It is still summer in the City here in SLC, but it is so good! First P-day of the new transfer and I have so much to talk about! 

First Thing First, My New Companion:

So, at transfers I actually ended up getting a new companion. His name is Elder Morgan and he is from Springville, UT. He is also waiting for his visa to Buenos Aires West (the same mission as me) and when we get them, we will be companions all the way down to Argentina. He is Awesome! It is a little bit hard because we are both only 3 transfers into our missions so our Spanish is a little rough...but It is sooo much fun. We are both trying really hard to speak Spanish to each other as much as possible so that we can practice. We love having the opportunity to go out and teach people even though our Spanish is much less than Par. We have learned a ton over the last few days and talked more Spanish than probably the rest of my mission combined. I am used to having a companion that is either from mexico or who speaks Spanish fluently so I would just kinda listen, bare my testimony, and maybe say a prayer at the end. Now however, Since I have been in this area for 2 transfers and know the members of our branch and know the area, I am leading our companionship. It is a crazy opportunity but it is so fun.

The Work is Real:

Wednesday night after transfers, we got right to it. We came home and planned real briefly and Elder Morgan unpacked a little bit and then we hit the sidewalks. From about 2 in the afternoon until 9 at night, we taught a total of 6 lessons and found 1 new investigator (all in Spanish). It was the first time I really felt the spirit guiding us with the Gift of Tongues. We talked about things and said things that I didn't even know I could say. We invited them all to church and got good responses from all of them. Later that night when we got home and did our numbers for the day and planned for the next day, Elder Maldonado and Elder Revoir (who live in the same apartment as us) were super happy for us and they told us that we had "Greeny Power" haha. 

The next day, we had our District Meeting. Elder Maldonado (My last companion) is our new district leader. He gave a great training about the Restoration. After that we went and visited a couple more people and had a couple great lessons and then we surprised one of the other Elders for his birthday and Had a cake for him. It was the most short-lived birthday party ever (about 10 minutes) but it was still fun.

Friday was one of my favorite days. That was when Elder Morgan and I realized that our Spanish is getting a lot better. We were going to visit one of our investigators but she wasn't home. Across the street was some of her cousins and uncles that she had talked about but we had never met. They were sitting out front so we decided to go talk to them. It was a super good visit. Victor and his Wife are from Mexico and they have lived in Utah for 20 years. They knew English, but they were very impressed with our Spanish and said they never would have guessed that we had only been speaking it for 3 months. Oh, and for those of you who read this and know "Chip" from Chips Grand Tire in Moab...Victor is a Hispanic version of Chip. He is Awesome! 

Saturday was a little bit different. One of the other Elder's in our Zone was sick so I went on exchanges with him for the whole afternoon. He slept while I studied, but I still felt productive because I planned out a lesson for one of our investigators.

Sunday was Awesome! The Leadership Broadcast was pretty dang good! I loved how they stressed the importance of LOVE. It is so true. Most of the people that we talk to that aren't interested, are that way because the last missionaries that they talked to offended them, or they came to church and didn't feel welcome. It is sooo Important that we love everyone no matter what because we don't know their circumstances or what they have been through. After the broadcast, we ate dinner with the Johnson Family. Their son just got off his mission about 2 months ago and he loves helping us out. it is really nice! Then we had a great lesson with one of our less-active friends. He is one of the coolest guys ever and has just had a couple rough things in his life that brought him down a bit, but now he actually came to the missionaries because he wanted to get back on track. It was a super cool lesson in the Church and the spirit was way strong. Finally, as we were locking up the church and getting ready to head home, a car pulled up and 2 people walked over the doors of the church. We noticed that they were speaking Spanish so we decided to talk to them. It turned out that they were members from another branch that were coming to see exactly where this one was so they could bring some friends too it. We talked to them for about 20 minutes about where they were from and their family members that served missions or are serving missions. That was another time where I felt that the spirit was helping us speak the language. We even knew how to ask if they could give us a ride back to our apartment, and they did! haha

The Weather:

Salt Lake city had some of the best weather ever over these last few days. it was about 80 degrees the whole time (maybe a little less) and the sun was never directly shining on us. Even today on our P-day the weather is awesome. It is cloudy and a great temperature. Elder Morgan and I went to the Park for a little while and just sat there and watched the Ducks. It was a great P-day.

