Another week passes in Wisconsin, The Packer's had a public practice,and I lost my wallet!

Hey everybody!  I had a great week here, and Elder Miller and I were able to be very successful in teaching our investigators and helping them come closer to Christ.  Our main goal right now is that we are trying to help them change their desires, that they might be as it says in Mosiah 18, and have their own desire to enter the waters of Baptism and to be called His people, and to go further in this gospel.  So, this is how my week went!

Monday evening, after P-day activities and everything, we went down to the trailer park on the edge of Bellevue street and we met up with Teresa, a lady that we had met earlier, and we got to teach a lesson!  However, more interested than she was, was her husband Angel, who told us that he really wants to learn more and that he wants to come to church and everything, so we're going to start working with him!  :D

Tuesday, we had our final District Meeting of this transfer.  It was actually a very powerful meeting, closing with testimonies, and I absolutely loved that!  Just being able to hear the genuine Spirit come off of the tongues of these other Elders was such a blessing to be present for - I loved it.  I also felt the Spirit as I testified, which is always an amazing feeling.  Right after DTM, we had exchanges!  I went with Elder Harding to the Spanish B area, which is not my own.  We worked throughout the day, finally being able to teach 3 lessons to some people, even though none of them were sit-down lessons.  Every person's conversion has to start somewhere!

Wednesday, we finished exchanges in the morning, where Elder Harding and I had an amazing breakfast with the Ponce family, and got to teach their brother and sister-in-law, who showed great interest in the gospel, and who we will hopefully be able to begin teaching.  :D  Later, we were back in the trailers on Bellevue, and contacted a referral that we had been given!  The name of this man was Darryl, and he and his mother and son are from the great country of India!  But since they were referred to us, we didn't have to give them to anybody else.  They are pretty hard core Catholic, but our next appointment with them is going to be a really authentic Indian cuisine, so we are very excited for that.  :)

Thursday began with us busing over to the YMCA to help Dale with his workout, which is where my adventure begins.  As we were about to catch the bus to go back home, I realized that my wallet was NOT in my bag that I had brought with me!  So, we went back and checked the YMCA, and they didn't have it, and after a while of looking, we called a member to see if he could give us a ride.  So he came and rescued us stranded missionaries, and we called the bus station and they didn't have it either!  So, unfortunately, my wallet got stolen, including my Driver's License, mission debit card, temple recommend, medical cards from the mission, and some other stuff too, and ALL of it has to be replaced soon!  That is going to be the real adventure - trying to get everything replaced!  The rest of the day was us weekly planning, and then we had basketball in the evening where some new friends named Ulisses and Edgar came, and they really enjoyed it!  :D

Friday, because I had no bus pass (also lost with my wallet), we had to use the bikes that we borrowed some from members.  Unfortunately, it was also a very humid day so we were very sweaty (I know it's gross, but it's also natural...  :P)  So, we contacted a whole bunch of former investigators in a particular area, and got to teach a bunch of people, and even got to get a new investigator!!! 

Saturday, we got the transfer text in the morning that let us know that Elder Miller and I are going to be serving together for another transfer, so I'm super stoked for that!  We also got to do some contacting around our area before heading to the church for a baptism that the GB2 sisters were having, and it was awesome because Miles, the guy getting baptized, wanted us to be in a photo with him, so we got it!  (I'll have to get that from the sister who's camera we used). 

Then on Sunday, we had a very productive day.  We had church, and unfortunately none of our investigators were able to come this week (but they promised to come next week!), and right after that we had a lunch appointment with the Rios family, and they are super great!  While there, we each ate a super spicy pepper and when I ate mine, they didn't think I had actually eaten it because I wasn't freaking out like everybody else!  :P  And later, we had a huge miracle.  We were able to teach 10 lessons on a Sunday in an area that we had never been to before, so I was very happy about that.  We only used people from the area book that were counted as Potentials or Referrals, and were able to make contact with a lot of them over again.  I love missionary work so much!

And then today, we got to go back over to Lambeau Field area and watch a practice by the Green Bay Packers team!  It was sweet, and I took some photos (some good, some not), so you can go through those and choose which ones to share.  And now I'm here!  :)

Anyways, I love you all SO very much and I want you to know that!  :)  This church is so very true, and I come to realize that more and more.  I hope all of you are well, and I want you to know that each of you mean so much to me.  Love you!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Mission Tour, 19th Birthday, and Lambeau Field!

Sooo this week I want to thank everybody who took time and means to send me some things in the mail or emails for my birthday which was on the 17th - they were all greatly appreciated!  Thank you all so very much! 

