LOVIN' MISSIONARY LIFE!!

Dear Family,

I really enjoy emailing home and hearing how things are going.  Thanks for keeping me up-to-date on stuff.

Last prep day we met up with the Assistants,  and Elders Layton and Torrie, and went to see the “Dingle” which is an old, famous tower here in Halifax.  It was a lot of fun and I love spending time with the other missionaries, too!

Tuesday – we had a district meeting in Sackville.  I set it up really nice and when the missionaries arrived they were surprised to see that someone took the time to make it nice.  The meeting went well and I’m enjoying being back in the role of district leader.  After our meeting, I went on an exchange with Elder Lybert to Bridgewater.  We had a very busy and full day and it was really enjoyable.  Bridgewater is a beautiful place and it was cool to be in one of Mom’s old areas!!

Wednesday – I returned to Sackville and we drove out to the Smith’s for lunch.  They are such a nice family and their son, Ely, is really great.  Also, President Leavitt asked me to be in charge of organizing a concert for the Senior Missionaries Conference.  So I’m starting to put that together, and really enjoy doing this kind of event-planning!!

Thursday – We did some good, hard, manual labor for Phil Jack.  We cut up a bunch of his trees that got torn down during the hurricane last week.  It felt good!!  Then we took the bus down to Bedford.  Bus contacting is pretty fun because the people can’t go anywhere!!  We had some good contacting before having supper with the James family.  It’s amazing how involved they are in missionary work.  It’s great!!  After that,  we had a Family History Workshop,  and then a lesson with our investigator, Brian.  He’s the guy we met last week who we talked to about the Sabbath being changed to Sunday…well, we had a prayer before we taught the lesson, and that really helped me.  I was a bit nervous, but the lesson went really well and he wants to come to church now!  He’s a great guy and it’s exciting to be able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with him!

Friday – we did our weekly planning session and then took the bus down to the mission home where we met up with Sister Hendrickson (my mission mom!), as well as Sister Leavitt.  We practiced our music for the upcoming Senior’s Conference, and that went really well.  Sis. Hendrickson dropped us off at the bus terminal when we were done and we went back to Bedford.  We had a few minutes to grab some dinner, but we only had $3.00 between Elder Blum and myself, so we bought a baguette and ate it for dinner.  We finished off the night by helping a sister pack up her apartment.  It was a busy, non-stop day!

Saturday – We did some contacting on the waterfront, then we went to Cole Harbour for a Stake Priesthood Meeting.  It was so nice to be back there and see so many people from my first area!!  I’m hoping Pres. Leavitt will let me attend church there one Sunday before I return home.  We were able to swing by to say hello to Porter and Celeste Nelson on our way back.  Then we had a lesson with Donna, who is really solid and genuinely working towards baptism.  She is smart and understands everything we’ve been teaching her.  We did some knocking in the evening and then visited the Barnett family.  They are a lot of fun and we had a good visit.  They have a bunch of animals and showed me their horses…looking forward to riding in a few weeks!

Sunday – Meetings were good in spite of an “incident” with someone chewing out the sisters for something.   And I finally got to meet Bishop Johnson, who was back from vacation.  We went over there for dinner and it was great!  The Morrison family from Kentville ward also joined us for supper.  I had a good, long chat with Bishop Johnson on his deck and wish I had more time to work with him and in this area.  It was a great day!

That's about all for now!!

Love,

Elder Hunt

Royal Tattoo Performs in Halifax

The Saints of Sackville...

 Dear Family,

Well, this week has flown by!!  Last week we emailed over in Halifax and when we walked out of the library, the Royal Tattoo (a famous group of bagpipers, drummers and highland dancers) was performing.  They were quite amazing.  (I'll see if Mom can upload the video.)
In the evening we went to the Maclennan's for dinner, and they had invited the James family too, who just moved into the ward.  It was a wonderful dinner and evening.  We had Family Home Evening afterwards, and played a bunch of music.  One of the daughters (Savannah) is a talented fiddler, so we had a lot of fun playing.  We also shared a spiritual thought and they gave us some solid referrals too.  It was a good day!

Tuesday we went to Kentville for my last zone training meeting.  It felt strange to be the missionary who will soon be leaving.  I was asked to give my testimony, along with some of the other missionaries I came out with.  It was very emotional, and the spirit there was felt so strongly.  I'm so grateful for the growth of my testimony, and for the strength I've gained over the course of my mission.  And the ZT, we went back to Sackville and continued working.  We had dinner with the James family, who are great additions to the ward, and are very missionary minded!  We also met with President Leavitt at our apartment and we had our personal interviews with him.  I sure love meeting with President Leavitt and feel grateful for the relationship I have with him.

