Thursday, February 26, 2015

23February2015

Man alive. I can't keep up with life so this email will be short. 

ERIN WAS BAPTIZED! I taught her in Enicintas and it was a glorious day. It was just indescribably wonderful to be there. Next step, temple in a year with Sister Grover, Erin and Robert. 

Dean: is doing SO awesome! We met with him twice this week and he just eats everything up.  He takes his Book of Mormon and the pamphlets with him everywhere he goes so that whenever he has a minute he can read. He has no shame and will read them in doctor offices and whatnot. His wife isn't interested (yet) and he has a 12 year old son.  We met with him Saturday morning and we asked him if his son would ever have time to sit down with us for a lesson.  He said, "when you have time, he'll have time."  He and his son both came to church yesterday! And you know what his son said when he tried to get him to leave early? "But I want to stay!" And then Dean said, "how about you meet with the missionaries tomorrow after school?"  We got a fist pump from the 12 year old.  Yeah, this kid's getting baptized too. 

Allan: what to say about Allan.... He's also incredible.  Met with him a couple times.  Highlights from the lesson.... He says he's probably in this for the long haul, and was talking about ten years from now when he's at church.  He asks for reading assignments.  He has the most amazing prayers.  He's willing to participate in church.  He loves asking questions and he's willing to work through things in his mind before he plans on "getting outta here".  He met President Kendrick this week as well and that was great. 

Esther is good, full of faith like always. She is paying her tithing even though she has literally no money for her kids. I love her. 

Have a good week!
Sis Huber 







17February2015

What a week. To start, it was 90 degrees......hello, where is my winter!!!!! 

This week has been absolutely nuts.  We got to go to transfer meeting, even though neither of us were getting transferred.  (Let's just say, ask and ye shall receive.)  The Chaparral ward has been split and we now share the ward with elders.  It's been an adjustment.  One of the new elders is from the Philippians and this is his first time being in America. He is being trained by the other elder right now. We got to watch him experience his first piece of pizza, his first taco salad and so on. It is awesome. He is very humble and will teach us all so much! The bad part, he LOVES fish.......ya, that is not going to happen. Anyway, they are quite the funny pair and it keeps them us on our toes. We are trying to help the ward love them so at dinner we play a game of who can get the elders talking the most. 

We also had the Hermanas move in with us.  So that's been an adventure and a half.   Not quite sure how to handle that situation. But we're figuring it out. I have to share all my stuff again:( 

Sharon is so funny. She is actually the queen of dumpster diving. Didn't guess that from her picture, right? Every time we go over she seems to have something new she snatched up from the dumpster. One person's trash another person's treasure. She is doing awesome and is currently doing family history to take names to the temple. 

Oh man, how do I even start to write about Alan. He is incredible! He just teaches himself all the lessons. We had an appointment set up to meet and he cancelled about three hours before. We called the member and made other plans for the night. About ten minutes before the lesson would have started we get a call from him saying it was back on. We rushed over and ended up hearing his days events. Turns out he had the worst day ever, I mean according to him he went to hell and back. He said he at one point he walked into the bar and sat himself down. He then looked around at the drinks he would normally buy. As he continued sitting there in the bar, he had a voice in his head tell him to get up and get out. He walked out of the bar without drinking and went home and walked his dog. He hasn't had a drink since we asked him to stop two weeks ago. At that point in his day he cancelled our appointment. He told us that he had another voice in his head say, you meet with those sisters today. You really think you don't have time to talk about the Lord? Call them up and go. And guess what? He did and we met. He is very close to the spirit and he gets answers. He is so passionate about everything and he is particularity passionate about the Lord.  Lessons are a little off the books due to his unique experiences and colorful past but man alive do I enjoy them. It is a riot. Pray for him because we are witnessing a straight up miracle. In the lesson we were teaching him the Plan but He just couldn't wrap his head around the pre-earth life.  So we kept talking about it and all these things and then our member felt prompted to say, "if we're going back to live with our Heavenly Father, that has to mean that we lived with him before because we can't go back to somewhere we haven't ever been."  He exploded and was like "That clicked!  That made sense!!"  It was so powerful.

Peace is having a clear conscious, not having a lack of problems. I know that is true. May we all find peace in believing as it says in the Book of Mormon. 

