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