New Year's, Baptism, Cold, and FUEGO!!!

My dear family and friends,

this week has been such an exciting week!!!

 

As of right now, for the next 3 days, President Cutler has issued a warning to all missionaires serving in the Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission to not go outdoors for anything except for going to appointments that have already been scheduled because in this temperature, one can catch Frostbite in 5 minutes to any piece of skin that is exposed!  Super exciting, right?  I can't remember a time that it has been unsafe to be outside, as in, life threatening. But don't worry, I am currently wearing 2 pairs of socks, my boots, 3 layers on my legs, 4 layers on my top, AND a coat!  So, I'll be doing great!  :D  And I have my heavy hat and my scarf to protect my head/face.  :)  So in this time of bitter, and I mean BITTER cold, things are still pretty great.  At this time, I love applying what it says in Joseph Smith's "The Standard of Truth," when it says that nothing "can stop the work from progressing."  Even this bitter cold, where it is currently close to -20 degrees, the work will go on "boldly, nobly, and independent." 

 

But this week really has been super great and very very exciting, especially these last couple of days.  :)

 

On Monday, P-day, all we did was spend some time at the Institute building playing Pool, Ping-pong, Marbles, and talking a lot.  And after we were done with our various activities, we went to a dinner appointment with the Senior family, who I now know as the most saint-like people in the entire world.  (You will find out why I think that later in the email).  And on the way back from their house, me, Elder Shipp, E. Wise, and E. Campbell got a super cool Nametag Photo with the 4 of us.  :)

 

 

 

Tuesday was a good day, though we did not have the opportunity to be outside and be working a lot.  But, it was also the last day of the year 2013!!!  That was crazy for me to realize - time really has flown by so much, especially my time here in the field!  I cannot believe that I've been out here since the beginning of November, and now all of the sudden it is the beginning of January, and a brand new year.  Things are going to be great this next year!  :D  We had our District Meeting this day and we learned all about planning and how important is.  I love it when it says that we need to plan for Success, but how a number is only a number unless we have made plans on how we are going to achieve it.  I really love that - it gives me so much motivation to do better at planning and to achieve more greatness.  After District Meeting, we went to a dinner appointment that was the most North point in Madison that I have been so far, with the Thomas family.  It really was super great.  They are a Part-member family, but the father really accepts his family's beliefs even if he won't join the church.  And then on the drive home, their newly-returned-missionary son almost killed us in the car because he forgot how to drive in America - he is too used to European driving...  ;)

 

WEDNESDAY!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  :D  So I've been getting questions in emails about what we've been doing for New Year's Day, but honestly it was just another day.  New Year's is a less family-holiday and more-parties, so we were allowed to go around and work because people wouldn't get mad at us for 'interrupting their family time' like they would have on Christmas.  After our studies we went over to the Lassen Family's house for their annual Chili-feed.  It was so good!  I was so happy they decided to have the missionaries over!  And on the way back, we found a "Turtle Crossing" sign - there are pictures included.  Also, we went out onto the lake that is near there (there are a few lakes in Madison) that was completely frozen, and we went out into the middle of it and got some photos and I got another Nametag Photo!  :D  Later, we went to go contact a referral that was completely out of the way, on the West side of Madison, but they weren't home.  And because it was so out of the way, we only got to board another bus, and go over to our scheduled dinner appointment with the Salinas family, which was great (as usual!)  But one thing that we've been finding is that it is getting drastically colder each and every day, so by this point it was starting to get unsafe to be outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, we had some weekly planning!  And though it has to be done and takes a long time, we weren't very worried about it because we didn't have any appointments scheduled for that time and it was super cold outside, so we were pretty thankful for the opportunity to stay inside.  However, about halfway through the studies, Elder Shipp started feeling super super poorly, so he went and took a nap while I tidied up the apartment and took down Christmas decorations and studied some more.  But pretty soon, he was feeling better and we had finished studying just in time to be over for our lesson with Veronica, which we were actually able to teach because Bro. Allen from the ward came and was our 'male present' for her.  We taught her the Plan of Salvation, which she took really well.  Once again, it was a lot of information to take in at once, but she committed to pray about it and find out if it is true.  I really hope she recognizes the answer she will receive!

 

Friday was a long, hard, worthwhile day.  And while I don't remember many names or conversations that we happened to have, in a period of 3-4 hours today, we (Elder Shipp and I) taught 10 lessons to people.  That truly was a miracle this week, to be able to teach that many lessons.  That is a really good number for a week, but for a day it was super amazing for us!  During last week's weekly planning, we decided to set the number of 18 for other lessons taught, and by that moment we were only at 2, so we decided to put forth all of our efforts into getting to that number.  We contacted former investigators and got a return appointment with 1 of them, Jose Cruz.  We contact potentials and taught 3 lessons to them, though their names escape me.  Among them was an older woman who told us that the only reason she didn't read the pamphlet was because she didn't know how to read, though she did look at all of the pictures in it and liked those a lot.  So, we discussed the Restoration with her, and about how God loves her.  At the end, we had a great prayer with her blessing her family to find the path to God.  And though by the end of the day we were cold and worn out, it was an amazing feeling.

