2 Timothy 4:7

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

As I've expressed before, there are no words to describe finishing one's mission.  It legitimately becomes part of the person, and is their entire life as they dedicate themselves to the Lord for 2 years.  It has been my privilege to participate in this great work and to be used as an instrument in the hands of God in touching the lives of others, and be touched myself.  I will forever be thankful for the opportunity that I was given to serve.

Over the course of the last 2 years, so much has changed for me.  I have been able to develop a deeper understanding of Jesus Christ and His atonement, and especially what that means for each and every one of us.  I know of a surety that He loves us and that He provides for us all of the things that could never provide for ourselves.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it changes lives because it has changed my own, and I have witnessed its power in the lives of others.

One of the best parts of a mission is that it has changed me forever and has prepared me for the future!  I feel now that I will be able to take on the world and what it has to offer as I pursue a whole new life amidst college, career, and family life.  

But my time as a missionary has been incredible!  It's been such a blessed experience and I would not change one bit of it for the entire world.  :)  I thank all those who have been so influential throughout my life and have helped me get to this moment, and all those who supported me as I served the Lord.  I'm legitimately at a loss for words as I attempt to describe how I'm feeling right now.  :)  All that's important to say is that I know that God lives, that He loves us, and that this is His work!  See you all on Thursday!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Rosa got endowed

The subject line basically says it all!  It's been an amazing journey with Rosa Vasquez.  In April of 2014, she was able to be baptized by my good friend Elder Jake Schvaneveldt, and I was able to confirm her a member of the church.  Then, she continued progressing and continued struggling with her various things, as we all do of course.  I kept on getting updates on her from other missionaries and she and I would keep in touch by letter every so often.  Then in July of 2015, I got sent back to Waukesha to finish what I had begun.  August 25, 2015 we were able to enter the Chicago temple and I was able to be present as she received the blessings of the temple in her own life.  I consider myself so lucky as to have been there every step of the way, and am SO pleased with her continual progress in the gospel.  She is so converted to Jesus Christ and to His church here on the earth, and is such a great example of faith and diligence.  I am calling this experience the 'cherry on top' of my mission.  My mission really has been so sweet - just like an ice cream sundae, right?  But this was definitely the cherry on top - it completed it.  And how appropriate that it occurred right before I finish my service as a missionary, because I only have 1 1/2 weeks left.

I'm not counting it down, I promise.  It's just really easy to know how much time I have left.  :P  But before I go, there's so much to do!  The work continues!  :D  This last week, the temple trip was by far the #1 miracle that I saw in my life. However, it was not the only miracle, because we always have so many of those.  For example, Wednesday morning we had an amazing breakfast that Rosa provided for us just prior to Sister Hunter, one of the sister missionaries from the ward, departed to go home just in time for school to start today!  That was awesome!  Later on that day, we were able to meet this amazing guy named Daniel for the 2nd time, and were able to set a baptismal date with him for October 24th!  We're really excited for Daniel because he has been through quite a bit in his life, but now is really wanting to turn his life around because he has kids and really wants to be a good example for them and wants the best for them in their lives.  

That night, we got to teach the Watson-Mitchell family about member missionary work and were able to promise them that if they listened to the holy ghost as we watched a particular video, that they would feel the Spirit testifying to them of names of people that they could reach out to in their lives and help receive more of the Gospel.  :)  Hopefully they will do that!

Thursday we got to meet with Kathy, a recent convert here in the ward, and were able to talk to her about some experiences that she's been having as her friends have been objecting to her recent decision to get baptized a member of the church.  We were able to strengthen her and share scriptures with her that gave her motivation to add to her 'arsinal,' so that when people 'attack' her, she can defend herself.  :)

We were also able to reach out to Sister Yopps' boyfriend this week and teach him - Mike - about the gospel and the importance of following Christ in all of our actions, not just with our speech.  It is a way of life, not just a split-second decision!  So hopefully as we go on with him, he's going to be able to be strengthened in his understanding and comprehension of what these things actually mean!  :)

Saturday morning we helped with a move in the ward, and I always love seeing how the ward just unites and comes together to help somebody in need.  Then that night we were able to spend time with some members, playing Ultimate Frisbee with them.

Another huge miracle for me was on Sunday when we were able to find a less active woman named Maria who used to live in Utah and moved out here after a divorce and hasn't been to church in 6 years, but she welcomed us into her house and really wants to come back to church and to have contact with the missionaries.  It was awesome to be able to see the light of the gospel just fill her eyes as she spoke to us about her conversion and he love for the church and the book of Mormon.  I'm so excited for her and to help her come back to church!  :D

Anyways - that's our week.  Stay tuned for next week because it'll be the final mission update you get!  :D  Love you all!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Another week in Waukesha

We had a great week this week!  I'll just go over the basics:

Monday for the rest of my birthday we went and played sports with the rest of the missionaries and spent time with them until we finished up, went back into Waukesha, and went to dinner with the Schuenke's and had a party because they also invited the Loutensock's, the Blacker's, and Rosa to be there and spend time with me too!  :D  I felt so special - it was great!

With the Loutenstocks

With Rosa!

Tuesday we had a super awesome district meeting talking about progressing investigators and being true disciples of Christ.  It was awesome how the district participated and how each of us learned from the other!  I'm so thankful for having a great district that really wants to learn and do the right thing!

Later on in the day we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I was with an Elder Arbon in the Waukesha area.  Throughout our exchange on Tuesday and Wednesday, we were able to teach several investigators and be able to find a bunch of new families, so I was definitely thankful for that!  One huge miracle is that when I was here in Waukesha last time, we were recruited in attempting to help a family in the ward take care of the weeds in their back yard, but this time when I got back we got the young men involved so we'd actually be able to make a dent in it, and we took out all of the weeds and ingrown things all throughout the yard!  Hopefully now he'll be able to fix up the yard so it'll be good and beautiful.  :)  Then tonight as we were finishing up, we were caught in a rainstorm that was so bad that when we walked outside for 3 seconds, we were COMPLETELY soaked!

Wednesday and Thursday night we were able to have lessons with some members at later hours in the evening, like at 7 or 8, and we showed them a video that we have that talks about missionary work, and promise them that as we watched it, names of people would come to their mind, and those people would be the people that they could reach out to and help by giving them the gospel.  It's been great to see how names come to people's minds as they watch it, and to be able to help each of them make plans on how they can be more effective missionaries by reaching out more as their friends.

Wednesday during the day, I was asked to give a talk in church.  And then Thursday evening me and one of the sister missionaries, along with a member of the ward, all decided on what song we would be singing for church this Sunday, because I'd also been asked to sing a duet this Sunday.  So that worked pretty well! 

Friday, we were supposed to go to the Temple with Rosa, but in the morning she fell off of a stool and hurt her shoulder pretty bad so she wasn't able to go on Friday, which definitely put a damper in our plans for the day.  However, the situation now is this:  We get to go on Tuesday at 1!  So we'll still be able to go, but it'll just be this week and not next week.

One of my favorite days this week was Sunday.  I was pretty nervous to speak in church because I didn't have much time to prepare my talk, but it went super well!  First I sang, and afterwords both me and the Sister Missionary were complimented a lot on the way that we sounded, one person even saying that they'd never felt like clapping in church before today!  :P  And then my talk was all about how to recognize the Spirit and use it to deal with life's challenges.  It went well, and somebody later thanked me because their 8-year-old son is NEVER focused at church, but for whatever reason was zeroed in on the talk that I had given.  I know this probably makes me sound cocky, but I was very glad that I was able to get the point across so well.  Another person told me that I taught it so simply and powerfully.  I'm thankful for the Spirit that was there in that meeting - that's what made it good!

But yeah, things are great here in Waukesha!  Elder Trogdon and I are getting along incredibly well, and the work is progressing!  We're finding new people that might not progress far while I'm here, but we're all about creating a foundation that can be worked upon by later missionaries.  Life's great!  Love you all so much!

20th Birthday, Zone Conference

We had an incredible week this last week!  I'm feeling pretty interesting right now because today's my 20th Birthday, so that's definitely strange.  But the ward and the other missionaries have been great to me today. After I said my morning prayers at 6:30, I got a phone call from Elder Cameron Fry in Milwaukee (at like 6:32) and he sang Happy Birthday to me.  :)  That made my day!  

Happy birthday Elder Hubert

But yeah, on Tuesday of this last week we had an appointment with the Tateoka family to go over there and to share a lesson with them and talk to them about missionary work and such, and it was great to be able to talk to them and feel the Spirit as we had that lesson with them.  :)  We talked about some of their friends who are slowly getting softened to the gospel and are searching for truth, and how little by little they are able to introduce their friends to the gospel.

Right after we taught them, we went over to Joey Wood's house and walked with him over to Spring's house where we taught him the Plan of Salvation, and he actually participated and asked us questions and everything!  It was a huge miracle that he listened and was curious!  He still doesn't want to set a baptismal date, but now he understands how getting baptized will affect him not only now, but forever!

At around 3 we went on exchanges with the Brookfield Elders and had a good time.  I was with Elder Shepard who just barely got done getting trained as a new missionary, and as part of the exchange we had an awesome lesson with the Craig family where we talked about sharing our light with other people, and how Christ is the light that we hold up.  :)

Thursday throughout the day we were able to weekly plan and do service at the hope center, and we were also able to follow up with some members about some friends that they have that they'd like us to teach and contact about the church and such.  It was awesome to see how they had prepared their loved ones to receive us!  We had dinner with the Cutler family, the mission president's son and his family who live in the ward, and we were able to have an incredible lesson with them because they had another member family over and we talked all about testimonies and how Christ told everybody to become as 'little children,' and so then we had each of the kids bear their simple testimonies of truth.  :)  It was so amazing!

Friday we had Zone Conference, which was great!  In the middle, Sister Hunter and I were able to do a musical number that we had been practicing, and it was a great experience.  I think what made it better is that one of the senior couples got up after it to talk to us about something, and were overcome and started crying!  It was definitely a cool experience for us because we sang the song, and were able to feel the Spirit of it later on.

Later on in the meeting, all of the missionaries who were departing were asked to come up to the stand and bear their testimonies, and I just about broke down as I was up there because me finishing my mission was just so sad to me!  But now, I realize, that I don't need to be sad as I bear my testimony of God and His love, or even be sad about finishing my mission.  I'm optimistic and happy for the future, and am just SO glad and SO happy for the 2 years that I've had.  I'm just excited for the rest of my lifetime that I'm going to have in His service!

Friday night we had a huge miracle, and that was that we were able to get back in contact with a family that I used to teach when I was here last.  That was awesome, especially because they missed me and are still curious about the message that we have!  The 19-year-old kid in the family was able to prioritize his life for us, and tell us that God is the most important thing to him, and then we asked him if he was willing to show that to God, and he said yes!  So hopefully soon we're going to be able to help them out in changing their lives!

And then Sunday was of course a great day, especially because in the evening the Whipple's so kindly had us and the sisters over to eat, and then surprised me with a chocolate birthday cake that was amazing!  :D  I absolutely love this ward!

