Week 10: Brownsville

On Tuesday we had Zone confrence! Zone conference is pretty big. Our zone, the Brownsville zone and the Harlingen zone got together and had training. President Maluenda and his wife were there along with the APs. I just wanted to talk about a couple of things that I thought stood out to me during this confrence. 

Basically whenver President opens his mouth it's just like you are listening to general authority speak. Because he was a general authority before he got called as president here. He was a member of the seventy. Basically every word he says is exactly what the Savior would have said. Sometimes when he is talking he stops and looks up to the corner of the chapel and thinks and then says something mind blowing. Most of the missionaries joke and say that when he does this he is proably talking with the Savior and saying what the Savior wants said. I wouldn't doubt that this is true! A lot of the training is in spanish. But every now and then he will say something in english that he wants us all to understand. One thing that he said to us greenies is that we need to learn to love the hard time we are going through right now. Every single missionary knows what it is like to be new and to feel lost and not know what is going on. We just have to learn to enjoy it and learn from it. My whole mission can basically be determined by the attitude that I have about the hard times. That was just one of the things that really stuck out to me. Then all the missionaries in the two zones that are leaving soon bare their testimonies. One thing that one of the APs said in his testimony is he wishes that he was one of the greenies who was just starting his mission. Being so young in the mission I have the opportunity to decide what type of missionary I want to be. So that has been in my mind a lot! I just need to decide the type of missionary i want to be. 

Nothing really too exciting this week happened. We taught a lot of restoration lessons and the book of mormon a couple of times. Hopefully we can turn those lessons into more! Elder Curtis is a fantastic teacher. When we teach other people I learn something new as well. It's hard for me to speak up sometimes because I feel like he could do such a better job. But it is all a learning experince and there is a reason that the Lord has called us to teach in twos. I feel like I will take the way he teaches with me my whole mission. I've asked him to teach me  how to teach the way he does. 

We had to drop Papa Conde. It was pretty sad. We had big plans for him but he decided that he didn't want to become a Mormon. I hope more than anything that somewhere along the line he has a change of heart and accepts the lessons again. Elder Curtis and I were pretty shaken up and it's definitely a resonating effect. Also none of our invetigators came to church this week so that was hard for us as well. We had a church tour lesson with Janet and we had her pray in the chapel and promise God she would be to church on Sunday. When Sunday rolled around she said she was coming, even said she was on her way and then didn't show up. So that was hard. It was a pretty good learning opportunity. We need to do a better job with teaching the importance of church attendence. I think a big problem with this is the culture down here. Obviously the people here don't have a lot and have to work a lot and Sunday is one of the days that most of them have to work. It's hard to get them to leave their jobs and get them to church. We just need to get them to see the blessings that come from attending church. 

On Sunday we were at Casa Linda our spanish branch waiting for it to start and President called. Usually when President calls its not a good thing. He asked for the address to Casa Linda. We gave it to him and he said that he would see us there. We were kind of freaking out while we were waiting for him to show up. But it turns out he just goes to a lot of the wards and branches in the mission to see how they were doing. But it was a cool opportunity to just talk to him and his wife. They are both such amazing people. We pretty much just had the opportunity to talk to them for 15 minutes before the ward started. He has a son serving in Ventura right now! So that is a cool little connection we made. I also bore my testimony in spanish this week. I don't know how much of it made sense but I was pretty proud of myself. I love the Casa Linda Branch. All the members are so genuine and would do anything to help us. We eat with a few of them weekly and they are some of my favorite people. They understand that I don't speak very much spanish and are more than willing to help me learn. They are the best people and I have a lot that iIcan learn from each of them. 

Well guys I love you all and thank you all for supporting me on my mission this far. I wouldn't be able to do it without your guys help!

Love, Elder Hurst

Tiny frog, turtles on a log.

Casa Linda branch

Favorite hamburer place. Only found in Texas.

We received this picture and letter from Elder Hurst's mission president today.

Week 9 Brownsville

This week went by super fast! That is how all the weeks have felt like since I got to the mission field. A couple of things have happened this week. On Thursday I had my first exchange. An exchange is when two sets of Elders switch companions; and usually you switch with district Leaders. So our district leader and Elder Curtis went to the District Leaders area and left me with the District Leaders junior companion Elder Hancock in our area. I got the opportunity to drive! We also had a blitz in one of the sisters area. So basically for the Blitz we just contacted some referrals and talked with everyone we could and got some more referrals. Both of our Spanish is iffy so it was an adventure when we had to speak Spanish with people! But it went pretty well, we got a lot of referrals and a lot of potentials for the sisters. Then we were in our area and just contacted a bunch of people and then visited one of the members that is in our ward that lives in our area. This exchange made me realize that my Spanish is coming a long a lot better than I give myself credit for. When I am with Elder Curtis I just rely on him most of the time and don't even try to speak Spanish so it was good for me to get the chance to open my mouth and give it a try.

This week we also met the Hernandez family. We gave them the restoration and they accepted BD's. We texted them and invited them to church on Sunday. They sent us a text back and said that they love to have friends in their house to talk about the word of God but they didn't want us to try and change their ways. They are very serious about another church. It was hard to hear this because they had a spiritual answer after we gave them the restoration lesson. But I don't think that we were clear enough with them when we invited them to be baptized that that actually means leaving their church and joining ours. So it was a good learning experience in two ways. One we need to be pretty direct with our message. And two, there is people that are going to have spiritual experiences and decide that they don't want to do anything about it and it's going to be hard to hear that as a missionary. But it is a part of the work. Elder Curtis said that it never gets easy to hear someone say they don't want to listen to us anymore.

Also this week none of our investigators came to church. We have so much potential right now but none of them are willing to make it to church. The people here don't realize the importance of attending church weekly; even after they are baptized and I think this Is a big reason there is almost more inactive members in the wards then active members. This is something I want to learn how to emphasize as a missionary. It will probably take some time for me to figure it out but I will figure it out.

We also are now a two man apartment. On Friday the elders that had been living with us moved out. They moved to a more convenient apartment with some other elders. It was a little sad to see them go. Even though we see them quite often during the week. Elder Eskelson and I had just barely started running in the mornings. But I bought some exercise equipment at Walmart and now we have tons of room to work out in the mornings. We also have our own bathrooms and own closets. So we defiantly have a lot of extra room. We also don't have other people to keep us entertained. So to deal with this I had elder Curtis teach me how to play Pokémon! So whenever we have a little bit of down time we play Pokémon! I never thought that this was something I would do on my mission but anything can happen out here.

Elder Curtis has been helping me improve my teaching skills. One thing we have been doing is only teaching the first lesson through questions. It's actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. But it is so much more effective. Our investigators get so much more out of what we teach them if they teach themselves and don't just listen to us preach at them. We've been teaching a lot of restoration lessons lately so hopefully we can help those investigators stick and get them baptized. This was a good week for me. Most of my feelings of inadequacy have gone away. This is the Lord's work. Anything is possible through Him.

Love Elder Hurst

The new, roomier apartment

Missionary Planner

Missionary Car

Elder Falcon

Elder Eskelson

Week 8 Brownsville

This week was really good! We taught a lot of people the restoration and a few of them were interested. After we teach the restoration we teach them about the book of Mormon. They all seemed really interested and told us that they wanted to be baptized. But none of them came to church this week so that was a little problem. We are just going to stress the importance of attending church with them this next week.

It rained a lot this week and I think it effected our desire to work a little. There was times when we couldn't see out our car window because it was so bad. Who ever said that it didn't rain in Texas was a liar!!

For every Area we do something that is called a blitz. It is when all the missionaries in one district go to one area and try and find as many people as we can. We did this on Thursday with one of the sister's area. They are in an area called Port Isabel. It is about 30 minutes away from our area. It is right next to the coast and we actually saw the ocean! We pretty much just talked with everyone that we could find and got the sisters a lot of referals.

On Saturday we were going to go blitz a different sisters area but It was raining so bad that they canceled it and told us to try and stay inside. So we just went and hungout with the conde's for a long time. We are still working with the dad to get him ready for baptism but i'm not sure how much of a desire he has to change. But we are going to keep trying. There family deserves the salvation!

On Friday we ate with one of the members in the Spanish branch. We had some of the best tacos that I have ever had! They were soo good!!

In the English ward there is proably about 800 people but only 100 of them are active. There is maybe 15 of them in our area. For the Spanish ward there is about 10 missionaries there every sunday.

I'm not sure what the numbers for our Spanish ward are but there is a lot of inactive members there as well. It's something that I want to work on and figure out why they go inactive and how we can help them.

This week I had a little discouragement. I felt like whenever someone found out that I was only 18 they just stopped listening to me. I felt like they didn't have any respect for me and it was a little hard. It's even worse when it's in Spanish because I sound like a two year old. It's been hard to learn Spanish. My companion and I only speak in English to each other and most of the people down here can speak in both English and Spanish. But I know that the people down here need my message so I need to stop feeling inadequate and I just need to start speaking Spanish every chance I get even if I say every word wrong! That is the only way that I can learn or get better!

I know that this church is true and that if the Lord really wanted to he could have 10 year olds out here preaching the gospel. The spirit is the one that converts people not me and I need to learn how to teach what the spirit wants me to teach. I hope you all have a good week!!

Love, Elder Hurst

This is a picture of dead frog. We see these everywhere! The frogs are stupid and run into the middle of the road and get ran over. So in the road you see dried up frogs basically everywhere!

Giving service.

Week 7 Brownsville

 Just to start off our area is huge. There is a lot of farm land in our area. So most of the houses are very spread out. But then there is a lot of random neighborhoods everywhere. I'm just going to write about the investigators and then little stories that I have.

One of our investigators is Janet. She works at a little shop in our area. She is pretty interested in the church and I think we will baptize her this month. She made it to the last hour of English ward. (We go to the English ward in the morning and the Spanish branch at 1.) Janet speaks English and Spanish but we usually just talk to her in English so that is very nice. We haven't been able to give her an actual lesson since I got into the Mission but hopefully we will be able to. We have tried twice but they have both fallen through.

One of our other investigators in Mark. I only met him once. We gave him the lesson of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is about 23 or so and lives at home with his parents. His parents are super catholic so they don't want anything to do with us. But he went to church this Sunday in San Antonio. Him and his parents went on a spur of the moment trip or else he would have come to church with us. We are going to talk with him some more this week and hopefully he will be baptized the end of this month.

Next is the Conde Family. I first met the Conde family at 8 o clock on my first day in the mission field. Elder Curtis told me that they had just met them and that we were going to go give them the Restoration lesson. He also told me they didn't speak any English... So we got into the lesson and Elder Curtis just gave the whole Restoration lesson and I just sat there and nodded my head because I was only catching about half of what was being said. At the end of the lesson Elder Curtis invited them to be baptized. They told us they would but we had to do something. The daughter ran inside and came out with some beer and told us that we had to drink it before they would be baptized. Elder Curtis took it and downed it. (It was really creme soda) Then he turned to me and told me to go for it. I tried to say something in Spanish but couldn't manage to get anything out. Then the family just started laughing. It turns out they all speak English and they were all baptized the week before besides the dad who is still working on some things. Elder Curtis played a pretty good joke on me. I had the worst feeling when I thought I was going to have to drink beer but I'm glad that I stood up for what I know. The Conde family is some amazing people and I actually had the opportunity to confirm the 12 year old son. There is Papa Conde hopefully he will be baptized soon, Mama Conde who was baptized a week a go and confirmed this Sunday, Kimberly who was baptized a month or two ago and brought her family to the church basically, Israel who was baptized a week ago and confirmed yesterday by me, Mark who is like 9 or 10 who was baptized a week ago and confirmed yesterday and Joy who Is like 6. They are an amazing family and we love visiting them and hope that we will be able to help the Dad out.

Those are our only three really solid investigators. We have a lot of lessons and a lot of people that tell us that they don't want to hear any more. We have a lot of potential investigators and depending on how they do could be baptized soon. The work here is real. It took a while for that to sink in for me. I still don't speak Spanish very well but it will come with time. We use about half and half in our area. All of the kids know both so I like to try and talk to them in Spanish but a lot of the time they laugh at me.. But it will work out!!

