October 5, 2015

Hey everyone! This week has been pretty interesting. It's been a bit
hard though. The work is slow in this area. There's been some really
cool miracles this week though.

You know the girl we met on the street after my bike lock incident that I told you about last week? So we'd been pretty disappointed because we weren't able to meet with her last week. She wasn't there at the appointment we had set, and we lost her cell number. We were worried that when we had talked with her
last week she was just trying to get rid of us or something, or being polite but didn't really want to listen to our message. We had that mentality until last Monday night, when we unexpectedly received a text from her. She apologized that she wasn't there at the appointment and said that'd she'd been super busy that week. But she still wants us to come over so she and her mom are working on a time that we can come over this week. Very exciting!

We also met Another Sister this week. We were biking down the street Tuesday to get to the church building when this lady down one of the streets starts waving at us, waving her broom and calling for us. She's in her mid 60's and turns out she's had a very trying history and right now has a autistic child in her 40's who hasn't been given much longer to live. She's been trying to run the house with her husband having health problems, etc. But she asked us if we could help her and pray for her family. We've been able to go back and help her
and talk to her some. Turns out she has a son and grandson who are both Mormon and she's encouraged them to go to church and stuff. Hopefully more will be happening with her.

We also got in contact with a lady who wants to meet with us. She's had a lot of crazy stuff happening in her life and is really embarrassed about her past. She wants to meet with us though. We haven't been able to meet with her yet. Hopefully we'll see her in person this week.

The work has been slow but our teaching pool has been growing. I remember we were asked by our Ward mission leader to teach some member families to give us "practice". We haven't had a lot of lesson visits with many people. I remember feeling frustrated from the meeting, feeling like 1. It wasn't enough to keep us busy and 2. felt frustrated that my visa had been delayed for something like this, an area where we don't have a tone of people to teach. I guess it felt anti-climactic needless to say. I was thinking about this,  and then I remember the phrase came to my mind "stop worrying about if you're doing enough; go and make Mesa you're home". I've felt a lot less self conscious after that point and a lot more happier. There's a lot of really cool people in our wards and I'm learning a lot.

Mesa's awesome and I'm learning a lot of cool stuff. If you could keep Brianna, Sandy Geis, Dawn Surakus and the Farley family in your prayers that would be awesome!

Ik hou van  jullie!

Elder Hunt

Trainer, First Arizona sunset, and landscape

With First Trainer Elder Roberson

more pictures from Sept 28, 2015

Branch Presidency in the MTC

Brother Ellis on the top right served his mission in the Netherlands so he would speak Dutch with us.

Gets to see Elder Sam Madsen

Ending the first day in Mesa with Ice cream sandwiches

September 28,2015

 Well... so you're all waiting to hear what Arizona's like. Well, it's hot, it's dry, and it's AWESOME! Me and Zuster Parker got reassigned to the Mesa, Arizona mission until our visa applications were approved. I want to apologize in advance. I've been taking TONES of pictures to show you what Arizona is like, and then realized that my card reader is lost in my luggage somewhere. So I can't send pictures right now (I promise I'll send like 30 pictures next week). I was disappointed.

Nope the missionaries here aren't as spoiled as I thought they would be. I don't have my i-pad, I don't have my i-phone, and I don't have my car. It's me and my cute bike. It's great prep for Suriname though. To get a car in the mission you have have a health condition, be a AP, ZL, Spanish, ASL, or YSA missionary to get your car. I don't fit any of those categories so I get a bike. Biking isn't bad in Mesa though. You literally can't bike for more than 2 minutes before someone honks and waves at you.

Missionaries in the Mesa mission don't get i-phones. But they do get i-pads. I have to wait three weeks to receive mine. So I'll officially have an i-pad for 3 weeks of my mission. The missionaries are definitely spoiled though in the fact that we're eating dinner with a member family every night. It's the coolest because we'll go to the store or go eat somewhere and someone will pay for our stuff (or buy us extra stuff). At the grocery store by our apartment, if you scan the bar code that's on the Book of Mormons they have here, you get a VP discount. There's all sorts of stuff like that here in Mesa.

My companion is Elder Roberson. He's from the heart of Portland, Oregon, and he's AWESOME! I've been learning sooo much. He keeps telling me that I've come to the mission field pre trained though.

Elder Burr and Buehler left a day before I did, so I got to hang out with the other Dutch missionaries headed to the Netherlands for a day. It felt sooo taboo being there in the MTC with just me and Zuster Parker. I got to teach by myself that day though. The lesson was awesome!! It was a solid 35 minute lesson of just Dutch!

The flight was good. Got up at 2:10 and all that fun stuff. There were three other reassignment missionaries besides me and Sister Parker. Two Portuguese and a Spanish missionary. Luckily there's missionaries from Brazil here in the mission so the Portuguese reassignments got to be paired with them. And Spanish is obviously in Mesa. I'm like one of 4 people in Mesa that speak some Dutch.

At orientation we went over some rules about cars, i-pads, etc. President and Sister Jenkins are super nice. They let us take a 2 hour nap at the mission home after orientation. I remember I woke up from my nap, walked down the hall still tired from the nap and Elder Madsen and his comp were there. It surprised me soo much but I was so happy to see them. I got to spend the night with them. I got to see a baptismal service that night was so cool.

I'm in the Mesa South Stake covering the Cooper and Kingsborough Park wards. We were at some apartments making visits and we were about to leave and the lock on our bikes wouldn't unlock. We tried to unlock it and were starting to panic a little bit after 10 minutes. We finally got the bikes unlocked. Not 1 minute past and we were on the sidewalk, and there was a girl walking down the street. We talked to her and she totally agreed with everything we were saying. Her name is Briana and she accepted a Book of Mormon and a return appointment! It was super cool, it was my first street contact!

The neighborhoods here remind me a lot of Orem with St. George landscaping. Most people here are either already Mormon, work with Mormons, or are super active in their churches. Everyone is super active in their churches if they adhere to one. We'll talk to people in the streets or on their front porches and they'll talk to us about how they've already seen/read some of the Book of Mormon and how they're comfortable with what they have.

We're teaching a hand full of people. We're teaching the Farley family who have been investigating the church for 22 years! The husband already knows the church is true, but his wife has been anti-Mormon. But for the past month, she's been sitting in on the lessons. The first time in the past 22 years! Hopefully stuff comes about from it.

I'm loving Arizona and everyone here! I'm beginning to see why I've been called here. The work is progressing!

Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt

Zuster Schwab

Broedar Norton

Broeder Bonny

This is Elder Hunt with President and Sister Jenkins. He is From Idaho and was called in 2013