September 25= year mark

Well, the title basically explains how I'm feeling right now...  I wonder where the time has gone...  And even though I wonder that, I am so excited for the future.  The last year, I have learned and grown so much, and I'm excited for what the future holds.  All I have is one more year to show the Lord my love through my service and the way that I am.  :)  I love this chance that I have!  :D

But basically, this last week was spent making all of the necessary plans to have a baptismal service on the 27th!!!  :D  Luis is super excited, and we even got the baptismal record all filled out.  We're very excited and I'll for sure include photos for next week!!!  One cool thing is that we had Stake Conference and Luis came to the session on Saturday night, AND the one on Sunday!  It was awesome to see him there, and then that gave him the opportunity to meet President Cutler and to meet the Stake President, who is a super great speaker.  :)

On Thursday, we had a funny experience when we went to a member's house who just got his mission call, talked to him only in Spanish, and then recruited his help to come and teach Luis with us!  :D  We also had a Branch Activity that night, which was fun because they celebrated all of the birthdays in August, so that meant mine!  :P

Friday we had exchanges and it was awesome because we taught a lot of lessons, and we were even able to defend the church very well against this lady who really wanted to bash with us.  It turned out being a good situation and we were able to change her hateful attitude to an accepting one, and then she accepted a Book of Mormon!

Just in closing, I just wanted to let you all know that Elder Wise loves you!  and I love you too!  :D  This is a song that I found that is about missions that I really liked - thought I'd share it with you in celebration for my year mark!  :)

--Elder Nate Hubert

MIRACLES in GREEN BAY!

Dear family and friends, we had such a miracle this week!  Basically the thing that I can learn the most from this experience is that the Lord really hears prayers and sincerely answers them, but also that he truly does see the effort of each and every one of his servants and missionaries, and blesses them accordingly.  But for some background information...  For the last couple of months, our mission has had the goal to have one baptism in each area in our mission before the October General Conference.  That is a very lofty goal because baptisms in Wisconsin are more of a rarity, (though not an impossibility), and because some of the areas of our mission have not seen baptisms in over a year!  But as lofty as it was, it was made in faith and the Mission President's excitement was met with the prayers of each of the missionaries in the mission and each of us have been working hard and doing all in our power to make that goal a reality!  Elder Miller and I have been able to push this area in Green Bay to its limit almost, and are finding many new people every week and are able to get into many people's homes as well.  However, we did have the fear that our area would be one of the only ones to not get a baptism...

Part of our weekly goals for this last week included a change of mentality.  Rather than going out to work to reach our daily goals, we then had the mentality to go out and work to help people get baptized.  Rather than teaching lessons to teach lessons, we taught lessons to help people get baptized.  And the crazy thing is, we saw immediate blessings!!!

On Tuesday, we had a lesson with our investigator Luis like we always did.  We went into the lesson going to teach the commandment 'Follow the Prophet,' and he understood everything!  It was awesome!  :D  And as part of the lesson, we were talking about how we need to follow the things that they told us to do, including other commandments like reading the scriptures, praying, going to church, and getting baptized.  When we asked him about baptism, he took in a deep breath and then said "I'm ready!  I want to do it!"  So, then we asked him when he felt would be best for him to get baptized, and he said "Sometime this month."  So, we now have a baptismal date with Luis for September 27, which is the last Saturday before General Conference!  We are so excited for him!  :D

And the best part about the whole thing is that he is now thinking about serving a mission, and he really wants to do it, and now he's going to be an example for the rest of his family as the first member in his family!

And as far as the other week, we were able to teach lots of lessons and get to know lots of other people, but this was by far the biggest thing that happened this week.  :)

I love you all so much!  Have a fantastic week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Another Green Bay week gone by

Yeah, so this week was a quick one!  And I attribute that mostly to the fact that last week's P-day was on a

Tuesday, so this one came quicker than most.  :P

But what we did on Tuesday was we emailed, we went to the Halloween Store that just opened in the mall, and we tried on some fun masks and everything, and then we played Sports later on, including some Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball!  It was fun!  :D  After all of those activities, we went over to Ana's house and taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to baptism, but in response to that she told us that she believes in the Virgin de Guadalupe and everything...  So, progress is being made slowly but surely!

Wednesday we had District Meeting!  I really liked this week's meeting though.  I got to give a training on a Christlike Attribute, and the one I chose for that was the attribute of Graciousness, and it went pretty well.  :)  Later, we had a pretty awesome District Meeting led by our new District Leader named Elder Landaverry.  He's a pretty awesome guy!  :)  And while we were there, I got an awesome new quote!  It says:  "All I can do is all I can do, and all I can do is enough if I know it's all I can do."  I like that.  Right after DTM I got to go over to the Ramirez's to call the Utah DMV and get some paperwork sent out to me out here so I can apply for a new copy of my driver's license!  So, hopefully in a few months, I'll get a new license!  Later, we spent some time teaching lessons including the Vargas family and finding some new people.  We also taught the word of wisdom to a drunk guy!  :)

Thursday, we went to the YMCA to help Dale work out.  That was fun, but on our way out, it was raining SO much, just a complete downpour!  (Photos included)  Then, we went and had a lunch appointment with some guys that we know, and the lesson that we had decided previously to teach them was based on the Law of Chastity, but as we were teaching it, it turns out that they were gay!  That was awkward, but all we did was commit them to pray about it and turn to the Lord to help them live it.  :P  When we got home, we were weekly planning for a while, but eventually got picked up by the Ramirez boys to go to our dinner appointment with them and it was at this place called Buffalo Wild Wings, and it was so fun!  And that is how we closed our day.  It was kind of like a 'year mark' party type thing..  :P

