There's an Angel watching over me. Her light is shining down upon me.

Happy Happy New Year! God is good to me!

Transfers! I'm a trainer!! God continues to provide me Tender Mercies. Happy New Year to you all. Love my family.

Hello there all my family and friends! First of all, it was SO GREAT to see all of you for christmas even though i cried almost the entire time... oops. haha I loved seeing all of you, but i dont love crying. haha I hope everyones christmas was the bees knees. Anyways.. I have completed 4 months in my mission everybody! I have officially been in paraguay for 3 months and completed my training with hermana villanueva. Tomorrow at 8 o´clock in the morning she will no longer be my companion. haha How weird. I´ve been trying so hard to hold in the tears. Haha She wrote me a little message in my journal and I just balled. She really is an amazing person, an amazing missionary, and an amazing friend. I honestly could not have asked for a better trainer. Im so blessed. I know that many blessings are waiting for her in Peru. We will always be good friends. It is my prayer that she can move to Arizona with her family so that i can one day see her again. So you all need to be on the lookout for someone tall dark and handsome that is on the look out for a chica from peru. Well as most of you know today we were supposed to get our phone calls to find out who would be our next comps and where we would serve... Well on Friday i got a call from our district leader and he said hermana hunt this change is gonna be different... Tomorrow i will call and let you know who will be your comp and where you will serve and tuesday you will head to the office for your companion. So i said okay and the next day i was really nervous. haha The phone would ring and i would freak out thinking it was my district leader.. Well the other two hermanas that live with us got their call and ran into our room and put the phone on speaker so that all could here and they got their results. Hermana Sanchez will stay here in Itaugua and her comp will be hermana braunersrither from texas. she was in the mtc with me. And hermana alania is leaving Itaugua and will get a new companion that right now i cant remember her name. So both of them arent training. So when i heard that they werent training i was like Oh, okay so im not training either because they both have alot more time and experience than me. And if they arent training, im sure not. So then our district leader called me and i put it on speaker phone.... and we waited.. then he said something and no one could understand so then he repeated himself and he said hermana hunt, The lord has called you to be a trainer. My comp, and the other two sisters started screaming and freaking out and hermana villanueva kept yelling I KNEW IT I KNEW IT! haha.. And i just started to cry. I couldnt believe it. I still cant believe it. I said but i only have 3 months in the mission. And hermana villanueva said hermana hunt... that isnt important. Whats important is that the lord trusts in you, so he called you to train. ah.. wow. The past two days there has been a big war in my head between satan and the lord. That sounds super dumb but its true.. There is Satan who says you cant this.. You dont know everything. You dont know spanish, you dont know all the scriptures, you JUST finished your training , you have a thousand weaknesses.. How in the world are you going to train.. And then the voice of the lord that is telling me to put my trust in Him. I know that i will need to rely on my heavenly father more than ever before. I honestly never ever thought that my heavenly father trusted that i could do something like this. But he called me.. I only have three months and he called me to train. I am so humbled and im so nervous. But im pretty determined not to let the lord down. and if you guys could just keep me in your prayers i would be so grateful. I know that your prayers always help me. Im so thankful to be here on a mission. I decided to serve a mission because i wanted to give others the same happiness and knowledge that i have. I wanted to see peoples lives change, I wanted to see families recieve the blessings from this gospel. And i do.. I get to do all that i expected to do. But i get to do more than that. I get to see a change in myself. I get to see my own family recieve the blessing from the gospel. God continues to provide me with his tender mercies... His little miricles build my faith and my testimony more than you could imagine. He is helping me to overcome my weaknesses... He is helping my family to be happy. He is answering my prayers. I know that he can do the same for everyone.. I just know that it all starts with humility. We cant change if we arent humble. We cant feel the NEED to change if we arent humble. Im so grateful for every single one of you. Every single family member, every single friend, every single prayer... Thankyou for all the love and all the support. Have a peaceful, happy day. And Have the best first week of the year 2014. I love you. I will talk to you all next week. AND REMEMBER.. Dont forget to go to church. Chau! © 2013 MicrosoftTermsPrivacyDevelopersEng

Skype Christmas with Rachel

Merry Christmas Message from Rachel Families Christmas Caroling in hotter than you know what weather! Love my family.

Hola Familia! Feliz Navidad! I hope everyone is enjoying themselves this christmas season! I know I am enjoying every second of christmas here in Itaugua with my comp. She leaves the mission in 1 week and I complete 4 months and get a new companion to start off the new year! So we will be working super hard in this last week that we have together! Were going caroling in the hotter than you know what weather and sharing the christmas cheer!! Which is the gospel. Duuuh. AND Tomorrow for christmas eve i will get to talk all my family. And really that is all that I could ever ask for, for this christmas. I am so excited to talk to my family! Im so excited to see your faces! Hoooly moly how emotional. haha I will be able to skype at 5 30 our time.. Thats 1 30 your time, i believe. Be there or be lame. Wow so another year gone by... would you look at that. Almost a year Exactly from today I made the decision to move home to prepare to serve a mission. Best decesion that i have ever made in my entire life. I remember I didnt feel the least bit good about going back to thatcher. Something inside me was telling my that to go back to thatcher and study wasnt what needed to happen. I fought that feeling for like 3 weeks straight and tried to ignore it. But when i came home for christmas I had that feeling even stronger.. it wasnt until after i had read in D&C 4:3 that it hit me. I said to myself, Whelp Rach, you´ll break the news to mom in the morning. haha And i did just so huh mom? haha And now im here serving the lord in South America. I am so grateful for all the things that have happened in the year 2013. My love for the lord has grown so much.. My testimony is stronger than it ever has been and I have learned What really is "the importance of my family." My family has always been important to me.. but now more than ever, I know that my family is the most prized posession that i have and i would do anything for them. Not a day goes by that i dont think about my family. Families are sort of like teams. In a team everyone has to do their part and give everything they have in order to win. Well, every memeber in the family needs to put in their part and needs to give everything they have in order to live together happy, and united for ALL eternity.. I know that I didnt put in my part before my mission.. But i didnt understand. Now i understand. I understand what IS important and what is not. Im so happy and grateful to be here in Paraguay. God couldnt have chosen a better place for me to serve. Duh. Cause God is perfect. He knows me better than i know myself. For example, I thought before my mission that i hated to be hot... but nope. I love it. I love being sweaty 24 hours of the day. haha just kidding.. but really. I love the people, I love the food a little bit, I love the spanish... The words of Grandpa Marion Always ring in my mind. They are good people everywhere you go. Family and friends Its my prayer that everysingle one of you will have a very special christmas where ever you are in the world... And that this next year. THe year 2014 will be filled with lots of happiness! and that we can all learn lots of cool stuff about life. Because thats why God sent us here! Duuuh.. to learn and grow and to be happy! My Motto for this year is this..... "And inasmuch as you keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land.¨" THis is my motto because, 1. It says it a billion times in the Book of Mormon. 2. Because its true. 3. Because i want to prosper in the land. haha Anyways!!!! I love you all! and have a very merry christmas!!!!!!!!!!!

WHY DID GOD SEND ME TO PARAGUAY...... GMA & GPA AUNT JEAN AND GAYLE BASSO

Rachel Hunt Add to contacts 1:27 PM To: jena velte Why did God send me to Paraguay?‏ Hey mom, whats up? I have been thinking lately of all the reasons why God sent my to Paraguay. There are alot of reasons. But there is one reason that i would like to share with you. Here in paraguay mom, everything is GREEN. There are plants EVERYWHERE. Trees everywhere with fruit. Lime, lemon, mango, bananas, papaya.... and alot of fruit that i dont know. Today for pday we went to a lake... we had to walk to thick thick trees to get there. I cant help but think of you every time i see the green trees, the green fields... You always work so hard in the yard, in the garden. My point is that one of the reasons that God sent me here to paraguay is to be reminded of you every day. I love you mom. SO much. And guess what... i got your packages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKYOU THANKYOU!!!!! I opened them up and squealed!!!!! And cried! I am so blessed to have you in my life. THis is for gma and gpa. Hey there grandma and grandpa! Boy do i miss you alot! i dont have much time but wanted to share an experience with you. A long time ago grandma, you shared a story about your tithing. And how grandpa kept forgetting to take the tithing to church. And one of the people out at the ranch who isnt a member of the church called and told you that you needed to pay your tithing so that it would rain. And then grandpa finally remembered and it Rained..... Well in a lesson this week i shared this story. I cried a little bit. The spirit was SO strong. I just want to thank you and my sweet grandpa for being the best grandparents and the best examples. Your examples are something that i have used so much here in the mission. PLEASE stay there in heber and dont move a mussle until i get back. I have alot of things planned for the three of us when i get back. Lorence welks and dancing every saturday night. And listening to my grandpa play his guitar. I love you guys! THankyou so your prayers! This is for aunt jean Aunt Jean. My sweet sweet aunt jean. I love and miss you so much. I want you to know that i think about you everyday. I want to tell you to be strong and always remember that Our heavenly father and uncle cyrol are looking down and watching over you. They are rooting for you and want the very best for you. DONT ever forget how much i love and care about you. This is for gayle basso Gayle, How are you? How are things? I dont have much time but wanted to write and tell you that i have been thinking about you. I want to share my testimony with you... and apologize for not sharing it before i left. Gayle i know that god loves you. I know that he is looking down on you with your sweet husband. I know that through This gospel You can see your husband again. YOu can live with him for all eternity. Dont ever forget that you are not alone. God is always with you. And remember that i llove you. And i too want the very best for you. I love you and want to thank you for your example, for your prayers and your support. And PLEASE remember that you have always been and will always be a member of our family.

