing so many things all of the time. Tranquilo no más. I can´t really remember anything super specific last week that happened so I´ll just try to make something super sweet happen this week and let you guys know how that went. I love you all and Feliz día de brujas.

Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey

I hope this photo comes through. It´s of me and this other elder in my zone named Elder Gunther and this kid named Ruben. We met him at the operation smile thing and he was hilarious.

Email received October 21, 2013

Hola apreciada familia,

I sure love you guys and hope your day is going awesome! I´ve had a pretty nice week. We had a super cool baptism on Saturday for this 20 year old guy named Wilson. He was so prepared and we didn´t really have to do anything. He was also a reference from our branch president and we got to teach him with some youth from the branch and one of them even baptized him so it was just a super nice service. Probably the most successful one in my mission. I was so scared the whole day because nothing was going wrong and something always goes wrong but in the end nothing did. He showed up the next day and was confirmed without any problems, Success! I´ve really had to refine my planning abilities and time management because there are a lot of things to do each day but I feel like that´s one of the reasons I´m at where I´m at right now because the Lord knew I really needed to learn these things. But as I manage my time well there´s plenty of time to work hard and have a great time doing it. In some ways I feel like I haven´t changed at all on my mission and that I´m still just the same zack (that´s weird typing my first name like that. The only time I ever use my first name is on official things where I have to write out Zachary) but at the same time I feel like I´ve learned so much better how to work hard, be obedient, and also be a human that makes mistakes. I struggled a lot with that before the mission and I feel like that´s why I was always so stressed and couldn´t make decisions but lately I´ve had to make a lot of decisions and I´ve learned how to do that a lot easier without all of the unnecessary stress. Right now in my mission I feel super blessed because I feel like I´ve got a handle on things and that I don´t really have to many problems weighing me down. I´ve been able to focus a lot better and the language hasn´t been an issue and I really haven´t felt homesick my entire misión I feel like so I´m super blessed. I feel like the Lord is blessing me without any big problems right now so that I can better help others without having to worry about myself so much. Elder Beus is such an amazing missionary and he´s got so much on his plate so I´m super glad that I´ve been able to learn better how to minister with him. I´ve still got so much to learn but I feel like I´ve learned so much about that. A new theme of mine that has been causing me to think a lot lately is when the Savior says, "He that will be mighty among you let him be your servant". That has really stuck out to me and I feel like I didn´t really understand that before. Just what is the point of a leader. I´m learning so much and if nothing else it´s really been motivating me to work super hard. I´m super pumped because they told us today that Elder D. Todd Christofferson from the quorum of the doce apóstoles is coming down here to Paraguay for a dual mission conference here in Moroni (that´s the area right above mine so super close) in a few weeks! I get to see another apostle and I don´t even have to travel that far to do it!

So as far as operation smile goes we just got to move all of their equipment into a truck to bring it to the south mission, but I think they´re still going to give us T-shirts for doing that because we get to do it again in a week so totally worth it to me(you know me, I love free t-shirts). Today we did a way cool zone activity in the temple. We got to go in and clean it and it was super cool because we got to go see all of the innerworkings of temple. Some of us almost made it all the way up to the Angel Moroni (the guy giving us the special tour got an emergency phone call right when we got to the ladder that leads up to it so we had to go) but it was super sweet. I got to clean the baptismal font and it felt really weird hanging out in water for that long but it was a blast. The spirit is still so strong in the temple even when your cleaning it, I really enjoyed the experience. We have a super cool family home evening planned for tonight with a recent convert family that has invited another family over to hear the gospel, I love missionary work! We also contacted the family that owns the cyber we usually use and they totally denied us but this morning when we went in so I could send some things to the office via email and after the lady asked when we were coming back because she wants to share with us ya. Miracle are happening all of the time, it´s super cool to be a part of them. I hope you have a rockin week.

Un abrazo
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey