Hullo everyone!

This week has been incredibly slow! Out of all the appointments we had set with people, three of them happened! Woohooooo! So we spent a lot of time going, "sigh......well what do we do now? I guess there's some doors over there that look kinda nice, let's go knock on them!" So we do. That's actually another bright spot in my life right now! It's super fun to laugh about the things that people make up as an excuse to not talk. Then on Sunday the weather decided to go arctic and rain simultaneously, so riding our bikes in that was super fun! We left the smell of wet elder in our ward mission leaders truck when he gave us a ride home after dinner. This next week undoubtedly has many exciting things in store! I'll let you know when they happen. An pictures will come later today! Finally!

Elder Hunter

1. Our zone at the temple trip cuz i forgot if i sent that one..
2. Me on a dolphin

3. This guy was a drug adict for 25 years and then got his life back together

4. Me and elder Choi! He plays the piano like a boss...so like elder Thompson!!!!

1. Elder Choi and Elder Shawcroft
2. Brother P. He's 93. And still mobile!!!

3. Elder Johnson by a wild Lamborghini!!

4. Chinese New year Dinner with Sister L

1. Me looking epic

2. Me modeling my running shorts

3. Modeling my running shorts again

4. Me getting super excited about reading the Book of Mormon!!!!!!!

This is Hunter's letter to his Dad.
This week has been full of doing the obedience walk. It's really depressing. So many people here have even harder hearts than Laman and Lemuel. A lot of people think it's easier to serve in the U.S. Or in California. Or just easier to serve in populated areas. I'd much rather serve in some backcountry place of a foreign country where it took time to get places and where people would 'have time' to listen. I'd much rather not have members feed us and have everyone ten miles apart than what I'm stuck with right now. Almost all of our investigators, potentials, and less actives say, "just come by and see if we're here!", when we try to set up a return appointment .  I just want to yell at them sometimes. Tracting has been dubbed a 'waste of the church's time and resources.' Most of our appointments always fall through, and no one is ever home. It makes it soooooooo hard to be actively doing something. Which is one of the good things about riding bikes around, but our area is only about 3 square miles, so........basically it gets to the point of there just being....nothing to do! It's great....

   It's awesome that you were able to hang with a seventy that's friends with president Riggs! I actually just met someone who's family is really good friends with his family! It's too bad that mom couldn't eat anything, but hey, when you have new running shoes everything else is inconsequential! I'm glad you were able to talk to Katherine! She is really excited about going back to Japan.

    The Scott sterling video was going on at a members house or just some person's house sometime. So many people here have their tv's on all the time. If you walk through some neighborhoods you can hear the sound of tv's because there are so many on. The Super Bowl was even worse than what it's regularly like, if you can imagine that. My pink running shorts aren't completely pink. They just have a strip of pink on the side and I just call the, my pink running shorts in order to differentiate them. And they're not racing shorts. Racing shorts and running shorts are different, and that difference is about 6-8 inches. But I do think just pink running shorts would be amazing! Or yellow or green. But they would have to be a bright green.

      We are starting to work more with a couple less active/part member families. Excited to see where that goes! I like that TIP thing. The problem here is that people do not recognize the significance of things, recognize promises, or even recognize the spirit. We're trying though! Thanks for your testimony. I appreciate and treasure it, and would like to also leave you  (and the fam) with a thought. Something I've come to realize and need more is member missionary work. Our area is barely hanging on to life. It is virtually impossible to find new people to teach by finding ourselves. Members are so important. What I really want is members that will say to their friends, 'we're having some missionaries over! Come and listen to them! They can answer all your questions!' And when they say yes, give us a call and say hey, we're having some friends over at this time to listen to you guys! So invite people over to hear the missionaries! If you tell the missionaries a day in advance they will be soooooo prepared. As long as they have nothing scheduled. It will develop your trust for them, and their trust for you. Trust goes both ways on a mission. Not just members trusting missionaries. I don't trust most of my ward here (even though they are awesome) to have anyone for us to teach. I wish so much more that I'd done that before my mission. Just sharing talking about modesty or the word of wisdom with someone isn't enough.  Follow up everything like that with an invitation to come and listen to the missionaries, and make it so they can't say no. If they can't do a day or week, just say, well, we are available this day, and keep on doing that until you finally have a day set! So that's my rant. I love you all!

Elder Hunter

(P.S. If you want to see an example of what I'm doing to proselyte on Facebook, search for the fox 13 news thing on the excommunication of John Dehlin.)