But I really had such an exciting week this last week. 

It went as follows:

Monday - I mean, even though it was P-day, we didn't necessarily do much.  We played a bit of Volleyball, that's it.  The real excitement of today came when Elder Miller and I placed the 40th copy of the Book of Mormon this transfer.  THAT was exciting!!!  We had a goal to place 40 copies in 6 weeks, but ended up doing it in more like 3.5 weeks, so that was really exciting to be able to accomplish.

Tuesday - we of course had great opportunities to teach, especially our investigator Luis, who we taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation, and Ana who we taught the whole Plan of Salvation.  And then later we had dinner with the Ramirez family!  :D  Later that night, the Elders serving in Iron Mountain came down to spend the night with us before going over to Mission Tour the next day, and we played a nice prank on them where I was tied up with a pillowcase over my head and duct taped to a chair, and then they came in and had to rescue me from my crazy companion...  :P  It was pretty fun.  :)

Wednesday - we got to drive down to Neenah for Mission Tour!  Right as we got to the church building, we got there the same time as President Cutler and Elder Martino - the visiting member of the 70.  After that, I had to go and conduct a practice of the musical number because I got put in charge of directing the choir of people from our zone!  It was actually pretty fun though, and sounded pretty good!  :D  And we were able to learn lots from Elder Martino, especially about how we need to include the members in our areas more.  :)

Thursday - was kind of an unaffective day...  Unfortunately.  In the morning we went to the YMCA to help out Dale for our weekly service.  Then when we got home, we did our weekly planning session for the week which took a few hours, and then  we headed over to the church to teach our investigator Luis, but he never showed up, so we just stayed and played Basketball until the end of the night.

Friday - we spent basically the entire day down in the Bellevue trainer park, and even though none of our initial contacts were there or to be found, we were able to teach a whole bunch of people and get some new investigators as well!  :D  All in all, a very effective day!  However it was kind of upsetting when we went to our lesson with the Carlos family and our member never shwoed up so we couldn't teach them because there was no male present...  :P

Saturday - we began with Correlation Meeting!!  :D  Later in the day, we were able to contact the Bautista family, an awesome couple, the Juarez family, the Lopez family, and the Carlos family, even though we weren't really able to teach the Carlos's a lesson.  The best part about today was when I called Luis to invite him to church, and he told me that his mom had told him that even though she had had a bad experience with the church in the past, it was time for him to have his own experience.  So awesome!

Sunday - this morning I opened presents and things that I had gotten from people for my birtdhay!  I also had a great pancake-cake thing in the morning.  Then, at church, Luis came!!!  It was awesome, especially when he stayed for all 3 hours!  And then right after church, we had a lunch appointment with the Arandas, and they had this delicious Mexican meal and some Tres Leches cake that I loved!  :D  Later in the day we got to teach some more, but it was such an amazing birthday!  :D  The Hmong Elders even joined us in the apartment for some dinner!

Monday - today - we got to take an amazing tour of Lambeau Field, the stadium of the NFL team the Green Bay Packers!  There are lots of photos I took, so include some!  :P  It was really pretty awesome, I had no idea that there was so much history involved!  We even got to see some of the players from a distacnce,that was pretty cool!  And now I'm here!

 

 

Anyways, I love you all so much!  I hope your weeks were as good as mine was, and I hoep that they continue to be great!  I love you ALLLL!  :D

Hakuna Matata, and keep the faith!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Quick report from Green Bay

This email is gonna be real short.  Like seriously.  I apologize...

But basically this week, I had district meeting and exchanges on Tuesday.  I was able to learn a lot from and about our district leader Elder Evans, who is a really great missionary up here in Green Bay.  I'm lucky to be serving around him and learning these super key lessons.  :)

Wednesday, we had a very powerful lesson with Alexis basically all about the principles of the Gospel - all of those primary answers that we quote over the years, which are going to church, reading the scriptures, praying, and we followed up with all of the previous commitments we had given him.

Thursday we had a lesson with Hermana Sanchez with Hermano Ramirez present, during which we invited her to baptism and she said that if she received an answer that these things were true, she would do that!  We were pretty happy to hear that.  Then later, we got to learn a cool new idea for working with members which is basically having a member-run party where people invite their friends.  Missionaries are not in charge, but they attend to answer questions and all.  I'll keep you posted!

Friday, we spent some time in a trailer park but met tons of new people, which was awesome.  We also got to set a baptismal date with the Carlos family (2 people in it), which was awesome!  The Spirit is working in their lives!!!

