Week 23: Harlingen-San Benito

Hello everybody!!!!

This week I learned the importance of relying on the spirit in everything. On Tuesday we were out working and we started to drive down a random road in our area that is completley desolate other then three houses. We drove by twice and then went and worked somewhere else. When we were working in the second place Elder Davis said that we need to go back to the desolate houses. He felt that we needed to knock the doors when we were driving by but he just ignored it. So we went back and knocked on the first door. It was a little family and they loved the message that we shared and told us that we could come back. Unfortunately we haven't been able to go back yet because of the holiday season. I learned the importance of relying on the spirit especially in finding.

I gave a talk in the Spanish branch yesterday. It was really shaky, but I think it went fine. I talked about personal conversion. I went for about 10 minutes! I didn't even use any of my notes so I think it was pretty good. I have a long ways to go though! I almost just started talking in English because I mostly wanted to talk to the youth and they all understand both perfectly!

Other than that this week was pretty slow. We went by a ton of members. They are all doing so amazing and love us all so much!!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas! Trust in the Lord and he will endow you with power!!!

I hope you all have an amazing New Year!!

Love, Elder Hurst

Thinking of Grandma with the Peppermint Ice Cream

Elder Davis with a mustache.

Having streets named after you is awesome.

The Christmas Zone Party

Christmas with the Family

Week 22: Harlingen: San Benito

This last week was a pretty good week.

We had zone conference on Wednesday. It was super good. We had a spiritual morning and then that afternoon we opened some presents. It was super good. We also had skits. We did some pretty funny skits! We had zone conference with Brownsville. It was cool to see all the people I knew from my last zone and talk to the people that were in my last area and see how it is doing. Unfourtunatly the people we left them with aren't progressing but that's okay.

This week we found a "golden" Investigator. She is so awesome! We taught her the restoration on Thursday and she loved it. So we went back the next day with a member to teach her the book of Mormon. We asked our member how she developed a testimony of the book of Mormon and she shared how she had a dream and that's how she knew. Our golden investigator turned to our member and told her about a dream that she had had. She said in the dream the heavans opened up and she saw a golden trumpet. She asked what do you think this means? Our Member said that in our church the golden trumpet is symbolic for preparing for the second coming and we have moroni on the top of the temples with a golden trumpet. We showed her a picture of the angel moroni and she said that this what she had seen. The spirit was so strong after that and we explained that the lord wants her to prepare for the second coming. I know god prepared this person to listen to us and that she is going to become such a strong member in the church of jesus Christ of latter day saints. That was a pretty cool excperince that happened this week.

I love being a missionary and know that god is preparing people for us to teach every singe day. The church is true!

Love, Elder Hurst

Week 21: Harlingen-San Benito

This week was super different! So it was nice to get a change.

Every single night we have a meal appointment so we save a lot of money on groceries. And if we really wanted we could eat 2 times a day but that would be too much!

The members in San Benito love the missionaries and love doing missionary work so they help us out a lot. They give us a lot of referals and come to lessons with us whenever we ask them to!

One day we decided to just knock on a random door and started talking to a guy. He loved to talk to us. He is very big and also gay. But we have been teaching him a little. It's super weird! But something could come out of it! Hopefully.

One day we were also down by the border working which I'm pretty sure was my old area! And we saw a man jump out of some bushes it was super weird. Then we got in our car and started to drive to another part of our area and a car stopped in front of us and turned on it's lights! It was a border patrol worker! He saw us and told us to leave! It was pretty crazy! We got stopped by border patrol! Luckily we are both white!

On Saturday we had three meal appointments it was awful! We also had the English branch Christmas party. Elder Davis threw up after the second meal appointment! It sucked because the third meal appointment they gave us so much food!

This week was pretty crazy. Elder Davis and I get a long very good so I like that! Things are going pretty well down here in Sany B!

I hope you are all doing amazing!!

Another cool thing this week was I got to baptized someone! She was nine and one of the sisters investiagors but it was still pretty cool! It made me excited to have my first baptism with one of my investigators and gave me a little more motivation to work hard!!

Love, Elder Hurst

The new district.

The mission car. haha.

Elder Davis and I holding lambs.

The apartment

Week 20: Harlingen-San Benito

San Benito!!!

We found out where we are going late on Monday! I got the call to San Benito South in Harlingen. Harlingen and Brownsville are neighbors! Also San Benito South and Villa Nueva are neighbors! The two areas that I have served in touch!! I thought that was super cool. I didn't go very far. I don't know if you guys remember Janet but she was our investigator in Brownsville but she lives in San Benito! So we are going to try and start talking to her again! So that was pretty cool.

My new companion's name is Elder Davis. He is from Snowflake Arizona. He has been serving for a little over one year. Our District is a relief society district. So it's us and two sets of sisters! They are all pretty cool!

San Benito is an awesome area! The members here are so amazing! They are so involved with missionary work that it is crazy! Pretty much all the success comes because of them. That is how it should be anyways. So I'm super excited to be serving in San Benito. There is some amazing people with some amazing stories! I love them all so much!

The San Benito branch goes to church in an office building. But it's a super nice and pretty big office building! We also go to the treasure hills English branch in Harlingen. It's a pretty cool little branch. We only have on English member though so we don't go much with the English branch. But we have a good majority of the Spanish Branch so we do a lot with them!

This Saturday we had Zone Meeting and we ended up talking a lot about overcoming our fears. It was super good for me! I felt the spirit really strong and now that with the help of God I can conquer my fears! I love you all and hope that things are going amazing!!

Love, Elder Hurst

One last picture with the Conde Family.

Brother Martinez

Elder Denny and Elder Hurst from PG 

This is a picture of a little house in Brownsville that I helped put the lights on when we did service one week!

Week 19: Brownsville

Good Bye Brownsville!

This last week has been somewhat crazy!! We found 10 new people to teach so it was a pretty awesome week for us. On top of that we had thanksgiving!

To start off the day for thanksgiving we played football with the English ward. It was pretty fun, things were getting a little heated though... Then we went back to our apartment and waited for the feasts to begin! We started off the day by eating with the first councilor in the Spanish branch. The arteaga family. It was your typical thanksgiving dinner. Super good!

Our second dinner appointment was right after the first. We ate with one of the new investigators we had just started teaching. They are family to one of the members of the Spanish branch. They also have a lot of money. It was a super high-class dinner! Everyone was drinking wine(Except for us). It was a reminder to me that I am not back home where everyone is LDS.

We ended off the day eating with some members in the Zone Leaders Area. It was super awesome! We ate sooo much food. By the end of the night I was dying.

On Friday night Elder Curtis got a call to become a DL. So we figured he was leaving for this transfer. On Sunday we found out that both of us are leaving. They are doing what is called a white wash. Two new elders will come in. Or they could even shut down our area for a little while because there is a lack of missionaries coming in. We don't know what will happen or even where we are going yet. We will find out later today. So next week I will tell you where we are going!!

This week was a crazy week! It made up for the boring weeks we had been having. I learned that when we are obedient we are blessed!!

I almost forgot. I taught a couple of elders how to play cover your assests! They all loved it and we played for a long time!! Things got a little heated! It remined me of home!

Love, Elder Hurst

The Nueva Villa District in Brownsville

This is what happens when missionaries are busy doing what they are meant to do. Teaching the Gospel. No time for dishes. This is a sign of successful missionaries.

Week 18: Brownsville

This week was pretty good! We had a couple of exchanges and a mission tour!

 

The mission tour was on Thursday and we went up to McAllen. Brother Foster of the seventy came and talked with the mission. It was an amazing experience and helped me to grow greatly. I will talk a little about what he said later on. First I wanted to talk about what his wife said. She made an analogy to a football game. And how one team got the heck beat out of them in the first half. Then in the second half one of the players on the losing team stepped things up and was able to help the losing team. The coach asked the player why he hadn't done anything during the first half? The player replied I was busy tying my shoes... (Sister Foster did a lot better job of telling it). She then compared this little story to our mission. We can't waste the first half of our mission tying our shoes. In all reality we can't waste any of our mission tying our shoes. That struck me pretty hard.

 

A lot of what Elder Foster said had to do with our own conversion. He said that too many missionaries go home and become inactive. So he committed us to focus on our own conversion as well of the conversion of our investigators and recent converts.

 

This week was an okay week. Not too much happened other than the mission tour. The Martinez family unfortunately didn't come to church. But we are going to keep working hard to get them to church. Jose can still get baptized next Sunday and we are probably going to do so. So that is pretty exciting!! I think it will be good for his family to see his baptism and follow in his foot steps. We have a lot of potential!

 

This week is Thanksgiving!! We have plans to just visit members and eat like crazy!!!!! It's going to be awesome! We also are going to have a turkey bowl in the morning with the ward so I am pretty excited about that. This is the last week of the transfer and elder Curtis is probably going to get transferred. We will know by next p-day. I hope everything is going well back home!

 

Love, Elder Hurst

I pretended to cut off a chickens head! 

We also had a pretty fun district meeting. We dressed up like gangsters.

Zone Conference on Thursday November 19, 2014

Week 17: Brownsville

This week was a slow week...

 

We had to take our car into the shop on Monday so we weren't sure what was going to happen because of that. On Tuesday we had to bike to our area. We later calculated that it was about 14 miles! So that was pretty fun.. But luckily one of our members took us home that night. We just threw our bikes in his truck. The next day it got super cold. I know it's nothing compared to the "Utah" cold. But it's super wet here so it almost feels colder! Luckily that same member was able to drive us to the middle of our area and we could start biking. That day nothing was going well. We didn't talk to very many people and it was kind of a really slow day. So we went and ate at the same member that had been driving us around for the last couple of days. When we were eating with him we got a call that our car was done! The member told us that he would take us to go get our car!! It was such a blessing. Later that night as I was writing in my journal I realized how blessed we are in our area. we don't have that many members but the ones that we do have are willing to help us. We just have to ask.

 

On Thursday the branch had a little thanksgiving party. We were able to get a couple of Less active families to the activity so it was pretty successful!

 

Not much has happened with investigators. We haven't been able to have another lesson with the Martinez family. But we have been in pretty good contact with them! They haven't been able to come to church but we are trying! Hopefully things work out this week with them!

 

This week should be pretty exciting. We are going to have two exchanges and we are going to McAllen on Thursday. So it will be a nice change of pace!

 

This week I have continued to study Humility. The more and more I look at myself the more I realize that this is what I need to work on most!

 

The mission is amazing!

 

Love, Elder Hurst

Proof that we can actually ride a bike.

The end of the border fence

The name of our area is Villa Nueva so we really liked this sign.

Thanksgiving Celebration with the branch.

Working hard at a service project.

Week 16: Brownsville

This week was pretty good! On Thursday we had an exchange. I got to go to the District Leaders area. I've been there a couple of times. They have a pretty nice area! They have a lot of really awesome members.

On Tuesday we had a training in District Meeting about the importance of member work. In our area we don't have too many members but we just have to learn to work with who we have. Pretty much this whole week we just went by active and less active members. I'm starting to see a lot more trust built between the missionaries and members. It's a very good thing! One of our members also wants us to start teaching his niece and her family. That is the whole point of member work! Things are starting to roll with the members.

We also still have the Martinez family. They didn't make it to church this Sunday but when we went by Sunday night they were super excited to see us. They also had some friends over that seemed pretty interested. They don't live in our area so we passed along their information to the correct Elders. But the Martinez family is doing amazing. We just need to work super hard with them and they should be baptized in the beginning of December!

Our car is going to be in the shop for the next couple of days so we have to ride our bikes. I don't know what will happen because from our apartment to the middle of our area is 14 miles! So it should be interesting. But we still have our members so I think things will work out just fine!

I've been studying the Atonement a lot lately. The Atonement is such a deep topic. I love it! I wouldn't be anywhere without it!

One thing we have been doing with families lately is inviting them to bare their testimonies. Also with the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner we have been challegeing them all to have one of their prayers be only of thanks. I have started to do the same. Every morning prayer is just thanks! I've already seen a difference that it's making in me. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in what we don't have and we really need to focus on all the amazing things we do have.

I hope you all have a good week!

Love, Elder Hurst

 It's sweater weather down here in Brownsville! It's gotten pretty cold lately and it's been raining a ton! Everyone says the winters are super cold. So I need to find a nice jacket/coat! I already bought myself a nice sweater! Just ignore the hat!

This is a huge twix bar that one of our members had!

Week 15: Brownsville

This week was a pretty eventful week.

 

On Monday at one of our dinner appointments we ate Habenero! Or the hottest chili down here in the valley. It has a suttle burn and after a while it burns everywhere! I also testify that some advice one of my seminary teachers gave me to be true: If it's spicy going in it's twice as spicy coming out! But it was a fun time and that Sunday that member called Elder Curtis and I Mexicanos! So that was a fun little way to build a relationship!

 

On Thursday we had interviews with President Maluenda. My interview wasn't too long and he gave me some advice to help me to overcome my shyness. He also gave a few chapters of the scriptures to study. Most of them had to with Moses. In the beginning Moses was nervous to become one of the greatest prophets to rule the earth. The scriptures say he was slow of tongue. I like to think of myself like that sometimes. I always think of things to say in my head but they don't come out of my mouth how I imagine them. But with trusting in the Lord he was able to overcome this problem and I would say with a lot of success! So I came up with some plans to help myself become more like Moses.

 

That same day we just happened to be on exchanges. I was with Elder Thompson, the new Elder in Los Fresnos. He is also fairly new in the mission. He has been here for about 7 months. He also is from Lindon Utah and went to P.G. But I didn't know him before! He is two years older than I am. With the interviews that day a lot of what we had planned fell through because interviews took so long. We also had a dinner appointment that went over. So we had just enough time to set up return appointments with the people that we missed. But we took the time to sit down with one less active family. We had one of the most spiritual lessons that I have been involved with. I literally felt like I was not the person talking and that someone was putting words into my mouth.  But I don't think I was the one that touched the heart of this family that day. Elder Thompson was able to say some things to them that I think were key for them. They ended up coming to church that Sunday! This experience was a testimony builder that with God there is no coincidences. We were close to calling off that exchange but we decided to go through with it and I know that this is why.

 

On Saturday we were finally able to sit down with the family of the friend of the Conde's. We taught them the restoration. It was another one of those lessons where we taught the mom in Spanish and the kids in English. These lessons are the hardest for me because my brain is always switching back and forth. But at the end of the lesson the mom prayed and asked if this was the right path for her family and she started to cry and I know that this was the spirit touchng her heart. She also knew that. I think they are going to be an amazing family in the gospel. We just have to hope that everything goes well with the rest of their teaching!!

 

I almost forgot about Halloween. We were in our apartment by 6 and the Los Fresnos Elders came over. We made some Pizza and Pie and played some games! It was a pretty relaxed Halloween! I'm excited for Thanksgiving. Word on the street is we eat about 5 dinners that day! So that should be fun!!

 

That's basically all that happened this week! I hope you are all doing well!

 

Love, Elder Hurst

Week 14:Brownsville

Not very much happened this week. We dropped about 5 of our investigators because they weren't making an effort to do anything. So we kind of started over with the new transfer. We have found a couple of new people to teach. Hopefully they actually progress. On Tuesday we found a guy named David. He is a little different.  But he walked us around his neighborhood and told us all the people that we could go by. We started contacting all the peolple and found two mini miracles. 

The first mini miracle requires a little back story. The Conde's have brought their friend to church with them a couple of times and we have asked them multiple times for their address. They have not been able to find it though. But back to the mini miracle. As we were contacting one of the people David told us we could go by we found the Conde's friend's house! So we are going to try and teach the whole family. We haven't had a lesson with the family yet but we will for sure go back sometime this week and see if we can teach them. 

The second mini miracle is a man named Raul. We knocked on his door and he invited us in. To make a long story short he is 81, his wife passed away, he has multiple things wrong with his health and he said a couple of times he doesn't want to live anymore. So we taught him the plan of salvation and invited him to be baptized. He accepted a date! He wants to live with his wife again. I know that Raul needs our help and that with his baptism will come the baptism of his wife in the future and that the two will be able to live together forever. Another small miracle with Raul is I can almost understand everything he says because he speaks so slow! 

We had been encouraged to work more with our members by our district leader. So most of the end of this week was just working with members. On Friday we had a ward Halloween party with the English members so we went and tried to build relationships. Then on Saturday we went by all of our less active members. Most of them said that they were going to come to church. But they ended up not coming. We just have to keep working hard with the less active members. Most of the less active families are part member families as well. I think it is a little pattern that I am starting to notice. So we are going to be working a lot with the less actives and while we are at it see if we can teach the rest of the family. 

We've learned a lot this week. One thing that has stuck out to me is that missionary work his hard. We have a talk that we listened to the other day called missionary work and the atonement. It is by Elders Holland and Eyring. One thing that Elder Holland says is that of course missionary work isn't going to be easy; the price of salvation isn't easy. We have to work and work and work some more to recieve salvation. It's the same as missionary work. We have to work and work and keep working to help other people receive their salvation. So no matter how hard it gets we have to keep trudging along. 

Love, Elder Hurst

This is the exit we take every day.

This is Elder Curtis, George and I. George is a member in our area.

This is some food that we made because we didn't have very much food left.

This is the Conde boys playing basketball.

This is a picture of some of the Conde Children.

You know you're a missionary when you have a lifetime supply of tupperware.

Week 13: Brownsville

This week was the last week of the transfer! It was a pretty good week. Elder Curtis and I are both staying in Brownsville so nothing changes for at least another six weeks.

 

We had a blitz almost every day so we didn't do a lot of work in our area. But it was a good week. I learned a lot of things that can help us in our area. On Thursday we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went with one of the ZL's named Elder Livingston in the ZL's area. Elder Livingston is a very energetic missionary and we worked very hard. He is a very good missionary and i learned a lot from him. He has a ton of animio and is super excited to be out on his mission. I learned two things from him on our exchange. One we need to love our mission, and two we have to work with the members or we won't  have success. During our exchange a few things happened. They had one investigator that was super close to baptism but was living with her boyfriend (who is a member). We were supposed to have a lesson with both of them at the church that night but it turns out that they broke up. So Elder Livingston turned this sad situation for her upside down. We went over the ladies house and talked with her. Luckily we had another member with us who was able to help her. But long story short the investigator was baptized the next day. It was all possible because of the member that we brought with us. Elder Livingston told me that it doesn't matter if we have 2 members of 500 members in our area it is all how we use them. We don't have very many members in our area and it's been hard for us to get their help but we are going to use them more and have more success because of it!

 

I also had another learning experience this week. On Saturday Elder Curtis and I were working in someone else's area and we found a man named Rafeil. Rafeil doesn't have legs so we decided to go and share the plan of salvation with him. But right away Rafeil didn't stop talking so we weren't able to give him a lesson. He told us his whole life story. He has diabetes, no legs, he's legally blind, he had a growth on his arm and he is on dialysis. He has every right to be super sad and depressed but he was the nicest most energetic person i have met in a while. He taught me a big lesson. I have it good. I have all my legs i can see. Lately i have been making a lot of excuses but after meeting Rafeil i decided that i don't have any more excuses.

 

On Sunday we were going to have a Baptism for Janet. But she didnt' show up to Church. That was very sad. I was so excited for Janet to be baptized. We still haven't heard from her so we don't know what is going on with her. But she will be baptized this sunday! It just comes down to using members. We need to help her have some friends in the church. That is one thing we have negletcted. We need her to love church!!

 

Well that was my week in a nut shell. I hope that you guys are all doing amazing!

 

Love, Elder Hurst

Week 12: Brownsville

So last P-day while we were emailing we got a text that for the next Tuesday we all needed to be in McAllen at 9 in the morning. They didn't tell us what was going to happen in McAllen just to be there. So we showed up to McAllen the next day and had no idea what was going to happen. But we got to watch Meet the Mormons! We got to watch it three days before it came out in one of the chapels. It was a very good movie and I think that it will help the growth of the church a ton!

This week was pretty slow. We almost didn't have any energy and it defiantly showed in our work. It doesn't help that half of our Zone is sick or has been sick. I luckily have not gotten sick yet. Elder Curtis however was sick on Saturday and we couldn't leave the apartment. So I had a lot of time of just studying which was actually pretty good.

Things with Janet didn't work out. She was unable to make it to church on Sunday so she couldn't be baptized. Pretty much every possible thing that could happen to her happened to her last week. It's really sad. But we are hoping that she can be baptized in this Sunday. It would be a perfect way to end the transfer. 

Basically that is all that has happened. It's been a pretty uneventful week. By the next P-day we will know if one of us is getting transferred. This week has definately been a test of my testimony. It would have been very easy to just give up and not try but we did the best we could. We obviously could do so much better. Our goal for the last week of the transfer is to make the most of it and go super hard. So that is our plan! I hope you guys are all doing good!

Love Elder Hurst

 This also is what happens when I cut my own hair!

We made a cake the other day. It was very delicious!

A huge piñata at a members house.

This about 4500 dollars worth of ties that we found on Monday on my arms. and that's not even all that we found that day!

 The rest of the ties.

This is some Mango Ice Cream with Chile on top! It actually wasn't that bad.