Birthday Party, Exchanges, Memorial Day

This week we've had a whole bunch of just awesome miracles!  :D  The first one started on the evening of last P-day with a huge miracle of finding a new family.  

Awesome Mural!

It was Monday evening and we were tracting in an area that neither of us had been to before, and we knocked on this corner house and nobody answered.  So, we crossed the street to continue onward, and turned around to look at the house again, and saw that there was a side-door to the house we had just knocked on!  We both felt an impression that we needed to knock on that door, and so we went.  As we were climbing the stairs to that other door, a woman holding a baby opened the window and simply asked us, "Do you want to come in?"  Of course we do!!!  So, we went in and started talking to this woman and her 2 daughters that were home (age 19 and 22) and then her husband got home like a minute later with his friend.  We talked to them a bunch, and it turns out that they had been meeting with the missionaries 7 years ago when they had lived in another house!!!  The family is Dominican and they are 7th Day Adventist, and so we asked them if they knew our friend Yolanda who is also Dominican and Adventist, and then Justin, the dad, said "Yeah, that's my sister."  ?!?!?!?!  What in the world?  That is SO awesome!  They are related to another investigator family!  :D  And while we were teaching them about the Restoration, Yolanda walked right in and saw us and had a little freak out moment...  :P  It was awesome!  This family is all new investigators!

Tuesday we had a HUGE miracle too!!!  It was a miracle because, while we were on exchanges with the Elders serving in the Muskego Lakes ward, we got to go to a lesson with the Angeles family.  I was with Elder Thatcher and all we were going to be doing for the lesson was talking to them more about getting married.  However, when I first brought it up, Victor looked at me and was all like "Elder, I've already decided what I want to do.  I'm going to marry her!"  Dang - I just about freaked out right there and then.  We've been working SO hard with them and finally he decided to marry her!  But the funny part is that after he said that, his comment took Blanca so off-guard that she got a little nervous and she couldn't believe it and everyhting - it was awesome!  :D

Then, on Wednesday (SOOO MANY MIRACLES THIS WEEK) we got to give the Oak Creek Elders a ride down to a city called Cudahy, which is like 20 minutes south of Milwaukee.  So, we took them down there and dropped them off at a lesson.  While we were down there, we remembered that we had seen a name on the branch list that lived in Cudahy, so we looked it up and went to knock on the door.  Turns out her name is Darleen and she is cousins with the super prominent Ruiz family that makes up bascially the back-bone of the Branch!!  So, we talked to her briefly and then set up a return appointment.  :)  After that, we went and visited with Darleen's aunt (who we already had an appointment with) whose name is Michelle.  We talked to her and her 2 daughters, all of whom have been less active for a few years, and shared a brief Spiritual thought with them, and let me tell you the Spirit was SO strong!  So strong that by the end of it, all 3 of them told us that they wanted to come back to church because they could feel the difference in their lives with the Spirit and then without it.  

with Elder Fry

On Friday, I had a really good time on exchanges with none other than Elder Cameron Fry from Orem, Utah.  Any of you know him?  If you went to Timpanogos High School, based on all of the stories he told me, you probably knew him.  Basically, he's a stud.  He's hard working.  He's a good missionary!  We had a great time and got to teach an awesome family - Vanessa Garcia and her family, and got to have a good time playing with them after the lesson on Tithing.  It involved a lot of running and jumping and stuff like that, but it was really fun.  :)  We also taught like 6 other lessons throughout the rest of the day, so I'd say that it was a success!  #swimmingfry

With the Garcia's

Saturday was fun because we had a birthday party that we got to go to, we got to help the Velasco's learn a bit about Family History, we got to do a project for the mission president involving planning a meeting for the Spanish missionaries, and of course in the morning we played soccer where I had a LEGIT header goal from a corner kick!  (Pretty proud of that one)

At the birthday party

Sunday's miracle was that a former investigator came to church and told us that he 100% wants to get baptized, so we set a baptismal date with him as a goal and hopefully it will work out!  His name is Jesus and he seems pretty cool!  And then that night we got to go to a legit cookout with a whole bunch of Mexicans!  :D

Sunday AND Monday we had awesome cookouts too, but this time it was with the Ruiz family instead of the Velasco's friends.  What an awesome week!  :D  Shout out to Annette Ruiz!  :D

At the lake

Selfie!

Love all of you!  Adios!

--Elder Nate Hubert

"And that's how He saved the world..."

First things first, by way of explanation of the Subject line, please refer yourselves to the photo I've attached to the email...  It's pretty funny!  Jesus talking to the Avengers.

