Good morning everyone!
This week has been pretty hard. Everyone who was making changes and progressing and enjoying the fruits of the gospel has gone completely 180, and I have no idea why. Or how everyone manages to do it on the same week. So I spent a lot of time in prayer last night and I got the impression to keep working. Keep trying. But people have a right to choose and that right cannot be circumvented. No matter what. But it breaks my heart to see people fall back to where they used to be and become just as depressed again and just as bad as before. I can only imagine how Heavenly Father feels watching His children and doing everything He can to help them make right choices and then watching them still make wrong ones despite how everything has been set up. It hurts. Not everyone has fallen away though, some people are holding strong and are making those changes. Everything else this week has been great and enjoyable, but it kind of puts a damper on everything when you watch people start to consciously choose the wrong.
Raymond and Candy are still doing great though. He is on date for the 23rd of October and is excited for it with all his heart. So is his wife. Both have become steadily and steadily more converted to the gospel and the blessings it will bring to their lives and their marriage. Heavenly Father helped them to find the gospel at exactly the right moment to save their marriage and their relationship. That has been a true miracle to watch them change and build their faith and testimonies.
The Nay family is doing awesome!!! Kamomi (full name is Kamomilani Stanlyn Villaverde-Joaquin or something close to that) was baptized by her father last Thursday and it was one of the most touching baptisms ever. He practiced and practiced and practiced like crazy with our help this past week to make sure he had all the words down right. He did perfect, didn't even have to dunk her again or anything. The whole ward almost showed up to show their support of the experience and all offered heartfelt congratulations to the family and to keep going strong. The other miracle that happened was that we received a phone call from Miki on Saturday about the blessings of tithing. Tithing was the one and only thing that Miki was struggling to keep or fighting us on at all. But she paid it because of our and her husband's request. Even though it put them another $50 in debt, when they are already $300 behind on really important bills. She paid the tithing though and was waiting for the blessings to come. And come they did. She was asked randomly by her neighbor if she would shampoo his carpet and she agreed for the price of $50, enough to cover the tithing she had just paid. She scrubbed all the carpets as best as she could so she could make up the tithing. Then she went to go collect her check a few hours later. The man paid her $200 and wouldn't take it back and refused to request any further work from her or anything else. He said he just felt it was something that he needed to give and that she had done an amazing job. She called us the minute later to tell us that story and to bear her testimony. AWESOME! She also told me that I was right, tithing works and to please use her story to bless the lives of others that we are teaching. She wants others to move past the skepticism like she has. A true miralce and I know that God really does fulfill His blessings and His promises.
Other than that, everyone really has regressed and not progressed. Everyone is still letting us meet with them - as far as we know - but all are not sure about the gospel or the church anymore. It is amazing that it can take months and months to change for the good and climb the hill, then it takes only a few days or a week to slide all the way back down to the bottom. I am still doing well and happy though. Ask some of the people that we teach or visit with, several have made the comment that I always have a smile on and that I am always positive and looking forward. That I just embrace everything with a smile and keep going. I am confident things will work out and I am praying that they will. I still am having a really hard time that I have been on a mission for a year, it only feels like yesterday I was walking off the bus in Sandy to the mission office and only a few days ago that it was the cold and cloudy day the MTC when I was dropped off. Hard to believe how many things have changed in a year and all the people I have come to love and cherish and the things that I have learned and look forward to. Well, sorry for the short letter. But there isn't too much else to report. I got the camera to work great and so I have been able to start taking pictures again. Good thing too, I really missed doing that.
I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
When the entire valley is filled with smoke, you know the wildfire is pretty close...
Good morning everybody!
Well, as you can tell by my subject, wildfire season has officially hit Utah. Very late in the season, but very prevalent right now. The entire Salt Lake Valley was filled with smoke yesterday thanks to fires surrounding the valley everywhere. It kind of seemed like the giant dust storms down in Mesa but instead of breathing in dust and dirt, you were breathing in smoke and everything smelled somewhat like a campfire. The entire mountain to the southwest of the valley was on fire and at night it lit up like a huge beacon and gave light to our Riverton Stake and could be seen for miles and miles and miles. No worries though I am not in any danger. The missionaries that live about 7 miles west of us had to be evacuated but unless the fire can move 7 miles in the next few days, we are safe. That was pretty exciting last night. I will send a picture of it next week, once I have my camera and can take pictures again. Hopefully, a bunch of good baptism pictures as well. Utah is back up into the 90's this past week and this week and it feels great! Absolutely amazing! It is supposed to cool back off soon though and you know Fall is in the air because all the mountains have started to change from green to orange, yellow, red, and gold. Very pretty, and before you know it, they will be doused in white again. The seasons are gorgeous up here, I will give it that. Lots of things have been going on the past week and lots of things have happened. Still haven't found any new investigators but we have a bunch of potential appointments set up right now and are trying to catch a bunch of people that are excited to take the lessons. The problem is that now that school is back in session, the work has slowed down, quite a ton. With school, football, clubs, music, dance, and who knows what else, no one is at home anymore or has any great amount of free time. We are trying though and are working as hard as we can to stay as busy as we can. The Lord has blessed us to catch people at home and having hearts softened that I never dreamed would happen. Elder Gosch and I are getting along better, which is great and I have learned quite a bit from him and hopefully he is learning something from me. I still find it hard to always be in the driver's seat all the time, since Elder Gosch has little to no intiative but he is trying and improving. That is all I can ask for. I hope to get people to trust him soon though or this area is going to die out...all the people that call on the phone (which he holds because I am driving) only want to speak to me. If he answers and cannot hand the phone to me, they tell him to have me call them back later that night or when I am available. They will not talk to him at all. Makes a lot of work all night long for me. Oh well, I am sure by the time one of us ever has to worry about getting transferred we will get the members to trust him. He is doing a lot better.
Let's see what all happened this week.
