I think I'll be in this area for three transfers. We cover the entire Orange Stake and the sisters cover the entire Irvine Stake. Those two stakes make up the Orange Hills YSA Ward. We are most definitely going to go tabling at the colleges around here though. Sounds like things are going will with Justus's GF. It's an interesting thing, but I've developed a strong testimony of dating anyone as long as they have the right standards. As long as you make it clear that the relationship will never get serious because you are going to marry in the temple. It's something that a lot of no members don't understand. And that's what leads them to investigate the church! There was a guy that was baptized right before I got into peters canyon that started investigating the church because he was dating a member. Now he is an incredibly strong and committed member. He attends gospel doctrine instead of essentials. Always trying to tell other people about the church, always shares cool stories about following the spirit with. Then Sean, the guy were teaching right now. Same story except he's not baptized yet. He is afraid of getting committed and then missing church because of work. (He's in the police academy and is waaaaaaaayyy busy.) but he'll get baptized soon. Don't worry about Justus. He'll get married in the temple. I know the star wars ride you're talking about! That was a super fun one! I loved it! It was like being in the movie! The kids got sick with grandma and grandpas cooking?! No.....no way.....you must be joking! ;) Email me on Tuesday and let me know how the discussion with Sarah goes! This week we just went to meetings and went out to try and visit people in between them all! It was great fun. It's nice to be able to have a fresh start in a new Ward with new (and lots more) people to visit and teach. A guy named Michael came to church and we had a lesson with a young Mexican guy named Carlos. He's going to college and is pretty open to listening to us but will not get baptized. But we can work on that. :) This morning we went mountain biking with a member from Peters Canyon. It was fun! I ran. They biked. It was hard. We did 7.5-8 miles. Then we went to rugby and played hard for two hours. I am completely pooped! We also got a whole bunch of Christmas decorations from Kuehne's parents, so we are going to decorate our apartment a little bit. That's about all that has happened this week. I know, super boring. :/ What did you have for your birthday dinner?! You didn't tell me! 

Hunter

Heya everyone, sorry this is late! I got permission to send emails today so here you go! This last week was interesting. I'll start with the service project I threw together was in the canyon. There is this Christian retreat camp thing and it's waaaay down at the end of one of the canyons with nothing in it. So none of us knew it was there. A couple weeks ago when I was on exchanges, after a lesson in the canyon Elder Kupu and I decided to take a look down this one side road just because we could. And we found this place! I spoke to one of the head guys there and told him if they ever needed help with anything they could give us a call and we could get a couple guys to come help out.

Lo and behold, two weeks later we got a call and a couple of the guys that help take care of the place said they needed help cleaning the whole place up for a group that was coming over the weekend! They had found out last minute and were freaking out because there was so much to do. They asked if we could come Wednesday or Thursday so we came Wednesday. Called up everyone in the zone to get as many people as possible there and we were able to get 16-18 out of the 22 people in our zone there! We weed whacked lots of weeds, ripped out lots of nasty plants, wiped down mattresses, vacuumed the sketchy dorms, mopped the floors of some that didn't have carpets, I got bit by a fire ant, we cleaned and moped the kitchen (picture a scout camp kind of thing). When we finished up Kevin (the guy we were helping) came up to me and asked us to put our names all down on a piece of paper so he could sign off our service hours. The whole time he had thought that we have to have a quota of service hours for school or something else!

So I explained to him that we didn't need service hours, we just wanted to help. In all there was about 150 man hours of work provided by our zone. He was super grateful and couldn't believe we were just coming to help. So now they love Mormons.

Story two!

Tuesday night we were going to go to a bible study in Orange. We went, but couldn't find it, so we got our and walked around for a bit. Right where we parked there was his open room with a few people inside, so we went to ask them if they knew where a bible study was in the area.

The hey said, "no, but you should stay here!" So we did. Turned out they were an ex-Mormons for Jesus group (not trying to step on anyone's feelings here but......here we go! That is the dumbest and most contradictory name for any organization I can imagine. Mainly because only 3 out of the 15 people there were formerly LDS.) That was really interesting. Most of the people there were "concerned Christians' or otherwise had questions that their Mormon friends didn't answer in their bygone days of middle school. The whole time they (the three) were trying to tell us we were wrong about what we believed. Quick request of everyone. If you ever have a question about what Mormons believe, or, even bigger, WHY we believe something, please ask me. If you want to learn math, go to a math teacher. If you want to learn history go to a history teacher. If you want to learn about Mormons, go to an ex-Mormons for Jesus meeting. Just kidding! Go to a Mormon!!!!! So that was fun and exciting, and it makes a great story.

Last thing for the week....transfers have come and gone again! Bother Elder Kuehne and I have been transferred out of Peters Canyon and will be splitting the Young Single Adult Ward with the sisters in our zone!

It'll be interesting getting used to teaching a different demographic.

It'll also be interesting being with one companion for so long.

Sooooooo looooooongggg!! That's about all I can think of now! Love you all!

Elder Hunter

Picture of Kuehne with a snake. And elder Nelson is behind him. Kevin is to the left.

Here are some small gems taken from Hunters letter to family this week.  He apparently didn't have time to write a letter or send pictures in a general email.

 I love that Elder Robbins quote! Keeping the gospel simple is hard sometimes. Idealized its because I keep on learning more and more, and I want to share it all! But that's not how it works! Milk before meat! The more I learn, the more I have to go back and think of what my investigators need to hear and I need to remind myself that what we need to teach is enough! They don't need to know what Kolob is and how far from the sun it is. That's a bummer the camping trips keep falling through....have a blast in Florida! We are excited for this week and hope to make the best of it! 6 more days and then I'll get a new companion.....I'm ready for a change. Sorry his ones kind of short. We didn't have a lot of time today. :/

 We didn't go to any nursing homes.....I don't even know where one is in our area. I don't think there are any. But we are going to go to a bible study tomorrow! We were able to teach three or four lessons this week! Two of them were when we were on exchanges and I was in the area.
 

A letter to his younger brother who was complaining about going to Disney World...Let me tell you a story. 

There was a guy that moved from his old apartment complex to a new one. He spoke with the guy at the leasing office and said, "I hated my old complex. The neighbors were loud,  the kids were always making to much noise, the water wasn't hot enough, and the Pool was always like warm." How am I going to like this place?" The guy in the office said, "your going to hate it." Dang. New guy is angry. Another guy comes from a different place. "How's this place, he asked. The office guy says, "How did you like your last place"? "Oh, it was amazing! My neighbors were amazing, they had the cutest kids! The room was cozy and the pool was always just right!" Office guy says, "You're going to love it here! This place is great!"
Understand? Hope you have a more enjoyable week!

This week was incredibly busy and extremely exciting! We started it off with Mission Leadership Council on Tuesday. 6 hours of training fro President and Sister Taggart and the AP's! The main focus of it was having desire. Desire to do our personal and companionship studies in order to better learn and treasure in our hearts the principles and doctrines of the gospel we teach! It wasn't as boring as it sounds.

But it gets better. As zone leaders, we are responsible for carrying the training we receive in MLC to the rest of our zone. So we have to put together a two and a half hour training out of the notes we take.

That takes place on Thursday and is called Zone training. Almost all the missionaries in our zone hate meetings, so the real challenge is making it interesting. We were driving in the car on Sunday (the 25th) talking about what we would do to make it interesting. Seeing as it was the week of Halloween, I declared that we would carve pumpkins as a zone for part of zone training! So that night, still unaware of what we would be teaching, we called up our Relief Society President and told her we needed 11 pumpkins. We figured out what we were teaching Tuesday, planned Zone training on Wednesday, got the last few pumpkins Wednesday night, then carved pumpkins for 30 minutes of the training on Thursday! It was a lot of fun, but here's how it tied in. When we teach people, we teach the same principles, but we tailor the way we teach to the individual. When everyone had finished carving their pumpkins, we pointed out that they had all carved different Jack-o-lanterns. Just like people don't all make the same exact Jack-o-lanterns, we shouldn't give scripted lessons to everyone! If people are more important then pumpkins, then how much more important is it to study and prepare a lesson for a person than carving a jack-o-lantern? It was a pretty bomb object lesson and one of the most enjoyable zone trainings ever! The rest of the week was pretty hum drum, but we were able to go to a couple "Halloween parties" for a short time on Friday! (We had to turn in early on Halloween) Everyone thought I looked like Ron Weasley. It was a fun end to the week and the month of October. Here's a short thought to start off he new one!

"Character cannot be summoned at the moment in crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision that can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character."

- Daniel R. Coats

To kind of go along with our zone training this week, character is determined by desire and action. In our fast and testimony meeting, a lady in our Ward shared a story of how her son had lost a tiny Lego from his Lego titanic ship. They looked for it forever, and even after praying for help to find it, I hey couldn't. She sent her son back to the house to grab a piece similar to it to put it in the grass to see what it looked like, and while he was gone and she was sitting down, she suddenly saw the piece in front of her, right where she had already combed over multiple times. This is a tiny thing. Probably not even something most would count as a miracle. I think this speaks volumes about the character of God as our loving Heavenly Father. He cares enough about a little boy enough to take time out of his probably busy God schedule to help him find it. It's the little things that count. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. I love all of you so much! I say it every time because I mean it!

 Hunter

The pictures:

Carving Pumpkins for Zone Training!

My Halloween costume. I was trying to be an evil Brother Thommason (a guy in our Ward with longish black hair. Also the most intelligent person I've ever met. So all of you don't get it. But it was really funny. Everyone else thought I was Ron.