 

Saturday was an amazing day!  :D  We began with Correlation and talked a lot about Veronica in that meeting.  Then, we got a ride over to Casildo's house, but he either wasn't home or didn't come to the door...  I hope we'll be able to teach him again!  Then, we went over to another lesson we had scheduled, but that one fell through as well...  But, time had gotten late enough and we had traveled far enoguh across the city that we needed to go back to the church for a baptism that the Sisters were having.  But, because the man that was being baptized was so large, and the man who was baptizing him was so old, the Bishop assigned us (me and Elder Shipp) to be in the font with them to help pick the man back up out of the water.  So, we dressed in white along with the others.  It really was an amazing experience.  I had only met the man a few times, but he was super thankful to have us there and to have us helping him out.  I'm so glad that he decided to get baptized!

 

After the baptism, we had a lesson with a woman and her family that we had found last week tracting.  Her name is Maria, and her mother is a Jehovah's Witness and the conversation turned a bit...  interesting a few times, but overall it was really good.  We taught the first part of the first lesson, about how God loves us and how the gospel can bless our families, and left them with a Restoration video so that we could talk about it the next time we came around.  Then, we went over to Oscar's house!  It was super great though, because he is the one who called us to schedule an appointment.  But, we commenced a 2-hour discussion on the second half of Alma 32, which talks about Faith.  But by the end of it, he did not understand the message we were trying to send, that he needed to go to church and show is faith and help his 'seed of faith' grow.  But we'll keep on working with him.  :)

 

AND then on Saturday night, we got a text from the Assistants to the President as a Cold Weather Advisory.  It told us to not go outside the next 3 days (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) because it was going to get too cold!  It said that we could go out for scheduled appointments, but to be advised that Frostbite could set in on exposed skin in less than 5 minutes.  So, that is the weather we are currently dealing with.

 

Sunday was a great day.  It wasn't super cold in the morning on the way to church, and I'm not sure how it was during church but the messages were super great!  We talked about being financially responsible and things of that nature, dealing with money.  But then the cold started setting in!  We went to our scheduled appointment, but the family wasn't home, so we just booked it home as fast as we could walk because the cold was setting in super fast...  But then we got home and Elder Shipp started Phone Calls!  And now is when things get interesting.....

 

We had planned at Church to have a combined dinner with the English Elders, so I started to prepare for that while Elder Shipp was doing District Phone Calls and other District Leader Responsibilities.  I was reading the scriptures while the water was boiling for potatoes or while brownies were cooking, and everything was dandy!  Then, everything finished and I turned off the oven and I was washing dishes so that we could eat on them, right?  Then I look outside our huge window and I saw that there were 3-4 police cars pulling into our Apartment Building's parking lot.  Then, some officers started coming into our building!  I walked into the bedroom to point it out to Elder Shipp that our building was getting raided, because that was cool!  Then, I start hearing doork knocking on our floor, so I thought the cops were here to pick someone up next door to us, but then our door got knocked on, too!  Since Elder Shipp was busy, I go over to the door and answer it, and it's a police officer.  The hallway behind him is full of smoke and he tells me that the Laundry Room in the basement caught on fire, and that it wasn't safe to be here.  So, Elder Shipp ended his call, we grabbed our shoes and coats, and we evacuated the building.  It was so cool to watch from outside though!  There were 9+ official vehicles that were all flashing and there were tons of firemen and I've never actually seen a fire hose full of water!  But eventaully the English Elders got home and we ate dinner at their house and then we got called and told to spend the night there...  But we didn't have anything to sleep with!  So we called the Senior family (the Saints!!!) and told them our situation, and then they came over and gave us sleeping bags, pillows, blankets to use, and then brought us toiletries and tons of food!  They are soooo nice, and that is all super exciting!  (Photos and a video are on DropBox)

 

 

 

Then this morning, we went back into our apartment and everything reeked of smoke and we were told to get our clothes dry-cleaned, and now I'm here...  What an exciting week!  :D

 

But still, I love you all!  Don't worry about me up here - all is well!

 

Elder Nathan Hubert

The spirit of Christ(mas)

Hello family, friends, strangers, and anybody else who might be reading this.  :)  I love you all!  Life is such a great thing.  Before I share the occurrances of my week, I'd love to share a little spiritual message with you.  :)

So, during our District Meeting on Christmas Eve, Elder Shipp (my companion) challenged all of us to read part of the Doctrina y Convenios every day as a part of our studies, and promised us that we would receive the blessings that the scriptures had for us.  So, through my studies, I have realized a very incredible message.  In DyC 31, it tells us an incredible message of how we should feel about our missions.  It says in verse 3:  "Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission has come."  We have such a reason to rejoice, and though it is hard at times, our hearts are still lifted by the prayers of the people of the world, and by the blessings of Heaven we are lifted as well.  And with that extra help that we have, we go forward.  As it says in DyC 128:22 "Go forward, and not backward.  Courage brethren, and on, on to the victory!"  It goes on to speak of more things that we should do, but my favorite is the first line, that says "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"  Because we shall, and we will, and some of us ARE going forth in this great cause.  This gospel is true.  Let us go forward, not backward.  Let us go forth in this great cause and in our great God, for in Him we have great reason to rejoice.  :)  

But, onto my week.  This week has been super super great!  I have definitely seen miracles in my life this week.  As we began the week, we had the thoguht that because it was the Holiday season, that people weren't going to be willing to have us in their houses, so our weekly goal for lessons was a bit lower than it usually had been.  But, after much deliberation, we changed that goal to be the same as usual because we knew that God would make it possible for us to teach that many people, especially in this time of year. 

