Gettin' a Latin Companion

hello everyone,
          this week went by really fast. im almost positive that im getting a latin comp on wednesday, thats a comp that doesnt know english! im ready and pumped for it. on friday me and my comp elder barlow cooked an american breakfast for dinner for the seminary students here in our branch. we cooked pancakes, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes, mandarin juice freshly squeezed, and we made maple syrup also. we didnt know how many people were going to be there, i was thinking maybe 5 other kids, then all of a sudden it turned into 15 people in total haha. it was the most people theyve ever had at seminary. and somehow we cooked the perfect amount of food without even knowing how many people were going to be there. they all loved it alot, they sang us a song and all the guys came and gave us hugs while the girls gave us hi 5´s haha. then saturday we did a service project for a family in the ward. they are building a house and we got to make the foundation for it. i decided to be the shoveler of the rocks into the cement mixer and we got more done in 2 hours then they were even expecting. it was awesome to help out. it was a great week, i hope all of your weeks are just as positive and great. love elder hayden summers

Bodega!!!

ings are going great here,
           last tuesday we visited this have baptized family and the mom there had just got done with jarring brand new and fresh honey. she gave me and my companion a jar of it for ourselves. oh my goodness never have i ever had such an amazing tasting honey in all of my life! this week we bought three loaves of bread because we just eat buttered toast with honey now haha. we seem to go through food phases and they get taken to the extreme. we had a few investigators in church which was super cool. we visited a bodega on pday, thats the spanish word for winery. it was fun we had a tour and saw how they did all the specifics on how they make wine. i got to put stickers of the labels on a wine bottle just like the workers there were doing, i felt really cool that i was helping them out and a little wierd that i was a missionary kind of promoting another bottle into the world of an alcoholic beverage haha, im conflicted a little. oh my book of mormon in 66 days challenge is going fantastic. ive started to notice now how much of a stud each and every one of the prophets were in those times. the things they go through and getting thrown in jail and getting hit and spit on and having their friends turn on them and wanting to take their lifes. it puts things in prespective at how nice it is for us in our time. in alma when alma and amulek are teaching the people of ammonihah there is a part where they have to watch as all of the people that hearkened unto their words were destroyed. women and children alike. amulek says why dont we stop them and alma says the spirit is telling him that what is happening is according to the agency that the evil people have and are demonstrating. he says that the people that are getting thrown into the fire are getting excepted into heaven and that they will serve as a testimony against the wicked when the end comes. to better understand what it is talking about you need to read it and think about how things mustve been. i try and put myself in their shoes in situations and it shocks me at how they got through it all. love you all, have a spectacular week, love elder hayden summers

hello family and friends,
            happy mothers day to all them moms out there! i got to call home and it was sooo great. moms are really the best, they make the world go round and keep us all sane at the same time. it may seem impossible for us, but for our mothers nothing is impossible hah. this week was great indeed. the guys up top, aka the people who are in charge of our whole mission, re-enstated some really strict rules this week so we get a chance to try and be more obedient, change is tough i wont lie, but thats how our church kinda works. even though the way to return to our father in heaven is to ovey his comandments and that never changes, the small things that govern our lifes do. how great is revelation! man im just really pumped about the book of mormon though. i dont know if i told you all this before but there is a challenge in the mission to read the book of mormon in 66 days. im hanging in there and keeping up. i just read abinadi and never realized how awesome he was!! in my scriptures i wrote ¨the awesomeness of abinadi pgs 169-180¨ haha. its great. i love you all. elder hayden summers

Moles and Bats

hey there all,
      this week was great, we taught alot of people and are still trying to get our good investigators to get out of bed and come to church. this week went by really fast actually and the time just seems to be floating away. the book of mormon challenge is going fantastic! i just really love the scriptures. me and my companion elder barlow had a really cool revelation type thing happen to us the other day. we were in 2 nephi reading chapter 12, its a part of Isaiah talking which can be really confusing. but in verse 20 it says, ¨In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he hath made for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;¨ me and my comp read this and thought wow that is cool imagery, moles and bats are random weird creatures. then we talked about it, and a connection slapped me in the face. isaiah was talking about the second coming and such (awesomeness) and in this verse, to emphasize how meaningless the idols will be he says theyll be thrown to the moles and to the bats. idols were created to look stunning and be appealing to the eye, moles and bats on the other hand, they have the crappiest sense of sight haha. it was fun when we made that connection and we ran around hootin and hollerin in our pench about how cool isaiah was. thats all i got today, love you all. elder hayden summers

