Zone Conference and Vineyards

As for my week...

We had our Zone conference with Elder Kent F. Richards from the Europe Area Presidency and the Second Quorum of the 70. It was really good. we started at 0900 and it ended at 1400. It was just him talking, but he was so good that the time flew, the fastest zone conference I have ever been! I did have to translate for a big section of it though, Elder Nally and I switched off. My brain always feels like mush after it. I got pretty tired toward the end and I kept yawning. One of the Spanish sisters turns around, looks at me and says (in spanish)" Stop yawning! I can´t understand you when you speak and yawn!" I just shrugged my shoulders. But the conference went over really well and lunch was tasty afterwards. When I thought afterwards about what he taught, it wasn´t that he taught us new things or different doctrine, he taught us the stuff that we already knew, he went over basic stuff, but he taught with such a spirit, and with so much power that it just captivated me. It was so good and I felt so edified afterwards. Before the conference we had a leadership training and he talked to us about D&C 121. I´ve read that section tons of times but he expounded those scriptures to us and he just opened my eyes. Again, it was just incredible. The whole leadership training was basically a call to repentance and humility but he did it in such loving way. He is an incredible teacher. Or I should say, he has learned to teach by the spirit so well that all that hear can feel it.

Other than that, the week has just flown! We are about to start week 6 of the transfer and once it is over I will be in my LAST transfer in the office! hurray! Not that I don´t love it, but being a normal missionary is so much more rewarding.

I am sitting here in the office, drinking a pepsi, (it is cheaper than coke) and eating some Jamón (the pig leg) flavored potato chips. P day is the best.

I attached a picture of a little Spanish village that we visited a few weeks ago. When you see the size of the olive viñas, Jacob 5 and all the references to the Viña del Señor, (vineyard of the lord I guess that would be). This picture doesn´t do it justice, but let me tell, they have some HUGE olive vineyards around here. I am so grateful to the Lord for this opportunity that has been given me to work in his vineyard, especially in this section that might be a little drier than others. I love the Savior and I love my mission.

Well, I love you all! I hope you have great weeks!
Os quiero muxo!
-Elder Hunt

In the News

I am so grateful for your prayers. You have probably heard on the News about the riots in N. Africa, we pulled the Missionaries there out. There are now here in Málaga. President Deere calls me at 2330 and tells me that he needs them out of there and over here as soon as possible. So me and Elder Hall got out of bed and walked over to the office and got them some tickets for the morning. President told us to look up what was going on online so we got to check the news, it was weird. The news. But they are out and it isn´t looking like they are going to go back any time soon.

This week we are having a General Authority tour. Elder Richards from the 2nd quorum of the 70 is coming over here to do zone conferences and what not. So that has been pretty exciting.

It hit me this last week that my birthday is in a month! I´ll be 21! Dad, weren´t you 21 when you got married?! I still feel like I´m a kid!

I´m just trucking along I guess. Everything is going along pretty normal. I just don´t want to think about what is going on right now with our investigator benny. Really, this weekend has been a roller coaster of emotions. From highest highs to the lowest lows, but ya know what, it is all in the Lord´s hands so no matter what happens, it will all be well.

love you!
Jason

I went on splits down in Aaaafrica, and guess what it rained while I was in aaaaaAaaaafrica, I bless the raiiiinnn down in aaaafricaaa...

And the song continues....

But really, I had the coolest experience this past week. I actually got back this morning. My comp and I went on splits in Melilla (look it up on Google Maps) in Northern Africa. It was so much fun and such a good experience. It was so nice to get out of the office and have a great split.

I was on a boat and the landmass in the background was Morocco! AFRICA!

This one was out when we were contacting and taking the Book of Mormon out a foreign land!

There were so many Muslims. Holy cow. They were everywhere. We saw them all gathered together for the evening prayer in the community center. It is a such an interesting culture. We were knocking on doors looking for any one who wasn´t Muslim and in one building nobody answered the certain door we knocked so we go to the next one and a guy from Morocco answers, says he is Muslim so we ask him if he knew any Christians or Spaniards how lived around. He asked "You guys are American right?" We say "yeah" and he points to the door we just finished knocking and says "watch out for this guy then, he is from the Taliban", we give him a pass along card and he closes the door. Almost as if it was cued, the Taliban Guy´s door opens and this big and tall Arabic man opens it and he has this long dark nasty beard and basically yells asking what we want. We said we were introducing ourselves to all the building because we offer service to everyone, offered to hand a pass a long card, he didn´t take it, so we took off. Apparently we were in the Taliban building because of what happened and also we saw the ladies that cover them selves up 99.9% (they are in all black and have the slits for only their eyes to be seen.) It is was pretty intense. We we never scared, but it was one of those "that could have been bad" situations. The Lord protects his servants and that is the truth.

The rest of the split was incredible. Two of our best elders are over there so it was just a great opportunity to go out and work with them.  As far as we knew, we were the only 4 missionaries in all of Northern Africa. The work is going forward!

I had a blast on the split and it makes me soooo excited to get out of the office. I seriously can´t wait to have a regular area. But I love what I am doing because I am constantly serving.

