Good morning everybody!
Well, things have been going really great here the past few days. The Lord has really been blessing us to find a lot of people to teach and work with and it is great! The Lord gave us 5 or so new investigators this past week that were asking us to be taught. Not having to go out there tracting and searching as hard as possible, but we were blessed to have them contact us. It literally felt like the Lord dropped them into our laps this past week. We are so happy and grateful. The weather has finally stopped being so bipolar - nice sunshiney days or at least just rainy days, no more snow or freezing cold. Only a little bit chilly now and again. What a blessing. That means that I have started to wear sunscreen and started to smell like the beach or lifeguarding again. Oh well, at least it isn't a bad smell. So far I have managed not to get sunburned really at all yet. My goal is to keep it that way as much as possible. The only problem is remembering to take the time to reapply after so many hours. We get so busy working and doing stuff that I don't even notice that my skin is starting to heat up and turn pink at all. I am so used to being burned all the time I guess that I don't even think about it, but I am getting better.
We started to teach the most amazingly prepared people ever! It is a part member family and they are in their early 20's. David (less active) and Danielle Evans (non member). We found them through a member, Sister Davies who lives across the street. David's friend growing up is their son and he is an expert with computers, so David asked him to come and fix their family computer so they could get it up and running again. While he was fixing the computer, he was talking about how his wife had just received a priesthood blessing and the change it had brought to her life and the comfort that it had given. Then he left. Danielle started to ask questions about what priesthood blessings were and how they work. She then went to the Davies' house and asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon so they could learn more. David suggested they go to the church the next Sunday and so they went for all three hours and were blown away by it. We finally received the referral from Sister Davies as we were contacting in the neighborhood, she pulled over in her car and suggested that we stop by the Evans' home right away. So we did. David wasn't there so Danielle took down our phone number and promised to have her husband call us back. Then he called us back early the very next morning and wanted to set up an appointment that day. When we got there, we found that she had already read all of first Nephi and that they had purchased more scriptures to study from the distribution center. She already had gained a witness for herself that the Book of Mormon was true. One way was through the story of Nephi and the Broken Bow. She explained that she had studied archery just the year before and how different bows have to have exactly the right arrow to fit them for the tension and physics to be right. Then she talked about how in the Book of Mormon that Nephi made different arrows to fit his new wood bow and she said Joseph Smith could not have known the physics behind it. So it had to be true. Plus she explained the peace and comfort that had come to her the past week reading from its pages. She knew it was true logically as well as spiritually. How cool is that?!? She wholeheartedly acceted a baptismal commitment for May 1 and is so excited for it. We met with them again the next day and we were all almost in tears as we shared the plan of salvation and she totally broke down as she offered the closing prayer. They have been very prepared by the Lord and it is so amazing! David had to go out of town this week, but we are going to keep checking up on Danielle and then teach both of them again this Saturday. It is truly a miracle and we love them so much! We have been thanking the Lord so much too!
We have finally started to work with Steve's wife, Tammi, as well. Austin and Hunter, their sons, are set to get baptized in the next two weeks. All that is left is to pick a date and stick to it. Tammi has been having a lot of struggles and trials in her life the past little bit and so requested a priesthood blessing. We went over there with Brother Newman and he gave it to her and then we taught her the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ (otherwise known as the first lesson). She soaked it in like a sponge and showed up to church the next Sunday. We are so excited for that and so is Steve!
Then we started to teaching a nonmarried, part member couple a few doors down from the Evans' house. They are Morgan Struvel and Spencer Truesdall. Morgan has a strong desire for their baby daugther to be blessed in the LDS church and to grow up living its values. Because of that, she accepted the invitation to meet with us and to learn more about the church. Spencer is excited to get back active as well. The main problem so far is that Morgan very strongly believes in reincarnation and isn't really willing to consider anything else. We will be teaching about the resurrection next and see what happens to them as we teach. But both are open to having us meet and Spencer even said the closing prayer last week and they were both very accepting about believing in Joseph Smith and believing in prophets and the restored priesthood. She even accepted the commitment to be baptized when the time comes that she gets an answer to her prayer. We just need to get them married fast.
We are also hoping to start teaching a few other very prepared people soon as well. We are following up with the bishops and members that gave us the referrals and working on helping those people to really start investigating the church and start to work towards baptism. It is awesome! I don't think I have ever been blessed with so many people to teach my whole mission and we have been praying in gratitude for the past week and then I fasted in gratitude this past Sunday.
The zone leaders invited all the district leaders and their companions over for studies yesterday and that was a moving powerful experience. They trained us on how missionaries are very good at talking and explaining but very bad at actually experiencing what it means to teach with the Spirit and power and authority of God. So they demonstrated for us how it is to be done. They used the verses in 3 Nephi 11 where Christ invites all to come unto Him and feel the prints of the nails and the spear print in his side. It was very powerful, then they had us get down and all pray, one-by-one to receive a reconfirmation that the Book of Mormon was true. It was overpowering and I cried. I seem to do that a lot more lately when I feel the Spirit, I cry. I never use to cry, so I don't know what happened but I did. I felt the Spirit so strong. Elder Gomes and I were then blessed to have the same experience as we taught later on that day to Jennifer Golson. The Spirit was so strong and she was crying and I was crying. She really opened up and told us about all that has been happening in her life. She has been truly touched by the Spirit of the Lord, especially after she went in and met with the bishop. All her sins and pain seem to have literally been lifted away. So we went over the Atonement and all that Jesus Christ does for us and it was so AWESOME! Jennifer is finally so excited to come to church this Sunday and to work towards becoming fully active. She is also now down to smoking about 2 cigarettes a day and she was so excited that she can finally start to smell and taste things again. She told us next how missionaries visited at exactly the right moment. She told God that if He wanted her back, He needed to send missionaries to help her make that step. We showed up on her birhday and she was hung over so she didn't come up to talk to us. But she thought about how far off her life was and where she needed to go. When we stopped back by again, she was ready and humble to start learing the gospel. The amazing miracle was that she was the only name on a list of about 300 names of less actives in that ward that we were impressed to stop by. Everyone else didn't feel right, she was the only one that stuck out to us at all and it was the Spirit telling us that. My goal now is to be humble enough and follow the Spirit enough to have that happen in every lesson. Everytime that we open our mouths to share the gospel I want that experience, where the Spirit just speaks through us and Heavenly Father can truly use us as His instruments. That is what I have been praying for.
Anyway, this week has been fantastic! We have really been missionaries and have really been blessed with everything that is going on. I am going to buy a new camera today (so don't send me one when you read this - my other two both died and no matter what I try to do, I can't get them working, nor can anyone else) finally so I can start sending home pictures soon. I plan to take so many pictures! So look forward to that next week. As for a release date, I don't know and at this point I don't want to know at all, just saying. Whenever I am told, I will let you know, but for now, don't worry about it. It won't be in time to attend school at all for fall semester, but should be for next winter semester. And I have got letters from several people who want to room with me and so that should be taken care of. I am so excited for Easter this weekend! The past week my mind has really been reflecting on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and all that He did for us. It is the greatest miracle and the best ever!
I love you all and pray for you all! I hope Easter is good and that the Easter baskets aren't too hard to find on Sunday morning, haha. The clothes are perfect and fit well, so thank you so much!
Love,
Elder Ryan Hughes
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Good afternoon everybody!
Thanks for the Easter package, the white shirts are going to come in really handy! Also, I love the shirt because here it is still cold and Arizona is now warm, haha. Thanks too to Grandma for her Easter card, it was great! With the advent of Spring, we have started to do what every missionary does all summer long....weeding. Every service project that people solicit our help for has to do with weeding or gardening. It is nice and all, but the war against weeds always seems like a losing battle. They are just everyhwere! And the roots go so deep, you have to dig them out with shovels. Fun times. Elder Gomes and I attacked the weeds in the Smith's front yard yesterday. We had to almost replant the entire front flower bed to get all the grass out that was growing there. Grass can be so hard to get out. Then we took out an entire strawberry patch at someone else's home so they could plant something else, that took a while too. But we had fun and it was nice to be outside in some sunshine for once. Plus I can't complain too much, the usually let us eat some of their fruits and vegetables when they came in so that will be delicious. I think Mom will be proud of me too, I now eat everything. I can do fish, all kinds of vegetables or nuts, all kinds of foreign foods, spicy foods, you name I love it. So for all those times I gave Mom a hard time about eating seafood, I will take you out now Mom when I get back home to the seafood restaurant of your choice and eat some with you. Also, I'll split any of the brownies or the fudge that you put nuts in, haha.
This week was crazy busy, not with normal missionary work, but with being a district. Everyone in my district all happened to have (what seemed to them anyway) major life-or-death issues that had to be resolved over the weekend. And who did they turn to? Me. So who did I turn to? The Lord. It worked great, just meant little sleep, lots of prayer, and lots of running back and forth to deal with different issues. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be a bishop if it requires this much effort to keep 6 missionaries going strong. One companionship was having major unity issues and another one had a house that was possessed with a dark spirit. So lots of counseling and interviews about unity, and some blessings and house dedicatings later and the weekend was over. I just hope the things that I felt impressed to say work, but the Lord knows all things and has all power so I believe He can make it happen somehow. I will keep doing whatever He asks me to do.
Austin and Hunter are no longer on date. That is the depressing thing. Austin just won't make up his mind about sticking to a date. He knows he wants to get baptized and he knows it is the right thing to do. He knows the church is true....now he just won't act. He is 12 years old and won't act. It is one of the most bizarre experiences of my mission. Steve is working hard on his sons though and if anyone can help them to more forward, it will be him. He is so excited to be the one baptizing them. He loves everything about the church and comes to every imaginable church activity that he is allowed to come to. From pasta welfare assignments to video games parties and stake talent shows to conferences. He loves the gospel and is probably the best member missionary that I have ever seen. Tammi is getting closer to. She wants to meet with us and she wants to come to church, she just gets scared of the commitment and backs off. But Steve taught her about baptisms for the dead from Doctrine and Covenants 138, which is what we taught him from the night before ( don't ask me why because that is the longest way to teach it, but it must have been inspiration). She was so touched by it, she wanted to know why none of her member friends had ever explained that concept to her before. She instantly gave Steve 5 or 6 names from her family that she wants him to do the temple work for and get baptized for very soon. For not wanting to change, she has a testimony of the gospel already and was so excited to give those names to Steve. Steve said she actually teared up and was crying as they read the chapter together and that she is softening quite a bit. We are praying to start teaching her soon and then help the whole family to become active baptized members of the church, headed towards the temple.
We hit Jennifer Golson and Bobbie Noorda really hard this week with the need to stop smoking. We helped both to make plans to start to carry them out. Both also met with the bishop this past week and began to sort through the repentance process and to work towards gaining a temple recommend. It kind of frustrates me that we never report our less active work, but I have really come to love the less active people that we work with. It brings so much joy to see them come back to the gospel and to start changing their lives back to what they know is right. I know the Lord loves them so much and we have a great sense of love for them too. They also love us a lot and keep wanting to feed us or take pictures with us so they can remember us if we ever get transferred.
