Mission Football

September 28, 2010

Dear Peoples,

Don't you all just sound so busy and it is exactly the same with me, well for the most part. I guess it really depends what you consider busy for me. I like to consider lots of appointments busy, but you could say doing finding(tracting and street contacting) could be considered being busy. Whichever the case- I'm busy. What would you expect though? There is a lot of work needed everywhere in regards to missionary work. So many people haven't heard of the gospel. Many may not exactly be searching, but what about those that are searching but don't know where to find it. Basically, that means that we(as missionaries) need to stop EVERYONE that comes in our way, so we did that(since it was something that our Zone Leaders challenged us to do and because we wanted to).

With this talking to everyone mentality you'd think that we'd find lots of new people that would be interested.........but that is so not the case. On last tuesday we had lots of open time in the morning so we decided to just talk to everyone on our way to an investigator. This investigator lives like 5 minutes away by bike, but it took us a good hour and a half to get there because there are so many people everywhere(well around town centre which is where we live and because there are 250,000 + people that live around the town). Unfortunately we got rejected by EVERY SINGLE PERSON! It was so weird and odd. It was like the people that usually inhabit the place had been switched with really rude people, well whatever. I kept my positive attitude and kept doing it. Elder Davis was getting a little frustrated, but then I helped remind him of the good investigators we have been blessed with. Now on to those!!

Ian is just about done with the stop smoking program(second time. first time was for cigarettes which was so easy for him. this time it's for cigars) and he's doing great. He is so awesome!!! I love teaching him so much because he asks questions and everything. It's fun. His date has been moved back to the 9th so that his wife can come to the baptism!!!

I don't know if I've told you about the Slovakian couple that we are teaching. They are doing pretty good, but teaching them is very hard since he understands some English and his wife doesn't understand any at all. So he translates and we have no idea what he is saying of if he understands what we are teaching them. They came to church on Sunday though!!! It was a rough sunday because of that though because she didn't understand what was going on and he barely did and I also was having to entertain their 2 year old son. So hard and stressful!! but they came and that is all that matters because church is such a good place to feel of the Spirit and join together with others to learn and grow closer to God. I really took for granted my time at church when I was younger and now I'm also fearing going to church with kids of my own after dealing with there son and remembering the twins running all over the place.

This monday was MISSION FOOTBALL(Soccer for all you dang Americans :P ) and it was soooo fun and tiring. There were 5 teams- Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham, Lester, and ME(Lichfield). You all know my football skills so it should be no surprise for you to find out that we WON!!!!!!!!!! Heck yes! It was because we really had a bunch of good no Americans and decent Americans(like myself). I headed the defense and only hurt my left ankle a little bit(I'm pretty good at that aren't I???) but I still played on it- Yay me! I'm so tired from it and I'm going to be sooo sore, but it is totally worth it since we won!

I love you all so much. I wish I had more time to write more, but we need to head off to an appointment.

Every day I keep increasing my love for the Book of Mormon. It is such a good book. Joseph Smith wasn't lying when he said that you'll get closer to God by reading it that any other book. It is the keystone of our Religion. When we come to know that it is true, we can find our testimony of Joseph Smith is greater and that our faith is so much stronger. I love being out here, even though I do miss life back at home, but I'm where I need to be.

Love,

Elder Nanders

grandfather(middle left), uncle(left), father(middle right), and me.

September 20, 2010

Dear Family and friends,

This past week seemed to take forever and I don't know why because we were busy. It's even hard to remember what we did each day...so yeah we'll see how well I can do at telling you stuff.

Um....this week was alright. We had our ups and downs like usual. Our focus this week was to try to find some more people to teach since we lost a couple investigators because of personal reasons. We had this one girl that seemed good, so we went to teach her and she seemed so nervous or on the edge for some reason. It turned out that she was worried about her mother coming home from work because she is really against religion and stuff, so because we don't want her to get in trouble with her mother we made our way out and told her to read the Book of Mormon that we had given her and to ask her mother if it'd be alright for her to be taught. It's so difficult with teens like that because you have to have the parents permission to be able to teach them and it just makes it more difficult. It sad that a parent can restrict their kids from following their desires. Hopefully her mother will come around on the idea so we can go back and teach.