Don't lose sight of the prize of Eternity

hi everyone,
      i am having a blast as a missionary!!! i mean seriously how could things be any better than they are right now :) my life is just a dream full of surprises that make my world a better place. i honestly have no worries in the world besides what i should do and who we should teach. its two whole years of fun! the spanish has come along just enough for me to begin to know what people are saying and i can actually have conversations with random people on the street and get their address too. i mean but wow it hit me how grateful i am that i chose to do a mission. i never doubted that i would go on one. i think i was in third grade, or something, and for church or an activity i ended up getting a little plack that said ´future missionary´ on it. when i got that i always kept it with me and made sure not to lose it, and it kind of secured in my mind that i was a future missionary just like all of the youth are. and honestly it is a HUGE decision, very very difficult dont get me wrong, a mission is not a cake walk. BUT, these two years will bless me for my whole life, for my familys life, for my kids lifes, it will bless my friends, my foes, for all of this life, oh and guess what else, for the great expanse of time that will never end it will always be there giving my loved ones and myself an extra boost. going on a mission is one of the greatest works that we can do on this earth for our father in heaven. so if we are going to be judged off of our works on this earth, then why not do the best ones. something that ive thought about lately. when i was young and i did something that made my mom and dad happy it made me happy. all through my life if i were to do something that made them smile i would be the happiest person youd ever seen. whether it was a drawing i made for them and they liked it or something much more significant, i was always filled with such a happy feeling when i made my parents proud. that is how it works in heaven as well. this world is fashioned after the government of heaven, namely the structure of the family. how great will we feel when we see our celestial father in heaven and he comes up to us, tears in his eyes, gives us a BIG hug, and says that he is proud of what we have done. i hope i can be good enough to experience such an eternal honor someday. dont lose sight of the prize of eternity. love you all, elder hayden summers

Staying in Alvear

   hi america,
          i am staying in the same place for the next month and a half with the same companion too. i am actually happy about it cuz we have a lot of fun and work well together. i still kind of wanted a latin, but next trasnfer i am going to ask for a latin. for me i love this place. its really chill and most of the people are nice, we still manage to find the sort of people who have a screw loose. yesterday we found two guys in a row that were off. the first guy kept saying how polygamy was bad and how we are too young to teach him anything. the next guy would always inturupt us when we tried to speak and all of a sudden he started telling us how japan got hit by Gods fist and that the bees are all dieing. after he rambled about that for a good half an hour he just said see ya later and walked away from us, we just had to laugh. we have four new elders in my zone. three of them are just a little bit shorter than me. i cant wait to get a bball game started up with them. the fourth is a peruvian that is very short. im loving the life of a missionary. my spanish is improving and i can actually have a real conversation with people on the street all by myself. that is all. love elder hayden summers

I've come to like three things I never thought possible....

this transfer is over!
   it went so super fast compared to my last one. i dont know what im going to be doing yet for them cuz i havent heard news. i could go somewhere else, stay here with my comp, get a new comp, or who knows, maybe even get a latin! that would be a fun challenge. the work is good and tough as always. we found a couple of really cool families that just need to hear the truth. also this one family speaks some english so i got to do that and it was really cool, then we switched back to spanish and i got lost immediately haha. but the language is getting better. everywhere we go the people ask me to pray so i have good practice at that. i love it here though and the food is growing on me. ive come to like three things that i never thought posible, rice, cats, and soccer. man it is tough to admit that but its the truth, the cats are just a million times nicer than the dogs here, rice is all we eat usually, and soccer is everywhere. we play it with kids in the street alot of times, then just like that we are their best friends. im having a lot of fun and working hard. thanks for your prayers and your letters, they keep me going. love elder hayden summers

ps the pic is me and elder barlow at a really cool families house for lunch
having fun with the youngins