Yeah. The Family History Center was closed again today. Life is crazy right now. Sister Ayala and I are going to de-stress ourselves and do a little shopping. But first: the miracles.
Biggest miracle in our area this week: we went over to see our less active Hermana Delgado. She's been coming to church regularly for the past few weeks, but we hadn't seen her in a few weeks because we couldn't fit her into her schedule. She joined the church about eight years ago and has four kids - one isn't a member, one is married in the temple, and her two youngest kids are not active but still live at home. Her husband isn't a member either and every time when we come over, we invite him to our lesson but he declines and just sits on the couch nearby and watches TV. But something happened Wednesday night. We had just come from our super awesome Zone Conference (my LAST Zone Conference) and we just went over to Hermana Delgado's house for dinner and a quick message. Her husband wasn't home from work yet when we got there, but he got home 15 minutes later. We started talking to him when he came in, but the last thing we expected is that he would come sit at the table with us. When he did that, Sister Ayala and I had no idea what to do! But the Lord totally prepared the way. He had always been kind of cold and he wasn't religious at all. But without provocation, he came straight out and told us his needs. He talked about how he had seen so many deaths and trials in his life and in those of his close family members and he said he didn't care about what was going to happen after this life because he already felt like he was living in hell here. It was amazing. We were able to bear testimony that families really can be together forever and that through the Atonement, we can be free of all our pain and find true and lasting peace and happiness. The Lord prepared it all - but we were there when all the plans fell together. As missionaries, we really are the Lord's hands here and as members, we can be them as well. We're super busy so we're going to ask the elders to come over and teach him, but I'm grateful for the Lord's timing to see the rewards of our patience.
I've failed at sharing all the VC miracles for most of my mission, but now that we're in the VC every night, we're seeing miracles every night and I'm remembering them better! We had this one guy named Adam that came in - he's a practicing Catholic but he was totally open and has the biggest heart ever and he wanted a Book of Mormon! We had another Spanish family in the area that asked us why our church is different, and the dad, Vicente, wants a Book of Mormon! And he lives in our ward boundaries - not in our area but we'll get to see him at church! We had a ton of Spanish families come up to see the lights and some of them live in our area! We're excited to contact them this week and teach them the Restoration! It's going to be the best! I'm so grateful for the opportunity that the Lord has given me to learn Spanish because I just love it! I love the people and the culture and the language and everything. I'm just hoping and praying that I'll finish my mission here in Oakland! I love this city and this ward - but mostly I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father and the Atonement and the gospel. Because they make it all possible :)
Have a great week everyone!
Hermana Hunsaker
Monday, December 16, 2013
168 hours in 30 minutes
I'm going to write this email in ten minutes. But fitting in 168 hours worth of information in ten minutes is a little tricky. Thank goodness we get 8 hours of sleep every night as missionaries. So I only have 119 hours to cover. So a few of the things that happened in that time......
Well let's be honest. From those 119 hours, we had 46 of them in the Visitors' Center. It's been crazy, but there have been so many miracles and so many prepared people that have come. I can't even count how many non-members at the VC last night accepted the invitation to learn more - a lot of them were Spanish families too so I got to talk to them and answer their questions! Even though we're hardly in our area - and we haven't seen the miracles in our area YET from our sacrifices to be in the VC - the miracles we've seen in the VC this week are incredible.
One lady named Kathryn came in with her boyfriend after walking around and looking at the lights. She was two months pregnant so she saw the crib in God's Plan and wanted to watch it. She's super golden - she said she hasn't found a church that she likes but she loves reading the Bible and she had been wanting to read the Book of Mormon! She's amazing. There was another non-member that wanted to learn more and also referred her mom in NIGERIA. And so many people have come through and just had their hearts softened. It's so stressful, but it's the greatest experience. I feel so blessed to be part of the work at the Visitors' Center for yet another Christmas :)
We didn't have time for many lessons, but the awesome elders in our ward are going to help us teach and make contact with our investigators during this Christmas season. They are angels. We're going to make them pie for our district meetings. We're hoping to see more Christmas miracles and a few baptisms at the end of the month with the Ramirez and Sanchez families!