We did a lot of contacting and regular missionary work for the next couple of days.  We even had a family history workshop one night and it was cool to find information on Grandfather Barton's parents that linked everything else way back!

On Friday (Happy Birthday, Jaimi!) we had a zone fast to help us achieve our baptism goals.  We had some good quality gospel conversations and Elder Blum is getting much better with his contacting skills.  Tonight we had another lesson with Donna, who we taught for the first time on Wednesday.  The lesson went well and the spirit was really strong.  She is definitely taking it all in and is learning a great deal.

Saturday we started to see some good progress in Sackville!!  Our day began with some service for a non-member (his wife is an investigator) and we were able to talk a lot about the church as we worked.  He wants to have us back, so that's great!.  Then we stopped by a less-active's home, we met with him and his girlfriend, and she is interested in learning more about the church.  After that we had supper with another less-active, who's daughters are normally very closed-off, but they really opened up to us.  In the evening we were going to do some street singing with the Sisters, but then I felt impressed that we should go knocking on a certain road.  We knocked nearly the entire street without success...and then Elder Blum got a door where a really cute girl answered.  He started off the conversation with, "Uhhm, what kind of dog do you have?"  This might have been a rational question...except there was no dog in sight, anywhere!  It was absolutely hilarious and awkward!!  I jumped in and "saved" him, but he IS learning!!  Near the end of the road we knocked on the door of a man "just leaving for a wedding reception."  We talked at the door for a minute about Sabbath worship on Sunday vs. Saturday.  When I mentioned something about it in the Bible, he said, "Show me!"  I replied, "I thought you were going to a wedding reception..."  He opened his door and let us in.  Long story short, we had a wonderful lesson with him and he is very intrigued by the Book of Mormon.  Such a blessing!!

Sunday was wonderful.  We were kept so busy talking and working with members and getting so much accomplished.  I love working with the members and it is the only way to go.  It's incredible what happens when members are involved!  We also had dinner with the Fox Family.  He isin the Stake Presidency and has a great family.  Later in the evening we ended up behind some stores  in a back ally, and crossed paths with three people who are interested in hearing about the gospel.  It was amazing to see how the Lord worked things out for us.

Well, that's all the recap for this week.  Hope you're staying nice and cool in warm St. George!!

Love,
Elder Hunt

GOODBYE, NEWFOUNDLAND!! HELLO, SACKVILLE!!

Dear Family,

This was a rather difficult week.  I never thought I'd be saying "good-bye" to Newfoundland until the end of my mission.  This was a bit of a shock, and it was sad to have to leave.  On Monday we packed, then met up with Jeff Lingard.  What an amazing guy and friend!  Then we had dinner at Annie King's home and said our "good-byes."  After that we had "new trainers orientation" via skype.  That was good too.   

On Tuesday we had our last Zone Leader skype call.  It was kind of sad to be leaving that behind, but some of my most memorable times of my mission were when I was a district leader and had such close contact with other missionaries, so I'm looking forward to the good things about this transfer.  As Elder Dupont and I were driving to Gander to help out with some volunteering for Canada Day (July 1st), we sang "O Canada!"  It was kind of funny that I know the words to their national anthem better than Canadian Elder Dupont did in some places...thanks, Mom!!  (A month before he left on his mission, Rod and I, and Erika and Elder Hunt did a day trip to Las Vegas...two hours away...and I taught him all the verses to "O Canada!"  Figured it would serve him well for the rest of his life!)

  We got pretty pretty fried out in the sun for a few hours...but it wasn't too bad.  As we were walking back to the truck, a random parked car honked at us.  A gal waved for us to come over, so we did.  She was sobbing.  She had just found out her boyfriend had an aneurysm.  She had recognized us by our shirts and ties and wanted us to come pray with her.  We did, and spoke with her a bit.  She'll be a good potential for the new Elders coming in.

We also said goodbye to Regis, Tim and the Parkes.  Sad.

 

Wednesday was my last day in Newfoundland.  Thursday we were up bright and early to catch the plane to Halifax.  Elder Layton and Elder Knowles met us and drove us to the mission office.  My new companion is Elder Blum ("Bloom") and it was good to finally meet him.  We made our way to our apartment and found that is was like a bomb had gone off in it.  We did a lot of cleaning and organizing before heading over to the church for a Family History class.  We met the Ranglack's, a senior couple, and the sisters (Ward and Heirtzler).  

Friday was my first full day in Sackville and it's fun to be training again and have time to do so much more with studies as I try to help Elder Blum understand some things.  After studying and correlation, we went out contacting and finding.  Elder Blum got pretty nervous  and kind of jumped around.  It helped me realize how much I have learned in the past two years.  Everyone we talked to was pretty nice, though, and we got some good potentials.  As we spoke to one gal at a bus-stop, she ended up missing her bus, so I felt really badly.  