Tuesday was a working day. The new mission president philosphy was sent this week in his announcements to our email. Here it is: "The first cause of failure is a subconscious will to fail. The will to fail manifests itself as “action to avoid action”. It is an ever active campaign of the subconscious to bring so many unnecessary activities into each day’s program that there isn’t sufficient time for action which would be most productive." So that means, everything that we used to do during the week meeting wise or otherwise that isn't strict proselyting is usually cancelled. We are having our second district meeting of the transfer tomorrow, and I think that might be the only other one that we get. I like having all the extra time to work, but it is taking some getting used to. A lot more brainstorming of activities to find people to teach during the hours when no one is usually around in the mornings. Tuesday was a true answer to prayer though because the Lord helped us to find new investigators to start teaching this week! We were able to catch Joey and Janene Day at home and they have agreed to meet with us this Wednesday. Joey is a returned missionary, now playing drums for the Baptist church, and Janene attends with him but "isn't Baptist." Both are interested in at least listening to what we have to say if nothing else. We will see how the appointment turns out. Also, I got the prompting to just go talk to less active parents and get their permission to teach their children and that was a true inspiration from God! The Lauritzen's and the Miller's were home and both gave permission for their children to be taught, when the ward has said about 100 times in the past that the parents were too hard-hearted to have anything such thing happen. It was a miracle! Now our only challenge is catching the kids at home to start setting up appointments, Eli Miller and McKenna Lauritzen both are in school, clubs, dance, sports, and never seem to be home! We are praying for the chance though and the 6th ward that they both work in is praying with us and trying their hardest to catch them.
Wednesday was probably our last temple day! It was a great session and it was a great feeling to be in the temple again and to feel the Spirit so strongly there. I am going to miss the temple, not because it used up time that I didn't have to work during, but because I could write down all the names of the people I was teaching on the prayer rolls and I know the Lord truly blessed those people because of that action and of all the faith of those who attend the temple. But the Lord knows my heart and desires and I am sure He will not bless the investigators or less actives less for me working harder and longer.
Thursday we taught Thomas Woodworth, and he is excited to be baptized this upcoming Saturday, the 25th. He is probably the most golden of golden investigators and a true answer to my prayers and petitions to the Lord. He will be getting baptized down in Hurricane where all his family and friends live, so we will not get to witness his baptism but it will be a sweet event and a very spiritual one. He is already excited to receive the priesthood and is counting down the days to when he can get his endowments in the temple. I think the Lord watches me struggle knocking on doors and never saying the right thing or catching people at home or whatever and so keeps dumping these amazing golden investigators on my lap. I appreciate that blessing and thank Him everyday for it.
Friday was another hard working day. Lots of knocking on doors and talking to people, but very little interest of enthusiam from those we met with. It was a still a good day though and Whitney Snell should now be getting baptized about halfway through October. She is so excited for it and her parents have committed to take her to church, not sure if it will actually happen, but they said that they would and looked pretty positive about it. They have testimonies of the gospel and know the church is true, they are just lazy! But hopefully we can overcome their laziness and work with them towards getting worthy to go to the temple again and getting Whitney baptized. Such is my prayer constantly everyday.
Saturday was another working day. We got the car washed (finally) and it now actually looks fairly nice. We correlated with a lot of bishops and ward mission leaders about needs that we had or that we needed to talk about. Also, I managed to get the waffle maker broken at Roxberry Juice. We went there for dinner because our dinner cancelled. They had just barely started to offer waffles and were excited to do so, but the guy who was making my waffle, didn't grease the waffle maker. So they washed it out with that strong sink thing that they use to wash out blenders like at Jamba Juice and it broke. What was supposed to be about a half hour dinner, turned out to be about an hour and a half as we tried to help them clean up the mess and they kept trying to get the waffle maker back working to get my dinner done. It was good though, the cashier there was taking missionary lessons in the stake right next to where we work in Draper, so we got to talk to her and encourage her to keep going for her baptism date of October 9. It was a nice Spirit there as we all bore our testimonies. Saturday night we had the adult session of stake conference in Riverton. It was an amazing meeting. President Higbee talked about something that really touched me. He talked about the recent Ensign article about Lehi's Dream by President Packer and how we were all inside the great and spacious building because of television. But most importantly he went over the work "mock" and how it keeps us glued to the building instead of glued to the rod. He used the story of Lot from the Old Testament and how he was commanded to flee form Sodom and Gomohorra. He went to go tell his sons-in-law to flee with him, but they "mocked" him. Lot left anyway and was protected for it, while his sons-in-law were destoryed. How often do we not cling tightly to the Iron Rod because others are mocking us and we do not flee the great and spacious building because of mocking? His point was to be like Lot and raise the voice of warning and then to flee from the world regardless of the heavy mocking and who it comes from.
Sunday was a great day and it went by superfast because we had appoinments and meetings all day! It started off with a general priesthood meeting in the Draper Mountain Point Stake. It focused on the talk "Good, Better, Best" given a few years ago at General Conference by Elder Oaks. The question to ask ourselves for every activity we are doing is if that activity will help us return to our Heavenly Father and brings others with us? Or does it keep us stagnant on the path back to him? Or does it turn us away form Him and push us back on the path? Such simple questions but if we apply them to every activity and amusement that we pursue, I think we would change a lot of what we do. I know I need to when I get back home. After that, we had a PEC in the Mt. Point 6th ward. Went over all those people we hope to start teaching, good meeting. The bishop and priesthood leadership have really caught the fire of missionary work because of all the excitement. After that, hustle back to Riverton for the general session of stake conference. It was a great session, but I was so tired and worn out, my notes were terrible, so I don't have much to report. However, after that we hustled over to Mt. Point 6th ward sacrament meeting and that was good. Then back to Riverton to see Noa's baptism!!! One of the highlights of the whole day. It was a great spiritual experience and his mom and father and stepfather were all there and dressed properly. Even though they are all kind of anti. All there felt the Spirit and it was a very sweet and touching experience. After that, back to Draper to see Sam Nay get the Aaronic priesthood so he can baptize Kamomi on this Thursday. The blessing that followed the ordination was simply beautiful and had just what he and Miki need to stay fully active and to lead their children in righteousness. We are so excited for him and for their family! They are AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL!
After that, back to Riverton for dinner and a FHE with the Peart family. Then we had a simply fantastic lesson with Tina and Bailee Reese. Tina has decided to get baptized and is excited to do so!!! We had a lesson truly taught by the Spirit answering questions and helping her out. I came to really love and appreciate Bishop Heaps because he is the ward mission leader and was sitting in there helping us to teach. He and I taught together the whole lesson and Elder Gosch chimed in helpful testimony and stories that were not distracting or way off topic. It was great! I am so excited for them and to be reteaching fully by the Spirit again! It makes the biggest difference!
