He Legit Called Us Peter and James From then On (Week #61)

Life is awesome. I love Harlingen. Elder N is still the greatest. The Elders and Sisters are doing great. Elder M was Elder S's comp last transfer and he's a great kid. He plays pretty much every instrument and such. Elder O is a good kid. Still learning about missionary life. He's a convert of about a year and a half. Sister H is super cool and fun. She's quiet but is down to do anything to help people out. Sister S is funny. Sister F is a boss. She
surfs and acts like it. Really chill, dedicated lady. Sister Sc is super sassy, and she'll fire my sarcasm right back at me. They're a great group.

Church attendance isn't really happening right now but we'll get there. We've been working for it, it's just a matter of being patient now.

We did play basketball but only a few people showed up this time. That's expected when there's new missionaries though...

We have zone activities just about every pday. We play basketball, have dart wars, etc. Today we're going to play indoor soccer. All sorts of stuff.

Elder Holland is really in tune with the Spirit so yeah he told us himself he sends people home based on his handshake interviews. I can attach part of the talk he gave. It was awesome.


What has been your biggest challenge this week?
Making sure people are pumped to receive miracles. Being in charge of missionaries is weird because you always have to be aware of how their attitude is.

What has been your biggest concern?
We may have to drop pretty much everyone we've been teaching because they're not progressing at all.

What has been your biggest success?
Well, I was ordained an apostle. By a crazy investigator. We were teaching him and all of a sudden he was like "I see you guys as disciples of Jesus Christ (he meant apostles). And so from now on between you me and Jesus your names will be Peter and James. (then he crossed himself and said hallelujah a couple times)" So that was
pretty cool. He legit called us Peter and James from then on. Super fun. haha

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?
Probably the peeps in my district. We played soccer for our workout in the morning and we have a bunch of fun together.

What has been your most significant tender mercy?
We found a couple people that are really interested in us coming by. It's nice to have people that may be interested after a bunch of people who don't go anywhere.

What are you looking forward to this coming week?
Not Skyping that's for sure....haha Probably getting to know our investigators a little better and finding out how we can help them.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.
Our goal is to keep working hard. We've been doing all we possibly can to receive miracles so now we're going to keep working and watch them happen.

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?
I really like the story of the brother of Jared. He came up with a suuuper simple plan and trusted in God enough to make it happen. Good example for us.

Have a great week! Love you guys!
Elder Hess

She Swears a Lot...But She's Awesome! (Week #60)

This week has been insane....

My new comp is amazing. I love him. I can already tell he'll be my best one so far. He's from Grantsville, Utah. He's reaaaallly spiritual and focused but also loves to joke around. We get along really well.

Things have been great. They also added a companionship of Elders into my district. I now have Elders M (Utah), O (Greenie from Vegas), and Sisters H (the only one that stayed), S (Dallas), F (California), and Sc (Wyoming). They're awesome. Really good peeps.

Well, our investigators didn't come to church, but they're progressing a little bit right now..

So our members and missionaries basketball game kinda changed cause so many members and nonmembers came so we just switched teams around and played a bunch of 3 on 3 games. Elder N hasn't played in the
games here yet but he's pretty good. We won all but one. We didn't do it last week but we're doing it this one.

Elder H was excited because he's going back to an area he'd served in before but he was sad to leave. He had been here for 6 months. 

We speak English at church but we still try to find Spanish speaking people.


What has been your biggest challenge this week?Getting to know the people in my district...It was awkward because the actual transfers happened on a Wednesday because bad weather delayed the greenie's flight. So we had an awkward extra day to work and
stuff. So we didn't have any meetings to really get to know each other until today...But they're awesome!

What has been your biggest concern?Finding people to baptize. They seem to be stuck in the mode of "oh talking to the missionaries makes me feel good so that's enough" And so we're trying to change that.

What has been your biggest success?We've been working a lot with P. She has some bad health issues and has wanted a stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon to help her through her stuff. And so we've been going over every night and sharing scripture stories with her. She said she feels more complete now which is awesome. I love her a ton. We talk a lot of trash. haha She said she can trust me and knows I'm real because I'm an "A-Hole." hahaha She swears a lot...but she's awesome!

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?Jeffrey R Holland. He's the reason we didn't email yesterday. He came down to visit the mission and to talk to us....Terrifying. I've heard some scary stories about that dude. He shakes everyone's hand as they come in and stares into their eyes for just a second. And he'll send you home if the Spirit tells him you shouldn't be there. Thank goodness I'm all good, haha but he trained us a lot on having the Spirit and teaching by it. It was awesome. The spirit was palpable...(that's right. I said Palpable...)

What has been your most significant tender mercy?Having Elder N as a comp. Elder H was a good comp, definitely. Elder N is a spiritual giant for sure.

What are you looking forward to this coming week?Working hard. I'm fired up to go!

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.We're working on daily service as a district and so we're keeping track of how many service things we do a day.

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?Elder Holland shared 3rd Nephi 17 with us when he's healing the people. And he really pointed out the words "All" and "every one". As in everyone is afflicted somehow even if it's not physical. We've been sharing it a lot.

Have a great week! Love you guys!
Elder Hess

All Through the Holy Power of Basketball (Week #59)

Things are going great! It was a pretty good week! We found a couple new people who will hopefully progress. R came to church! It took a ton of work but it happened and he liked it!

Sister M got diagnosed with some gallstone thing and got some meds. She's been doing good.

S's doing good. We're meeting his whole family soon.

R's doing good but he's sorta stuck in his ways. He wants to be baptised but then in the same sentence will talk himself out of it.

I haven't seen G at all but I got to see M and V and all them! It was super cool!

That was one of the finding activities. We were going to do a member vs. missionary basketball game and it blew up. Like tons of people showed up. We didn't even talk to them but somehow it spread. We ended up with like 30 people. It was awesome. We'll probably do it this next week too. 

So the free hugs thing. There's this resaca (manmade river) that runs through the middle of the city and at about 5 o clock there's a ton of people walking their dogs, running, playing at the park and stuff. So we stood there with a sign and offered them hugs. It was our whole district so if a lady walked up the sisters would hug them but if it was a dude, we hugged them. We had a fair few people stop but a lot of people were smiling and that was the goal.

What has been your biggest challenge this week?Keeping everyone focused for the last week of the transfer. At the last week everything kinda winds down but we did really well this week.

What has been your biggest concern?Helping people progress. We've been trying to bring the Spirit really well into lessons and stuff.

What has been your biggest success?Probably basketball night. We had some people miraculously show up to church. Like inactive RM's who hadn't been to the church in a long time. All through the holy power of basketball.

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?I got to see M and V which was awesome. They were really excited to see me, and I got their phone numbers and new addresses and stuff. I love those guys a lot.

What has been your most significant tender mercy?Having R at church. We went by his house and knocked to wake him up, and he didn't seem like he was going to come but he came in. A little late but yeah.

What are you looking forward to this coming week?Transfers. I wanna know what's going to happen and who's going where.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.Keep the miracles coming. 

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

I gave a talk on repentance and I shared the story in 1 Nephi 18 about the boat and the tempest and the compass not working. It was really interesting to think that it took Laman and Lemuel a couple days to realize how dumb they were being.

Love you guys! 

Have a great week!

Elder Hess

Gets Me Pumped for the Second Coming (Week #58)

Everythings going good!

Elder H's doing great and so are the Sisters. They don't know what's up with Sister M yet. I think she finds out today...

R thinks we're really rich and wanted us to pay to get his car fixed so he could come to church but....We aren't rich. So we had to explain that to him. S is doing great. He's really growing a lot. I haven't learned anything about G. he was supposed to come to conference but he didn't. So IDK.


What has been your biggest challenge this week?
Keeping a good attitude. That's my goal as well.. Like we've been working super hard. We're just not seeing the fruits yet. So we just have to keep persevering i guess.

