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

Zone Training, Exchanges, Polish Fest, and saying ADIOS

So don't worry everybody, I'm not saying Adios to anybody for now.  The sad part is that Elder Evans is going to be flying home this coming Thursday - the 18th - and the entire week (basically) was dedicated to him saying goodbye.  I'm not upset about that or anything, it was just strange to be in that mentality and to be the one who had to take all of the photos and stuff, you know?  So yeah, that's what I was dealing with this week.  But hey, it was still a good week, even though it was strange.

Met a new friend!

The highlights include the following:  Monday for P-day we went to the Sprecher Root Beer (heavenly stuff) factory here in Milwaukee, took a tour, and drank some soda (I've not been very healthy)

Last Tuesday we got to have an amazing Zone Training Meeting where Elder Evans and I gave a few trainings about 1) Teaching members and gaining trust to teach their friends, 2) Using "will you" invitations to give commitments, and 3) FAITH (the difference between the faith to act and the power of faith).  They went very well in my opinion, and we had a lot of input from the zone about the various things that we did.  We even had help from Karla Garcia who recently returned from her mission in LA come and help us out and role-playwith us - that was way good! :D  I really hope that the mebers of the zone took something from that.

That night, we got to go on exchanges with the West Allis Elders and I got to go with one of the funniest missionaries ever, Elder Mason Standifird!  He's so great and I really wish that he was staying on his mission, but he's going home on Thursday as well.  :)  We had a good time though, teaching lessons and cracking jokes and we actually had a really Spiritual companionship study where we talked about a whole bunch of awesome stuff. :)  I really enjoyed it.

Polish Fest!

Summerfest in Milwaukee

Helping others find their families

A cool thing that we got to do was on Friday we were recruiited to go and help out down at the Milwaukee Polish Fest at the church's Genealogy center and we got to help people trace their roots back to wherever they came from, using the first and last names that they had and whatever other information they had. I helped a guy find out that he had an aunt that died as a baby that none of his family knew about, and also found his father's draft papers that he turned in for WWI!  Also, when a native american woman confessed to me that she didn't know her family history,I grabbed a BofM and explained it to her and she took it being super excited that she had something to read about her family!  :D  Those were only 2 of the amazing experiences that I had - hopefully I'll catch up in my journal so I can remember the rest (I might be a week behind).

We also had an amazingly Spiritual lesson with Darleen - the menos activa that lives in Cudahy, Wisconsin.  We talked to her and her kids about Joseph Smith and his experience, and especially what that means for us living here today.  It was amazing to mention Baptism and seeing the 8-year-old girls's face as she asked her mom if she could get baptized.  We haven't set a date with them, but I really hope that this family can progress in the Gospel - they are just so amazing!

Food! Glorious food!

Saturday and Sunday were dedicated in large part to saying goodbye to the various families that we visited, which was sad for sure.  I'm just glad that I'm not leaving, too, because then I would be very disappointed.

But yeah, I love you tons everybody!  ;D  I'll catch you later!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Weird Week

Seminary appreciation gift

Yep.  Those two words define my week to the T - it was just weird!  I mean, it was still a good week, that is to say that we got to do some good stuff and visit with investigators and members and everything, but it was just weird.  Let me explain:

We had a bunch of meetings this week!  That's really the only reason.  That's not to say that meetings are bad or that I'm mad that we had them or anything, but as missionaries we want to do missionary things, including teaching and helping other people, right?  But when we're inside getting trained and learning, even if it's good material, it's just hard because we don't get the usual time that we have to help other people and to accomplish our purpose!  But yeah... 

Tuesday, we had District Meeting (from 1:00 to 2:30 - so only an hour and a half.  Not too long)

Wednesday we had Spanish Conference (which was SUPER AWESOME!  But it lasted from 10am to 5pm...  Too long...  Even though we got a whole bunch of great material!)

Friday we had MLC, from 10 to 4, just a medium sized meeting, but it just added to the lack of work...

Our friend the Raccoon

But enough of that - I'm going to tell you about the miracles that happened!  Wednesday night after Spanish Conference and everything, we got to go to talk to Blanca at her house.  Victor wasn't home, so we just talked outside about marriage and about what she thought.  She told us more about her concern and about what she was thinking, and asked us about what we thought she should do.  I mean, we could have said a list of things that she could have done to make the problem a bit better, but we didn't.  As we followed the Spirit, we felt distinctively that we simply needed to tell her to pray and ask Heavenly Father about what it is that she needed to do.  We prayed right there with her and committed her to pray that night.  The next day, on exchanges, I called her to ask her about how her prayer went.  She told me that she had prayed and felt really good about what had happened and how she felt, so she decided to go through with it!  She's going to be getting married!  :D  Hopefully it'll happen within the next 2 weeks, so I'll keep you guys posted.

Wednesday during the day was also super amazing.  All of us Spanish Missionaries - all 28 of us - all met up together in Milwaukee to be taught and trained by an area seventy named Elder Scott. He's from Chicago and he speaks Spanish and it was awesome to hear from him!  We also got trained by President Calderwood from Racine, WI, who was amazing.  We learned a lot about how to help the Spanish people and what it is that we can do to accept the culture and teach directly to their needs.  Elder Scott trained a lot on widening our vision for what can happen with the people, and Pres. Calderwood talked a lot about Celestial Marriage and helping the people realize how important those ordinances are.  It was great!

Wednesday to Thursday I had an amazing exchange with Elder Mullen in our zone.  I am so glad that he's in our zone because he's a huge example for all of us!  He has a major speech impediment, but he doesn't even let that get him down.  He didn't want to serve a service mission, so he applied to serve a full-time mission and now he's here.  I don't have a photo with him yet, so I'll get that to you when I take one.  However, we had a lot of success and were able to find 3 new investigators together and teach pretty powerfully together when we talked to English people.  :)

Elder Hubert and Elder Larsen

Saturday we were given the privilege to go and visit on of the young women in the branch who is in the hospital.  We're pretty close to the family and we went there with her parents and the 1st counselor in the branch presidency.  While there, we offered a blessing for her, and she chose me to give it to her, so that was an amazing experience.  :)  I'm so glad to be a holder of the Priesthood and to be able to bless the lives of others!  :)

And finally, a huge miracle in the zone, is that we had 2 baptisms this last week!  We haven't had a baptism in about a month, so it was good to see 2 of them happen in the same week!  :D

I know this work is true you guys, and that since it is the work of the Lord, it will continue in the midst of persecution and hardship.  It will go on until Christ himself says it's done, so for now we keep on working as hard as we can!  :D

I love you all so much!  Have a great week!

--Elder Nate Hubert

Another Miraculous Week in Milwaukee

Hello everybody!  This week has been a super good one!  I'm just afraid that I'm going to have to start talking about every single day again so I can include the full effect of all of the huge miracles that we have experienced this week, so here we go:

Tuesday evening (last P-day), we had some lessons scheduled.  The first one was very distracting because there was a family gathering going on at the Frias-Rodriguez house, but the mother of the family still wanted us to teach her, so we talked all about the Restoration and why it was necessary, and she understood!  It was awesome to be able to re-kindle the flame of the gospel that they had felt 7 years ago - hopefully everything will work out.  We have a lesson tonight so stay tuned next week!  But I'd say that even the bigger miracle than that was when we met with the Angeles family.  We found them sitting outside waiting for the police to show up because some guy's car was having troubles in the middle of the street right in front of their house and they couldn't help with it, so we waited outside with them (I got to play soccer with their little kids - such a win), and finally got to go inside.  What this lesson ended up turning into was this following example from Preach My Gospel:

The example is this picture of an iceberg, which represents the people's concerns.  Some of them are above the surface and are obvious, but the biggest ones are below the surface and they don't tell those ones to you unless they trust you.  We have been working with them SO much to get married and to improve their lives, and finally on Tuesday we got Blanca's entire iceberg.  I'm not going to tell you because it is touchy information, but we now have a plan on how to get past it, and they both want to get married, and so we're progressing with them!  We're moving onward with them, and Elder Evans and I were both just SO happy and SO overwhelmed by the many blessings that the Lord poured out upon us that night during that lesson - it was purely guided by the Spirit.

Wednesday's miracle was that during Zone Conference, our training had to be shortened to fit time for something else, so we were SO happy about that!  :P  THat really happened, but that's not the miracle.  The awesome part of Wednesday was when President and Sister Cutler gave us some kick butt trainings on the Sabbath Day and the Sacrament, using video clips of things that the Apostles said just prior to this past General Conference, when they give trainings to the Seventy and such.  SO awesome!  My viewpoint has entirely changed, and now I feel like I understand how to better follow Christ and give the Sabbath to Him.  I was even able to make goals on how it was going to affect me back home and how I would keep it holier.  :)

Friday's miracle was that we got to have an AWESOME lesson with the Relief Society President and her daughter in their home.  We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (of course it is something they already know), going over it and sharing insights about it, each of us learning as we went along.  At the end of the lesson, we asked a crucial question.  It was: "Who in the branch are you worried about, or who in the branch do you feel could use a message like this?"  She gave us some names of some people she was concerned about, and the best part is that 2 of them were her less-active son and daughter who lived with their own families and who needed a reminder of the gospel, so we're going to be visiting them with her later on this week!  I feel like that last part is key - WITH her.  She is their mother, she is their friend, and SHE wants the missionaries in the lives of her kids, so she is doing something about it.  I love the initiative that is being taken.  :)

Friday night we started exchanges with the Assistants, and I got to be in the AP area with Elder Stephens, which is always a party.  In the early afternoon, we got to have an amazing lesson with a guy name Jesse, and a member named Danny came out to the lesson with us.  Jesse is dating a member and is curious about what she believes in and why she is the way she is, so during the lesson (which was a spiritual experience for me), we were able to set a baptismal date with Jesse, which was awesome because I guess it's the first baptismal date that area has seen in like 3 months.  #miracle!  

But this is the main experience I wanted to tell you about:  I GOT TO GO TO DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CITY THEATER, AND I GOT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SHARING OF BOOKS OF MORMON RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BOOK OF MORMON MUSICAL.  It was SO cool.  People were SO curious!  It was a miracle, for sure!  It was right after the Matinee performance and it was incredible to see people either look at us and laugh because they couldn't believe that we were the real missionaries, or they would be super curious, but I had 8 copies of the BofM on me and gave away all of them in like 5 minutes.  Crazy!  It is such a miracle that so many copies of the book of mormon have been given to people over the last week.  Just during the showing of the play, the missionaries in the effort handed out almost 2000 copies of the book of Mormon, in almost 2 weeks!  Crazy!

And then after that, to re-exchange, we got to go to this super awesome Spy restaurant...  The main door is in like this alleyway and you have to know the password to get in to the door, and then you go in and you eat!  :)  But it's spy themed, which is cool.

But yeah!  I'm running out of time, but that was my awesome week!  :D  I hope all works out well for each of you this week!  :D