Saturday we met some new people, and got to have dinner with a Hmong lady.  We also had a choir practice to prepare for mission tour coming up, and guess who gets to lead the choir!  Yours truly!  It is pretty fun!  :D

Sunday we got to have church, and then borrow some bikes to contact some more distant people because the buses don't work on Sundays.  It was pretty effective and very fun!

I love you all!  Have a great week!!!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Another great week in Green Bay, Wisconsin :D

Hey everybody!  How are you all doing?  Everything is super great here in the land of milk and honey!  Or rather the land of cows and cheese and beer!  :)  Wisconsin is great though, and we have been able to have another really great, successful week.

On Monday, even though our scheduled lessons fell through, we were able to go and teach 4 people just out and about, which was really awesome!  None of them wanted to learn more about the gospel, but at least we were able to expose them to a bit about the church and everything, right?  :)

On Tuesday, we recruited the help of 2 of the young men in the Branch - Monkey and Cesar - and they came with us to teach 2 people.  We taught Luis - a 16-yr-old boy who is really searching, and were able to teach him the Restoration lesson, and he really enjoyed it!  We compared him to Joseph Smith because he has had a lot of questions all his life, and he said that he really wants to learn more, so hopefully in time he will have the desire to be baptized!  :D  We were also able to teach the Plan of Salvation to a lady named Maria, and that went pretty well.  It's pretty hard to get into her house because she is never home, but I'm really glad that it worked out this week!

Wednesday we got to teach our friend Alexis, who had been having a super tough week.  Turns out that on Saturday especially he had been in deep depression, which is something that he doesn't really ever experience...  :(  He was wondering what his purpose was, so we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he really liked that.  Later, we had the help of Andres from the branch to go and teach Hermana Hollan, but she was busy, so instead we went and taught Hermana Varela, and got to read 2 Nefi 31 with her, talking about all of the things that we need to do in our lives to grow closer to God.  We talked about coming to church and getting baptized, and she knows she needs to do them, but I just think she's scared to do anything about it.  Later, we got to eat dinner with the other missionaries and got to teach a man named Hugo, who let us teach the Restoration, which went very well!  He really liked it and even wants us to come back, which is always a really good feeling.

Lambeau field!

Thursday, we did WEEKLY PLANNING in the morning!  And part of that was cleaning up the apartment to make it spic and span because the Office couple came to the apartment just after that to inspect it!  :)  But they found nothing wrong with it, other than the fact that our toilet doesn't work, and everyhting was okay.  :)  Later, we went and we taught the Carlos family and some other people in their area before going to the church and waiting for Luis to show up so we could give him a church tour!  :)  He loved it a lot, and when we went into the chapel he felt the Spirit so strong.  He told us that he would like to continue to learn more and that he would love to come to the meetings on Sundays, so of course we talk about the Spirit and invite baptism, and he accepted a baptismal date!  We were so excited!  After that, we played basketball with some of the branch members, their friends, and other missionaries, too. 

Friday rolled around, and it was a pretty hard day.  I mean, we went to an area to contact a referral and went tracting around it too, but we only taught one lesson throughout the entire day!  But during that, we went to a park to meet up with a Less Active member and got to talk to him about keeping firm in the faith and after that, this complete stranger comes up to us.  He tells us that he's from Tennessee and that he is a member of the church, and that ever since he got to Green Bay 3 months ago, he hasn't seen missionaries or any trace o the church!  So we gave him the address of the church and gave him a BofM and talked to him for a while, and then we gave him a priesthood blessing right there in the middle of the park, at his request.  It was pretty cool - a great experience.  I was so glad to be led by the Spirit to be in the right place at the right time.

Saturday we had correlation in the morning, but didn't end up playing soccer so we made up our studies instead.  We later went around near our area and met some pepole and taught some lessons, and then headed over to an investigator's house to teach them, but when they weren't ready for us, we just went to the church building to help set up for a baptism that was happening, which we stayed for.  Unfortunately none of our investigators were able to come to that, but perhaps another time I guess.  Later, we got to go around a different area and then eat dinner and call people to remind them about church.