Well, I am out of time again. But I love and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Well, as you can tell by my subject, wildfire season has officially hit Utah. Very late in the season, but very prevalent right now. The entire Salt Lake Valley was filled with smoke yesterday thanks to fires surrounding the valley everywhere. It kind of seemed like the giant dust storms down in Mesa but instead of breathing in dust and dirt, you were breathing in smoke and everything smelled somewhat like a campfire. The entire mountain to the southwest of the valley was on fire and at night it lit up like a huge beacon and gave light to our Riverton Stake and could be seen for miles and miles and miles. No worries though I am not in any danger. The missionaries that live about 7 miles west of us had to be evacuated but unless the fire can move 7 miles in the next few days, we are safe. That was pretty exciting last night. I will send a picture of it next week, once I have my camera and can take pictures again. Hopefully, a bunch of good baptism pictures as well. Utah is back up into the 90's this past week and this week and it feels great! Absolutely amazing! It is supposed to cool back off soon though and you know Fall is in the air because all the mountains have started to change from green to orange, yellow, red, and gold. Very pretty, and before you know it, they will be doused in white again. The seasons are gorgeous up here, I will give it that. Lots of things have been going on the past week and lots of things have happened. Still haven't found any new investigators but we have a bunch of potential appointments set up right now and are trying to catch a bunch of people that are excited to take the lessons. The problem is that now that school is back in session, the work has slowed down, quite a ton. With school, football, clubs, music, dance, and who knows what else, no one is at home anymore or has any great amount of free time. We are trying though and are working as hard as we can to stay as busy as we can. The Lord has blessed us to catch people at home and having hearts softened that I never dreamed would happen. Elder Gosch and I are getting along better, which is great and I have learned quite a bit from him and hopefully he is learning something from me. I still find it hard to always be in the driver's seat all the time, since Elder Gosch has little to no intiative but he is trying and improving. That is all I can ask for. I hope to get people to trust him soon though or this area is going to die out...all the people that call on the phone (which he holds because I am driving) only want to speak to me. If he answers and cannot hand the phone to me, they tell him to have me call them back later that night or when I am available. They will not talk to him at all. Makes a lot of work all night long for me. Oh well, I am sure by the time one of us ever has to worry about getting transferred we will get the members to trust him. He is doing a lot better.
Let's see what all happened this week.
Tuesday was a working day. The new mission president philosphy was sent this week in his announcements to our email. Here it is: "The first cause of failure is a subconscious will to fail. The will to fail manifests itself as “action to avoid action”. It is an ever active campaign of the subconscious to bring so many unnecessary activities into each day’s program that there isn’t sufficient time for action which would be most productive." So that means, everything that we used to do during the week meeting wise or otherwise that isn't strict proselyting is usually cancelled. We are having our second district meeting of the transfer tomorrow, and I think that might be the only other one that we get. I like having all the extra time to work, but it is taking some getting used to. A lot more brainstorming of activities to find people to teach during the hours when no one is usually around in the mornings. Tuesday was a true answer to prayer though because the Lord helped us to find new investigators to start teaching this week! We were able to catch Joey and Janene Day at home and they have agreed to meet with us this Wednesday. Joey is a returned missionary, now playing drums for the Baptist church, and Janene attends with him but "isn't Baptist." Both are interested in at least listening to what we have to say if nothing else. We will see how the appointment turns out. Also, I got the prompting to just go talk to less active parents and get their permission to teach their children and that was a true inspiration from God! The Lauritzen's and the Miller's were home and both gave permission for their children to be taught, when the ward has said about 100 times in the past that the parents were too hard-hearted to have anything such thing happen. It was a miracle! Now our only challenge is catching the kids at home to start setting up appointments, Eli Miller and McKenna Lauritzen both are in school, clubs, dance, sports, and never seem to be home! We are praying for the chance though and the 6th ward that they both work in is praying with us and trying their hardest to catch them.
Wednesday was probably our last temple day! It was a great session and it was a great feeling to be in the temple again and to feel the Spirit so strongly there. I am going to miss the temple, not because it used up time that I didn't have to work during, but because I could write down all the names of the people I was teaching on the prayer rolls and I know the Lord truly blessed those people because of that action and of all the faith of those who attend the temple. But the Lord knows my heart and desires and I am sure He will not bless the investigators or less actives less for me working harder and longer.
Thursday we taught Thomas Woodworth, and he is excited to be baptized this upcoming Saturday, the 25th. He is probably the most golden of golden investigators and a true answer to my prayers and petitions to the Lord. He will be getting baptized down in Hurricane where all his family and friends live, so we will not get to witness his baptism but it will be a sweet event and a very spiritual one. He is already excited to receive the priesthood and is counting down the days to when he can get his endowments in the temple. I think the Lord watches me struggle knocking on doors and never saying the right thing or catching people at home or whatever and so keeps dumping these amazing golden investigators on my lap. I appreciate that blessing and thank Him everyday for it.
Friday was another hard working day. Lots of knocking on doors and talking to people, but very little interest of enthusiam from those we met with. It was a still a good day though and Whitney Snell should now be getting baptized about halfway through October. She is so excited for it and her parents have committed to take her to church, not sure if it will actually happen, but they said that they would and looked pretty positive about it. They have testimonies of the gospel and know the church is true, they are just lazy! But hopefully we can overcome their laziness and work with them towards getting worthy to go to the temple again and getting Whitney baptized. Such is my prayer constantly everyday.
