6/30/14

¨I don´t know about you, but I´m  . .. not feeling 22 . . .¨. . . I wonder if it´s awkward for Taylor Swift to sing that at concerts now that she´s not 22 anymore. 

I am so sorry this is short, but my zone leader is calling TIEMPOOOOO and it´s time to go hear about transfers. Yup, I can´t believe transfers are already here again. It went by so fast! I´ll be sure to write a much better email next week, but I just want everyone to know that I love this work. I love being a missionary and I love working and serving the Lord and His children. I love you all so much and I hope you´re having a great summer. I know that this church is true, that we are led by a prophet of God and that we have the same church that Jesus Christ organized when He was on the earth because He called a prophet for our dispensation! If you doubt it, get on your knees and ask God! 

I love you all! 

Hna. Hulse

6/23/14

Hola!!!!

I hope everyone has had a super awesome week because I sure have! I don´t know why, but it´s been a good week. My companion and I have been working super hard, and this week we got a letter from our mission president telling us that he´ll be attending our stake conference and that he´d like to meet Miguel (the guy that got baptized last week). We´re doing super good and it´s just been great . . . it´s slowly dawning on me that my mission really is starting on the downhill slope and I´m trying to work super hard so that time doesn´t slip away from me. Serving a proselyting mission really is a once in a life time thing, and I´ll never get another chance to do it! So yeah . . . anyway, reaching the year mark this week has been making me think about things like that. 

The month of June is a really busy month full of a lot of memories. I love the month of June, because it´s the day I left on my mission, it´s usually when school lets out, it´s my birthday,  . . . a lot of good things. But also, this month, I´ve been thinking about a friend who was taken a couple years back. I remember going to his funeral, and his youth pastor said that he hadn´t deserved to go to Heaven (in the sense that he didn´t deserve to die). It was so incredibly sad, to think that they believed that our time on earth was the high point of our existence. I declare to every person that reads this, that our time on earth is simply a probationary period of learning and growing and repentance. That our time on earth is a small spec compared to eternity, and that God has a greater destiny for each one of us. I know that God has a plan, and that He is our Father, and just like every father, He wants us to become like Him. Our glory is His glory. Our eternal happiness is His eternal happiness and because of our Savior Jesus Christ, every person will live again, never again to die. God is wise and all knowing, and has a purpose for every single one of us. I know that my friend is learning about the gospel, and will have the chance to accept it and gain eternal life and that he will live again, because Christ lives. 

I´m just so happy to be on the mission and to be able to share these eteranl truths. Our existence is not a coincidence. Life is too perfect and too beautiful to be a coincidence. I know that we have a creator, and that He didn´t just send us here for the heck of it. He has an eternal plan for His children, that we may be exalted and become like Him. And if you doubt any of my words, get on your knees and HUMBLY and SINCERELY ask God if it´s true. 

I love being a missionary! 

Thank you for all your support and prayers! I love you all!

6/16/14

Hey everyone!

So, this week was super awesome and crazy. First off, it was awesome because one of the 12 living apostles of Jesus Christ came and visited us here in Peru! Eld. Dallin H. Oaks! It was so awesome! Except for the part where, when we went to shake his hand, I almost fell on my butt and dragged him down with me in front of my entire mission . . . no it wasn´t really that bad . . . kind of. 

Every time an apostle or one of the seventy come and we have a conference, we have the opportunity to shake their hands and introduce ourselves and so, Eld. Oaks was the last in line, and we were up the stairs by the pulpit, so I said, ¨Hi Elder Oaks, thanks for coming today!¨ and he asked where I was from, and I said Oregon! Then I took a step back for some weird reason, and didn´t know there was a step there . . . anyway, I wouldn´t have fallen. But he reached out and steadied me, and grabbed my hands and led me down the stairs like I was a fragile old lady, and I was like, ¨Thanks, Elder Oaks¨ . . . and then I awkwardly sat down as 200 missionaries were trying not to laugh too irreverantly. So yeah . . . that´s my embarrassing story of the year. It could have been much worse. I could have actually fallen and dragged him down with me. So yeah. I´m ok. At least now I have a story with an apostle. A lot of the missionaries came up to me at the end and either said, Wow! An apostle saved your life! or Wow! You almost killed an apostle! lol. So yeah. The meeting was super awesome and they´re always super inspired. Also, I learned the He´s super funny and so is His wife. So anyway, it was really great to get spiritually fed this week. 