But yeah, everything is going great in Wisconsin.  I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father and for my opportunity to serve, to learn, and to grow (even if it's hard sometimes).  This life is all about learning about Him and becoming like Him.  I'm so happy that I have the personal opportunity to do that!  :D  I love each of you tons!  have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Fist full week back in Waukesha

This week was a pretty good one!  :D  I'd definitely say that it was awesome!  Last P-day was pretty fun, because right after we were done emailing we got to go and play basketball with our Puerto Rican friends the De la Paz family.  Okay, so we tied.  And I'm not good at basketball, but Aneisha and JP have got some pretty dang good moves, I'll be honest!  :D  But even better than playing basketball with them was that night when we went over and taught a bit of English, and then we taught them the first half of the Restoration, talking about families, prophets, and especially about Jesus Christ.  It was awesome to be able to come together and share beliefs and show our love for them as we shared these amazing messages with them.  The Spirit was definitely there, and we kind of left them with a cliffhanger all like: "So yeah, God called prophets then, and he does today, too! But we'll talk about that next time..."  Something like that.  :)

Tuesday was awesome.  It was the first District Meeting i've given in over 6 months, but it was good to do it.  It was about overcoming concerns and responding to objections, and it was awesome to be able to discuss that and the district really liked the meeting, too!  But I'd say that the biggest plus of the day was being able to give a baptismal interview.  There's this 17-year-old girl named Mai, and she's awesome.  She's been taught by 22 different missionaries over the course of the last almost-2 years.  (She was found when I was in Waukesha last) and what a pleasure it was for me to be able to hear this girl's testimony ringing loud and true as she told me that she knew the BofM was true, and that the Spirit had told her that as she had been studying with the missioanries!  Of course, she passed the interview.  I felt so privileged to be the one to interview her, after 2 years of studying.  She's prepared, for sure.

Wednesday, the highlight of the day was being able to teach Joey Wood during our dinner appointment at Spring Gaffke's house.  His family got baptized 3 years ago, but he never did. He's 18 and is pretty stubborn, but we love him a lot and actually had a really good lesson with him on the importance of baptism and what he thought was holding him back.  :)  AND he set up a return appointment, which is something I don't think he's ever done before!

That night we were also able to teach and give a blessing to Belinda who has been struggling to recover from an operation she had.  She told us that she really likes the Spirit that is there when we come over, so hopefully that transforms into her being interested in the church.

Thursday we finished the Restoration lesson with the De la Paz family, and it was amazing to be able to see the lights in their minds just click as they heard about the BofM and about Joseph Smith as we watched the video of the Restoration with them!  They really liked it!  However, their father was a bit against it at first, but after giving us time to explain what it was and tell him that it was not against the Bible, he took a copy and invited us to come back and talk about it more.  :)  Whoa, that was a close one.

Friday afternoon we taught Joey again and almost set a date, even though he's not really interested in setting  baptismal date right now.  He knows that he needs to be baptized, he just wants to push it off for as long as he can.  So hopefully soon he'll be able to make the right choices!  But it was sad later on today when we found out that a man who had previously been very promising turned to anti-Mormon material and doesn't want to study anymore...  :(

Saturday was awesome, because we got to go to Mai's baptism!  The coolest part I'd say is that the missionary who found her 2 years ago came back to perform the baptism!  There were lots of missionaries there, and when they took the photo of all of the missionaries who had taught her, she wanted me to be in the picture too!  Even though I only interviewed her for like a half hour!  But hey, I felt honored and hopped in the photo!  :D

Later on that evening, we found out that a few of the families in the ward get together on Saturday nights to play soccer or frisbee, so we invited the De la Paz and went ourselves, and we played soccer and it was so fun!  I mean, most of the members were all like: "Elder Hubert, have you played before?"  It was pretty funny though - we had a great time and the ward just embraced the De la Paz!  

Unfortunately they weren't able to come to church the next day, but it is still awesome that they now know people and feel fine coming to things like that with us!

But yeah, I definitely know that I felt the Spirit this week as we were in several teaching appointmets and that hearts were touched.  The only work to do now is to make sure we have more people that we're teaching on a more consistent basis so we can build up this ward and area to what the Lord wants it to be at!  :D  Love you mucho!  Adios!

--Elder Nate Hubert

1st Week Back in Waukesha

It's super crazy to be back in my second area Waukesha - it finally hit me yesterday when I was at church and got up to share my testimony of the Gospel, and I looked out over so many familiar faces that I loved and had missed, and just this huge wave of love just came over me.  It was a great experience and I've had a lot of fun throughout the week to show up to members' homes to visit them and share a lesson, and have them see me and have them start freaking out because I was back in 
Waukesha.  :P  It's been SUCH a good experience so far!

The Munoz family

The Soriano-Vallejo-Ruiz Family

The Velasco's

The Santiago's

But this week hasn't all been sweet - there's been quite a bit of bitter as well.  And that was because I had to say goodbye to so many of my best friends in Milwaukee.  On Monday night we went over and said goodbye to the Velasco family first thing at 6pm, and that was super tough.  Steve wasn't there, but I had to say goodbye to Marco, Leti, and Melanie.  I was at the brink of tears because I've been able to watch this incredible family learn and grow and progress thorughout the Gospel and it's been such an amazing sight!  I'm going to miss them TONS, but I'll see them sometime.  We also had an appointment with Annette and Isidro and Delainy and Roman and Tiffany, and that one was difficult to say goodbye as well.  I had to write in their little book that they have all of the missionaries write in, and I honestly had such a hard time saying goodbye.  We ate dinner, got some photos, and then I started to cry.  It doesn't help that the scritural message that I had come up with to share made me cry every time I shared it!  It was from Alma 17:1-2, talking about how Alma and the Sons of Mosiah had separated, and then when they met again they had a joyous reunion because they were still strong in the gospel.  I applied that to how I had to go, but that when I would come back it would be the same kind of a reunion because we each would have stayed strong.  :(  It was sad.  Another sad goodbye was with the Soriano-Vallejo-Ruiz family that night - Julia, Ghyslaine, Lizbeth, AND Angel.  That one was a tough one.  Tears were shed.  Absolutely.  I was doing good at the beginning of the night, but slowly and surely, the more people I said goodbye to, the more I cried.

The Martinez family

Justin and Elder Hubert

The Isidro family

Tuesday morning we had to say goodbye to the Martinez and Justin, and then we had the great opportunity to take out the new missionaries!  It was great to be able to see their greeny-ness.  Kind of funny actually, but they're each so solid and have great desires to be out here!  :)  After we did that, I finshed up packing and then we went and had a dinner/goodbye appointment with Angelina and Camila, and it was especially special to me because they pulled out a birthday cake because I was going to miss having my birthday with them and they gave me this super awesome jacket as well!  We also had to say goodbye to the Munoz family - Orlando, Kelly, Brittany, and her brothers...  That was was SO sad too!  :(  And at the end of the night, saying goodbye to Jared Rivera was SO tough...  :(  No bueno...

Happy early birthday!

Angelina and Camila and Elder Hubert!

Wednesday was an interesting day for sure - in the morning we went to the church and I just chilled there until my new companion got there, and then we went back to Waukesha!  We got to the new apartment and spent the rest of the day talking about the area and we visited some members as well!  It was great to be back!  Each of the members totally freaked out every time they saw me - it was awesome to see them all again!

Elder Trogdon and Elder Hubert

Another great thing was on Friday AND Saturday, we found 2 Spanish Families that we're going to go back and visit!  That was super exciting!  AND we were able to visit a super promising Puerto Rican family named the De-la-paz Duque famliy.  I like them a lot - they are so much fun!  I also got to visit with the Loutensocks, the Schuenke's, the Osmond's, the Tovias, and the Black families throughout the week, which was incredible.

Sunday was especially cool because I got to see all of the members that I had not yet been able to say hi to, and when I bore my testimony it was cool to be able to see all of them (like I said at the beginning of the email).

But yeah!  I'm glad to be back!  My new companion's name is Elder Trogdon and he's from Washington State, and has been on his mission for 4 1/2 months.  He's great to work with, and I'm excited for the next couple of week!  :)  Love you all!

--Elder Nate Hubert

My Final Transfer Begins - going back to Waukesha!

First of all, I HATE GOODBYES!

We got word this last Saturday while playing soccer that I was going to be transferred for my last transfer of the mission.  So from Saturday until now I've been saying goodbye to people here in the Milwaukee Spanish Branch.  It's definitely been one of my favorite areas and I really really love it!  :D  I really am so sad to leave, and I really have hated having to say goodbye to so many people that mean so much to me.  That's definitely the worst part of a mission...

I had an excellent week though!  On Monday I got my hair cut - almost COMPLETELY off!  Whatever, it's summertime and I feel good about it even if the person cutting my hair didn't do exactly what I wanted.  I said to not touch the top, but that's where they cut off most of my hair from!  

Tuesday we had interviews with President Cutler in the morning which were incredible as usual.  We talked a lot about fasting and why it's important, but then after that the entire feeling of the interview changed.  Before, we were sharing insights and ideas and such, and then he asked me the question: "So Elder Hubert, how do you want to spend the last 6 weeks of you mission?"  I was surprised that he asked me that because I'll be honest - it doesn't feel like I only have 6 weeks left in my mission...  And as I answered, tears came from my eyes.  I simply said: "I just want to work as hard as I can and bless the lives of as many people as possible."  It was such a sad thought, to consider that in just a few weeks my mission would end!  But hey, let's not dwell on that.  Instead, let's dwell on the great things that can be accomplished in 6 weeks!

One other cool thing that happened Tuesday is that President Cutler went out proselyting with us from the hours of 6-9, so we taught Annette and her family by showing them a video that we had, and then we taught Jesus Franco about tithing and fasting, and then we talked to the Velasco family about some stuff as well!  I loved proselyting with him - it was really a great experience.  :)  He's just such an inspirational man!

Wednesday we got to go on exchanges down to Racine and I went with Elder Casagranda and it was a really great experience.  We were able to meet with a great family called the Rojas family and they are preparing to get baptized in 3 weeks so we're super stoked for them!  :)  We also had a great experience with a basher who was a 7th Day Adventist who was trying to prove us wrong - it didn't work - we stood our ground!

Viernes (Friday) we had the great opportunity to go on exchanges with the Muskego Lakes Elders, where we tried really hard to get to know the members and help the elders there work a little harder with them and help them reach out to the members.  It's all good!  The Muskego Eldres are amazing!

Saturday as I said, we got the news that I was leaving...  Depressing...  And we did finding too!  It was WAY good!  Sorry I'm being a little vague, I'm trying to be fast...  :P

Sunday though, we went to church and I got to bear my testimony to the branch and then I translated one of the talks from the Stake Young Men's President into SPanish so that everybody could understand.  I did a pretty good job I thought!  After church was crazy because I had to take photos with SO many people!  But it was all good - then we had 2 dinner appointments where I said goodbye to more people!  And that's basically the story of my life for the next 2 days - goodbyes after goodbyes...  :P

I love you all TONS!  I wish I could tell you more but I've gotta go!  just hit me up after the mission and we can talk about it!  Adios!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Heat Waves and Tornado Warnings

We had an incredible week this week everybody - Wisconsin is just the place to be right now!  :D