What has been your biggest concern?
Making sure our investigators are progressing. We need to help them increase their testimonies for sure.

What has been your biggest success?
The finding activities were awesome. They went really well. We did a free hug day (we only hugged the dudes), a carol day (April 6th for Jesus' bday), and we dingdong ditched the members and left cookies.

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?
Probably S. He seems super happy when we come over. He recently had a dream where he was in a cold dark space with no light and he saw this tiny light that surrounded him and warmed him up. And he said we need to come by more often so he can feel that more!

What has been your most significant tender mercy?
A member yesterday let me start up their Shelby Mustang and that kinda made my day. haha

What are you looking forward to this coming week?
We decided to keep the finding activities going cause they went so well. So we're going to do more stuff!

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.
Keeping a good attitude like I said.

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?
I've been reading a lot of Isaiah. Gets me pumped for the second coming. haha Makes me work harder!

Love you guys!
Elder Hess

Giving out free hugs!

We chalked up a long sidewalk

Drew the plan of salvation

Wrote out the whole Family: A Proclamation to the World!

Get. The. Stinkin. People. To. The. Stinkin. Church.... (Week #57)

Life has been good. We've been really busy...

The sister's are doing great. Sister M's been sick so she's going to the doctors today to get a camera shoved down her throat. I told the other sisters to film her afterwards so I can have a laugh.

Sister D is the best. Her son served in Chile Santiago. He's awesome as well.

S is a good guy. We found out he has an orange shirt so that's a plus. We had a really spiritual lesson and invited him to Conference and he straight up told us "I'm lazy so i probably won't come" Soooooo yeah he didn't come.

I didn't know I was going to be a DL for sure but the zone leaders told me they recommended me to the AP's and so yeah here I am. Buncha punks.

My bike is good. Just beat up. A year of a mission does that apparently. We ride them at least twice a week. It's a mission rule.

My favorite talk was by Holland. Suuuuper good.



There's been a rumor of a temple for while now...They've been scoping it out for a long time. But in order to get one, Laredo has to become a stake apparently. It's suuuuuuuuuuuper close but not close enough I guess. I was kinda upset we didn't get one but there are other places that need it too.

My interview with prezzy was good. We didn't talk about me at all which was nice. We just talked about the sisters and how they're doing. It was like 5 minutes long.


What has been your biggest challenge this week?
We had everyone really committed to Conference and they were all excited to see the prophet and then they didn't show up so that kinda sucked...

What has been your biggest concern?
A temple. I prayed really hard for it. It didn't happen but it will this next Conference.

What has been your biggest success?
The sisters got in contact with G and he's really interested in coming back to church!!

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?
Either the C family or P. M. The C are a really nice older family that love the missionaries and are really cute and P is the sassiest woman in the world. I think she hates me but she really loves me. One of those weird things. She's one of those people I can talk trash with like I do with Grandma. hahaha

What has been your most significant tender mercy?
We had a mission wide leadership conference thing where President corrected all of us super hard because we've all had trouble reaching our  goals. He said a lot of stuff to apply and stuff I needed to know that I didn't. It was great. Weird that I like being corrected now...

What are you looking forward to this coming week?
This week I decided to do crazy finding activities as a district all week. So we're going to draw the plan of salvation in a park like your Sisters did one day and have a free lemonade stand another day and a bunch of  stuff all week.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.
Get. The. Stinkin. People. To. The. Stinkin. Church....

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?
I think Holland's talk was the best. (modern scripture so it counts.) Satan's been trying really hard to get me down and he's done a good job. And so Holland's was just a reminder to keep trying and working so I can improve. It was awesome.

Love you guys!
Elder Hess

I've been reading the Ensigns a lot and i found an article by Julie!!!

So weird!!! (NOTE: Julie is Elder Hess's cousin)

Thanks Mission Bikes for Needing to Be Fixed! (Week #56)

Things are going good!!