Oh oh oh oh oh, we had super great news this week!!!! We now have another person with a baptismal date!!!!! He is so awesome and amazing. The members at church have thought that he was a member ever since he's been coming to church. He(Ian) is scheduled to be baptized on the 8th of October and then confirmed on the 10th. The 10th is significant because it is 10/10/2010 which is basically 10/10/10/20 which is the process that we go about doing our work-talk to someone in the first 10 minutes, stop at least 10 people, give out 10 Books of Mormon, and have 20 sit down lessons. Elder Stein and I had the goal of having someone baptized on that date and it's happening with Elder Davis and I! I'm so excited for Ian though. He is so awesome and now his wife is starting to want to learn and so is his sister and mother. Oh man- so many people could have the gospel in their life so soon!! The missionary work is doing well here in Walsall!!! and it should hopefully just get better!

Another person we have been teaching is a single mother named Kira. She has 2 little boys and lives on her own. We had been coming by her house quite a few times, but she was usually busy and only available to talk for about 10 minutes or so. We were finally able to go in and teach her, but her 2 year old was so loud and it was hard to teach anything, so we decided to use the cups visual we have to teach the restoration so that we could possibly entertain her little son. I finally got him interested by the cups and stacking them up, so it was quiet and Elder Davis was then able to teach her. I taught a little bit, but I was mainly just trying to keep her son Cody quiet and entertained. It ended up being good- at least better than we were thinking. She was supposed to be at church, but her younger son Owen was sick. She should be good though and the gospel will definitely help her out in her life!

I don't remember if I had ever told you about the Slovakian couple we were trying to teach. Well we went over for our second time and we really learned about their situation and life and it is so sad. I literally almost cried while there. They aren't making much money, the landlord is raising the rent on their flat(which consists of only 1 small room), their child on the way isn't growing correctly, son is sick, etc..... It's sad and we're seeing what we can do for them- asking members about flats that don't cost very much that they can move to. It's so hard because you want to help so much, but you can't really do much. Plus they might be in the country illegally so we don't really want to get involved with that.

Everything sounds like it's going good at home except Sister being lost.....maybe she's been naughty and is being sent home :) jk. I'm sure she'll write soon. It's great to here about all that you guys are doing and keep it up.

Elder Davis and I are having so much fun. We get along really well. I'm actually older than he is, but he's been out for 7+ months. Last P-day when we were on our way to come emailing, there was some guy in town centre(that's how the english spell it) with a microphone and speakers and was saying stuff like "beware of the mormons". It was funny. I really wanted to just go shake his hand and tell him to have a good day, but Elder Davis stopped me.

This week in my reading I have really come to a greater understanding of the laws of justice and mercy. Alma 42 really helps to illustrate it and makes it so logical. We will be judged based off of mercy ONLY if we repent. If we do that, we can then return to God when we are judged. Along with that God is always there to forgive us no matter what- all we have to do is sincerely repent. I also was learning about the plan of restoration in Alma 41. It just makes so much sense. It's amazing how much sense the Book of Mormon makes when you truly want to learn and you are reading with the Spirit. Because of this understanding I've come to recognize it just continues to testify to me of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that it can answer any question we have or can help us with any problem. I really have come to love reading it and it makes me want to give them out to everyone so that it can bless their lives. Elder Davis and I have given out 15 in the past 2 weeks. Hopefully we can keep that up and even exceed that number!

I love this church and the gospel!!!!!! It's so true!!!! How could something that makes so much sense not be true? If you want to come to know for yourself all you have to do is do a simple experiment: 1. read from the Book of Mormon and then 2. sincerely ask God to know if it's true. If you sincerely ask, God will not let you down in answering your question because he loves everyone so much and wants them to come to know the truth.

I love and miss you all!!! but I'm where I need to be at this point in my life!

Love Elder Hulet

Mother: I got all of the packages. Um.... could I maybe get a MoTab Cd for an investigator that loves music? and also maybe a CD of the Prince of Egypt soundtrack?

Sister Kennedy: Wow, is all i have to say. I hope it works out because that'd be awesome.