The other big miracle: we've had a lot of members come through the VC in the past week, and they have trusted us to give us referrals for their friends! It's so great to see members branching out and finding the faith and love for their friends to share the gospel with them. It's also so great to see so many families following the challenge of Elder Ballard to invite a friend to learn about the gospel before Christmas. I love the title of this talk more than anything: "Trust in the Lord". If we have faith in God, and love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and others, we can have the confidence to share the good news with others, especially this Christmas season. If you pray for God to guide you, He will help you take care of His children, even when we think we can't. That's what I'm learning, and we can all learn that as we take advantage of the month that we have to bear our testimonies of Christ.
Remember to keep Christ in Christmas this month, and help others do the same :)
Have a great week!
Hermana Hunsaker
Well let's be honest. From those 119 hours, we had 46 of them in the Visitors' Center. It's been crazy, but there have been so many miracles and so many prepared people that have come. I can't even count how many non-members at the VC last night accepted the invitation to learn more - a lot of them were Spanish families too so I got to talk to them and answer their questions! Even though we're hardly in our area - and we haven't seen the miracles in our area YET from our sacrifices to be in the VC - the miracles we've seen in the VC this week are incredible.
One lady named Kathryn came in with her boyfriend after walking around and looking at the lights. She was two months pregnant so she saw the crib in God's Plan and wanted to watch it. She's super golden - she said she hasn't found a church that she likes but she loves reading the Bible and she had been wanting to read the Book of Mormon! She's amazing. There was another non-member that wanted to learn more and also referred her mom in NIGERIA. And so many people have come through and just had their hearts softened. It's so stressful, but it's the greatest experience. I feel so blessed to be part of the work at the Visitors' Center for yet another Christmas :)
We didn't have time for many lessons, but the awesome elders in our ward are going to help us teach and make contact with our investigators during this Christmas season. They are angels. We're going to make them pie for our district meetings. We're hoping to see more Christmas miracles and a few baptisms at the end of the month with the Ramirez and Sanchez families!
The other big miracle: we've had a lot of members come through the VC in the past week, and they have trusted us to give us referrals for their friends! It's so great to see members branching out and finding the faith and love for their friends to share the gospel with them. It's also so great to see so many families following the challenge of Elder Ballard to invite a friend to learn about the gospel before Christmas. I love the title of this talk more than anything: "Trust in the Lord". If we have faith in God, and love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and others, we can have the confidence to share the good news with others, especially this Christmas season. If you pray for God to guide you, He will help you take care of His children, even when we think we can't. That's what I'm learning, and we can all learn that as we take advantage of the month that we have to bear our testimonies of Christ.
Remember to keep Christ in Christmas this month, and help others do the same :)
Have a great week!
Hermana Hunsaker
Monday, December 2, 2013
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Big news........the Ramirez family all came to church for the first time! Their dad is a less active member but both he and their mom has work off this Sunday (for once) so they all made it! And Antonio felt the Spirit there! We had to leave early to get to the VC for all the guests there but it was so so good. We talked about the Milennium in the second class so that kind of threw them off, but it turned out GREAT. Cynthia is totally living the Word of Wisdom now and they're totally getting baptized this month! Yay! They also came to the VC for a tour and came again when the lights came on Saturday night!
We had Thanksgiving at our bishop's home. This family takes care of us so much - every Sunday, they feed us and it was so great to be with them on Thanksgiving. Even though it's not quite my favorite holiday, it was nice to be in America to celebrate it, even in the Spanish program :)
The Sanchez family didn't come to church this Sunday but they did come to the VC Monday night - even Hugo! He loved the VC and even sent us the nicest text we've ever received from him afterwards, thanking us for the tour at the VC and everything we've done for his family. He's changing! He's totally going to accept a baptism date ANY DAY NOW and marry Lizeth! This family is the best, and they'll totally be ready to get baptized this month!
We're teaching one other family, the Romeros, but they're not quite progressing. Hno. Romero is all talk and says he wants to come to church and change and be free from the guilt of his mistakes, but he's not doing anything right now. His wife is studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses which makes things weird, but she reads the Book of Mormon consistently, more than he does, and says she wants to find the truth. We started teaching them the plan of salvation last week but we couldn't finish because they had so many questions, especially about what happens after this life. We're excited to answer those questions this week and help them find their testimonies!
