It's getting warmer!

Dear family and friends, I love you all so much!  Thank you all so much for your letters and emails - I love being able to hear from each of you, hearing how you are doing, and also being able to answer all of your questions.  Thanks!

This week has been a really good one for me.  The numbers were a little less than we were expecting, but our efforts were great and we did our very best, and that is the only thing that we have control over as missionaries, so if other people decide that they don't want the message, then that is up to them, but we will always be there knocking on their door to see if they're ready!  :)

On Tuesday, we did not have a District Meeting because this week was Transfers, but my entire ward/district is staying the same for another 6 weeks, which is a great thing!  We have a great group right now and we are able to work really well in our own companionships and as well as a group, so I'm really happy that we're going another one together.  But today, we did get to have an earlier lesson with our friend Blanca.  The lesson started out as a discussion on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially faith and repentance, but for some reason the conversation changed to church attendance, and Blanca started ranting about all of these things that she doesn't like about organized religion, such as the fact that priests get payed and then they get nice cars and stuff off of the church's money, or things of that nature, but it was funny because each problem that she had did not apply to our church.  She was amazed to find out that our leaders and congregation do everything as a service, that they have regular lives as well; and also that women can say prayers in our church!  It was super sweet!  :)

Later in the day, we had a lesson with Rosa, which was good - and we even got Brother Hansen to come with us again!  She had coffee again, but this time instead of telling us that she didn't know how to stop drinking it, she was really optimistic about how she is not perfect, but that she needs to keep on trying her hardest.  :)  She is amazing.

That night, we had team-ups with Brother Loutensock and we went and visited a less active named Florencio, who we talked to about Mexico and about possibly doing Family History for his family, but a road block we have come across is that he doesn't know how to read, so he can't use a computer.  So, we're going to have to find a way to get past that.

Then that night, we had 2 missionaries come by and stay the night because they were on their way to Milwaukee for transfers the next day.  They were supposed to do that, but we had no idea about it because our Zone Leaders forgot to tell us!  But it ended up being good.  :)

On Wednesday, we had a District Meeting because we were all staying the same, and it was really good!  I really enjoy having Elder Kimzey as our District Leader, he's really great.  After that, we got back to our place, and got picked up by Zane Black, the member of the ward who is getting ready to leave on his own mission at the end of the month.  He took us to our lesson with Brad and Ana, and helped us out there.  They fed us while we were there, which was really nice of them, and then we talked about why it is necessary to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was really good.  :)  We have met with them enough to know when Brad's going to start going on a tangent and have been trying to combat that, so we stayed more on track this time.  :)  After that, Zane gave us a ride to Christy and John's house, where we had a nice dinner and a more hostile lesson...

In between lessons, Christy had gotten a D&C and a PoGP and had looked up some out-of-context scriptures to try and throw us off balance, but the answer that we continued to use throughout everything is that if they prayed about everyhting, they would receive an answer that Joseph Smith WAS a prophet and that everything in those scriptures is TRUE!  Christy didn't like that a lot, but John was all over it, so it was great.  :)

On Thursday we got invited by the Food Pantry to go to a special lunch because we are good volunteers, so we went there for our lunch hour, and it was actually super fun!  We even saw some less actives there and got to talk to them about church attendance so things were good there.  

After that, we walked for a while to the other side of town to go and get in contact with a potential investigator that we have, but when we got there, nobody was home! So we tried their hispanic neighbors that we could hear speaking Spanish through the door, but they decided to not answer the door.

Then, we had the opportunity to go on Team-ups with Bro. Koch from the ward, but when we got to the appointment that we had scheduled to go to, they had forgotten that we had scheduled it and decided to go swimming instead!  So, as a backup, we went to a less active's house, and just in time, too.  Right as we got there, she got a phone call telling her some family news that wasn't great.  She started bawling while we were there and opened up to us to tell us what had happened, and we were even able to give her a Priesthood Blessing of comfort right there to help her feel better.  That was a miracle to me.  Even though Mormons are super late a lot of the time, we arrive just when we're needed.  That was great.  :)

Friday, you guessed it, was WEEKLY PLANNING!  But after all of those many hours of receiving some great inspiration of things to do this next week and people to visit and what to teach them, we got to go and visit a man that lives super far away, but he, too, was not home, so we just walked back to the apartment just in time to get picked up to go to an appointment with the Cutler family (the Mission President's son and his family live in our ward).  They invited some of their non-member friends to come to dinner and to hear our message, and they participated a ton, too!  They were super super funny and we were able to share a message about Jesus Christ and it went super well.  They did not commit to take the missionary lessons, but we were able to feel the Spirit with them and that is all that matters.  I mean, after a couple times of feeling that then people are more likely to decide to listen.  :)

On Saturday, we had correlation in the morning and got to discuss ways to improve the missionary work in the ward and in the area, which was great.  But after that, Brother Tatioka took us to the South Stake Center in Milwaukee to go to the Churchball Games to support the Less-active boys in our ward that are playing for the team.  So, that was super sweet, and we got either 2nd or 3rd place, I don't remember - we couldn't stay for super long.  But man, those inner-city Milwaukee ward members know how to play SUPER well - I've never seen basketball played like that - it was super amazing!  :D

Throughout the day, we made up our studies that we had missed out on that morning from Correlation, and we went to a lesson that we had scheduled, but the person was not home.  

Then that night, we had a dinner appointment with the Brown family, which was sweet.  They are a great family and have such strong testimonies, and we were able to share a message about reading the Book of Mormon and why it is important to read from it daily - a message that they apparently needed to hear.  :)

Sunday was a good day too!  We got picked up to go to church SUPER early, and while we were there we got to talk to tons of members from the other ward, but eventually it came time to start church.  And, surprise, I got to speak in church!  I had actually gotten a call on Wednesday night and had prepared my talk during my studies on Thursday, so I was ready, but it is the first time that I got to speak in church on my mission!  It was a talk on Christlike Attributes, including the importance to have them and the blessings we can receive from that.  It went pretty well!  There was even a lady who took notes from my talk - IN HER SCRIPTURES!  She wrote all over the scriptures, even the verse-pages, the notes from my talk..  I was kind of embarrassed when she showed that to me...  :P  (Oh, and Rosa came to church again!)

Then at night, we had dinner with the Hansens, and they had Corned Beef and Cabbage - a perfect St. Patricks Day meal.  It was a great end to a great week!  :)

I love you all so much!  Keep the faith!

 

Sorry there are no pictures again, I'll get some to you guys soon.. 
-- 

Elder Nathan Hubert