Elder H's doing great and helping out a ton. Our area is awesome. I was here for one transfer (my 3rd) and we covered Elder Stone and Monnet's area combined with the one we have now. Elder H has been here for 4 transfers now. Elder A is here as well yeah. Such a good kid.

The D's are awesome. Their son just barely got off of his mission and he's like the perfect missionary. Teaching with him is a lot of fun.

Elder Stone is the DL in another district. There are 3 districts in the zone. Elder Monnet is on his 6th transfer. So like 9 months in real people time.

Our investigators...we have a guy named R who had his head run over by a car at some point and he doesn't remember much...but he wants to see General Conference so that's cool. And we have a guy named S who's really interested. We don't really know if he owns a shirt though....he's always shirtless.

District leader is going well. I only got trained for like 2 hours once 3 weeks ago for it so I still am figuring it out but it's good.


What has been your biggest challenge this week?
Getting people to church. We had a lot of people committed to church but they all flaked again.

What has been your biggest success?
We helped a kid to fix his bike and got to meet S through it. Thanks mission bikes for needing to be fixed!

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?
The D family. They're so cool. They help out the missionaries a ton and really want to improve the work here. They're all geniuses. 

What has been your most significant tender mercy?
Water. That sweet nectar of life. Being in 95 degrees all day makes you appreciate the heck out of cold water after a long day.

What are you looking forward to this coming week?
GENERAL FREAKING CONFERENCE!!!!!! I love that stuff. I've been praying they'll announce the Texas Mcallen temple this time. We need one.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it.
Get people to church. Like always.

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?
I had an interview with President Maluenda and he told me to read Jarom and focus on leadership. I've learned some good stuff so far. Hope everything's good for you guys!

Love you!!
Elder Hess

I Have No Flipping Idea What I'm Doing. It's Great! (Week #55)

Note from the mom:
There was no email for week #54. Elder Hess had transferred, and his new companion was sick for a number of days after he arrived. Good experience for Elder Hess.
In this email, he mentions a Sister who went to Southridge and was in Encore with him. Southridge is one of the high schools in our district and Encore is a regional youth choir--small world!

***

I'm doing good and Elder H is back to new again. haha The area is awesome. Really weird being back in my old one. The branch here is really great. The members help out a ton and are pretty good fellowshippers. We also work with Elder Stone and Elder Monnet (pronounced like saying money in a French accent. Try it. It's fun) in
our branch and it's awesome. I missed Stone. haha We have a good number of investigators, but spring break makes it tough to meet with them so no one came to church...I'm feeling good. My ankle's ok. It hurts every so often but not too bad. We're in a car area. I think God wants me to get fat....


What has been your biggest challenge this week? 
Staying positive even though we couldn't work. It was pretty frustrating but I got through smiling (or whatever it is my face does)

What has been your biggest concern? 
Well I'm a district leader now so I'm in charge of 2 other companionships. Both of them sisters. And I have no flipping idea what I'm doing. It's great!

What has been your biggest success?
 I think I've applied the changes I've had on my mission to myself now. I'm getting along really well and being patient with my comp. We've both changed a ton since the MTC.

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why? 
The sisters! Our 4 sisters are Sister Montuy (California), Holloway (Greenie from Nevada), Barton (Colorado, she's a boss), and Shickedanz (she went to Southridge...and was in Encore with me...Trippy right?)

What has been your most significant tender mercy? 
Having Elder H healthy again. He's a huge help when he's up and running.

What are you looking forward to this coming week? 
Working for the full week! And possibly seeing G! You remember him? Look him up in your archives of Elder Hess emails.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? Tell me about it. 
We're going to baptize. Somehow....

Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?
We shared 3rd Nephi when Jesus is healing everyone and it hit me how everyone needs his healing. It says all who were afflicted. And at some point we are all afflicted. Weird.

Love you guys! Have a great week!
Elder Hess

Tried to give service to some members and instead they gave us fruit...