Can Every Week Be A Miracle Week?

This week we found 11 youngsters that like to do drugs and smoke and drink and be super crazy. They beckoned us over and we were like...uhh...okay. So we started to talk to them, and they were all making fun of us and stuff at first, and then we sang a hymn. We sang ¨I am a Child of God.¨ Their faces changed, and they started to listen to us like their lives depended on it (which they do). The Spirit was able to enter and touch their hearts. They all accepted to work towards a baptism and towards changing their lives. 

There is this really awesome convert in our branch that has been a member now for 8 months. He used to live in the US, but for being like these youngsters, he had to come back to Mexico. Here, he found a few American missionaries and started to talk to them, and he changed his life. We brought him with us to visit these young kids, and we all were crying by the end of the lesson. Yesterday, four of the eleven went to church for the first time, including one that worked in another state yesterday who went out of his way to find a church building to assist. Since when did teenagers want to go to church? Only when the Lord is hastening His work.

I don´t know about you guys, but I´m getting pretty scared seeing all these amazing miracles passing. These are definitely the last days.

I love a line I found in Preach My Gospel this week about repentance. It says ¨Bringing our lives in line with God´s will through repentance is a central purpose of our lives.¨ That´s our purpose in this live. Right now, as missionaries, our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ, but putting my life in line with God´s will is the grander purpose. It is the bigger purpose. If we can accomplish our purpose of doing always the Lord´s will, we accomplish every other purpose as well.

I hope you have a wonderful week! Enjoy the snow!

Hermana Hunt

PS don´t you love how they teach English here?

PPS Parral is famous for its mine. They had a lot of work about 30 years ago, and that is why people live here. Last Monday we went to check out the mine and the nice view of Parral from up on top!

hit my one year mark November 20th. You can see how happy I am about that.

Tere is like my second mom. Seriously love this family.

My comp hates me and shut my thumb in a car door...hahaha just kidding she doesn´t hate me. 

But she did shut my thumb in a car door ;)

Another Week of Miracles

This week started off sad because we had a really old lady that wanted to be baptized, but everyone told us that it was going to be really cold this weekend. We knew that with her knees and heart and everything, she would not even be able to walk if it was really cold. She is 84 years old. Then everything started to say that it was going to be a cold weekend. News, people in the street, and the weather itself said that it would be a cold one. How sad. Even Thursday was the coldest day out there. Her service was planned for Friday. We started to fast and pray and tell everyone to fast and pray with us so that P would be able to be baptized. Friday morning we woke up and the first thing we looked at was the sky. Cold. Fog and coldness.

We kept praying.

We finished exercising. Thirty minutes later.

We looked out the window.

HEAT!!!!! SUNSHINE!!!!!!! It was the most beautiful day this week!!!! P was able to be baptized. It was a beautiful service. No one thought it was possible because usually the old people here are SUPER catholic and P was SUPER catholic, but then God started to let her feel the spirit little by little. She started to change little by little. And little by little, the Lord placed the way so that she would be able to be baptized. In the service, her and her daughter both cried and expressed their love for eachother. They both expressed how happy they were. P forgets a lot of things, but all day long she said "I´m already baptized!!" hahaha :)

I have seen so many miracles for fasting these last few weeks. If we have a question or a problem, fasting puts us closer to the Spirit so that we can find an answer. We can do it whatever day and whatever time we need.

We saw another miracle with T and D this week too. Remember how last week she told us she didn´t want anything to do with the church anymore? Welp, this week she is a member of the church. Her and her daughter. Right after their baptism they went to visit investigators with us. They are huge examples for me. They are so committed to do what the Lord says. All week long, T was like: what am I feeling? What is this feeling that just wont leave me? Why do I feel like this?! We helped her to understand that it is the Spirit´s beautiful voice that makes us feel good about the decisions we are making.

I am just standing here in awe at what is passing in the Lord´s work right now. He is working, and He is working hard. Are we watching on the boat or watching from the shore? Are we helping this grand work? Are we on the Lord´s side? Now is the time to show ;)

Love you all!!

Hermana Hunt 

Week Of Miracles

I don´t remember if I told you or not, but a family of investigators went to church for the first time last Sunday, and it was wonderful. However, on Tuesday, we went to visit them and the mom, T, told us that she never wanted to go back to our church, that she had decided that her church is the true church, and that her church was going to help them out with the priesthood just like our church would do. I remember we left that lesson quiet with nothing to say. My companion asked me after a lot of silence--¨what do we do now?¨ T and her family are like our family. They are so wonderful and they had been progressing really fast, especially her daughter, D. I remember walking down the street saying ¨We put our trust in God.¨ and hoping that I would be able to follow my own council.

On Wednesday, we started a fast for her and her family. We trusted in our zone leaders to go and visit her, and we trusted in our Heavenly Father. Our zone leaders went to visit them with our branch president, and I left to do divisions with the other sisters in Parral. Yesterday we saw a miracle. T and D went to church!!! When we went to visit them after church, T told us: ¨I know now why I felt anxiety and sadness when I told you I didn´t want to keep listening to you and I didn`t want to go to your church anymore. I found my answer. I am going to be baptized on the 22nd of this month. I want to be a part of every part of this church.¨ My face--> O:I

It was a wonderful, wonderful moment. I love the happiness you can get when others finally find their answer after searching so hard. T says that she wants to be baptized really soon so that she can go to the temple too. She already started doing her family history and she is going to feed the missionaries like, six times this month. I feel like their family is my family. I feel like her daughters are my little sisters. They are so wonderful and going to be blessed so much by this gospel. 