It all started with Monday, because Monday is the first day of the week for a missionary.  But yeah, Monday night we had an FHE-type-thing set up with us, the West Allis Sister Missionaries, and the Munoz family.  We got there at 8ish and got everybody sitting down in the living room, prepared to talk about some stuff.  We first had everybody tell us their name, where they were born, and an embarrassing moment (let's just say that they have their fair share of embarrassing moments...)  :P but then, we started with a prayer and a hymn!  After the song, Elder Lee and I took it upon ourselves to share the Spiritual thought, which we had planned was going to be a lesson on Covenants.  We got talking about Baptism, sharing things from 3 Nefi 11 where Christ comes down, and how the first thing that he does is he commissions Nephi to go and baptize the people and Christ gives him power to do so.  So, baptism is important!  We got talking about that, and then we invited them to be baptized (all of the people who hadn't been baptized yet), and they said that they'd think about it - but that's great because that wasn't a no!  But then we briefly touched up on the Sacrament and the Temple because we were running out of time, but then Orlando Munoz - the father of the family - just opened up his heart and bore the most beautiful testimony that I didn't know he even had.  It was amazing to see this man testify to his family of the beautiful message of the Church and how he wanted an eternal family.  The Spirit was SO strong - I know that everybody in that room felt it.  What an incredible way for us to get the Sisters to start teaching the family (because he's a Colombian who married a white lady, so the rest of the family doesn't speak Spanish).  It was amazing! I'm so thankful for the Spirit.

Tuesday we had exchanges with the Kenosha English Elders so we got to take an hour drive down to Kenosha and went to their District Meeting and then we got to exchange.  I went with Elder Palacios who just barely came out on his mission.  He's a good kid even though he's still learning about how to be a missionary, how to talk to people, how to teach, etc...  But one miracle that we had during the exchange is that we got to teach Alice (a 75-year-old African American woman) and Willie (an 83-year-old friend of Alice), and got to set baptismal dates with them!  They are actually very interested in the message that we have to share with them, so that is incredible!

Elder Hubert and Melissa Bledsoe from OHS!

Another crazy miracle of the day is that we got to go over to the Calderwood's home - the Branch President in Kenosha Spanish Branch - and while we were there, I found out that his daughter had some of her ex-mission companions over at the house for the weekend, and that one of them had graduated from Orem High School in 2012!  So, I went in and saw a girl that I knew - Melissa Bledsoe!  It was crazy to see my two worlds collide in that home in Kenosha, Wisconsin of all places.  It's especially crazy because that was the only day that I was going to be in Kenosha, so what are the odds of that happening..?  Almost 0!

Elder Hubert and Elder Stephens

Wednesday we exchanged back at like 3, and at 3:30 we exchanged with the Assistants and I got to go with Elder Stephens again in our area of Spanish B.  It was great!  We were able to teach a bunch of lessons and really help put ourselves out there!

A lot of the rest of our week was dedicated to doing preparatory things for our meeting with the Stake President and Mission President on Sunday - Missionary Coordination Meeting for the Milwaukee South Stake/Zone.  So, that took up a lot of time.  :P  But it ended up being great because it was SUPER hot outside all of Thursday and Friday and that's when we did a lot of it!  But yeah, heat waves hit Wisconsin!

Elder Hubert and the Guille's family

But on Friday night, we drove up to a city called Mukwonago to spend the entire day of Satudray iwth the Kettle Moraine Elders, blitzing their area.  Elder Lee went with Elder Muir, and I went with Elder Biggs and the entire day Saturday we went and worked hard in their area to give it a little bit of a boost.  During our time there we were able to find 5x as many new investigators as they've found in the last month working themselves - it was incredible how much the Lord blessed us!  :D  Also, while we were there, we got a txt right as soon as some thick clouds rolled in overhead.  It said to take cover IMMEDIATELY because we were on Tornado Watch.  We went to a restaurant to have lunch, and on our way there we took a turn and saw that the sky/clouds were GREEN - that means that the sky is ready to spit out some tornadoes...  So, we hurried along to get some lunch, and luckily no tornadoes touched the ground.  If they did, I'd probably be freaking out...  :P

Lastly, one miracle we had on Sunday is that our investigator Jesus Franco came to church and is preparing himself to be baptized this next Sunday!  We're stoked for him to make that choice and progression!  :D  

I love each of you, and I know that the church is true and that Christ is the foundation with the BofM as the keystone.  What a blessing it is to be on the Earth at this time!  :D  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

2 Exchanges, 1 Zone Meeting, 0 Hours of Sleep

Okay, so not literally 0 hours of sleep, but that's what I feel like.  :P  But yeah!  This has been an amazing week, completely full of miracles!  I just love that as time goes on, it becomes more and more obvious to me, my companions, other missionaries, members, and the people that we teach that the Lord really is doing His work!  We just have to choose to be part of it.  As imperfect as we might feel, and as much as we feel like it's not our job or don't have a part, the Lord always qualifies those who participate in His work!  He gives them His Spirit, Power, and everything necessary to be the ministers of truth that He needs us to be.

Elder Hubert and Elder Lee

Last Tuesday was a great day for me for feeling the Spirit.  We as a zone (all 18 companionships in the South-Milwaukee area) met together in a city called Kenosha and we had a zone training meeting!  I got to conduct the meeting, so that was pretty fun.  It was great to see that we had a group of missionaries that was so ready to invite the Spirit, and the best part is that the Spirit came because the Lord knew that these missionaries were going to act on the impressions that they got!  :D  During the meeting, we received a training from the Sister Training Leaders about how to more effectively teach from the Book of Mormon, and then we watched a couple videos, and then we were able to give a training about how to develop and study Christlike Attributes, because this work really is all about becoming like Him!  The Spirit was so strong, and I learned things just like everybody else.  I especially love the opportunity to be used as an instrument in His hands to testify of truth.  It's incredible!  As soon as the meeting was over, our first exchange began.  I got to go with Elder Brand on our exchange in the Milwaukee area, and we had a great time.  It's kind of funny because he's dating a girl that I went to high school with, and that was kind of weird…  :P  But we were able to visit the Hernandez family and finally make contact with them again, and also were able to visit with Ramon Ruiz and Mario and Angelina (all different lessons) and teach towards their needs and help them come more unto Christ.

