Hello everyone,

We are just starting week 2 of this new transfer. I have a new companion, 
Elder Hubbard from Fallon, NV. He is just great- we get along very well. He
 has 1 year in the mission.

Tomorrow we have a meeting where our mission president will say goodbye, 
for he finishes his mission on 1 July. It will be a day of emotions for him and
 for us. I have learned so much from his instruction. I also look forward to the
 new Mission president, President Valadez from Puebla, Mexico, just around 
the corner from the DF (federal district). It should be good.

I have been learning a lot about vision in the scriptures. For example,
 Ammon, when he arrived with the servants of the King Lamoni to care for
 the sheep, SAW that the servants were fearful because their lamanite 
brethren scattered the flocks. What did Ammon do? His heart rejoiced. 
Who in their right mind would rejoice upon seeing such misery (the servants 
were going to lose their life). The answer is in the verses that follow. Ammon 
rejoiced because when he saw those servants, he didn´t see their imminent
 death as they did, but rather the opportunity to make them and the whole 
people believe in his words. He thought, this is my chance! I will gather the
 flocks, SO THAT i can manifest the power of God in me SO THAT I can
 win their hearts SO THAT they will believe my words. And what resulted?
 King Lamoni, his wife, the servants, and many of the people were converted 
and baptized. Later, Lamoni, a recent convert, asked the missionaries (Ammon) 
to accompany him to his father´s house. After a few more events, His father, 
his mother (the queen), his brother (Anti-Nephi-Lehi), more servants and many
 more of the people were converted (they become those who lay down their 
weapons of war as a testimony). Imagine what would have happened if Ammon
 never had had a vision of the future and had been discouraged when he saw
 the servants. How many souls would not have been saved? How many 
times did people REACT when they SAW something in this story? I invite
 you to read this story and pay attention to "and WHEN the
 king/queen/people/Ammon/Aaron/servants SAW this/that/vision"...and
 their reaction. 

Likewise, I invite you to ponder your own vision of yourself in the 
future. Do you have one? Have you really SEEN it? Do you have goals 
to fulfill that vision? Plans to reach those goals? Daily tasks to 
ensure that the plans are realized? this pattern of 
VISION-GOALS-PLANS-TASKS really does help us achieve our
 potential. Like Ammon, his vision was that the people of Lamoni
 (lamanites) would believe in his words and be converted. THAT 
is what he saw when he saw the servants fearing for their lives. 
Ammon´s Goal was to win their hearts. Plan? manifest his power. 
Tasks? Go, Look for, find, gather the flocks, etc. That is what we 
are working on in the mission right now. It is important to have this 
pattern VISION-GOALS-PLANS-TASKS written and visible so 
you can remember For waht purpose you do everything you do
 every day. Exaltation is a great vision...

Love you all
Thanks for the prayers, love, and encouragement.

Elder Bunker

Thanks for writing. It has been a good week this week. We have a baptism this Saturday.
 I believe I wrote about this investigator before, how he was drunk in the street and he
contacted us. He went to church the next Sunday, and has only missed 1 sunday in 2
 months. He is reading in Alma 42 right now and is progressing really really well. He gets
 baptized on Saturday. I am really excited for him. I learned not to be a respector of
persons, but to contact and share the gospel with everyone. That humbled me a bit.

Thanks for all of your support...it really helps.

We have one more zone leader council with President Chavez tomorrow all day
 (10am-4pm), and we have a meeting where he is going to say goodbye to our
 zone and another on 20 june. The President finishes his mission on 1 July when
the new mission president gets here. It should be good.

Everything is going good here. The ward is learning their responsibilities, and the
 bishop is too. Do you know who holds the keys to missionary work? Did you
know that it is NOT the mission president? It is the bishop and stake president
 of each ward and stake. Hence, the work is the members´. the bishop has the
 right to revelation for the missionary work. The full time missionaries just assist
in the teaching and interviewing for worthiness for baptism. THATS ALL. Nothing
more. That´s what we are learning now. And we shared this with the bishop of our
ward and he said ´Well elder, they didn´t tell me that when they set me apart!´.
 So he is going to investigate his manuals and get to work. Can you imagine?
 A bishop that doesn´t know that he has the right to revelation for the missionary
 work in his ward. No wonder some ward pass a lot of time without convert
baptisms...they wait for the missionaries to find the investigators, teach them,
fellowship them, sit with them, fill the font, baptize them, drain the font, clean the
 font, confirm them, and when it comes time for transfers, inactivate them. And the
 ward wonders why there is no retention of new converts. That´s why. The
missionaries have followed false traditions and grabbed the responsibilities
that are not theirs because the ward doesn´t do their part. The missionaries
 do not have the keys to, and therefore the responsibilities of, missionary work.

That is what we are working on now in the mission. Ending false traditions.

That´s about it.

Love you.

Elder Bunker

All is well here after that big eathquake last Tuesday. I don´t know if you heard

of it or not, but it was really, really big. It was of magnitude 7.8. They classified

it as a real earthquake, not just a tremor. The earthquake here in 1985 that

destroyed half of the downtown area and buildings and roads and everything

was 8.1. Close. My companion and I didn´t feel it because we were walking

fast to catch a bus. But we passed through the metro station and everyone

was standing around and looking and they closed the metro. WE noticed

something was happening, but didn´t stop to ask. We should have, everyone

later said that the ground moved like a big swingset. back and forth, rocking,

for about a minute and a half. They said that in later days there were about

40 replicas (aftershocks), though they were smaller. I didn´t feel them. The

people are getting a little more antsy for all of these earthquakes, because the

last one was in december and that´s just way too frequent to have 3 months in

between big tremors. We heard that it even collapsed a few buildings in other

states and that it splashed a bunch of water out of the giant water tanks on top

of all of the houses. It took out cell phone service too for about 5 hours, which

was frustrating. But life continues as if nothing has happened. Thats the scary

part. All is well with us. We were asked by our mission president to prepare an

emergency plan for our area and zone. Also we found out that there was an

earthquake in Chile (again) on Sunday. Truly it is closer to the second coming.

I am super excited for general conference too. IT should be good. We´ll see if

they say anything about the signs of the times, because it is now the times, i think.

Well that´s about all the exciting news, in addition to the news that we baptized

2 kids on Friday and confirmed them on Sunday.

Love you tons,
Elder Bunker

Hello all,

Well all is well here in Magdalena Contreras. I am loving the food, the people,

the view, and the mountains. We are up in the mountains with streams,

rapids, forests, and such. It´s a lot of work, but it´s so worth it. The weather

today is perfect, the sun bright, the wind slight, the temperature comfortable,

and my attitude positive.

The attached photo is just a snapshot of what we ate a week ago. The

little dishes have chopped onion, cilantro, a red salsa and a green salsa.

The big one has tortillas. We ate something called Carnitas. It is pork

chopped up in little pieces and cooked. Then you put a few spoonfulls

into a tortilla and throw on salt, lime juice, onion, cilantro, and salsa.

It´s so tasty. This was in the house of some members who invited us

over to eat with them (remember that in Mexico, the main meal is at 2pm).

I´m feeling greatly fantastic to be working for the Lord in such an amazing

place with an amazing climate. I really can´t complain of anything. There

is no better thing that I could be doing.

I hope all is well with you. I wish you many blessings.

Love Elder Bunker

PS... WHO´S READY FOR CONFERENCE IN 2 AND A HALF WEEKS?!?!?!?!

yes, i still play the piano for sacrament meeting. I´ve done this in all 3 wards that I´ve been in.

They´ve all enjoyed it too because no one else really knows how to play the piano. they always

sing a capella, and it sounds pretty bad. Luckily all of my investigators will be able to have me

playing the piano during the sacrament meeting.

About your thought, it is the plan of salvation. If you remember, Aaron also taught the king the

plan of salvation as the first thing he taught him. The same thing with Ammon and the king.

The plan of salvation is the lesson that best answers the questions of the soul. I think our zone

conference will be about teaching the plan of salvation as the first lesson and teaching it well

so that the people will accept a return appointment.

Well last night they gave us information about transfers. I´m getting transferred to the Contreras

ward and my companion and I will be the Zone Leaders. It´s a whole lot more responsibility and

time. I was sure surprised and shocked, but I accept it. There are about 150 missionaries, 25

district leaders, and 10 zone leaders in the mission. It´s pretty cool because I´ll get more personal

time with President Chavez. He is incredible. Very spiritual. I love to just sit there and listen to

him talk. I´ll get to see and participate in the inner workings of the mission. It will be interesting.

We´ll see how it goes.

Well that´s about it here. I love you much and hope that everything is going well there.

Another thing I learned from the atonement in my studies. Barrabus was in jail for homicide.

How interesting that the romans liberated from death he that killed (barrabus) and killed He

that liberated from death (Christ). Just food for thought. sometimes we do things backwards

too. Like with the commandments. Sometimes we complain that it´s hard....we kill the

commandment that was created to make us free, and we adopt the contrary lifestyle

that enslaves us (for example, word of wisdom).

Love you,

Elder Bunker

push along push along push along..

Hello all,

Sorry it has been a while since writing. Time goes by so fast now.

The other day we were walking from one appointment to another and this guy was outside of his VW bug trying to push it. We stopped and offered our help, and he accepted. We started pushing and asked him how far. When he told us, I thought, wow...that´s pretty far. Oh well, we have a little bit of time. So we just pushed and pushed and pushed. We ended up pushing the car about a mile and a half. We finished exhausted, but feeling good. The funniest part was when we passed about 3 different churches, all with people nicely dressed and standing on the sidewalk. I imagine it was quite a sight: an American and Mexican missionary all dressed up in tie and slacks and backpacks and everything pushing a VW bug. They all just stood their watching us as we passed. I felt pretty good putting the gospel in action.

Yesterday we got to see our Recent convert of about 20 days receive her first calling as the secretary in the primary presidency. Her daughter, another of our recent converts, is 12 and last week she received her first calling too as 2nd counselor in the beehives presidency. It is such a joy to see that kind of progress in our former investigators--now members. This is the greatest work that exists.

I love being here. But time sure does go too fast. Before I know it, I´ll be getting off the plane thinking about what I´ve done in the mission...that makes me want to get even more in gear and work work work. As President Eyring mentioned in his talk during the last general conference, the Lord will give us strength to keep working even past the point of exhaustion. Work until you´re tired. And then work some more. Work is the only thing that advances us, progresses us, etc. We can talk about vision, plans, goals, dreams, etc, but until we ACT and WORK, nothing ever happens.

I love you all and hope that you can gain strength from Christ´s example in the Garden of Gethsemane: At the point of exhaustion and in agony, may we pray ever more fervently, that our Father may send his angels to uplift and strengthen us.

Have a great week!
Elder Bunker