Elder Hunt: 2015-11-01

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Arrived in Trinidad Monday November 2, 2015

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Dear Parents of Elder Hunt,

We are so pleased to welcome your son to the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission! He arrived safely in Trinidad & Tobago on 02 Nov 2015. On Tuesday, he and several other new missionaries from the MTC were given a tour and brief training in the mission office, were interviewed by President Egbert, and then received instructions from the assistants to the president. We spent the remainder of the evening with him in the mission home for a welcome dinner and a spirit-filled devotional. We have loved getting to know him and we love him already. He is a bright and thoughtful young man, and is clearly excited to go to work teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday and today, each new missionary is either flying or driving to their assigned area. Elder Hunt has been assigned to labor in New Amsterdam , Berbice, Guyana . There is a growing population of members there, and the missionaries enjoy much success working closely with them. His new companion is Elder Cook, an experienced faithful missionary who will guide your son through a 12-week training program.

Elder Hunt's faithful studies in the Book of Mormon, Preach My Gospel and the 12-week training program will prepare him to be an inspired teacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Please encourage your son as he begins this challenging but extremely rewarding work. His gospel study and diligent obedience will help him teach effectively by the Spirit and to grow in his own testimony and conversion, which will be a foundation for his mission and also for the rest of his life.

Your son is encouraged to email his immediate family and his mission president every week on Monday, our preparation day.

We look forward to getting to know him and working with him in the great work of salvation in the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission. Thank you for sharing him with us!

Sincerely,
President and Sister Egbert

Attached are some pictures you might enjoy

Sister Bevins

Trinidad Port of Spain Mission

1 Morequito Ave Bldg. #10

Valpark Plaza

Valsayn

Trinidad & Tobago

Elder Hunt was up at 4 am to get to the airport by 6:00 am. He flew out at 8:15. He was able to talk to his brothers John and Drew before he flew out.

He then arrived in the Houston at 11:40. He was able to talk to the rest of the family before he boarded his plane at 1:00. He arrived in Trinidad at 9:00 pm. He looks great after that long of a day!

GOT MY VISA Oct 30,2015

Well, you were right mom and dad, I got a phone call from President
Jenkins this morning and I officially have my visa! I fly out of
Phoenix to Houston at 8:50 in the morning on Monday, November 2nd.
I'll be in Houston at lunch time, and I will arrive in Port of Spain
at 9:10pm. I don't know when would be a good time to call. I guess just

be on stand by or something? Or send me a time to call I guess :)

Elder Roberson and I are doing lunch with Dee and Linda today so they
will help me take care of my bike and stuff I need to send home. I
have my iPad until Sunday night, so I can receive emails until then.
Could you send me my West Indies packing list we made today? It should
be on the laptop.

Thank you for all of your support! I'm super stoked! Talk to you later!

Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad

I got my own Ipad! October 26, 2015

Hello and greetings from Mesa! It's been an awesome week this week.

I finally got my iPad! It's been super nice to have one of these
things. A bunch of different things have happened. I have not heard
anything about my Visa. The transfer ends on November 4th which means
they'd have international missionaries fly out on the 2nd. I'd have to
get my visa before then, or else I don't know if they'll keep me
another transfer. I'm assuming I'm staying another transfer as of
right now.

Elder And Sister Sitati came and spoke to the Mesa mission this last
week. He's such a cool guy. You could practically feel the love he had
for the missionaries radiate off of him. He had us ask questions on
questions we had on becoming better missionaries. He then addressed
all the questions. You know when you have those in depth spiritual
discussions, but you totally follow everything? That's what it was
like. Very neat experience. He told us one of the things we should
focus on is not only to invite others to Christ, but that our purpose
was to "come unto Christ and help others come unto Christ". He really
emphasized the point of becoming not only the missionary we need to be
but also the person that we need to become. What we need to learn and
do on our mission, and what we need to mentally learn and take with us
after our mission. As we focus on serving and helping others, we
become the person God intends us to be. We cannot become that person
if we focus on ourselves.

We had a huge Halloween trunk er treat ward party where they combined
Kingsborough and Cooper wards together. We had dinner and then did
some trunk re treating afterwards. Cooper ward missionaries were in
charge of it all so they asked us to participate in helping plan for
it. We literally invited everyone in the two ward boundaries to come,
member or not. We were able to get 4 investigators there! The F
family came and Sister D brought her daughter and some of her grandchildren to it.
They all said they loved it!

We did a fun service project this last Saturday. We went to the salt
river which is north east of Mesa. They were able to get half the
mission there and hundreds of other volunteers. We walked along the
river bank cleaning out garbage. They made it a huge deal apparently.
Stake leaders were able to get the nature park people to drain the
river some since it's controlled by a dam. It was nice to get out of
the city for a bit too.

Me and Elders Roberson, Ulrich and Loyola did a hike today. It was
just outside of Mesa on the Superstition Mountain range. It took us
something like just under an hour to get to the wind caves. Me and
Ulrich were able to make it to the very top of the mountain just in
time for the sunrise! I swear I took like 100 pictures just of the
sunrise between my camera and my iPad. I got some narley pictures
though! I'll be sure to send them. Ulrich got an awesome time lapse of
the sunrise on his iPad as well. I'll try to send that to you guys.

My mind is blanking out on lessons with investigators. D said she
has been reading the Book of Mormon! She likes it and has been writing
down questions she's had. She's had a very busy week this week and
it's been difficult getting in contact with her though.

We received a new referral named S this week. She moved here from Florida
just a month or so ago. Just before she left for Arizona she said she'd
been praying for help in her life and as an answer to her prayers she was
able to meet with and talk to an LDS member there in Florida. She now wants
to meet with the missionaries! We'll see how this plays out.

Honestly I was not too enthralled with the idea of coming to Mesa. But
one of the things I've been learning more and more is to love the
opportunities that God gives us. At my desk is a quote by Joseph B
Wirthlin "Come what may and love it". We need to turn "trials" or
"burdens" into opportunities and blessings. Whether it be a calling ora hiccup in our plans, we need to be grateful for these opportunities.

Another thing I've been learning is to be yourself. We've all been
given a personality by our Heavenly Father that goes together with the
gospel of Jesus Christ. We each can enjoy the blessings of the gospel
the most when we are ourselves. An awesome video I'd recommend
watching is on the Meet the Mormons disk. In the special features
section is another person that they highlight called the Artist. Why
she isn't in the movie I don't know. What I learned is that the gospel
clicks and connects with us most when we are ourselves. God gives us
certain attributes that make us us. As we interact with and serve
others, we can help others see what the gospel does for us.

Love you all! Thank you all for you prayers! This may be the last
email I send in Mesa. I have no idea where the process my visa is at
only that they have everything.

Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt

Sent from my iPad

Superstition Mountain Range at sunrise

Elder Ulrich and me

Elder Roberson, Loyola, and me

WEIRD WEEK Oct 19, 2015

A lot of weird things have been going on this week. We've barely been
able to make contact with our investigators this week.

We finally were able to get in to see B Sister this week. Apparently
she and her mom would like to listen to us but her uncle just passed
away. Her mom just had some sort of surgery and isn't up for visitors or
company over at their home. We were able to see them in person though and
they're both excited to hear our message.

We've been teaching the C family a lot this week. The parents are very inactive. Their children have not been baptized so we teach them as a part member family.
They've had a tone of crazy stuff happen and have had past drama in the Ward.
It's awesome though because you can see they really want to become
activated again and ultimately want to be married in the temple with
their children. We've been seeing step by step their progression.
They're reading and are trying to pray every night. We're going to see
if we can get them to church this Sunday.

We haven't been able to get into see the other sister this week. She doesn't have
a cell phone and has all sorts of crazy stuff that have happened. The
other F family were out of town this week to go to Tuscon I think. We are
meeting with the B family this week. They were investigators in
another stake but have since moved into our Ward so we've been picking
up where the other missionaries left off. One of the daughters is a
member of the church and her parents, sister, and now her friend are
interested in learning more.

