Teaching the gospel through Family History work

Well, we have been planning our missionary activity with the ward mission leader. We have our invitations and we will be doing our parts to help people fill out their family tree sheets. We also made arrangements with a local cyber (internet shop) so our members can use it for two hours. It will be like having our own family history center. The members are pretty "into" doing the family history work. We did it with a few in their homes for family home evening. The wife of the branch president told us she wouldn't be entering the cemetery to look up dates of death. Her husband seemed amped to do it. haha. We had a really good satellite broadcast for our area. Elder Scott was in Buenos Aires for the broadcast to Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. They did a questions and answers type of thing. They dedicated 30 minutes to the people in the audience and then an hour for phone calls from the three countries. I didn't know that Elder Scott served in Uruguay. He speaks good Spanish. He and the area presidency answered the questions from all sorts of people. The broadcast was this last Saturday. The following day on Sunday we taught a young married couple. They had recently moved into the area and liked going to the plaza in centro. They had been contacted by the missionaries in centro about five times and we had set an appointment with them for Sunday. They are really amazing. It has been a while since we've taught people that understood everything we share with them. They told us yesterday that they may be moving back to the capital. We now pray every night that they stay. haha. I know that they will progress if we can teach them more. In answer to the Christmas question by mom, I would like some casino chips or dice to give as gifts to the people that I meet. I think it would be a nice gift/memory for my member friends. I will take a picture of my shoes and post it next week. The heat is coming back and it is obnoxious. Love you all. Hasta la vista.

Elder Hunsaker

Zone Conference - President del Castillo

Zone conference has come and gone. President del Castillo is a very good teacher. He spoke of how we need to increase the faith in the mission. He is a very direct kind of person and I’m sure there are lots of elders that don’t like him too much. Everyone was on the edge of their seats during conference. I really enjoyed the conference and it definitely boosted the energy of the zone and other zones. We also made our usual trip to Wal-Mart. However, this time I didn’t make a peanut butter purchase.

As far as package receiving goes, I haven’t received a thing. I would assume that the packages and letters are in the office waiting for interviews. The only time we get packages are zone conference and interviews. They do send letters with the colectivos every week but that is a little dangerous for packages.

My birthday has come and gone. During divisions the Duarte family in Bella Vista made me a cake and gave me a little stuffed bear. We also had chorripan to go along with the cake. We too have cell phones here but I don’t know how those birthday calls would go down with Pres. del Castillo. I also had a little birthday party with the Moratto family. We were going to have a fish BBQ but they couldn’t find any fish. We ended up having maipy. I’m not sure how to spell it but it is a native Guaraní dish. They make it with corn flour and all sorts of vegetables and meat. Simply delicious!

Hermano Moratto catches and sells birds. They have all sorts of animals in the house and out of the house. He is sort of a Doctor Dolittle. There are lots of cardinals here in Goya. My comp borrowed a little bird trap and caught a little blue bird. The little blue bird is nothing in comparison with the birds that Hermano Moratto catches. He catches parrots, red cardinals, yellow cardinals, little tiny birds, those blue birds like the one my comp caught, and many many more.

We had division with the zone leaders yesterday. During diviones we stopped by the sanctuary of “El Señor De La Buena Muerte”. It is one of the creepier things I’ve seen in the mission. In all reality, it isn’t that creepy. It would make a good lawn decoration for Halloween.

Mom, thanks for the sheet music this week. It should help, especially the blank staff music sheets. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers. We are doing well here in Goya. The branch will be running a lot better with updated member lists. In the remainder of the transfer we are going to be doing a lot with the members and their family history work. Pres. del Castillo told us to work with the members more. We decided that family history would be a good way to build better bonds with the members. We definitely need the members in order to have investigators that progress. We are hoping this will help us receive more references from the members.

I’ve come to realize that the work is slightly dead when you don’t have the members very organized. The missionary work is basically non-existent without a well running branch or ward. The members are what drive the work forward. They’re examples are much more effective than our knocking, or in my case, clapping. I hope that all of you are being good members and helping the missionaries whenever you can. I love the gospel and I want to be able to share it with everyone -even the Roman Catholic apostolic evangelists that tell me to go away.

I love you all and I want you to know that Michael Phelps is my hero. Thanks for all you do. Hope everything is going well in the lives of each one of you that reads this. Hasta luego!

Elder Hunsaker (Élder Janséquer)

Happy Birthday Elder Hunsaker!

Thanks for the letters and for the Happy Birthday wishes. I still haven´t received anything in the mail but it should be here at zone conference this Friday. It will be the first zone conference for Presidente del Castillo. It also means another trip to the capital and WALMART. Peanut butter here I come.

