Coming Up On One Year!

So . . .
Elder Hunsaker is coming up on one year on December 19th. Cannot believe it!
It has flown by but it also seems like forever that we dropped him off at that MTC!
We are so proud of him. And he has done an amazing job of taking care of his family in all of the things he has to do. He gets an email from at least 6 people in our family each week and he answers them almost every week!
He is having some incredible experiences . . . learning a lot about life, himself, the gospel, others, and his Savior. All good things.
Here are some more experiences and pictures.

   

September 2nd
so my area is much more swampy and junglely, there are so many mosquitos and bed bugs, I am getting eaten alive, the house is big but half of the lights dont work including the kitchen and shower and above my desk, you learn to adapt to all sorts of circumstances. a lot of walking in my area and that usually means fewer lessons but its ok each area is different and you adapt and work. the ward is incredible, they want to help the missionary work so much and our ward missionary just rocks.




September 23rd
We are  teaching this family and the dad has been really interested in the lessons and has come to church 3 times the oldest daughter a little interested and has come 2 and the mom and youngest daughter, dont really have much interest. We had a appointment with them on saturday night and when we got there the mom answered the door and looked very distraught. she informed us that they were going through some very difficult things and they weren't sure they wanted us to come in. We entered the house and began to talk with them. I dont know how to explain what happen to give it any justice but I saw this family, in an extremely hard situation open their hearts to God. The family has never been to church together and we invited them to come to start the change and to permit God in their lives, they promised to come. Sunday morning was crazy we were in the church and when the sacrament meeting started at 8 they werent there. but during the sacrament hymn, the whole family, even the dad entered. it was the most sweet feeling, they were sooo touched by the church and the members rallied around them so well.


October 7th
Conference!
So I dont know where to start with conference, it was an incredible experience for me. Some of the talks that really hit me was on saturday afternoon,Elder Bednar and Elder Uchtdorf, then on sunday the talk of President Monson, so powerful so much emotion. I also enjoyed the talk of elder Cook on sunday. really  the conference was better then words describe. more then ever before, my testimony grew of those men, I just saw them in a different light this time, I believed all the words they said and just knew that this church is true, I cant describe a lot of the feeling.
I let my companions cut my hair.
                                   
November 4th

I cant believe how fast time goes, i am going to touch a year on this next transfer... its cra cra. only way to explain it. I have loved this year and cant wait to see what the next one in store has. 

I am trying to do better and giving you guys a feel for how it is here, the work, the people, the comps, the food :) dont know if I mentioned I ate pig brain tacos, had the texture of potatoes, and also a lot of grasshoppers, they are quite the popular snack.

I cant express to you just how much I love the mission, its the best thing that anyone (my age) can do, its just the best kick in the pants of how you need to live, I cant imagine and try not to, myself not being here. i invite you all to really think about it and prepare now, preparation makes the difference, you can see how much they prepared before their mission, in each missionary.

November 18th
so this week, interesting. we didnt see a lot of success, a ton of walking, like im talking blisters on my toes :) the weather went crazy too, we started with tuesday being the coldest ive seen in mexico with super winds and wow its was cold, no lies and of course, no one was home :) then we went to the end of the week to being one of the hottest times, and im 100% sure that i have skin cancer now. 
so a cool story of the week, we found a new investigator on saturday. he is a jew... wow we had one my favorite lessons of my missino with him, he is super smart, (is learning hebrew) and has an incredible knowledge of the gospel, his views of religion were so inspired, his beliefs are closer to ours then any other religion that I have talked with. we had an incredibly spiritual lesson and I learned so much from him. I'm super excited to continue teaching him in the future and it was a motivation to study the doctrine more. cool guy.

December 10
                             

So we found out that the first group of american sisters are coming to mexico in all the history of mexico, 4 this change, its going to be different.

This week we had a seventy come to the mission, Elder Daniel L: Johnson. great man and he said we should be opening our mouths more. After we left the conference, I decided if I was going to be better I had to start now. So with a lot of fear I stood up in a bus of over 40 people and started to preach. I had my comp and the sisters in my district we contacted the whole bus, i did an introduction of who we are and who we have a message of the nature of God and Jesus Christ for them. I then asked for them to raise their hand if they wanted to hear more. I was surprised to see a few raise their hand, my comps started to teach to them, we found 4 new people who wanted to hear, its not a lot for 40 but it was a miracle for me. It was a testimony that if I really do open my mouth, I can be blessed. that was on friday and since then I have contacted 5 buses and had over a 105 contacts this week. It was a miracle and it helped lift the district up and helped me a lot.

Its been a good week and I'm excited for the next, I am learning that when you put faith in God, when you know who He really is, you do not fear and can do whatever God wants you to do. 

Amazing experiences!

So . . . busy mom, here. Haven't posted in a while. Must be summer :)
Elder Hunsaker is doing amazing, amazing, amazing.

