We Met Elder D. Todd Christofferson!‏ February 2, 2016

Hola hola!
So... awkwardly enough, I realized from a friend's reply to my last email that I said we were going to meet Elder M. Russell Ballard... In my defense I was just trying to write as fast as I could last week since we had literally NO time- that's a long story... But we did meet an apostle, a special witness of Jesus Christ, Elder D. Todd Christofferson! This weekend was one of the greatest experiences of my life and it was incredibly spiritually powerful and uplifting! I was so motivated and pumped up during the meeting to do missionary work.
On the way home from Tulsa and meeting
Elder Christofferson!
I completely forgot to bring my notes from the conference to help remind me of things I learned... Awkward... Sorry! but we not only heard from Elder Christofferson, but we heard from President and Sister Walkenhorst, President and Sister Loveland (the Tulsa/not Tulsa now Arkansas something or other Bentonville maybe? mission president and his wife), Elder Southward and Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the quorum of the 70. I learned a ton of great things to apply personally and to the missionary work that I get to do here! One of the things that I hadn't realized that I have been forgetting is to make connections with people! I'm just not a people person.. haha um... that's kind of a big thing! But they talked about how before we open our mouths (or OYM- open your mouth), we need to first open our eyes and ears and observe before we talk. We need to find a connection with which we can start up a conversation with instead of just opening our mouth without preparing any kind of connection to go from. I'm pretty sure this is missionary work 101 type of material, but sometimes we just get in a rhythm and forget the basics!
As for our area, we've hit rock bottom it feels like because it feels like we are going on a much slower pace. Our two solid baptismal dates, Idalgo and Alan, are either moving or not reading/praying about the Book of Mormon and so we need to readdress this and help them truly understand the importance and why of baptism and what it means. We have been dropping people who aren't committed and ready yet, and our less-actives are either active and doing well or have begun to loose their fire of coming back to church and being recommitted. 
However, in the midst of all of this, we are still seeing miracles! We have found a past potential investigator who Hermana Hilton knew from the North (of 9ish months ago) that they had lost and she ended up living here, are working with the Garcia family still and have the opportunity to visit them more each week and just read the Book of Mormon with them (we could feel the difference in their home when we did this the first time especially), Carlos and Adriana are still on fire from their baptism and are staying strong and we are working to set up a time to visit the temple grounds with them, and we have started planning for a ward missionary activity (theatrical event) about the Book of Mormon for the end of next transfer that President Martinez and Hno. Romero (the Branch Mission Leader) are super excited to help us and the branch put on! But we are trying to do our best and trying to work through the members to find new investigators!
I can't remember if I told you all, but our former investigator, Erika, we found out was actually a less-active member and was baptized when she was 20. My mind was blown for hours after learning this. Then I also found out that we have an Olympic volleyball player who is serving in our mission (I can't remember the Elders' name, but he's going to be playing for BYU after his mission)- again my mind was blown after learning this. Haha I'm so grateful for Hermana Hilton to be able to nerd out about volleyball with! And then also that one of the Sisters from my BYU YSA ward is going to be coming to my mission in T-minus 2 weeks! Why didn't I hear about this?! Haha we were looking at the missionary board in President Walkenhorst's mission office office and we were looking at the missionaries pictures and names who are coming in and one of them was Sister Fuller! I'm pretty sure it's the same person from my ward at least. Again, mind blown! Haha so trainer's calls are tonight and I have a pretty good guess that Hermana Hilton will be training so unfortunately I don't think we will be staying together for another transfer and I will go to a new area. But I will let you all know next week what will be happening for next transfer!
The Will of God and Wrong Roads are some of the best Mormon Messages! I would highly suggest that they are worth watching! (:
Con amor,
Hermana Nachelle Sharon Hunt (:

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