Pinewood Derby, Hope Center, and a Blessing!

Hello to my friends and family!  I love each and every one of you SO much and if you haven't emailed me recently, just know that I would love to know what is going on in your life and would love to send you an email back!  I mean, I know that at times things are super busy in the mission field, and I mean like every single day in the mission field, but I promise you that I would do my best, or if you want to send me a letter (which is good too!) then the address of my mission office is on my blog and they will forward it to me when they get it!  :)

But this week was super great, I loved every moment of it.  So many blessings!  But some funny things too...  :)  The first funny experience was last P-day, so on Monday night we got to go to dinner at the Sefcik's home (the bishop of the Waukesha Ward), and they really are such an amazing family.  But, as we were discussing missions with them, and talking about their son that is on a mission and their next son who is preparing for his, we found out that their son who is a Senior in high school is 5 days older than I am!  It was super strange to figure that out, because I've been graduated from High School for a bit and am now on my mission, but he's still in school...  So, a little bit strange, but overall a pretty funny experience.

Elder Hubert and Elder Kimzey during a split.

Tuesday, believe it or not, was my 5-month mark on my mission!  I left on September 25, and it was February 25, and let me tell you, it does NOT seem like I've been out for that long at all!  In fact, it seems as if I've been out for just a month, maybe, or like I just got out of the CCM.  Time is flying by, and that is unbelievable for me.  But I have been doing well at cherishing every single moment I have serving my mission - there are so many miracles that we see every single day and so many blessings that we receive.  A blessing that we got on Tuesday was when, during District Meeting, we were graced by the presence of the Milwaukee Institute Director Brother Wheeler, who gave us some amazing insight on Prayer and how we receive answers to our prayers - I'd love to share it with you all but perhaps when I'm home from my mission...  ;)  And like I mentioned in the subject line, Elder Schvaneveldt and I got the opportunity to participate in the Pinewood Derby of the ward, which was okay because we had a less-active and her non-member son there so we were able to talk to them about church attendance and set up a time that we could teach them at their house.  :)  But the pinewood derby was super fun, and we even got to participate, using some old cars that some people brought, and I actually got 7th place overall (out of 29 participants) with the car that I borrowed!  It was such a fun experience, and a great time to get to know the ward even better.  (Even if they did misspelled my name in the tournament - now some people call me Elder Herbert...)  :P

Elder Hubert's District

On Wednesday we had to leave early to walk to our service at the Food Pantry because we had 2 referrals to contact on the way up there, and we actually got to teach a short lesson to one of them, but found out that they were moving to a city outside of our area in the upcoming weeks, so we won't be able to teach them.  Service was fun, and we were able to help out one of the members of the ward by loading the things up into her car!  It's great to be able to give little bits of service when we're able to.  After that, we got to go to Brad and Ana's house to teach them the Plan of Salvation, a lesson that went really well, but Brad gets very side-tracked as we're teaching him, so we actually got to teach the Plan of Salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Word of Wisdom in the hour that we had with them!  It was super interesting, but if he got something out of it then we're good.

Thursday at the Hope Center service we do (giving clothes to the less-fortunate) we had a good day because none of the people who came in got upset at us Volunteers as they tend to do - so that was fine!  Actually, one of the ladies that came through started talking about us Mormons and how we are such nice people and how she wishes that everybody could be like that.  I asked her about her religion and she said she was a Lutheran, and we got talking about religion.  She wasn't interested in learning, but it was just being able to talk about God that was the amazing part of the conversation, because no matter what religion someone belongs to, it is just good that they all have that something that they believe in.  :)  And then at the Hope Center, one of the guys in charge gave me some new slippers, which are pretty nice, but it looks like I'm wearing a Wookie on my feet...  ;)  After the Hope Center, we got to have our lesson with Rosa.  We discussed her concerns about coffee, about baptism, and why it is that she relapsed.  She told us all of her concerns, and after that discussion we opened a discussion about Priesthood Blessings, and then we gave her a blessing.  It was so amazing, and I found it incredible that the Spirit was able to just fill up the room to such a capacity.  But after the blessing, we committed Rosa to praying to find out if quitting Coffee was something that she needed to do, and before we left she told us that she already knew what her answer was.  :)  It's beautiful the way that the Spirit works at some people's hearts.  :)  Simply amazing...  ;)  After that, we were able to meet with the Part Member less active family that we talked to at the Pinewood Derby, and were able to teach them all about the Plan of Salvation.  The child is 10 years old, so we had to dull it down a little bit, but after we taught him the plan, we had him tell it back to us,and he remembered quite a bit of it, which is good!  But our plan with them is to get her back to church before we baptize the son, because otherwise he would go instant less-active as his mom is.  :)  Wish us luck!  (Pray for Alisia and Devon)

Friday we did our weekly planning because Thursday ended up being so full of other stuff.  After weekly planning though, we decided to go over to the Waukesha Metro Transit offices to purchase bus passes and give them a try, because ever since the Spanish Elders' car was taken away, they have never tried the buses, so we're going to be the ones to either rule the buses out or be the ones to decide to use them.  :D  Then, we went to a couple people's houses, and found a new area where there are tons of hispanics!  Looks like we're going to be tracting out there in the next couple of days!  :D  Then we had dinner with the Black family, who are getting ready to send out Zane, a missionary of their own, who leaves this month!!!  :)  I'm so excited for him!  But, during our conversation at dinner, one of their boys told us that the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42, and then we came to the conclusion that that statement was true, but that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy (where that quote comes from) was actually talking about Alma chapter 42, which outlines the Plan of Salvation, which is actually the answer to all of that.  ;)  Kind of a backwards way of relating to the gospel, but it worked!

Saturday morning, we had our normal correlation meeting, where we were able to discuss our investigators and if anything needed to be brought to the attention of the Ward Council.  But after Correlation, we all drove up together to go to a Ward Baptism of little Max Osmond, a kid who invited us to his baptism at the Pinewood Derby, and since we had invited an investigator to come and since he was counting on us to be there, we went, even though Alisia and Devon couldn't make it.  It was a sweet baptism, because it was his birthday, and because he had his 10-year-old brother give one of the talks.  :)  I thought it was cute!  And then after that, we went back home and decided to try out the buses, so we rode up to Sunset Drive, which takes us about an hour to get to on foot, but the bus got us there in 15 minutes!  SUCH an improvement!!!  Eventually though, after riding the buses for a bit, we ended up near an area with hispanics, so we went tracting and got to teach 2 families and get a return appointment!!!  :)  And since it was snowing, we decided to stop at the nearby member's home and shovel their walk, and because we did that, they decided to feed us!  So that was a clever way of getting a dinner appointment, if you ask me...  ;)  Service, gets 'em every time...  I'm kidding of course though.  After that, the English Elders had something to give to us so they came and helped us out by helping us shovel Rosa's driveway, and then we got some more food!  Then, we went home.

Sunday was basically a normal Sunday.  We got to church a bit early, and then we got to practice with the choir!  (By the way, Elder Kimzey and I are singing our song next week in church!  Wish us luck!)  Church was normal, and unfortunately Rosa, Alisia and Devon, and Jose weren't able to make it - we're going to keep on trying though!  After church, we had a dinner appointment with the Gardner Family, which was good.  Brother Gardner told us all about his mission in Bristol, England and in Wales, which sounded amazing!  Then, we went home then, too...  ;)

NOW, I'm here!  I just want to let you know, once again, that I appreciate all of your time reading this, writing to me, and all of the blessings and prayers that you send my way.  I love you all so much!  The Church is True!!!

Army of Helaman!

--Elder Nathan Hubert