I spoke with the mission doctor and I said that I have a sinus infection. He has me taking some antibiotics to get rid of it. Hopefully, it won´t return. My ankle is doing much better too.

My comp and I have been trying to straighten things up in the branch recently. He is the 2^nd counselor and I´m the secretary. We do the finances and we are going to try and update the list of members. We came to realize that the missionary work doesn´t run so well without a branch. We have been meeting with less active members and figuring out why they stopped coming to church. We have heard a few things. Sometimes it has to do with members offending each other. Other times it has to do with leaders offending members. We spoke with a woman that wasn´t accepted very well when people found out she had HIV. This goes to show what can happen when people just aren´t understanding and don´t study things out. A few members are really old and can´t physically make it all the time or ever. In any case we are helping these people to remember their covenants with God and letting them know that they are still needed and wanted. We have a total of 238 members on our list and only a turn out of 30 or less. We have had some success in finding investigators through these less active members which is a reason why we are going to continue searching out the members. We also saw success with one less active Melchizedek priesthood holder that came to church this past Sunday. It makes me really happy to see these people return to the arms of an always receiving Savior and his fold. It also makes me happy when our classes are full.

Today we spent our day fishing in Bella Vista with the elders here. We will be doing divisions tomorrow and then meeting up in the cumbi to go to zone conference Friday. Here are some photos of the day. On the way here our colectivo (bus) decided to die on us. We waited 20 minutes for our rescue colectivo. We went from blue seats to orange seats. Saying that makes me think of Jared and his Broncos. We fished with one of the members here. My comp and the other elders played rugby with the member while I played dead laying on a blanket in the sand taking my Argentine siesta. My comp caught a 10 inch fish and then released it. He was the only one to catch anything. Darren would love Bella Vista. I think anyone would love Bella Vista.

The other night a big storm passed through here. It brought lightning and thunder with it. My comp and I decided to take a few photos of the lighting. He was telling after that he has always wanted to do that. It was quite tough to get time to photo right. They turned out really well though.

Mom, thanks for the sheet music. Hopefully everything continues to go well in the lives of everyone. Wish I could be there to visit with Ben and Sierra. I also wish I could see the Olympics, oh well. Love you all. Chau Élder Hunsaker

Well today was a fun p-day. We went fishing with the elders quorum in the Paraná. We didn´t catch anything but we had a good time. I learned how to fish without a pole. We had chorripan and enjoyed the morning. It was really nice to just relax even though fishing is one of my least favorite things to do.

This past week was a tough one. My comp and I were both slightly sick with a mild cold. The sicknesses here seem to pass in a large circle and then return. A lot of the members get sick frequently here too. It might have something to do with allergies but I don´t know. The sicknesses are hard to avoid when the diet isn´t the greatest and it is nearly impossible to improve it.

Here is a little information that may sound familiar. I twisted my ankle about three weeks ago playing fútbol. I didn´t have any problems with it and then I twisted it two weeks later. The second time I hurt it pretty bad but it didn´t swell or anything. I then twisted it for a third and final time. It swelled up almost immediately after and I couldn´t walk very well. I spoke with and Hma del Castillo and the mission doctor. I went to the hospital for an x-ray and everything is fine. I am now wearing a brace and will be for a little while. The doctor had me take an x-ray because it hurt really bad and because they are free.

When we came home from the hospital we found our buddy Kevin that now comes by our house every day with fresh baked churros with dulce de leche in the middle. We decided we would put him through college by purchasing his churros. He is a really funny kid. We are friends with all of the kids here. They are always coming up to us to shake our hands and say hello.

Because of this young man I have gone up 15lbs during my time here. The diet certainly helped with that too. Summer should burn everything off.

As a not for mom, my companion told me to tell you all about his “accident”. I wasn´t planning on saying anything but he insisted. I thank you for the words of wisdom.

We had a really nice district meeting yesterday. One of the sisters taught us about prayer. She taught it from preach my gospel. It had been a while since I had read that section. Everything in it is so true. It says that our prays should be more like a face to face discussion. I´ve never agreed with that more. It says we should give a complete account of our day. She gave such a good lesson. I wanted to get back to the pench just to practice what I had learned. Prays are so important and I love praying. Whenever I´m down, I can always share my thoughts with my padre celestial. Sometimes it is hard to express myself in castellano but I try my hardest to get it all out in castellano. I know that god answers prayers. I have received more strength from him right now than ever before. I hope that I can find more time to pray like I should.

Everything sounds good back home. I pray that it continues that way. I love you all and we´ll talk next week. Chau

Elder Hunsaker

p.s. I did receive the letter with the two packets of pills. It took a while because of the office members.