Thought of the Day:

So My thought for the day today is about letting the spirit guide your life.I hope most of you got the chance to watch the Leadership Broadcast that they did. It was sooo good and talked about Member Missionary Work. "The greatest work we can do is preach the Gospel" -Joseph Smith. It is cool to think that we literally can preach the Gospel Every Single Day of our lives. In our attitudes, our examples, our words, our thoughts, and our actions. I love being a missionary and being able to spend literally everyday teaching people about the Gospel. Every night when we plan for the next day, I feel the spirit guiding us and telling us who we should teach and what we should teach them. Really, we aren't going to teach any of them anything but simply be instruments in which the spirit can teach through us. Planning has been really hard for me because I am not really a person who plans out everything...but I have felt an amazing change in my attitude towards planning as I have done it with the help and Guidance of the Spirit. A quote from one of our Zone Meetings goes like this, "If you Plan it, the Lord will Provide it." I kinda laughed because I thought of what my mom always said to me which was, "We plan, God Laughs." Which is true because God has a sense of Humor and wants us to learn and if everything went as planned, then we wouldn't have anything to learn from. But I realized that the most important planning we can do in our Lives is: Plan to follow the spirit in everything that you do!  Almost Every single thing that we plan on our missions is directed by the spirit. It still might not happen exactly how we planned it, but eventually it will happen. In life, we plan to provide structure and comfort to our lives. So we can know what we need to do and when we need to do it. But one thing I have realized on my mission is that even though this is our life, we are still on the lords time. And the Lord's timing is perfect. We need to make sure and let the spirit guide us in our lives. When we are in tune with the spirit, that is when the lord will help us to do the things that we need to. Whether we planned it or not. If everything went according to plans, then we would never learn. God changes our plans whether we want him to or not because he has something better in store for us!

Well, the first few days of this transfer have flown by so fast but they have been full of miracles and  good experiences. I am looking forward to the rest of the time I have here and am always hoping for my Visa to come...but for now, I am loving it here :) Take care everybody!

Con Amor,

~Elder Hazlett

 More mission pictures!

 

The missionaries that are in the Liberty stake. 4 spanish and 4 english. 2 of them are sisters! Elder Sullivan, Elder Putra, Sister Sprouse, Sister Hathaway (no relation to Anne Hathaway) Elder Maldonado, Elder Potts, Elder Revoir, and Myself!

All the frozen pizza's we got from Sister Josea! (the same old tongan lady that does our laundry for us! She is an Angel I swear!!!

Some amazing Fried Rice that Elder Maldonado and I made...it was sooo good! :)

SUMMER IN THE CITY

When I submitted my mission papers...I never thought that I would be called to serve in my home state of Utah  but here I am, and Summer in the City is actually not too bad. My original call isn't to Salt Lake City, but I was reassigned here while waiting for my Visa. I have now been out almost 5 Months and I am ending my 2nd transfer this Wednesday. It has had it's Ups' and Downs' just like any mission experience, but the Up's have definitely outnumbered the Downs'. 

MY COMPANIONS

I am currently serving with Elder Revoir and Elder Maldonado as a Trio. Unfortunately Elder Potts received his Visa and left earlier this morning for Argentina, changing us from 2 companion-ships to 1 trio. Actually, it is far from unfortunate! Elder Potts was an awesome missionary here in SLC and is going to be even greater down in South America. I learned a lot from him and it was a pleasure being with him for the last 2 transfers. Elder Revoir is so awesome! He is from Florida and adds that southern flavor to the mission life. Which which is then Spiced up even more by Elder Maldonado who is from Pachuca, Mexico. We get along really well and I am excited for this next transfer. We will find out on Tuesday whether or not any of us are getting transfered, so I am excited to see what happens and I hope I am able to stay with them. Who knows? Also, there are 45 new missionaries coming into this mission on wednesday! 13 of them are new "Visa Waiters" The mission is splitting in Half on the 1st of July, so some of those missionaries are going to go to the "Salt Lake City East" Mission. That is why the number of new missionaries is so big.

THE WORK

We currently have a pretty good group of investigators that we are working with and a whole lot of Less-Active people that we are working with as well. Now that Elder Potts is gone, we are going to be half as effective because we are in a trio instead of 2 companion-ships, but that is not going to slow us down too much. Yesterday at church we had 77 people in our Branch which is awesome! A couple weeks ago we only had about 20...so we have been doing really well at helping people come back to church and re-kindling that spirit that they felt when they were baptized. We haven't had any baptisms lately (we have been working on building up our branch again) but I have faith that in the next few weeks we will have some. Besides, seeing a less-active come back to church is just as rewarding as seeing an investigator be baptized. We are helping them get back on the path of following Christ! 

Everyone always asks, "Is there a lot of work to do in SLC?" Which is something that I kinda asked myself as-well when I was re-assigned here, but it wasn't long before I realized just how much there is to do here! There are so many people here to teach, the only hard part is that we have to find them amongst the "Members" and the "Anti's" We don't do any tracting (knocking on random doors) because most the time it is either a member that invites us in for some food or something (which is awesome and we love members that help the missionaries out) but it takes a lot of time away from us that we could be using to teach people. Or on the other hand it is someone who just wants to Argue with the missionaries....so we get a lot of refferals and work as much as we can with those.

WEATHER

Man...I didn't realize how hot it is in Utah until I walk around in a shirt, tie, and long pants all day. It is a little different lifestyle than my usual Utah Summer on the river, but it has been nice! I am getting that super awesome "Missionary Tan" that everyone is jealous of. On P-days when we get to wear a t-shirt to play basketball or something, it looks like I am still wearing a collared shirt because my neck is so white. It is pretty funny but it is all worth it! And the best part is that by the time I get to Argentina  It will be about spring time there and be perfect weather. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

So the last couple weeks were a little bit frustrating for me because 1 by 1 the other Visa-Waiters received their Visa's. I kept thinking that I would be the next person to get a call from the mission office but it never happened. This morning, about half of the Visa Waiters that received their Visa's headed off to Argentina (Including Elder Potts). I thought for sure that I was gonna be on a flight to Argentina right now....that isn't the case. Instead I am still here in Utah. Anyway, I am getting to the thought I promise. Yesterday during my studying, I came across the word "Adversity" and it really stuck out to me. The definition of adversity in the dictionary is : a state, condition, or instance of serious or continued difficulty or adverse fortune. "As part of Heavenly Father's plan of redemption, all people experience adversity during their lifetime. Trials, disappointments, sadness, sickness, and heartache are a difficult part of life, but with the help of the Lord they can lead to spiritual growth, refinement, and progress." There have been a lot of experiences in my life where I have felt a little disappointed or frustrated, and sometimes it was very hard to find the positive in those situations...But, one thing that I have learned on my mission is that it is impossible to teach people about the "Plan of Happiness" when you yourself are not happy. For example, there is a family that we are teaching who loves when the missionaries come over because we are always so happy and it makes them happy. But one day when we went over to talk to them (the day Elder Potts got his Visa and I didn't) I was feeling a little bit down. After only a few minutes, one of them asked, "Why aren't you smiling? You are always smiling!" I told them why, and they said, "Oh don't worry, it will come soon enough." I tried my best to smile but it was difficult. Shortly after we left, I was thinking about what she had asked me and the reason I told her and it hit me. I am called by an Apostle of the Lord to be a missionary and a Disciple of Jesus Christ and it doesn't matter where I am, it only matters what I am doing! That was when I realized that I am here for a reason. And that the best way to enjoy it, was to be happy and help others be happy! That choice has helped me so much  and it helped me to know that My Purpose as a missionary is to Help Others come unto Christ and Find Happiness, and that can be done from ANYWHERE! :)  In this life, it is all about making choices.Choices that will bring you more happiness. I challenge everyone that reads this to make a choice right now about how you are going to respond to Adversity. "Each person's success and happiness, both now and in the eternities, depend largely on his or her responses to the difficulties of life." We are all going to have difficulties and we are all going to have to choose how we respond to it!  I know that we will be blessed as we remain faithful through our trials and choose to rely on the Lord :)

I hope the best for everyone of my friends and family! And remember, "When things get too hard to stand....Kneel" Heavenly Father hears and will answer your prayers! I hope all of you are having an awesome summer!

Con Mucho Amor,

~Elder Zakariah Hazlett