Here are some of his latest letters and pics.

"We had a good week. A ton of lessons with members and this just makes the difference in the conversión. We had FHE with a investigator for the first time since we began teaching her and her family 5 months ago. They loved the lessons but never would come to church, this FHE changed it all, they were so touched and for the first time ever they came to church with the family, it was a miracle and this Sunday the youth returned from EFY and all bore their testimonies. It was so powerful and I know it touched the hearts of this family. I think this will be the turning point. We had an amazing day in Acatzingo, we went with the branch president and the first counselor. We had amazing lessons and found so many people, just miracle after miracle. We found investigators that we had lost and hadn't been able to contact.

                             

"Honestly I don't lie when I say I see miracles everyday on my mission. sure I am always tired, like right now I am soooooo dead but the work goes on and when I stop thinking about myself is when I see miracles and am able to help people in ways I didn't think possible.  Just know that I am having the time of my life, sure its hard buts its worth it - it's the greatest thing ever - words can't really describe."

                                      

"Wow, week this has been. We had 5 baptism on Saturday of a family that we married on thursday and interviewed on friday. This family has been so ready and we have been trying to get them married and ready for baptism for 2 weeks now. However they don't have any money, the two parents hadn't eaten for a day or two to feed the kids but they want to be baptized so bad, its been so humbling watching them. We had our first ward council meeting, they never had them before and we told them they need to start. This first one we brought up this problem, and also how she is pregnant and has been really sick lately and they have to use a lot of their money to buy the medicine for her. Well, the members just rallied! They talked to the stake to get them food and the members started to pitch in money and by the end of that meeting we had enough money to marry them. On thursday we had to go to three different towns because they didn't have forms but then we finally found a way and they got married 5 minutes before the place closed. It was a miracle in every sense of the word. 

                                        

'I actually got to go on splits with a elder who came in the same day as me, both greengos but it was so cool. We both don't speak great Spanish but we had a great day and I got to teach a lot and really test my Spanish it was great. Then Saturday we had a baptism. I was to baptize two of the kids.I cant begin to explain how much of a spirit was there. It was a day i will never forget. Ii got to confirm the two kids on Sunday and I know that God can bless me with the gift of tongues that's the only way I could have said those prayers. It was soooo incredible. Oh this week was amazing, and we aren't getting transferred  the rest of our district is but we are the only two staying together, I am honestly sooo excited!

Its started to rain here a ton and i have been told it wont stop for the whole month of June, rain is just the devil on missionary clothes!" 

  

"I got krispy kreme donuts and Little Caesars this week and I was in 7th heaven soooo much and then the member for dinner said they had to go but that if we could just cook the food it was all right there, so we cooked our own food that day. I made hot dogs and it was awesome! 

"So funny stuff that's happened my companion told me that i keep sleep talking in the night and i am giving the lessons in Spanish! he says i speak better Spanish in my sleep then awake and I went through the first two lessons with some investigator. he was kinda freaking out. haha oh yeah and a dog bite me this week, I was just walking the street and the dog was sleeping and I just walked by not doing anything and it attacked me, it tried to bite me but bit my watch! it was loco, I throw rocks at it, that's how you chase away about any dog here.

"So I just got back from the p-day activity with the district we went to the ruins again and found some of the sickest caves I have ever seen!!! I just so gun ho I went first the whole way, squeezing through whatever I possibly could. It was soooooooo much fun and then we found two snakes I'm talkin' 4 feet or longer, big ones, the first one got away but the second one I attempted to catch I did a pretty good job for a while it attacked once and I had to dodge it from biting me."

  

                                              

"I got to celebrate the 4th of July here. I printed out an american flag then woke up early and sang the national anthem. I sang the hymns of america the whole day and had hamburgers and a dr pepper I had been saving for months in the night, no fireworks but it was as good as I could do. 

 

"We went to Puebla for a zone meeting and on the bus I started to talk with a man there he, is from mexico city but lives in our area, he speaks english pretty well and he started to ask me questions. we talked for the whole 2 hour ride, I gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he had started in earlier but it got stolen and he had been looking for a new one, he said he knew it was true and asked me how he could be baptized in the church ;) God gives us miracles every week , every day its incredible! we hope he gets baptized in these next weeks :) on this same day we went to a store there in Puebla because they have american bread and I needed some! when I went to pay it rang up more then I thought, so I asked  them politely if that was the right price, they said they would go check but to just wait on the side, I was waiting when a lady that worked there came up and asked "whats the problem Elder," I just told her they were checking the price and she went up and without me saying anything paid for it! I felt so horrible really because she is a bagger there and in mexico they don't get paid they just work off tips from people, she doesn't have a lot of money. yet she paid for me, I was so humbled and it made me realize that people are always watching you and your actions you never know who might be a member or a less active and if I had acted rude who knows. It made me realized I need to always be an example always."