My very first baptism and more baptisms on the way!!

What up family and friends! I would like to inform you that saturday i had my first baptism! Can you believe it? Her name is Marcelina Aguilera she is 80 years old and single. She seriously is so cute and speaks very little spanish. Mostly guarani. We always have to have a translator. But i dont like translators so i learned some phrases in guarani so that i could communicate with her. I want to learn guarani SO bad. So after i conquer spanish, Guaranii better watch out because im comin in hot and ready to learn. Anyways so the baptism... was.. AWESOME: And she is doing so so great! Her family is members and they are MORE than happy. They couldnt stop crying because they were so happy. It was pretty great. This saturday we have another baptism! With an old fart named Leonor Gonzalez. He too is very old and single. He lives in a house two feet away from marcelina. And i always say that him and good ol marcelina are gonna get hitched. Haha Anyways Leonor is my favorite. He is always trying so hard to learn in the lessons, he always says, That american sure has a good character. I tell him i get it from my grandma. We had a lesson with him the other day about temples and temple work. We had planned to teach about the ten commandments but in the lesson i was strongly impressed that temples was the way to go. In my mind i was thinking about his parents that right now are in the spirit world.. I just felt strongly that they are rooting for leonor to be baptized and they want us to do all we can to help him enter into the waters of baptism. I know.. i sound a bit crazy but im being for reals. Anyways... im super pumped for his baptism this week! Then on the 28th we have another baptism with a chico named rodrigo who is 24 years old and all he does is exercise and work. His family is a less active family. Family Vaez. They seriously are such a great family and we have been working so hard to get them back to church. And everytime they havent come ive just about cried. The daughter, named gaby is my age and she is a stud. she reminds me so much of Olivia. Anyways yesterday this family went to church!!!!!! Boo. ya. I was SOOO happy. And there son rodrigo who NEVER wanted to listen to our lessons or have anything to do with us... showed up too. So after church we had a lesson with him and he said he isnt happy and he is missing something in his life and he accepted the invitation to be baptized. SO awesome. He is a hard worker so i know that he will do alll he can to find this happiness in his life. Then on the 5th of janurary we have another baptism!!!! With this lady name balvina and her son jorge. Balvina is really crazy religous. Our first lesson with her she stood up and closed her eyes and starting praising the lord. I was a little scared but i figured that this was her answer that the church is true. Haha Were hoping to work with them alot so that they can get dunked as well. How awesome no? The missionary work is a miricle. Really, I love to watch these peole grow in the gospel. I love to watch the holy ghost work in their hearts and testify that this gospel is true. I love to be invloved in the work of the lord. Its such a blessing to be here in paraguay. I am overly blessed to have so many of you my family and my friends supporting and rooting for me. I feel the power of your prayers and ask that please dont stop. I need all the help i can get. haha Its a sacrifice to be away from my family and friends for a year and a half. A sacrifice that before, i really didnt understand until now. But I know with all my heart that sacrifices bring blessings. And i have seen the blessings already overflowing here in the mission. Thankyou so much every single one of you. For the packages, for the letters, for the prayers and for the support. I pray for you all every night. My prayer is about 10 minutes long in the night times because i have SO much to thank god for. I love you all! WIth all my heart! Yo quiero compatir mi testimonio con ustedes. Yo se que este evangelio es verdadero. Te quiero mi familia muchisimo y Se que mi familia puede vivir juntos para siempre. Se que a traves este evangelio mi famila puede ser mas unidos. Podemos tener mas felizidad y mas paz si cada uno de nosotros hacemos nuestro parte. Se que Dios tiene mucho amor por cada uno de ustedes. Y como mi abuela siempre dice.. Si guardamos los mandamientos, vamos a recibir MUCHOS bendiciones. Y dejo estas cosas con mucho amor.. en el nombre de nuestro salvador, jesucristo.. Amen chao familia!

Rain Rain nothing like I've ever seen before!! My awesome companion is going home and Changing hearts.

Wow this week has been one for the books! The work is moving along GREAT here in Itaugua. Did i ever mention that the area we are in now we had to open. We came here knowing nothing about the area, there wasnt an area book, we started from scratch. The first sunday we had 50 people attend church, and yesterday guess how much.. 100! President is very happy with the progress in our area! The church here in Paraguay is growing and i have the awesome opportunity to watch it all! Its amazing to see the changes in these people. The changes in their hearts, in their spirits.. I am growing to care for the people more and more everyday. This week we found an investigator that is a professional soccer player. He is huge. This lesson was so awesome. haha. The spirit was so strong. I could barely speak. My heart was pounding so hard. Its so awesome when we can see the spirit work in these people and teach them. By the end of the lesson he was worried about his job... becasue he plays soccer on the weekends and isnt able to attend church. He finally said, well... maybe i need to find another job. I was so taken back. Sports have always been so huge for me. I love sports and only in my wildest dreams i play on a proffesional team. haha When he said that he needed to find another job... wow. It was truely amazing. This week we have had alot of rain. But yesterday was like nothing i have ever seen before. Only in the movies. haha In the morning the sun was SO STRONG. The air was so wet all my clothes were soaked... But the sky was clear and blue. Not a cloud in the sky. Well during our personal study we heard a loud boom and i jumped... and then came the storm. Haha We watched from our window the rain, the wind... it was insane. The lights went out.. And then hermana villanueva said, lets go outside and check it out.. so we walked outside and in 15 seconds were soaking wet. But that isnt the best part. Trees, HUGE TREES had been struck by lighting and fallen in front of our apartment, and all down the streets. Water up to our ankles, the busses couldnt pass. I have pictures. It was awesome. Then we got a call from the zone leader saying to stay inside. Today on this wonderful pday, i want to talk aabout my comp. My trainer. Hermana VIllanueva has 17 months in the mission. She is going home on january 2nd. Before me, she was the sister leader trainer. Sister leader trainers are two sisters.. latino and american who look over ALL the sisters in the mission. The go on splits with all the sisters, Work with the mission president.. And make sure all the sisters in paraguay are okay. She thought that she would end her mission as the sister leader trainer but she got a call from president and he told her that God had called her to train one last hermana. The moment after president assigned our companions every single missionary, hermana and elder came to me and told me how blessed i was to have hermana villanueva. That she is a great missionary. The wife to the missionpresident gave me a hug and whispered in my ear to not waste a minute with hermana villanueva. So basically family and friends, she is a legendary missionary. And for some reason God chose HER to train ME. Why i am so blessed i dont know... but i do know that every second i have with her i am using to my advantage. She has taught me so much. I have one more month with her and then she leaves and i will no longer have a trainer. I will be a normal missionary. I dont know what will happen. I could stay in my area with another comp, leave my area with another comp, stay and train or leave and train. All the missionaries that i talk to say that now that i know how to open an area, i might get sent to open an area with another sister. Or stay and train. But im not ready to train. haha i have only been here for 2 months. THere is no WAY i am going to train. But we will see what happens. All i know is that the day hermana villanueva has to leave... i am going to cry alot. haha But i know that god knows what he is doing. And he will take care of me. Okay they just told me we have to go. so tell aunt jean i love her someone! i love you all! bye!

Ultimate Frisbee and Twilight

The first photo is of my zone. We played ultimate frisbee this day! The second photo is my district. Only 2 americans. If the hermana in front of me looks like she has her garments in a wad.... Its because she does. hahahaha my companion has the really short hair. and the hermana in black is hermana sanchez. she is the shiz. I flippin love her. She is from el salvador and she rocks my socks. We always say that were going to be companions someday. And i always tell the other two hermanas that el salvador and united states is the best and the get really mad. Like for reals mad. They think peru is the best. And then i keep arguing with them and i always think its super funny.. so does hermana sanchez. Also, the latino...elder herrera. our district leader. He is from columbia. He is pretty awesome as you can see. he is obsessed with twilight and always says that he will find his bella someday in the united states at byu. And the other is elder simps. he is from utah. He is a nerd but i love him. He is the only american i have to talk to so i guess you could say were best friends.

HOLA YOU BUNCH OF AMERICANS!!!!! WHAT. IT. DO.

Hola you bunch of americans!!!! what. it. do. Sorry i didnt write last week. Didnt have time. Story of my life. haha I cant remember all that happened the past two weeks. But ill try to catch up as much as possible. Last, Tuesday was Elder Christofferson day! We got all ready in the morning and headed over. A bit of background information: I had been praying for days and days that Heavenly Father would give me time with Hermana Buss, because I knew she would be there but I didn´t know if we would have time to visit or anything before or after. Okay. So we were heading over to the distribution center, next to the temple, to get some books and stuff. We had an hour and a half or so until we needed to be seated in the chapel for the meeting. We were walking over and I was praying that by some miracle, Hermana buss would be in the Distribution Center. What are the chances, right? So we walk in and are greeting a pair of sisters that are in there, and I am about to give one of them a hug, and I look around the corner on my left, and guess who is standing there! Hna Buss of course! We see each other at the same time, drop all of our things, and give each other the biggest hugs of our lives, while crying, of course. You would think it had been ten years since we´d seen each other. Nope. only six weeks. But it sure felt like ten years. We were able to talk for a while (in rapid english, which was nice for both of us), and our companions were in the MTC together and are good friends also, so we all went and got lunch together! If I didn´t know that God answers prayers before last Tuesday, I sure do now, haha. Anyway, that was soooooooooooooo wonderful, I just can´t even express it. The whole conferenece was off the chain. Elder Christoff let us all shake his hand and the hand of his cute wife. I thought to myself, wow...What would it be like to be the wife of an apostle?? Pretty flippin awesome i think. The spirit was so strong and it was so great to see here all of the perfect words that came out of his mouth. Then... Last monday i had to go to the officina to sign papers. this is the reason why i didnt write last week. But i recieved 2 more packages!!!!!!!!! But i was really humble about it. Okay not really.. i rubbed it in everyones faces. It went a little something like this.. "Oh you didnt get a halloween package... well i got 6 so here, have a piece of candy" haha Just kidding... I cried when i got the packages and i shared with everyone. Funny story of the week: Saturday our companions had a baptism that was so awesome! first was a wedding and second was the baptism. during the wedding they do all the dumb things like throw the bouquet and all that... well they have this thing with the cake. And attatched to the cake is all these strings and one of the strings is connected to a ring. and all the girls gather round and say 1 2 3 and pull, and whoever gets the ring means that they are getting married soon. So i thought, well its just logic that the missionaries dont play this game. Nope. They insisted that we play and guess who got the ring? Me. "Oh how funny," laughed all the latinos. "When is the wedding?" Said the bishop. "Who is the lucky man?" Snickered the district leader. I gave the plastic ring to a little girl that really wanted it but then 20 minutes later her mom was ticked at me for giving it away. haha oh well. Miricle of the week: I dont know if this is a miricle but it is the sweetest thin ever. So we have a menos activo that since the first week we got here he has consistently gone to church. We visit him and his mom alot. The other day i asked him why he was inactive before and he said it was because he didnt understand becasue he speaks very little spanish. Only guarani. This made me think how many people are inactive because they dont understand spanish. It made me sick. So i talked with the good ol bishop and we now have someone called to be a translator for ALL those who dont understand spanish. Another thing about this good fella. Like most people here in paraguay he doesnt have money. And i have always wondered how in the world he got to church because there is no way he can walk. Well the other day his mom told us that in order to have money for the bus to go to church he sells their chickens. Or in other words, their food. And this week they only have 5 chickens left. What a sacrifice right? Haha In order to go to church every sunday where he doesnt even understand spanish.. he sells his chickens, his food! to get there. Wow. It makes me sick when i think of the sacrifice but i know with all my heart that sacrifices bring blessings. I know just know it. Fun facts about The mission life/Paraguay There are chickens and cows EVERYWHERE. And the chickens are not normal. They are black with white dots. Everyone here has crazy eyes. They have dark skin and black hair and then their eyes are orange or blue or gray. Its insane. Somedays we will be walking and find coconuts and take a break to eat some. In december they say that the ground is completely yellow from all the mangos that fall. Boy am i excited for that. haha anyways thats all for today folks! i love you all so very much! see ya!

A letter to my mommy. Elder D Todd Christofferson, Bubble gum, little children, Hermana Buss and hand written letters

Hey mom. I dont have anytime to write to day becasue we had to go to the mission office to sign in at the migrations office and everything was great. It was even more great because i recieved the best package in the whole wide world!!!! the package from my sweet sweet mother!!!! oh mom when i opened your package i was so excited!!! i opened it right before we had to head back home and saw all the bubble gum and me and my companion ate it all the way home on the bus. haha keep in mind that the bus ride is 2 hours long. haha i love you and i loved even more seeing your sweet sweet letter. it was just a little words but i LOVED it! I love your written letters because i can always look at them. Well mommy this week was great. The grand miricle that i was able to experience is to shake the hand of elder d todd christoferson. We had a conference with him on tuesday and he invited ALL the missionaries up to shake his hand. It was awesome. And i also got to see all my friends from the mtc. especially hermana buss. ill tell you the story. So we left our house really early in the morning becasue we all wanted got to the distribution center in Asuncion and i was looking around and all that and i heard the door open and i saw one sister missionary walk in and then right after that i saw hermana buss. Mom, we hugged and cried for like 30 minutes. I am not even exaggerating. I kept saying, Hermana this feels like a dream!!! haha our trainers let us go on a mini division and so my companion ALL day was hermana buss. Oh how i missed her mom. She is my best friend. I love her so much. We sat by one another during the conference and felt the spirit so strong. The words of elder christoferson were just what we needed to hear. He is truely amazing. But then time came to leave and we were sad again. haha Anyway, today was changes, but i didnt change. I am still in Itaugua with the amazing hermana villanueva. Mom, she is amazing. She is taking great care of me. I am learning so much mom. I am experiencing so much. I love the people.. i love the kids. Oh the kids are adorable. You would just die! Yesterday a little girl turned 4 and we had a little book to give to her for her birhtday and we showed up and sat down and this little girl gave me the BIGGEST kiss on the cheek i think i have ever recieved in my life. haha So So SOO cute. Her name is Jasmin. I am doing so great. I am missing you so much and looking forward to christmas when we get to skype!! i dont know all the details but i will let you know soon enough. All i know is that you should set it all up at grandmas house with a laptop and all the family. Anyways mom my time is up. I love you so much. I love you my dearest mom. My love for you grows more and more every day. Stay busy and keep happy. From your favorite missionary Hermana Hunt.

Buenos Tardes Familia y amigos! Como están? Como le va? Another week in the great country of paraguay!

Rachel Hunt 11-11-13 Buenos Tardes Familia y amigos! Como están? Como le va? Another week in the great country of paraguay! This past week has been a rolercoaster but none the less it was a good week. So i think i may have said this before but i feel like my letters are getting less and less interesting and i imagine them being boring to read. So with that being said im gonna start something new. I know a bunch of my missionary friends do a Little something like this so i thought i would give it a try! Okay, bueno. A week in the misión is insane. SO much happens and i want to make sure you all know the important parts. For example, God gives us miricles every day, the funniest stuff happens every momento and i always learn a new fun fact about paraguay or missionary life. So im gonna share all these things with you every week from now on! Also, in this past month i have developed such a strong love for the book of mormon. I am constantly recieving revaltion for investigators, answers for myself, or just a new teaching through the examples of the prophets. And Also, i think that if i dont find my future husband in this life... Its probably because my eternal companion is Nephi or Moroni or some bad dog prophet and they are just waitng for me to get to heaven. So if i never get married.. we all know why. haha but my point it that i also will share a scripture with you all every week as well. okay to begin!! My miricle of the week. I like to call this one, "The 2 hour search for a patient in the ancient-zombie-apocolypse (not sure if i spelled apocolypse right) hospital." Okay, so, there we were, last week.. it was dark and we were walking home when hermana Villanueva said, hermana hunt next week on tuesday i feel like we should go to a different part of our área called hospital nacional thats pretty far away. And i said okay. So then tuesday came along and we were eating lunch with members and a sister said hey the lady that you guys taught last week, is in the hospital.. she got ran over by a bus a few days ago. and we were worried about her and visited her husband an her daughter and told them how sorry we were and then had to go to work. So we went to the new área and we wer trying to get a hold of like 7 people to teach and none of them were answering. We stood under this tree for like 20 minutes calling all these people but no one was answering. So we stood there for a minute and i remembered that lady that got ran over and i was like oh duh rachel... idiot. So then i told hermana Villanueva and we walked about 2 miles to the hospital. And this hospital shouldnt be a hospital. There was blood stains on the stairs, it smelt so bad, it was not clean at all. I wanted to take my mini hand sanitizer and pour it all over the floors.Anyways that besides the point. so we went to every receptionist, searched in every room, asked every nurse where this patient was. Ramona Gonzalez is her name. And they all told us different things. So like 1hr 45min passed and we thought well maybe we have her name wrong.. maybe she isnt in this hospital. We didnt know what else to do. Well... like 30 seconds after i asked my comp what we should do i saw a less active member that we are visiting that Works in the hospital, walking and so we called her name and asked her how she was and all that and then told her what we were up to and asked her if she could show us the trauma center.. so she did and she said we were welcome to check the rooms to see if it was who we were looking for. So we did... we opened all the doors and ramona was in none of them. THEN, I kid you not.. the LAST door in that entire hospital... was ramona. We were able to share a message and the spirit was so strong. Ramona was so happy to see us. Anyways..afterwards when we were talking about how crazy it is how everyhing worked out. From the prompting that my comp had, a week before, to visit this new área.. to our diligence being tried when we searched for two hours, to us finding this less active member at exactly the right time. I mean if that doesnt show that god WANTS to help us. He wants to bless us. And he will.. if we are dilligent and patient. Next, is my funny story.. which is called, "My freaking stinky bathroom." Okay.. so our bathroom ALWAYS smells so bad. And i have cleaned and sprayed and poured every type of smelly good thing that i could in the toilet to try and make the bathroom smell better. Well, i finally found the problem.... One morning, i was going to the bathroom.. like i always do in the morning. And i happened to look over at the trash can. (Keep in mind that it has always been so weird to me that the trash can is always overflowing with toilet paper. but i never really thought twice about it. i just thougt maybe someone needed to blow their nose alot or something.) And i saw this one piece of toilet paper with poop on it. And i was like what in the world? Needless to say my fellow north americans... The latinos that i live with dont put their toilet paper in the toilet after they wipe.. They put it in the trash can..... freaking disgusting. Ew.. gross. ew. hahahaha oh latinos. Its always something new with them. Now, for my fun facts of paraguay... Yogurt is in a bag. Milk is in a box. There is a plant that a member showed me this week.. and when you touch it its leaves curl up and it plays dead. Coolet thing iver ever seen. Also, everyone greets each other with a kiss on both cheeks. But for us hermanas we only kiss the women not the men. Duh. You all knew that. Well sometimes the men or boys dont know the rule so they go in for the kiss and i have ducked, spinned, jumped, squatted, pretended to tie my shoe that doesnt have a shoelace... just to avoid the kiss. But honestly, i think its a tradition ill carry on when i get back home and m no longer a missionary. Especially with the fellas.I think it will be a good ice breaker. woo baby. okay just kidding. But really. and the last fun fact... Usually adiós in a spanish speaking country is goodbye. Welp, here. its hello. I dont know why... but it is. Now, for my scripture. Okay... so lately i have been constantly thinkin about all the things i need to improve on. for example all the christlike attributes such as patience, dilligence, love, charity, and many many more attributes that i need to have in order to be 100% missionary. I add like 5 to my list each day. Well one day i was SUPER overwhelmed and wondered how in the world i was gonna be able to accomplish all these things. I was able to see all these things i needed to improve on but i wasnt sure where to start. So one day i was like, Okay, today i am gonna work on love patience and dilligence and this and this. And then the day got over and i felt like i failed becasue i fell short on ALOT of things. but then i read in Mosiah 6:27 "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order: for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he sould be dilligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore all things must be done in order." Holy answer to my problem. Crazy huh? Yeah i know. I love the book of mormon. I love the teachings that is contains. I know that when we read it with dilligence we can find answers and i know that god speaks to us through the scriptures. I know that we can learn alot from this book. I wish i would have read more before my misión. Anyways, i love you all so much and i hope you all have a GREAT great week. Keep busy and stay happy. Pray, read. go to church. You know what it is. Peace. love. and baptisms.

So much to say so little time to say it and Packages from home!!!!!

Rachel Hunt Hola familia! I have alot to say and little time so im hoping to get it all in today. So Lets get going on this sucker. First of all, What was my favorite part of the week? Friday. Friday we had sone conference and meetings with president mcmullin. So we got to our meetings and then AP (Elder dixon) came up to me and shook my hand and said he had something for me.. and i waslike what? okay.. so i followed him to the presidents car and there were 4 packages.. FOR ME! 4 PACKAGES!!!!! 2 from angie, and 2 from jessica. I started balling right there in the parking lot. Elder Dixon was laughing at me and he said "hermana hunt this has to be a record! 4 Packages the first zone conference?! Oh my goodness. I opened those suckers as if it were chirstmas... and when i saw i had hand drawn pictures and notes from my nieces and nephews and sisters, candy, gifts.. i just cried. All the pictures are either hanging up on my wall or being used as mu bookmarks, All the candy is gone, all the gifts have been used. It was the best day ever. I am SO SO happy that my family loves me. I am so grateful that they think about me. Thankyou all. For everything. Also, my meeting with president went really well. I love that man. He is incredible. When he called me in for my interview he said, "hermana hunt.. ive been waiting for this interview all day." It made me feel so special. He told me that his kids really love me and they say hello. He told me that the work in my area is really progressing. and there is just a special energy in our stake. He stressed the importance of thanking the lord for this. He said, "the lord is just waiting to bless us." This man is amazing and i always look forward to seeing him. Speaking of work progressing, we have 6 progressing ivestigators. 3 came to church yesterday!!!!!!!!!! oh my i was soooo happy!!!! All of our investigators are great but two imparticular are just golden. A mom and her daughter.. Romina and jenia.. They have been to church twice. Yesterday their baby was blessed in sacrement. It was so spiritual. The mom told us that it was her dream to be a member of the church... her dream. When she told us this i thought about how grateful i am for this gospel in my life and how really, i am living the dream right now. haha its pretty flippin awesome. I have two miricles this week. One happened on sthursday. So first, we have been struggling to complete our goal each day. We do all that we can but sometimes we just dont complete. well saturday we said a special prayer to be able to accomplish our goals. And it just wasnt happening. no one was home, no one wanted to listen... so we decided it was time to walk back home when a little kid walked up to us and said " do you speak about the word of god?" And we said yes of course. and then he said "I want to listen to the word of god please." And obviously we jumped at the opportunity. haha We started teching and the lesson was over and he asked us if we could come back the next day for his birthday. and we couldnt because we had meetings but hermana villanueva said, "oh but my companion wants to sing you happy birthday!" and i was like what? umm no. haha Well i sang this little boy happy birthday in english the best was i knew how and my comp said his face just lit up. haha aw.. this boy is truely a child of god.. and the reason we completed our goals on thursday. Members of the church that live right next to him talked to us a little about his family life. They told us that his mom wants to give him away and his dad is always drunk. We visited him again yesterday and shared another message on prayer with pages to color. We asked him what he was grateful for and what he wanted to ask god for. He named a ton of things he was grateful for.. he said im grateful for my 3 moms. I have three moms you know.. One lives here one lives there and one lives down the road. haha it was so cute. Then said he would ask god that his dad not hit his mom tonight. My heart broke and my eyes filled up with tears. He said he would pray for peace in his home. The other miricle of the week was today. First, this moprning i had a feeling to bring an extra book of mormon so i did. okay. so Today we went to a town called luque. We visited other sister misionaries. I saw hermana sanders form the mtc and cried when i hugged her. I miss all of my mtc friends so much. We had lunch and visited a little pond park thingy. Anyways, after lunch we were waiting out side this cafe for everyone to pay for their meal and everyone was looking at these shoes and i heard a lady behind me and she asked if i was mormon and i said yes.. and then she said, "Please, i want to read your book. how can i get one? I will pay you money for one of them." My heart jumped. I said hermana, i have one right here and its free. Her eyes lit up and we called the elders in that area to set up an appointment to teach her. Anyways, this week i ate something really nasty. Mondongo. Or in other words, cow stomach lining... yeah, barf. haha First of all when they told me what it was they didnt use english so i didnt understand. Second, When the people offer you food, you have to eat it or they will get offended. It was fried so i figured it was just some pastry type deal or fried meat. Needless to say it wasnt a pastry. Okay, so the dogs here... i swear on my whole life that they KNOW us missionaries. haha The dogs always hate us but This week the dogs were aweful. Wednesday i think it was, we were walking to a members house and it was dark and we were lost and these big dogs started chasing us. My companion was trying to hit them with her backpack. hahaha oh man. We were laughing and running and laughing and running. It was scary and funny all at the same time. i´ve learned to laugh at things that normally i would get mad at. For example, the other day we were walking to an investigators house and it just got done raining and i was walking VERY careful trying not to step in the mud, and there was a spot that i thought Oh! Perfect, its dry ill step there. And then... plop. soupy mud all the way up to my ankles. haha i laughed so hard.. and walked all day with mud fully covering my feet. How awesome right? I think so too. Okay so our room.. we have one window and when you open it, 1 foot away is this brick wall. But the bricks have a bunch of holes in them so we can see into this activity center type deal and hear ALL that goes on.. Sometimes the kids that go to school are in there, sometimes parties, every friday and saturday there is soccer games until 1 in the morning.well yesterday during personal study was a concert... haha The music was SO loud. I couldnt hear my companion talk. Anways.. one of these days i will take a picture and show you guys.. haha Oh man... another random letter. yikes. Im so sorry. I wish i could give more details about everything and tell more stories but i dont have time. I want you all to know that i love you! have a great week! © 2013 MicrosoftTermsPrivacyDevelopersEnglish (United States)

2 MONTHS CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!! MUCH MUCH MUCH TO LEARN STILL!

Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:03:23 -0200 Subject: From: rachel.hunt To: Buen dia familia! Lets get started on this letter shall we? Mmmk. First, I heard about Val Porter and my heart just broke. That is aweful. I know that it must be so hard. Im so happy that we have the knowledge that death isnt the end and that she is with our heavenly father. Please send them my love and tell them that i am keeping them in my prayers. Second, Can you believe that tomorrow has been two months? I cant. Time has gone by so fast. Especially here in Paraguay. I dont have much to say this week. I thought i did but i cant think too well because its so freaking hot in this little store thingy. haha Im sorry. This week has been very hot and very humid and very difficult. Just like it should be right? ;) My spanish is coming along as well as the teaching. Im learning alot here in paraguay. And i know i have MUCH MUCH MUCH more to learn. Every day i learn a new lesson. Every day my testimony grows more and more. I know that this church is true. I know that God has a plan for each one of us. I know that this plan is so specific and detailed for each one of us. This morning i was thinking about all the different things that have happened in my life, good and bad. I think about my stupid decisions, my good decisions. The good times, and the difficult times. I honestly couldnt have asked for a better life for ME. I have the best family, The best friends, The best companion, the best mission president, the best mission! I mean look at me.Here i am, in paraguay.. serving a mission. Haha I am so blessed. I am OVERly blessed. Like always.Thankyou all for your love and support. I love you all so so very much. Next week my letter will be mucho mejor. Lo siento for esta carta. Es mas o menos.Okay Toodles!

POOP, SUN & MISSIONARY WORK

Rachel Hunt Sent: Mon 10/21/13 1:17 PM Hola! Que tal familia y amigos?! Another week in paraguay and to be COMPLETELY honest I have never pooped so much in my life. For those of you who think, wow.. thats really innapropriate to share, your probably right. But until you have spent as much time in the bathroom as me in the past week, you cant judge. Its hotter than satans spit here in Paraguay and everyday it gets hotter and hotter and i get more tan. Pretty soon ill fit right in with all these latinos. The food is, making me poop alot. But none the less i am SO grateful. The members that feed us are so nice. My heart aches every time i eat with them becasue i know that their entire weekly paycheck went to feeding us for one day. But i also know God is blesssing them for being so kind and so generous. I spoke in church on sunday on joseph smith and the first vision. Holy cow the spirit was so strong. The chapel was completely silent when I recited the words of jospeh smith. It was amazing. I cant even explain how powerful the lessons. its insane. My companion is still freaking awesome. She is 30 by the way. I didnt know that before. I thought she was like 22 and so i was always thinking holy crap this chick is so mature and so motherly like for being 22. But then she said she was 30 and it all made sense. She is flippin awesome and so close to the spirit. Sometimes were walking down the street and she will start walking towards a crowed and im like oh no.... not this crowd. And then it ends up being one of the best lessons of the week and the next thing i know we have 4 new investigadores. I am grateful she is always listening and is always so courageous. I am working on my courage though and getting better every day! Our district leader, who is sitting next to me right now just told me we have exchages tomorrow. Haha oh boy.. So that means i will have another companion for wednesday! That makes me nervous but it will be just fine. The people here are great. president mcmuhllin has us working alot with the less active memebers. There are a ton. There is this old lady who is a member, her name is felicita. She is SOOO sweet and cute. And has two teeth like most people here. She has a really hard time walking. We visit her often. Yesterday, she told us a story and after we left i just cried. She said that about two months ago, there was a really big rainstorm with wind and thunder and lighting.. the whole shabang. And it got so bad tht in the middle of the night it ripped the roof off of her house and she had no idea what to do. I mean, She can barely walk, her son lives with her but he had no idea what to do either. She said they finally just knelt down in 5 inches of water and prayed and prayed and prayed for the storm to stop. She said every time she thinks its going to rain she gets so scared. My heart just aches for her. Another less active family doesnt go to church because they have no clothes. so i plan on giving them some of my skirts to help. they have 4 little kids. One little girl reminds me so much of brooke. She is 9, very VERY smart. She can read like a champ. Keep in mind that most grownups here cant read. She has nothing but she is SO happy. Everytime i visit this family i bring them some candy and the kids are so happy. They look at me like this is the first thing anyone has every given them. They are very grateful. I wish i could give them more.. so bad. My spanish is coming along. I am learning patience. Sometimes in the lessons i dont know how to say what i want to say and there is a long awkward silence where everyone just stares at me... I dont love it. But sometimes i think maybe what i want to say isnt what god wants me to say. I dont know. haha All i know is im doing all that i can. Im working hard. The past two week has been busy. and ive been very tired. Yesterday after church, during personal study i was dosing off pretty bad. And finally my companion said, take a 15 minute nap hermana hunt. and i was like uhh... no. haha i cant. i dont have time to sleep. and she said she had been feeling for a couple days that i was in need of a nap but never said anything. She said you arent a machine hermana. You are a person. God knows that. The spirit cant be in the lesson if you are so tired you cant think. So needless to day i took a 15 minute nap yester day and i was so so so so grateful. it was much needed. I want you all to know that im working as hard as i can. I love this work. Its hard but so rewarding. The people brake my heart every sunday when they promise all week they wil come to church.. and then dont. And i search and search all through sacrement meeting waiting for them. My companion laughs because she says thats exactly how she was when she first started her mission. My companion has alot of love in her heart for everyone. She is a studly missionary. I am greatful for her every day. We live with two other hermanas who i love very much as well. Anyways, i love you all and want you to know that you are all in my prayers every day. Have a great week and read the book of mormon becasue its the best book in the world. okay! until next week!

I dont know how to be hilarious in spanish yet but after i learn the important stuff, then ill learn how to be funny.

From: Rachel Hunt Sent: Mon 10/14/13 1:41 PM Hola familia... My first week in paraguay has been very challenging and very rewarding. Many tears. i said goodbye to all my mtc brothers and sisters. i said goodbye to my 2nd favorite elder, elder worsham from utah. That was rough. But The hardest part of this whole week was saying goodbye to hermana buss. Oh how it broke my heart. We were assigned our trainers at the Mission home and had to say our last goodbyes.. we hugged and cried alot. I wasnt even embarrassed either. It was really hard. We grew very close in the mtc so lets just say I cant WAIT to see her again. She got assigned to open a new area!!! in the chaco. or the boonies. Where hardly anyone speaks spanish! They all speak guarani.. and guarani is not like spanish at all haha so i make sure to keep her in my prayers night and day. One elder from the mtc is in my district, elder simpson... well i call him elder simps. he is a nerd. he reminds me of tyler willis. haha I love him. he is funny and he is always making sure to check on me. I think his companion, (the district leader) elder herrea could tell i needed some checking up on so he assigned that job to elder simps because he cant speak english and elder simps can. I LOVE my mission president, his wife and his kids! Prez and I hit it of really well in our interview. He cried, i cried. haha i was lucky enough to have my interview in front of the temple in asuncion. We ate dinner at a restauraunt our first night and i sat with his kids... They think im hilarious. I love when people think im hilarious. haha I dont know how to be hilarious in spanish yet but after i learn the important stuff, then ill learn how to be funny. Anyways.. my trainer, hermana villanueva from perù!!!!!! She has 3 months left in the mission, she speaks very very very little english and lets just say president mcmulllin Hooked. Me. Up. haha This chick is ridiculous! She is SUCH a good missionary! Together, we tear it up. My first day proselyting was insane. we taught lesson after lesson after lesson. She is the best trainer in the mission for sure. We practice EXACT obedience and recieve many blessings for it as well. She is very kind and very patient with me and my spanish.. Speaking of which... how am i coming along with the spanish? lets just say any extra SECOND i have to study, i use it. haha I do all i can on my own and then rely on the Lord and holy ghost for the rest. Which is a pretty effective technique. haha My first day, we were contancting... it was my turn and my first contact in paraguay and i started talking to this guy and when he responded i had NO IDEA what he said... oh man i was freaking out.. haha i was like ummm this does not sound like the spanish they taught me in the mtc... Im screwed. turns out it was guarani. haha my companion didnt understand either so it was all good. my next contact was much better. So, paraguay... my area is an area called itagua... yeah i dont know how to pronounce it either. esta bien. When president assigned us our area he said, We call this area the baptismal area.. that got me super exited. haha Then When i first got to my area my thoughts were, what did i get myself into... haha i was scared out of my pants. I was having separation anxiety from hermana buss pretty bad. haha i know pathetic. She just took good care of me. anyways.. when it was time for bed and i climbed up on the top bunk, i layed down and the first thing i see is this giant spider on the cieling.... you can only imagine my reaction. hahaha i cried and prayed alot that night and I ended up sleeping really well. The next days were just wonderful.. my second night, walking through the back roads, we saw lighting bugs.. AH! I love lighting bugs. They are the only bugs i will ever ever ever like. They are beautiful. AH! After my first day in my area i have just grown to love it more and more every day. The people are so receptive, so kind, so loving. i have a few experiences i want to share. My third day we were teaching this old lady and her daughter. This old lady was super sassy. Reminded me of grandma and the daughter was very smart. i could just see in her eyes that she was ready for this gospel. Anyways, in the middle of the lesson this lady was getting a little worked up talking about how she didnt have anything and people in the world are so selfish (which is true) but the she pointed to me and my bag full of books for teaching and said, people like you have all these things but dont give anything to the less fortunate. You only care about yourself.. and all this stuff and it set of a trigger in my heart. As i sat and listened to this lady tell me all these things, and struggled to find the words to tell her how i felt, i finally said, hermana, my life is very different than yours. The united states is very different than here. I have many things, i have been very blessed. But my things dont matter to me. You can have my things. you can have it all, because that isnt whats important to me, and its not what is important in this life. What matters most to me, is this gospel. Its god and jesus christ. Its doing ALL that i can to return to live with god again with my eternal family and to be with them Forever. This lady was silent for a long while. and then i extended my very first invitation to her and her daughter to follow the example of our savior and redeemer jesus christ and be baptized. My next experience happened yesterday when we were teaching this lady.. Oh this lady was so kind! Her name is Maximo.. Maximo is spanish means The best! anyways this lady had alot of kids running around when we got there and 4 of them... really little listened to our entire lesson. The were fasinated. they listened very carefully and looked at the pictures we had with amazment. I teared up and i bore these chilren my testimony. My favorite part of paraguay so far is the people... especially the little kids. These little kids have nothing. when i hand them a picture of jesus christ i can see in their eyes that they know who he is. their little faces light up. They touch my heart more and more every day. My last experience is church yesterday. One tesimony given buy a pretty wealthy member of the church. He got up and bore his testimony in guarani. haha he sounded like a freaking monkey! guarani is so weird. Ive learned about 5 words and plan to learn more... i would share them with you but im not sure how to spell them. my bad. Also, in church yesterday, there is no one that can play the piano... so between me and elder simps we do the best we can. Its hilarious. haha For some reason the bishop picked all the songs in the spanish hymn book that are not in the english hymn book. It was interesting. I have never felt so close to god, and my savior jesus chirst in my entire life. My heart is so full. I am so thankful im here, in paraguay. I am loving it! haha i love my trainer, my president. I am so blessed!!!!! AH!!!!! im OVERLY blessed.. if that is even a word. If it wasnt, it is now. haha My testimony has grown so much this past week as i have forgotten myself and lost myself in the work of the lord. I am learning so much about the gospel, so mucha bout myself, about life, about everything. Im so thankful my friendship with God, and my savior. Never in my life have i thought of god or jesus christ as one of my friends.. but being here has helped me to realize that he is They are my best friends. Its my prayer that everyone can be best friends with god and jesus christ. because they will always have your back.. they will always listen and make you feel better. one qupte i want to share from conference, which by the way was AAAAMMMMAAAAAZZZZZING!!!!!! was by elder holland.. duh. "If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong" i love that. so much. if you havent listened to the conference talks. please do. i know that all the words spoken in general conference are true. i wish i could watch them again SO SO bad. So bad. anyways..... i love you all.... and i will talk to you next week! ps, my new address is this, okay nevermind i forgot my planner. sooo next week! ill give you my address next week. mmmmk. sorry! my bad! i forgot! okay bye!

