It's a BOY!!! Training Elder Norris, chapter 1

Well, this week was actually kinda crazy!  Because on Monday, as I informed you last week, I was told that I'd be training a new missionary.  It was kind of a looming task, but I apprioached it with as much zeal as I could, and things seem to be turning out great, so that's good!  

Elder Hubert and Elder Harding

Elder Hubert, Elder Shipp and Elder Norris

But on Tuesday, we went and visited a bunch of people - members and investigators alike - to say goodbye from Elder Harding.  We had a dinner that evening at the Alvorado's, then we came home and walked to Luis Munoz's house so he could say adios to them, and then we came back home and I got picked up by Elder Dickey, one of the missionareis from the UP (upper peninsula) because he was going to be training a new missionary as well.  So we left our companions in Green Bay and we drove to Milwaukee so that we'd be able to go to our meeting the next morning at 7:45  And guess who we spent the night with?!  None other than my trainer, my companion a year ago, Elder SHIPP!!  It was crazy to be able to see him again and reminisce, to be able to talk about the different experiences that we've had over the next year.  

Elder Hubert and Elder Norris

The next morning, we got up super early to head over to the church and be seated for our meeting by 7:45, and after being trained by the Assistants, President and Sister Cutler, we met our trainees and got photos with them!  Elder Norris is from Panguitch, Utah and he's a great kid.  We got trained together, and then we loaded up our stuff and drove back up to Green Bay.  I loved being able to see so many of my friends in Milwaukee - totally great!  And then when we got back up here, I sat him down and introduced him to the area and the area book, we talked about different things, and then we set out to go and teach people!  Later, we came back so he could have time to unpack and we could eat...

Thursday we got to do our first study sessions together and then we got to do Weekly Planning!  That took a while because I had to teach him how to do it...  :)  But the highlight of the day was when we had a lesson in the evening and Elder Norris followed through with a commitment he got from President Cutler and he invited a hispanic man to be baptized on a specific date, and the man, named Jesus, accepted the invitation!  So now we're going to be working with him to do that.  :D

Friday was a slower day because we went and got signed up to go and do service at a new place - turns out doing service at the YMCA wasn't approved.  Good thing we know that now!  But we got signed up and filled up our time with contacting people we knew in that area, but not a lot of people were home...  :(

Saturday we had studies and then later we went to the Nieves family's house and had a lesson with them about the Plan of Salvation, and then we went to the church to help them set up for the Talent Show that was that day, and then we stayed there for a few hours viewing/participating in the show.  I got to sing a song, and it was way pitchy but I included a video anyways, so don't judge me tons...  :P  But that was fun!!!

However, Saturday and Sunday were hard for Elder Norris because he realized how much Spanish he's going to be speaking so now we're going to eb working super hard with him so that he's ready to do HARD WORK!  :D

Love you all SUPER TONS!  I hope that all is well for you and that you have a great THANKSGIVING WEEK!  Don't get too fat!

--Elder Nate Hubert

HOLA! Mission update=I'm a trainer!!

Hey everybody!  As the subject line said, I have recently been called to be a trainer!  So I guess what that means is that our mission president trusts me to not corrupt a new missionary too badly.  It should be fun though!  I'll let you know who it is and I'll have a few photos for you next week!  :D

But here's our update for the week!

#Mormon

On Monday after our P-day activities and everything, it was really awesome because we were able to find 7 new invesigators in 1 night!  How did we pull that one off?  We found 2 groups of people.  First, we found Cecilia and Liliana and they invited us to come back and teach them!  Then, we found a group of 5 teenage guys that call themselves "The Squad."  They are all hispanic and speak both Spanish/English, and they like us as guys, and they are all kind of religious, so they invited us to come back so we could watch "The Restoration" video with all of them!  That was a pretty cool visit!