Dean. My man Dean. He is hilarious. We stared teaching him through he young men's president. He is half black and cracks jokes the entire time we teach. He thinks we are trying to recruit him for his color.....our member told him in the lesson that he will get a bigger pay out at Dean's baptism because he is black.....oh dear. It is really just too much. Other then that though, it is an amazing story. The member has been working with him for 7 years. He has sent missionaries over time and time again. He had given him the Book of Mormon and Dean wouldn't touch it. We showed up in the ward and talked with this member. We went and knocked on Dean's door after meeting him a church when the member got him to come one week. We went back to the member and informed him that we had an appointment with Dean. Our member was floored. Long story short, he is reading the scriptures, praying, coming to church, setting up his own appointments, asked his friend (the member) to baptize him and is cracking jokes the whole time. Gotta love the gospel. (and the member is certain it also has to do with sister missionaries:) I think that might hold some weight, not going to say it doesn't) 


We have this mom and daughter we visit once a week named Rachel and Hope. Hope is 7. This week she wanted us to play a game with her and set it all up but we didn't meet at the house so she told us about it instead. You have to pick something you will be in this game and so Hope decided to pick for us. She told us, I am going to be a dog because I love dogs! Sister Price is going to be a unicorn because she has magic and loves unicorns! Sister Huber you are going to be a hot dog. Then she just stopped talking. At this point, Rachel and Sister Price are about in tears laughing because they found that so funny. I personally did not. Umm Hope honey, what exactly are you trying to say about me with that? That I like hot dogs? That I look like a hot dog? That I like cheap disgusting food? That unlike Sister Price I do not have magic? How did she even decide that was a remotely good representation of me?  As the laughter wore on, jokes about me being cousins with the corn dog Hope was eating were thrown out and all dignity I had at the beginning was gone. We did not play the game and I don't plan on ever being a hot dog ever again. 


This week we picked up a family through our members and it was awesome. Here's how it came about. Several weeks ago our nightly appointments had fallen through, and since we had gone through the ward list the night before trying to figure out who we needed to meet still we came across the Phillip's (who are active) and decided to stop by with the extra time we had. We had been talking to them for about 5 minutes when their neighbor came and knocked on the door! We got to chat with him and he was so willing and open to meeting with us but he needed to talk with his wife. So we gave him a Book of Mormon, invited him to church, and he was on his way. You better believe that we kept following up with the Phillip's trying to establish a way for us to interact with them more effectively than just knocking on their door (even though we'd already met the husband). So we really worked hard to set something up with the Phillip's and their neighbor and finally last night they put together an FHE with their neighbor, we taught the Plan (per request of Sis Phillips) and picked up the family as new investigators. So many other things played into this and obstacles were faced, but ultimately the greatest lesson we learned was the importance of persistence and trusting that the Lord made everything work together perfectly for a reason, but if we weren't willing to make the invitations and do the work when the opportunity was placed before us, nothing would have happened. It was incredible!  So Todd, Jen, and Elijah are now our newest investigators.  And let me tell you, they are SO prepared!

We had MLC this week and had training all about teaching, which I'm so grateful for because Temecula in particular is teaching probably twice as many Member Present Lessons, but is baptizing roughly the same number of people as before.  Which screamed to us (Sis Price and I) that teaching skills have dropped drastically.  So the whole thing was focused on Teaching Simply, Teaching by the Spirit, and Teaching Towards Baptism.  So our job as leaders is to take this training and do Zone Training Meetings and present the training to our zone so they can start implementing them in their areas.  And our assignment as the STL's is to do a training on teaching simply, which has been the focus of our entire time together.  Needless to say we're really excited.

LOVE YOU ALL
Sis Huber 




Monday, February 9, 2015

February 9, 2015

Hello! 

We had an amazing week. Trinity got baptized and it was one of the most touching powerful moments of my mission. She was beaming and so happy. I think though that her dad was beaming the most. He was so PROUD of his little girl and just so happy. Her mom loved it as well and just felt touched by the support and love. It was Sunday evening after church and we PACKED the room. We had standing room only. I love this ward so much. They have become my home. I have never felt so included and like I belong in my entire life. I can't even fathom leaving this place. I would just like to finish my mission here. I am staying for another transfer but we are seeing so much success that they are splitting the ward and adding  elders. That should be interesting.... I am mixed emotions but I am trying to be super excited so the ward will get on board. They love the sisters so much that we are worried the elders will get some push back. 

Alan....man alive. He is so cool. He came to church and just ate it up. He said that within 3 minutes of walking in the door he would know if he belonged. Well, he stayed three hours so that is good news. His baptism is going to have a full on motorcycle escort. Highlight of my entire life probably. Sitting by somebody and smelling the faint scent of smoke, it was awesome. I was so glad to have him there. And this ward, man everyone should take lessons from them, they are FANTASTIC. They will love anyone into the church. I am learning so much from them about Christ like love. 