I'd say the most difficult part of missionary work that I've seen here
in Mesa is maintaining contact with investigators since everyone is so
busy going to school or working in different parts of Phoenix. One of
the worst things here is when missionaries do street contacting or
tracking and the people they talk to are members, but some members
pretend not to be members and act totally interested and excited to
learn more.

Don't have much time left but I wanted to say how awesome it's been to
be on a mission. I've seen time and time again how the Lord looks out
for me and is always aware of my thoughts and feelings. I'm really
beginning to learn how to obtain answers to my prayers. I've really
come to learn how the gospel can help each of us EXACTLY as we need
it. That's the beauty of the gospel that makes it so simple yet so
powerful and dynamic. I'm grateful for the chance that I have to be
able to have this chance to tell other people what I have to say about
the gospel.

Love you all. Thank you for all your prayers and support.
Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt

more pictures from October 12, 2015

FIRST MISSION BIKE

FIRST MISSION APARTMENT IN MESA

VERY CLEAN

HE SAID HE CLEANED IT REALLY GOOD

Life in Arizona......October 12, 2015

Today's officially my 2 month mark! It feels so weird. Time flies by and at the same time it's felt like it's been a while. This week has definitely been awesome! Our teaching pool is slowly but surely growing.

A lot of things have been going on. Our bikes have been giving us trouble the last couple of days so we've had to some good old walking while they're getting fixed. One of our investigators has been fixing them. He's a super cool guy. He made Elder Roberson chicken soup one day when he wasn't feeling that good and has offered (and given) us rides when we need it. He's had very good feelings about the church. The only thing keeping him back is his wife, who's been hesitant about letting him join the church. Their daughter totally reminds me of you Abby! She's 11 years old and loves to talk with the missionaries. She loves it when I start speaking Dutch haha. Their family's awesome.

Would you guys pick up my bike if I left it here like at Linda's or something? Another bike to add to our collection haha. It's a Diamondback, not sure if you want it. Let me know.

On Wednesday we ran into some other missionaries. Elder Roberson thinks they're Born Again Christians, I think they were Jehovah's Witnesses. Definitely wasn't a pleasant surprise. They started arguing with us about weird stuff and didn't do anything but drive the spirit away. We got out of there as fast as we could and then avoided the area for a while haha.

Wednesday we had our first lesson with a lady. She's super nice and very accepting of everything that we've taught. She said she would start reading the Book of Mormon and has already expressed interest in coming to church. TOTAL golden investigator! Her friend suggested she meet with the missionaries and so she put in a referral for herself. We got her referral the first day of transfers which was really cool. We couldn't meet with two other lady's this week. One of the lady's uncle passed away a few days ago which added to her already busy schedule. We were told Tuesday by another lady that her daughter is in critical condition in the hospital and asked that we meet with her next week.

We've also been focusing a tone on less actives since that's been a problem in the Mesa South Stake. One couple has

been less active since childhood but want to change that now. They're children aren't baptized so we've been going over there regularly. They're super awesome and love it when we come over.

Other then that it's been the same old thing. I study Dutch everyday. President Jenkins said I should study for at least one hour a day. I usually read 10 minutes out loud from Het Boek van Mormon and then review some grammar and vocab. I've really been focusing on interpreting the scriptures since there's no one here I can practice my Dutch with.

Thursday I went on splits with Elder Layola. He's from Micronesia and was also a visa waiter in Mesa. He was supposed to head to Australia but decided to stay after 10 months here in Mesa. That night we got to eat with the Johnson's who had lived in Germany for a few years. They were both fluent in German and so I got to practice my Dutch a little with them. We had an awesome dinner conversation. It reminded me how much I miss speaking German as well.

I've also been getting a lot of piano and organ practice as well haha. We have to go to the church to get wifi so that Elder Roberson can do reports, online proselyting, etc. While he does that on the ipad I go and practice in the chapel. I've found that I want to pick up the organ when I get home. Does BYU offer classes for that?

This week has been awesome as usual. I'm loving it here! I keep saying this but the missionaries are totally spoiled here haha.

Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt