NEW FAMILY

Alright so I will start off this email by saying Happy Birthday to my Dad and shout out to Tiff for getting engaged!! And for Lexi W for cheering in her first cheer game! Abel cannot get baptized. So he is so awesome. He is 100% converted and wants to get baptized. BUT. It turns out he doesn't live in this area. We just figured that out when we were going to do the baptism interview. He is always at this house because he is best friends with the guy that lives there (that's where we were teaching him). So we called the APs and they said they were going to talk to President Dester. Well the news came back and it turns out we can't baptize him. It has to be the missionaries in his home ward. But guess who is serving in his home ward? Elder Chapeton! My first companion! I thought that was so dang lucky! But when we broke the news to him he was super sad. He wanted one of us to baptize him so bad. He said he is going to wait til' the changes to see if one of us gets transferred to his home ward so that we can baptize him. It's almost impossible but it is possible I guess! But the good news is that he will get baptized and that is all that matters. He said once he is baptized he is going to keep on going to this ward cause he loves it so much! Our ward is pretty sweet:) So that was sad news but in the end all that matters is that he is baptized and makes those sacred covenants with the Lord. Alright so Elder Ririe and I were knocking doors. We had divisions. We came across this one family that is so awesome! We knocked on the door and she was just like "OH come in" we were so confused. I turned to Ririe and said "uh are they members?" Because they were acting so casual. We started talking to them and they just straight up told us that they think our church is true and that they were waiting for us to knock on their door... So I was so dang happy!! They went to church and we have another lesson planned. We are going to talk about the Libro de Mormon and talk about lesson 3 (Baptism). So I'm so excited to get back to that family and start teaching them some more. Today we went to this huge Waterfall for P day! That was Legit. I'll show you guys pictures below!

Love Elder Hess

MUSIC ACTIVITY

Had one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission this past week. Two wards in the Stake and my comp and I put together a music activity. I'll explain what we did. So every person in the Ward got an invitation and were suppose to hand it out to a friend or family who was not a member of our Church! The whole idea was to get a whole bunch of NEW investigators coming so we could get there information and start teaching them! Anyways, the Ward did a great job inviting people! Like 200 people showed up! So we got a boat load of new investigators! So that is so great cause we didn't have that many! Anyways the activity went so perfect! The Mission President gave the whole zone permission to go and watch the activity and to have a mini choir and sing the song "The Army of Helamem" (but in Spanish). So the whole activity was just singing and in between every song we would show videos of all of our lessons but in great detail yet still simple for our investigators. The songs that the wards sang went super well too! The were practicing everyday for 3 weeks because they knew how important this activity was. So right before the activity started President Dester walked in. I don't know if I've talked to much about him to you guys. But he is the most Holy and Spiritual man that I have ever met. He carries this Spirit with him that is unreal. I promise that he is a future General Authority in the 70. I had no clue he was coming so I got pretty nervous cause I didn't want him to think I was the worst singer in the world haha! He gave a talk and the Spirit was so strong! (If you've served a mission or serving right now you know how big of a deal it is if your Mission President shows up) Anyways at the end of the activity we played our last video Because of Him. If you haven't seen this video stop reading this and go watch it. The second the video came on I got the chills and when it showed Christ in the Tomb I could not hold back tears. The Spirit was so strong. I have a good feeling about all of our new investigators because they've been to the church and they know exactly what we believe in and I know without a doubt the Spirit was testifying to them that this church was true. I'm so happy that I got to be a part of such an awesome event. Something funny that happened this week is that Elder Perry and I (Gringo) went on splits. He is a blonde so the whole world knows he's American. Any how we came across this drunk guy and he said that he wanted to learn English! So we taught him the words "Bling Bling", cause he had a bracelet on hahah! It was so funny cause he was so Drunk and he was just screaming at people "I've Got Bling Bling!!!!" way loud. We gave him a word of wisdom pamphlet and left. But it was so funny I was laughing for 20 minutes haha! Ok so those are the highlights of my week! I love you guys! Remember Go Jazz Go Utes and Buffalo Wild Wings is the best restaurant in the world.

ps I found a Dunkin Donuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it's so cheap!!!!!!!!!!

Love Elder Hess

Elder Martinez (my comp)

Donuts are his favorite!

THE GOOD OL' MISSION

So this week was Halloween and I hope all of you ate 684 pounds of American candy for me cause all the good candy doesn't exist down here hahaha. So we had a good week! On Monday we had a Noche de Hogar and it went so well! These little girls put on a talent show for us and they sang "Let it Go" from Frozen! It was the cutest thing ever! Its called "Libre Soy" in Spanish. I actually got a little teary eyed just seeing how happy the whole family was. They live in such a small house without a kitchen and they were all just so happy. It was weird but the spirit was so strong when they were singing Let it Go. At the end me and all the little girls did a little concert but I sang the song in English. It was super fun:) Also the ward down here really wants to learn English. So once or twice a week I am going to have an English class at the church. We are telling all the members to bring non member friends because everyone wants to learn English here. They are going to make invitations that say free English Classes from a real Gringo hahaha!!!!! So I'm excited for that. We have an investigator named Abel and he has been progressing really fast. He's bien pilas ha. But he now has a baptism date in two weeks and he said there is no doubt in his mind that this church is true! Other than that we have been knocking a lot of doors to try to find new investigators. It's actually pretty fun. We always switch off days that we decide where we're going to contact and I always choose to contact in the craziest places haha! Like on Friday we were literally contacting on a cliff just because I knew that missionaries have never been up there. And because I feel like I'm in a movie. It's so cool. Well I just want to say this. The blessing that I have seen serving a mission leaves no doubt in my mind that this church is true. The only true happiness on this earth exists in this Gospel. While I've been out here for these 6 months I have seen how much God and Our Savior loves us. I've learned a lot about the life of our Savior Jesus Christ and how he gave his life for us. His love is unfailing. We never have the need to feel that we are alone or unloved because we never are. We can Always feel the Love of God. I love this church and I am so happy to be a missionary.

Love Elder Hess

The Picture with the Girls at the Talent Show:)

SICK

OK so this week I was super sick. I went to the hospital and they didn't know what I had. But I'm doing 100% better and I feel good right now! I was so sick that I couldn't even leave the bed for three days. I felt like every single thing in my body hurt. Even my bones were in a ton of pain. I was so dang hot but I couldn't use the fan because the wind from the fan literally hurt my skin, so I just had to wait it out in an oven basically. The really bad thing is that whatever I had is super contagious. Whatever I had is now doing its work on 8 other missionaries. So I feel bad about that :( It's because I went to zone meeting when I obviously shouldn't have. But the only day that we could leave was on Saturday. And that's because we had a baptism! So that was for sure the highlight of my week! Not really anything to talk about cause that's all that happened this week... But I'll send a lot of pictures! It rained super hard one day and everything flooded. 

Love Elder Hess

Elder Martinez and 12 yr old Even

That little thing in the water are the taxis here:)

Baptism of Even on (10/25/2014)

I've gotten really good at polishing my shoes! I thought you would like this picture!!