But yeah, here are my week's highlights:

Monday night of last week was interesting because we kept on running into a whole bunch of Catholic people!  Not that that is a negative thing, but it's just that they all had the attitude of "I'm Mexican, I'm catholic, and I'm going to die that way."  it doesn't make it very easy to teach much more of the gospel if they begin being so closed-minded.  However, I had a cool experience when we went to the back of a house to knock on an apartment back there, and nobody was home...  But right as we were about to leave, a mother and her son got home and walked from their car to the door.  The son, a 19-year-old, recognized us immediately as Mormon missionaries, and when I asked him if he'd ever talked to missionaries before, he said NO, but that he was watching a video about us yesterday on YouTube.  He said that it was a video about a missionary in England and that he appreciated what we were doing.  I got to talk to him over the course of the next 5 minutes or so about various things, and about his religion (Catholic) and how he was progressing in that.  I thought that was cool, but really hope that he saw it as a sign that right after he watches a video about mormons, the mormons show up.  While being a missionary, I've lost all sense of coincidence - I don't believe in coincidence any more... :P

Church in Milwaukee

On Thursday we were able to have a bunch of awesome lessons!  First of all, we met with the Santiago family and committed them - even though they're members already - to live the Word of Wisdom.  It is so awesome because in the last week, both the father and mother, who struggle with coffee and smoking respectively, decided on their own that they were going to STOP and had gotten rid of their stuff!  And then we came over just to fortify that decision, and we didn't even know that they had been thinking about it!  :P  #revelation  #thisisthelordswork

Right as soon as we stepped outside of their house, we met a woman on the street who studied with the Mormons a couple years back, and who wanted to start the lessons again, so we got her information and are going to start teaching her, too!  :)

Cool Nativity 

And then later on in the day, we met with an 18-year-old kid named Nestor, who Elder Evans had found on exchanges.  the only reason Nestor came to the door that day was because his parents wanted him to tell us to go away, but he didn't want to.  Instead, we sat on the porch and taught him the Restoration and committed him to read more in the Book of Mormon (he had already been reading a little bit).  And the best part is that we KNOW he was reading, because he had legitimate questions for us about things that had been confusing for him!  :)  #miracles

Street in Milwaukee

BUT it gets better.  Later on in the evening, one of our lessons fell through.  So, we were going to go tracting, but happened to drive past an investigator's home - who we hadn't talked to in like 2 months - and their lights were on so we knocked on their door!  They answered and we got to know them a lot more, and we joked around, but we were also able to teach them and help them feel the Spirit.  That was a perfect close to a great day.  :)

And finally, a fun experience was on Saturday another lesson fell through and we didn't know what to do!  We were in the area of another investigator so we stopped by, and they were having a party!  They invited us in to eat something real quick, so we stopped in, and when we walked in there (the entire family is catholic) I saw a woman just gasp when we entered their back yard.  I thought she was all like "Oh my gosh, they invited the mormons.!!"  But instead, it turns out that the lady was a friend of theirs who is a MEMBER and who was SO surprised to see the missionaries show up that she was taken completely off guard!  :P  It was SO funny!!!  :D

But yeah, I had a great week everybody!  :D  I hope you did too!  

Corner in Old Milwaukee where my Grandpa Hubert was born and lived in 1930

Just in closing, I know that this work is the most important thing on the planet.  This morning I was reading in Acts 4 (I think) where Gamaliel, one of the Pharisees, is giving a word of caution to the other Chief Priests.  he said that if this work be of men, it will come to naught...  But if it is the work of God, there is NO stopping it!  And I definitely know that it is the work of the Lord because though people may attempt to stop the work, it will not halt until the Lord says it is done.  :)  

Thanks for all that you do for the missionaries!  until next week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

The next big Mariachi Band - El Amor de Mexico

Hello everybody!  I hope that you all have had just an incredible week, because mine has been pretty good.  The entire week we were preparing for a Branch Activity that was spearheaded by the missionaries (mostly Elder Evans and I) so we were caught doing TONS of member work and calling TONS of people all week, not necessarily being able to focus tons on finding new people or anything like that, but our gears have now switched and that'll be our focus of the coming week.

But yeah!  Some highlights of the week include:

Monday night was awesome.  We got to have a lesson with Victor and Blanca Angeles and they are just the best!  We're really trying hard to get them married though.  Blanca is all over it - she wants to get married.  Victor is a little hesitant, but we were talking to him and gave him a whole bunch of examples of why it would be good.  One of the excuses was that "What if something happens and we have a disagreement?"  I feel like disagreements are just part of being alive - part of being human.  But I was SO glad that I was able to use the example of my parents and grandparents, each of those 3 couples have been married for a long time!  :D  And they all have several children!  AND even though they are awesome people and I love EACH of them, they're not perfect (almost though), and I'm sure that they've had their fair share of disagreements.  But the awesome thing that we pointed out is that no matter the disagreement, it can always be resolved, especially if you have the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life.  :D  So, thanks so much to my parents and grandparents.  you're the best! 