Sherrie Thomas is still in limbo stage. She got sick this week when she was supposed to be hitting up the employment agencies to start finding a new job and turning in her 2 week notice. Now, we will have to see what she does. She wants to get baptized and has a strong testimony that the church is true, but doesn't quite have the faith necessary to drop everything for God. She wants to come to church on Sunday, but just doesn't do it because of work. We keep praying for her though and she keeps praying too and a lot of the ward is praying for her as well, so we will see what happens. Our goal is still April 30, but right now that is really shaky. We need a miracle and quite a large one if that is going to happen. We have the faith though and are leaving it all up to the Lord if we do everything possible that we can.
Life continues to go on. The acne medicine is working from the doctor, I am about 50% clearer than I used to be and I met with him again today and said I should be acne free in about 6 more weeks. We shall see. No sunburn or anything yet. But I do have sunscreen and when we walk outside this next week, I will be putting it on. Trust me. I am good on tennis shoes, the ones I have should last me the last 6 months or so I hope. We will see. I am good on socks too. Release date? I have no idea yet. When I know, I will let you know. Um...I know my headache is not a sinus infection. But it is from something else. It is gone now though or not nearly as bad, but it did last 2 or 3 weeks. I haven't had one like that in a long time, not since BYU I think. No worries, though I am doing better and getting along just fine. The only thing is that I am exhausted, haha. The thing I might do for about the first two weeks when I get home is SLEEP! I think I have slept more on the mission than I have in years (because I can't stay up all night doing stuff) but I am just as tired. I don't understand that one. Oh well.
I love you all and continue to pray for you all! I am glad you got to go to the Easter Pagent, I miss seeing that. It is amazing! I keep telling people up here they need to go down and see it and they just say it is already too hot. I think I might have convinced a few people though, hopefully. Also, having been to Nauvoo a few times in my life has been quite a benefit. I get questions probably once or twice a week about what all there is to do there and if people can keep themselves busy there. I still remember quite a bit. I hope you are all having a great spring and that the weather here can start copying the weather down there, haha.
Love,
Elder Hughes
Thanks for the Easter package, the white shirts are going to come in really handy! Also, I love the shirt because here it is still cold and Arizona is now warm, haha. Thanks too to Grandma for her Easter card, it was great! With the advent of Spring, we have started to do what every missionary does all summer long....weeding. Every service project that people solicit our help for has to do with weeding or gardening. It is nice and all, but the war against weeds always seems like a losing battle. They are just everyhwere! And the roots go so deep, you have to dig them out with shovels. Fun times. Elder Gomes and I attacked the weeds in the Smith's front yard yesterday. We had to almost replant the entire front flower bed to get all the grass out that was growing there. Grass can be so hard to get out. Then we took out an entire strawberry patch at someone else's home so they could plant something else, that took a while too. But we had fun and it was nice to be outside in some sunshine for once. Plus I can't complain too much, the usually let us eat some of their fruits and vegetables when they came in so that will be delicious. I think Mom will be proud of me too, I now eat everything. I can do fish, all kinds of vegetables or nuts, all kinds of foreign foods, spicy foods, you name I love it. So for all those times I gave Mom a hard time about eating seafood, I will take you out now Mom when I get back home to the seafood restaurant of your choice and eat some with you. Also, I'll split any of the brownies or the fudge that you put nuts in, haha.
This week was crazy busy, not with normal missionary work, but with being a district. Everyone in my district all happened to have (what seemed to them anyway) major life-or-death issues that had to be resolved over the weekend. And who did they turn to? Me. So who did I turn to? The Lord. It worked great, just meant little sleep, lots of prayer, and lots of running back and forth to deal with different issues. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be a bishop if it requires this much effort to keep 6 missionaries going strong. One companionship was having major unity issues and another one had a house that was possessed with a dark spirit. So lots of counseling and interviews about unity, and some blessings and house dedicatings later and the weekend was over. I just hope the things that I felt impressed to say work, but the Lord knows all things and has all power so I believe He can make it happen somehow. I will keep doing whatever He asks me to do.
Austin and Hunter are no longer on date. That is the depressing thing. Austin just won't make up his mind about sticking to a date. He knows he wants to get baptized and he knows it is the right thing to do. He knows the church is true....now he just won't act. He is 12 years old and won't act. It is one of the most bizarre experiences of my mission. Steve is working hard on his sons though and if anyone can help them to more forward, it will be him. He is so excited to be the one baptizing them. He loves everything about the church and comes to every imaginable church activity that he is allowed to come to. From pasta welfare assignments to video games parties and stake talent shows to conferences. He loves the gospel and is probably the best member missionary that I have ever seen. Tammi is getting closer to. She wants to meet with us and she wants to come to church, she just gets scared of the commitment and backs off. But Steve taught her about baptisms for the dead from Doctrine and Covenants 138, which is what we taught him from the night before ( don't ask me why because that is the longest way to teach it, but it must have been inspiration). She was so touched by it, she wanted to know why none of her member friends had ever explained that concept to her before. She instantly gave Steve 5 or 6 names from her family that she wants him to do the temple work for and get baptized for very soon. For not wanting to change, she has a testimony of the gospel already and was so excited to give those names to Steve. Steve said she actually teared up and was crying as they read the chapter together and that she is softening quite a bit. We are praying to start teaching her soon and then help the whole family to become active baptized members of the church, headed towards the temple.
We hit Jennifer Golson and Bobbie Noorda really hard this week with the need to stop smoking. We helped both to make plans to start to carry them out. Both also met with the bishop this past week and began to sort through the repentance process and to work towards gaining a temple recommend. It kind of frustrates me that we never report our less active work, but I have really come to love the less active people that we work with. It brings so much joy to see them come back to the gospel and to start changing their lives back to what they know is right. I know the Lord loves them so much and we have a great sense of love for them too. They also love us a lot and keep wanting to feed us or take pictures with us so they can remember us if we ever get transferred.
Sherrie Thomas is still in limbo stage. She got sick this week when she was supposed to be hitting up the employment agencies to start finding a new job and turning in her 2 week notice. Now, we will have to see what she does. She wants to get baptized and has a strong testimony that the church is true, but doesn't quite have the faith necessary to drop everything for God. She wants to come to church on Sunday, but just doesn't do it because of work. We keep praying for her though and she keeps praying too and a lot of the ward is praying for her as well, so we will see what happens. Our goal is still April 30, but right now that is really shaky. We need a miracle and quite a large one if that is going to happen. We have the faith though and are leaving it all up to the Lord if we do everything possible that we can.
Life continues to go on. The acne medicine is working from the doctor, I am about 50% clearer than I used to be and I met with him again today and said I should be acne free in about 6 more weeks. We shall see. No sunburn or anything yet. But I do have sunscreen and when we walk outside this next week, I will be putting it on. Trust me. I am good on tennis shoes, the ones I have should last me the last 6 months or so I hope. We will see. I am good on socks too. Release date? I have no idea yet. When I know, I will let you know. Um...I know my headache is not a sinus infection. But it is from something else. It is gone now though or not nearly as bad, but it did last 2 or 3 weeks. I haven't had one like that in a long time, not since BYU I think. No worries, though I am doing better and getting along just fine. The only thing is that I am exhausted, haha. The thing I might do for about the first two weeks when I get home is SLEEP! I think I have slept more on the mission than I have in years (because I can't stay up all night doing stuff) but I am just as tired. I don't understand that one. Oh well.
I love you all and continue to pray for you all! I am glad you got to go to the Easter Pagent, I miss seeing that. It is amazing! I keep telling people up here they need to go down and see it and they just say it is already too hot. I think I might have convinced a few people though, hopefully. Also, having been to Nauvoo a few times in my life has been quite a benefit. I get questions probably once or twice a week about what all there is to do there and if people can keep themselves busy there. I still remember quite a bit. I hope you are all having a great spring and that the weather here can start copying the weather down there, haha.
Love,
Elder Hughes
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Good afternoon everybody!
Things have been going really great! The weather has been Utah-finnicky as always but it isn't too bad. We have finally been able to take the suit coats off and to wear just white shirts and I have been really enjoying it. I have decided that I need to get more short-sleeved white shirts though next week. I don't really have enough to last all of summer, the ones I have are kind of ratty, so I will get more next week. Everyone up here is kind of sad though because it snowed again and probably killed all the apricot/peach/apple blossoms. Bummer, fresh fruit is so good is something I have learned.
General conference was amazing! I did get to go to a session, I was at the Saturday afternoon session. It was sweet! We got to sit all the way up in the right front corner, about 3 rows back from the pulpit. We were there about 2 hours early so we got to shake some amazing people's hands! We got to meet Sister Wixom from the primary general presidency and about 10 members of the 70 and their wives. As they were walking to go up to the front, they passed by us and shook our hands and talked to us for about 2 or 3 minutes or so. You could see everyone's faces from where we were sitting which was a new experience - usually I have sat too far back to really see anything too clearly, but where we were was perfect. All the talks were great. I loved Elder Oaks' about desire, and the talk about "to be" and "to do". Those really hit me and really got me thinking about what I could do to really become the person God wants me to be not just to do good things. Too truly become a Christlike person and not to just do Christlike things. I also thought priesthood session was overwhelming! The Spirit was so strong and powerful that it literally felt like I was being blown backward against my seat and held there for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
Austin and Hunter are really excited to be baptized but we had to push it back a week to next Saturday. But they already have the program planned out and everything looks good to go. Steve is so excited to be able to baptize his kids, he is telling absolutely everyone about it. Doesn't matter if they are in his ward or not, or members or not, he just invites them to come. When people are truly converted, they go out of their way to invite others to come unto Christ as well like they have had the chance to. It is an amazing miracle to watch. I have really come to love that family and they love us a lot too. They got really mad when Elder Noll got transferred and told me I had never get transferred or they will not be too happy with me. Not much I can do there though, haha.
We had to drop Thomas and Eva John, the people from Africa. They just don't want to get married. They want to get baptized, they want to be a part of the church and they understand the need to get married. But they just won't do it until they can save up the money to go back to Africa. Which won't happen for quite a few years. So we gave them over to the ward to visit and work with and told them to keep coming and that we would drop by periodically, but they don't want to change at this point. That was kind of disappointing.
We have been having great success though in working with members starting this week. We started to visit one member family every night and share the message of the Restoration with them and then commit them to do the 21 day challenge. So far everyone has accepted and is really excited about it. They start to think about all kinds of people that they can share the gospel with and that it isn't really too hard to invite people to meet with the missionaries. It was way awesome.
I went on exchanges yesterday and today with Elder Fordham. It has been fun, but I have really run out of time to email. I love you all and pray for you all!
Have a great week!
Elder Hughes
Things have been going really great! The weather has been Utah-finnicky as always but it isn't too bad. We have finally been able to take the suit coats off and to wear just white shirts and I have been really enjoying it. I have decided that I need to get more short-sleeved white shirts though next week. I don't really have enough to last all of summer, the ones I have are kind of ratty, so I will get more next week. Everyone up here is kind of sad though because it snowed again and probably killed all the apricot/peach/apple blossoms. Bummer, fresh fruit is so good is something I have learned.
General conference was amazing! I did get to go to a session, I was at the Saturday afternoon session. It was sweet! We got to sit all the way up in the right front corner, about 3 rows back from the pulpit. We were there about 2 hours early so we got to shake some amazing people's hands! We got to meet Sister Wixom from the primary general presidency and about 10 members of the 70 and their wives. As they were walking to go up to the front, they passed by us and shook our hands and talked to us for about 2 or 3 minutes or so. You could see everyone's faces from where we were sitting which was a new experience - usually I have sat too far back to really see anything too clearly, but where we were was perfect. All the talks were great. I loved Elder Oaks' about desire, and the talk about "to be" and "to do". Those really hit me and really got me thinking about what I could do to really become the person God wants me to be not just to do good things. Too truly become a Christlike person and not to just do Christlike things. I also thought priesthood session was overwhelming! The Spirit was so strong and powerful that it literally felt like I was being blown backward against my seat and held there for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
Austin and Hunter are really excited to be baptized but we had to push it back a week to next Saturday. But they already have the program planned out and everything looks good to go. Steve is so excited to be able to baptize his kids, he is telling absolutely everyone about it. Doesn't matter if they are in his ward or not, or members or not, he just invites them to come. When people are truly converted, they go out of their way to invite others to come unto Christ as well like they have had the chance to. It is an amazing miracle to watch. I have really come to love that family and they love us a lot too. They got really mad when Elder Noll got transferred and told me I had never get transferred or they will not be too happy with me. Not much I can do there though, haha.
We had to drop Thomas and Eva John, the people from Africa. They just don't want to get married. They want to get baptized, they want to be a part of the church and they understand the need to get married. But they just won't do it until they can save up the money to go back to Africa. Which won't happen for quite a few years. So we gave them over to the ward to visit and work with and told them to keep coming and that we would drop by periodically, but they don't want to change at this point. That was kind of disappointing.
We have been having great success though in working with members starting this week. We started to visit one member family every night and share the message of the Restoration with them and then commit them to do the 21 day challenge. So far everyone has accepted and is really excited about it. They start to think about all kinds of people that they can share the gospel with and that it isn't really too hard to invite people to meet with the missionaries. It was way awesome.
I went on exchanges yesterday and today with Elder Fordham. It has been fun, but I have really run out of time to email. I love you all and pray for you all!
Have a great week!
Elder Hughes
Good afternoon everybody!
Things have been going really great! The weather has been Utah-finnicky as always but it isn't too bad. We have finally been able to take the suit coats off and to wear just white shirts and I have been really enjoying it. I have decided that I need to get more short-sleeved white shirts though next week. I don't really have enough to last all of summer, the ones I have are kind of ratty, so I will get more next week. Everyone up here is kind of sad though because it snowed again and probably killed all the apricot/peach/apple blossoms. Bummer, fresh fruit is so good is something I have learned.
General conference was amazing! I did get to go to a session, I was at the Saturday afternoon session. It was sweet! We got to sit all the way up in the right front corner, about 3 rows back from the pulpit. We were there about 2 hours early so we got to shake some amazing people's hands! We got to meet Sister Wixom from the primary general presidency and about 10 members of the 70 and their wives. As they were walking to go up to the front, they passed by us and shook our hands and talked to us for about 2 or 3 minutes or so. You could see everyone's faces from where we were sitting which was a new experience - usually I have sat too far back to really see anything too clearly, but where we were was perfect. All the talks were great. I loved Elder Oaks' about desire, and the talk about "to be" and "to do". Those really hit me and really got me thinking about what I could do to really become the person God wants me to be not just to do good things. Too truly become a Christlike person and not to just do Christlike things. I also thought priesthood session was overwhelming! The Spirit was so strong and powerful that it literally felt like I was being blown backward against my seat and held there for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
Austin and Hunter are really excited to be baptized but we had to push it back a week to next Saturday. But they already have the program planned out and everything looks good to go. Steve is so excited to be able to baptize his kids, he is telling absolutely everyone about it. Doesn't matter if they are in his ward or not, or members or not, he just invites them to come. When people are truly converted, they go out of their way to invite others to come unto Christ as well like they have had the chance to. It is an amazing miracle to watch. I have really come to love that family and they love us a lot too. They got really mad when Elder Noll got transferred and told me I had never get transferred or they will not be too happy with me. Not much I can do there though, haha.
We had to drop Thomas and Eva John, the people from Africa. They just don't want to get married. They want to get baptized, they want to be a part of the church and they understand the need to get married. But they just won't do it until they can save up the money to go back to Africa. Which won't happen for quite a few years. So we gave them over to the ward to visit and work with and told them to keep coming and that we would drop by periodically, but they don't want to change at this point. That was kind of disappointing.
We have been having great success though in working with members starting this week. We started to visit one member family every night and share the message of the Restoration with them and then commit them to do the 21 day challenge. So far everyone has accepted and is really excited about it. They start to think about all kinds of people that they can share the gospel with and that it isn't really too hard to invite people to meet with the missionaries. It was way awesome.
I went on exchanges yesterday and today with Elder Fordham. It has been fun, but I have really run out of time to email. I love you all and pray for you all!
Have a great week!
Elder Hughes
Things have been going really great! The weather has been Utah-finnicky as always but it isn't too bad. We have finally been able to take the suit coats off and to wear just white shirts and I have been really enjoying it. I have decided that I need to get more short-sleeved white shirts though next week. I don't really have enough to last all of summer, the ones I have are kind of ratty, so I will get more next week. Everyone up here is kind of sad though because it snowed again and probably killed all the apricot/peach/apple blossoms. Bummer, fresh fruit is so good is something I have learned.
General conference was amazing! I did get to go to a session, I was at the Saturday afternoon session. It was sweet! We got to sit all the way up in the right front corner, about 3 rows back from the pulpit. We were there about 2 hours early so we got to shake some amazing people's hands! We got to meet Sister Wixom from the primary general presidency and about 10 members of the 70 and their wives. As they were walking to go up to the front, they passed by us and shook our hands and talked to us for about 2 or 3 minutes or so. You could see everyone's faces from where we were sitting which was a new experience - usually I have sat too far back to really see anything too clearly, but where we were was perfect. All the talks were great. I loved Elder Oaks' about desire, and the talk about "to be" and "to do". Those really hit me and really got me thinking about what I could do to really become the person God wants me to be not just to do good things. Too truly become a Christlike person and not to just do Christlike things. I also thought priesthood session was overwhelming! The Spirit was so strong and powerful that it literally felt like I was being blown backward against my seat and held there for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
Austin and Hunter are really excited to be baptized but we had to push it back a week to next Saturday. But they already have the program planned out and everything looks good to go. Steve is so excited to be able to baptize his kids, he is telling absolutely everyone about it. Doesn't matter if they are in his ward or not, or members or not, he just invites them to come. When people are truly converted, they go out of their way to invite others to come unto Christ as well like they have had the chance to. It is an amazing miracle to watch. I have really come to love that family and they love us a lot too. They got really mad when Elder Noll got transferred and told me I had never get transferred or they will not be too happy with me. Not much I can do there though, haha.
We had to drop Thomas and Eva John, the people from Africa. They just don't want to get married. They want to get baptized, they want to be a part of the church and they understand the need to get married. But they just won't do it until they can save up the money to go back to Africa. Which won't happen for quite a few years. So we gave them over to the ward to visit and work with and told them to keep coming and that we would drop by periodically, but they don't want to change at this point. That was kind of disappointing.
We have been having great success though in working with members starting this week. We started to visit one member family every night and share the message of the Restoration with them and then commit them to do the 21 day challenge. So far everyone has accepted and is really excited about it. They start to think about all kinds of people that they can share the gospel with and that it isn't really too hard to invite people to meet with the missionaries. It was way awesome.
I went on exchanges yesterday and today with Elder Fordham. It has been fun, but I have really run out of time to email. I love you all and pray for you all!
Have a great week!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Happy spring everyone!
This week has been really great, with the exception that my headaches
are back again. I don't know why, I haven't really been doing
anything different but I have that constant headache that I would get
sometimes back home that just goes for weeks and weeks and weeks and
drains me of energy. I will be ok though, I always am. The work in
our area has really picked back up though and that makes Elder Gomes
and I VERY excited and happy. We were able to pick up 4 new
investigators in the past two days from 3 different families and
found many more potentials by tracting out a part of an apartment
complex in our area that we have not hit up yet. I went on exchanges
with Elder Brand this past week and really enjoyed it (to my
surprise). He was the assistant to the president for the past 10 1/2
months before becoming my zone leader this transfer and he set up
exchanges with me on the very first day he was here for the very first
week. It was a blast to work with someone who wants to work hard, has
the Spirit with him all the time, loves the Lord, and knows how to do
missionary work. I learned a lot from him and had a great time. He
reminds me a lot of Samuel Hord because his brain was always going
about 9,000,000 miles an hour and would go from subject to subject
every other second and expect me to keep up somehow. Also, he could
talk all day long about everything. Haha, fun times. Elder Gomes and
I have been getting along really well too and are working really hard
to do everything we can in this area. The Lord has truly blessed us
in one week to see things completely turn around.
We have started to teach Thomas' wife, Eva. Both are from Sudan if
you remember and both are very excited about the gospel. However, the
marriage thing keeps causing problems. Both of them dream of gettting
married in Sudan in about a year and want to wait to get baptized for
that long until after they are married. They understand why they
should get married and when they bear their testimonies, you can feel
the Spirit and the power of what they are saying but they have no
desire to act for a YEAR. AHHHH! We will continue working with them
though and see what happens. They are the nicest people and are
amazing, so something will work out.
Steve's sons - Austin and Hunter - are on date solidly for April 9 and
are so excited for it. So is Steve. All of them are loving the
gospel and the church and everything. It is amazing to see what truly
converted people can do and how they feel and how they think now.
Steve's wife Tammie has also agreed to meet with us and now we just
have to nail down a time when we can start teaching and working with
her to help her get baptized. Our goal is to get the whole family to
the temple and that is the whole goal of the ward as well.
We started to teach a man named Frank Califetti and he is really open
to learning about the gospel. He has taken the lessons before but
they weren't really done right. He never read or prayed about the
Book of Mormon. I have been finding that so much in this area - the
missionaries just hang out with people and don't ever teach them. Or
they teach them but not according to their needs or understanding.
What good does it do to keep giving people more information, if they
aren't even understanding or living what you have taught before. You
have to go back and reteach and recommit until they can get there.
Sorry, I will get off my soapbox. But dumb missionaries drive me
crazy. I can understand the ones that at least taught lessons, but I
cannot understand the ones that just hung out with nonmembers and
called it missionary work. They ruin everything for the rest of us
when they do that.
Two less active ladies named Bobbie Noorda and Jennifer Golson are
really progressing. Both are so excited to attend church and both are
understanding the things that they read from the Book of Mormon. Both
have had their faces truly light up by the Spirit and it is amazing to
see the change. Both are so much happier and so much more peaceful.
I love the gospel. It is amazing to watch how much easier the Spirit
makes things as well. I have now observed that when people do not
have the Spirit, they do not have any understanding of what they try
to read from the Book of Mormon. As soon as they have the Spirit
though, they understand the things that they read and start to truly
find the gospel to be "delicious" to them. I guess it all happens
when they plant that seed that Alma 32 talks about and just barely see
the growth start to happen, that is what I have been seeing and it is
the greatest miracle.
Well, I don't have anything more really to write. I guess life just
seems so much the same that I don't have anything new to share and
don't want to bore you all. But the people are always different and
each and everyone of them is a miracle and a wonder. Each is a
precious child of our Heavenly Father and I have come to love them so
much.
Love and Prayers,
Elder Hughes
P.S. I have now officially been out 18 months. That is scary and not
wanted, the mission could slow down quite a bit this last 6 months and
that would be just fine with me. There is so much work to do and so
not enough time to do it in!
This week has been really great, with the exception that my headaches
are back again. I don't know why, I haven't really been doing
anything different but I have that constant headache that I would get
sometimes back home that just goes for weeks and weeks and weeks and
drains me of energy. I will be ok though, I always am. The work in
our area has really picked back up though and that makes Elder Gomes
and I VERY excited and happy. We were able to pick up 4 new
investigators in the past two days from 3 different families and
found many more potentials by tracting out a part of an apartment
complex in our area that we have not hit up yet. I went on exchanges
with Elder Brand this past week and really enjoyed it (to my
surprise). He was the assistant to the president for the past 10 1/2
months before becoming my zone leader this transfer and he set up
exchanges with me on the very first day he was here for the very first
week. It was a blast to work with someone who wants to work hard, has
the Spirit with him all the time, loves the Lord, and knows how to do
missionary work. I learned a lot from him and had a great time. He
reminds me a lot of Samuel Hord because his brain was always going
about 9,000,000 miles an hour and would go from subject to subject
every other second and expect me to keep up somehow. Also, he could
talk all day long about everything. Haha, fun times. Elder Gomes and
I have been getting along really well too and are working really hard
to do everything we can in this area. The Lord has truly blessed us
in one week to see things completely turn around.
We have started to teach Thomas' wife, Eva. Both are from Sudan if
you remember and both are very excited about the gospel. However, the
marriage thing keeps causing problems. Both of them dream of gettting
married in Sudan in about a year and want to wait to get baptized for
that long until after they are married. They understand why they
should get married and when they bear their testimonies, you can feel
the Spirit and the power of what they are saying but they have no
desire to act for a YEAR. AHHHH! We will continue working with them
though and see what happens. They are the nicest people and are
amazing, so something will work out.
Steve's sons - Austin and Hunter - are on date solidly for April 9 and
are so excited for it. So is Steve. All of them are loving the
gospel and the church and everything. It is amazing to see what truly
converted people can do and how they feel and how they think now.
Steve's wife Tammie has also agreed to meet with us and now we just
have to nail down a time when we can start teaching and working with
her to help her get baptized. Our goal is to get the whole family to
the temple and that is the whole goal of the ward as well.
We started to teach a man named Frank Califetti and he is really open
to learning about the gospel. He has taken the lessons before but
they weren't really done right. He never read or prayed about the
Book of Mormon. I have been finding that so much in this area - the
missionaries just hang out with people and don't ever teach them. Or
they teach them but not according to their needs or understanding.
What good does it do to keep giving people more information, if they
aren't even understanding or living what you have taught before. You
have to go back and reteach and recommit until they can get there.
Sorry, I will get off my soapbox. But dumb missionaries drive me
crazy. I can understand the ones that at least taught lessons, but I
cannot understand the ones that just hung out with nonmembers and
called it missionary work. They ruin everything for the rest of us
when they do that.
Two less active ladies named Bobbie Noorda and Jennifer Golson are
really progressing. Both are so excited to attend church and both are
understanding the things that they read from the Book of Mormon. Both
have had their faces truly light up by the Spirit and it is amazing to
see the change. Both are so much happier and so much more peaceful.
I love the gospel. It is amazing to watch how much easier the Spirit
makes things as well. I have now observed that when people do not
have the Spirit, they do not have any understanding of what they try
to read from the Book of Mormon. As soon as they have the Spirit
though, they understand the things that they read and start to truly
find the gospel to be "delicious" to them. I guess it all happens
when they plant that seed that Alma 32 talks about and just barely see
the growth start to happen, that is what I have been seeing and it is
the greatest miracle.
Well, I don't have anything more really to write. I guess life just
seems so much the same that I don't have anything new to share and
don't want to bore you all. But the people are always different and
each and everyone of them is a miracle and a wonder. Each is a
precious child of our Heavenly Father and I have come to love them so
much.
Love and Prayers,
Elder Hughes
P.S. I have now officially been out 18 months. That is scary and not
wanted, the mission could slow down quite a bit this last 6 months and
that would be just fine with me. There is so much work to do and so
not enough time to do it in!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Hello everybody!
Well life has been going fairly well. Elder Noll has been transferred and it was pretty weird to get a new companion. You just get so used to being with someone after a few months that change is weird. I don't know how else to describe it. My new companion is Elder Gomes and he is from Cape Verde off of West Africa. His native language is Portuguese and he is excited to not be covering the Portuguese assignment at this point. He has been out about a year and seems like a good guy. This will be my first companion from a different country so I am kind of excited for it. Plus now dinners can start making protien. I will actually get meat! haha, I didn't know how much I have missed a good pot roast or barbecue chicken or stuff like that until I started thinking about the things that would change after Elder Noll got transferred. Also, it will be an interesting experience to go introduce Elder Gomes to all of the people we are teaching and all the members because I think he is the first non-Caucasion missionary this area has ever seen. That will be very good. Not a whole lot new is really going on. We are playing the finding game and are so far losing terribly at it. So we need to pray harder and exercise more faith. Thomas, who was on date for baptism, has now fallen off. We finally were able to get out of him that he is not "legally" married, just "traditionally" married (whatever that really means to people from Sudan). It was hard to get him to understand the difference and why he still has the need to be legally married in order to live God's commandments. His wife has thrown up a fence because she only wants to be married in Sudan where her family is and so wants to wait a year until they can save up the money to fly home and get that done. Thomas isn't going to move out (they have kids) and he doesn't have the money too anyway. So there was one brickwall. I don't know how we are going to break through it yet, but we will keep teaching the gospel in their home and see if the Spirit can help them to change and become converted so they will get married. At least he is keeping the rest of the commandments including no drinking or coffee and paying tithing. But the marriage thing is the hold up. Life can't ever be too easy. Our apartment is sparkling clean! Elder Noll and I thoroughly deep cleaned all of it. All the floors, all the clutter, all the you-name-it and it looks awesome. There also happens to be a lot more room now that we got rid of all the junk that previous missionaries had left behind. There is something amazing about living in a clean home. Our landlords were very impressed as well (I don't think anyone had ever really cleaned that basement apartment before - not their kids or other missionares) and my goal is to keep it looking as good as possible. Well, that is my report this week. I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Well life has been going fairly well. Elder Noll has been transferred and it was pretty weird to get a new companion. You just get so used to being with someone after a few months that change is weird. I don't know how else to describe it. My new companion is Elder Gomes and he is from Cape Verde off of West Africa. His native language is Portuguese and he is excited to not be covering the Portuguese assignment at this point. He has been out about a year and seems like a good guy. This will be my first companion from a different country so I am kind of excited for it. Plus now dinners can start making protien. I will actually get meat! haha, I didn't know how much I have missed a good pot roast or barbecue chicken or stuff like that until I started thinking about the things that would change after Elder Noll got transferred. Also, it will be an interesting experience to go introduce Elder Gomes to all of the people we are teaching and all the members because I think he is the first non-Caucasion missionary this area has ever seen. That will be very good. Not a whole lot new is really going on. We are playing the finding game and are so far losing terribly at it. So we need to pray harder and exercise more faith. Thomas, who was on date for baptism, has now fallen off. We finally were able to get out of him that he is not "legally" married, just "traditionally" married (whatever that really means to people from Sudan). It was hard to get him to understand the difference and why he still has the need to be legally married in order to live God's commandments. His wife has thrown up a fence because she only wants to be married in Sudan where her family is and so wants to wait a year until they can save up the money to fly home and get that done. Thomas isn't going to move out (they have kids) and he doesn't have the money too anyway. So there was one brickwall. I don't know how we are going to break through it yet, but we will keep teaching the gospel in their home and see if the Spirit can help them to change and become converted so they will get married. At least he is keeping the rest of the commandments including no drinking or coffee and paying tithing. But the marriage thing is the hold up. Life can't ever be too easy. Our apartment is sparkling clean! Elder Noll and I thoroughly deep cleaned all of it. All the floors, all the clutter, all the you-name-it and it looks awesome. There also happens to be a lot more room now that we got rid of all the junk that previous missionaries had left behind. There is something amazing about living in a clean home. Our landlords were very impressed as well (I don't think anyone had ever really cleaned that basement apartment before - not their kids or other missionares) and my goal is to keep it looking as good as possible. Well, that is my report this week. I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Good morning everybody!
Well, life has been going fairly good up here in Utah. I did manage to catch a pretty bad cold this past week but my landlords, the Smith's have actually been able to help out a lot. They showed me how to take grounded cayene pepper shots. They are really hot and spicy but they clean you out fast and make you feel a ton better in not very much time at all. They even gave me so more today so I can take some to stay strong and relatively healthy. You mix about a tablespoon of cayene pepper with just enough water to have to dissolve - about 2 or 3 gulps worth. Then you just chug and follow it down with milk or bread to keep your mouth from burning too bad. Works like a charm. A lot of other people are getting sick too though, just that time of year I guess. Elder Fordham in my district has been out about the past week with the flu - body aches, headache, chills, fever, vomiting, etc, you name it - he had all the symptoms. So far no one else has got it yet, thank goodness. Ironically, all the rules just changed again. No more going out to meals with family or friends, so there goes that plan with Grandma and Lora and Ashley. I guess I will just have to wait until this fall in order to see anyone when I come home. Also, no more early morning temple trips! AHHHHH! I don't know how I am going to survive without those, but we will find a way somehow I guess. We can still go later in the day on p-day, but my companion is extremely opposed to even the thought of that idea. We will see what happens. Transfers are next Wednesday and you just never know what might change. I'm still shooting for only two areas my whole mission, haha. That means another 4 transfers in this area to go if the Lord allows me to pull that off.
Speaking 3 times this past Sunday was so much fun! I forgot how much fun it is to get up there and share stories and experiences and such. Also, I managed to make all 3 of my talks different (that took some careful planning). The hardest one was speaking about 12 minutes on the great apostasy and not being able to speak about Christ's church in former times or the restoration at all. That took lots of good scritpures and ideas. The other two were just on member missionary work and both were fairly easy thanks to much prayer and pondering. We will see if anything actually happens now that we did speak. The members here in this area just can't be fired up to do missionary work and speaking was about the last option we had left. If that doesn't work, I don't have any more ideas left. Back to tracting all the time I guess. Which I don't mind, but doesn't get very much actual work done at all. We do have a stake youth fireside tonight and another one next week. We are hoping to get a lot of referrals from that and to be able to keep busy the next few weeks checking up on those. Also, President Miller should be training both our stakes on the ward mission process and the ward mission plan in the next month to every single auxiliary,quorum, and ward mission leadership. As well as all the bishopbrics and the stake leadership. We are banking on that helping out as well. We keep praying hard seeking for more guidance, but right now that is all we have received, so we will move forward in faith.
The adversary strikes again. Steve, who was just baptized, had his power turned off on him last week. He had overdue power bills that his wife had been collecting and hiding from him. When Steve finally found out, it was two days before the power kill date. He got nervous about talking to the bishop because he didn't want to put his church membership in jeopardy or his priesthood. That took quite a bit of explaining. It was awe-inspiring though to hear him speak. He was set on living off of canned foods the next 2 weeks with using flashlights to study the scriptures and taking much time to ponder and reflect. He said nothing was worth hurting his standing in the church or with God. Thankfully, he accepted what we taught about the church welfare system and called the bishop who immediately got the power turned back on. It was a miracle. It was so touching though to hear him bear his testimony! I don't know if I would have the faith to sacrifice like he has for the gospel. But he cannot wait to be able to get his endowments from the temple now, his goal is to become the most active Mormon anyone has ever met, haha. So he has now watched the past 3 years worth of every session of general conference or so and took notebooks worth of questions and notes that he enjoyed. Then he has hit the Book of Mormon hard and is determined to read it all very soon from start to finish. That and the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Plus the Gospel Principles manual. He is dedicated and an inspiration to me. He really has the fire of the Spirit and is sharing the gospel with all that he knows. Many of our new investigators that we find will probably come from him. He had found the truth and is trying to share it with any and all that will listen.
Thomas is doing well. He is excited to be baptized on March 26 and is looking forward to it. Everything is going forward there. The ward is getting excited about another baptism and about another strong convert to the church. It is great to teach and work with people who are honestly searching for the truth. Makes the work so much easier and the Spirit so much stronger.
Other than that, not much else is new. Still trying to work as hard as my companion will allow me by knocking on doors, talking to people in the streets, speaking to all the members,etc. He just has lost all energy though and President and I don't know what to do for him anymore. He can finally agree that he has a testimony and that he agrees and believes in the gospel and in the church. But he has no desire to share it with others or to work. So much more thought and prayer. There has to be some way to get him more excited and engaged.
The weather has been beautiful. Some rain and cloudy days, but no snow or freezing weather. Life is good, but moving much too fast for my liking or enjoyment, lol. But I don't think it ever really slows down. I am still good on contacts, I have plenty left. Also, I was sent to a dermatologist a few weeks ago (thanks to President) and so have new acne medicine that I am trying so I won't be needing any more of that for awhile.
Love and prayers for you all!
Elder Hughes
Well, life has been going fairly good up here in Utah. I did manage to catch a pretty bad cold this past week but my landlords, the Smith's have actually been able to help out a lot. They showed me how to take grounded cayene pepper shots. They are really hot and spicy but they clean you out fast and make you feel a ton better in not very much time at all. They even gave me so more today so I can take some to stay strong and relatively healthy. You mix about a tablespoon of cayene pepper with just enough water to have to dissolve - about 2 or 3 gulps worth. Then you just chug and follow it down with milk or bread to keep your mouth from burning too bad. Works like a charm. A lot of other people are getting sick too though, just that time of year I guess. Elder Fordham in my district has been out about the past week with the flu - body aches, headache, chills, fever, vomiting, etc, you name it - he had all the symptoms. So far no one else has got it yet, thank goodness. Ironically, all the rules just changed again. No more going out to meals with family or friends, so there goes that plan with Grandma and Lora and Ashley. I guess I will just have to wait until this fall in order to see anyone when I come home. Also, no more early morning temple trips! AHHHHH! I don't know how I am going to survive without those, but we will find a way somehow I guess. We can still go later in the day on p-day, but my companion is extremely opposed to even the thought of that idea. We will see what happens. Transfers are next Wednesday and you just never know what might change. I'm still shooting for only two areas my whole mission, haha. That means another 4 transfers in this area to go if the Lord allows me to pull that off.
Speaking 3 times this past Sunday was so much fun! I forgot how much fun it is to get up there and share stories and experiences and such. Also, I managed to make all 3 of my talks different (that took some careful planning). The hardest one was speaking about 12 minutes on the great apostasy and not being able to speak about Christ's church in former times or the restoration at all. That took lots of good scritpures and ideas. The other two were just on member missionary work and both were fairly easy thanks to much prayer and pondering. We will see if anything actually happens now that we did speak. The members here in this area just can't be fired up to do missionary work and speaking was about the last option we had left. If that doesn't work, I don't have any more ideas left. Back to tracting all the time I guess. Which I don't mind, but doesn't get very much actual work done at all. We do have a stake youth fireside tonight and another one next week. We are hoping to get a lot of referrals from that and to be able to keep busy the next few weeks checking up on those. Also, President Miller should be training both our stakes on the ward mission process and the ward mission plan in the next month to every single auxiliary,quorum, and ward mission leadership. As well as all the bishopbrics and the stake leadership. We are banking on that helping out as well. We keep praying hard seeking for more guidance, but right now that is all we have received, so we will move forward in faith.
The adversary strikes again. Steve, who was just baptized, had his power turned off on him last week. He had overdue power bills that his wife had been collecting and hiding from him. When Steve finally found out, it was two days before the power kill date. He got nervous about talking to the bishop because he didn't want to put his church membership in jeopardy or his priesthood. That took quite a bit of explaining. It was awe-inspiring though to hear him speak. He was set on living off of canned foods the next 2 weeks with using flashlights to study the scriptures and taking much time to ponder and reflect. He said nothing was worth hurting his standing in the church or with God. Thankfully, he accepted what we taught about the church welfare system and called the bishop who immediately got the power turned back on. It was a miracle. It was so touching though to hear him bear his testimony! I don't know if I would have the faith to sacrifice like he has for the gospel. But he cannot wait to be able to get his endowments from the temple now, his goal is to become the most active Mormon anyone has ever met, haha. So he has now watched the past 3 years worth of every session of general conference or so and took notebooks worth of questions and notes that he enjoyed. Then he has hit the Book of Mormon hard and is determined to read it all very soon from start to finish. That and the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Plus the Gospel Principles manual. He is dedicated and an inspiration to me. He really has the fire of the Spirit and is sharing the gospel with all that he knows. Many of our new investigators that we find will probably come from him. He had found the truth and is trying to share it with any and all that will listen.
Thomas is doing well. He is excited to be baptized on March 26 and is looking forward to it. Everything is going forward there. The ward is getting excited about another baptism and about another strong convert to the church. It is great to teach and work with people who are honestly searching for the truth. Makes the work so much easier and the Spirit so much stronger.
Other than that, not much else is new. Still trying to work as hard as my companion will allow me by knocking on doors, talking to people in the streets, speaking to all the members,etc. He just has lost all energy though and President and I don't know what to do for him anymore. He can finally agree that he has a testimony and that he agrees and believes in the gospel and in the church. But he has no desire to share it with others or to work. So much more thought and prayer. There has to be some way to get him more excited and engaged.
The weather has been beautiful. Some rain and cloudy days, but no snow or freezing weather. Life is good, but moving much too fast for my liking or enjoyment, lol. But I don't think it ever really slows down. I am still good on contacts, I have plenty left. Also, I was sent to a dermatologist a few weeks ago (thanks to President) and so have new acne medicine that I am trying so I won't be needing any more of that for awhile.
Love and prayers for you all!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Good afternoon everybody!
Well, things have been going fairly good and at least we are getting our faces and our names out there as much as possible. The members are finally starting to trust us and to come around, it just took a long time of being obedient and tracting and bringing our own investigators to church and showing them we really do try in order to get there. But we got there. We finally are speaking in church! You don't know how excited I am for that, it means bishops are trusting us enough now. We are giving three talks each this Sunday - one at 9, one at 11, and one at 1. The latter two are both about missionary work (easy enough) but the first one I have to talk about the Great Apostasy and Elder Noll is speaking before me about Christ's original church. Then someone else will follow after us about the restoration of the gospel. Kind of a cool set up, huh? I'll let you know how those go next week when I write, but I am so excited! I love to speak in sacrament meetings now, it's a passion. Plus now I have all the stories and experiences to share from my mission so far and there are so many so talking is easy. Also, we are doing two youth firesides in the next two weeks. Both to about 100 kids each from both stakes' entire young men and young women groups. Then President Miller is going to come train our two stakes soon on doing missionary work, Elder Packer's missionary process, and ward mission plans. So the area is being innudated by missionary fire right now and it is really starting to catch on. We have a few families who are so excited about doing the 21 day challenge and who are loving it! I have never seen someone so excited to share the gospel with others and to invite people to meet with the missionaries as these few families that have really caught the spirit of it. The work has stopped being work now and has started to be a lot of fun! These are the best times and reminds me of my old area and how the work was going there. Elder Noll is somewhat less than excited about all our various speaking opportunities these next few weeks but he has agreed to give it a try and see what happens. Gotta love him for that. He has been doing a lot better recently and I have found him to be quite a bold missionary - no qualms about extending people a baptismal date and helping them to accept and work for that date. He just goes out and does it. Now if I could only help him to enjoy tracting as much as he does putting people on date, we would be set and nothing could stop us. But that hasn't happened quite yet so we will keep working hard and see what happens.
Last Friday, we received an all day training from Br. Allen who is the managing director of missionary work for the entire church. I love being in Utah because we get to have all these amazing speakers and the people who wrote Preach My Gospel come train us and teach us and help us to improve. Nothing better than that. Needless to say, as there always is, we were called to repentance on quite a few things - some I have never even thought about. But I am trying to be much better and to become the missionary God wants me to be and the First Presidency expects me to be. Lots of good stuff. I think the I thing that I liked the most that he said was about that people who "mostly" keep the commandments, who "mostly" do the right thing, who "mostly" do what they can aren't going to cut it. We call that the Terrestrial kingdom people. We cannot afford to be a "mostly" person. We need to be and "all the way" person, for that is who God expects us to be and that is who we must be to enter into the Celestial kingdom. That is what we promised at baptism and each week as we take the sacrament and we need to live up to these commitments. There can be no exceptions. I wasn't doing things terribly wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn't giving it all my "heart, might, mind, and strength" as the scriptures say. So I am going to stop being a "mostly" person now and just be an "all the way" person. I can do that or at least give it my best shot.
