Sister Hunting's email for this week. Lots of New Pix too!

Dear family and Friends,

The leaves have changed colors here and it is SO beautiful!  I thought Utah falls were pretty but man oh man it is GORGEOUS here.  We got to have lunch in Keene this week with the Mitchell's, what amazing people!  If every member of the church were like them we would have enough referrals to last us a lifetime!  They are awesome and so sweet.  They eagerly gave us names of people they had either given Books of Mormon to, or pass-along cards to and then after Sister Mathews offered us a closing prayer sister Mitchell asked if she could say a prayer.  She gave the sweetest prayer I have ever heard and it brought tears to my eyes.  She blessed that the people we were going to see would receive us well and blessed that we would be able to find our destinations easily (which is something we have been struggling with, half the addresses we have don't exist!) and it was just so sweet.  

We got to teach Liz this week as well, and she is doing awesome!  She is excited for her baptism this week and is doing awesome in her scripture studies, we are so proud of her.  She is an amazing example to us.  We also got to teach 2 new investigators in Tupper this week.  One is an older man named Lawrence, he is so funny!  While sister Mathews was saying the closing prayer he yelled at someone who was looking in his window, "get outta here!" and kept telling people that would stop by, "Get outta here, I have company!"  He is a character.

Then we saw Liz W. an older woman who just overcame breast cancer, she is so awesome!  She said she would read the whole Book of Mormon before we come next week, and luckily that morning we had packed a giant one in our trunk for her to be able to read. 

And of course we got to see the relief society broadcast, which was awesome! And exciting changes are coming to Lake Placid :)  Elders are coming next transfer!  They will be putting the Elders in Saranac lake and they will cover that area and Tupper lake, then the sisters (hopefully us) will have enough miles to go to Jay, Keene, and Wilmington to gather the saints! haha it's like we are opening a new area, well that is if we both stay next transfer, but I am still very excited for the Lake Placid branch, this will be great for it and it will grow a lot!

Also it was sister Mathews birthday this week and her old boss sent her a box of freshly picked Idaho potatoes, funniest thing ever!  That's what you get when you have a companion from Idaho haha!

The work is amazing and this gospel is true.  I watched a Mormon message this week that really touched me and I feel impressed to share with you, it's called "None were with Him."  I know that the Savior suffered for all of us so that none of us would ever have to be alone.  You never have to walk the journey of this life alone, the Savior is always there, walking beside you.  Turn to Him and put your trust in Him.  I love you all, and I know these things to be true in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

-sister Hunting

 

here's the link to the Mormon message: http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-04-14-none-were-with-him?category=mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2009

Sister Hunting's email from September 23rd. She meant for this to be humorous, but made my sisters and mom cry. :)

(Elder Kyler Lopez thinks this should be published in the Ensign. :) )

Dear family and friends,

 

Sometimes missionary work is hard.  Sometimes you sit in the car with your companion laughing through tears as you try and eat your sorrows away with a delicious muffin.  Sometimes you have to push screen doors shut so that dogs don't escape and attack you.  Sometimes you have to shovel food in before you taste it.  Sometimes, after a difficult day of lots of walking, trying to find a non-existent address and rejection, you laugh at yourself and say, "I chose to be here and do this!"  Sometimes you lie awake at night on you bug bed proofed bed and think, "how did I get here?" 

 

Sometimes you do stupid stuff.  Sometimes you laugh during a prayer.  Sometimes you text someone "smiley face" instead of actually putting a smiley face.  Sometimes you fall asleep during personal study or during your companion's prayer.  Sometimes you drop and break one of the only good plates in the apartment.  Sometimes you put your tag through the wash.  Sometimes you write "lunch" at 6:00 p.m. in you planner and instead of erasing it and putting, "dinner" you just write next to it, "I mean dinner."  Sometimes you try and kill giant spiders with febreeze.  Sometimes you get glued to a t.v. that is playing "cloudy with a chance of meatballs" and you forget where you are and keep watching and don't realize that someone is blessing the food.  Sometimes you eat a whole chocolate milk shake right before a dinner appointment.

 

Sometimes there are disappointments.  Sometime you get really excited to finally wear jeans only to discover that it takes you 5 minutes to button them...Sometimes you watch for the mailman on your lunch break and then after they come you open the mailbox and find it empty.  Sometimes your lessons are canceled, or they don't go so well.  Sometimes  your investigators don't keep commitments or start to avoid you.  Sometimes you can't find potential's houses.

 

Sometime there are miracles.  Sometimes you get to see a recent convert who was struggling and falling away come back with full force.  Sometimes you feel the spirit in a crazy lesson where you thought it wouldn't be possible to feel it.  Sometimes doors are opened to you and a friendly face invites you in to sit down.  Sometime you meet people who are super prepared to hear the gospel.  Sometimes you get a much needed letter or email.  Sometimes you see someone who swore that they would never be converted start coming to church and taking lessons.  Sometimes you pray to find more people and you find them!  Sometime you receive personal revelations that change lives.

 

Missionary work is ALWAYS worth it. "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!  And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" -D&C 18:15-16  

I love you all!  Keep pressing forward!

-love, sister Hunting

Dear family and friends,

Hasn't been a terribly exciting week, except that our investigator Liz finally got permission from her husband to get baptized!! :D 

Liz is awesome, sister Mathews found her and has been teaching her for 5 months now.  She has been an amazing miracle and was super prepared for the gospel and I am so thankful I have been able to be apart of teaching her. For the past couple months she has been telling us that she would talk to her husband about getting baptized, because she really wanted to be, but something would always happen or something would get in the way.  So we realized that there was something else holding her back from talking to him, so we prayed a lot.  We had been planning on teaching her about fasting, but in our personal studies we were both led by the spirit to study faith in Jesus Christ for her.  Sister Mathews was also inspired in our companion study to ask her the baptismal questions. 

Her house was crazy as usual with her 2 little girls running around and I thought that it was going to be impossible to teach her and feel the spirit, but the Lord really wants her to be baptized.  Despite the craziness, the spirit was SO strong, and we were able to figure out what was holding her back and resolved the issue.  Sister Mathews was totally inspired too!  I was so surprised when out of the blue Sister Mathews told Liz that she should talk to her husband and invite him to the baptism (something we hadn't even talked about before).  Later that night we got a text from Liz that said that her husband gave her permission and that he was coming to the baptism!  It was so amazing!!  The Lord really loves Liz and wants her to be close to Him, and I know that her love and faith in the Savior helped her overcome her fears, I really look up to her and admire her for her faith and dedication. 

I know that this church is true and I know that the Lord loves each of his children. I am so thankful that I was able to see His hand more fully in the work this week. I love you all!!

-love, sister Hunting

Sis Hunting's Letter for the week of Sept 9th!

It's been another crazy week in Lake Placid!  Most of this week was spent trying potentials, and we didn't find like any!  Either the houses disappeared, our GPS is dumb, or we need to update the area book haha.  We did have an awesome experience with this woman named Ember.  We met her at the soup kitchen a few weeks ago, and helped her paint her house.  She had asked about our church and what makes it different and I totally saw an opportunity to share the Book of Mormon with her but I was wimp and didn't do it, and I beat myself up about it a lot, and I prayed and told Heavenly Father that if He gave me another chance to share it with her that I would do it.  The Lord gave me that chance Saturday night!  She had us over for dinner at her house, and she asked about what made our church different from other Christian churches and I got super excited and told her about the Book of Mormon, and then she asked, "well where does the Book of Mormon come from?"  And I got even more excited and explained The Restoration to her in like a minute haha, and I left her with a Book of Mormon, it was awesome!  She is awesome, she is really sweet, and she has the cutest little girl, and baby boy.  I'm glad we got to have dinner with her and her family and got to know them.

This week I got to do 2 of my favorite things!  First we have been trying to get our investigator Cynthia to come to church, she has come for activities at the church , but won't come on sundays.  So we were praying about it, and then I remembered that she loves to play the piano, and I love to sing!  So we decided to ask her to accompany me in church on the piano, and she got kind of excited about it.  She pulled out some of her music books, and a lot of the songs in it were ones I knew and she played them and I sang them right then and there, it was SO fun!  I love singing with a piano, it's like THE BEST!

On Saturday we went over to help the Whites paint their porch and I saw a violin case!  There little girl plays the violin!  So I whipped it out and started playing hymns out of the hymn book, I didn't realize how much I love playing the violin until that moment.  It was a very small violin so it was hard to play but it was so fun and I didn't want to put it down.

We also got hit on by a drunk man yesterday and that was funny.  We were trying to find a potential and the GPS led us to this beautiful lake, and so we decided to stop and take some pictures, and this woman down by edge of the lake told us to come take some from down there, so we did!  The woman was there with this guy and he was so drunk and she had a glass of wine, but she was really sweet.  Randomly the guy was like, "can I get a picture with these 2 beautiful ladies."  So the woman got out her camera and he put his arms around our shoulders and took a picture with us haha super random!  But the woman could become an investigator you never know :)

Anyways, I am loving the work, and learning a lot.  Lake Placid is BEAUTIFUL! 

-Love, Sister Hunting

Sister Huntings Memorial Day letter

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was super tiring so I was going to not write a weekly letter but I just can't resist!  This week was great and we found out that we are both staying in Lake Placid!! yay!!  I love it here and I will be sad to leave when I do get transferred, so for now I am so so happy to stay!  We had a really awesome but strange lesson this week, the spirit was super duper strong and we set our investigator with a baptism date, but it was also the weirdest experience of my life.  I'll just tell you what it involved, it involved a note being passed around, a cat in heat, a muslim, a prayer circle around cigars, and a forced priesthood blessing.  yeah super weird, but it just goes to show that if the spirit is there strong enough, nothing else really matters :) 

We put together a family history night as a way to find people to teach, which really wasn't super successful that way but 2 of our investigators did come and 3 less-actives came so that was awesome!

We saw Trisha again, we didn't really get to teach her a lesson we just kind of got to know her more, but I got to give her a Book of Mormon with my testimony in it.  She was really excited about it and said that she had always wanted to read it, but never had the chance to, and she loved my testimony in the beginning of it, she is so sweet, I love her!

This week at church our investigator Liz came, she is so awesome!  She really wants to get baptized but is waiting for approval from her husband.  Anyways we have been praying that she would be able to have a spiritual experience without being distracted by her 2 cute little girls.  This sunday they were answered!  During sacrament her 2 little girls came over and sat next to me and sister Mathews and played with us, yay!  And her littlest girl actually stayed in nursery the whole time because we were there this week :)  It was a huge answer to our prayers.

Can I just say how important it is not to judge those who come to church.  The reason we go to church is because we are imperfect, we don't go to church because we are worthy, we go because we are unworthy and we need the atonement in our lives.  I may have quoted this already but I'm going to quote it again, "church is not a museum for saints, it is a hospital for sinners."  Anyone can go to church, church is there for everyone.  Be kind to those you see at church and don't judge them, you are both there for the same reasons, to become closer to God.  If everyone remembered this I think investigators would not feel so scared to go to church.

Anyways I love you all!  Keep pressing forward in whatever you are doing! 

-love sister Hunting

 Dear family and friends,

What an amazing week!  We taught 2 new investigators, Trisha and Paul.  Paul came to church yesterday yay!   We had an investigator agree to come back to church next week and let us teach him yesterday.  We had a branch family home evening night on Tuesday and a lot of people came, including an investigator, a less active, and a non-member (hopefully soon to be investigator).  The non-member liked bingo so much that she came to church Sunday, too!  (They played Bingo as a ward activity) And she wants to come next week too.  Her name is Norma and she is quite the character.  She is friends with a member here, and she sat in on a lesson that elder Taylor taught to the members and she said, "oh that made me feel so good, I think I'm going to start going to church at the Baptist church." haha what?!  She is so funny, I love her! 

Anyways, we had an awesome lesson with Trisha despite the fact that the member present kept bringing up things that should not be brought up in the first lesson such as:  women not having the priesthood, polygamy, and more.  But she wasn't worried about it, she is very open about learning, I think the Lord has really prepared her.

I got to go to Utica for special training this week too, and they gave us a talk by Lawrence E. Corbridge called "The Fourth Missionary"  it has changed my life! It blew my mind!  It taught me what it really means to serve with all your heart and mind.  Here is just a small part from it, "In the end, your heart and your will is all that you have to give that the Lord does not already have.  If you give your time, two years, and your strength, you give only that which He grants to you with each beat of your heart and each breath that you draw.  If you dedicate your gifts and talents, you only return to Him what He already has given to you.  If you pay tithing you only return to Him a tenth of what he has already given to you.  Everything that you have to give to the Lord has it's origin in Him, except one thing: your will.  He does not have your heart, nor your mind, unless you give them to Him.  It is the only gift you have to offer that He does not already have.  And so when you give yourself, you truly give everything to Him."  I know that by giving your whole self to the Lord you will find more true joy and live a more enriched life.  There may be times that it can be hard, or you may mess up, but that's what the atonement is there for.  Lean on the Savior DAILY and He will help your weaknesses become strong. It is never impossible to change your nature, through the atonement you can become like the Savior. Look to the Lord and live!  I know that He overcame death and that He lives today, and because He lives we can live again also. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

love, sister Hunting

p.s. read the "Beware of Pride" talk by President Ezra Taft Benson.  I have to read it everyday and repent everyday haha

p.p.s. just met this man in the Library and he started talking to us about church and God and we invited him to church and gave him a pass-along card! crazy!

Sister Hunting took this picture of her cousin, Chris Hardinger, (the tall guy in the back). He served in the same mission about a year ago and this picture was posted on a wall in the Mission Home. :)

Sister Hunting, Sister Mathews and several other sisters! (Sis Hunting is wearing the dress my sister Julie made her! So pretty on her!

Sisters being silly!

 Dear family and friends,

This week has been pretty great!  My testimony has been strengthened of asking in faith and receiving.  We have been praying to find new people to teach and we got some!

We went to Brother and Sister Perkin's how on Tuesday to talk to sister Perkins about the family history fireside we are planning, and brother Perkin's aid, Trish, was there at the house, and when we started talking about family history she seemed really interested.  So while Sister Mathews planned with sister Perkins, Brother Perkins and I answered Trish's questions.  Later that night we got a call from brother Perkins, he said that Trish wanted to meet with us and learn more!!  We meet with her tomorrow :D 

That night we went home and started cleaning out the area book, and made calls to old potentials and investigators.  One man named, Barry, is really wanting to meet with us.  He said that he has toured the Salt Lake temple square a billion times, and really wants to come to one of our church meetings.  He couldn't make it this Sunday because he travels a lot, but maybe next :)

Early the next morning we got a call from brother Perish who told us that there is a woman named Ninna who really wants to meet with us too!

Then we met this woman at the soup kitchen who needed help painting her house, so we helped her.  She is really sweet and very curious about our religion, I think she would be a great member!  Crazy how when you ask in faith the Lord blesses you so much!

Let me just tell you how much the members of the branch help!  Every member truly is a missionary!  I encourage you at home to look for missionary opportunities, be an example to someone, then share your testimony with them or answer their questions.  Invite missionaries over to eat and give them referrals or invite a non-member to the dinner.  We need the members help!!!  Each one of you!!  PLEAS HELP YOU MISSIONARIES!  You will be blessed so much.

  I know that this gospel is true, and that it blesses peoples lives. Keep putting your trust in the Lord and he will guide you by the hand. I love you all!

-sister Hunting

                                                                                        Golfing on Pday!

                                                             Real Amish peeps! 

                                                            Sis Hunting getting drinking water from the spring

               

Sis Hunting & Sis Mathews- Beautiful Sisters--inside & out!