Tuesday was actually a pretty cool day too, but mostly because we got to take out the 2 new Spanish Missionaries straight from the MTC.  One of them is from California, and the other said he was from Honduras!  The kid from Honduras was speaking straight Spanish to us for like 2 hours, but it turns out it was just a joke that he was pulling on us because the AP's told him to, and he's actually from Texas but his parents are from Honduras, so of course he has perfect Spanish.  But, that story gets better...

Because on Wednesday was transfers!  And guess who one of the trainers of the new Spanish missionaries was!  My son, Elder Norris!  So, Elder Reina - the kid from Texas - is my new Grandson!!!  :D  he'll be getting trained up in Green  Bay by Elder Kyler Norris!  HOORAH!  That made me really happy.  But Wednesday was pretty strange because one of my buddies - Elder Rytting - went home to Pleasent Grove Utah.  He finished his mission!  Super strange...

The next best part of the week though was on Saturday, the 9th of May, 2015.  The reason that day was important is because it was the day that we had the first annual Milwaukee Spanish Branch Talent Show!!!  Okay, so I'm not sure it's gonna be an annual thing, but it was the first branch activity they've had in like a year!  And it was awesome!  We called a whole bunch of people and got a whole bunch of numbers, and then got more people to bring food, and it was super sweet.  :)  The best part in my opinion was when Elder Evans and I got all dressed up in the cowboy getup the Bro. Rivera gave to us - GAVE to us!  And we got on the stage with fake mustaches, and sang a mariachi song that we WROTE!  It was a HUGE hit especially because we were called "El Amor de Mexico" and we threw roses out to the crowd!  :D

And Sunday of course was a great day because we got to Skype our families - a definite highlight of my day.  :)

I love you all SO much!  Thanks for your emails and our prayers!

--Elder Nate Hubert

MARRIAGE! (But not mine...)

Monday was a really cool day beacuse we got to head over to Miller Park (the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Team Stadium) and eat lunch there, and then we got to walk around the place. 

However, I also just had an all-around good week.  But since I'm short on time (as usual) I'm gonna just fill you all in on the biggest moments of the week, which are Friday and Sunday.

Elder Wiscombe and Elder Hubert

Friday was a fun day because all day, we were stuck in meetings!  #timeofmylife

But really though, that morning we had to get up early so that all 4 of us who were staying at that apartment could get ready in time to go up for MLC up in Oshkosh, the meeting where we discuss the mission and the things that we could do better at, so that is always fun.  But the best part of the day happened when we got back...  We got to go over to the Santiago's house for a very special event - a wedding!  It was a very exclusive wedding - only family members and us two missionaries were there aside from the Branch President who was performing the marriage.  It was really good though!  He shared a short message and then went right into it, saying (in Spanish) the marriage vows, and then they whipped out the rings and put them on, and then they kissed, and then BAM!  They were married.  The funny part is that they were getting married to each other for the 2nd time, because the 1st time ended in divorce.  But hey, they're re-married and they're in love still, so that's what matters most!  :D  It was really cool though because Elder Evans and I had the privilege of being the legal witnesses of the marriage, so we got to sign the marriage license and everything so that was good!  :D  #neverdonethatbefore

Santiago wedding

Sunday, yesterday, was another time just full of miracles.  Up until that point, we had only found 1 new investigator the entire week, and we were thinking "That's pretty pitiful, let's go find some people!"  So we did!  We found this one lady named Alicia who seemed pretty religious, so that's cool.  But the real miracle happened after that, when we went to go contact a Less Active man who didn't live at the address it said he did.  So, we went across the street to go and talk to some people, and found this woman named Veronica, and after talking to her briefly at the doorstep, she invited us inside to come and share a message with her and her 3 children.  She had a 10-year-old daughter (who is as tall as me), a 12-year-old son, and then a 14-year-old goliath!  Literally, this kid is 6 foot 3, and he's 14!!  But besides his height, we had a great experience with them.  We taught an awesome Restoration lesson and they participated the whole time, and it was SO amazing!!!!!!!  And they want us to come back!  Man...  I love the Spirit so much!  :D

But yeah, that's my life!  

I just wanted to let you know that I love you each SO much and that I can't wait to hear from you all soon!  :)  Missions fly by so quickly so thanks for all of the prayers that have come my way during the last 20 months.  :)  I LOVE YOU!  Adios!  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert