Hey everyone! This week was pretty low key  like last week, but there were a few interresting things that happened! First and foremost was C. We just started talking to him as he was sitting outside waiting for his apartment to be clear from the poison spray. Lemme tell you, I don't think I have ever been asked questions so deep in my life! It was super fun answering them, and by the time we finished talking with him, he was 1. Satisfied with the answers we gave him, and 2. intent on reading the Book of Mormon from cover to cover. Just that made this week awesome. Then on Thursday I was able to go listen to Jeffrey R. Holland at Chapman University!!!!! I was sitting 30 feet away from him! For those of you who don't know who that is, he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He is an incredible speaker and he teaches with the power and authority that only an apostle can have. One of my favorite quotes was, "People are not better off when they are given maximum freedom to do whatever they want." I'll let you all think about that one. It's good. It was amazing listening to him talk about faith, family, and religious freedom. That is about all the cool stuff worth mentioning this week!

So sorry I didn't send this last week, here's the updates for this most recent week!

This week was a week to remember! First off.....we had our I-pad exchange and I-pad meeting on Tuesday, so now we have the iPad's that we are going to be keeping! There was a lot of interesting things talked about. First and foremost, the area 70 that came to talk to us spoke extensively about (and I am paraphrasing) how part of getting iPads and being trained on how to use them was inoculating ourselves against pornography. We are developing skills of responsibly using technology while on a mission in order to retain those acquired skills and apply them when we complete our missions. Something I learned, that the Spirit told me during this meeting, when we were talking about Agency, was that, "Satan try's to take away our agency by changing us from divine beings, created to act, to objects to be acted upon." To many people allow themselves to be changed into objects to be acted upon, by video games, cell phones, iPads, movies, etc....we can do better than that. Another cool story, about agency, that this seventy told us was about Elder Bednar, another Apostle. In a meeting with some people, a man stood up and said something along the lines of, I have my agency, so I can choose weather or not to pay my tithing, or fulfill my calling, or go to church, etc...Elder Bednar asked this person if he was a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. He said yes. Bednar then asked him, "Could you now raise your hand and tell me that you're a covenant breaker?" When we make covenants with God, hat is when we use our agency. We are choosing then to do what God wants us to. So when that comes up in the future, we are not necessarily using our agency to make a choice. We are using our agency to break a sacred covenant. If we choose to break our covenants, we do not understand agency.

Continuing with the week in chronological order, Tuesday night, Johnson was in bed with his eye cover on, and I was at my bedside.

Suddenly we heard BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM and saw flashes of light. I dived into our closet so fast that an Olympic sprinter would have been impressed at how fast I moved. Elder J almost didn't see me. In the meantime, he stood up and wildly looked around. After the noise stopped, I carefully crept out of the closet, grabbed a knife, and we went out to the balcony to kill the gunman. And that's when we found the firecracker. We learned from this that in a life or death situation, I would leave Johnson to die, and he would get gunned down before he realized what was happening. We had so much adrenaline going through us that he didn't get to sleep until midnight and I was up until 1:00!

On Thursday night, I got a call from the AP's telling me that I would be training! So tomorrow I'm getting a brand spankin' new missionary!

On Saturday, in anticipation of getting together with the zone for transfer calls, we were heading back to the apartment after a few appointments around 7:30 so we could get picked up. I was going down a road under construction at 32 mph, when all of a sudden there were orange traffic construction sticks in front of me! I blew through 4 of them and then the world turned upside-down and all over the place! My shoe flew off, my tail light broke off, my helmet was fractured (big

cracks) in 10 different places and my backpack and shirt had some holes in them. The only injuries I got were scratched elbows, and a nastier scratch on my shoulder, along with quite a bit of difficulty in raising and rotating it. But now I am ok. 😄 if I hadn't been wearing my helmet, I would be very dead or very much in a coma, because I hit the asphalt reeeeallly hard. My backpack saved my back, and it was more full of stuff than usual at the time, so there was some extra cushioning. My bike tires look like Dr. Seuss tires now, so I'm gonna get new ones soon. It was probably the most epic crash ever.

And then an hour and a half later, I got a call telling me I was going from Placentia to Anaheim! Disneyland is IN MY AREA!!! Pretty cool. So I am sadly no longer in good ol' P3, but good things are gonna start happening in A4 east-side! I love you all! Pictures will hopefully come next week!

Elder Hunter

From a letter Hunter sent to Seminary Class in San Antonio:

I know this church is the church of Jesus Christ, which is more than just a church.  It is the Kingdom of God on Earth.  It contains all the authority, power and truth necessary for conducting the work of salvation on Earth.  I know that fulness of the Gospel has been restored.  I know we are all here at this specific time for a reason.  I know Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  He is our Elder Brother.  He was born and He died, but that was not His beginning and End.  It was all part of the plan laid before the foundation of the world in order for us to obtain exaltation.  It is up to all of us to accept this gift or reject it.  I know the way to fully accept it is through the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know Joseph Smith was the Prophet fore-ordained to usher in that Restoration.  i know he translated the Book of Mormon through the gift and power of God.  I know these things not only because they make sense, but because God has revealed the truth of these things to me by the Power of the Holy Ghost.  I promise you all that "DAD" is watching out for us.  He is there for us, and we only have to turn to Him for help, and He will give it, though perhaps not in the way we want it.  I love you all and leave you with my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Hunter Johnson

"Vision without effort is daydreaming, effort without vision is drudgery but vision coupled with effort will obtain the prize."

-Thomas S. Monson

Well, sounds  like San Francisco is  like my mission! I understand your disappointment in people not bearing their testimonies. Elder Holland came to Chapman University to speak on Thursday and I had the opportunity to go to that. I was sitting 30 feet away from him! You could definitely recognize the spirit in him, but since it was a multi-faith event he didn't share his testimony at the end the way he does in general conference. That was a little disappointing, but it was still cool to be able to go and listen to him. I was praying one night this last week, (I prayed every night, and spent more time quite a few nights, but this night was special) just trying to figure out what to do with our area, and the spirit told me, "Never underestimate the power of your testimony." So it seems  like the Spirit has been telling us the same things!

Sorry I emailed past 6:30 on Monday, I wasn't really thinking, and it's kinda hard to send pictures, but I'll do better with not sending super late emails. Monday evenings are actually not very good for proselyting.....we usually only have time for 1 appointment, and if that falls through we try to contact one or two people then go home. I live at 3530 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim California. My area goes up to Yorba Linda Blvd and is bordered on the sides by Kraemer and Jefferson Ave. Orangethorpe is all destroyed for construction so it is really difficult to get around to visit people. So that's why getting around is so tough. And then there are lights. And the lights are horrible here. I'll try to get a picture of my district this week, but no promises. Last week was really tough. The momentum just died down with so many of our investigators. They hear what we believe and are  like, ok, cool, well now I know what you believe.... And like I've told so many people, there are three things that can happen when you knock on a door. They are A. Catholic, B. Not interested or C. Not home. 😕I'm

glad you enjoyed all the books! I told mom, but I get them from the library. There's a shelf of free books, so when I notice one you guys would  like, I grab it. Love you!

Elder Hunter

Mommy, I'm so glad you guys enjoyed everything I sent. I'm going to try and send another box soon. I didn't spend any money except the money it took to send it. In the library there is a shelf of free books, so when I walk by if I see something you guys would  like, I snatch it up! So I might get a book every other week or so. I'm glad you are taking care of the starfruit seeds! I might send some more with the next box. I did get the music! Thank you sooooo much! I love most of the songs on there! And your thought on testimony and stuff,me ell that's how I feel about a whole bunch of things to! Listening to Elder Holland on Thursday for example. But I'll tell about that later. And thank you for sharing that about our own light and computer light. I definitely agree. Thank heavens for tv's though so we don't have to watch movies on the computers! 😄 and it is really sad how many people go on the Internet for answers. I was actually trying to teach a hardcore anti guy on facebook. He was a member, served a mission, and then let his testimony be dashed by little things  like black people and the priesthood, marriage rights, etc....it just made me sad that he ended up  like that, but hey, being nice pays off! He was extremely appreciative of how nice I was because apparently members that message are always full of hellfire and damnation. But anyhow, M and L are going to have a baby boy! My testimony of priesthood blessings was strengthened a lot. The baby's blood work came back positive for Down syndrome. The blessing Bro, R gave said everything would be alright and it was! It would be awesome if you sent something. It would be cool to surprise them with something  like that. Love you!

Elder Hunter

 (I was able to catch Hunter online and asked about service opportunities, this is his response)

Hahahaha, mommy I love you so much! Service is something we are constantly trying to do. Every time we visit members, we ask them, in addition to asking for friends to teach, what we can do to serve them or what opportunities of service they know of. We try to do soooooo much service. This week on Tuesday we are going, after our iPad training meeting, to help a divorced sister in our ward, who is one of my absolute favoritest, make cookies and do yard work. She always has tons of cookies in her freezer so she can throw them into the oven at a moments notice for any missionaries that come by. If it is within your means, do everything you can to be the ward member that ALL missionaries in the mission know, love, and want to visit before the ends of their missions. But anyhoo, thank you for your prayers and fasting. We definitely need them. And a quick update of the exciting news from this week......we had 6 whole lessons! One guy, (he remembers being baptized as a kid, and never went to church again) had a ton of intriguing questions that I wish people would ask us more. Who is God? Why are there black people? (That was a hard one to answer, and I did a very good job of explaining it without skating around anything. That's what the spirit does!) That was a super good lesson. We brought a member, J. She is quite the hoot, and loved C, just because he's kind of crazy. That was the most exciting thing that happened this week. Love you!

Hunter

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