Hope everyone's doing swell! Not much has really changed this week.

Transfers are happening again though! Elder Kuehne and I are staying as the Zone Leaders of the Orange Zone and we are getting two new companionships! Everyone already here is staying except Elder Savainaia. (Ça-va-ee-noi-uh) I don't know how to write out how to pronunciate things. If I tried to explain it it would just confuse everyone. We had stake conference yesterday. A kid sneezed all over the back of my head. It was pretty nasty nasty. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened this week! a super short thought for the week.....

A lot of people are under the impression that 'Mormons' are extremely secretive. Surprise! Not really. This is usually brought up when we discuss Temples. Our Temples are Houses of God where we 1. make covenants with Him to keep his commandments, 2. Make covenants with our spouse (can't wait for that) for time and all eternity, and 3. Make those covenants for deceased persons. It's not that all of the details are secret. They are sacred. In Stake Conference, our Stake President pointed out that in the interview to receive a Temple recommend (yes, members of the Church if Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must pass an interview. Not just anyone can go in) one of the most important words in the interview is "strive." "Do you STRIVE to keep the covenants that you have made?" You don't have to be perfect, but you do have to do your very best. That's what the Atonement is all about. We do our very best, and then Christ makes up all the difference. So that question could possibly be rephrased to say, "Do you use the Atonement if Jesus Christ?" I know the Atonement is real.

It has the power to change human nature and the lives of individuals.

I love all of you so much! Have an incredible week!

Elder Hunter

Here are a couple pictures!

1. One of the districts in our zone. The sisters are not actually part of the district. Neither am I. The ZL's usually split up and the sisters were just fed up with the other district meeting. From L to R starting on the front row.....Elder Nye (Trainee), Sister Fulton, Sister Fernandez, Elder Savainaia, Elder Ryrie (trainee), Elder Bauman, my own good self, Elder Ader, and Elder Hamby! My MTC comp and the district leader.

2. Our massive zone! L to R starting with the front row....I will omit the elders and sisters....Ader, Fernandez, Fulton, Nye, Bauman, Savainaia, Kuehne (my comp), Ryrie, Fauatea, Westover (also a trainee), E.Z.J (Elder Zachary Johnson), Gentry, Meself, and Hamby!

3. This is the map of our entire mission. All the areas are numbered in the order I've served in them. My current zone is outlined in Orange because it's the Orange Zone. As you can tell, I have the biggest area in the mission. Disneyland is basically right where the 'x' is in my number 2 area.

Here are some other journal gems Hunter sent this week:

Jeez, I like simple rafts and kayaks. Material things really don't bring happiness. We were at dinner with some members earlier this week (they had some other members of the Ward over as well) and they were just going on and on about their boats and private river houses and how so and so was selling their $150,000 boat for $40,000 and this family should buy it....I was just so uncomfortable! It's as if they had nothing else to talk about except their money and what they do with it! So at one point of silence I interjected, pretending to contribute something of equal proportions to the conversation...."yeah so, back at home....we've got this four man....inflatable raft....that we use to go fishing and stuff.....it's pretty great." It was funny. :) but jeez, holy smokes! I was fed up with all the rich talk after a couple minutes.

Quote from Elder Mark E. Peterson Hunter studied last week and shared with us:

"I have a friend whose name is Kenneth. He has a lovely wife and four young children and is a good citizen and a generous provider. His family is united. They do things together, go places together, have fun together. Some people may wonder what more they possibly could have. But they do lack one thing--and it is a serious deficiency. They do not have that something which could make their happiness and togetherness permanent. They are so satisfied with the present that they never have considered the possibility that someday it may all stop and that they won’t have this happiness, this togetherness, any longer and that their present enjoyment may become but a pleasant memory. Kenneth and his wife, Lucille, are good people, honest and upright. They don’t go to church, though, and they feel they can be good enough without it. They teach their children honesty and virtue and they tell themselves that is about all the Church would do for them. And, anyway, they insist that they need their weekends for family recreation. Saturdays and Sundays are the only days Kenneth has free from his work, so church-going would really get in their way and would be an obstacle to their plans for each weekend--so they tell themselves."