Friends and Fam- Thanks for the letters and packages- it makes Elder Davis jealous!! and that's all that matters.

Off to zone p-day- playing some FOOTBALL(soccer)!!!

Mission Football on the 27th!!!

OH and the picture is of my grandfather(middle left), uncle(left), father(middle right), and me.

FAMBILY and FRIENDS

September 13, 2010

Dear Fambily and Friends,

It hasn't been too long since I last wrote. Needless to say, it has been an interesting 5 days or so with Elder Davis. It's weird going to a different companion because everyone does things in a different way, so it takes a bit to adjust to that. It's not too hard for me since I'm good at adjusting to others, but it was just a little shock at first to realize that Elder Davis isn't Elder Stein. It's been good though.

So........ it was a good week because we had a baptism on Friday!! It was awesome. We had 2 investigators there and lots of her family came(2 even came to the confirmation of Sunday!). It was a very nice service and I sang for it since I was asked. It has been a while since I've attended one- how come we didn't go to many at home mother and father? We talked to one of the investigators(Ian) about it and also about his sister in laws baptism in a nearby area and he said he felt the spirit at both. We are working with him towards a baptism on the 8th of October. Oh, oh oh, Ian also told us about the experience his wife(non member) had at the baptism of her sister and how she felt the spirit so strongly, but that she was kind of scared by it. So she is starting to come around and hopefully we can start teaching her too!!!!! So exciting!

We didn't really have much else happen this week, although Elder Davis and I were on a roll in giving out the Book of Mormon- 14 in 5 days!!!! Hopefully the people that we gave them out to will read them and feel of the warmth and joy you receive from reading it. It is such a great and powerful book. I love reading it every morning because I learn so much and it helps to show me what I need to do to be a better person and prepare myself to fulfill our goal in life- return back to God in a state of never ending happiness with our family. I just wish I had more time to read it and it makes me wonder why I never really read it too often in high school and in my first semester. I really wish I had now.

Oh, we had some interesting experiences. One happened yesterday where we went to go teach a family from Slovokia that Elder Stein and I ran into, and it was soooo hard because he spoke some English and his wife didn't speak any. We tried to teach the Restoration but it was hard to get them to understand, but it was a good thing we had the Restoration leaflet in Slovakian so they could read something they could understand. We then fiddled around with their DVD player so we could watch the Restoration DVD since it could be watched in Russian- which they could understand. All in all, we tried our best and we have a return appointment so hopefully that goes well.

We are also trying to teach a Polish guy that has been through a rough time. When we met him he was sitting on a bench. He was beaten up by some English boys the day before for no reason. We went back to his house a couple days later to give him a Polish Book of Mormon and we found him even worse. It turns out he was again beaten up the night we talked to him, but like 15 minutes later. I feel so bad for him and hope we can help him. If only Ethan could be here to help teach since he doesn't speak much English.

We have lots of others we are trying to teach, so hopefully it will work out with them.

I love you all and hopefully everything is going well. The garden sounds like it is just booming. Yay for not having to pick it all, but boo for not being able to eat all of those raspberries. I thank God every night for all of the great people in my life and pray for Him to continue to help and bless you and I know he will if we ask Him for help. We just need faith in Him and Christ and we can do anything in accordance with God's will. Read Alma 32: 28 to the end and apply it to your life and see how you can either plant the seed or be able to nourish it better. I've found that I need to do better at nourishing my faith and knowledge of the gospel because you can never stop learning- and it's wonderful!

Love,

Elder Hulet

TRANSFER TRADITION

There is a lady in the ward who refers to herself as a "missionary mum" - and she kind of takes care of or watches over the Elders. It is a tradition with her family that when an Elder is transferred they have a foam fight. She sent pictures -- which was very nice of her. She's not sure which Elder did in her teddy bear.

Transfer time - But He Stays

September 8, 2010

Dear Family and friends,

I know you were all anticipating my weekly monday email, but this week I fooled you- HA!! We are emailing today because we had transfers today. My pops(trainer), Elder Stein, has been made a District Leader and moved to Derby(Darby), so I now have a new companion. His name is Elder Davis and he is from Canada(Calgary,Alberta. Somewhere in those mormon colonies Buddy, I don't know which one though). He's nice.....and I can't really say much more since I've only been with him for like 2 or 3 hours so far, but that number will soon grow greater.

Um....there is so much on my mind right now and there was so much that happened this past week+. This week we started to teach a guy named Ali. He is from Iraq but says he's Christian. We taught him about the Restoration and it was way good, but he will soon be leaving on holiday(vacation) for 4 weeks to Iraq. We have to be careful with teaching him, well we can teach him everything, but we can't invite him to be baptized because of the consequenses of a muslim being baptized(he could be shunned, killed, and so could those that converted him.....yeah), so we have to make sure he's willing to make that commitment if we even get to that point with him. He's so awesome though.

We are still teaching Ian. We taught him the stop smoking program and it went so well. He is awesome and really has the desire to learn and stop smoking, so this week has seemed to be pretty easy for him to quit. I'll be checking in today to see how he's doing. We should be getting him a baptismal date soon!!!!!!

We also have a baptism happening this friday- and nothing is going to happen like the last one, at least I hope not. Her name is Meghann and she is the girl friend of a member. She is so awesome though and she really wants to learn and be baptized. Yeah....there isn't much more to say about her. She'll be my first though!!!!

We also got a surprise baptismal commitment from an eternal investigator!!! He is one that said he'd never get caught by any church, but something has changed him mind about that. He usually switched between attending the Church of England church by his house and our church, but not anymore he says. Recently he got sick and stuff and Elder Stein and I helped him lots, like getting his groceries and stuff or anything really because he is awesome. I think that's what completely changed his mind because the other church never came to ask if he needed help and neither did many of his friends. It must've turned a light switch on in his brain or something. Anyway, we still have lots to teach and get him to stop smoking and he says he won't get baptized unless it's Elder Stein, so i guess he'll be coming back for that.

This week was good and it has been great to hear from everyone...well at least lots of sibs and some friends. More is always welcome, especially snail mail! One thing that has really hit me this week has been the importance of repenting and also the sacrament. Christ is so merciful and so willing to forgive us of our sins, there are also great blessings that we can receive from repenting like having his spirit to be with us more often to help guide us and so much more. I love the sacrament now because of that. The sacrament is like being baptized again. As long as we have truely repented from our sins throughout the week, we can receive a remission of our sins and once again receive those promises from baptism(always have his spirit to be with us, remision of our sins, born again). It's so awesome.

I love you all

Elder Hulet

P.S I got a memory card for my camera- more pics now.

P.S.S I'll buy some clippers I guess

P.S.S.S um......can I get a pic of the whole family mother?? and if any friends want to send some-thatt'd be awesome

First Area - New Companion

July 28, 2010

Dearest Family,

So I'm in my new area now with my companion. We are in Walsall if you want to look that up. It should be good. I've only heard great things about my new companion Elder Stein from Germany. He's super nice, at least from the time I've been with him. It should be interesting since it'll be something completely different from the MTC. I don't really have much else to talk about. Um.... our P-days will now be on Monday's starting next week, so now you have no excuse to not write me an email and make it to me on time, but you guys really shouldn't have any problems with that since Julie's is on Friday.

We met President Ogden and many others. They are super duper nice- too bad they won't be here the whole time I am. The work here is some of the best in Europe. They actually led all of the European missions in baptisms last year with 720. This should be a good time as long as I continue to work hard continuously. Elder Stein has already told me about some investigators we are teaching- one having a baptismal date for August 20th. Hopefully I won't slow him down from the work he was doing here before. I just need to learn to open my mouth and just talk to people, like I said in the last email.

Friends who would like to receive letters or something, I'm going to be needing an email or something containing your address, also mail and/or emails would be much appreciated and I'll see what I can do in my responses in my weekly emails or personal ones.

I also forgot to tell you guys specifics about the places we visited yesterday and about our tracting experience. The river that the baptisms occured in was called the River Ribble, if you'd like to look that up in church history or just for fun. Now to the tracting, one of the houses that we gave a Book of Mormon was to a retired Catholic priest. He was way nice and very accepting, or at least he was nice enough to keep talking to us. He took the Book of Mormon and said he'd read it and pray about it, so hopefully he does and feels the spirit testifying to him of the truthfulness of it. We also gave out 2 to some youngish(my agish) boys who just took them. I don't know if they'll read them or not. I think they took it out of courtesy, but we'll see. I sure hope they were more interesting than what their faces showed me. That's really all I can think of right now. Now it's my time to ask you guys the questions!

