Week 13

This week has been pretty normal and has gone by pretty fast! Nothing too crazy happened other than the rain. The days here are weird and sort of similar to Utah. It's usually nice, warm, and sunny in the mornings but by the time 3 o'clock rolls around it gets cold and the rain comes :P 

As of right now we have about 10 investigators, 2 families and one lady but we’ve been working with her family too. The families that we are teaching are great and have the desires to be baptized and will be strong members in the church. The one big problem that we have down here is that most people are Catholic so they only go to church one or twice a year so it's hard to get them to really understand the importance of attending church and usually they will flake if anything comes up. The other problem we have sometimes is work on Sundays. Our one investigator Jenny  is the best and most spiritual investigator we have but she works on Sundays and can only come once or twice every 2 months. She has such a strong testimony and most of the time when we go to teach we end up being taught something too!

I’m really starting to get close to our investigators and members in our ward. Our family of Recent Converts are doing really well also and we’ve been teaching them about Temples and the Covenants we make in the Temple. They have a strong desire to be able to go after their year is up and be sealed as a family. They really like the part about being able to baptize their family members who are dead. I want to invite you all to do something most people here can't do very often, attend the temple as much as you can! Where we have so many temples so close to us in Utah often times we take them for granted but when we are attending the temple we are living the lives god wants us to. I sure wish I could go whenever I want right now but I can't wait to be able to get back and go and be sealed to my future family! 

I love the temple and know that it is the closest that we can be to God on this whole earth. Thank you all for everything you do, especially for my family! I love you all and most of all I love my Father in Heaven and his work. I know this church is true and that this is the only church that we can gain eternal life and eternal families. Dios les bendiga :) Con amor, 
Elder Kaiden Mckay Hunt

Sorry! No pictures this week :(

Week 12

Today was the day of changes. We received the news of who's leaving and who's staying lastnight. I had no idea what was going to happen but Elder Brough and I are both staying here as companions for another change but he's district leader now. A lot of changes were made in our zone and I now have the opportunity to meet more missionaries. 

This last week was kind of crazy for a lot of reasons but it was also a good one. Down here they don't celebrate Easter but they have Semana Santa. Basically they just do family stuff and travel and the Catholic church has a bunch of parades. It was interesting haha! On saturday and Sunday we had stake conference and it was specifically for Ecuador. Elder Holland and Elder Scott talked and a few other members from the area 70's. It was all in spanish but I could understand pretty much everything. Elder Holland tried to speak spanish throughout his talk and he knew the words, but his accent was horrible. It was funny! We were all able to learn a lot and it was great to be able to listen to them speak again. 

The spanish is coming along more and more everyday but during this change I’m really going to focus on improving my Spanish. The food down here is good and I’m starting to crave rice now which isn't good haha! Nothing else too crazy has happened like last week. I hope all of you had a great Easter and I hope you all are doing good. 

I want to share some scriptures with you that I found in my studies this week. D&C 88:63-64,118-119,123-126. I really liked these scriptures and thought I would share them with all of you :) Thanks for all the support, love and prayers.Les amo todo de ustedes y yo se que por medio de oraciones,podemos recibir la fuerza que necesitemos para cumplir las cosas y conquistar las pruebas en nuestras vidas. Dios les bendiga. Con amor, Elder Kaiden Mckay Hunt

No bake cookies that we made with some members

 This dish is called Fonesca. Everyone eats this during Semana Santa 

which is basically Easter down here. 

It was better than it looks and yes thats the back end of a fish that I had to eat :P

Me and our District Leader eating Fonesca during our divisions

Week 11

Another week down and one more closer to finishing my first change here in Ecuador. This week was better for us as we were able to have more lessons. We definitely deserved it because we worked hard! It was nice to be able to finally break our slump of only two lessons a day. We found a few new strategies to help us keep up the good work. What happens here is we set a lesson and then show up and no one is there. This past week we tried to call or visit at least a day ahead to remind them. It definitely is nice having more success. With more success comes more trials though and we definitely saw that this week. 