Items from Zone Training

Thursday we were actually able to work in our own area together (like the only time the entire week), and we were able to do some weekly planning which was a blessing!  But the miracle today was when we got to go and visit with Annette Ruiz and her family, including her non-member husband Isidro, and we had a powerful lesson answering several of his questions about the Temple and things like that, and rather than inviting him to be baptized, we invited him to prepare himself and his family to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity in August of 2016 - he said that he'd think about it.  So, hopefully that means YES!

Thursday night and into Friday we had exchanges again, and this time I went with Elder Fry in my area.  We had a really good time, and were able to find a family together, and were also able to teach Darleen and her amazing kids over in Cudahy.  I really hope that they are able to come to church because I definitely know that it will help them a lot!  I mean, the kids even say that they want to come, and Darleen tells us that maybe they'll come - they just need to come and reap the blessings!  :D  For their lesson though, we taught them about covenants and focused on how covenants include the sacrament, baptism, and the Temple, and invited them to prepare themselves to participate in those things.  They said that they would!  So hopefully soon we'll see them progressing!  We were also able to teach Jesus Franco, and we taught him all about the Word of Wisdom and why it's important, and he told us that he'd live it!  What a blessing!  But yeah, those were somethings that definitely needed to be taken care of.  Hopefully he'll be able to meet his date for later this month!

Saturday morning we got to play soccer with everybody and that was a blast - the only problem is that it was just SO HOT!  So we were all sweating TONS but it was okay because it was fun.  Later, we got to go and visit the Munoz family and that was fun because we hadn't seen them all week!  So we stopped by and let them borrow the movie Meet the Mormons so hopefully they'll watch it in their own time and the non-member part of the family will be able to learn from it.  :)  We also were able to make contact with Justin Vasquez, who we weren't able to teach last week at all.  We had Jared Rivera come with us and he did a great job helping us teach about the Sacrament!  Also, we had dinner with the Vallejo-Ruiz family and they gave us something called a Pizza Cone, which is basically like an ice cream cone, but made out of pizza!!  It's so good!!!  And then after that, we had an amazing lesson with the Velasco family when the Martinez family came with us, and then the Luevano's just showed up as we were teaching them about Joseph Smith, but that was okay because they were able to help us out, too! :)

Saturday night my companion and I realized that we didn't have very many new investigators for the week.  So, we decided to say a specific prayer to God and ask him to help us find a family that would progress in the gospel, but we decided to be specific and ask specifically for it to be a family of 5, (parents and 3 kids) and that we would find them as we were walking on the street and we would see the mom and dad outside on the porch talking, and that they would have 3 kids and that they would invite us back to hear more.  So, SUNDAY came around and in the evening we were tracting, and a man opened the door to us and we taught him and his wife and one of their kids, and turns out that they are a family of 8!  So, we thought, maybe that was an answer to our prayer, but it wasn't exactly what we asked for, so I guess we need to keep on trying.  So, we went over to a different area and pulled up in our car, and got out of the car, and were walking and we saw a couple sitting on their porch talking, so we went up to them and we found out that they have 3 kids!  Holy cow!  So now we have two new families that we found as of yesterday, and the Lord answered our specific prayer by blessing us with a great family!  :D

Another huge miracle that happened on Sunday was that I got to go to a dinner appointment with a member of the Milwaukee branch that lives in Waukesha, and who came and visited me while I was there?  My recent convert Rosa Vasquez!!!  But yeah, she was SO excited to see me, it was amazing to see her as well!  I was just so happy for her, because she and I are going to be going to the temple next month!  :D  Also, I forgot to mention, that Jesus Franco came to church today, so that was a miracle, too!

Elder Hubert and Rosa Vasquez!

Love you tons, have a great week everybody!  Keep on praying for the missionaries, we need it tons!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Lake Mills Exchange, 6 Baptismal Dates, Miracle Central!

I never know what to put for my subject line because I feel like miracles happen every single week, so I just have to include the word 'miracle' in every single on I feel like.  But yeah, today's email is going to be fun and full of some great photos that I just took on this mac book I'm using - they're great.  Dear everybody - meet Elder Noah Lee!

 We'll just say that our emailing session was pretty entertaining today.  :)  But yeah, about our week:

The Miracles started out really early this week - last Monday we were able to have an amazing lesson with Orlando, Rolando, and Yalissa Santiago.  Yalissa is not a member of the church, and we've recently been working with Orlando to get the Aaronic Priesthood, so this is a family that means quite a bit to us!  We were able to talk to Yalissa about not only hearing about the gospel, but progressing through it and living it.  She kept on telling us that she would let us know when she was ready to get baptized, but I know that it's not something that's just going to happen on a random day - it's something we have to actively be working towards, so we set a baptismal date with her!  Now hopefully she'll progress to it and we'll be able to help her out!  :D

