I have been out one year this week...where did all the time go?

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