This week has been packed with stuff.  So we've made lots of visits, obviously.  We do that.  haha but something out of the ordinary, we went to mutual on Wednesday and had a missionary moment with our youth where each of them wrote their testimonies on the inside of a Book of Mormon and then gave them back to us to hand out.  Some of them were SO awesome and then some of them contained some false doctrine, so we've made sure to filter through them and pick the doctrinal  sound ones. :)


Love
Sis Huber 








Sunday, February 8, 2015

February 2, 2015


First off, I want to tell you a story.  This story is about a beautiful woman named Sharon Dianne Glenn.  Late in the evening on January 14, Sharon was out on her regular walk with her sweet little dog Bella.  Minding her own business she saw two young girls approach the gate of her apartment complex.  They pulled out a key and tried it in the lock several times, but to no avail.  She, out of the pure Christ-like kindness of her heart, walked over to the gate and asked them if they would like to come in.  They grinned and heaved great sighs of relief and said, "Oh, yes please!"  Quickly she turned the handle and let them in.  They repeatedly thanked her for her kindness and then they stopped, looked at her curiously for a moment and said they they were the missionaries in the area, who shared messages about Christ.  They invited her to allow them to come back to her home not so late in the evening and share an uplifting message with her.  She, being a devoted follower and lover of Christ, quickly agreed.  They exchanged information, said their goodbyes and parted ways.  On Jan 16 they returned and taught her about God and His glorious pattern of sending prophets to lead His children, how He eventually sent His Son, and how even though countless times people rejected the truth, He continued to send it to them, because there were still some who were honest seekers and earnestly desired to follow Christ.  In this magnificent story, Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ came to earth in the modern days and appeared to a boy who was an earnest seeker of truth.  He was taught by angels and heavenly messengers and he was the means through whom Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ restored Their church to the earth.  Much to her surprise, Sharon was told that there's physical evidence of this in the Book of Mormon!  How could this be? How could she know for herself that this message is more than a story, but it is in fact the truth as they were claiming it to be?? These girls, who called themselves sisters, then told her that she could pray about it and know for herself straight from God that this message was true!!  There it is! The straightforward and simple answer.  Pray and find out!  They then invited her to be baptized, to which she responded that she would!
These two sisters continued to visit Sharon, two sometimes three times a week! She shared more messages that helped Sharon feel happy and peaceful.  Whenever they came over they helped her know how to strengthen her faith in Christ!  She knew what she had to do! On January 31, Sharon got a ride to the church building called a stake center, got dressed in white, and stepped into a font where she made a promise with God that she would continue to love and serve Him with all her might.  Then, on February 1, she received a blessing where she was given the gift of the Holy Ghost.  She tingled from head to toe and knew that she made the right choice, that the message that they shared with her was true, and that, most importantly, her Heavenly Father was VERY pleased with her decision! Sharon is now beginning her journey to the temple and can't wait to know even more truth for herself!  It was a miracle. She was found, taught and baptized in a matter of 16 days. Those two sisters sure do love Sharon with all their hearts. 

So Thu and Trinity and the rest of the Martinez family are doing well!  We just love their family SO much!  I don't remember how much I told you before, but Thu is Viatnamese and her husband Jesse is hispanic so naturally their children are gorgeous! They have 3 beautiful girls, Trinity 9, Jazlene 7, and Evanglene 5 and they are just so precious.  They are always matching and they're always in pink! GAH! I just really love them.  Ok, enough of that.  If you could keep them in your prayers, we'd greatly appreciate it!

Allen is one of the coolest investigators I've ever had.  He has his motorcycles and 1800 stitches in his back from them.  He also said something really profound in our lesson this last week.  He essentially said:

Don't just come to Christ, but be committed to Him.

...Isn't that SO powerful!?  Because ultimately that makes the biggest difference.  Which way do you face? Are you committed to following Him and ALL that He asks of you?  Are you willing to follow Him straight into the unknown because the one thing that you DO know is WHO He is?  Anyways, I had to wrap my head around that a few times this week so I wanted to share that with you!  Allen's doing well though!  He said he'd commit to baptism if he found out our message was true and he'll be at church next week!  (it was his birthday AND the superbowl yesterday, otherwise he would've been there.  His priorities aren't 100% straight yet, but we'll help him get there! haha)  Something really powerful in the lesson, too, was that he said he wants a little girl SO badly, and he and his wife have been trying for a while to have another baby.  He told us that he believes he needs to quick smoking (and gradually he'll quit drinking) in order for that to happen.  We told him we couldn't agree more and that he needed to tell Heavenly Father that! We haven't had a chance to really follow up with him yet, but we're so excited to see how he's doing!

We went to the temple this week, and it was wonderful. I felt so profoundly at home. I just really love the temple.

Church was AMAZING yesterday! In gospel principles, Bro Reams took the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 and compared it to the Plan of Salvation.  It was incredible.  Try doing that this week! A little snippet of what I learned was that it doesn't matter if the person was initially given 5 talents or 2.  They were rewarded the exact same! We are rewarded for our efforts and commitment. 

It was a wonderful week. I love love love love love the gospel. Happy February everybody!
Love Sis Huber