Green Bay Spanish District

The next day on Tuesday we had District Meeting, and that was decent.  I've been to better ones, but oh well...  :P  After everything there, we went to our apartment to drop off our jackets and head out to go and work.  We took a white board that we have at the apartment so that we'd be able to use it as we demonstrated The Plan of Salvation to Manuela.  When we got to her house, we were surprised to find Manuela there with 2 of her daughters, Irene and Karen, and after 1 1/2 hours of talking about the Plan, we finished the lesson and committed all 3 of them to be baptized in December!  It was a miracle!

Wednesday we talked to Lisa and her husband for a while and then later had a dinner with the Arcos family.  After that, we had a lesson with the Carlos family where we talked a lot about the Restoration and after that lesson, we both felt that they weren't really into the message, so our next visit with them on Wednesday is going to be a nice 'do or die' lesson...  Wish us luck!  We also had a visit with the Solorios and they are doing well!

Thursday we helped Dale work out and then for the rest of the day we weekly planned, then had both of our lessons fall through before we went to the church to help some of the members practice for the upcoming talent show, and ended the day with Basketball!

Elders and Dale

Friday, we did some work over on Spinnaker and found a man named Jacento who we taught a full Restoration lesson with.  After that, we went to go and teach the Squad, but they cancelled with us.  So rather, we bus contacted to make up time, and then we met some guys on the bus that were jailbirds, and talked to them about life for a bit.  We also got taken out to Texas Roadhouse that night!

Saturday we got the transfer text that told us that Elder Harding was going to be leaving, and then throughout the day we went and said goodbye to people for Elder Harding and he started packing all of his stuff. We did, however, have a lesson about church attendance with Manuela and saw Lisa and her kids and taught them the Restoration.

Sunday we spent saying goodbye to people!  Now I have like 9 missionaries waiting for me to leave!

Love you tons - ADIOS!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Miracles on my Mission!

So, as usual, I'm running out of time...  So, I'm going to make this quick!  I apologize for that!  :)  I wish I could just include every single detail about every single thing that's going on, as well as every single thing that I'm learning, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.  However, we're all going to be able to talk about all of these stories when I'm home from my mission someday...  :P  So, yeah.  Bring it up with me then.  :)

On Monday of this last week, we hung out at the mall with some other missionaries.  It was actually a very dull P-day, so that's too bad.  However, to end off the day, Elder Harding and I were able to meet a new family, the Cortez family!  They are formers from some Sister missionaries, so we're going to start teaching them because they speak Spanish.

First Snow!

Tuesday, we had District Meeting all about how to use members in our missionary work.  The main point that we were trying to make was that we must teach in UNITY when members are there!  It is not just that the member answers questions, or prays, but that they help teach the doctrine as well!  The purpose of a missionary as listed in Preach my Gospel is not just for the full time missionaries, but for the "every member a missionary" too, so I think we should all study that and do a little better at it.  Later on that day, we talked to Manuela again, and this time we met her husband, who was very cold towards us at the beginning.  However, after he heard a bit of what we had to say, and how we conducted ourselves, he came out of the other room and was so nice to us!  It was awesome to see that transformation take place as the Spirit was present. 

Consecration board

Wednesday, we attempted to contact people around a street called Edgewood, being able to contact 5 referrals today.  We met this guy who told us his name was Dirty Jesus (spelled JEZIS to make it not sacreligious), and we had an interesting conversation with him before we were kicked out of the house by a very rude lade.  Later, we had a dinner with the Arcos family with was interesting.  It's always interesting.  :P  Later, we visited Luis Ponce with Brother Arcos and that was interesting too.  However, I was really happy with how things went today because to close off the night, we had a great lesson with Maria Mendoza about the Book of Mormon and things around that.  We also got to see Ana again, for the first time in a long time!

Thursday, we helped Dale work out and then weekly planned before getting taken to the restaurant Buffalo Wild Wings by some members to celebrate his birthday, and then we went to the church to have a church tour with the Solorio family, but they showed up to tell us that their kids were sick so they couldn't do it today.  But hopefully soon!

