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