One of the families that we have been teaching told us they don't want us to come back. We're still going to try to work with the son because he's the one that has the most desire out of them all. Also, another one of our investigators had set the 19th of April for baptism but after her interview yesterday we found out she still has a lot of doubts so we have to wait and help her out more. My companion was really hoping she would be able to be baptized before he left because he found her, but sometimes we don't get the things we want. 

We received a new rule this week during our District meeting. We can no longer chat with our family members or friends. It was hard to take in a first but the more I thought about it the more I understood. I know that it wont be easy but I know that through being obedient to this rule we will receive more blessings and help us focus more on the Lords work. On Saturday my district ate lunch at a members house together. We ate the most meat I've ever eaten in my life and it was by far the best food I’ve had while being here!

We have had a few interesting experiences the past few weeks, one in particular. Elder Brough and I were walking up to one of our appointments and this guys stopped us and asked if we spoke English or Spanish. We told him we spoke both so he asked us to wait for him while he went to buy something real fast. He wanted to get to know us and share some experiences. He invited us into his house. We went to his study and 2 of the 4 walls were full of diplomas, the other two were full of pornography basically. We sat and talked (not willingly) and he then invited his daughter to join us. He tried to get us to marry her but we respectfully refused. He then wanted us to dance with her. Again we refused so he told his daughter to dance for us. We told him we had to go but he wasn't too willing to allow us to leave and invited us inside his house to drink something. We declined and left!! The whole rest of the day me and my companion felt bad and dirty! This experience gave me more motivation to never feel like that again!! 

It's crazy how different some things are down here but I have come to love it more and more everyday! I know that I will learn a lot from this experience and can already see the progress I’ve made. Thank you all for all of your prayers, you're all in mine also. 

I want to share a scripture with you and challenge you all to help other people around you. D&C 18:15-16.

15- And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

 16- And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!

Love, Elder Kaiden Hunt

Kaiden didn't send much information to go with these 

pictures so I'll try to update them next week:)

Elder Hunt & Elder Brough

Elder Hunt, Elder Whitaker (Kaiden's Companion from the Mexico MTC), Elder Brough and ??

Week 10

We now have two weeks left in this change. This week was a tough one for me and my companion with our lessons failing and not having many. It's hard when it's because of things that are out of our hands but at the same time, we’ve had some great things happen this week. 

Being able to listen to Conference was such a huge blessing and a great way to end a crappy week! I learned a lot and took a lot of notes (12 pages) so I have a lot more to learn. Take advantage of the great opportunity each one of you have to go back and watch them again and learn something new. That's something I sure wish I could do here. 

Although things with my companion haven't been the greatest and we got into an argument, we are becoming stronger and closer through bonding and talking things out. The weather here is getting a lot warmer now and the rain is going away. We have two new families that we are teaching right now and we are hoping that they will be baptized this month or next. I’m learning new things every day and love this work more and more. Thank you for all your support! 

Love Elder Kaiden Mckay Hunt


Q & A's

Q- How has your P-Day been so far?


A- It's been good. We went and played soccer. It was the first activity we've had since we had to give them up for Miracle March as a sacrifice. It was nice to finally be able to play though :) 

Q- That's cool you got to play soccer. Is it hard to breath up where you are.

A- Yeah it was sooo nice! Yeah it was extremely hard to breath not to mention I'm out of shape haha :P 

Salazar Family Baptism

Salazar Family Baptism w/Hermano Segovia
and Elder Fonseca who helped us baptize them

Ecuador Sunset

Rain ~ Rain ~ Rain

Our Apartment

Our Apartment/Study Area

Dinner with my district and Mission Leaders Family

My district and mission leaders family

Cotopaxi (Volcano)

YUMMY Fish:)

Cool Guitar Monument