Elder Hubert

Friday we had exchanges with the other Spansh elders, and I got to go onto the West side with Elder Landaverry!  We did a lot of service at this food pantry kind of place, and we also got to go and attempt to find people in their new area, but turns out that not very many hispanics live over there...  That's too bad. 

Elder Landaverry

Saturday, we played Soccer with members and investigators in the morning, followed by us attending a baptism that the 2nd Ward sisters had!  Manuela was supposed to come, but she kind of flaked out on us for whatever reason.  Later, as we were up on Edgewood for some return appointments, and met this family - the Nieves family.  We had met the husband before, but turns out he has a wife and 3 kids that are all above the age of 8!  So we taught them the Restoration after getting into their house, and then we invited them to church, and they accepted!  Except for the husband, who is always working.  But hey, we were very excited by that!!!

The next day, we could barely believe our eyes when they were there!!!  It was awesome!  Lisa, Hubert (the 10-yr-old son) and Orelia (9) and Pedro (8), and they loved it!  They liked it so much, even though Lisa had tons of questions.  We answered them during the 2nd hour of church, and we were able to talk about TONS of different doctrinal points, especially about how the GOspel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of healing.  At the end of the lesson, they all 4 had accepted a baptismal date for December 13- pray that they make it!!!

Hey, that's my week!  I hope you had a good week too!  Right now in the mission we're allreading the Book of Mormon together and I am learning so much new stuff!!!  I'd love to tell you about it but I have to go.  :)  Adios everybody!  Till next week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Zone Conference, Halloween, and idk...

I gotta do a brief run-down of the week because I have missionaries waiting for me and I gotta catch a bus pretty soon.  :)

Holding an original 1830 Book of Mormon

Copies of Joseph and Hyrax's death masks

With the AP

Last Tuesday morning we got picked up by the GB1 Elders and driven down to a city called Shawano, about an hour away, to go to Zone Conference!  While we were there we learned so much, and there was this speaker there named Brother Pountaine, and he shared his amazing conversion story, and he brought an original copy of the BofM that he had, along with copies of the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  It was so awesome to get photos with them!  :)  I also got photos with a whole bunch of missionaries there, which was cool.  Later on in the day, we had a lesson with the Solorio family which was amazing, where we committed them to read from the Book of Mormon, and they agreed to do taht, so of course we were happy!

On the way to Shawano

Tuesday we went and we contacted on Walnut Street and nearby streets for a while, which was pretty successful because we found this lady named Manuela who really liked talking to us and wants us to come back and meet the rest of her family, too!  We also found this lady named Lluvia Luz, which basically means rain light.  We also contacted some referrals and had a dinner with the Gonzalez family!

Thursday we helped Dale work out at the YMCA and then after that, we had another follow-up lesson with the Solorio family where we read more of the BofM and talked a lot about it with them.  They believe taht it is true!  They really enjoyed the stories and they promised that they would come to church!  :D  Later, we got picked up and taken to the church to help set up and participate in the Branch Halloween Party, which was pretty fun.  I especially liked the part when Luis Munoz's family showed up - that was cool to see.

Autographed Clay Mathews jersey

Friday we went near the Vanderbraak st. area and we contacted a whole bunch of people that we know over there, and we were able to talk to 2 member families and share some messages that really helped them, and we ended up the night of Halloween over at Luis's house because his mom had invited us over for dinner.  We had dinner, played some games with the kids while the adults ate, and before we left we shared an awesome message about the Book of Mormon with the fmaily before we left, and the family and their friedns all wanted a copy.  ALl in all, we gave out 7 copies of the BofM that day!

Saturday we taught 7 lessons as we went from area to area, and hopefully they will all turn into something eventually but for now they were all first lessons.  :)

Sorry this is so short, but on Sunday after church we planned out a lesson with the Sister Missionaries to teach later that night with our investigator (they were coming too) and then we had calls with the other elders and the zone leaders, and then a dinner appointment on the west side, followed by going to our lesson who stood us up.  ;P

But hey, that was our week in a very quick summary.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Happy Elders in the Green Bay south zone

Green Bay south zone