I went to do divisions with the sisters in Parral and discovered that Parral is........FULL of HILLS. I am sending a few pictures that I hope will help you to understand exactly what it means to walk up the mountains on your tippy toes so that you don't fall backwards, and then to be afraid to go back down because you feel like you`re trying to walk down a slip and slide. It is beautiful, but my oh my these poor sisters have a lot of hills in their area! Something that amazed me though is that these sisters are so happy up in the hills. They trust in God and are seeing a lot of miracles in their areas. When you ask them about the hills, they`re all chill like: Oh yeah, there are hills. But think about this thing that is way cooler than thinking about hills.... hahaha they are a wonderful example for me.

This week in Cuahtemoc, they were able to bring 20 investigators to a branch that in the past has had 100 in attendance. Yesterday, they had 220 attend, with 20 of those being the investigators. We saw a miracle here in Parral also in the divisions when we found a woman that has known that the church is true for years, has a testimony and passion so deep that she wants to be baptized with all her heart, and is just looking for a way to get baptized. She has already been prepared by the Lord. What a blessing it is to see that the Lord is hastening His work. I hope you are praying for missionary work and trusting in Heavenly Father that He will help you know what to do and what to say when the moment comes to share the gospel. It´s a beautiful labor :)

Have a great week! I look forward to hearing your missionary experiences next week!

Hermana Hunt

PS one of the relief society members made us food Thursday. She is really old. Every day we eat at 2 in the afternoon. When we went to this lady´s house, she said with her shaky old lady voice: ¨I started to cook at six in the morning but you didn´t arrive and you didn´t arrive. I hope the food isn´t cold. I have been waiting for you for a long time...¨ hahaha

Pine tree seeds, not rocks. Pine tree seeds are really expensive here and really delicious. I`m pretty sure they just fall on the ground there and no one cares. But they are yummy!!

This is what our bed looked like yesterday. Sunday means you don`t have to make your bed, right? Hahaha this is the first time this has happened in the mission. Sorry mommy....

Porch steps? Who needs those when we built our house on a mountain?

Sister R. It rained a lot this week. It was pretty cold.

Sister J´s house is bigger than my house at home, and they pay less than $250 a month in rent. This is the view from their spectacular windows that face the whole city of Parral. Beautiful. And a beautiful house. they have a jacuzi (dont remember how to spell things) and three bathrooms and a giant kitchen. Hahaha they are living the life :D

Parral

Okay, can I just tell yall that I am living the dream of a life?! It´s EN SERIO. I do not see how life could get any better. Just maybe if all my friends and family moved to Parral. Yep. That would make it 100 percent perfect instead of just 99 percent. 

I´M IN PARRAL!!!!

Everyone, and I mean everyone, told me I would never go to Parral because I´m super white. Well take that everyone!! Parral is known as the most beautiful place in the state of Chihuahua. I am kind of in Chihuahua heaven right now. AND. To make things better, my companion is HERMANA M!!!! She´s crazy awesome!! She is so awesome. So yeah. Rant over.

This week was pretty cool. We spent most the week in Chihuahua or on a bus from Chihuahua to Parral or Parral to Chihuahua. (PS. Chihuahua is the biggest city in the state of Chihuahua, where I have been all my mission until now. Now I live 3 to 4 hours in a bus from the big city. Hope that clarifies a bit of the confusion with the whole Chihuahua-Chihuahua thing.) In Parral there is only a branch, not a ward, but it is a really big branch. We just don´t have enough priesthood holders. Hello looking to help men be worthy and be baptized so that we can get a ward out here. The members are awesome. We fight a little bit more to have a place to eat, but most of the Relief Society members are willing to give more than they should to the missionaries out here. One branch. TEN missionaries. We´re a lot of crazy youngsters. Don´t blame someone not wanting to give food to ten extra people. The members are so dedicated out here. It´s amazing.

This week I loved a phrase we sang in English the other day ¨fear not, I am with thee, oh be not dismayed; for I am thy God and will still give thee aid¨ and another one that said ¨we doubt not the Lord nor His goodness--we´ve proved Him in days that are past.¨ I have realized that my entire mission I have done the things for my own hard head, and I have not trusted in the Lord. I have trusted in my own strengths. Last week, I saw how I had no power over a situation, but the Lord, yes. I saw miracles. I saw that I have ¨proved¨ the Lord, and He came through on His part of the deal. He always will. This week, I have been trying to trust the Lord more and to have more faith in Him.

You know those confidence tests they do where you have to fall backwards and trust that someone is going to catch you? That is how I should be with our Heavenly Father. I should confide in Him so much that I don´t worry about falling. I know He will catch me.

Another thing I liked this week, me being super quiet and keeping in my complaints instead of expressing them, was something President said. He said (in Spanish......uhhhh....) ¨Don´t confuse humility with quiet pride.¨ When something isn´t right, a lot of times I just don´t say anything because I don´t want to be all prideful like, hey look dude I´m better and this is just not right, but I think it in my head. I need to stand up for what I know is right instead of just staying quiet. I can´t make a difference if I don´t stand up for what I believe in. 

Hermana Hunt

They eat dead people´s bread here for their dead people day. AKA two days after Halloween. Why is it called dead people bread? I do not know. Why do they eat it on dead people´s day? I do not know. Is it delicious? Obviously.

Parral

Satan cat. We gave it some yummy food. Then we had two cats. Then three. There are animals all over the place here in the streets. It´s pretty sad sometimes.

I finally got my scripture cases. They´re awesome!!

President took us to a sweet country restaurant. Yes I took pictures in the bathroom. How cool are these sinks?!

A member made us these CUTE sister missionary cookie jars. They are pringles containers that she cleaned out, decorated, and filled with cookies. I will miss my old ward. They are crazy wonderful.