Monday, September 13, 2010

September 13, 2010








Hi mom and family,

I made it here safe and I sent a post card and a letter telling you I made it. I was hoping that you would have gotten it by now. The mission field is crazy cool. Our mission president is the most loving and tender guy I have ever met. His wife on the other hand seems to be the one who enforces the rules more. She is super awesome too though, she cooked us food the first night and we stayed at her house and she ironed my shirt for me. Just an amazing couple the president and his wife. They will do anything for any of the missionaries.

So I received my first area and trainer. My trainer is Elder Sorel from Gilbert, AZ. He has been out for 5 months and he is super cool and we get along great. I think that we will do very very good together. We both work really hard everyday and are focused on the work. He was a baseball player in high school and is about 6' 3" so we talk sports and what not and we have similar interests which is really good. We are assigned to the Charles River ward which is the single adults 31-45 years old. We also are limited to just males because we have some sisters in our ward that teach the sister investigators. When I first heard this I was bummed but after I went to church yesterday I absolutely love the people. They are all very educated and I have no idea why they aren't married yet. Some of them have like 3 and 4 master degrees and most go to MIT or Harvard. They are all super nice and very giving. We have been taken out to eat 3 times and fed 1 so far.

Since we are assigned to the Charles River ward we don't really have an assigned area we just kind of stay in the Boston area. Mostly Cambridge is where we do our contacting. We live walking distance from Harvard and MIT which is cool. We can't proselyte on Harvard campus but we can around it. We can proselyte on MIT though. Which is good. The buildings on Harvard are beautiful. I will take pictures of them and send them home eventually.... I would now but I forgot my camera. We travel everywhere by foot or bus or subway we have a pass that lets us ride as much as we want to.

All the buildings are just so cool looking even the LDS churches are sweet. They just made a new stake center that is 3 stories and has a gym and 2 chapels in it like a couple blocks from MIT. Our ward just meets in office space thing but still it is pretty cool. Everyday when I am walking around I feel like I am in a movie because I am not used to the way everything is built and looks. We see lots of cool things everyday. Like Bunker Hill and the minute man trail. Lots of history here and I plan on future p-days to go look at it all. Also we are fairly close to Fenway which we go contacting at sometimes. It is way cool seeing everything.

There are a lot of people here that are very liberal and some people just make me mad! My first day we went out all day trying to find people to teach because our teaching pool is pretty small right now. I was yelled at multiple times and called the f word multiple times. The first guy came after me yelling at me because we disagree with gay people. Then like five minutes later a lady was yelling at me saying women don't have enough power in our religion. Then right after that this huge black guy that works in a athletic personal training place comes out saying that there aren't enough black people in Salt Lake and that he would not listen to our message until we had more black people in Salt Lake and until BYU gave more scholarships to black people. With all of these people I just simply explain to them the best I could and was very nice and told them to have a nice day. Except the black guy I told him that my message was equally important to him as it is to any white person. I think he was surprised that I didn't just run away from him. There also was a lady that was a religion major and she told me I didn't want to talk to her. I just answered that I would love to talk to her and tell her how I could bring peace to her life. She just walked away.

The first couple of days were hard. Nobody would listen to us. Me and Elder Sorel have been praying to find people and figured that we need to become more of a part of the people here. Yesterday we decided to go down to MEM street which goes right along the Charles River. Our bus was 30 minutes late. Right when we get off the bus there is a man that immediately comes up to us and talks to us about our religion. We got his info and set up a time to teach him tomorrow.

Then after we went to MEM str. and were walking around when we came to a basketball court where this guy was shooting. We went and started shooting with him. Then another guy came and started shooting too. We challenged them to a game of 2 on 2 we were in our prosylting clothes still and we played them once. They beat us but we weren't trying so we go to play again and I say if we win we get to teach you our message? The one guy replied, "I will listen to your message win lose or draw." Which was sweet. so we were playing and smoking them then we kinda just messed around and lost. The one guy was about 25 and didn't care to much to hear our message but he said he wants to start a team with us and some other missionaries. We are going to ask our president about that. He also said there are about 80 guys that play in the league and maybe some of them will be willing to listen to us. We got his number and he left.
Then the other guy said he was like 52 but he didn't seem that old at all. We think that he would fit into our ward very well. He told us to walk him home share our message and then he would get us a cold drink and a business card so we could call him. He was the nicest guy ever. He said that he spent time in the with the juvy and kids that were locked up there for 25 years. We walked him home which was like a block away and shared the first lesson on the restoration. We gave him a Book of Mormon and asked if he would read from it and pray and he said he would and also that he wanted us to come back and check up on him. It was the coolest experience ever! After we were about to leave he said that it was his birthday and that he knew that we came and talked to him for a reason. He gave us some powerade too.

It was very cool to see how the Lord puts us in places to teach the gospel to those that are ready for it. I truly am an instrument in his hands. And have a path made for me by our savior Jesus Christ. I love the mission and the feeling of my feet being sore after a hard day because I know that I gave it my all.

Today is p-day and the Spanish missionaries challenged us to soccer. So we will go play them. But usually we play basketball on p-day and there are some good ball players in our zone. Elder Hiatt is from Payson and played ball there and Elder Hansen played for Bingham. Then there are some baseball players that are all good athletes here. Boston is safe but the people are crazy and most of them lost in their life. Which sucks!! I will help as many as will here the Lords message.
Love you a ton!

Elder Hunter

Letter we received from the Mission President a week later and picture.

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