Saturday was another working day. We got the car washed (finally) and it now actually looks fairly nice. We correlated with a lot of bishops and ward mission leaders about needs that we had or that we needed to talk about. Also, I managed to get the waffle maker broken at Roxberry Juice. We went there for dinner because our dinner cancelled. They had just barely started to offer waffles and were excited to do so, but the guy who was making my waffle, didn't grease the waffle maker. So they washed it out with that strong sink thing that they use to wash out blenders like at Jamba Juice and it broke. What was supposed to be about a half hour dinner, turned out to be about an hour and a half as we tried to help them clean up the mess and they kept trying to get the waffle maker back working to get my dinner done. It was good though, the cashier there was taking missionary lessons in the stake right next to where we work in Draper, so we got to talk to her and encourage her to keep going for her baptism date of October 9. It was a nice Spirit there as we all bore our testimonies. Saturday night we had the adult session of stake conference in Riverton. It was an amazing meeting. President Higbee talked about something that really touched me. He talked about the recent Ensign article about Lehi's Dream by President Packer and how we were all inside the great and spacious building because of television. But most importantly he went over the work "mock" and how it keeps us glued to the building instead of glued to the rod. He used the story of Lot from the Old Testament and how he was commanded to flee form Sodom and Gomohorra. He went to go tell his sons-in-law to flee with him, but they "mocked" him. Lot left anyway and was protected for it, while his sons-in-law were destoryed. How often do we not cling tightly to the Iron Rod because others are mocking us and we do not flee the great and spacious building because of mocking? His point was to be like Lot and raise the voice of warning and then to flee from the world regardless of the heavy mocking and who it comes from.
Sunday was a great day and it went by superfast because we had appoinments and meetings all day! It started off with a general priesthood meeting in the Draper Mountain Point Stake. It focused on the talk "Good, Better, Best" given a few years ago at General Conference by Elder Oaks. The question to ask ourselves for every activity we are doing is if that activity will help us return to our Heavenly Father and brings others with us? Or does it keep us stagnant on the path back to him? Or does it turn us away form Him and push us back on the path? Such simple questions but if we apply them to every activity and amusement that we pursue, I think we would change a lot of what we do. I know I need to when I get back home. After that, we had a PEC in the Mt. Point 6th ward. Went over all those people we hope to start teaching, good meeting. The bishop and priesthood leadership have really caught the fire of missionary work because of all the excitement. After that, hustle back to Riverton for the general session of stake conference. It was a great session, but I was so tired and worn out, my notes were terrible, so I don't have much to report. However, after that we hustled over to Mt. Point 6th ward sacrament meeting and that was good. Then back to Riverton to see Noa's baptism!!! One of the highlights of the whole day. It was a great spiritual experience and his mom and father and stepfather were all there and dressed properly. Even though they are all kind of anti. All there felt the Spirit and it was a very sweet and touching experience. After that, back to Draper to see Sam Nay get the Aaronic priesthood so he can baptize Kamomi on this Thursday. The blessing that followed the ordination was simply beautiful and had just what he and Miki need to stay fully active and to lead their children in righteousness. We are so excited for him and for their family! They are AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL!
After that, back to Riverton for dinner and a FHE with the Peart family. Then we had a simply fantastic lesson with Tina and Bailee Reese. Tina has decided to get baptized and is excited to do so!!! We had a lesson truly taught by the Spirit answering questions and helping her out. I came to really love and appreciate Bishop Heaps because he is the ward mission leader and was sitting in there helping us to teach. He and I taught together the whole lesson and Elder Gosch chimed in helpful testimony and stories that were not distracting or way off topic. It was great! I am so excited for them and to be reteaching fully by the Spirit again! It makes the biggest difference!
Well, I am out of time again. But I love and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Monday, September 13, 2010
"Sorrow is looking back, worry is looking around, faith is looking up!" :)
Good morning everybody!
So I found that quote that is the subject of this email on the floor of the cultural hall today as we were working out on a nice, small piece of posterboard. It made me happy because that is so true and I am now making it one of my many life mottos. Whenever we are unwilling to change and not happy with where we are at, we are truly looking back, that accomplishes nothing. Whenever we are looking around and feeling embarrassed or discouraged by what we see around us or people who are better, we are worrying and therefore still not accomplishing anything whatsoever. But if we look up and trust in Heavenly Father, then we have the faith to keep going on the path that we are on even if it ends up getting hard or difficult. It all depends on our perspective. Anyway, a little bit of inspiration that hit me this morning as I was working out from some flier that someone had left on the floor. Alright, to answer all of your questions. Yes! I could really use a camera! I was going to buy one today, but if there are still extra at home I will take whatever one you could send to me! My camera is dead, I have tried to fix it and get others to look at it and fix it and none of us can figure it out. I don't know what happened at all, but all the SD cards are fine and work great and aren't full yet, so I am good on that account. But if you would send a camera up, I would really appreciate it! Go ahead and forward me other missonaries' emails, I enjoy reading them and it helps me to see what I can do better as I read their ideas and experiences. Plus I get to really feel the Spirit strong by reading other people's stories! I only don't have any time to respond to the message because the time is so short. I am used to having a lot more time to write everything that I want to, but oh well. 14 pounds of chocolate pudding, huh?!? CRAZY!!! That is one big answer to clean up and work with. So that means Nathan and I both went to our first homecoming with the Richardson family, kind of weird how that all works out. But cool. I still can't believe Jamie is married. And Lucy, And Aubrey is well on her way. Everyone that I ever went to a dance with is now married or engaged, well almost everyone. Haha, I love the Mickey Mouse socks! They are awesome, thanks for getting them for me. I haven't yet found a chance to wear them with moving people in and out of our apartment, but we finally got everything organized again and now I will! My coat is plenty warm enough, it helped me to survive one winter just great, I have the faith it has the ability to help me survive another. Plus the sweaters and the wool socks help a ton too. Of course, I remembered it was 9/11. I can't believe it has already been 9 years though and that it seems like so many people have forgot. It is interesting to look back and see how far our country has come from that point and how that one event has changed the entire way we do our daily interactions in the United States and changed the complete course of our nation, communities, and lives. I am good on slacks, I have plenty of other pairs that will work just fine with no problems. That is the only pair that has any holes or anything, the rest all still look very nice and almost brand new. Thanks to semi-frequent drycleanings. The only thing I am truly struggling with is not having a camera, so if you could send one of the other ones up that would be awesome! That is all really need. Sister Johnson sent you that picture on Saturday night, I have come to really love that family and all the people in it. She was really glad I wasn't transferred because she wanted to send home a picture for the past 6 months or so and keeps forgetting everytime we visit them. Well, the mission is out to change a lot now. Elder C. Scott Grow from the the first quourum of the Seventy visited our mission on Friday and he turned everything upside down and shook it and President Miller is all over it. No more weekly temple attendance, takes too much time away from proselyting (which I can agree with). No more calling in at night, we are old enough to take care of ourselves and to get in on time because it is the rule without having to be accountable to anyone. No more exchanges, too much of a waste of time. No more district meetings every week, but less frequently. A lot more time needs to be spent doing actual missionary work and talking with people and so those were the solutions that were proposed and selected. I have a feeling there might be many more to come as well. Let's see, what else? Oh, we are getting a list of every less active member in every ward to go out and contact. We are asking each bishop for a list and for information to be provided on what their next best step needs to be to progress. Whether that is receiving the priesthood, becoming endowed, getting sealed, renewing a temple recommened, whatever. We are to go out and invite each person on that list to make that change and step in their life. That will keep us busy for the next 4 months at least! Considering we cover 17 wards and about half of each ward is less active so that is at least 1700 people and more like 2500. Lots of visits to be made and invitations to be given out. The whole theory behind it is that many less actives have many non member friends that the active members would never dare to think to spend time with. As well, people watch the bishops and relief society presidents and active members of the ward, and they are never home. They are always too busy serving, who want to join a church with that impression? But the less actives have more than enough time to spend at home and don't even attend church, so people watch them and think that our church isn't too bad. The idea is to get the less actives out and their non member friends will follow suit and then the baptisms and everything else will go up. That is just a lot of people to visit, but we are excited to go out and do it! All of our bishops and stake presidents are really enthusiastic about it as well!