Friday we had a great day and taught a lot of lessons.  We spent time in 3 different areas and were able to help each of them progress.  We also stopped by the Carlos family's place to check up on them, and we found that Veronica was sick, so we offered her a blessing, and she accepted!  So we gave her a blessing and had a lesson on the Priesthood and the Spirit, and the Holy Ghost was so strong there.  I absolutely loved that feeling!  We just really hope that they have the desire to follow that feeling that they had!  :D

Saturday morning we went and tried to contact some people that we had scheduled lessons with, but each of them fell through.  However, for lunch, we were able to go over to this place called Bay Beach and have a picnic/birthday party with some Hmong people we know.  Later, we went and had some lessons including one with Luis and this new lady named Dilcia, where we had a super powerful Restoration lesson with her..  :)

And then Sunday we had church, and Luis came with us!  It was awesome!  After church we had lunch with the Rios family, and then got picked up by a member in his awesome oldies car and got some sweet photos with it!

But basically that sums up our week!  I'm loving it up here in Green Bay and I absolutely love my mission!  :D

--Elder Nate Hubert

Transfer Week, Indian Dinner, God is like an Egg, Nobody at Church, andLabor Day Miracles

So, from the subject line you could probably tell that we had quite the week here in Wisconsin!  I'll just kinda give you the details and you can infer how we felt about it...  ;)

Last Tuesday was a pretty good day!  :)  Minus the adventure in the morning.  Basically I woke up at 5 AM to the sound of beeping!  So I got up and tried to find out what it was, and when I couldn't, I went back to bed.  Then I heard it again, and tried to find it, and ended up waking Elder Miller up because it was either the fire alarm or the carbon monoxide detector, and then we found out that it was the carbon monoxide detector!  So, we went out to our balcony and called our district leader at 5:15 AM who then told us to go and get on our bikes and go over to the Hmong's apartment, so we did!  We got there at like 5:50 and slept there until later, and then we got breakfast there too, and then went back.  At the apartment the beeping had stopped so I closed the outside screen door that had been left open to let it air out, and right as I did that it started beeping again, so we called the Zone Leaders and left to go to Hmong's again, this time taking our stuff with us so we could get ready for the day.  Later, our landlady went in and replaced our detector because it was apparently a faulty detector, so we're okay now!  :D  We also got to teach Alexis, say goodbye to Elder Dobyns, and have an incredible dinner with an Indian family in a tripanionship of me, Elder Miller, and Elder Harding because Elder Evans had to go down to Milwaukee on Tuesday night.

Saying goodbye to Elder Dobyns

Wednesday was transfer day, and we had Elder Harding in our companionship as we went around to a nearby area to contact some of our friends, and then we went to the church to drop him off so he could wait for his new companion, who is actually his trainer from almost a year ago!  They get to serve together again!  Later, we went and taught 6 lessons near the Spanish Elders' apartment and near the Bus Station as we were waiting to go home - it was a pretty good day!

Thursday, we had helping Dale as our service project again, but the bad part was that he came in super late to the YMCA so we only got to help him for like 20 minutes before we had to leave!  But when we got home, we got to do some weekly planning before heading over near the church to teach Ulises, one of our new investigators, and Luis at the church later before playing Basketball with some other investigators that came!

Friday, we got to go have a lunch appointment with a less active guy named Cesar, who actually wants to serve a mission so we're going to be trying to help him finish his papers coming up.  Later, we basically had every single lesson that we had had planned fall through, but we still found pepole to teach, including our land lady Nicole who came to the apartment to check something out, and then started asking some questions about who we are, what we believe, and what makes us different from everybody else.  And we placed a Book of Mormon with her!  It was sweet!  :D

Hmong food

Saturday we got to accompany the Hmong Elders to a gigantic Hmong Sports Tournament in Green Bay, and we went because there were tons of people there from all cultures so we wanted to see if we could meet any Spanish people!  :)  While we were there, we met this old Hmong lady who was baptist, and she was trying to convince us about the 3-in-1, the Holy Trinity, and explained it like God was an Egg, like they all have different parts but they are still an egg.  But as soon as the 4 of us missionaries started asking about the doctrine of the Bible regarding that, they basically just contradicted themselves and it was kind of funny...  :P  But we kept the situation cool without having to bash at all.  :)

And on Sunday, we unfortunately did not have any investigators at church, but that is okay, because there was really NOBODY at church!  Since it was Labor Day, most of the people in the branch decided to go and do stuff so there were only like 20 of us that attended church on Sunday - too bad..  :P  And then Sunday night there was a baptism help where I was invited to sing at it, so I sang an arrangement of 'Joseph Smith's 1st Prayer' to the tune of 'Come Thou Fount.'  It went well!

Then yesterday, Labor Day, we had a miracle when we were looking for this less active man named Edgar who apparently had the same address as a completely active family, but we had never met him before!  So because the buses didn't work, we walked to their house to ask about him, and he ends up answering the door and inviting us in, introducing himself to us, and it was such a miracle!  And then they fed us!  Turns out he has lived there for 5 years and just works all of the time and doesn't come to church anymore!  Who knew?!?! 

Anyways, i love you so much!  :D  I hope each of you has an incredible week and that you remember that Heavenly Father loves you!  :D

--Elder Nate Hubert