                                     

First Transfer

Elder Hunsaker has been doing great his first few months in Mexico.
Here are some of his emails and pictures.

"We visited a less active and found out he was sick, so we gave him a blessing  and I gave the blessing. thats my third one in spanish in the last 6 weeks and I am amazed everytime at the blessings that come from it and the gift of tongues that I am blessed with. It was an amazing experience. Well guess what I had for breakfast this morning? cow stomach mole! mole is that chocolate chili stuff I told you about well I found out today there are two different types there is the chocolate type and there is the cow stomach type. It wasnt half bad, really chewing and had a potent taste but it was fun to try!
"Well this week I experienced my first real sickness. Tuesday night at 1230 I started to throw up and that continued for every 30 minutes until about 1030 that morning. I was just completely beat, I called the president and they gave me some instructions. I went to some hole in the wall lab and they took my blood and then I had to go buy medicine and drinks. I was so out of it and felt horrible. But the members were amazing they drove us to the stuff, they brought food and checked on me all day, it was amazing. every said I had something different but from what I understood and what the analysis said was that I had something called brocilocis or something that sounds like that, a parasite I guess. I still dont understand what I had but I didnt want to be sick one bit. so the next day I lied and said I was fine and went back to work, probably the hardest day ever to work, I couldn't speak spanish or understand it or focus but I was still able to get through lessons. I am feeling a lot better not 100 % but close and its been a real blessing.

"So this week I am so excited. We have our first two baptisms!!!! We taught them the commandments this week and she said she drinks coffee 3 times a day and we asked if it would be a problem to stop she said, no I will stop now, if God doesnt want me to then I wont. and also her job says she cant join the church she has to be catholic to work there and we were so scared, she said I am working it out right now but if it doesnt then I will find a new job. I was just amazed by her faith and dedication. God prepared her and her daughter a long time ago. I have been so humbled and amazed by this experience. 

I love it here and everyday I just think about how there is not another place on earth I would want to be."

"On Mondays we are going to practice guitar and he will teach me, he's fantastic. and then about 3 times a week in the morning we will run to the church for our exercise and I will practice piano for about 30 mintues. I have decided to practice again and I'm amazed how much I've already picked up. 

I love you all so much and wanna keep hearing from you, remember you are all children of God and he loves you more then you can imagine and it goes the same for your parents and your son or brother kickin it in mexico. 

I love you all."

  

First Week in Mexico

 absolutely love it here and the experience has been fantastic! The people are so kind and amazing especially the members. my companion elder sagástegui is incredible! He doesnt speak english so I am learning spanish very quickly but as of now I understand a solid 20% haha esta bien.


 the weather is great here! it is prefect i love it! the food is incredible, the picture i sent is of us eating shrimp in a chile soup that has everything on it, even the eye balls pretty cra cra oh and there was a full fish as well :) but it was actually really great. 

And here's a little something from his mission president's wife:

it was so fun when I looked out my kitchen window and saw Elder Hunsaker and Elder Graff exploring our back yard and feeling the grass, etc.  I had to smile.  They were like two little boys on an adventure!  It was priceless.  They also climbed on the top of our roof to look out over Puebla!  I didn't even know we had a ladder to the roof until they came.  They are "curious."  I like that!  They are going to be GREAT!!!  

Here's Stephen's first friend he made in Mexico

Stephen's new address is:
Misión México Puebla Norte

Calle 25 Sur #907

Colonia La Paz

Puebla, Puebla 72160

México  

Mexico Here He Comes!

We just found out a few days ago that Stephen's visa came in and within 2 days he had a plane ticket for Puebla.  He leaves today!  We get a call from him sometime later tonight.
Here was his email this morning.

So I dont know if you heard yet but I head off for mexico today!!! I will be able to call you for a short time and i would love to hear the whole family. Then I arrive tonight in puebla and i am going to hit the ground running! 

so i have my bags packed and one weights 49.4 and one weights 50 on the dot it was a pain but i did it! 

oh by the way can you please tell grandma dobbs thank you sooooo much for the package it was so kind and it made my day so much and tell her i love you sooo much.

so i am a little sad to be leaving here i have become close with some of my investigators and am sad to leave them but im excited to get to mexico! it will be so great!

Reassigned to the Salt Lake City Mission

Stephen's visa didn't come so he was reassigned to the Salt Lake City Mission for what we thought would be 6 weeks.  But it only lasted 2 before his visa came!
Here are some of his experiences:

That first day was so hard I will be honest.  The next day we went out and street contacted at Temple Square which I was sooooo nervous but after about 30 minutes the nerves settled and I had such a cool experience. There is a lot of work to do here and the people are so kind! The members in the Spanish ward are so nice to me and I am progressing in Spanish by leaps and down every day! I understand more and more every day.   The members feed me soo much I have left every house sooo full but the food is soo good! The people are so patient with my Spanish and have helped me a lot.