Well anyway, on to a little bit of what happened every day.
Tuesday we were out contacting all day long looking for more people to teach. Not much luck, lots of nice people to talk with but no one sincerely interested. We were able to teach the Nay's on that day at the Mendenhall's house. The whole family is excited for Kamomi to get baptized and I have never seen anyone more excited to receive the priesthood. The whole family is actively attending church and keeping commandments like crazy. They read and pray faithfully everyday, and have started to have FHE. I can't believe the complete turn around that has happened. It has been nothing short of a miracle comparable to Moses parting to the Red Sea or anything else in the scriptures. Once people are willing to take the gospel into thier live sand start to live the principles that are taught in it, the blessings are immediate and astounding.
Wednesday we started to teach Thomas Woodworth, and talk about golden contact and investigator. He was willing to get baptized on that day but we are waiting for his families and friends to be here for the special event so it is going to happen on September 25. When we showed up to the stake center to start teaching him, he came with a Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel in hand. At first I thought, it was some kid who had pulled our leg wanting to be taught and instead was trying to get ahold of the missionaries to prepare for his mission. But we started talking with him and he has not been baptized yet, but wanted to study out of the book that missionaries had and so obtained a Preach My Gospel. He believes everything that we go over wholeheartedly and has one of the strongest testimonies of anyone I have ever met. He has already prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and received an amazing answer to both. Heavenly Father does truly answer prayers and the most sincere desires of our hearts, Thomas was the investigator that I have been praying so hard for and it is a miracle! He has a great desire to get married to his girlfriend in the temple too, I love him!
Thursday was another big, long contacting day. We had Elder Hoehn with us. He is being trained by the zone leaders but they had to go to a leadership meeting so he came with us and we got work done. I love Elder Gosch, but he isn't totally socially there and is easily distracted. Elder Hoehn was a firecracker and we worked so hard and met so many people and made so many contacts.
Friday was the day we listened to Elder Grow all day. It was a good meeting and I learned a ton and felt the Spirit more. I already told you what all he is changing and the things that happened. It was good.
Saturday was another conacting day. I think the members in my area know me well enough now to understand my facial expressions. They could tell before I started talking that the work has been slow and that we are struggling to find more people to teach. All of them got recommitted towards spreading the gospel with their friends and families and we got quite a few referrals as a result. A lot of the members now too are asking their neighbors and friends to meet with us instead of us having to cold contact. They see the difference it truly makes if the invite comes from them and not us.
Sunday was very awesome! Church all day is always a highlight for me (something my companions always think I am crazy for and weird). A truly exceptional miracle happened yesterday. I was fasting all day for the son of that bishop's family that sent you my picture. They have one son on a mission in Argentina, and his twin is still here and has gone less active and kind of dark. I fasted for him all day to have a renewal of his testimony and for the desire to be born within him to go on a mission. We went to a stake fireside that night for the youth put on by a motivational speaker where she talked about a lot of great things. But guess who we sat with? Josh Johnson was there, he had only come to drop off his little brother and then we going to go hang out with friends or something, but he felt like he should stay, so he did. He followed my lead and sung all the hymns with us and listened attentively all night long and guess what she covered? The blessing and the returns that come from taking the time to serve a mission. Heavenly Father answered my fast that day and there was a spark of something in Josh that wasn't there before that night! It was an amazing and inspiring miracle to me!
Well, I am out of time so I need to go. But Tony Knudson now has a testimony as well, means he can soon recieve the Mechezedik priesthood and then get sealed to his wife. They are so excited!!!