Who is recieving this email? If Vivian isn't, Mother, you should probably add her to it. She'll be happier. Um...... Family, are you guys ready for the wedding? Where are my packages??? Just kidding, I did get one from you today though mother. I haven't opened it yet. I was going to guess that it was just some suit pants, but now I remember what it is...i think. Mother, how much money is on my visa card from AAA? Father, how is work going without me there to do everything? :P Um....Becky, have my faces been put up on the bat mobile yet??? Allie, do you miss me yet? How are my Braves doing? Mother, how often do the missionary newsletters occur?

So I wish I had brought my camera to load some pictures, but I didn't. We were only in our flat for about 10 minutes. After email I think we're giong to go buy some food so we can eat something since our dinner appointment cancelled. I love you guys a ton and I hope you miss me! Only 101 more weeks come friday, I mean, who was counting anyway? Not I, I just put it up.

I know this church is true and that what we are going around teaching everyone will bless their lives if their hearts are softened enough to listen to what we have to say. I wish everyone would just read the Book and Mormon and just pray to God if it's true and then listen intently for His answer through the Holy Ghost. What's the harm in asking anyway? It's not going to hurt someone to do that and why not try if it is something that will bless your life. I know this is true because I've done it since I've even been here on my mission and I've recievced a confirmation of it when I asked and when we have teachers speaking on the topic. There is a reason I'm out here, and that is to bring to others something that has blessed my life. We are here to help them recognize it and guide them, but when all is said and done- they chose to accept something that can inprove their life in this life and in the next for all eternities.

I love you all,

Elder Hulet

Missionary Training Center

July 21, 2010

Dear family and friends,

My stay in the MTC has been a little odd, at least at the sense of time passing. It feels like each day takes forever, but now that I look back, the time has passed so quickly. We have one more week before we leave on the 28th.

I wish I could read and respond to every email, but I don't have enough time to do that, hopefully i'll do better when it comes to being out in the field. So I'll just talk about how it's been this past week. Um... So at first I was really struggling because I didn't feel like I was getting the hang of anything and about how others seemed like they were doing so much better. This really hit hard on Friday when we got to go to Manchester and street contact(which is something that is special to our MTC). It was soo hard and it was kind of frightening. Like this is a city with 3 million people in it and they are busy, so why would they want to stop and talk to anyone? I figured that and I'm not one that is very outgoing for that type of thing, so Elder Aubrey and I were struggling. We had a good talk with a Muslim guy who was really nice and accepting of whatever we said because he belives that we should try to learn from others that have information that you don't, so he willing spoke with us and kept talking about beliefs. It was good, but it didn't really go anywhere, other than that we didn't talk to anyone for more than a minutes, except for this one guy. He stopped us near the beginning and asked where we were from and stuff. He said some weird stuff and was talking about his life. Like he told us that he used to be a male nurse in the Irish army until they kicked him out because of epilepse(sp??) and then he told us how he sometimes refers to Jesus as "his nephew" which then started him telling us about his nephew who left him once he saw him drink and how he's been searching for his nephew up in scotland, but he can't find him.

Like Julie gets to do, we get times where we are on chat for mormon.org because there are some people asking questions when the people in provo and temple square are still sleeping. We've had a couple interesting chats, but we really haven't gotten as many to talk to as other guys in our district. Some of them get the funniest stories from the people on it. I'm not a huge fan of chat, but it depends on your experiences with it.