We went to talk to a family and I understood a good solid 50-60% of the conversation.  They had such a humble spirit about them.  I just love the spirit of the people here.

Every day is an adventure in itself and I learn so much.  Every day has its up and downs but the ups make the whole thing worth it.  First Sunday was great.  I had to get up and introduce myself and bore my testimony in Espanol J yep it was pretty great.  My mission experience so far has been very different than I thought it would be but not in a bad way.  I love it so much.

MTC was awesome!

Stephen's experience in the MTC was an incredible experience.  He had a lot of freinds from school there and made a bunch of new ones.  But the spiritual feast they experienced as this new army of missionaries go out into the world was incredible.
A few of his words:

The MTC is such a holy place and I can feel the spirit everywhere. 

Christmas was fantastic here. We had Russell M. Nelson come speak and we watched a Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve and then I decided to join the choir! I got to sing with them for the Christmas Devotional.

Most of all the MTC is a humbling experience. I have come to completely rely on the Lord and come to Christ.

The MTC is just straight spiritual uplifting, but it is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I have never been more pushed to my limit and challenged and tested then this last week (which has felt like a month, no joke time is very very slow here).  A mission is not for the weak of heart. I have struggled but when I do I have to stop looking to myself and hand myself over to the Lord.

When I feel closer to my family the closer I feel to Christ. I cant even explain how much closer I felt I have come to Christ.  I feel like I really know him now and that he truly knows me.  It is a feeling that is indescribable. 

By the way the saying ''forget yourself and go to work'' has been my driving force here.

Spanish has been getting better and better. the less I worry about it the better I get at it. I have no idea how you learned japanese dad, so much respect.  I think there is a misconception that in the MTC the languages come quickly, easily and the gift of tongues flow. I believe in the gift of tongues but I think that it requires a ton a ton of work first and also a lot of struggling also they work you harder here then anywhere else, even college! My vocabulary is increasing by leaps and bounds every day however if I ever had to speak in spanish about anything other then the gospel I could come up with 3 sentences. 

I have  come to the realization that I am at the beginning of something big, we had 1000 new missionaries this week and it is suppose to say that way for the known future! Before the average was 300 a week and our week was 700. The Lords work is moving forward and its at a dead sprint right now.

The MTC is an amazing place and a mission is something that can not be ever replicated in life. There is a reason that missions are required for young men. they shape us into men who are worthy of the priesthood, it shocks me that he allows young men of the age of 16 to have the priesthood wow he really trust me and see something in me that i dont sometimes.

His District in the MTC

Every day I learn more and more about the gospel, about Christ and about life. Nothing could prepare me better for life then a mission.  So many things you learn about investigators and lessons and the gospel is so applicable to life. I love it, I just eat it up every day, I feel so at peace and happy in life, I have direction and purpose and meaning  i love it, the gospel can really do that for you. I usually conquer with the simple saying, Forget Yourself and Go to Work.

So we have a devotional every Tuesday and Sunday and already we fill the whole auditorium and two chapels full of overflow. The administrator over the MTC spoke to us and said they this summer the number of missionaries is projected to be 8000.... there is 2500 right now which is more than ever before. I keep saying this but it’s true, the prophesies of missionary work going across the whole world is coming to pass, it’s just unbelieveable. We got a new district and half of it is sisters, half elders along with the one we got 2 weeks ago, there are so many sisters! I love it! Sister missionaries and the spirit they have is just unbelieveable they are so spiritual, it just solidified my testimony that sister missionaries are so important. Plus they have more a drive than any other missionaries because they want to be there with absolutely everything in them. i can’t tell you about how much i love their spirit! They have the ability to touch people that us elders can’t even come close to! 815 new missionaries came last week and this week was 750, it is sooo cool. Sure the lines at meals are pretty long but esta bien.

Entonces mi espanol esta mejorando. I really am not worrying about it that much and I know with God I can get it. I love my mission and this has been such a cool experience here 

 I wanted to share a quote from Brigham Young that says, "Do you think that people will obey the truth because it’s true, unless they love it? No, they will not. Thus knowing gospel truths and doctrines is profoundly important, but we must also come to love them." This just hit me so hit me soo hard and made me realize that before the mission i knew they were true but some parts i had not come to love yet and now i understand the difference.  It all makes so much more sense when you learn to love it. soo good.

So I sing in the choir every week and every week it gets bigger and bigger! Now the choir is almost half and half! and there is over 800 members! wayyy bigger than the Mormon tabernacle choir. I am learning to sing which is awesome! not good but with 800 in the choir no one can tell the difference.

Elder Hunsaker, Elder Whitney, Elder Hawkes