We took a really long ferry ride from Málaga to Melilla from 1300-2030 on Thursday, worked with them Thursday night and then all day Friday. We left yesterday(Friday) at 2330 and we got into Málaga today at 0800. Needless to say, we are a little tired. But it is a good tired because it is after a long day of hard work.

We got a room for the boat ride back. I called it the "bo-tel" (Boat Hotel) because the place looked just like a hotel. I am holding the "duty-free" store magazine. It was a small room, and my comp snores, but I still got some rest.

Nothing else can really match with that experience from this past week. I mean, I filed some paperwork on Wednesday.

Tonight we have the baptismal interview for our investigator Benny. I hope everything goes well. I am not worried about it, but ya know, anything could happen, I mean shoot, I just went to Africa! (I hope my shots are up to date!)

Well family, friends, I love you all so much. Thanks for your letters, love and support. I love my mission so much. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Talk to you next week!

Os Quiero,
Jason

Spanish Buzz and Besitos

The week was such a blur. We have been so busy this transfer, I can´t believe we are at the end of week 2, I feel like it just started!

We had zone conference this past week and ever since coming to the office I haven´t liked zone conference as much because 1, I know what is going to be taught and 2, I have to translate. My companion and I switch every speaker. But after a 3 hour meeting of translating, my brain feels like mush.

The church and missions world wide have been doing "el rescate" (the rescue) of working on bringing less actives back to church, so as a teaching point for ZC president and sister Deere showed the clip of Buzz Lightyear from toy story 3 when Buzz goes Spaniard and says "Buzz Lightyear, al rescate". I did not realize how funny that clip is. They did a spot on job of a Spaniard, everyone was cracking up.

Two weeks ago, an old Spanish lady stopped us in the street and asked us what we were doing here, we explained and gave your typical explanation and we asked if we could come over another day and share our message with her, she agreed and we wrote down her address. I gave her a pass along card of the savior before we took off, she took the card, and give it a big wet "besito" (little kiss), the Catholic Custom in Spain is to kiss the "Imagines" of Christ. I love it, I think it is hilarious, it might be bad, but I like to see how many people I can get to kiss the picture in a day. You have to entertain yourself somehow right?! So yesterday we passed by her house and she didn´t want to let us in at first, but I saw lots of pictures in her house so I asked if she wouldn´t mind showing us her pictures. She agreed, showed us her family, and all the "imagines" of Christ that she has around the house and then we asked if we could share a message. She was kinda crazy and said she was a Catholic Jehovah´s Witness. I really wanted to tell her she was a Mormon Catholic Jehovah´s Witness, but I held my tongue. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy, she said she would read it and even gave the book cover a kiss when we handed it to her. We will see if anything comes out of it.

Our Investigator, Benny, has been doing really well. He is down to 1 cigarette a day and we hope that he can give it up completely this upcoming week. He was smoking a pack a day when we started teaching him and now he is down to 1. It has been such a blessing being able to help and support him as he quits smoking so he can keep the commandments and then be baptized.

As I was doing some work in the office this past week I found out that the visa process for Americans coming into Spain has been stopped, we have been getting fewer and fewer Americans with visas and we didn´t know why. Turns out, the intern at the US consulate that processes our visas quit back in May and the church hasn´t put anyone new in yet. So we have attempted to raise awareness about the issue to the Mission Department and the Area Presidency. I have been able to talk with General Authorities. It is kinda scary. Elder Kent Richards (who is coming to do a mission tour) called the other day, I was kinda nervous, not sure why, I just was. heh.

And here’s a picture, it was a long day in the office so we decided to treat ourselves before going on. I bought the good milk (remember, the rest comes in boxes) (for a hefty price too,) and some Oreos, and that made the rest of the day in the office much better.

Well, it has been a good week. A fast week but a good one none the less.

Os quiero,
Jason

Time is Flying By!

Week 1 of this transfer just flew by! Every single day we had something mission related going on.

We got one new sister missionary this week and four missionaries finished their missions this past transfer, so on Thursday we shipped them off. I don´t like taking people to the airport, it makes me think way to much of when it will be my turn! One more elder went home but not because he finished his mission, I guess you could say that he finished his mission, but he apparently just wasn´t into it and decided to go home. So we took him to the airport on Wednesday and sent him off to his home town in Chile. This is the 4th missionary that was gone home early since I have been here in the office. It is unbelievable! I hate it! It makes me feel awful because I can see how much these people are missing out on! and I haven´t even finished my mission! But that was a big bummer for the week. Yesterday on Friday we had a Zone Meeting in Málaga and it was really nice. My companion and I taught a section of the meeting on obedience. I was a little hesitant with this topic because every time a missionary gives a presentation or talk on obedience they open up to preach my gospel chapter 6 and read the paragraph and the 6 scriptures that accompany it. So everyone has heard that talk before, so we took a different approach. We read the story of Balak and Balaam (the talking donkey and the angel from the old testament) and we made missionary connections to the story and how we can learn about obedience from the story. It was a lot of fun because one it is a fun story and two it was a change up of things. We got a good reception and missionaries commented afterwards that they liked it. So that was nice.

We had very little time to go out and work in our area this week but we had one lesson. It was super weird though, I get a call from Benny (one of our investigators)´s mom and she is freaking out and crying to me on the phone telling me that Benny is tripping out and having a huge temper. She said he was being aggressive and yelling at her. I felt terrible and at a complete loss of what to say. I asked her, what do you want us to do? She tried giving the phone to him but he wouldn't´t talk to me. I asked her if we could come over and she said please do. We try to go over there, but the mom says, he has just gone to sleep so come back tomorrow.
We go back the next day and we try to talk about the call I got but they were acting as if nothing had happened. It was super weird. Benny had a baptismal date for the 31st of August but we all decided it would be best to push it into September. It was just a weird situation. We are going over again tonight with a member so hopefully they can help.

I sent some pictures. One is of me in the office.

One is of our new and nice living area, we painted last week.

and the other is of the study desks.

Well family, this week was a quick one and I look forward to another one!
Os quiero,
Jason

Busy Week!

This week was a blur, transfer weeks always seem to go so fast.

We were looking at our upcoming week and we have something large every single day, not including the daily duties that are required of us.

Monday- Office meeting
Tuesday - New missionaries come in
Wednesday - Old Missionaries come into the mission home
Thursday - Old Missionaries go home
Friday - Zone Meeting
Saturday - P-Day
Sunday- Church

It will be a busy week to say the least.

It hit me today, today being the last day of this transfer, that I have 4 transfers left. 4 Transfers is nothing, that goes by so quick! Time sure is flying, but I won´t complain :p

Nothing too crazy happened this week, we finally got around to painting our burnt apartment and we made an IKEA run to get new stuff. I love Ikea. We got some good stuff, I will send pictures when I get a chance.
The mission has been focusing on "El Rescate" (the rescue) by bringing less actives back to church and gospel activity. We had 3 less actives in church today so we were very happy with that. The ward did a great job at making them feel welcomed. It was great to see the ward embrace these less active members and make them feel invited to participate in everything.

Well, I have to run, I love you all and I am so grateful for all of your prayers and support.

Os quiero,
Jason

What a week!

I feel like the weeks are turning into just one long day. This past week just flew by. This week was supposed to be one of our more calm weeks, but of course, it took a change for the crazier side.  I don´t remember which day (again, the week felt like one long day) but President Deere sends Elder Hall and Manning down to a place called Sanlucar to go pick up some missionaries, nobody knew why but they picked them up and brought them to the mission office and President met with them. Turns out, one of them was having some issues and wasn´t making good decisions (Girl related) and had to be sent home. So that took the calmness out of the week. That is the WORST part about being in the office. We know where the problems are, who isn´t getting along with who, who isn´t being obedient, but I just like to think that all the other missionaries are perfect, and then stuff like this happens. Elder Nally and I realized that he is the THIRD missionary that has been sent home since we have been in the office. Last year, only one missionary got sent home (he chose to) for the whole year and that was a big deal, this year, in just 2ish months, 3 have gone home, (2 had to and 1 chose)! It seriously is a bummer.

But on a happier note, we had some great lessons. We get very little time in our area, but once we are there we try to make it count.

The same night the elder got sent home, we were in the office most the afternoon, and we had thirty minutes left before it was time to go in for the night. At this point it would seem to just go in, we could get very little done, but I just didn´t feel good with going in early, so Elder Nally and I decided to go pass by the house of an investigator and see if we could set up another time to teach her. As we walk up to her house a big group of drunk guys yell to us and tell us to come over there and preach to them, I yelled back "Tenemo´ pri-tha!" (we are in a hurry with an andaluz accent) and we entered into the investigator´s building. She wasn´t home so we exited the building and decide to go back using a different street (one that we never use) to go home so we could avoid the drunk crowd. As we were walking, an African lady pops out of a door and says "hey! where is the church?" (she was from Nigeria so she speaks English) and we began talking to her and explaining where the church is located. She is a member and has been living in various places around Europe and has never found the church since she left Nigeria. This kind of stuff doesn´t happen. We had 30 minutes left and we went on a road that we never go on and Chi Chi (her name) found us. It was a blessing for obedience and a testimony that the Lord is at the helm of this work. As Elder Nally and I talked about what happened as we walked home I couldn´t help but feel so grateful for being a missionary. I love it. I love serving the Lord and preaching the gospel.
Today for Pday we went up on these Cable Cars and saw a falcon/Bird show at the top. It was super cool. I had a falcon land on my head. It was kinda freaky. It didn´t hurt until it took off, its talons dug into my head a bit so that hurt a little. But it was way fun and a good Pday activity. We actually took President Deere´s kids with us because he and Sister Deere are in Germany for a mission president seminar. The kids are always bored so we got permission from president to take them to hang out with us for Pday. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids enjoyed it as well.

I will be sure to send some Falcon/Eagle/Hawk/Owl pictures once we get that organized.
Os quiero mucho!
Jason