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
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Monday, January 27, 2014
Monday, January 20, 2014
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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
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