Love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
So I found that quote that is the subject of this email on the floor of the cultural hall today as we were working out on a nice, small piece of posterboard. It made me happy because that is so true and I am now making it one of my many life mottos. Whenever we are unwilling to change and not happy with where we are at, we are truly looking back, that accomplishes nothing. Whenever we are looking around and feeling embarrassed or discouraged by what we see around us or people who are better, we are worrying and therefore still not accomplishing anything whatsoever. But if we look up and trust in Heavenly Father, then we have the faith to keep going on the path that we are on even if it ends up getting hard or difficult. It all depends on our perspective. Anyway, a little bit of inspiration that hit me this morning as I was working out from some flier that someone had left on the floor. Alright, to answer all of your questions. Yes! I could really use a camera! I was going to buy one today, but if there are still extra at home I will take whatever one you could send to me! My camera is dead, I have tried to fix it and get others to look at it and fix it and none of us can figure it out. I don't know what happened at all, but all the SD cards are fine and work great and aren't full yet, so I am good on that account. But if you would send a camera up, I would really appreciate it! Go ahead and forward me other missonaries' emails, I enjoy reading them and it helps me to see what I can do better as I read their ideas and experiences. Plus I get to really feel the Spirit strong by reading other people's stories! I only don't have any time to respond to the message because the time is so short. I am used to having a lot more time to write everything that I want to, but oh well. 14 pounds of chocolate pudding, huh?!? CRAZY!!! That is one big answer to clean up and work with. So that means Nathan and I both went to our first homecoming with the Richardson family, kind of weird how that all works out. But cool. I still can't believe Jamie is married. And Lucy, And Aubrey is well on her way. Everyone that I ever went to a dance with is now married or engaged, well almost everyone. Haha, I love the Mickey Mouse socks! They are awesome, thanks for getting them for me. I haven't yet found a chance to wear them with moving people in and out of our apartment, but we finally got everything organized again and now I will! My coat is plenty warm enough, it helped me to survive one winter just great, I have the faith it has the ability to help me survive another. Plus the sweaters and the wool socks help a ton too. Of course, I remembered it was 9/11. I can't believe it has already been 9 years though and that it seems like so many people have forgot. It is interesting to look back and see how far our country has come from that point and how that one event has changed the entire way we do our daily interactions in the United States and changed the complete course of our nation, communities, and lives. I am good on slacks, I have plenty of other pairs that will work just fine with no problems. That is the only pair that has any holes or anything, the rest all still look very nice and almost brand new. Thanks to semi-frequent drycleanings. The only thing I am truly struggling with is not having a camera, so if you could send one of the other ones up that would be awesome! That is all really need. Sister Johnson sent you that picture on Saturday night, I have come to really love that family and all the people in it. She was really glad I wasn't transferred because she wanted to send home a picture for the past 6 months or so and keeps forgetting everytime we visit them. Well, the mission is out to change a lot now. Elder C. Scott Grow from the the first quourum of the Seventy visited our mission on Friday and he turned everything upside down and shook it and President Miller is all over it. No more weekly temple attendance, takes too much time away from proselyting (which I can agree with). No more calling in at night, we are old enough to take care of ourselves and to get in on time because it is the rule without having to be accountable to anyone. No more exchanges, too much of a waste of time. No more district meetings every week, but less frequently. A lot more time needs to be spent doing actual missionary work and talking with people and so those were the solutions that were proposed and selected. I have a feeling there might be many more to come as well. Let's see, what else? Oh, we are getting a list of every less active member in every ward to go out and contact. We are asking each bishop for a list and for information to be provided on what their next best step needs to be to progress. Whether that is receiving the priesthood, becoming endowed, getting sealed, renewing a temple recommened, whatever. We are to go out and invite each person on that list to make that change and step in their life. That will keep us busy for the next 4 months at least! Considering we cover 17 wards and about half of each ward is less active so that is at least 1700 people and more like 2500. Lots of visits to be made and invitations to be given out. The whole theory behind it is that many less actives have many non member friends that the active members would never dare to think to spend time with. As well, people watch the bishops and relief society presidents and active members of the ward, and they are never home. They are always too busy serving, who want to join a church with that impression? But the less actives have more than enough time to spend at home and don't even attend church, so people watch them and think that our church isn't too bad. The idea is to get the less actives out and their non member friends will follow suit and then the baptisms and everything else will go up. That is just a lot of people to visit, but we are excited to go out and do it! All of our bishops and stake presidents are really enthusiastic about it as well!
Well anyway, on to a little bit of what happened every day.
Tuesday we were out contacting all day long looking for more people to teach. Not much luck, lots of nice people to talk with but no one sincerely interested. We were able to teach the Nay's on that day at the Mendenhall's house. The whole family is excited for Kamomi to get baptized and I have never seen anyone more excited to receive the priesthood. The whole family is actively attending church and keeping commandments like crazy. They read and pray faithfully everyday, and have started to have FHE. I can't believe the complete turn around that has happened. It has been nothing short of a miracle comparable to Moses parting to the Red Sea or anything else in the scriptures. Once people are willing to take the gospel into thier live sand start to live the principles that are taught in it, the blessings are immediate and astounding.
Wednesday we started to teach Thomas Woodworth, and talk about golden contact and investigator. He was willing to get baptized on that day but we are waiting for his families and friends to be here for the special event so it is going to happen on September 25. When we showed up to the stake center to start teaching him, he came with a Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel in hand. At first I thought, it was some kid who had pulled our leg wanting to be taught and instead was trying to get ahold of the missionaries to prepare for his mission. But we started talking with him and he has not been baptized yet, but wanted to study out of the book that missionaries had and so obtained a Preach My Gospel. He believes everything that we go over wholeheartedly and has one of the strongest testimonies of anyone I have ever met. He has already prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and received an amazing answer to both. Heavenly Father does truly answer prayers and the most sincere desires of our hearts, Thomas was the investigator that I have been praying so hard for and it is a miracle! He has a great desire to get married to his girlfriend in the temple too, I love him!
Thursday was another big, long contacting day. We had Elder Hoehn with us. He is being trained by the zone leaders but they had to go to a leadership meeting so he came with us and we got work done. I love Elder Gosch, but he isn't totally socially there and is easily distracted. Elder Hoehn was a firecracker and we worked so hard and met so many people and made so many contacts.
Friday was the day we listened to Elder Grow all day. It was a good meeting and I learned a ton and felt the Spirit more. I already told you what all he is changing and the things that happened. It was good.
Saturday was another conacting day. I think the members in my area know me well enough now to understand my facial expressions. They could tell before I started talking that the work has been slow and that we are struggling to find more people to teach. All of them got recommitted towards spreading the gospel with their friends and families and we got quite a few referrals as a result. A lot of the members now too are asking their neighbors and friends to meet with us instead of us having to cold contact. They see the difference it truly makes if the invite comes from them and not us.
Sunday was very awesome! Church all day is always a highlight for me (something my companions always think I am crazy for and weird). A truly exceptional miracle happened yesterday. I was fasting all day for the son of that bishop's family that sent you my picture. They have one son on a mission in Argentina, and his twin is still here and has gone less active and kind of dark. I fasted for him all day to have a renewal of his testimony and for the desire to be born within him to go on a mission. We went to a stake fireside that night for the youth put on by a motivational speaker where she talked about a lot of great things. But guess who we sat with? Josh Johnson was there, he had only come to drop off his little brother and then we going to go hang out with friends or something, but he felt like he should stay, so he did. He followed my lead and sung all the hymns with us and listened attentively all night long and guess what she covered? The blessing and the returns that come from taking the time to serve a mission. Heavenly Father answered my fast that day and there was a spark of something in Josh that wasn't there before that night! It was an amazing and inspiring miracle to me!