Reading this, and thinking about what we could share with this family, I thought back to growing up. Without doubt both of you are right behind me as some of the most imperfect people in the world! But you know what matters most. To this day the greatest compliment I've ever received is "I hope that my daughter(s) can grow up and marry someone like you." At lunch with the Weidners last week, they told me that someone, in a church talk back in Burke said, "I hope that my girls will grow up and be able to marry boys like the Johnson's." Or something along those lines. I had to try really hard not to cry. The most influential thing in all of our boys lives is the example that you both set for us. Little things like wearing your suit coat to meetings. Watching every General Conference session. Helping set up and take down chairs. Having scripture study. Family dinner. Family movie night. Keeping the sabbath day holy. Writing in your journals. Doing your personal scripture studies. Having family prayer. Saying your personal prayers. These are just a few of the small things the prophets have asked us to do to have strong families. I'm so grateful to have been raised in a home centered (or at least attempted to be centered) on Jesus Christ, and where these teachings have been exemplified. It's made worlds of difference to me. I would rephrase Alma 56:48..."And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers and fathers lived it." I love you and the example that you've set for all of us.

Lots of Love!

Hunter

NOTE FROM MOM:  Hunter had an amazing visit from Virginia friends, The Weidner Family!  

Alright, so first off I'd like to point out something funny I realized this week.

Mark 3:14-17

"And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: And Simon he surnamed Peter; And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:"

So from this we can establish that Jesus gave people nicknames. Haha.

So funny. This week we went on an exchange with Elder Savainaia and Elder Hamby my MTC comp!  I went with Savvy. He's from New Zealand! We built a chicken coop. Yup. That was basically it. We also had Zone Conference! I got to conduct the first half (wasn't that exciting). We talked about using the Book of Mormon more! I love talking about the Book of Mormon! I challenge everyone to read it in just about every email I send. This weeks a bit different. I did some statistic research this week. The two arguments that can be made about the Book of Mormon are that Joseph Smith translated them by the gift and power of God, or that he made it up and wrote it all by himself. (People have tried to argue that Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smiths scribe actually wrote it, but that wasn't to hot. Using word prints (matching up texts with writing styles I believe) a study was done comparing the Book of Mormon to Sydney Rigdons writing style. It was decided that Sydney wrote the Book of Mormon. So some students at another University compared Sidney's writing style with the Articles of Confederation and it was discovered that he also wrote most of those! And he did it before he was born!) Anyway. Let us consider some conditions that must apply to someone writing a book comparable to the Book of Mormon.

1. You must be no older than 22. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from the age of 21-22.

2. You can only have a 3rd grade education.

3. You must write only on what you know. You are allowed to do no research.

4. Your book must include 239 chapters. 54 about wars, 21 about history, 55 about prophecy, 71 about doctrine, 17 about missionaries, and 21 about Jesus Christ's mission.

5. Your book must include a history of two distinct and separate nations.

6. You must describe the religious, social, economic, and political institutions of these countries over the period of 1000 years for one nation, and 2000 years for the other.

7. You must include and base your book on Christianity.

8. You must finish in approximately 80 days, and when finished make no changes (except for spelling mistakes of course.) 9. In telling a scribe what you wanted written, and pausing for sleep and food, you must never ask him/her to repeat back to you the last sentence/paragraph to you.

10. You have to fulfill bible prophecies in your book without making any kind of mistake or misinterpretation.

11. You must add 180 proper nouns to the English language.

The list goes on, but I don't have time.

So a challenge I'd like to issue to everyone, and his is a standing challenge for the rest of my mission, is to read the first 50 pages of the Book of Mormon, and try and write 10 pages like it.

The Book of Mormon is true. I know it. It doesn't make sense that it's not.

Love you all! Here's a few pictures of the car escapade last week!

Elder Hunter

1.-4. Elder Fauatea and I. Appreciate the dirt.

Well this week was pretty uneventful, except for when the husband of Barbra almost died, so she couldn't come to her baptism, so it is going to happen this Saturday! I made some cookies. They were pretty good. So.....straight to the meaningful story for the week.

On Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Fauatea. We went up this dirt road to see if there were anyone living up there, and there wasn't, so we began the process of turning the car around on this tiny dirt road on the side of a cliff. Then it got stuck. Then we got it unstuck. So I was backing him down to a spot where he could turn around, when he drove back up and tried to turn back around at the spot we got stuck in the first place! Except this time it was way worse. The car was almost sideways and the wheels were just spinning and digging deeper holes. We tried for nearly an hour to dig it out and get things under the tires to give them some traction. A perfect quote to illustrate is from Elder Richard G. Scott.

"As you walk to the boundary of your understanding into the twilight of uncertainty, exercising faith, you will be led to find solutions you would not obtain otherwise. With even your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His Eternal Plan is best for you, when it will yield the greatest advantage. Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. That causes your faith to increase and your character to grow."

I certainly felt like God was letting me struggle. We were not getting anywhere with the car, our tank was on empty, and it was hot and dusty and miserable and we were on the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere. Pretty hopeless. Finally we just stepped back, looked at it, realized we would get nowhere by trying to drive out. So we manually moved the car 45 degrees from the awkward angle it was at to the angle we needed it at to back down to the spot we could turn around at. It's interesting how God let us struggle before we found a solution. And even then, the solution wasn't particularly easy! We've all heard the phrase 'hindsight is 20/20.' This is ridiculously true with me. God seems to be telling me, "Hunter you do these stupid things, jeez, can't you just learn what I'm trying to teach you already?" This particular lesson is to recognize and follow the promptings that the Holy Ghost gives me. President Boyd K. Packer said that we would never make a serious mistake without being first warned by the Holy Ghost. Before heading up the dirt road, I had a very distinct uneasy feeling, but I ignored it. After talking about it afterwards with Elder Fauatea, he told me when he drove the car back up to turn it around, and ended up getting it stuck, he had a feeling when I was yelling at him to stop, that he should listen to me. In my instance, ignoring the promptings of the Spirit led to getting the car stuck and about an hour and a half of 'O crap, how are we going to get out of this?!' And the same thing resulted from Elder Fauatea's point of view. I promise the Holy Ghost is real, and if we look for its influence in our lives we will see it. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. I love you all so much! 

Elder H. Johnson

Vous le vous qu sha avec moi seis oua

Well, it looks like our country isn't going to last nearly as long as the Nephites did! There was a friend of a member back in A4 who came from some European/Asian/middle eastern country that said everything that is happening in the U.S. is what happened in his country before it all fell apart. Satan has simply convinced people that 'morally straight' doesn't matter. It's good to hear of the new families in the Ward, though it's sad that there isn't a lot of youth. Ask the bishop of a list of all the less active families with youth and visit them! I'm happy that mom had a good birthday! Yay for mommy! 

My companion is just frustrating. He thinks he can substitute hard work for obedience, and he tells people that were being blessed in this area because we are working hard. Kinda true, but he takes that as 'cool, so we don't have to be obedient!'. He won't correct anyone either. I had to correct one of our District Leaders last p-day for something pretty serious, and it was pretty public, what he was doing, so I wrote him a quick email. I'm not very good at sugar coating, or correcting in person, so I ended up coming down pretty hard on him. I talked to him later. He is one of my favorite elders. It was all good. I talked with Elder K about it on the way home and he basically said, well, I don't really care about what other people are doing. Just keep us in your prayers! I think President T might release him this next transfer. 

We are having a baptism this Saturday, so I will have some more pictures for you then! We are also having two more baptisms this month. The lady that came to church last week and her son committed to the last weekend of August. She has been so prepared by the Lord. She met with Elders almost 20 years ago, and had really bad nightmares. So now she is ready. She recognizes the spirit so well, so we know when she prays about the Book of Mormon she will get her answer! This Ward hasn't seen a baptism in a few years, and we are planning on having 5-11 by the end of the year. Here are a couple pictures of me! They are the only ones I have right now. We were teaching this Chinese girl, that is super hard to teach because of the language barrier.

Elder Hunter

1. Pygmy goat named Theodore. He is my new best friend.

2-3. Back yard and view of the person we are teaching.

Faith to find a 284 year old violin:

So.....some of you may be wondering about the subject line.......that wondering will have to wait until I get to that point in telling about this week. The week started off full of so many set lessons with so many people! And of course almost all of them got cancelled. Woohoo!

BUT! B is getting baptized this Saturday, and M and her son are both getting baptized at the end of this month! So although we had a lot of cancelled appointments, we had a lot of good! Anyway, so we ended up doing a lot of service this week. I helped dig a big trench that was a yard deep, a foot wide, and 22 feet long. That was tiring. We also found a whole bunch of new people to teach! Now skipping to the subject line part to tie it back to the people we found this week. First off, old violins are super cool! And they're not exactly like dandelions, growing wherever. So we were helping a guy in another Ward organize a whole bunch of stuff in his garage. He is an antique collector. When we finished I asked him if I could look at the broken violin he had, and he said I could have it. OK! Cool! So he gave it to me along with another antique violin that was not broken. The broken one was made in 1730. Nuts. Definitely one of the coolest things I've ever stumbled upon. So the point I want to make with this....if I can run across a violin made in 1730, not even making an effort to find one, it's so much more possible to find those that are looking for the fullness of the gospel! I love you all! I'll try to send les photos in a bit.

Elder Hunter