There was a great experience that Elder Aubrey and I had that really gave us the kick we needed to find our excitment and excell in our teaching. One day, during our personal study, Elder Aubrey went to go talk to the MTC President, so I had to go with, at least outside the door. While waiting, I decided I needed to talk to him about my struggles and see if I could get some advise. When I came out, Elder Aubrey(from American Fork btw) was with a teacher here talking to some guy in the lobby. This guy was a guy that came to the MTC asking if we had something that could help him, which is an obvious YES!!! So we went along with Brother Cook and went and spoke to him and teach him. He told us about his life and all of the problems that have happened and that this is really his only choice- to look into the church- and change his life so it can be better. Anyway, it went fantastic and he said he'd come to church. He didn't end up coming to church, but we're pretty sure he'll still come back and keep getting taught. He just said he needed to get rid of all the bad things in his life.

Just to finish up, ever since that, everything has just been getting better and better. Elder Aubrey and I have done really well in our Milestone'(like fake lessons/investigators we prepare for) and we've had great devotionals and everything has just been fantastic. I've been playing lots of soccer here for our exercise.

I have truely grown in my understanding of this chucrh and it's doctrine. I know this is where I'm supposed to be and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I know that Jesus is our Savior and that he came down and sacrificed himself so that we can have the chance to return back to God. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he restored Christ's church on the Earth. I love this Church, this gospel. It has truely blessed my life and being able to share that with everyone around me just gets me excited and keeps me going with the work. How could someone not want something that could make their life better? It makes me sad when they aren't interested at all.

I love you guys sooo much!

Elder Hulet

P.S I'm below 200 lbs!!!

P.S.S I'm been working out in the morning with Elder Merrell(from PA) and I'm soooo sore, and that was 2 days ago. I hope to continue and come back semi fit.

MADE IT SAFELY

July 14, 2010

Dear Mother and Family,

I'll try and get in as much as I can, but I'm only given a half hour. That seems sooo short to me to be able to read emails and then write back, so I think what I'm going to do is print out the emails and respond to them the next week. My P day is on Wednesday(obviously), so you'll need to write tuesday night if you really love me.

My plane took a while to get going from Detroit because we were waiting for the staff to get to the airplane, and it took them forever. We took off like 40 to 60 minutes late, but only got there a half hour late. When I arrived in Atlanta I just made my way to the place(terminal??) where I needed to catch the next flight. As I got closer to the correct gate I started running into missionaries- woohooo- and by the time I got to the gate there were tons of them. Overall there were I think 25 missionaries on the flight. Most came from a Salt Lake flight, but there were some others. At the MTC there are 30 of us. 2 Sisters(from Ohio and Hawaii), 3 Europeans(1 Scot, Brit, and Sweed), then I don't know what the count is for Utah(a lot of them) but there is a fellow Pennsylvanian, 1 from Tennessee, Arizona, Washington and a couple Idahoans). So that's the make of the missionaries here for ya.

Jet lag was rough for the first couple of days, but after that I think we're all just tired because of the strenuous schedule of a missionary. You don't seem to have many breaks and you seen to have to keep going and learning and learning and going and then you lay down and sleep and do it all over again the next day. It's rough, but I'll be getting used to the tired feeling and still being efficient.

We got companions the first night. My comp is from American Fork, Utah. His name is Elder Aubrey. He's a very nice kid and is pretty similar to me. We seem to work pretty well together and we are very willing to do whatever you need for the other one. It's very nice that we're both very concious of the other one and don't just think about ourselves. We are just trying to learn how to use our companion study better so that we can learn more and improve.

I've been learning so much since being here. I can see why they equate a mission to 50 years of being in the church. You learn so much so quickly. We study the Lessons on our own and in companionships and then our classes consist of teaching us how to be better teachers. They have told us that there are 2 parts to a missionary, skills and knowledge, so they are helping us with our skills, but our knowledge has to be improved and worked on by us and in companionships. I don't have much more time so I'll try to fit in stuff to the best of my ability.

One thing that has been an annoyance, well not really, to me is that no one here can really sing......... and everyone has to participate in the MTC choir. I just keep trying and just tell myself that they are singing with their heart. I am singing tonight, woohoo. Well I better go- my time is up.

I love you guys tons! I am starting to love this work. Mom, put my email address on facebook.

Love,

Elder Hulet

IT'S ABOUT TIME

I guess it is about time that I get Randy's blog up and going. Here is a couple of his starting out pictures. He flew out of State College to England where he did his 2 1/2 weeks of training at the Mission Training Center in Preston.