Welcome to Paraguay!

Welcome Letter from Rachel's Mission President. Pres. and Hna. McMullin. I am one proud Mom!

From: Pamela McMullin Sent: Thu 10/10/13 6:28 PM To: jenavelte Dear Family of Hermana Hunt: We are so happy that your daughter has joined us here in the Paraguay Asuncion North mission. She has told us that she is committed to work hard and to be obedient to the mission rules and we know that as she does, and as she continues to study and seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost, she will have a great experience on her mission. She will grow to love the people, she will be willing to pass through difficulties, and she will come to know and love her Savior in a more profound way than she has ever known. We were able to give all the incoming missionaries some training on staying healthy, finances, mail, etc. We were also able to go to the spot where the land of Paraguay was dedicated for missionary work by then Elder Ezra Taft Benson. We heard parts of the dedicatory prayer and learned about the history of the Church here in Paraguay: the first missionaries to arrive, the building of the first chapel by the manual labor of the members (including Elder Robert E. Wells while he was employed in a prominent banking position here in the early 1960´s), the conversion of the Nivacle Indians, and the building of the temple. We held a testimony meeting in Spanish, and we formed a choir and sung at a baptism of several young people. We were able to enjoy some typical Paraguayan cuisine along the way too. We hope it was a very worthwhile day for your daughter. She was also interviewed and met her trainer, Hermana Villanueva, who was specially chosen for her. Hermana Villanuevajenavelte@hotmail.com has been instructed on how to help your daughter in all the skills she will need to be a good missionary. We hope you will enjoy these pictures that we are attaching as well. Thank you so much for raising such a fine young woman who is so willing to serve her Father in Heaven and be a blessing to the people here and to her fellow missionaries. We truly pray for them every day and are also committed to working diligently to help them in whatever they need to be happy and successful. May the Lord bless you, and your daughter, for the sacrifices, the faith, and the love that you are extending to the people of Paraguay. With much love, Pres. and Hna. McMullin

Watch out Paraguay Rachel Hunt has arrived!

From: Rachel Hunt Sent: Tue 10/08/13 10:44 AM Hey family! just letting you know that i made it to paraguay safe and sound! i will be in the mission home until tomorrow and then ill head to my area and you all will here from me next monday! i love you mission president and his wife! alright got to go! toodles!

Leaving the MTC Adios Buenos Aries!

Rachel Hunt 10/07/13 To: jena velte From: This sender is in your safe list. Sent: Mon 10/07/13 9:42 AM To: jena velte Well family, I leave the Buenos aries airport tomorrow, Tuesday October 11th at 7:20am to Paraguay. My heart is so full. I have developed such a strong bond with all those whom I have been able to be with here in Argentina. I am so happy to be a missionary and to be able to serve at the same time with all these wonderful, amazing sons and daughters of God. Thankyou so much.. All of you, My dear family and friends for all the love and support you have shown me. I promise you all, God, and my savior jesus christ that when the day comes that i have to get on the plane home, i will be able to say, I have done all i could. I have given it my all. I love you all so very much! I will talk to you next pday! remember that pdays are on monday now! okay, toodles!

My last Pday in the MTC!! I won't keep my mouth shut! Mark my words!

Rachel Hunt 10/03/13 Yo yo yo! What it do familia?!?! Buen Dia! Como estan? yo soy feliz y mui triste por que I DONT WANT TO LEAVE YET! This is my last pday here in the ccm and im just heart broken. Ive loved every minute of being here, and im so sad to have to leave. But i know that im going to LOVE the field and i will get to see my MTC family again someday. We already made plans for october general conference and a list of all the movies we are all going to watch. There are so many good people here.. I see jesus christ just radiate through every single missionary. It truely is a blessing to be surrounded by each of them everyday.Okay now on with the good stuff.. Prosylitismo! Our last time walking the streets of argentina! Well the buss dropped us off, we had a prayer and then walked to out area to eat our sack lunch. after we ate lunch we saw this girl and her brother working in the yard pulling weeds.. perfect target. so we walked up and asked her is we could help her and she was so confused becasue we were in skirts. but we were persistent and she let us help her. so we did yard work for about an hour and a half. it was awesome. we got to know her for the majority of the time and then when it was about time to be done she was asking so many questions about our church.... she was so interested and wanted us to come back so bad. It was the craziest thing. We have been rejected alot so when this lady did what she did we were in shock. Anyways.. after we left we prayed and thanked god for this beautiful encounter and just cried with happiness. oh gosh it was amazing. I pray that the missionaries will get to teaching her really quick. The rest of our day we just ran from dogs. haha there are a thousand dogs and they are so gross. ew. lets just not even go there. So we got a new batch of latinos... but lets talk about the only one that matters. Elder Caldaron. Woo baby. Some info about this elder... He is from peru but went to school in st george utah he is brown... obvi. (That one was for you lacy) He has got a stature of Nephi, and he is most attractive boy to ever walk the earth. No, that was not an exaggeration. No he is not a distraction... he is a god sent. god sent him to all the hermanas here at the ccm to look at once in a while. I even bet that the someof the elders have a bigger crush on him then us hermanas. Oh and another fun fact, his mission is the paraguay asuncion north mission. Boo. ya. hahahaha Oh man... im reading my email aloud as i type and my district is dying laughing. Im hilarious. Soo..... this week has been really interesting. Between our district, (Alma) and the arron district we decided to pick disney characters for every one. And then that let to picking harry potter characters and then lord of the rings characters and then twilight characters and then super heros. We get pretty serious about it to. haha We have written it down and everything. Every one is dying to know what characters they are and we reveal the answers today. im pumped. But im more pumped for volleyball and the temple. and breakfast. It sounds like everyone is doing fantastic. i miss you all.. im running out of things to talk about so i have to keep asking my companions what i forgot. OH YA! CONFERENCE!!!!! THIS WEEKEND! BE THERE: Or be watching! its gonna be epic and im so so so so so happy i get to watch it in the mtc with my family here. AH!!!!!!! I hope all of you can watch ALLL THE SESSIONS and not go to sleep! what else.. oh ya okay i will lay a pretty spiritual experience on ya. So we practice teaching every day right? well this one day our teacher asked us to pick someone that we knew and loved and that we would want to hear the missionary lessons. So i was the investigator and i picked my person. Someone who is so very dear to my heart and my comps started the teaching. Let me just say, that i couldnt have picked two better missionaries to teach me. The spirit was so strong and we all had tears in our eyes. It was a great experience. I really wish i would have opened my mouth more when i was at home. It breaks my heart. I will regret it for 17 more months becasue in 17 months when i get home my mouth wont be shut. Mark my words. OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!! I JUST GOT A PACKAGE!!!!!!!! THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU MOM!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! BEST DAY EVER! yes yes yes. hahahah mom you put it in a cake box? hahaha thankyou. THis made my day. Mostly because i miss american candy. your awesome mother. ANyways so im gonna close this email up cause i dont know what else to say and im just sitting here staring. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!! your the best family and friends ever and i pray for all of you every night! keep it real back in the US. Peace. PS... Where would any of us be without this gospel? I think about that all the time. and the only answer i have to that question i lost. I would be lost with out it. How blessed are we to know where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going? Think about it. What if you lived all your live believing that there wasnt life after death? That it all just ended there. Or that this world was created by chance? my heart aches for those who dont know.... but my heart rejoices that missionaries EVERYWHERE are giving people a reason to live. A purpose in life. ive learned to never ever EVER be ashamed of this gospel of my purpose. This is the way! We are so blessed to know what we know! We should always share it! i love you all! toodle loo