What else has happened? Let's see...another major snowstorm came through. Made walking and biking SO much fun again, haha. But the weather calls for sunshine and 50 degrees for the next little while and we are so excited for the heat wave. Never thought I would think of 50 degrees as a heat wave, but there you have it. Steve was confirmed this past week in sacrament meeting and it is amazing to see that expereince and its effect. Not only on Steve individually, but on the whole ward. Now the whole ward wants to do missionary work, they want to be involved more, they want to go out with us and partcipate in misisonary work, it's great! The miracle of a convert baptism has really changed the entire ward and their perspective and the work is really sailing in that ward now. We have 3 different investigators there now and all are progressing nicely towards baptism within the next month. Things are just going so awesome! I am loving it!
Also, I got the news that Grandma is going to come help pick up Lora and I started thinking about it. If they (Grandma and Lora) were at all interested, they could come up and meet me for lunch. Dad couldn't and I don't know what he would do, but they could. Just a thought, let me know if they are interested at all or if that is even a possibility.
I will also have you know I am finally living up to the cleaning expectations you raised me with Mom. My apartment is now vacummed, swept, washed, clutter free every week and many times throughout the week. I think you would be proud and it has made life so much better not to be messy even a little bit. So all those hours you spent making me mop and sweep that kitchen or my dish day or vacuuming the family room for the 10th time that day are worth it and I thank you. Cherish that thought because I probably will not have the same sentiment again, hahahaha.
That is about I think everything that has been going on this week. I love you all and pray for you!
Elder Hughes
Well, things have been going fairly good and at least we are getting our faces and our names out there as much as possible. The members are finally starting to trust us and to come around, it just took a long time of being obedient and tracting and bringing our own investigators to church and showing them we really do try in order to get there. But we got there. We finally are speaking in church! You don't know how excited I am for that, it means bishops are trusting us enough now. We are giving three talks each this Sunday - one at 9, one at 11, and one at 1. The latter two are both about missionary work (easy enough) but the first one I have to talk about the Great Apostasy and Elder Noll is speaking before me about Christ's original church. Then someone else will follow after us about the restoration of the gospel. Kind of a cool set up, huh? I'll let you know how those go next week when I write, but I am so excited! I love to speak in sacrament meetings now, it's a passion. Plus now I have all the stories and experiences to share from my mission so far and there are so many so talking is easy. Also, we are doing two youth firesides in the next two weeks. Both to about 100 kids each from both stakes' entire young men and young women groups. Then President Miller is going to come train our two stakes soon on doing missionary work, Elder Packer's missionary process, and ward mission plans. So the area is being innudated by missionary fire right now and it is really starting to catch on. We have a few families who are so excited about doing the 21 day challenge and who are loving it! I have never seen someone so excited to share the gospel with others and to invite people to meet with the missionaries as these few families that have really caught the spirit of it. The work has stopped being work now and has started to be a lot of fun! These are the best times and reminds me of my old area and how the work was going there. Elder Noll is somewhat less than excited about all our various speaking opportunities these next few weeks but he has agreed to give it a try and see what happens. Gotta love him for that. He has been doing a lot better recently and I have found him to be quite a bold missionary - no qualms about extending people a baptismal date and helping them to accept and work for that date. He just goes out and does it. Now if I could only help him to enjoy tracting as much as he does putting people on date, we would be set and nothing could stop us. But that hasn't happened quite yet so we will keep working hard and see what happens.
Last Friday, we received an all day training from Br. Allen who is the managing director of missionary work for the entire church. I love being in Utah because we get to have all these amazing speakers and the people who wrote Preach My Gospel come train us and teach us and help us to improve. Nothing better than that. Needless to say, as there always is, we were called to repentance on quite a few things - some I have never even thought about. But I am trying to be much better and to become the missionary God wants me to be and the First Presidency expects me to be. Lots of good stuff. I think the I thing that I liked the most that he said was about that people who "mostly" keep the commandments, who "mostly" do the right thing, who "mostly" do what they can aren't going to cut it. We call that the Terrestrial kingdom people. We cannot afford to be a "mostly" person. We need to be and "all the way" person, for that is who God expects us to be and that is who we must be to enter into the Celestial kingdom. That is what we promised at baptism and each week as we take the sacrament and we need to live up to these commitments. There can be no exceptions. I wasn't doing things terribly wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn't giving it all my "heart, might, mind, and strength" as the scriptures say. So I am going to stop being a "mostly" person now and just be an "all the way" person. I can do that or at least give it my best shot.
What else has happened? Let's see...another major snowstorm came through. Made walking and biking SO much fun again, haha. But the weather calls for sunshine and 50 degrees for the next little while and we are so excited for the heat wave. Never thought I would think of 50 degrees as a heat wave, but there you have it. Steve was confirmed this past week in sacrament meeting and it is amazing to see that expereince and its effect. Not only on Steve individually, but on the whole ward. Now the whole ward wants to do missionary work, they want to be involved more, they want to go out with us and partcipate in misisonary work, it's great! The miracle of a convert baptism has really changed the entire ward and their perspective and the work is really sailing in that ward now. We have 3 different investigators there now and all are progressing nicely towards baptism within the next month. Things are just going so awesome! I am loving it!
Also, I got the news that Grandma is going to come help pick up Lora and I started thinking about it. If they (Grandma and Lora) were at all interested, they could come up and meet me for lunch. Dad couldn't and I don't know what he would do, but they could. Just a thought, let me know if they are interested at all or if that is even a possibility.
I will also have you know I am finally living up to the cleaning expectations you raised me with Mom. My apartment is now vacummed, swept, washed, clutter free every week and many times throughout the week. I think you would be proud and it has made life so much better not to be messy even a little bit. So all those hours you spent making me mop and sweep that kitchen or my dish day or vacuuming the family room for the 10th time that day are worth it and I thank you. Cherish that thought because I probably will not have the same sentiment again, hahahaha.
That is about I think everything that has been going on this week. I love you all and pray for you!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Hello everybody!
Well, this week has been a lot of fun! We just got back from going to the Sandy Fun Center and that was a blast. There are great perks to serving in Utah sometimes because we can get in free to certain places on P-day. So today we played laser tag and I won as the Dark Knight. That was tons of fun. Plus we got to use the skating rink (I just chose to use a scooter to go around on because it is VERY hard to biff hard on that compared to roller blades or skates). And all the inflatable toys - giant slides and obstacle courses. It was quite a work out and the time went by fast, much too fast. I also found out I am now a champion at the whac-a-mole style games. You know the ones where the things pop up and you hit them with a little foam hammer. I set the record and so got to get a disco ball necklace with my tickets that came out from the game. Don't know when I will really get to wear it, but it was awesome. Oh, I also managed to roll my ankle earlier in the week, so I had to wrap it up all week long but it is now almost all the way healed so no worries about that. It did get fairly big for a while, about 2 to 3 times as big as normal. Had a hard time fitting on a dress shoe, that is for sure. But life goes on. Not nearly as bad as having to ride a horse out of Havasupai
because my ankle was mega-huge at the time. Another crazy things happened too! I got another wedding announcement, good to know people are keeping those temple sealers busy, haha. Melissa Crandall is happily engaged and set to get married this month. That blows my mind! I will have to find a completely new group of friends when I get home because there will be no one left, but I don't mind it. I find it amusing to see all these things start to happen. I still haven't really gotten over the fact that Drew and Samuel are back home now too. How did that happen. I swear that they just barely left the other day, turns out two years went by. Go figure.
Steve Wright got baptized this week and that was an AMAZING experience. I don't think he has stopped smiling since that time or that he plans on doing that anytime soon. Also, he has sets on his sights on getting everyone else in the whole world baptized now, particularly his family. He hopes to baptize his son in about 2 to 3 weeks and already has a countdown going in his head for it. When his son voiced the concern that he wanted to learn a lot more first, Steve just told him that all he needs to know is that the church is true, he can learn everything the church teaches for years after he is baptized, haha. We didn't even have to do everything, Steve pretty much taught him the doctrine perfectly and then bore his powerful testimony. He is already such a good missionary, the members in his ward could learn a thing or two from him, lol. Thomas John attended the baptism for Steve. He is another investigator that we tracted into in that ward. He is from Sudan and is pretty excited to get baptized now himself. He loved all the people that he met and was excited to come back to church again this next Sunday. We plan on giving him a date on Friday when we go teach him again. Also, we plan on giving our Native American investigator Walter a date. He finally is back in town and we were finally able to get an appointment. Missionary work, I feel, is about 90% chasing these people down, 9% teaching, and then 1% baptizing. But it makes it all the hard work and frustration worth it when someone does get baptized. Everything just feels so much better and goes so much better after that.
I sent out letters yesterday that I wrote a week ago. I forgot I still had them, sorry. But hopefully you will all get one in the next few days. I am trying to write better now, at least a little bit. Writing is so much harder now though than it used to be, I don't know why. My thoughts don't flow as easy and it doesn't sound nearly as good as it used to. Probably because I have only been reading the scriptures the past year and a half and haven't read my good ol' classics books so my vocabularly and grammar usuage have gone down. But oh well, I am sure they will come back after the mission.
We had an amazing stake conference this past week. The theme was on Proverbs 3:5-6 : "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct they paths." The adult session was the most powerful church meeting I have ever attended in my life. They had people speak who have had truly difficult lives and how those trials have helped them to get to know the Lord better and to put all their trust in Him. There was a lady in her 20's who was a cancer survivor, then a lady in her 40's who has 10 kids and had to go through a rough divorce and then suffered a stroke and a heart condition right after that, then a quadraplegic elder's quorum president, and the list could go on. I was so touched by these people who had every reason to hate life, be miserable, give up, etc. But they pressed on and they came out of their trials happier, stronger, and more successful people than before. Each and everyone of them testified to that. The Lord truly knew them and knew exactly what they needed and made sure it happened and then when they put their trust in Him, the blessings just flowed. It was incredible! I don't think I can ever complain about anything in my life now, nothing has ever been that bad or ever been that hard. Some of my favorite quotes: "If we trust in the Lord, we can know that our INDIVIDUAL sorrows can be for our INDIVIDUAL good." "Without meekness and childlike faith we risk being broken by our trials, rather than strengthened." ""How can we trust someone that we don't know? We can't. If we are to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, we must love the Lord with all our hearts." "As a potter knows what technique to use in pottery, the Lord knows what technique to use on us." "No matter what our situations are in life, Heavenly Father will give us ALL the blessings of eternity if we follow Him and keep His commandments." It was spiritually overwhelming to listen to these people's testimonies and stories and to also look back at my own life and how the Lord has guided my footsteps as I put my trust in Him. Man, it was just so powerful. I don't even know how to describe it.