One last miracle: Abby. I can't remember if I wrote anything about Abby, but one night we drove by her house and we had noticed it a few times before but we didn't knock it. That night, we decided to pull over and knock on the door. Little did we know that she just requested a Book of Mormon the weekend before! Her boyfriend is serving a mission right now and her family is super Catholic but she's looking for more. We finally had a lesson with her this week where we taught her about the Restoration. She already believes that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! Her boyfriend sent her some clips from General Conference as well and she believes that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet too! And on top of all of that, she told us that she had been praying to know what to do just one hour before we knocked on her door that night. And still, no other missionaries have received the referral and tried to contact her. The system totally lost her information, but God didn't forget about her, and he sent us there to find her. Listening to the Spirit is hard and sometimes we don't recognize promptings until after we see the results of acting on those promptings, but the gift of the Holy Ghost allows us to work miracles for God in the lives of His children. This was another testimony to me that God really does love us, His power is real, and this is His church because He "show[s] forth his own works in it" (3 Nephi 27:10).
The Visitors' Center will be CRAZY this month. We're there almost every night - we had over 1500 people come Saturday night when the lights turned on and another 800 last night. And I'm staying in Oakland, in the Visitors' Center and with Sister Ayala for yet another transfer! It's going to be great! I'm so grateful to be in the Visitors' Center for another Christmas :)
Have a great week, and a great start to the Christmas season!
Hermana Hunsaker
We had Thanksgiving at our bishop's home. This family takes care of us so much - every Sunday, they feed us and it was so great to be with them on Thanksgiving. Even though it's not quite my favorite holiday, it was nice to be in America to celebrate it, even in the Spanish program :)
The Sanchez family didn't come to church this Sunday but they did come to the VC Monday night - even Hugo! He loved the VC and even sent us the nicest text we've ever received from him afterwards, thanking us for the tour at the VC and everything we've done for his family. He's changing! He's totally going to accept a baptism date ANY DAY NOW and marry Lizeth! This family is the best, and they'll totally be ready to get baptized this month!
We're teaching one other family, the Romeros, but they're not quite progressing. Hno. Romero is all talk and says he wants to come to church and change and be free from the guilt of his mistakes, but he's not doing anything right now. His wife is studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses which makes things weird, but she reads the Book of Mormon consistently, more than he does, and says she wants to find the truth. We started teaching them the plan of salvation last week but we couldn't finish because they had so many questions, especially about what happens after this life. We're excited to answer those questions this week and help them find their testimonies!
One last miracle: Abby. I can't remember if I wrote anything about Abby, but one night we drove by her house and we had noticed it a few times before but we didn't knock it. That night, we decided to pull over and knock on the door. Little did we know that she just requested a Book of Mormon the weekend before! Her boyfriend is serving a mission right now and her family is super Catholic but she's looking for more. We finally had a lesson with her this week where we taught her about the Restoration. She already believes that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! Her boyfriend sent her some clips from General Conference as well and she believes that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet too! And on top of all of that, she told us that she had been praying to know what to do just one hour before we knocked on her door that night. And still, no other missionaries have received the referral and tried to contact her. The system totally lost her information, but God didn't forget about her, and he sent us there to find her. Listening to the Spirit is hard and sometimes we don't recognize promptings until after we see the results of acting on those promptings, but the gift of the Holy Ghost allows us to work miracles for God in the lives of His children. This was another testimony to me that God really does love us, His power is real, and this is His church because He "show[s] forth his own works in it" (3 Nephi 27:10).
The Visitors' Center will be CRAZY this month. We're there almost every night - we had over 1500 people come Saturday night when the lights turned on and another 800 last night. And I'm staying in Oakland, in the Visitors' Center and with Sister Ayala for yet another transfer! It's going to be great! I'm so grateful to be in the Visitors' Center for another Christmas :)
Have a great week, and a great start to the Christmas season!
Hermana Hunsaker
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