Week 17

This week was kind of a rough week. We ended up having nobody at church which also means nobody will get baptized on my birthday (being selfish;)) but they should be good for the week after. Elder Brough is kind of bummed because most likely he will get changed next week. The people we would be baptizing he has been teaching for so long. It will be nice to finally get them baptized and keep them strong in the church. 

We found some new people this week too. That was really nice since we've had the same program and people for a while. One of the new families named Familia Garcia and they are seriously soo great! I’m really excited to get them progressing and baptized down the road too. My companion broke his umbrella because he kept spinning it and getting me wet (karma haha) so we had to share my umbrella which was just a blast ;) 

This week was pretty normal. Nothing to special happened other than we saw the Rainbow door guy a few times haha. I got to go on divisions with one of our ZL´s named Elder Christensen and he is honestly like 6´6´. Compared to everyone down here I’m tall so that's saying something. We worked here in my sector and didn't have the best day, but the lessons we had were really good. He is a great guy and I learned a lot from him. This week in Preach My Gospel we Studied in section 10 called ¨listen¨ it is a great section and I learned a lot that I need to get better at. I also read the conference talk since we finally got the Liahona. I read the talk given by Elder W. Craig Zwick and all I can say is that it is such a great talk!

Something I want to start to try to do, is read one talk from Conference everyday because they are the same as scriptures. We can learn so much from them. If you haven't read that talk or heard it you should most definitely go read it and apply what he teaches. I promise your lives and families will be so much happier! I’m couldn't be more thankful for all of the people I have supporting me and I love you all! I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the summer :) 

Con amor, Elder Hunt

Enjoying one of my favorite cereals that came in my package from home:)

Cooking Hamburgers and Fudge:) What a combination!

Week 16

This week was honestly a little bit rough just from being able to talk to my family but it was still a pretty great week. We had a few of our investigators basically break up with us. They even used all the famous phrases like "it's not you its me" and "we can still be friends after" so that part of the week kind of sucked but we did find a new family and they are honestly pretty great! They have the desires to learn more and even accepted our baptismal invitation.  

As of right now we have about 6 people planned to be baptized on my birthday, which would make for the best birthday present ever! They all have there own problems but we're trying to work through them with them. It would awesome because we had one family of investigators call and tell us they weren't coming to church but when got to church on Sunday they were there. 

I also had to give my first talk yesterday in sacrament meeting and it went alright but it was definitely hard. I talked about Jesus Christ: the Beloved Son from the December 2013 Liahona and it's amazing how much he really did do for us!  If we just follow his example and accept the things he did for us, we can have everything he need and want in life and in the life after this. 

I want to challenge you all to study one of the amazing stories of Jesus in the BOM or Bible and try to apply what you learn in your lives. "Be ye doers of the word, not just hearers" It's the best way we can improve our lives! I love you all and keep you all in my prayers. 

Con amor, Elder Hunt

Q & A's

Q- So it gets pretty cold at night? I saw that you must have bought a beanie to wear to bed.
A-Haha yeah I wear two pairs of pajamas and my Yankees beanie I bought everynight.

Q- Do you still have someone to cook/do laundry for you?
A-  Yeah we only have to cook on thursdays and we have a lady that washes our clothes too. 

Q- In your apartment I didn't notice much furniture (like a couch) is that how most missionary apartments are? How is your bed? Do you sleep ok? 
A- We have two beds and two chairs that's it. Our houses aren't meant to be comfortable haha. It's alright I've had better but I sleep good.

Q- So far, what has been your favorite thing to eat that they cook there? (not fruity pebbles) Do you eat 3 meals a day and do you cook at all for yourselves? (besides smores haha)
A- Most of the time usually one meal but a lot of people give us food when we visit and sometimes we make dinner. I love rice with milk and cinnamon and also this Collada that they make. Other than that it's a lot of rice and chicken haha.