Well, I think that pretty much sums up this week. The weather has been great, spring is on the way! Some of the buds have started to shoot forth little greens leaves and the blossoms of the flowers cannot be too far behind! Soon, all the pretty tulips will be up and all the trees will be covered in the most gorgeous blossoms and I won't mind being in Utah again. Not one bit. Can't wait for that. I have been using the bike quite a bit recently, but it is still so cold. It will be nice to bike without gloves and scarf and hat sometimes. And to be wearing no suit coat but a short sleeve shirt.
Much love and prayers!
Elder Hughes
PS Thanks for the box! and thanks for the letter Grandma Hughes, I enjoyed it! And you too Great Grandma Anna! If you get the chance to go to Melissa's reception anyone, tell her congratulations from me!
Well, this week has been a lot of fun! We just got back from going to the Sandy Fun Center and that was a blast. There are great perks to serving in Utah sometimes because we can get in free to certain places on P-day. So today we played laser tag and I won as the Dark Knight. That was tons of fun. Plus we got to use the skating rink (I just chose to use a scooter to go around on because it is VERY hard to biff hard on that compared to roller blades or skates). And all the inflatable toys - giant slides and obstacle courses. It was quite a work out and the time went by fast, much too fast. I also found out I am now a champion at the whac-a-mole style games. You know the ones where the things pop up and you hit them with a little foam hammer. I set the record and so got to get a disco ball necklace with my tickets that came out from the game. Don't know when I will really get to wear it, but it was awesome. Oh, I also managed to roll my ankle earlier in the week, so I had to wrap it up all week long but it is now almost all the way healed so no worries about that. It did get fairly big for a while, about 2 to 3 times as big as normal. Had a hard time fitting on a dress shoe, that is for sure. But life goes on. Not nearly as bad as having to ride a horse out of Havasupai
because my ankle was mega-huge at the time. Another crazy things happened too! I got another wedding announcement, good to know people are keeping those temple sealers busy, haha. Melissa Crandall is happily engaged and set to get married this month. That blows my mind! I will have to find a completely new group of friends when I get home because there will be no one left, but I don't mind it. I find it amusing to see all these things start to happen. I still haven't really gotten over the fact that Drew and Samuel are back home now too. How did that happen. I swear that they just barely left the other day, turns out two years went by. Go figure.
Steve Wright got baptized this week and that was an AMAZING experience. I don't think he has stopped smiling since that time or that he plans on doing that anytime soon. Also, he has sets on his sights on getting everyone else in the whole world baptized now, particularly his family. He hopes to baptize his son in about 2 to 3 weeks and already has a countdown going in his head for it. When his son voiced the concern that he wanted to learn a lot more first, Steve just told him that all he needs to know is that the church is true, he can learn everything the church teaches for years after he is baptized, haha. We didn't even have to do everything, Steve pretty much taught him the doctrine perfectly and then bore his powerful testimony. He is already such a good missionary, the members in his ward could learn a thing or two from him, lol. Thomas John attended the baptism for Steve. He is another investigator that we tracted into in that ward. He is from Sudan and is pretty excited to get baptized now himself. He loved all the people that he met and was excited to come back to church again this next Sunday. We plan on giving him a date on Friday when we go teach him again. Also, we plan on giving our Native American investigator Walter a date. He finally is back in town and we were finally able to get an appointment. Missionary work, I feel, is about 90% chasing these people down, 9% teaching, and then 1% baptizing. But it makes it all the hard work and frustration worth it when someone does get baptized. Everything just feels so much better and goes so much better after that.
I sent out letters yesterday that I wrote a week ago. I forgot I still had them, sorry. But hopefully you will all get one in the next few days. I am trying to write better now, at least a little bit. Writing is so much harder now though than it used to be, I don't know why. My thoughts don't flow as easy and it doesn't sound nearly as good as it used to. Probably because I have only been reading the scriptures the past year and a half and haven't read my good ol' classics books so my vocabularly and grammar usuage have gone down. But oh well, I am sure they will come back after the mission.
We had an amazing stake conference this past week. The theme was on Proverbs 3:5-6 : "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct they paths." The adult session was the most powerful church meeting I have ever attended in my life. They had people speak who have had truly difficult lives and how those trials have helped them to get to know the Lord better and to put all their trust in Him. There was a lady in her 20's who was a cancer survivor, then a lady in her 40's who has 10 kids and had to go through a rough divorce and then suffered a stroke and a heart condition right after that, then a quadraplegic elder's quorum president, and the list could go on. I was so touched by these people who had every reason to hate life, be miserable, give up, etc. But they pressed on and they came out of their trials happier, stronger, and more successful people than before. Each and everyone of them testified to that. The Lord truly knew them and knew exactly what they needed and made sure it happened and then when they put their trust in Him, the blessings just flowed. It was incredible! I don't think I can ever complain about anything in my life now, nothing has ever been that bad or ever been that hard. Some of my favorite quotes: "If we trust in the Lord, we can know that our INDIVIDUAL sorrows can be for our INDIVIDUAL good." "Without meekness and childlike faith we risk being broken by our trials, rather than strengthened." ""How can we trust someone that we don't know? We can't. If we are to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, we must love the Lord with all our hearts." "As a potter knows what technique to use in pottery, the Lord knows what technique to use on us." "No matter what our situations are in life, Heavenly Father will give us ALL the blessings of eternity if we follow Him and keep His commandments." It was spiritually overwhelming to listen to these people's testimonies and stories and to also look back at my own life and how the Lord has guided my footsteps as I put my trust in Him. Man, it was just so powerful. I don't even know how to describe it.
Well, I think that pretty much sums up this week. The weather has been great, spring is on the way! Some of the buds have started to shoot forth little greens leaves and the blossoms of the flowers cannot be too far behind! Soon, all the pretty tulips will be up and all the trees will be covered in the most gorgeous blossoms and I won't mind being in Utah again. Not one bit. Can't wait for that. I have been using the bike quite a bit recently, but it is still so cold. It will be nice to bike without gloves and scarf and hat sometimes. And to be wearing no suit coat but a short sleeve shirt.
Much love and prayers!
Elder Hughes
PS Thanks for the box! and thanks for the letter Grandma Hughes, I enjoyed it! And you too Great Grandma Anna! If you get the chance to go to Melissa's reception anyone, tell her congratulations from me!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Hello everybody!
Well time is running out fast today. But this week has been really great. We had a snow storm a few days ago after a decent rain storm (so weird that it warms up enough to rain and then cools off enough again to snow, I don't get that). We have been walking/riding bikes for the past week because we are now back to sharing the car and the person that we share the car with now we don't see very often. Only on Thursdays, so that has been good for us. My legs are really burning from biking up the hills and around town, but it has been fun. So much faster and better than walking everywhere, that is for sure. We are finally getting around to taking down the Valentine's decorations and it is kind of sad to see them go. We have a few Saint Patrick's Day ones though so that will be good and we are excited about that. Also for Easter, there are lots of decorations for that. I have come to enjoy sweet potatoes a lot these past few transfers becuase that is what Elder Noll can eat, that plus every other kind of vegetable and fruit. It has been quite interesting to eat the way a vegan would eat and I have to say it isn't too bad. But I do miss meat and bread and something that isn't sherbert or oreos for dessert. I have been making eggs at home though for lunch or breakfast and lots of sandwiches for meals too so I am trying to get the protien that I need. We have also been doing a lot better at working out in the morning. I get in about 100 sit ups, 500 crunchies, 10 minutes of jumping rope (that is hard), some jogging and maybe some basketball shooting. I cannot make a basketball go in the hoop to save my life so I don't play with anyone but sometimes it is fun just to shoot around for a few minutes.
We found a new person to start teaching this week. His name is Thomas John and he comes from Sudan. His wife is not a big fan of us because she doesn't like the church but this guy has been very prepared. We shared the message of the Restoration with him a few days ago and he ate it all up. He said that it "resonated" with him and that he felt everything was true. He was so excited to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and go to church. Also, when we asked him about baptism, he said "of course!". Now we just have to set a date. We are excited about him and to start working with him fairly frequently. Also, he can only meet with us in the mornings which is just perfect because that is the hardest time to fill and to stay busy. Now we won't have to worry about that for a few weeks at least.
Steve is progressing towards baptism for this Sunday at 7 PM. He is so excited and we are so excited for him. He calls us his family and I think if we didn't teach him every day we would miss him just as much as he would miss us. We went out today and bought him a Dallas Cowboy tie to give him at the baptism. He only has one tie to wear and wanted to get him something special, his whole life revolves around the Dallas Cowboys so we thought that would be perfect. Now that his whole life revolves around the Cowboys and the church, might as well bring the two together. He takes everything that we teach and immediately applies it to his own life and gives up his bad habits without any backward glances at all. It is amazing to watch and a miracle. We have been calling everyone in the ward and trying to get them to come out to his baptism. They really kind of fail at fellowshipping and I don't even think they notice that they don't talk to Steve at church or smile or wave at him. We are working on changing that but it is so hard! How do you change an entire ward's mentality and course of action? There are so many potentials that we have in that ward but without and fellowship they are getting nowhere and it is frustrating! We are hoping and praying that the baptism will soften their hearts a little bit and help them to catch the missionary spirit.
Other than that, I don't think I have much to report. Life is going great and fantastic and all that jazz. We go out and teach and tract and work and we have been blessed with a baptism every week this month as a result. Plus friendships that will last a lifetime. Missionary work is amazing and I truly love and enjoy doing it. I am going to miss doing this everyday and seeing people's lives change so much for the better and their faces lighting up, etc. Good that I still have quite a while left is all I got to say.
I love and pray for you all! Hope everything is going well!
Elder Hughes
Well time is running out fast today. But this week has been really great. We had a snow storm a few days ago after a decent rain storm (so weird that it warms up enough to rain and then cools off enough again to snow, I don't get that). We have been walking/riding bikes for the past week because we are now back to sharing the car and the person that we share the car with now we don't see very often. Only on Thursdays, so that has been good for us. My legs are really burning from biking up the hills and around town, but it has been fun. So much faster and better than walking everywhere, that is for sure. We are finally getting around to taking down the Valentine's decorations and it is kind of sad to see them go. We have a few Saint Patrick's Day ones though so that will be good and we are excited about that. Also for Easter, there are lots of decorations for that. I have come to enjoy sweet potatoes a lot these past few transfers becuase that is what Elder Noll can eat, that plus every other kind of vegetable and fruit. It has been quite interesting to eat the way a vegan would eat and I have to say it isn't too bad. But I do miss meat and bread and something that isn't sherbert or oreos for dessert. I have been making eggs at home though for lunch or breakfast and lots of sandwiches for meals too so I am trying to get the protien that I need. We have also been doing a lot better at working out in the morning. I get in about 100 sit ups, 500 crunchies, 10 minutes of jumping rope (that is hard), some jogging and maybe some basketball shooting. I cannot make a basketball go in the hoop to save my life so I don't play with anyone but sometimes it is fun just to shoot around for a few minutes.
