Baptism, Marriage and Tornados (again haha)

So this week was probably one of the most eventful weeks of my entire

life! Another amazing week in Paradise! This email might be a little

bit longer then usual! Hopefully it will also be more exciting as

well! So this week started off with some hectic storms, which was fun.

There are some pictures below. There was one like an hour of here,

half a mile wide and was on the ground for 90 min! Can you even

believe that! So crazy! But don't worry, Topeka is in a valley so the

last tornado to hit Topeka was like 1966. (You can ask just about any

Topekan and they can tell you about it.) Storms are the best! We sure

did get a ton of rain this week, and let me tell you. Kansas lightning

storms are the coolest things in the world! Constant thunder for an

hour with lightning flashing every 2 seconds! It is so amazing, and

because of how flat it is you can have a panorama view of the entire

storm!




We saw some really awesome progression happen with almost our whole

teaching pool which was great! We have still been meeting with Carol,

who now refers to herself as our surrogate grandmother. She is doing

so good, still working on Word of Wisdom but doing so much better then

she was! Even the smallest things in the gospel can change lives! Its

amazing! and then we also played some B ball with our boy Leo, who is

10 and we took another Recent Convert who is 10 and it was super good

and went over the baptismal interview questions with him. He is still

good just waiting for the go ahead with his parents.




And then our family that we have been working with for a while got

married! What the heck! So cool! It was for sure a Kansas Marriage,

but it was super fun! It was pretty stressful getting it all set up

because our civil marriages are pretty different and they had a bunch

of nonmembers show up and was expecting this whole big thing (which we

prepped them and they wanted something small) and it was just in the

relief society room! It was still super good, and now they can get

baptized super quick! Super excited for them with that! It's going to

be sick!




Then we had a baptism, this girl has been meeting with missionaries

for awhile in a different ward but moved into ours with her family

(who just got baptized a few weeks ago) and it was super spiritual!

And I had the privilege to confirm her a member of the Church! Such a

powerful experience! So many people were there and there were a bunch

of investigators! It was awesome! It is so amazing to see this woman

change her life forever! I remember meeting her for the first time

about a month ago and she was clearly not happy, but to see the light

that came after confirming her was something I will cherish in my

heart forever. God is SO good!




This week I have been thinking a lot about decisions. Something that

is big in the mission is making everyday a day of decision. That today

will be the greatest day of your life, you can be happy regardless of

your circumstance, you can choose joy every second of the day. The

only thing that holds us back is our self. Every single day can be a

day that we wake up and say "This is going to be the best day of my

life" and then go out and make it! Gandhi once said "A man is but a

product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes" and that also

leads to to a verse found in Proverbs 23:7 "For as he thinketh in his

hear, so is he" I hope we can decide everyday to be happy, choose joy

and make today the best day of your life! I am so grateful for the

atonement of Jesus Christ that makes this possible and that we can

always find our joy in the journey!




Also this week we have another ET (well kinda. transfers are on

Wednesday and my comp is leaving today) so I am going to be in a trio

for a couple days and then get a new companion! My new companion is

Elder Hilborn! My comp is going down to Wichita! so excited for him!

Again can't believe that transfers is already happening again, what a

trip!




Love you all so much! Have the best week of your life!




-Elder Hunt

Hey so we had interviews this week and I found out that my release date is the 1st of September which is cool. there is a pretty cool miracle. so he went to change it and it was already changed, and  there wasn't a button to change it anywhere which he says that he has never seen before. So i guess thats a sign that I'm supposed to go up to school!

Title of Liberty

Hey what up everyone!

This week was such a good week! Recently I finished the book "the

continuous atonement" and if you haven't read it I would highly

recommend it. It was super good! There has been this quote that has

stuck out to me since the beginning. It says "the sacrament prayers

have to be given word-perfect. But when the priest flubs it, what

happens? Even though the expectation of perfection cannot be lowered

the person giving the prayer gets a second chance, and a third and a

fourth if he needs them. No matter how many mistakes he makes along

the way, when he finally does get it right, that outcome is counted as

perfect and acceptable. God, like the bishop, cannot lower the

standard that we ultimately become perfect but he can give us many

opportunities to start again. Perfection is our long term goal, but

for now our goal is progression in that direction." I love that

doctrine! That the atonement is there to cleanse is and progress us

through this life. Thank goodness to because it would be really tough

to go through this life as imperfect as we are always thinking we

failed! Thank goodness for the atonement or as we say it here in

Kansas #TGFA




This week we saw some cool miracles! We had interviews with prez and

that was amazing! What an inspired guy! He is the best. I love him!

Then we had some awesome lessons with Carroll. She came to the baptism

this week which was awesome!! We invited her for the 11th and she said

yes and then as she was walking out she said "I think I want to do

that" then she came to church and Loved it! Then another miracle

happened! This part member family that we are working with is getting

married, and that's a straight miracle. We were working with them

super closely for a while but then things got busy and we hit a wall

because they weren't married, but we finally got in contact with them

and they are getting married next week at the church and they set it

up! So cool. They asked us to be in charge of decorations (hahahah)

and photography (HAHAH) so stay tuned in for those pictures! And then

they are getting baptized for sure!!!!




Anyways life is SO good. The lord answers prayers, the atonement

works, the church is true!

Love you all!

-Elder Hunt

Interview pictures

I found the picture from my first transfer on someone's camera!  Flash Back!

This week was a super good week with super good miracles! So there is
this one guy that we have been teaching for a little bit that has the
typical Kansas Problems (Word of Wisdom) and we thought he wasn't
super interested so we stopped going by. Then randomly we get this
media referral for the same guy. He referred himself! and then we
taught him the commandments and he said that he really wants to be
baptized!

And then we found this one lady a couple weeks ago that told us that
she was interested, and then wasnt, and then we told her about the ARP
book that the church has and she has been reading it like crazy! and
then she told us that she was interested in the church but couldn't
get over the Trinity. so we gave her at talk by Elder Holland "The
Only True god and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent" where he goes pretty
hard in teaching the doctrine of the trinity, and she called us later
and said "I think I can get over that" so we printed her off like 8
more talks and went over and cleaned her carpets (and SCORE she let us
borrow the carpet cleaner and we cleaned our apartment too. so now our
house smells WAY better) and it was super good!

And then we went to a Mission Presidents Devotional in Junction City
which was super good! We had a few recent converts there and I got to
see a few Recent Converts in Manhattan! Such a good experience to let
them bare their testimonies for the first time! They are the real
MVPs!

This week's therefore what is how much God actually does love us. I
think sometimes we get this idea that God's love is conditional on our
obedience and our love, but that is not true. God loves us at all
times, in all places. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try our
hardest but it does mean that if we do mess up, it's okay he still
loves us and we can learn and move on!

Love you all!
-Elder Hunt

Andres and I at the MP devo!  Super good to see him again, and he just got called to be the branch clerk!!!

Our district, we all wore stripes and marched but not really.

Our district at the capitol 

We are pretty important people

Kansas back roads!

Therefore What...

So we have this phrase in our mission called "therefore what". And

basically means, because of this experience what are you going to

change or what did you learn from. For example, if we were to go to a

meeting we would do a "therefore what" afterwords and go around the

room and say what we are going to change because of the meeting. So In

my weekly emails from now on I'm going to include a "therefore what"

from my week which will basically be my lesson learned for the week.




So my therefore what this week is His yoke is easy. This week was kind

of crazy we had MLC which is just crazy in and of itself. We have the

prep sent out last week and then we had to prepare all of Tuesday and

drive down to Wichita and then had the meeting which is talked about

the strategies that we use in our zones and how we are lifting our

zones and each missionary! And then we prepared zone training on

Thursday which was good but took all day studying and preparing, and

then we had zone training. I trained on faith as a principle of power

which is something I LOVE. and then we went on exchanges and saw some

cool miracles! So it was a crazy week but I love the scripture "Come

unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you

rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and

lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke

is easy, and my burden is light." It's crazy how many times life can

get crazy and there are so many things that you can get stressed

about, but thank goodness for the atonement because it helped me so

much this week! So just remembering his yoke is light is such a

relief,




This week we had so many great miracles this week! We have this kid

Leo who is awesome, we played basketball with him this week and had

some good lessons with him, and then we met this lady who was a media

Referal and she was super interested and then called us and told us

she wasn't interested, I was about to end the call when the spirit

said "ask her about smoking" and I did and she said she was really

struggling with quitting. I told her about the ARP and passed by the

booklet and we have had some amazing experiences her, we taught that

"God is our loving Heavenly Father" and invited her to pray to her

Father. She told us that it was the best prayer that she has ever had

thinking about God as her father and not just some all knowing

unidentifiable being. That definitely made me think about how lucky I

am to have the knowledge I have! Love this Gospel so much!!




Love you all tons! Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there!!

-Elder Hunt

Top City

MLC pics

We went out in the middle of no where on Saturday

Kansas dirt road... I could quote too many country songs about this road

Our drive down to Wichita for MLC

Kansas Tornados

Another great week up here in Top City! Life is so good up here!!!! So when I first came out I entitled a email "tornado" to grab the readers attention, and in actuality there wasn't any bad storms. This week, a different story! So Monday night we have this conference call with the Mission President where we talk about the week and what we are doing in each zone. It's super good, but this one started off differently!  It started by talking about the weather and how there was a super high chance of a tornado happening the next day. It was predicted to be the worst storm in 50 years. So we had to make sure every missionary knew exactly where their tornado shelter was and how to get there and all that fun jazz. So we wake up the next day and everything is fine and dandy. We have district meeting and lunch and we get out to work. and then in about 15 min the sky goes from kinda cloudy but still sunny to dark and dreery. It was kinda eerie how quick it came! We get a call from a companionship that decided that biking was a good idea that day and were miles from their car and it was starting to rain pretty bad so we had to go give them a ride. Right as they got into the car, the tornado sirens started going off. It was kind of wierd because like the sirens were going off, but nobody was really caring what was going on. People were driving right along and walking on the streets with no urgency in their step at all. Where we were wasn't like super bad, but we could see where the clouds were getting super dark and swirly haha. so we drive to the shelter and keep a watch and then about an hour later the clouds leave and it's sunny again. Some people claim to have seen a funnel start to appear and then go back up, and there was reports of a touch down out in the middle of no where (still in my area so that's kinda cool). So now I can officially say that I was around a tornado... kinda. But then the next day it started hailing for a bit, nothing like you might have seen on the news, but they were pretty big, and on the freeway they definitely made quite the sound! 

But other then the crazy weather that we have had, this week has been super good! We got in contact with this kid Leo. He's 10 and so awesome! We took him to a baptism this week and he was so excited to watch it and then when we watched the confirmation as soon as they finished with the intro his eyes got super big and whispered "I want to get baptized!" He's a solid little kid! and we talked to his parents and they are super down and he has already made a bunch of friends in primary! Such a cool miracle! and his whole family wants to learn more! Topeka is the best!

This week we had stake conference, and it was super good. The stake president here is the best guy in the world. He was in my ward when I served here last and he has so much charity and his talks are always super good! There wasn't a huge common theme but they did have recent converts get up and bare their testimony and it was super cool to see the gospel in action. To see how happy it can make people and how good God is to give us such an amazing gift! 

Love you mucho! 

-Elder Hunt