Sunday was kind of unfortunate.  Luis wasn't able to come to church, and when we were on the phone just before the 3rd hour of church, he told me taht it was because his mother and father did not approve of him coming with us to church because he never wanted to go with them to church before.  So, we had to drop his baptismal date and are going to try to convince his parents that this is a good thing and that they should go in on it with him.  :)  Later in the day though, we got to teach 6 lessons as we were walking around, some of them were doors that we knocked on, but most of them were just us talking to people that were already outside.  :)  Then we ate dinner with the Hmong elders!  :)

I love life right now though!  Everything is just so amazing - my mission has never been better.  One cool goal that Elder Miller and I set was this:  before, the area was getting 15 lessons a week, so we planned on getting no less than 20 lessons a week.  This week, we were able to get over 30 lessons, which was quite the accomplishment for us!  Also, we have made a goal to hand out a whole box of Books of Mormon before the end of this transfer (August 27), and currently we have handed out 28 of them!  It is great!  I love it!  The Lord is blessing us so much - and he is so mindful of us!

It is so crazy to think about how I just hit my 10-month-mark, and how on the 17th of this month I'm gonna turn 19, and then a month after that I'm gonna hit my year mark.  Time just flies way too fast!  It is so crazy!!!  :D  Anyways...  I love you all so much!  Have an amazing week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

First complete week in Green Bay :)

Hey!  After a week and a half in this area, I finally feel like I'm able to get a handle on things as I continue working hard and going about the city!  Things are finally making sense as we go around, especially in regards to where we are and who were are in the area to visit.  I know the investigators names now, the only key is going to be getting to know the members!  There aren't too many of them in the humble branch that we're serving in, but I still don't know very many of them yet.  That will come in time...  :)

However, this last week went very well!  Throughout the week we were able to teach over 20 lessons, which even though I know that numbers aren't anything, that is significantly higher than we were able to achieve while serving in Waukesha - which I am super excited about!

Tuesday of this last week, we had our first District Meeting of the transfer, where we talked a lot about getting investigators to church and how we should invite them, and also about giving people church tours when they come!  The invitation to us was to invite people to church by saying "Come worship with us" instead of just "will you come to church?"  It has been tons more effective and I am excited to reap the blessings of this change!  Later in the day, we were able to find this 16-year-old kid named Luis and were able to teach him once, and pick him up as a new investigator as well! 

Green Bay Spanish district

Wednesday we were able to have a great lesson with Horacio, where he started to bash about the Bible and the BofM, but then we pulled out 2 Nephi 29, which is the chapter about how people will say "A bible, a bible, we have already got a bible!"  We were luckily able to be very bold with him, and very loving, and with the Spirit present in the room from opening the Book of Mormon, his heart was able to be touched and he told us that he'd like to be reading the Book of Mormon.  We then had a really good lesson with Alexis (he's a guy), and we talked a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he really liked it.  He said that he wants to be baptized, but he is just very busy with his life right now.  Hopefully eventually we'd be able to help him prioritize!  :)  Later, we had a dinner appointment with the English Elders and taught the Varela family too.

Thursday morning we got picked up pretty early to go down to Milwaukee (a 2 hour+ drive down there) for a Spanish Conference that was going to take all day!  It was really awesome though as we were able to talk a lot about our mutual concerns with the Spanish work in Wisconsin, and also were able to pool together our ideas on how to focus more on Hispanic Men and families, to strengthen the various branches with more priesthood holders.  We also went through the Book of Mormon and were able to come up with a ton of promised blessings to Lehi's seed (the lamanites) which is basically the people that we're teaching.  And then after that, we got to drive home!  So, that was basically our day...  :P

Friday morning we went to the YMCA to help our friend Dale work out, but after an hour of waiting for him to show up, and with him never showing up, we just decided to go home and continue our studies.  So, we did that!  Later, we were able to teach a bunch of new people, including a kid named Ulisses who told us that his family would love to hear more about our message, so we have an appointment to go and visit them again.  :)  And later we got to teach some new people, but they didn't want us to come back.  We ended the evening with a game of Volleyball at the church!  :)

Saturday we got to start out with Soccer with some members and their non-member friends.  After that, Elder Miller and I went out and tried something different...  We went tracting by the Spirit!  :D  We actually got to find 2 new people that we found, and got to talk to Ulisses's parents about our message, and then in the evening we got to have a great Dominican dinner appointment with the Meese family!  It was awesome! 

And Sunday was interesting, when all of us missionaries got to give talks in church, and then we, after church, got to go to the Ramirez family's house for a dinner appointment, and then they had me play an interesting game called Ooga Ooga, basically when Bro. Ramirez is the chief caveman and we have to copy him, and then they do something and embarrass us by getting our butt wet...  There's a video on Dropbox though!  :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD2pUZSpcXA

I love you all tons and want you all to know that I'm doing super well!  Green Bay is amazing, and I really hope that each of you have incredible weeks too!   Love you!

--Elder Nate Hubert