The next day in the morning, it was a miracle that we survived!  I feel like a war veteran - I've definitely served my time, you know?  What we did - the reason I feel that way - is because we went to the Spanish A apartment (such a mess) and cleaned it out with the other Spanish elders and also the Barleys (the apartment coordinators of the mission).  Bad apartments usually take 2 hours is what they told me - but with 6 people, this one took 3 hours!  The reason it was so bad is because the elders that had livd there never ever cleaned.  They shoved their garbage and stuff in the back of a closet, and we had to clean it out!  It was disgusting!  :(  But hey, we did it and we did it well.  :)  Later that day, after district meeting, we got to drive over to the church building in Wales (where I used to go to church in Waukesha) and meet the Lake Mills Elders there to exchange.  I went to Lake Mills - a place over an hour from Milwaukee - with Elder Amann (pronounced Ammon).  So, after defeating the Lamanites at the waters of Sebus, he and I were able to go and find 2 families together and have a super powerful Plan of Salvation lesson with a part member less active family.  We also got to have a lesson with Jair - a kid with a baptismal date - and recommit him to live the gospel.  Wednesday we were able to teach 6 lessons in the morning before we had to go to district meeting (and it was funny because as we went out proselyting, we saw the Jehovah's Witnesses proselyting on the same street, and when they saw us, they left...) and then after a while, we went to the church to re-exchange.  It was awesome because on exchanges, Elder Lee was able to get another baptismal date with one of our investigators!!!

On Thursday we were able to have an amazing lesson with the Santiago's again, where we talked more about what they had to do now to receive blessings and such.  We also had dinner/a lesson with Annette and Isidro's amazing family, where we were able to talk to Isidro about the possibilities of him getting baptized.  We also got to go and teach Sister Luevano's sister named Dora and set a baptismal date with her!  :D  What a blessing!  After all of that, we went to the Munoz's house to help them finish laying their wood floor down, and I was in charge of the Jigsaw and cutting the wood pieces.  It was relatively easy, but then there was this one cut that was more difficult, but I was all like: "Challenge accepted!"  And I tried to do it on my own, and it turned out perfect!  :D  Hoorah!  I'm going to be a flooring guy when I grow up!  Yeah... Probably not...  :P  But it was awesome to be able to provide a little bit of service to them for a bit.

Friday, we had Mission Leadership Council all day where we came up with some really good goals for the mission!  :D  But then the day was made a little sadder when we found out that President Packer died.  That was sad.

But Saturday, that was a good day!  The 4th of July is infamous among missionaries in the USofA as a day that is not very effective as far as doing any investigator work, but Elder Lee and I proved that wrong.  :D  We started the day in soccer, where we totally kicked trash.  Then, we took Elder Fry to Denny's because it was his birthday.  That was fun!  Then, we did calls with the DL's in the zone, which was good.  Then, we went to the Rivera's for a lunch we had.  But then - THEN we did WORK!  We went out and tried contacting a referral - didn't work.  Then, we went and talked to a 24 year old kid named Oswaldo and his 21-year-old cousin Ruben, and had a SUPER powerful lesson with them about the Restoration and being a part of something important - the Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth.  They both committed to being baptized to  a date!  That's already 2 more dates in one day!  :)  But it doesn't stop there...  Our investigator Jesus Franco was supposed to be at the Rievera's so we could teach him there, but he didn't come, so we stopped by his house and had a good lesson with him there!  The best part is that we got his friend Jessie to come and sit in on the lesson, and by the end of it he also accepted a baptismal date!  That makes 3 dates today, and 6 dates this week!  What a miracle!!!  :D

But yeah, the Lord is truly blessing us here in Milwaukee with some great new people that we're finding and teaching.  :)  

Love each of you tons!  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Miracles, MCM, Weird week!

But yeah, so this week was definitely a weird one!  And the reason that it was weird is because Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was preparing for a meeting that we had on Sunday with the Stake President and the Mission President - so we had to call 18 companionships in the zone and get information about recent converts, baptismal dates, and all of the administrative stuff on the mission so we could discuss things and the needs of the missionaries and the stake and decide on goals that we can do to improve the work that happens between the missionaries and the stake - and hey we've got a lot of things that we can do to help people at!!!  :D

But yeah, let me tell you about the amazing miracles that we had this week:

Even though we had the MCM thing to do throughout the entire week and even though that did take a lot of time from proselyting from the week, we still had some time and that is one thing that I was really excited about, was at least getting a few hours to knock some doors and teach some lessons.  As the mission goes on and everything, we begin to realize how precious time is.  Administrative stuff is good, but what a miracle it is to have time to talk to the Lord's precious children, even if we only got to teach a few lessons.  

But yeah, one of those miracles is that we got to go on exchanges with Elder Allen and Elder Mullen of the Oak Creek Ward!  They are super hard working elders, and I was privileged to be able to work with Elder Allen in my Spanish area.  The first lesson that we had together was that we visited with Darleene Ortiz in Cudahy, and we even had a member come out and help us with that!  Sister Torres, who thought she was the only member in Cudahy, came with us and was so excited to come and teach with us, and we talked a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Recently, I've had a new question that I have loved asking other people: "What do you need to do NOW to reach ______ (fill in a goal."  We've used that one with members in discussing the Temple, we've used it with Investigators with baptism, but also having an eternal perspective and teaching everybody towards the Temple and making sure that they know what we're about and what we're here to help them work towards!  :D

We were actually able to visit Darleene again later in the week, but that time with Jared Rivera, her cousin.  So, that time we taught her and her 3 kids about the Plan of Salvation.  They loved it, and we used that question again - "What do you need to do now to prepare yourself?"  The kids want to be baptized, but all we need to do is help Darleene get to church and realize that this is the right place to be.  :)  

