Guten Morgen!

Well this week was a little bit different because I was dying coughing
this week and just had a constant headache. It was rough haha. But I
also learned a lot from it this week. Elder Harvey wouldn't let me get
out of bed so I slept a lot this week and we tried to stay inside as
much as possible since it's still pretty cold. But on Tuesday and
Wednesday I just slept in till like 9, did companion study and said I
would do language and personal later then went to appointments. I did
do my personal study but it was very short and not as meaningful as I
wish it would have been and it was crazy the difference I felt missing
just two days of good personal study. I felt like I was just lacking
so badly. It made me decide that no matter what I always want to have
good meaningful studies. It's really so cool how much better you feel
the spirit and the wholeness of the gospel when you make the effort to
invite it each morning.
Even though I was sick it was still a really good week. We still
taught 14 lessons this week and we worked hard. We did a lot of area
book work and had hardly any success haha but we were able to clean up
the area a lot and make the area book a little more useful now.
I also finally applied for my Visa this week so now I can finally be
legal! Haha
We met with T and we kind of dropped her as an investigator for
now because while she is living at home she really can't make any
progress and she is not really putting forth any effort to make
progress either. But we decided we are going to try going by her house
and talking to her mom and seeing if maybe she will open up to it at
all. Then we also met with D who earlier this week called his dad
to talk to him about him investigating our church and tell him he is
thinking about baptism. I guess that did not go well. His dad told him
that being baptized twice is a Huge sin and that if he does it he will
disown him as his son and not talk to him anymore. It's hard because
D has gotten answers and he has told us he knows all of this is
true and he wants to be baptized and he is willing to quit smoking and
drinking but he said he can't do it if his dad says no. So it's hard
to find the right balance of making sure he knows how important family
relationships are and that we would never want family bonds to be
broken to be baptized but also telling him that if he knows it is all
true and everything that maybe he needs to take a step and just trust
in the Lord. So that's where we are with D. All our other
investigators are just continuing as normal in the lessons and making
progress. Nothing huge this week. We have about six progressing
investigators this week which is good!
I have found this past week that the best way to learn a language is
to throw any pride you have out the window and just look like an
idiot. Even if you have no idea how to say something just try it. And
every once in a while people understand you!! Haha but really. The
times where I notice the most progress in my language is when I really
push myself to speak German with everybody even though everybody here
can speak English. Haha it was also really interesting. We met one
girl from Northern Germany and wow it was CRAZY the difference in the
language. She was speaking Hoch Deutsch which is what most people
speak there and it was soooo much easier to understand. Haha I didn't
realize how heavy the dialect was until then. So it makes me feel a
little better. Haha here they tend to kind of slur words together and
leave off endings of words and yeah... It's hard to understand
sometimes. Especially H and A. Mostly A though
he is a investigator and he is 45 and wants to be baptized but his
parents won't let him. He still lives at home because 10 years
ago he
got in a really bad car crash and is now pretty heavily handicapped.
Which is why is German is so hard to understand. Because first his
dialect is a little slurred but then because he has some mental
handicaps he slurs it even more. Haha even Elder Harvey rarely
understands him. Haha but he's awesome. This week was great and I love
you all!!

Liebe grüße,
Elder Hunter

Servus!
        This week was awesome!! It felt like a really slow week work wise but
it was seriously so good. We got 15 lessons, 4 new investigators, we
had 7 investigators in sacrament, seriously just everything was so
good plus we had so much fun this week. I really think it just goes to
show that if you have fun and you truly love the work and have a good
attitude you will have success. We honestly played a lot this week but
every time we were doing something we were having fun we had our
purpose in mind and brought it out in a fun way! But don't worry we
were still obedient!! :) haha but I think that is one of the biggest
things I have learned this week is that truly you need to be happy in
order to ever be successful. If you are miserable nobody will talk to
you let alone agree to meet with you. We seriously just joke around
with people and talk honestly about things and somehow the gospel
always comes into play. If you really are just genuinely interested in
what they are saying the words come! A little rough in German but they
still come.
      It is also so amazing to see how HUGE member missionary work is.
People that are recommended and brought to us by there member friends
are so so much more welcoming and willing to listen and be open to the
message of the gospel because the door was opened by a friend rather
than two guys knocking on their door with broken German asking them to
listen to our message. I would like to ask everybody that gets this
email especially my family to really try to reach out to others in
service and friendship and extend the invitation to learn more about
this amazing gospel, tell them how it's blessed your life, share a
scripture, anything! You'll never know until you try and you feel so
good giving people the opportunity to hear something that you know is
so correct and such a huge blessing.
      We also had Zone training this week which was really good! We talked
about finding, the Book of Mormon, but my favorite thing we talked
about was personal conversion. This was something that for me was very
close to me. Before my mission I really took the gospel for granted
and I never really read or honestly even said meaningful prayers if I
prayed at all. I started trying harder as I decided I wanted to go on
a mission but I still took it for granted and I had this grand idea
that I would go to the MTC and gain a perfect testimony, know with all
my heart that it's true, and know all the lessons. Little did I know I
would be almost at the end of my first transfer in the field barely
knowing the first and second lesson, really still working on my
testimony, and I have realized I don't KNOW that all of it is true,
but that's okay. I don't need to have a perfect knowledge all I need
to do is have faith that all of this is true. Alma 32: 21 is perfect
for this. I guess what I am getting at is that the gospel is something
that we could learn something new about every single day for the rest
of our lives. I am realizing being on a mission that it is so true
that the gospel is so simple a child can understand it but so complex
you could spend a lifetime studying it and still not get all of it. So
we can not feel inadequate when we feel a little behind or maybe even
a little disconnected. All we can do is move forward in faith and
continue to strengthen our testimonies.
      Everything here in Neumarkt is great and the weather is getting a
little warmer and the air is a little clearer and wow the mountains
look amazing. We bought Elder Harvey some running shoes so now we
switch off every morning between p90x and running! We have generally
been running about 5 miles whenever we do run and we hold at like
7:30-7:45 pace! It's awesome and I need to take advantage of it while
I have a companion that will do it with me! On Valentine's Day we had
an awesome day. We had a ton of investigators at church and also
potluck after church. Then also made schnitzel and of course we wore
lederhosen and listened to some Austrian Yodeling music. Haha it was
pretty great. And also can't forget that it was Lauren's birthday!!
Happy birthday!! All is going well here and I am so happy and I feel
like I learn about a million things a day. Missionary work is very
hard but seriously so rewarding and can be really fun if you make it
fun. :)
Alle mein liebe,
Elder Kade Hunter

Morgan!
This week was awesome. It started off really slow and not good and
just got better and better! Monday was all good. But then Tuesday we
just got super thrown off because a New convert named Marek needed
help moving his stuff from Braunau to Oberhofen which is like a 45
minutes drive so we drove him all the way there and we're going to
help him clean out his old house (a shipping container like you would
see on a train) and once we got there he refused to clean out his
container and just got super upset with us and told us he was staying
and to leave. So we left and just got breakfast at a bäckerei and then
drove home. So we wasted two hours and almost 200 km first thing in
the morning. Haha then the rest of the day was just off. Then
Wednesday we had Distrikt Versammlung and went into Salzburg for that
and it was super good. We talked a lot about having Christ like love
and talked about that we have to try and look at people the way Christ
would. Then we had an amazing burrito lunch that the Ehepaar made for
us. Then we had a few teaching appointments that all went good. We
found out Sonja, Patrick's mom, is a total hippy in our lesson with
her which was pretty funny. I was able to relate with her about the
peace that we can feel in the mountains and away from everything. I
really think she has huge potential.
Then on Thursday it was just a pretty normal day. Nothing good or bad.
Then Friday was rough. We started the day good. We did the p90x
challenge again with the pull ups and push ups and we almost got our
goal of 16 pull ups and 29 push ups! Haha then we went finding and did
some tür zu tür then at 14 we had a lesson with Patrick and we invited
a member to come with us to teach him and that was a bad idea. Patrick
is only ten years old but he is freaking smart. He started asking
crazy deep doctrinal questions and me and Elder Harvey were kinda just
like yeah we can talk more about that in a later lesson and tried to
bring it back but then our joint teach took off on some very illogical
and horribly explained doctrine and at one point even accidentally
said that God is not almighty. Wow it was bad. Haha but it's okay.
That just threw us off because we were planning on doing weekly
planning but it sucks to sit at your desk for three hours trying to
optimistically plan for a whole week after a lesson like that. But we
did it and literally right as we said amen in our closing prayer after
planning our favorite members called and asked if we wanted some food
because they cooked too much. Haha God rewards us when we are
obedient.
Then Saturday was a pretty different day. We actually played
basketball all morning with the members and it was really good we
strengthened our relationship a lot with those that were there then we
did all our studies then we had kinder fashing which was super fun and
we had the chance to talk to a lot of the kids non member parents and
we found a couple people that could be really good! And also it was so
fun we were in charge of one of the aktivitäts and the kids here I
swear are all so cute. Then Sunday was the best day of the week by
far. We had two investigators at church and both of them did a full 24
hour fast and paid a fast offering which was awesome! Then we met with
Herr Meingast and the fed us and we spoke about the Book of Mormon and
he said he knows it is a true book and that it is direct revelation
from God. We extended a loose baptismal invitation and he gave a loose
yes. Haha we will see but he is so nice and very intelligent and
religious. Then we went to Hoarsts house because he was in so much
pain he couldn't get out of bed. I had the opportunity to give my
first priesthood blessing in German. It was really cool because before
we started i just apologized for my German and he said it's okay God
understands all languages. I thought that was really cool and helped
me realize truly all I am is the mouthpiece and god knows what Hoarst
needs and everything is good.  Afterwards we actually were even able
to teach a short lesson and he was sitting up and seemed like he was
in less pain. It was really cool!!  Then we had a second dinner
appointment and ate way too much food in a short two hour period. Then
we went and taught David he is from Russia, but it was such a good
lesson. We gave him the Book of Mormon about a week ago and he is
already at the end of second Nephi! Crazy! We extended a baptismal
invitation for April 2nd and he said yes!! He is the coolest guy. I
really like him. The only problem is he has to ask his dad who is a
orthodox minister I believe is what is said. So pray for David. Haha

Then today we went to a lake Kunigsee and it was so cool. We saw The
Eagles Nest up on the mountain and then we hiked to something called
the Eiskapela (ice chapel) it was super pretty and was just like a
circle of mountains with snow. Super cool! And of course we hiked it
in our lederhosen!! Haha all in all a very good week!
Tschüss,
Elder Hunter

                                                                     Hiltler's Rock

      Elder Hunter and Hunter

Hallo!

This week was full of ups and downs! Monday we had a really good day missionary work wise then Tuesday was horrible we had two people drop us no potentials and all but one of our lessons cancel. Then the next day we had a little more luck taught some good lessons and found two potentials then we just had no luck the next day. But all in all it was another good week!! The bad days just made the good days that much more appreciated.

We also had a really cool thing happen. So we had just started teaching this ten year old that is seriously crazy. He has read the Book of Mormon the Karan the bible like he's crazy! But he has been coming to our church saying he knows it is true and we taught him once and his mom had no interest in meeting with us so she just dropped him of at the church and said she would be back in 30 minutes. Well she came back 30 minutes later and we were not quite done so she sat in and you could tell it actually peaked some interest and she started asking some questions. Then that next night Patrick. The boy, calls us and says he can't come to our church anymore, we asked why not and if we could help with anything and he just said not important. And hung up. We were both so bummed we were like okay we just got dropped by a ten year old. That's awesome. But then the next night his mom calls us saying she needs to talk to us, so we set up an appointment for the next day. We met with her and we talked a lot about repentance, families, and the atonement ( she had Patrick when she was 15) and Patrick thinks she is damned and has no chance to repent so we talked to her and told her we can always repent and the spirit was so so strong and she was crying and our joint teacher was crying and maybe I shed a like half a tear... But it was awesome! She said she wants to hear all the lessons and learn more. So we will see!!

I also have my first talk in German this Sunday. Wow it was ROUGH! But it was good. I prayed for confidence and to not be nervous and it was crazy I got up and started to speak and I felt so comfortable and so calm and I wasn't even nervous. My language stunk and probably made no sense but I was confident in my effort! Maybe next time I'll pray for help with the language! But it was just a short 5 minute talk on missionary work and my testimony! Pretty simple!

Hmm what else... I finally bought my lederhosens today but time goes by so fast on P day so sadly no pictures yet but I promise next week! They are awesome though! It is so good to hear from everybody at home and here how you are doing! Have a great week!!
Love
Elder Hunter