Elder Hunter and Elder Webster

MTC Companions

Elder Romney from Rexburg and Elder Park from Shelley

MTC District

All is going good here in sunny southern California.

Chris is doing very well in the chruch. He is making friends left and right! I have been working really hard with less actives and this past Sunday was the best Sunday so far on the mission. We had 11 less actives come back to church and 5 investigators come! I was almost in tears because every time I would trurn around there was more and more people coming into the chapel. Everyone of them said that they felt the spirit at church and that they are going to come back. Marilyn is a really awesome person she is a J-dub but she likes the mormons and the doctrine we teach. She has been taking the missionary lessons for 3 years and she is very close to getting baptized. She said she wanted to go to church for 1 month before she gets baptized.  She has 2 dogs, Taco (the dog that bit me) and Buttons.

We had to drop Chris Y. this week. He never answers the door anymore or returns our calls so we had to just drop him. We will try to go back in a few weeks. I don't understand why he's ditching us he totally felt the spirit and was moving forward.  I know I planted a very good seed in him for future missionaries to harvest. I went on exchanges in 29 Palms on Wednesday and had a blast with Elder Bailey who is from Wellsville, Utah. I learned a lot from him and it was nice to see how other missionaries go about doing work. There was this guy with 11 dogs!! It was really funny! Susan is doing very well. She made a lot of friends at church this past sunday and she is an amazing person. We have another investigator that lives in a halfway house and she is getting her own apartment soon. I'm so happy for her. She has quit drinking coffee and she is moving towards baptism. She inspires me to be a better person. She has gone through so much in her life. The past 10 years she has been homeless in the desert living in a tent. Now she is blossoming into this beautiful person and its because she has found the Savior in her life. :) Tracting here is really hard. We could tract for 4 hours straight and only talk to 15 people. Apparently its snake season I have all these people showing pictures to me of HUGE snakes! I still have only seen 3 :p Anyways, I love all of you and I hope all is well! Elder Hunter

This past week has been great! We went to the Redlands California temple last Thursday and it was so beautiful. Tons of palm trees,orange trees, lemon trees & grapefruit trees all around the temple grounds. that temple is amazing pictures don't even compare to what it looks like in person! the Boutwell family drove us out there and after the temple we went to CTR books and then had Subway for lunch. it was a perfect day. Saturday was a very long day we tracted for 4 hours and right when we where almost don't with tracting my companion got a call from president and it was not good news at all. I love my companion so much he is such a strong person. He took the news with stride and just worked even harder without even a tear. He is a great example to me. President even offered him to go home if he wanted to but he said "no my work is not done yet" . Right after that whole thing happened we tracted into a house where these hippie type people answered the door. We started talking to them and they are from Cedar City, Utah but just moved from Bremerton, Washington. They left the church but they want their son to be in scouts. I totally know they are going to go back to church. After that we drove down to Morongo Valley to have posole with Chris and his family. It was actually pretty good. It was different but it was good. He was so excited to get baptized later that day! Then we went back to the church to fill the font and all of these people started showing but Danny & Chris where going to be baptized in the same day. The baptism of Chris was incredible and special in every way. All of his sins where gone and he had a fresh start. I had the joy of giving him the gift of the Holy Ghost and confirming him a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints after that I gave him a powerful blessing. I hope he never forgets that blessing I gave him. Then we taught a few other lessons before dinner then we rushed back down to Morongo Valley to the Kinkaids and had fried steak with fresh corn on the cob and strawberry shortcake. Fresh food is the best food. We felt prompted to go back to Chris's house and teach him again. You could tell his whole family felt the spirit none of them are members of the church but they now want to take the missionary lessons. Chris set the example for his family and now they are following his example. Today was P-day! We went down to Palm Springs and had the most amazing P-day ever! We went on the Palm Springs Aerial Tram but to the top of a 8500 ft tall mountain it was insane. We went from 1,900 ft to 8500 ft in 10 mins! The cabin thing spinned around. We got up to the top where the lodge was and we went hiking into the San Janico State Park and national monument. It was 43 degrees up there while it was 83 in Palm Springs. It was one of the most breath taking things I have ever seen in my whole life! It was incredible! We went with the 29 Palm elders and the zone leaders.