Tuesday was Christmas Eve!  And on Christmas Eve, we went to go contact a less-active family in the morning after our studies, and then we shared a Christmas message with them, gave them the Joy to the World video, and talked to him about Church Attendance.  But after that, we went to our 3-hour Christmas Eve District meeting!  it was actually pretty good.  Elder Shipp, during his training, had us go around and one-at-a-time share our favorite Christmas Miracle in our lives, our favorite story of Christ, and our favorite revelation by Joseph Smith.  It was great to be able to hear everybody's different insights and that we were able to learn so much from each other.  But after all of that, we went in and met with the other districts.  We sang some Christmas Hymns and we had a cookie-exchange and a potluck with 10 pizzas that somebody brought.  It was really great.  :D  But after everybody had left, we waited around for a person from the 4th ward who had made us some personalized stockings, which was super sweet of them to do for us, and then we walked over to the Sanchez house with the other Spanish elders, and spent a little bit of time with the people there before getting a ride back to our apartment.  :)

FELIZ NAVIDAD!  Today was Christmas!!!  :D  We woke up at 6:30, and we came out of our aprtment in the freezing cold, and went right over to the English elders' apartment to spend Christmas Morning with them.  We listened to the Christmas Story that Elder Wise had as a recording, and then after waking up a little more fully, we opened up some presents.  And let me say thank you so much for all of the amazing gifts that were sent our way!  Thank you to everybody who thought of us out here - they are greatly appreciated.  :)  I love you all!!!

Then, after all of that was taken care of, we got to go back to our apartment and put some things away before boarding the bus and going over to the Heaton's house.  As soon as we got there, I got put in a room with an iPad that had Skype on it, so I called my family.  AND then for the next hour I had an incredible time talking to them!  I love my family so much - thanks so much for the incredible opportunity to be able to talk to you guys!!!  :)  But as soon as that was done, I spent some time playing with their son Reed and playing some board games and puzzles with Brother and Sister Heaton.  But eventually, after an amazing dinner and dessert, we got a ride home and that brought an end to our day.  But really, the spirit of the day was really great, and I was so happy to be able to focus on my family that day.  It was great!  :D

Thursday we had lots of appointments set up, but most of them fell through...  it was pretty funny though.  We went over to an apartment complex where we had 3 lessons set up to teach, but all of them fell through!  But, as we were wandering away, we ran into our homeless friend Francisco that we met my first day!  We said HI and started talking, but then he gave my his tricycle to walk around and we went to his house and on the way, he would wrip open everybody's garbage and take out all of the cans, despite all of the other trash, all because he wanted to sell the cans for a few bucks.  It was pretty sad, so I was pretty happy we got to help him.

Later, we went and contacted a referral who said that he had served a mission for our church, but when we got into his house not knowing what to think, he pulled out his old mission badge!  So, he is actually a member!  But he has tons of health issues and is basically waiting to die, and because of all of those problems he can't come to church or do anything that has to do with going out of the house, but we are going to see if the Bishop can help us get Sacrament to his house on Sundays.  But, this man still admits that his mission was probably the greatest thing that has ever happened in his life, because basically as soon as it ended, he hit a rock wall with his health, but he's lived a pretty long life of 70ish years, and is just about done living.  I hope that we can do something to help him out though!

Friday we had exchanges day, and I was fortunate enough to go with Elder Campbell!  We only had one appointment to go to that day, and it was right in the middle of regular-study time, but the person wasn't even home when we got there.  Instead, we got yelled at by another man whose house we accidentally buzzed into, who yelled at us by saying that "I haven't gotten a wrong number phone call in 14 years, but now I've gotten 2 from you!"  So, after that encounter that made me laugh a bit, we left...  And  the rest of the day, we had studies to do, which were great.  I love the fact that we have set apart time to study every day.  It really is such an incredible way to start out the day, I highly recommend it.  :)  

Saturday was a good day too!  But unfortunately we weren't able to have studies because we had Correlation Meeting like we do every Saturday.  During Correlation we talked about all of the things that we have worked on, and all of the thigns that the ward can help us with.  So, with the help of the ward, things might start to look even more upward, because they have a huge influence on what we do out here.  But after Correlation, we went over to Casildo's place with a member, Bro. Hinckley, but he wasn't able to meet with us because he was working on his car.  Just after that, we got picked up by Bro. Allen, who went with us to another lesson, but that also fell through because the person was doing their laundry and was very occupied.  But, since Bro. Allen had some time, he went back with us over to Casildo's house, who didn't even answer the door.  I hope that we are still able to teach him though!  I really hope that he starts progressing, too.  But, during the day, we got a text from our Zone Leaders letting us know that we as a mission, for the first time in the history of the mission, have reached the goal of 300 Baptisms this year, in the year of 2013.  It might not seem like a lot, but for our mission, that is HUGE!  It has NEVER been done before!!!  So, it is a magnificent accomplishment!  :)

Then, we decided to go over to our other lesson with a woman named Veronica, and though the lesson wasn't super long, we gave her a powerful lesson on the Restoration, and by the time that we were done, and were walking away from her house, both Elder Shipp and I had an overwhelming feeling that we knew that she would someday be baptized.  I know she will.  I just hope that I am able to help her get closer to that point.  :)

Then, we went over to Oscar's house to have one last meeting, and on the way there I was able to be very bold in telling a man about our beliefs.  He asked me what we believed, and I told him in the brief time that we were on the bus, and he had some questions about modern day prophets, to which I used the Book of Mormon and being super bold to tell him.  The thing he told me right before he got off, when I gave him the book, was that he probably wouldn't believe in what I had said, but that he would read the book, consider it, and pray about it.  I hope that he really does!  

But at Oscar's house, we talked to him about his life, about how he needs to come to church, about how he needs to be baptized, and then he had me fix a whole bunch of problems on his computer because he couldn't do it because he couldn't read English.  But our visit went really well, and now he's planning on coming to church!  :D

Well, before I go, I just wanted to say sorry if I am a bit vague...  I am really short on time but I promise I am trying my hardest.  If you have any specific questions for me, please don't hesitate to shoot me an email or a letter and ask me those questions!  I'd love to hear from anyone!  :D

Love you all!!

--Elder Nate Hubert

-- 

Elder Nathan Hubert

I Wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, from the bottom of my heart!!! :D

Hello everybody, just another weekly update from your friendly neighborhood Elder Hubert!  :)

 

This week was certainly a great one.  We were able to do really well in meeting a lot of our goals and we can definitely see the hand of the Lord in everything that happens down here, especially in those little things that happen daily.  I will do my best in including as many details as possible though, I know now that those are the most important things.  :)

 

The rest of our Monday last week was actually really fun!  Because we had gotten news of the Transfers via email from the Assistants this last week, we learned that our good friend Elder Squires was getting moved down to Jainsville, and because of that, he and Elder Penate got invited over to a lot of dinner appointments because he was leaving.  So, for the rest of our P-day, we got to go with them over to the Salinas families house, which was actually very fun.  They served us burritos for lunch and we simply sat around with them and talked with them and spent some time with them before Elder Squires had to leave. 

 

Later that night, after we had left the Salinas' house, we had our weekly appointment with Gustavo and his family (the family from Uruguay).  We asked them if they had read the Book of Mormon, and though he had not, his wife had!  That was actually a big surprise to all of us, though we were overjoyed by it.  She had read the first paragraph about the Book of Mormon, where it tells that the Book of Mormon is a record of ancient scripture telling of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.  She was intrigued by that, and we went on further to explain to her what it was.  She was convinced at the beginning that it was the Bible of the Mormons, but then I pulled out my BIble and told her that we use that, too.  She liked that a lot, and we continued that message.  But in the end, we told them that they did not simply have to take our word for it, but that they could pray to God to know for themselves, and then we bore testimony to them that we knew that if they asked with real intent, with the willingness to act on whatever answer they got, that God would give them that answer.  :)  It really was a good lesson, I felt the Spirit a lot.  :)

 

 On Tuesday, we had plans to go down to Allied, which is basically the most iffy part of town, being the most ghetto and sketchy...  But there is a lot of work for us down there!  So, down we went.  We had a long list of people's houses that we could knock on, such as Caceldo, Maria, Jose, Jose2, Oscar, Marcelo, Margarita, and many more...  But even though we knocked on every single door, we were never received into someone's home.  But it is that kind of rejection that we must get used to, for such is mission life.  We were even turned away when we offered a man to shovel his driveway for him!  But oh well... 

 

Later, we went to a member's house named Irma.  She really loves the missionaries and always gives us canned food to take home and always wants to take care of us, which we find pretty funny.  But while we were there talking about her grandson and how he is not baptized, and the things that we can do to help her change that, she started going into the kitchen a lot and doing a whole bunch of stuff, and 10 minutes later she brought out 4 fresh Flautas (taquitos) each, which made both of us laugh because we had a nearby dinner appointment in 15 minutes or so.  But, as hot as the food was, we shoved it down so that we could get out of her house without offending her.  That was funny...

 

Then we went next door to the Chaparro house for dinner round 2, and ended up having a miniature ping-pong tourney with the Chaparro family and the other Spanish elders, which was really fun.  I wasn't super great, but surprising as it was, the 50-year-old man Brother Chaparro actually wasted everybody!  It was ridiculously surprising for all of us, because he would act like he wasn't very good, and then come from nowhere and just destroy everybody!  That was funny...  Then, we caught a ride up to the Capitol building in Madison (which was pretty far away), and walked a few blocks to the Allen's house to have pizza with them and the Spanish Elders.  3 dinners...  I thought I was going to explode... 

 

 Wednesday!  TODAY was TRANSFERS DAY!  But that didn't affect me at all...  :P  However, in the morning we did go over to the English Elder's apartment nearby and said goodbye to Elder Thompson who would be leaving us to go up to Wasaw (north of Madison).  Also, my friend Elder Kanahele opened the new Madison East Zone as a  Zone Leader (they just split our Zone!), and Elder Squires went to Jainsville, and Elder Crisanto came here to be with Elder Penate, and Sister Clawson went to Appleton and Sister Nicholes started training Sister Shelton, and Elder Wise from Mad2 came here to be with Elder Campbell.  I don't think any of that made sense to anybody, so I'm sorry... 

 

But the first thing we did today was make our way over to Cristina's house, our less-active friend, and told her that we were going to find her a ride to church.  She really has a desire to go to church, but has no car or license and no way to get over to the church!  And she lives really out of the way for most members and feels like she is burdening the members when she asks for help, but we do our best to help her out.  But unfortunately we have not been able to teach her a lesson yet because whenever we go by there are no men in the house making it impossible for us to come inside. 

 

While we were in that area, we went to go talk to Sara, who told us that we could come by later, and then we were dropped by another potential investigator who told us that there was almost no way we could teach them... 

 

Then, we walked to the Carranza family's house (recent-converts) and taught them how to have a Family Night!  We gave a prayer, taught a brief lesson, and then Elder Shipp and I brought out all of the things that we had brought to make gingerbread houses with!  It was actually super super fun, and they had a really great time.  Then they gave us a ride to the church to teach English class. 

 

During English Class, I went to go get a drink and saw one of the guys, Cristian, playing the piano.  He is from Mexico and is not a member, but enjoys coming to learn and play soccer.  He then asked me if I played the piano, so I played a brief thing for him, and then he asked me if I could teach him piano while the others taught English.  I was actually really honored that he said that, but we'll see what ends up working out with him and that.  :)

 

 Thursday is Weekly Planning day, so the early-morning things take a bit longer.  We did our usual hour of work out, hour of prep/breakfast, hour of Personal Study, hour of Companionship Study, hour of Language Study, and then 3 hours of Weekly Planning.  During that time, we were able to discuss our current investigators and their needs, and the lessons that we were going to teach them.  We also talked about all of our potential investigators and people that we needed to go and see this next week.  We also go thorugh everybody and figure out if anybody needs to be dropped from our focus for a while, and then we also go through our area book and update anyhting else that we do, and then we set number goals for what we want to accomplish, such as how many lessons, baptismal dates, and pepole at church we want that week.

 

After weekly planning, we only had 30 minutes to do some work in the immediate area, knocking on some doors for just a little bit of time, and then we had a dinner appointment.  We were able to have dinner with all 4 companionships from the 1st Ward there, with the Senior family.  They are so sweet to all of us and I absolutely love this family!  Dinner was great, and then we were able to share our spiritual thought, which was briefly discussing Christmas and then reenacting the Nativity with them.  Elder Crisanto and I were shepherds, Elder Shipp, Penate and Wise were the Wise men, Sister Nicholes was the star, Sister Shelton was a sheep, Jacob Senior (their son) was Joseph, and their daughter Haley was Mary, and her doll was Jesus.  We also had Brother Senior as a donkey and Sister Senior as an Angel, and Elder Campbell as the narrator.  It was really fun, and really funny, and we all had a great time.  :)  But on the way home, we were caught in a frozen-rain storm!  The rain was falling, but as soon as it would hit anything it would just freeze, so we basically ice-skated all of the way home.  Here is a photo, it looks like my jacket is wet, but really it is a thin later of ice on my coat...  Pretty nifty!

 

 

Today, Friday, was a very successful day as well.  By the time that we actually got out and about, we ended up over by the South Transfer Point of the Madison Bus System, which is one of our areas.  We went knocking on a few usual doors, but nobody answered those ones.  But it was when we reached out and knocked on doors that we haven't been to before that we actually taught 7 lessons in 1 day!  THat is quite an accomplishment!  THe first lady was an older lady named Ana who seemed super sweet and nice, and she invited us to come back anoyher time.  We also got some return appointments with some ladies, but another thing that happened is that we would teach a brief lesson and ask them if we could pray, and we would get turned down!  Now that usually doesn't happen, but we need not worry about that because that is their agency, not mine.

 

But later in the day, we made the crazy 1 1/2 hour trek out to Middleton, where Ezekiel lives.  We had a CHristmas message planned to share with him, but by the time we got out to his house (which was the given time of our appointment), nobody came to the door.  We knocked multiple times, and waited for quite some time, but alas, nobody went to the door...  I still have hope that he will eventually have a change of heart, but avoiding the missionaries is not one of the steps to obtaining that...  SO perhaps with much, much time...  :) 

 

On Saturday, we started out with Correlation meeting at the Church.  We were able to talk about some of our investigators and less actives that we meet with and talk about the things that the ward can do to help us out with those individuals, and the Ward Mission Leader then works with the bishop and the rest of the ward to get their efforts out with us.  THen after that meeting, we got a ride over to our lesson with Caceldo.  We got to his house and knocked, and for a few minutes there was no answer even though we knew he was inside...  We thought that we had been dropped!  BUt eventually he came to the door and we were able to teach him about the plan of salvation.  We could tell that he was having a hard time taking it all in, and that he was doing his best to understand, but at the end of us we simply told him that we know it might be hard, but that if he prays with real intent that he willr eceive a witness that it is true and will receive further light and understanding given by God.  I really hope that he does that and that he desires to learn more...  :)

 

I forgot to mention that at Correlation the others got an email from the Bishop canceling church the next day because there was supposed to be a super mega huge storm...  So then after Caceldo, we went to the Raymond area, which is basically as far west that we can go out here in our area.  We were contacting some addresses we had, and a funny story is when we were doing this, we ended up near another missionaries' apartment, right as the mailman showed up!  So he gets out a package and hands it to us, but it is actually for the other Elders...  SO we wonder what we are supposed to do with this package, and then call this guy and let him know that we have his box, and then get a brilliant idea to bury it...  Moroni style...  So, outside of their apartment door under a bush, we just pile leaves and branches on top of it and call it quits...  Good thing nobody stole it!   It was pretty obvious...  ;) 

 

But then the rest of our day was spent going over to the Moorland area again and talking to Cristina to tel her that Church was canceled...  :)

 

I hope that all of you have a super amazing Christmas!  I just want you all to know that I know that Christ's birth into the world really is something to be celebrated.  He came into this world for US.  Everything He did was for US.  He was born for US, He lived for US, and He died for US, and He will come again for US.  He loves us, and we need to show our love to Him.  :)  

 

 Elder Nathan Hubert

Robbery, Training, more Training, and Referrals!

Once again, this week has FLOWN by!!!  It's so SO crazy how fast things are going by - I am already to the end of my 1st Transfer!  But the only thing changing for me right now is that Saturday night. Elder Shipp got called by President Cutler as the new District Leader, and they have now split our Madison Zone into the Madison East/Madison West Zones, because there were too many missionaries and everything!  So yeah, that still doesn't change much for me.  ;) 

 

But hey, this last week was kind of strange because of all of the trainings I got to go to. On Tuesday morning we got ready super SUPER fast because we got picked up by the DeForest Elders (up North) to go to the Zone Training Meeting.  We got to the meeting and I was helping the Zone Leaders get some things ready for everything, and then it started.  Our Zone Leader - Elder Carter - was having a really hard time because he had gotten a phone call the night before by the President to tell him that his grandmother had just passed away.  So, he was pretty stressed about things, but he ended up doing really well for being so stressed out.  I hope things work out for him!  But later in the day, we went to go to an appointment that we had, but nobody was home when we went.  So, we got back on the bus and went back home, to find everything in our apartment to be completely ransacked! I was freaking out pretty well because hey, we had just gotten robbed!  All of our drawers were thrown on the floor, our room was trashed, and the things that they had taken were all of our watches and all of my change and all of my tie clips and stuff...  So, we have the other Elders come over to check it out, and after about an hour of me being freaked out, Elder Shipp pulls out his camera and starts recording me.  He says "This is Elder Hubert, and we just got robbed..." And then the English Elders yell "BY US!!!"  So as it turns out, it was just a huge prank because the English Elders have a key to our apartment!!!  AND they have been planning it since before I came out here...  RUDE!  But hey, super super funny...  ;)

 

 

 

On Wednesday, we got our hair cut because the place wasn't open on Monday, and then we had a lesson with a Recent Convert family, which went pretty rough.  They have a 13 year old boy who basically plays Video Games all day rather than read the scriptures, but hey, with time I think he will realize how much benefit we can have from the scriptures.  But we promised them that the next time we come, we'll make Gingerbread Houses together!  So we'll be doing that this coming Wednesday...  :)  So stoked!  Then we had English Class and Soccer, which was fun as usual!

 

On Thursday, we had to wake up at 5:30 and got picked up at 6:30 to go to Oshkosh for the 1-6 week training for all of us trainees who got here on November 5th.  So, we went to that!  And I loved a lot of the things that were said, but I forgot my notebook today so I can't tell you some stuff.  But, we were issued a challenge by the Assistants to talk to 10 people every day outside of our other plans, which is a really hard thing to do, but they gave us a very specific promise.  They said that if we do that, we will get 3 new investigators every week.  That is a big deal, so now I've been doing my very best!  It is super hard to do that though, but I have been doing lots better, like getting up to 6 a lot of the time, but the people don't typically want to stay and talk outside when it's below 0 degrees...  Crazy, huh?  But I've been doing a lot better, and have been feeling the benefits of that.  But the training was great, and basically I love our assistants.  I learned so much about some things that I can do up there, and had some really great role-plays where I learned a lot.  I just hope that I keep branching out and keep learning from my experiences!  :D 

 

On Friday, we got to go and contact an out-of-the-way referral that we got from our Sisters.  So, we make our way out to this guy's house, and it takes us forever, but when we finally get there and knock on it, the man comes to the door and barely cracks it open.  He speaks Spanish, so we know we're at the right place, and ask how he is.  He tells us that he's really sick and can't come it, but then we asked him if he knew who we are, and he said yes, because when he was younger, he served a mission for our same church in Argentina!  So, this guy is a complete member of the church, as inactive as he might be...  It was so funny!  Then when we asked the Sisters about it, they said that he had told them that he was a missionary for HIS church, but had failed to mention that HIS church was also OUR church!  :D  Just a super funny experience...  It was great...  :)

We also contacted Ezekiel again and he said that we could come back!  :)

 

On Saturday, we spent our entire day in the Raymond area of the city of Madison.  We walked around offering the old ladies shoveling their walks some help shoveling, and all of them shooed us away and said that they didn't need our help.  They were so rude about it!  But hey, they have their agency...  We also went and contacted a bunch of people inside of some apartments over there, and got to get into a couple houses and got a whole bunch of return appointments!  Super great!  And also I saw a girl get arrested outside of a gas station...  It was kind of scary... 

KING of the ROCK!!!

 

And on Sunday we just went to church, which is always great.  I love Sundays!  We also had a lunch appointment right after church, which was super delicious!  :D  Nothing really happened that day because Elder Shipp had to do phone calls with the District Leader and our appointment wasn't home, but we did have Spanish Movie Night last night!  We found an old VHS of Johnny Lingo in Spanish that we watched - it was great!  :D

 

But I do want to share a scripture with you guys.  I found this this last week during my studies and it has really been helping me as I work and has been helping me to be more diligent through it all.  The scripture is 3rd Nephi 13:21 which reads ''For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." I love that so much because it causes me to treasure up the experiences that I've been having as a missionary and the ones that I am excited that I will be getting.  :)  Because if you treasure something up, it will mean that much more to you.  :)

 

I love you all!  The church is true!  Feliz navidad!

Caught playing the piano! (My secret is out!)

-- 

Elder Nathan Hubert

End of Transfer 1- Im FREEZING!

You know, when I got my call to Wisconsin, people would bug me about two things:  Cheese, and the cold.  They are both a HUGE deal up here...  Cheese is really only a big deal for a few reasons, namely the fact that Wisconsin is the Dairy capital of the USA, and also because of the Green Bay Packers.  But the cold is something that we just have to live with up here.  Actually, I've started to be really happy when it snows, because that means that the air is WARM enough to have snow.  Usually, the air is super cold, and the wind chill takes it down another 10 degrees, so we've been sitting pretty in the negatives a couple of times this last week...  So exciting!  Actually, it hasn't been too bad, except for now it has snow, ice, AND wind...  Those together aren't the greatest thing in the world...  But I suppose I'll just get used to it.  :)
 

Freeeeezing!

from my apartment

It is really hard for me to believe that it is already Preparation day again!  :)  It feels like my last one was just yesterday...  Or sooner...  But hey, I won't turn down a chance to hear from family/friends.  :) 

 

So, this week has been pretty eventful!  :) On Monday, last P-day, we played Football all day!  It was actually super super fun, and I had some pretty great plays!  I really enjoy the chance to run around and play and do thing like that - I definitely miss being able to just stop what I was doing and go for a run whenever I wanted...  I wish I could do that now...  But alas, I have other things to worry about...  And then Monday night, Elder Shipp and I had an appointment with Gustavo and his family, a family from Uruguay with a thick accent that makes them hard to understand, but we do our best..  They had met with the missionaries earlier one time, but don't really remember anything.  So, we got to know them a bit, and let them know why we were there and that we were there to talk about Jesus Chrust and to teach them about Him and His gospel.  They told us that they would be willing to talk about Christ always, but that they probably weren't going to change.  We made a return appointment for tonight and are going to keep on trying to meet with them, and I have hopes that in time, they'll change their mind. 

 

On Tuesday, we had District Meeting!  I really loved what our District Leader said, when he said that we need to find something to consecrate to the Lord, something that we can give to Christ for Christmas.  That's mostly what I got out of the day though...  When we got back to our apartment that evening, at around 4:30, to eat some food, Sister Thomas from the ward was waiting there with bags of food for us!  So, we took it and ate a bit of it before going out to the town to go contact some referrals that were about a 20-minute walk from our house.  :)  Only a few of them were home, and even then none of the adults were at the house, but we did get a prayer in with a few people and that was good!  :D

My District

 

Wednesday, we basically did the same thing that we did Tuesday night, and went and contacted 7 of the 9 referrals we had gotten this last week - which is a lot for this area, especially for Spanish elders.  We got a return appointment with one of the families that we contacted, but it was for 2 weeks away...  :P  Later, we went to our lesson with Carina, but she wasn't there...  Too bad.  Then, we went and had dinner with the Salinas family, and then got to go teach English class!  That is basically all of the service that I've been able to do, is teach English every Wednesday and Saturday, though with all of the snow all of the sudden falling everywhere, I assume we'll be able to help out with snow removal and doing other services like that in the winter time.  I'm all prepped and ready to go for that!  :D

My favorite Mexican cookies

 

Thursday, we had weeks planning, which unfortunately took up a very large portion of our day.  But that night, we took some buses to get to the Moorland area, where we had a lesson scheduled with a family.  It was super cold, but we walked through it all anyway, but when we got there and the mother of the family came to the door, she said "Estamos ocupados!"  We are busy!  So, disappointing as that was, especially since we had gotten so out of the way to get to her, I hope we can teach them next time.  :)

 

Friday, we did something that I'd never heard of before!  We just did everything in reverse today.  Because of the bus schedule and everything, we had to catch it at 7:45 in the morning to go down to Verona, a place where we have a bunch of addresses to go and contact, but also a place that is super super out of the way.  So, we got out there and I got a peek at the largest computer company campus in the USA, called EPIC.  But we spent the day in Verona, knocking on a whole bunch of doors, offering to teach a message and also to do service, but we got turned down a whole bunch of times.  Later in the day, we met up to eat with the Mad4 Elders who have a car, and they so graciously dropped us off at the West area, where we met up with a less-active family the Hernandez's.  We talked to them for a few minutes, but the father was on his way out the door.  So, he gave us a ride to the bus transfer point.  On the way there, we asked him if anybody had gotten into contact with him about the church, and he told us that he had been getting visits from the home teachers, which I was really happy to hear!  :)  Our work with the less-actives has mostly been to get them involved with the ward-members, so the fact that they are doing it on their own is really really great!

 

Saturday, we had Correlation to start with, which was just like normal!  :D  Then, we had our weekly visit with Caceldo, which lasted an hour or more.  We had planned to teach him the Plan of Salvation, but when we got there, he had lots of questions about the scripture that we had had him read, about faith in Alma.   He asked us about how we are supposed to nurture the seed, which led us right into a lesson about how we cause our faith to grow, which in turn led us to talk about church attendance.  He accepted the invitation to church again, but was a bit shaky again.  I just hope that he can come one of these days and that we can find him a friend at church.  Later on Saturday, we had lunch with a member, and then had to go back to the church for English Class.  We then stayed after English Class to help the ward set up and get ready for the Christmas party that night, which was actually really fun!  :)  I spent hours pulling pork...  My hands were so raw!  But it was worth it because it tasted amazing.  :)

I love packages from home!!!

Our decorations

 

 

Sunday was a normal day, and Caceldo once again didn't make it to church.  We had a great companionship study as soon as we got home, which I really really liked, and then we went over to the Barton's house for dinner.  We stayed, talked about things, and then got to watch the devotional at their house.  I really loved the devotional though,  especially Elder Nelson's talk.  :)  I hope you guys all got to watch it!  And if you haven't yet, I recommend that you do!  :D

Snow!!!

 

Well, that is my week up to this point!  :)  I love you all so very much.  I hope that we can all think of ways taht we can share the Spirit of Christ in this Season of Christmas.  And also, try to find one thing to consecrate to the Lord - one thing that you can give to Christ for Christmas.  A scripture that I really love is 3 Nefi 1:13, which says "Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets."  This is what Christmas should mean to us.  Christmas is all about the Gospel.  The Prophets have spoken the truth, and Christ came into the world for US.  Why can we not do something back for Him?  We will never be able to fully repay Him, but we can do our best.

 

Feliz Navidad!

Exchanges, Snow, Turkey, Life

What a week!  This week has been probably one of the strangest weeks that I've experienced while being out here in Wisconsin...  But hey, that doesn't mean that it wasn't great!  :D

I'll just go through it day by day though...  :)  You will be happy to know that on Monday, last P-day, I was able to go to Burlington Coat Factory and get a whole bunch of Winter Gear!  I got 2 scarves, 2 pairs of gloves, some wool socks, and a hat!  So don't worry, I've been pretty warm while I've been out here.  It has been getting pretty cold every day, and colder as the days go on, but I've been able to stay warm.  :)  I'll have to send a photo sometime - I look semi-like an eskimo..  :P

On Tuesday we had district meeting!  That went pretty well.  We were able to role-play and do a whole bunch of training things like that, which was actually really helpful.  But, after District Meeting was over, Elder Shipp and I separated on Exchanges with the District Leader.  I stayed with Elder Anderson on the University of Wisconsin campus for the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday, and Elder Broderick went to our place with Elder Shipp.  I really loved exchanges as usual though.  All we did on Tuesday was contact a few referrals, who weren't interested.  We then went to dinner with the other Campus elders at a member's house, which was pretty fun, and then we made our way back to the apartment for the night.

Elder Anderson

The next day was very adventurous!  We did our studies and everything in the morning, but that had to be cut short to catch a bus to campus.  That is one thing that has been kind of hard for me.  I want to get the little time I have to study in and be able to learn a lot, but when our mode of transportation is only buses, which can tend to be a bit unreliable, so we have to do our best to go by their schedule.  But, when we got to campus, we went straight to the Institute building to wait for a lesson, so I was able to finish my studies there.  :)  Our lesson was with a student named Alec, who seems like he is really searching for the truth.  He is reading the Book of Mormon and has a baptism date, he just hasn't made it to church yet, which is something that is super important!  :D  But we had a member come to our lesson, which was my first member-present of my entire mission!  Usually when we get a member to come, the person is never there, but this time they both came!  :D  So we taught Alec and committed him to come to church, but I'm not sure if that worked out this last week or not.  After our lesson though, we wandered around campus for the rest of the day, stopping people and talking to them about the gospel, sharing short 1-minute lessons about our beliefs, getting rejected a ton, but having lots of success as well!  One young man was from Korea, but knew about the church because he went to BYU and volunteered to teach Korean at the MTC, but he still wasn't a member.  Another guy was from Wyoming and knew of the history of the church, but none of the doctrine, so we gave him a Book of Mormon and explained what it had in it.  Another guy said he wasn't religious, but accepted our message, pamphlet, and a prayer before we left.  And then another lady had been here for 2 weeks from China, didn't speak English very well, but still talked to us and got our number and the address of the church.  I don't know if anything will come of it but hey, we did our part!  :)  But that was our day, and then in the evening we met back up with our companions and exchanged back.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING!  And if any of you have questions about what we did on Thanksgiving, it did not involve teaching...  We tried to set up lessons for that day, but none of them worked out.  So all we did was our studies until about 1:30, and then we got picked up by our bishop at 2 to go to his house for thanksgiving.  It was a typical thanksgiving meal, and it was super good!  :D  We also played games with their grandkids and with the family, and I won the air-hockey tournament!  :D  But it was a typical Thanksgiving, nothing super special other than the fact that I was out here on a mission and not at home hanging out with you guys!  :) 

On Friday, we did our Weekly planning because we were super busy yesterday.  During that, we called Ezekiel, our Investigator who lives super far away, and asked him when we could come visit him...  We ended up dropping him though, because he was like "Don't worry about me you guys.  I'm good, you're good, so don't worry."  So I guess you could say that he dropped us, but unfortunately it was a mutual decision.

Then, we called Oscar, who committed to coming to church over the phone!  Talk about cool! 

Then we had a great dinner appointment with some of the greatest Pizza I've ever had, but that was the end of our day. 

Saturday started with Correlation, but then we got a ride down to Caceldo's house from Bro. Smith, in a really sketchy part of the neighborhood called the Allied Territory.  We got to Caceldo's house, and when he came to the door, he told us that he had just woken up and was about to head out for the day - so he had forgotten about our lesson...  So, briefly, I asked him if he would come to church, and he said YES!  So, from that point, we were expecting 2 people at church tomorrow!  Later though, we had a member-present lesson planned, but our investigator was not home once again!  Talk about frustrating...  Oh well... 

Sunday rolled around though, and neither of the guys were at church.  After talking to Elder Shipp about it, it is apparently pretty typical for the Hispanics to not follow through with their commitments, but I was still pretty put out about it..  I was so excited that we might actually have some people come to church!  But I guess not - that was not that day...  And then after a long day of contacting with no success on Sunday, we shared dinner with the English elders that live close to us, and then we had an epic card-throwing duel with them using our pass-along cards...  Pretty fun.  Missionaries do crazy things sometimes..  

 

But life really is great!  I am getting used to the fact that we don't have a lot of follow-through lessons and things like that, but my attitude is staying up!  :D  I love you all!

Amazing Sunset

-- 

Elder Nathan Hubert