Hey everyone!!!! This last week has been hoooooot! It was 90 a few days, and on bike and in this California sun, that is NO fun!!! You can feel the gamma rays frying you. It hurts.  Everyone this week just......decided to not be home without telling us, so that was really convenient. One of the highlights of this week was meeting with C and A though. They were actually there!  And they were putting together a TV stand, so we helped C put that together in a jiffy, then sat down for a short lesson!!! A said she had been thinking about getting baptized, so we were pretty stoked about that, as you all can probably imagine! That is about where the great stuff ends. In other news......going  mountain biking on p-days is becoming somewhat of a regular thing! Today we went to a great spot in Peters Canyon. It was the first time I was in that area and I loooooved it! We biked/ran from a parking lot to a huge nature park that has hills galore! It was a runner's heaven! We ran up some small mountains and close to the ridge line to the top of a large hill. Then we went back.  On the way back my companion wiped out spectacularly! He hit his seat so hard the metal part bent about 10 degrees backwards, the handle bars were mangled, and one of the front prongs on the handle bars (so if you want your grip facing forwards instead of sideways) broke completely off. And the tires got a bit twisted. And his pants ripped almost in half. Lucky he brought spares! So that was super fun. And now I am beat, and ready to start another week of teaching people about the gospel of Jesus Christ!! Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I love you all!

Elder Hunter

I love the temple! That's awesome that you were able to go on Kumen's birthday! I was wondering if you could send me some cartoon cutouts for the plan of salvation lesson. Do you remember the sisters that would come over in Texas and do the thing with the puddles and bridges? Something like that. Also, what is a good recipe for dump cake? I'm not sure what exactly to do with a cake mix and fruit I have and I don't wanna ruin it! And what is that stuff you told me to use to get protein stains out of clothes? If you send me any clothes, I wouldn't complain if you sent me another one of my old long sleeve shirts. With the gold tag on the neck. 

Mom, you will make an awesome 1st councilor! You're out of the Primary! That's crazy! How long has it been since you've been in the relief society?? It sounds like Avery is as cute as ever! Sorry about few pictures. I take them with my iPad (have you gotten the letter from the proselyting department yet?) and then have to take pictures of the pictures and then upload them through the computer. Since we're on bike we have to kind of go along with whatever the other elders driving us around are doing. 

Today we had a super good lesson! Taking time out of p-day was so worth it! We taught M (investigator, cop, and SWATT sniper) and L (returning member, cop) who got married about 2 years ago. They are having a kid!! Yayyyyy! M is willing to prepare himself to be baptized and has already come to church twice. He just needs to feel the spirit. We retaught the restoration today because he didn't really understand the whole Joseph Smith story. It was super good. You know those pamphlets? Best teaching tools ever. Start on the cover. "What do you see?" Then explain. Next picture. "What do you see?" And continue throughout the whole pamphlet and elaborate as the spirit directs. It's super awesome. 

I didn't send out a general email last week. I didn't have time. But I made sure to write you guys! There's not much to tell about our area right now. We now have a grand total of 12 investigators, but we only meet with 3 on a regular basis. N, the 95 year old, M, the guy we taught today, and M.....but she isn't really progressing to much right now. I'll try to send more pictures! I love you guys a lot!

Elder Hunter

Hey everyone! This week was pretty slow! Buuuuuut we had transfers!!! I'm staying in Good ol' P3 with Elder Johnson, but come 6 weeks and I'm going to get transferred or get a new companion. The ideal situation would be staying in P3 and training a new elder. We're going
to be getting a lot more in the next few months because about 100 people are going home in the next 3 months. Anyway.....this week was really slow until Wednesday. That night on our way back from the apartment I got a call from Sister Taggart (and talking on the phone with someone while biking home in industrial Anaheim is always fun). She said there was a leadership meeting they wanted me to come to, so we changed our plans for going on exchanges with our District leader and Elder Johnson Jr. went in a trio for the day and I went with the Zone Leaders to a SEVEN HOUR MEETING! It went from 9:00-4:00 and we had a 15 minute lunch break. It sounds really miserable, I know, and it was, BUT it was AWESOME!!! They (pres. Taggart, Sis. Taggart, Tom Jackman, and Bro. Donaldson) spoke a lot about a lot of things, but what struck me the most was what President Taggart said about the Book of Mormon. <Now, for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a book of modern scripture that is (in place of a lengthy explanation) proof of God calling a prophet on the earth again. That is why mormons
are nicknamed mormons and it is one of the most important things in this world that can be shared with people. And spoiler alert for when missionaries come knocking on your doors (if they have not already :), as missionaries we ask people to read and pray about the Book of
Mormon. Because if you do, God will confirm the truth that it was translated by the gift and power of God by a prophet.> Anyhoo, basically he said that those we're teaching NEED to read the Book of Mormon. AND ITS TRUE! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to change human nature so people can change their lives. And people we are teaching are not doing their part to change, and people in S. Cali got BIG problems that they need to change. The other thing I learned that I want to share is something I've never known before. For those of you
who don't know what September 21st is, it is called the Fall Equinox. For those of you who don't know what that is, it means 'The Day of The Harvest.' It is the day that Joseph Smith was told about the Book of Mormon by an Angel of God and the day he continued to be taught by that angel for 4 consecutive years afterwards. The fact that the Restoration of the Gospel really began on the 21st brings new meaning to the following revelation from the Lord to Joseph Smiths father.

1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.
I'll just leave it up to all of you to see the significance of that connection. I love you all! Have a fantastic week!
Elder Hunter