I filmed the whole way back down so I'll send you that in a DVD. I took tons of pictures. After that we where driving around palm springs.There weere a lot of flowers and trees. The palm trees where super tall and cool looking. We went shopping and then went to Aspen Mills. A member owns it and fed us free lunch and gave us tons of bread and cookies to last us a lifetime! They were so kind to us.

Palm Springs is amazing I hope I get to serve there someday. I love all of you so much. Thank you for your letters and support it honestly helps me make it through the days of being a missionary. I made it to teaching 20 sit down lessons this week!  I guess so all the hard work is paying off!

Love Elder Hunter.

Dear Friends
I am doing really good so far this week. It was awesome to talking to my family. It really put me in a good mood and makes me want to work even harder! Chris & Susan's Baptism is this Saturday. I am getting very excited for them. This morning I cleaned the whole duplex because President Reeves & Sister Reeves are coming out to do interviews and they want to check to see the duplex to see if its in good condition. Im looking forward to seeing them tonight. I love them so much and they are awesome in everyway. I'm going to be sending more pictures today and I am going to write all of you back today. I have been really busy this past week. We have 16 investigators!  Elder Marshall & I are kicking butt out here in Yucca Valley & Joshua Tree! Thank you all for your support and love it means a lot to me to open a letter from each and everyone of you. It makes my day and makes me work even harder, so all of you can be proud of me. In other new,s we had 5 investigators at church on Sunday! That is really good for the area I guess. I really enjoy all of the people here. My ward has incredible people in it and I'm getting fed very well. (but don't be shy still send me goodies please).
I had a really odd thing happen. the other day my companion and I where tracting and we ran into this lady. Sister Laehei she is 91 years old. We had a very nice chat with her. The next day I was on splits with Brother Powell and and he got a phone call saying Sister laehei fell and broke her hip and a bunch of other bones from falling in the laundry room and she wanted a blessing from us. So we took off and went down to the hospital in Joshua Tree to give her a blessing. She was happy to see us but you could tell she was in a great deal of pain. I hope that she can pull through this. Keep her in all of your prayers.
I get to go to the Redlands California Temple this Thursday! I am very very excited to go! This week is looking to be a very busy and successful week! I love all of you guys a lot. I hope all of you are doing well.
Elder Hunter

Jonathan with President and Sister Reeves

This past week has been really really good. I love my companion hes awesome. We have taught 14 lessons this week and that is pretty good for the area we are in I guess. Tracting here is hard. We tracted for 3 hours yesterday and only talked to 10 people. We have 2 baptisms on May 14th. It's really hard work but I'm gettin my tan on!  We went on a hike with an investigator and we hiked on top of a mountain in Morongo. When we started teaching him out of the blue the wind started to blow with such force that we couldn't even hear each other.
We taught him about repentance and about scripture study. You could tell that he felt the spirit and he told us he was getting even more excited to get baptized on the 14th. As soon as we ended the lesson, the wind completely stopped. It was really weird. You could tell that there were some unwanted visitors trying to mess up the lesson.  They didn't though.
It has been in the 70's here mostly. Saturday I did Mormon Helping Hands. We went out to Joshua Tree near the national park and cleaned up the desert. The whole stake showed up for it with probably about 150 people to help out. We moved old sofas, tires, box springs & tons of junk. We lifted up a sofa and a huge lizard jump out and ran. It was pretty big. Then we saw 2 king snakes, but king snakes are nice snakes they eat rattle snakes. It felt good to do that service and help clean up the desert.  It is really pretty here. There are so many layers of mountains and Joshua trees. Everyone in my ward are great people. I have been getting fed very well. I love you all and hope that everyone is doing great!