Where do I begin?

Well, this week has been amazing!  Definitely the greatest week of my mission as far as fulfillment.  We were able to accomplish so much and I felt so amazing about it.  The Spirit has been driving us to the things that we would not have otherwise seen.  It is so comforting to know that God is the one directing this work, not simply a bunch of 18-20 year old boys and girls.  We would not be able to do the things that Missionaries do without divine help.  We all need it so much!  :D

To start out the week though, we had a very powerful lesson with Jesus and Gao about the Parable of the 10 Virgins (answering a question that Jesus had), and because of that, Gao and he were both able to finally understand what it meant they had to do in this life, which is always a comforting feeling.

Tuesday, during studies, I got to finalize a training that I had been asked to do during our District Meeting, and guess what it was on?  The parable of the 10 Virgins!  So the lesson we had had the day before was just some practice for me.  But the training went very well!  I was really happy that the preparations that I had made were able to pay off!  Later, we were able to have a lesson with Rosa, talking about member missionary work.  She, at first, thought we were asking her to teach her family (who are NOT interested), so she got a little upset, which was surprising.  But as soon as we cleared up any misunderstanding, she agreed to working on it.  Later in the day, however, we were on our way to go and contact some potential investigators near our apartment, when we saw a man sitting on a porch not far from us.  I felt impressed to start talking to him, and that resulted in a return appointment and an entire lesson on the Restoration.  And during that time, I did something that I had never done before - I challenged him to be baptized in the first contact!  (This was all in Spanish) and then he accepted the invitation!  So, when we have our next lesson with him, we'll probably extend a date, so that's exciting!

Then, on Wednesday, we were on our way to go and tract out a new area that we had found, but on the way there, we felt very impressed to knock on just one random house on a street, but when we did, we found a 60-yr-old Mexican man who only spoke Spanish, so we taught him as well and he invited us to come back!  That was such an amazing experience!  And later we were able to meet another man who invited us back, too.  That night, we went up to Pewaukee for an awesome dinner appointment with the Phillips family - they're great!

On Thursday we were able to have a follow-up lesson with Lavon, a referral from the English Elders.  We had a complete Restoration lesson and that was coupled with a baptismal invite for a Saturday in July, and he accepted it!  So basically Lavon is just like Michael Oher in 'The Blind Side.'  He's big, black, quiet, nice, and super sincere.  He's a bit slower too, but that's okay.  The only thing that I wish was different is that we have to give him over to the YSA Elders because he's 23 and is single, so he's their jurisdiction, so whatever...  :P  After that, we had a great follow-up lesson with Jamie and Joe, who were apologizing to us because they only read the first book of Nephi...  But that is much more than any of my other investigators have ever read, so we thought that was awesome!  And the best part is that they had a friend there who kept on saying the Book of Mormon was unnecessary, but eventually Joe just said: "Hey, get this, the Book of Mormon is just like the Bible, it's just written by a different tribe!  It is just talking about how they found God in their own ways!"  And we were both blown away by that, super awesome.  But then, Thursday night, we got a text from Gao telling us that she was moving out of Jesus's place because he wanted to be baptized, so we called Jesus and set a date with him for when..?  June 14th!!!  (stay tuned - this is a good story)

Friday, we go and have a great lesson with a lady named Heidi, but then we went and started teaching Jesus.  He wanted to be baptized on June 14 so we were teaching him every day so he could do that.  Friday we covered the Plan of Salvation AND the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The rest of Frieday was Weekly Planning and going down to the Father's and Son's campout for dinner.

Saturday, we played Frisbee in the morning with some members and their friends as a finding method, and then went right over to our lesson with Jesus where we taught the commandments and about prophets.  After that, we had more Weekly Planning and dinner.  We also helped Mason Durst finish his eagle project.

Then on Sunday, I got to sing at church!  I sang an arrangement of "I Need Thee Every Hour," and it went pretty well.  During church though, we talked to Jesus and had to end up cancelling his baptism for the 14th and putting back to July 5th because he doesn't think the Book of Mormon or Prophets are necessary, so we'll be working on that.  :)

And of course, more things happened, but those are the things that I thought were good to share.  There certainly was a roller coaster with Jesus and his desires to be baptized and then not, and also a great week for following the guide of the Spirit, which is always good.  Also, we now have 5 baptismal dates, which is a lot for missionaries in Wisconsin.  I've never been happier to be a missionary though - just being given this opportunity to get to know my Savior even more is such a blessing.  :)

I love you all!  Have great weeks!

--Elder Nate Hubert