Q- So, you have a cell phone? That's pretty cool! Do you mainly use it to contact Investigators? Do you have to travel very far to visit them? Do you do much door-to-door prociliting (sp)?
A- Yeah only the DL´s and ZL´s have them so they can take people numbers every night. Yeah we use it to cofirm our citas. Our sector is all in one area. These past few weeks we haven't done a whole lot of knocking on doors and our Mission President is starting to ban it.

Week 15

First off, it's crazy that I will be 19 years old in 18 days...One year older and wiser too ;) This last week was a pretty good one. We had some of our investigators drop us but we still have a few families progressing. I could possibly be baptizing someone on my birthday but we'll see! We had some really good lessons and some really weird and not so good lessons too. 

We found out that one of our investigators isn't married but they live together so we’ve been working on that. We basically had a marriage counseling session the one day and let me tell you what.. that was a blast! It did help them out though and it helps to have a companion because it's honestly like being married and sometimes worse because you have no alone time. It's great to be able to help people with the problems they have and sometimes it even helps you. 

I learn more and more every day and have been trying to find something new to improve on every day. It was so great to be able to talk to my family yesterday and I hope that you all had a great Mothers Day! The weather here has been kind crappy lately. It rains basically every day and is cold. Both me and my companion have pretty bad colds, but hey no pain - no gain right? ;) Thanks for all of your prayers and concerns. I hope the best for you all and will keep you in my prayers!

Con amor, 
Elder Kaiden Mckay Hunt

Rainy Ecuador

Lots and Lots of rain!

 flood of water in the streets

Roasting Marshmallows on the stove with Elder Brough

Park where we spent our P-Day last week

This was a huge park where we spent our P-Day last Monday

Crazy Fog

Me being funny and taking selfies when I was bored,
also, all the clothes I wear at night - haha!

 Me and my amazing package that I finally got this week :)
**It only took a month and a half**

Week 14

Entonces yo voy a escribir este correo en español para ayudarles con su español. Primero yo quiero compartir mi testimonio de la unica verdadera iglesia en la tierra. Yo se que el libro de mormon es verdadero y que Jose Smith fue un profeta de dios. Y se que dios es nuestro amoroso padre celestial y que el quira el mejor para todos de nosotros. 

I won't write any more in Spanish just so that you all can understand it and to the spanish speakers, sorry there's no accents haha. So this week was a pretty good one for us and we got a lot done. We didn't have as many lessons as we could've and only ended up having 2 people at church out of 7. The people here just don't really understand the importance of attending church every week, mainly because their catholics. That's exactly why were here so that we can help them understand and learn. 

We had a guy contact us in the street and from what I’ve learned so far there are either crazy people that contact you in the street or really great people and this guy was amazing! He contacted us in English to start out and showed us where he lives. He said we could visit him on Sunday (yesterday) and so after church we headed up to his house. He started out by telling us that he grew up Catholic but he fell away from that church and has basically been following no religion the past little while. We decided to teach him in half English and half Spanish, which to be honest was very hard haha. He wants to learn and practice his english so we figured we can kill two birds with one stone. It was a really great lesson he accepted a Book of Mormon and the invitation to be baptized. Everything that he told us just led perfectly into the next thing and I’m really hoping he continues to progress. It's those lessons and days that make all the hard and crappy days that much easier to bear. 

Life here in Ecuador has gotten pretty normal and I’m just going to say it now, don't judge me if I’m a little strange when I get back ;) Its crazy to see the progress that I’ve already made and I cant wait to see how much ill grow! Learning another language is a great blessing and although sometimes it's frustrating and hard you basically learn everything all over again, especially the simple stuff. 

I’m thankful for all of you and all of your support and most of all I’m thankful for my Heavenly Father and this amazing opportunity to serve him and the people of ecuador! I hope you all have a great week and more importantly a great Mothers Day! I love you all! I want to challenge you all to find something (big or small) in your lives and make that aspect better because when we are continually progressing we will learn and grow so much. Strengthen your family and yourselves and learn from everything that happens. There's always a positive to take out of the things that happen in our lives. 

Con amor, Elder Hunt

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 ??