One big problem that we have down here is inactivity. There is a lot of people that go inactive. We work hard to invite them to come to church but a lot of them don't see the point. I think its because of the way that they grew up. A lot of people would just get baptized into the catholic church and just stop going. They don't realized that it is different in our church. So one thing I'm going to stress while I am here is the importance of coming to church and enduring to the end. Its not just a one and done type of thing.

I also wanted to talk a little about this Sunday. So as I mentioned before I got the opportunity to confirm Israel. I was pretty nervous before and almost asked to back out but I decided to just go for it. So I was saying a lot of prayers before hand. The Conde family was really late and barely made it before it was their turn to get confirmed. Luckily there was 5 other confirmations that day! Elder Curtis confirmed Mama Conde then it was my turn to confirm Israel. After I put my hands on his head I knew exactly what to say. I felt that some one was whispering into my ear the words that he needed to hear. So that was really cool. He was being a butt though during priesthood and we had to sit in with him but it's alright. He is proably just feeling like a fish out of water and just needs time to adjust. Me and him have a lot to relate. Sometimes I feel inadequate and like nobody wants to listen to an 18 year old kid but I know with time this will go away. Like I said earlier we also go to a Spanish branch. It's a nice small little chapel and probably has 50 people that come. It makes me feel like I am going to church in Roatan again!

I know that God blesses us for being here. I think one thing he blesses us with is love for other people. I feel like I love these people so much and I barely know them. I know that this is the Lord's work and love going to bed satisfied every night. This mission is amazing. It is the TMM.

I also wanted to talk about P-day today. We woke up and studied like normal and then we went tie digging. Ties are a BIG deal in this mission. You can get some super expensive ties here for like 1 dollar. Today we found a ton of good ties. We found about 26 really nice ones and then divided between the four of us that went and we each got about 6. It was a pretty good experience. I love you all and hope that you are all doing amazing!!

Love, ELder Hurst

District bonding activity. Whip cream in the face.

The tie dig.

Elder Hurst and Elder Curtis

Study area. 

Bikes they never use.

Work out equipment.

Kitchen and bathroom. Elder Hurst and Curtis have their own bathroom.

Elder Eskelson. One of the other missionaries in his apartment.

Beds and closet.

Elder Hurst and his companion, Elder Curtis.

The border of the U.S. and Mexico

Week 6 Texas at Last

I arrived safely to my Mission.

I will start in order of what happened since I got off the plane. So we got our luggage and then met the APs and some zone leaders. We went to the mission office which is a church and did some introduction stuff and had interviews with President Maluenda. He is an amazing man and every word he says is inspired from God.

 

After interviews we went to the presidents house for dinner. We had LASAGNA it was so good! I have missed it. We then had a little spiritual message from the president. We then went to the APs house and slept there. There was probably 14 elders staying there in one night. They had a lot of beds so we were comfortable. 

We woke up and got ready and then had breakfast at the Presidents house. We had Eggs and sausage and bacon. It was a good meal. Then we found out our Area's. I'm serving in the Villa Nueva Area in Brownsville! So chances of me learning Spanish quickly are very high! Elder Jensesn is in Laredo so he will be learning Spanish quickly as well.

 

After we found our our area we went to the mission office to meet our companion. My companions name is Elder Curtis. He has been out for 14 months. He is from Pocatello Idaho! He knows Geraldines! I feel like we are going to get a long well. He wrestled in highschool and played football. He loves comics and superheros so we will have a lot to talk about!

 

After we met our companions we got in the zone truck and drove to our area. We live with two other elders. One is named Elder Falcon and I don't know his companions name. The address to our apartment is 1253 E. Alton Gloor Apt #7 Brownsville, TX 78520. I need someone to send me a letter so that I can have proof of residency for my library card. That is where we email. Its been a crazy couple of days and im sure it will only get more crazy.

 

After we email we are going to buy food and then go meet all the investigators and members! Its going to be a crazy time!  Im excited to get to work and meet new people. Our Area has a lot of farmlands in it so we do a lot of driving. It sounds like will harldly ever use my bike! Well my p day is next Monday so I will email you then but please send me a letter as soon as you can! Thanks for the snacks in the package and for the letter. I love  you all! I will get you some pictures for my next email.

Love,

Elder Hurst