AND being in Canada for the 4th of July is really anti-climatic!!  Instead of celebrating Independence Day, everyone was buying supplies to get ready for the hurricane that was supposed to hit on Saturday.  AND Elder Blum is getting pretty sick...tends to happy with new missionaries!  *_*

The wind was blowing pretty hard on Saturday and we watched a bunch of tree branches get ripped off and blown down the street.  But it wasn't that bad, and we went out in it and did a lot of contacting.  However, we had one very "interesting" contact...turned out he was doing some work for the government and he was kind of scary.  It was a rather high stress situation, and I thought we might not come out of it so well.  But we're still alive, so that's a good thing!

Sunday was great!  We had ward council and everyone is so engaged in missionary work, and the members are wonderful!  I really enjoy having a good ward to work with and members that aren't afraid to be involved with the missionary work.

Time is sure interesting!  Sometimes it flies by and sometimes not so much.  I hope Elder Blum and I can work well as a companionship so that a lot of good work can be accomplished in this last month!!

Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Hunt

Elder Hunt's LAST Transfer!!

Hi Family!

So, lots of interesting stuff this week.  First of all, last Monday (the 23rd) I got a call from Elder Lockhart, the senior missionary in CornerBrook.  He told me that his daughter was getting married soon, so he called someone about printing the wedding announcements...turns out he talked to Aunt Janet!!!  He told her that he was on an island in Atlantic  Canada.  Janet knew I was out here, and Elder Lockhart said, "Let me guess...is the missionary you know Elder Hunt?"  She was surprised and asked, "How did you know??"  He replied, "Becausehe was at my house for supper a couple of nights ago!"  Small world!

One day this week we were out knocking, and there were about 8 kids in a yard playing with a soccer ball.  They were trying to see who could bounce it off their feet the most times without it touching the ground.  So naturally, I had to join in the fun.  I got it going pretty good before losing control, and then accidentally kicked it really hard and it drilled a little kid right in the face.  I felt bad as he ran away crying before I could do anything about it!

Another small world thing...found out that Sister Drew (who was in my PEI area, and is now in CornerBrook) is the niece of my good friend and coach, Kenny Rivera.  Amazing!!

A lot of the week was spent in anticipation of Rosie's baptism...finding a place in the river where she could be baptized.  This was harder than it sounds because she is very afraid of the water.  We found a couple of places that were promising, but then they didn't work out.  We even went up to a house that we saw with a nice pool in the backyard and asked if we might be able to use it to perform a baptism.  It was the most awkward door approach ever!.  Long story short, they declined.  Luckily Elder Dupont and I work well together and have a lot of laughs as we work, so that helps a lot!

Several things happened the last couple of days, we got a text from Rosie Saturday morning saying she was sick, had a long night, and wouldn't be able to be baptized that day.  It was a pretty big disappointment, especially since it was going to be done on my birthday.  As we were working through everything, we stopped at Annie Kings, and they had put up a birthday sign, made us hamburgers, and a cake for my 21st birthday.  It was such a nice thing, and really helped pick my spirits up.  They also gave me some cool Newfoundland keepsakes and gifts, which were great!  Then we went over to Cathy's place, and she had made a cake, too!!  We enjoyed eating that cake as well!!

Sunday was SUCH a surprise.  We remembered that transfer emails were coming out, and I was absolutely sure that Elder Dupont would be transferred and I would finish out this last six weeks in Grand Falls...well, I was totally shocked when I read the email saying Elder Dupont was being transferred to Halifax, and I was being transferred to Sackville, Nova Scotia to train a brand new missionary and to be the District Leader there as well!!  It's a little funny because when I left my Cole Harbour area at the beginning o my mission, I told everyone, "I'll be back before the end of my mission."  Turns out I was right, as I'll be back in the metro area and only about 15 minutes away from Cole Harbour.

After we found out about transfers, we had church and broke the news to everyone.  They were all shocked too, and pretty sad.  We had a good testimony meeting though and a giant pot-luck afterward.  Rosie was there and shared her testimony.  She has a strong testimony, and she apologized  about not getting baptized.  I was impressed that she would do that.  For the closing hymn, we sang :God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again," and I played the keyboard.  As we sang I couldn't hold back my tears.  I absolutely love these people of Newfoundland and I can't believe I have to leave in a few days!

Well, that better be all for now.  I am so excited that Amelia had her baby!  I can hardly wait to meet him and hold him!  I hope you all enjoy the 4th of July!  I sure love you all.

Love,

Elder Hunt