Also, because he was there and we had a ton of conferences and everything, including the ward members, we had our baptism at 7am sunday morning, before church. It was awesome! We were SOOOO tired, but it was so great. Miguel used to be Jehova´s Witness (there are a TON here, like half the people here) and was even a leader in his congregation, but then realized that he didn´t like some of the things that were happening and that were being taught, so he went searching for the truth, and God prepared him and led him to us! These past few weeks we´ve been teaching and preparing him, and it´s been amazing, because it´s like we didn´t have to do anything. It´s great to see how the Lord really is preparing every single one of His children to receive the Restored Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. 

Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful week and Father´s Day! You´re in my prayers and I love you all!

Hna. Hulse

6/9/14

Hey everyone!

This week has been pretty awesome. We´ve had our ups and downs, but we´re working hard and trying to help the people we´re teaching overcome freaking satanás. 

We were super excited because we had 5 people progressing and who had accepted baptismal dates and we were SO excited! We reported the numbers to our zone, and everyone was so excited for us, because we had the most dates in the whole zone . . . but God´s teaching me to be more humble and Satan is working really hard, so we had a few fall through. BUT, discouragement is the devil´s tool, and we are working really hard to help these people start progressing again so that they can recognize the truth and they can overcome the advesary. 

This week I received a letter from Elvia, a teenage girl that I taught the gospel to and was baptized, and it was so awesome and one of the best things EVER. She´s active in the church and doing awesome and ALSO a family that we were teaching in my old area FINALLY got married this weekend! When we opened the area, the elders introduced us to them (less active members that were just living together but had 2 kids and weren´t married). Anyway, the elders told us good luck and they´re your problem now. Well, we worked super hard with them, and they came back to church and this weekend they got married. It was so super awesome and now they´re preparing to go to the temple. 

Anyway, that´s how life is, ups and downs, but the important thing to remember no matter WHAT we are going through, is that whatever earthly trial we have on this life is NOTHING compared to the eternal blessings we can receive by living the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a wonderful week! 

Les Amo!!!!

Hna. Hulse

6/2/14

Hey everyone!

This week has been SUPER crazy . . . almost as crazy as last week. My companion Hna. Ku ended up going home this friday (we were together less than 24 hours before the president gave the go ahead), so we had a week together before she left and it was an AWESOME week. But she went home and I know that she´s gonna get better and she´s gonna do awesome things and be an awesome missionary at home, because she´s an AMAZING gospel teacher and I learned a TON from her. 

So hna. Luna and I are working hard to have success in this area and we finally reached one of the goals that I´ve been striving for for a super long time. To reach the minimum of 32 lessons AND have 100 contacts. Usually if we have a lot of lessons, we don´t have hardly any contacts, and vice versa. So, this week, we had 41 lessons with 104 contacts!!!! I was SO excited! We also had 3 people accept baptismal dates this week and there are still a ton of people who we are working with to help them learn more about the gospel and prepare to be baptized! It´s definitely true that some missionaries plant seeds, other missionaries till the ground and other missionaries harvest the fruits. In my other area, we were definitely planting a lot of seeds. So I´m excited to harvest the fruit here in this area! 

I was still really sad about not being in San Felipe, in my dream area, but this week has taught me that God really does know what will make us happy better than what we believe will make us happy. I´m so happy to be in this new area (called Tungasuca) and I really am SO excited to be here and I feel like I´m loving the mission more and more every day! OH! also, my friend Pamela left yesterday for her mission in Portland, so today she should be in the Provo MTC. YAY! Anyway . . . I love you all so much and I hope that you have an amazing week. Thank you for your prayers!

Love,

Hna. Hulse