During the week, we also had a great visit with Ramon Ruiz where he made us food, and the miracle was when his granddaughter April was over at the house, and I've never seen April at church and we started talking about that with her.  She told us that she just had a hard time getting up in the morning because she is up really late doing various things, and then some scriptures just popped into my head from 2 Nephi 1 or 2 (don't remember), but they're all about "Awake and Arise from the deep sleep..."  She thought it was really funny that there were scriptures about that, and then this was how we applied it:  we told her that anything could make her awake.  Her mom could wake her up in the morning, or her sister, or her alarm clock...  BUt only she could make herself "arise" in the morning to actually do something.  :)  It was good, and the miracle is that she came to church on Sunday!  We did not have any investigators at church, even though we were expecting like 3, but we did have 3 less active members come to church, and one of them is progressing right now to receive the Aaronic Priesthood!  :D  I'm so stoked for that!  :D

But yeah, that's the week!  The Lord really is fulfilling His promise to give the Gospel to everybody, and the longer I've been out the more I realize that that means to ALL of us - even those of us that are already baptized. He wants us to continually receive more and more levels of His gospel and commit them to how we live our lives.  :)

I continue to learn more and more the logner that I've been on my mission and the more the Lord's hand is able to touch my life.  I challenge each of you to look for His hand every day!  It is always there!  Love you SO much - talk to you later!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Transfers again! Adios to Elder Evans, HELLO Elder LEE!!!

Well everybody, it is that time again!  Another 6 weeks has come and gone, and we had transfers again.  My new assignment is this:  I'm still serving in Milwaukee!  I just got a new companion - Elder Noah Lee from Lehi, UT, and he's been on his mission for like 15 months.  He's a cool guy - I still don't know him tons but we're having a fun time!  :)  But yeah, everything leading up to Wednesday (transfer day) was basically just saying goodbye to a whole bunch of people and that's never fun.  On Monay night we had dinner with the Santos family and that was interesting, because there I learned that they just call me 'pestanias,' which means 'eyelashes' in Spanish.  So, that leads me to a whole new topic.  My entire life, I've always been told I have really long eyelashes.  Does that mean much to me?  No, not really, because I'm not a girl and they aren't one of my qualities that I try to make stand out.  But, they stand out nonetheless.  After I was assigned to Elder Lee, we were at a dinner appontment and somebody commented on my eyelashes, and Elder Lee was all like: "To be honest Elder Hubert, when I first met you (he met me when he first came out a while ago), I thought that you wore eye makeup or something on your eyelashes!  But now I know you don't..."  Then, Elder Miller piped up (my ex-companion from GB) and said: "Yeah man, when I first met you in Green Bay I thought the same thing, but then I realized that you didn't have any makeup with you..."  Yeah, he realized that after we had been living together for a month or so...  :P  So, in case anybody is wondering, YES I still get tormented about my eyelashes...  :P  It's kind of funny, but also kind of annoying...  But yeah.  Just thought I'd say that.  :D

Wednesday I was basically at the church the whole day.  I paired up with Elder Lee pretty soon in the day and we shuttled some missionaries around, like the missionaries that don't have cars that needed to get back to their area somehow - stuff like that.  It wasn't super stressful there, but eventually we got out alive.  That's always the trick - seeing how quickly you can get out of Transfer Point.  We are usually the last to leave because that's kind of how it has to be, but this time we left at like 3 - 2nd to last!  Yahoo!  For the rest of the day, Elder Lee and I discussed a lot of the people we're working with and we also discussed the zone (the two zones in the Milwaukee South Stake were combined this week - so now we're in charge of one big Milwaukee South Zones - that'll be an adventure), and we went and visited some people as well!  We got to meet the Miralrio's because we visited them at their soccer store, and then later we tried to visit the Rivera's but instead just taught a lesson outside of their store.  Later that night, we went to the Rivera's house to discuss some of the needs of the branch and who they would be willing to help us work with, so now that we're on the same page we'll be able to do a lot more good!

Thursday we did a lot of stuff, including weekly planning which as we all know is my favorite thing to do.  But also, we got to go visit Orlando Santiago who had his birthday that day, and we sat him down for like 5 minutes and talked to him and his family about him continuing to progress in the church, including receiving the Priesthood (he just turned 13) and things like that, and Orlando was totally down to do that!  He came to church this week for the first time in a LONG time!  What a miracle!  But yeah, that was the big thing that we did today.

Friday we had a return appointment with the Munoz family which was effective.  We got to teach Orlando and Kelly about the Book of Mormon and how it relates with the Bible and why those things are important to us, and it was amazing to have Orlando open up to us a lot (by the end of the lesson, everybody was crying) and we even got an opportunity to come and help him out this next week, when we're going to come by and help him tear up his floor!  That'll be fun!  :D  Friday night there was a fund-raiser for the Branch Youth to pay for a trip they're going to take to Nauvoo for the summer, and it was super successful!  TONS of people showed up to get food and to donate money - it was awesome to see how members from all over the stake showed up to help out!

Saturday morning we played soccer again - and I had a pretty good shot that I'm pretty proud of (right to the top corner - I felt pretty good about that).  Throughout the day, we had a lesson with this guy named Florencio (who we met on Wednesday outside of the Rivera's house) and that went pretty well, but we're going to have to refer him to the other elders because he's not in our area, and also we had dinner with the Velasco's and got to talk to them about the temple and making that a goal!  They're going to go in April of 2016!!!  (Now, I just need to figure out how I'm going to be able to come back and go with them in the Chicago temple at that time...)

AND Sunday was Father's Day!  It was great, especially because right after church we stopped by the Angeles' and found them at home and got to set a date to help them get married, and then another date to help them move!  :D  It'll be great!  :)

But yeah, we had a TON of miracles this week, and right now we're really focusing on members and are finding out that most of them involve part-member people somehow, so that's why we're going to be reaching out to them for now, because that's how we're going to help our branch grow!

I love all of you tons!  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert