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

Birthday Party, Exchanges, Memorial Day

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

Awesome Mural!

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

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

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

with Elder Fry

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

With the Garcia's

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

At the birthday party

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

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

At the lake

Selfie!

Love all of you!  Adios!

--Elder Nate Hubert

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

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

But yeah, here are my week's highlights:

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

Church in Milwaukee

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

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

Cool Nativity 

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

Street in Milwaukee

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Elder Nate Hubert

The next big Mariachi Band - El Amor de Mexico

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

But yeah!  Some highlights of the week include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Elder Nate Hubert

MARRIAGE! (But not mine...)

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

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

Elder Wiscombe and Elder Hubert

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

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

Santiago wedding

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

But yeah, that's my life!  

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

--Elder Nate Hubert