WHAT COOKIES? THE CLEANING LADY TOOK THEM!

From: Rachel Hunt . Sent: Thu 9/26/13 2:51 AM Hola famiy and friends! This week has been just as crazy and random as usual so this email is going to be that way as well! First off, I am not a fan of pdays! Why you ask? Because i turn into a sobbing idiot for the rest of the freaking day! Its awful. I miss you all so much! haha It breaks my heart that i dont have time to write you all a long letter back! Branding looks like it went awesome. Thanks for the invite. Losers. The nerve of all of you. Not even an invite. Okay moving on! My week! Well saturdays proselyting day was cold and rainy! We talked to 2 people in the streets the entire 5 hours we were there. We knocked so many doors.. well clapped at so many doors becasue apparently thats what you do here in argentina. Anyways, no one ever answered expect maybe 1 person. So we walked and walked and walked some more and God sent us a miricle with hot chocolate and cookies. The stake presidents wife. Boo. ya. The perks of being a sister missionary. Just on a side note the elders were pissed. That part was my favorite. So we got new latina roomates and then they left and now were on out 3rd round. We met two of them last night. One of them is outgoing and super nice. The other one is shy. But she wont be after im done with her. Their third comp. gets here today sometime. We also get new north americans today! YEAH!!!!! North americans are the best. So are cute elders. haha just kidding. but really. So in the batch of latinos that just left there was an elder.. his name is elder flores and he.... was in love with me. He wasnt too shy about it either which was awkward, but funny. He is from Peru and spoke 5 words in english. One of them being freaking which he said all the time. I dont think he knew what i meant. haha Anyways he left me a love note and went on his way. Awkward. I get crap from the elders everyday. So i ate cow tongue. Yeah the serve it here all the time. Barf me. So gross. Never again. They also have these tiny peppers that are freaking hotter than satans spit. And i ate one and it was awful. But two of are elders thought it would be fun to put 5 in their mouth at a time. So they did. And they barfed everywhere and had to clean it up... ugh.... its always the elders. haha Sunday our district was incharge of the musical number and we sang come thou fount tune to the words of jospeh smiths first prayer and it was AMAZING! People crying everywhere. Boom. Me and hermana buss had a solo duet.. We have played alot of volleyball lately and its so fun. We have a few elders that are decents but one elder.. elder dye. He is awesome! And he was so happy that i could set. Elder dye is my favorite elder. Tied with elder bronson. Elder bronson is also good at volleyball. Today we are having a series of friendly competitions with the other north american district and i am so ready to kick some trash. Its all i can think about. By the way, there is no such thing as friendly competitions. So tuesday we decided as a companionship that we wanted to fast on wednesday. So when we were though with class we started our fast and then hermana dolan was in the shower singing awfully. And me and heremana buss saw her last three oreos sitting on the bed and i was like, you dare me to eat one? and she said yeah.. but then she wanted one too and then we split the last one. So were laughing and eating these oreos and then i remembered that we were fasting so we spit all our cookies in the trash and hurried and brushed our teeth to hide the evidence. and then we prayed again to restart our fast. When hermana dolan found out we accidently ate her cookies i tried to tell her the cleaning lady took them thinking she wouldnt believe me. But she did. So im still in the clear. But the cleaning lady sure is not. OH i almost forgot! since im not senior companion i gave myself the position of assistent to the senior companion. But then hermana dolan got mad so i gave her assistent to the assistent and now she is good. I call her double A. Shes cool with it. So we get to go to the temple every thursday... its great. Its even better when we get to do it in spanish and dont understand anything thats going on. I just am SO alert and awake during the spanish sessions........... Well anyways.... I love you all so much. I miss you guys alot My time here is going by so fast and it needs to slow down! I will be home before i know it. My testimony has grown so much. Ive learned so much. I try to progress a little more every day. I know i dont ever have alot of time to email all of you back.. but please dont stop writing. I love every word i read from you letters and i reply in my mind. just not on the computer. Im so happy im on a mission. I wouldnt want my life to be anywhere else right now. Im so thankful for my decision and for the support of all of you. thankyou so much for everything. ahhh... now im crying. Okay i love you! Toodles!

`QUITE THE PARTY!`

Hola familia y amigos! This email is going to be shorter becasue i want to reply to everyones! So ill get right to the good stuff! So starting from last week on saturday! We got to go prostelyting in argentina! My companions and I walked the streets for about 5 hours in the freezing cold. We were all bundled up in our warm clothes and It was the best experience of my life! The bus took all the north americans to down town argentina and dropped each companionship off at their own little area. When we got off that bus we didnt hesitate.. the first couple we saw we stopped and talked to and they were the nicest people. When we started chatting with them i almost started to cry because They reminded me of the Gaylors. They were just solid people and ready to here about the gospel. We gave them a book of mormon and wrote down their contact info and we pray the missionaries here will find them. Its amazing how the lord prepares people to hear about the gospel. Whether or not these people knew they were being prepared for someething BEFORE we met them.. they sure knew after they heard our message in aweful spanish. After we said goodbye to these wonderful people we were just jazzed becasue we thought maybe this was how it would be all day. Boy were we wrong. I would go up to people and try to share the gospel and as soon as they saw our name tags they would run away or wave there hand at us and say no. haha I was getting pretty frusterated with these people..  One time this lady was walking by and i was like hola! Como esta? and she said good and then i said, que es su nombre?! (what is your name) and then she said, ciao (goodbye) so then i said thats a beaautiful name! and she turned around and shot me and my companions a very mean look. haha So after getting shot down so much we decided to pray.. and boom. God sent someone straight to us. We walked by an old man, he was homeless and digging in the trashes for food. So we ended up sharing a message and giving him a book of mormon and he said he would read it when we said goodbye and walked away i just felt terrible. I knew that this was not what the savior would do if he was in our shoes. So, i asked my companions if we could give him the remaining food that we had left from our sack lunches. So we gathered all that we had left and went back to give it to this man. He was very greatful. It was so awesome. After our encounter with this man.. (His name is americo) we prayed and thanked God for putting him in our path. We all cried during hermana Buss´s tender prayer.

Anyway.. saturday was just the best! and i cant wait for this saturday either! 

Im gonna share a funny story and then ill close this sucker up. So last sunday we had a fireside with our mtc president and he was teaching us about the the atonement and he was asking us all these questions.. we were trying to figure out how much wine jesus had to serve to everyone or something like that. So president asked a question like... so if they have this number of wine... bla bla bla.. what do they have? and I blurted out, ´Quite the party!´ i knew i made a mistake the moment the words left my mouth but i got a good laugh out of everyone except president so it was totally worth it. Anyways..... i love you all! and ill see you next week! toodle loo!

Well Imma gonna go light it up!!!!!!

From:	Rachel Hunt
Sent:	Thu 9/12/13 4:54 AM

Hola Familia!!
Thankyou all for your emails! You guys are so great! I only have an hour to write every thursday so I hardly get to read them or reply. Im sorry though! Hopefully you all will learn to write hand written letter you lazy bums!! Just kidding.. but really.

 

My time in the CCM has been great! My spanish is awful! haha, but coming along! The food is great, there is just soooo much meat. The cook is hilarious. Every evening at dinner time when we walk through the line and he dishes us up he will say very seriously, La gusta Gato? Which means do you like cat? and at first everyone was like uh did he just ask us if we like cat? One day its cat, another day is dog or rat or kangaroo, rabbit. Its funnier now that I know he is just joking.