Well, I am out of time so I need to go. But Tony Knudson now has a testimony as well, means he can soon recieve the Mechezedik priesthood and then get sealed to his wife. They are so excited!!!
Love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Monday, September 6, 2010
Happy Labor Day!!!
Good morning everybody!
This week has been going pretty good. The only problem I have is that I feel like I am babysitting instead of having a companion. Elder Gosch is always positive and optimistic and has great faith and testimony, but has no sense of responsibility or tact when talking to people. We have been working on helping him to develop those, but it seems really slow going. That is ok though, at least he follows my example in being obedient (most of the time), although he still does not get up on time or study on time. I don't want to nag him and bully him into doing stuff, but that is the only way he really seems to respond. I am praying for more understanding though and to see what I can do to help us become more unified and work together and be exactly obedient. I am sure everything will work out. This week the fall weather has started to roll out, although always with Utah's famour bipolarity. It will be 95 degrees one day and then 70 degrees the next day. Then back up to 85, then down to 68, you get it. At least it hasn't gotten too cold yet, still manageable for short-sleeve wearing weather. Plus I am not getting sunburned nearly as much or having as nearly many problems that way. I do enjoy wearing a light jacket in the morning when I start working out, it is kind of fun. The bummer is that you can already see some snow in the mountains, it just barely melted like a month ago and now it is back. Crazy! Everyone we teach is really enjoying that scripture case, they have noticed a big difference from a cereal box covered in duct tape to the one that I have now. Good change. Although, several people told me they were planning to get me a scripture case in the near future and now are bummed that they cannot. That is ok though, I really don't like people buying stuff for me anyway.
This week was filled with amazing miracles and the Lord has truly answered our prayers in so many ways! Being on a mission has strengthened my tesimony of what "mighty" prayer actually means and how we pray with might prayer everything will work out and true miracles happen. You are so filled with the Spirit that it makes all the difference. Another thing that has been happening a lot lately to me is people pointint out how much I must have sacrificed to come on a mission. But I don't feel that way at all, I don't feel like I have sacrificed anything. They aren't very happy with this answer though, especially the youth. Oh well, it is the truth.
Tuesday was a good, solid day. Not a ton of stuff happened, but we got to teach some people and have some good experiences. We got to see the Miler's again that night and they are doing great! He is set up to get interviewed for the priesthood soon and they both are trying to get their patriarichal blessings done and in order. They both have the Spirit about them and are both solidly excited to work towards the temple. The whole ward is loving them into the gospel and giving them the added strength and support they need. The only problem is at church, that isn't happening too much. No one actively tries to sit next to them, which can make the biggest difference. We are working on getting ward members more aware though and the difference that they can make, hopefully things will work out soon. We got a call on Tuesday with someone who desperately wants to be taught the gospel, a true answer to my prayers. Bummer was that he is out of town until this upcoming Wednesday-ish and so we have to wait to meet with him until then, but we sure are excited. His name is Thomas Woodworth so pray for him!
Wednesday was another amazing day! It always is because we get to attend the temple!!! We got to see the Falkner family again on that day, and Dad is only about a month away from coming home. How exciting, that means that Deylon can finally be baptized!!! The whole family is excited for it and have moved from extremely less active status to semi active status. They make it to church about half the time, we are working on getting them to be full time. We saw Olivia too on that day, she is excited and ready and willing to pay tithing and do everything else. But her family is still pushing her very hard to not be baptized and since she is only 16, we kind of have to agree to their wishes. I think Olivia would be baptized tonight if she had the chance, but it just hasn't happened yet. Tom Hansen is doing very well too. He proposed about a week ago to his girlfriend and both are excited to getting married in the temple. He is set up to be ordained a priest soon and then wait a few months to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, then go through the temple! I love less active people who turn their lives around and come back to church and then become hyperactive, doing everything and then way, way beyond.
Thursday was a true miracle day! We taught Raymond and Candee Martinez and it was amazing!! The lesson was on tithing, which is probably the hardest commitment for them to make, they love to have extra money to spend on extra things, and taking away 10% is a huge sacrifice for them. Raymond is fully converted and was all set to go on paying tithing and doing that. Candee is much harder to convince and it was her I have been praying for this past week. She is still coming around from being offended and leaving the church and is now excited to be active again, except for the money thing. By the end of the lesson though, that was truly conducted by the Holy Ghost, she was in tears and I had almost joined her. She bore her testimony at the end about how she could feel the Holy Ghost telling her she needed to pay tithing and although it would be very hard, she was going to do it!!! We saw them again on Sunday at a family barbecue and they let us know then that Raymond has picked a date to be baptized and even shared it with his family! He is excited and ready to be baptized on October 23 and has everything moving for that direction. Including getting Sundays off work more and more regularly, getting to know his fellow ward members, etc. It is the best news that I got all week and I have never been so happy as when he told me the date he wants to be baptized on!
Friday was another awesome day! We got to see the Gonzalez family again and they are all doing amazing! They have been able to keep the house so far from being taken away and they attribute everything as a blessing from the Lord for paying tithing and other things. They are just awesome! They all love to do baptisms for the dead and help out at church in any way that they can. All are excited and praying to get sealed in the temple next June and have everything prepared for them that needs to happen. Sister Gonzalez still receives verbal answers to her prayers and amazing visions and stuff like that. Erick is still feeling the Spirit strong and their kids are all doing amazing as well.
Saturday was kind of a long day. Not many people home or willing to talk to us. It seems to be the standard on holiday weekends. It still was great to do missionary work though and to have that spirit and great feeling that goes with it. All the dinners this week were awesome!!! All the member families have been doing missionary work and have people for us to start teaching in the next few weeks!!! You have no idea how excited I was to get that same report night after night and to see the joy on the member's faces from having done missionary work.
Sunday we got to hear about how Raymond Martinez has picked a date, and so it was the best day all week and the most amazing happy, joyful day ever! Noa Bowen is also on date for Septmeber 18 and is excited for that. Whitney Snell is on date for September 25 and is excited for that. Another miracle happened in the fact that her mom and dad finally took her to church!!! It was great to see them there and even better to see that they felt the Spirit and enjoyed it. Kamomi Nay is still on date for September 25 as well and the whole family is excited for that!!! It has been an amazing miraculous week for everyone that we are teaching and for all the experiences that happened!
Well, time is running short, so I got to go!
Love and pray for you all!!!
Elder Hughes
This week has been going pretty good. The only problem I have is that I feel like I am babysitting instead of having a companion. Elder Gosch is always positive and optimistic and has great faith and testimony, but has no sense of responsibility or tact when talking to people. We have been working on helping him to develop those, but it seems really slow going. That is ok though, at least he follows my example in being obedient (most of the time), although he still does not get up on time or study on time. I don't want to nag him and bully him into doing stuff, but that is the only way he really seems to respond. I am praying for more understanding though and to see what I can do to help us become more unified and work together and be exactly obedient. I am sure everything will work out. This week the fall weather has started to roll out, although always with Utah's famour bipolarity. It will be 95 degrees one day and then 70 degrees the next day. Then back up to 85, then down to 68, you get it. At least it hasn't gotten too cold yet, still manageable for short-sleeve wearing weather. Plus I am not getting sunburned nearly as much or having as nearly many problems that way. I do enjoy wearing a light jacket in the morning when I start working out, it is kind of fun. The bummer is that you can already see some snow in the mountains, it just barely melted like a month ago and now it is back. Crazy! Everyone we teach is really enjoying that scripture case, they have noticed a big difference from a cereal box covered in duct tape to the one that I have now. Good change. Although, several people told me they were planning to get me a scripture case in the near future and now are bummed that they cannot. That is ok though, I really don't like people buying stuff for me anyway.
This week was filled with amazing miracles and the Lord has truly answered our prayers in so many ways! Being on a mission has strengthened my tesimony of what "mighty" prayer actually means and how we pray with might prayer everything will work out and true miracles happen. You are so filled with the Spirit that it makes all the difference. Another thing that has been happening a lot lately to me is people pointint out how much I must have sacrificed to come on a mission. But I don't feel that way at all, I don't feel like I have sacrificed anything. They aren't very happy with this answer though, especially the youth. Oh well, it is the truth.
Tuesday was a good, solid day. Not a ton of stuff happened, but we got to teach some people and have some good experiences. We got to see the Miler's again that night and they are doing great! He is set up to get interviewed for the priesthood soon and they both are trying to get their patriarichal blessings done and in order. They both have the Spirit about them and are both solidly excited to work towards the temple. The whole ward is loving them into the gospel and giving them the added strength and support they need. The only problem is at church, that isn't happening too much. No one actively tries to sit next to them, which can make the biggest difference. We are working on getting ward members more aware though and the difference that they can make, hopefully things will work out soon. We got a call on Tuesday with someone who desperately wants to be taught the gospel, a true answer to my prayers. Bummer was that he is out of town until this upcoming Wednesday-ish and so we have to wait to meet with him until then, but we sure are excited. His name is Thomas Woodworth so pray for him!
Wednesday was another amazing day! It always is because we get to attend the temple!!! We got to see the Falkner family again on that day, and Dad is only about a month away from coming home. How exciting, that means that Deylon can finally be baptized!!! The whole family is excited for it and have moved from extremely less active status to semi active status. They make it to church about half the time, we are working on getting them to be full time. We saw Olivia too on that day, she is excited and ready and willing to pay tithing and do everything else. But her family is still pushing her very hard to not be baptized and since she is only 16, we kind of have to agree to their wishes. I think Olivia would be baptized tonight if she had the chance, but it just hasn't happened yet. Tom Hansen is doing very well too. He proposed about a week ago to his girlfriend and both are excited to getting married in the temple. He is set up to be ordained a priest soon and then wait a few months to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, then go through the temple! I love less active people who turn their lives around and come back to church and then become hyperactive, doing everything and then way, way beyond.
Thursday was a true miracle day! We taught Raymond and Candee Martinez and it was amazing!! The lesson was on tithing, which is probably the hardest commitment for them to make, they love to have extra money to spend on extra things, and taking away 10% is a huge sacrifice for them. Raymond is fully converted and was all set to go on paying tithing and doing that. Candee is much harder to convince and it was her I have been praying for this past week. She is still coming around from being offended and leaving the church and is now excited to be active again, except for the money thing. By the end of the lesson though, that was truly conducted by the Holy Ghost, she was in tears and I had almost joined her. She bore her testimony at the end about how she could feel the Holy Ghost telling her she needed to pay tithing and although it would be very hard, she was going to do it!!! We saw them again on Sunday at a family barbecue and they let us know then that Raymond has picked a date to be baptized and even shared it with his family! He is excited and ready to be baptized on October 23 and has everything moving for that direction. Including getting Sundays off work more and more regularly, getting to know his fellow ward members, etc. It is the best news that I got all week and I have never been so happy as when he told me the date he wants to be baptized on!
Friday was another awesome day! We got to see the Gonzalez family again and they are all doing amazing! They have been able to keep the house so far from being taken away and they attribute everything as a blessing from the Lord for paying tithing and other things. They are just awesome! They all love to do baptisms for the dead and help out at church in any way that they can. All are excited and praying to get sealed in the temple next June and have everything prepared for them that needs to happen. Sister Gonzalez still receives verbal answers to her prayers and amazing visions and stuff like that. Erick is still feeling the Spirit strong and their kids are all doing amazing as well.
Saturday was kind of a long day. Not many people home or willing to talk to us. It seems to be the standard on holiday weekends. It still was great to do missionary work though and to have that spirit and great feeling that goes with it. All the dinners this week were awesome!!! All the member families have been doing missionary work and have people for us to start teaching in the next few weeks!!! You have no idea how excited I was to get that same report night after night and to see the joy on the member's faces from having done missionary work.
Sunday we got to hear about how Raymond Martinez has picked a date, and so it was the best day all week and the most amazing happy, joyful day ever! Noa Bowen is also on date for Septmeber 18 and is excited for that. Whitney Snell is on date for September 25 and is excited for that. Another miracle happened in the fact that her mom and dad finally took her to church!!! It was great to see them there and even better to see that they felt the Spirit and enjoyed it. Kamomi Nay is still on date for September 25 as well and the whole family is excited for that!!! It has been an amazing miraculous week for everyone that we are teaching and for all the experiences that happened!
Well, time is running short, so I got to go!
Love and pray for you all!!!
Elder Hughes
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