 

 My companions are still cool. Sometimes its hard being in a trio but its still so great! I really like Hermana Buss. we get along so well. She plays rugby! She is a beast. I love her. She reminds me so much of Jessica Maner. (Some one should let her know i said that!) Hermana Dolan and I get along really well too. We constantly make fun of each other and sometimes we get a little out of hand. (Thankyou Taralee/Lacy for teaching me how to make fun of people) Its always funny until someone gets offended. haha

 

Every two weeks another batch of new latinos come in, so our latino roomates just left. I think i mentioned them in my last email? We had Hermana Rodirigez and Hermana Ferari in our room. I love them so much. Hermana ferari reminds me of shakira and the only thing she could say in english was sweet dreams goodnight and it she would say it every night. haha Now hermana rodrigez... she spoke a tiny bit of english which was awesome and she was from Uruguay. She would always wake up in the morning with a new American song stuck in her head. One day it was Im sexy and i know it. hahaha another day it was justing bieber, one day it was Man, i feel like a woman. haha she was a crack up. A few nights before they left i was super frusterated with the language. It was time for bed so the lights were off and we were all trying to go to sleep but i was crying a little bit, trying to hide my tears, haha (Pathetic i know) And all the sudden i felt this hand on my back and heard in a very quiet, sweet voice with very poor english say, 'Dont cry, ill help you with your spanish.' It was a huge tender mercy from the lord. Im crying just typing about it. From that time on i think we had such a special bond. Every time we would kneel down and it was her turn to pray she would pray for me specifically. She offered the last prayer that we had as roomates and she started crying in the middle of her prayer when she asked god to watch over her american hermanas. I miss her so much already but im sure our new latinos will be great as well!

 

I LOVE my district! We have the best Elders out of all the other districts. They crack me up. You dont even understand, I am ALWAYS laughing. I think i told you guys about elder dye who was my favorite last week but this week my favorite is elder bronson from utah. (Go figure) He sits by me in class. He is so funny. He has a hard time with the spanish just like me so we kind of stick together. Today at breakfast we were trying to carry on a conversation with a new latino elder and between the two of us we managed to get his name, where he was from, how old he was, and elder bronson somehow told him he has a pet rock. haha

The majority of my district is pretty athletic so we TRASH the other districts in ultimate frisbee everyday. haha the other districts stopped playing because they just cant hack it.

 

Alright now im gonna get a little spiritual on you guys.. Since we have been here we have had 3 investigators. (They are just are teachers pretending) Well last night we were teaching Pablo about joseph smith. Hermana buss just got done reciting the first vision and hermana dolan asked him some questions and it was my turn to bear my testimony. So here I am, trying to bear my testimony to Pablo the best way i can, Im trying to think of words that I havent learned yet, trying to help pablo feel the spirit and nothing was coming. So i just paused for like 2 minutes straight. I kept thinking that maybe the spirit would put words into my mouth like you always here about but it just wasnt happening. So i started my testimony over. This I bore my testimony from my heart in the simplest was that i knew how. I told pablo that I know jospeh smith was a true prophet and he saw god the father and jesus christ. I told him that i know the book of mormon is the word of god. Through out my testimony i had tears in my eyes and the spirit was just so strong. After my testimony my companions asked him if he would follow the example of our savior jesus christ and be baptized and he said yes. So we set a date for Pablo to be baptized at the end of september.

 

I love being here at the ccm. I love my teachers SO much. I have 2. Hermana gutierez and hermano abad. They are both so different but they are both EXACTLY what i need. Ive learned so much from them and from my experiences here so far.

 

Ever since i got set apart to be a missionary i have worried so much about changing. I have been so stubborn about alot of things in fear of me losing who i am. But ive learned that if Im stubborn and i dont practice exact obidience then I am not giving a 100%. If im not giving 100% then im not going to be an effective missionary. The people of paraguay deserve 100%, God and my savior jesus christ deserves 100%. Family and friends, this church is the true church and i come to know that more and more each day. I know that your prayers help me everyday and i couldnt serve with out them. Each day that goes by i am grateful for all of you and your examples. I miss you all so much. not a day goes by that i dont think about all of you! my time is up! I just had to tell the person waiting behind me to buzz off while i finished. hahaha they arent too happy. Well imma go light it up!!!!!!!!! I love you guys. peace and blessings! toodle loo!

MY FIRST WEEK AT THE MTC! HEY THERE FAMILY "WHAT IT DO?" with Zac Efron, Shakira, Jynx & Latisha!

Thu 9/05/13 3:21 AM

SO much has happened that i dont know where to start! haha so this email might be super random bu thats okay!

Hey there family!!!! what it do?! Let me just start by saying, None of you heard from me when i got to the airport becasue apparently im too dumb to use a payphone. haha reeeeetard. oh well! anyways, the airport experience was awesome!!!! i did everything right! i met up with hermana buss first and then like ten minutes later a whole army of missionaries going to argentina marched up. SO COOL. it was so comforting too. the elders took charge and helped so much.

 

so the mtc is great! I have never laughed so much in my life. my companions think im HILARIOUS and so does every one in my district. haha they are constantly laughing at my jokes and i love it. im definately the funniest missionary here. im tired 24/7. All we do is sit in a classroom all day except during physical activity. during physical activity we play ultimate frisbee with our district. i love it. ive wanted to punch our district leader right in the face when we play because he gets super angry. haha the food here is great. except tuesday night.. barf. i dont even know what it was. I did NOT eat it.  i guess im screwed for paraguay because ive heard they eat alot worse. haha i bet ill like tomatoes by the time my mission is over.

 

Hardly anyone here at the mtc besides the other missionaries speak english so i just say "si" to everything. and nod my head. i imagine its kind of how grandpa marion feels when he cant hear us. hahaha ah man.. i crack myself up. When i talk to the latinos i use ALOT of hand motions. haha when i first got here we had to have an interview with our mtc president and the first question he asked me was, how much spanish do you know? and i responded by saying, "the only spanish i know is a few lines from shakira songs" and then he DIDNT laugh... i know weird. and said, your gonna be a handful. hahahaha he loves me now though! and thought it was awesome that i worked in the temple!

 

i love my companions! like i said we laugh ALL the time! Im in a trio! with hermana buss and hermana dolan. they are god sent. i would die if i didnt have them! they always tell me that if they are so happy i make them laugh becasue this mtc experiecne can be stressful. hermana buss is going to the same mission as me and dolan is going to uruguay. They are both progressing well in the language. alot faster than me.. so they help me a lot. my whole distict helps me. haha im TERRIBLE at spanish... im having such a hard time with it. the elders in my district are pretty cool. we've got alot of weirdies.. but none the less they are all great. there is one elder.. elder dye who is super good at spanish and he always helps me and encourages me. i love him! haha

there is an elder in my district who looks ExACTLY like zac efron. We all know what that means. hahaha :)

 

so i basically we dont have hardly any time to get ready so i look hardcore sister missionary everyday of my life. hahaha its funny. good thing i dont even care.

i would tell you all about argentina but im trapped inside these gates so i dont know too much. what i do know is its cold right now. im sitting right by the window we are like 100 yards from the temple and the background is a bright pink sunrise. its beautiful. we all just had an email break to check it out.We all get to attend the temple today and i am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!! the temple feels like home to me. My mind is going 100 miles an hour constantly. im either worrying or thinking about how to say something in spanish.. so it will be SOOOO great to feel peace in my mind for a few hours. ah, it makes me want to cry. There is a special spirit here in the mtc. everyone is here fighting to know the laguage. i know im fighting. its very difficult because i have so much to say. and i know how to say it and i want to say it so bad but i cant. i do have good teachers and there spirit it SO strong. They are nice and patient. (Most the time) our evening teacher is hermano abad. he speaks very little english and is alot more quiet than me. He puts up with me. i dont think he knew at first how to take me becasue im so sarcastic but i think now we are starting to be on the same page. the other night we were about to watch a video about this investigator, jynx. and he was like, do you guys know jynx? and i was like oh yaaaaa jynx is my main girl. and he took a long pause so i thought i was gonna get in trouble because missionaries are supposed to act professional all the time. but he was like, okay latisha. haha it was so funny to see another side of him.

 

I am gonna close up because we are gonna go eat and get ready for the temple. i just want to say that i miss you all. ah man... im crying. i miss you all so much. when chet said i was going to get here and cry  like a baby.. i didnt. until last night in my prayer. I cried because i felt so sorry to my heavenly father. I felt like since im not progressing as much as id like, im failing him. I dont want to fail him. i dont want to fail you guys. Last night, teaching an invesegator about the book of mormon in spanish and all i could say was Yo se que El Libro de Mormon es verdadero. ( i know the book of mormon is true.) Thats all i could come up with. and for a little bit i was down on my self because thats all i could say,  But i realize now, that thats okay because it comes straight from my heart and I DO KNOW that the book of mormon is true. With all my heart. It has changed my life. Family and friends, i know this might be alot to ask.. and you all have done so much for me that its difficult for me to ask. Please pray for me to learn the language. I have the biggest desire to learn. i love you all and i cant wait to read all of your emails you sent! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE send me letters.. like written ones! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! okay, i love you so much! toodle-loo!