We found a new person to start teaching this week. His name is Thomas John and he comes from Sudan. His wife is not a big fan of us because she doesn't like the church but this guy has been very prepared. We shared the message of the Restoration with him a few days ago and he ate it all up. He said that it "resonated" with him and that he felt everything was true. He was so excited to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and go to church. Also, when we asked him about baptism, he said "of course!". Now we just have to set a date. We are excited about him and to start working with him fairly frequently. Also, he can only meet with us in the mornings which is just perfect because that is the hardest time to fill and to stay busy. Now we won't have to worry about that for a few weeks at least.
Steve is progressing towards baptism for this Sunday at 7 PM. He is so excited and we are so excited for him. He calls us his family and I think if we didn't teach him every day we would miss him just as much as he would miss us. We went out today and bought him a Dallas Cowboy tie to give him at the baptism. He only has one tie to wear and wanted to get him something special, his whole life revolves around the Dallas Cowboys so we thought that would be perfect. Now that his whole life revolves around the Cowboys and the church, might as well bring the two together. He takes everything that we teach and immediately applies it to his own life and gives up his bad habits without any backward glances at all. It is amazing to watch and a miracle. We have been calling everyone in the ward and trying to get them to come out to his baptism. They really kind of fail at fellowshipping and I don't even think they notice that they don't talk to Steve at church or smile or wave at him. We are working on changing that but it is so hard! How do you change an entire ward's mentality and course of action? There are so many potentials that we have in that ward but without and fellowship they are getting nowhere and it is frustrating! We are hoping and praying that the baptism will soften their hearts a little bit and help them to catch the missionary spirit.
Other than that, I don't think I have much to report. Life is going great and fantastic and all that jazz. We go out and teach and tract and work and we have been blessed with a baptism every week this month as a result. Plus friendships that will last a lifetime. Missionary work is amazing and I truly love and enjoy doing it. I am going to miss doing this everyday and seeing people's lives change so much for the better and their faces lighting up, etc. Good that I still have quite a while left is all I got to say.
I love and pray for you all! Hope everything is going well!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Spring is here (I wish...)
Good morning everybody!
Well, from the weather the past week, it really does feel like Spring
is here. Upper 40's and lower 50's have had us cracking up the car
windows as we drive down the road and letting the cool air come in.
So nice. Valentine's Day was pretty nice this year - I was able to
put up all the decorations that Grandma Hughes gave me from last year
and this year. It was a lot of fun and my landlords loved it. Even
Elder Noll didn't mind it (he kept rearranging all the heart confetti
that we had on the table to make sure all the colors and sized looked
just perfect it was hilarious to watch him be OCD for once). We are
now driving a 2008 dark gray Chevy Malibu and it looks very nice.
Sadly, the steering, brakes, etc. are not that great and I had to
readjust entirely the way I drive to match. Also, we had an exciting
moment last week driving down the road and then seeing dark smoke
start billowing from underneath the hood. Plus the smell of smoke, so
we got to the next house as soon as we could and popped the hood.
Turns out the power steering fluid was leaking EVERYWHERE and it had
hit the hot engine which then started to burn through it and started
to smoke. Not good. So we took it into Big O and got a loaner
Corrolla for 2 days while it was in the shop. They finally got it
fixed and now it no longer smokes, but it still has other issues. Fun
times. Oh well.
Brian Viewheger is set to get baptized this Saturday and is so excited
for it. It is amazing to see the change that can take place in
people. Then Steve Wright is ready and excited for the next week.
Gavin Beckstead got baptized this past week and that was great.
Things have been really going well in this area, now we just need to
find more people so we can keep staying busy. Always the challenge.
Everyone we are working with has started to progress and is looking
forward to us coming over. It is such a joy to teach people that
actually want to be taught, haha, funny how that works.
We are working with quite a few less actives now too from tracting
into them. That is always fun. The one that is making the most
progress right now is Bobbie Noorda. She came to dinner one night
asking the people who were feeding us for a ride to the bank. She
then planned on taking the bus out west to visit some friends. But
her friend called and cancelled in the car and so Sister Cunningham
asked her to stay for dinner and to meet the missionaries. She
agreed. She walked in very apprehensive about what we would be like
but she just said she felt so comfortable and that everything just
felt so right. So she accpeted the challenge to start meeting with
us. Then she wanted to attend church, just sacrament meeting, but she
felt so comfortable and so loved that she stayed for the whole block.
Then she comes to every lesson we have with her and physically takes
notes of the things we talk about. She writes in the back all the
scriptures we studied together and what she felt and learned. She is
so excited. She is literally gobbling the gospel up and loving it.
What a miracle. She told us before she started to meet with us, she
kept praying for help and guidance and just had nowhere to go.
Nowhere to turn. She immediately took the dinner as an answer to her
prayers and quote a scripture from the Book of Mormon she had read
about how the Lord will answer us when we cry out in our afflictions,
another miracle to her. She is amazing and we love her so much and so
does the ward. Wards that welcome in and fellowship investigators or
less active people are so awesome!
Love and prayers!
Elder Hughes
Well, from the weather the past week, it really does feel like Spring
is here. Upper 40's and lower 50's have had us cracking up the car
windows as we drive down the road and letting the cool air come in.
So nice. Valentine's Day was pretty nice this year - I was able to
put up all the decorations that Grandma Hughes gave me from last year
and this year. It was a lot of fun and my landlords loved it. Even
Elder Noll didn't mind it (he kept rearranging all the heart confetti
that we had on the table to make sure all the colors and sized looked
just perfect it was hilarious to watch him be OCD for once). We are
now driving a 2008 dark gray Chevy Malibu and it looks very nice.
Sadly, the steering, brakes, etc. are not that great and I had to
readjust entirely the way I drive to match. Also, we had an exciting
moment last week driving down the road and then seeing dark smoke
start billowing from underneath the hood. Plus the smell of smoke, so
we got to the next house as soon as we could and popped the hood.
Turns out the power steering fluid was leaking EVERYWHERE and it had
hit the hot engine which then started to burn through it and started
to smoke. Not good. So we took it into Big O and got a loaner
Corrolla for 2 days while it was in the shop. They finally got it
fixed and now it no longer smokes, but it still has other issues. Fun
times. Oh well.
Brian Viewheger is set to get baptized this Saturday and is so excited
for it. It is amazing to see the change that can take place in
people. Then Steve Wright is ready and excited for the next week.
Gavin Beckstead got baptized this past week and that was great.
Things have been really going well in this area, now we just need to
find more people so we can keep staying busy. Always the challenge.
Everyone we are working with has started to progress and is looking
forward to us coming over. It is such a joy to teach people that
actually want to be taught, haha, funny how that works.
We are working with quite a few less actives now too from tracting
into them. That is always fun. The one that is making the most
progress right now is Bobbie Noorda. She came to dinner one night
asking the people who were feeding us for a ride to the bank. She
then planned on taking the bus out west to visit some friends. But
her friend called and cancelled in the car and so Sister Cunningham
asked her to stay for dinner and to meet the missionaries. She
agreed. She walked in very apprehensive about what we would be like
but she just said she felt so comfortable and that everything just
felt so right. So she accpeted the challenge to start meeting with
us. Then she wanted to attend church, just sacrament meeting, but she
felt so comfortable and so loved that she stayed for the whole block.
Then she comes to every lesson we have with her and physically takes
notes of the things we talk about. She writes in the back all the
scriptures we studied together and what she felt and learned. She is
so excited. She is literally gobbling the gospel up and loving it.
What a miracle. She told us before she started to meet with us, she
kept praying for help and guidance and just had nowhere to go.
Nowhere to turn. She immediately took the dinner as an answer to her
prayers and quote a scripture from the Book of Mormon she had read
about how the Lord will answer us when we cry out in our afflictions,
another miracle to her. She is amazing and we love her so much and so
does the ward. Wards that welcome in and fellowship investigators or
less active people are so awesome!
Love and prayers!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Another transfer...come and gone
Happy Valentine's Day! (well almost)
This past week has been really great. Another transfer is now over and a new one just started today. I am still with Elder Noll in Taylorsville, which is great because we finally have a lot of good work going and a lot of amazing people we are teaching! I love being a missionary! My district has changed a lot though. We lost the sisters to another district and picked up another set of Spanish elders instead. Elder Hernadez is now back in my district again with his companion Elder Parra. Elder Parra went to Mountain View High School with me and wrestled there. Cool, huh? The only problem is that Elder Hernadez and Elder Jolly do not get along and I am afraid that they might be back at each other's throats again as soon as we have district meeting tomorrow. We will see though, there has to be some reason the Lord made such a big change. Elder Hernadez's area is about 3 miles west of Elder Fordham and Elder Jolly which is about 3 miles south of us. None of us are close to each other or touch each other. I think we are the only district in the mission that does that. Go figure. I am still district leader and I have to say that I am excited to do it again and to keep giving trainings and really learning to love the missionaries in my district.
The Lord has blessed us with many miracles this past week and we are so excited that He has done so! Steve Wright is excited more than ever to be baptized and to start coming to church. We are trying to help him to get clothes lined up so he feels comfortable in going and that is all he needs. We feel the Spirit so strong everytime we visit with him, it is marvelous. I love teaching people that WANT to be taught, haha. Humility is a major requirement for gospel progression is something that I have really learned. Here is a quote that I wrote to President Miller but I wanted to share with you because of the limited time: "Then we have the baptism of a man named Steve Wright and his son Austin (hopefully). That is the one that I am most excited for of all. The gospel has really helped Steve to change and find purpose again in life. When we tracted into him, he was just separated from his wife of 10 years after they had both hit each other. Then he found out that she had cheated on him for the whole duration of thier marriage with various other men. To make matters more interesting, he tore his rotator cuff and his ACL as well that week and lost his job. Talk about a huge wallop. He was heavily contemplating suicide when we knocked on his door and he let us in. After meeting with us a few times, things started to change. He started to smile again, then came true laughter, then he shaved (for the first time in months) and now he is getting nice clothes again so to come to church with us. What a miracle. He has read the entire first half of the Book of Mormon already as well as a lot of the Bible again (he has been Southern Baptist his whole life). He said if all those things hadn't happened to him, he would never have let us in the house but would have just argued with us. Instead he was humbled and open, and the Lord has really changed his heart and brought him true peace and happiness again. This makes everything that we do in the mission field worth it and I love Steve so much and I know the Lord loves him too!"
That is Steve's story and it rocks! The Lord is truly amazing - He put us there (tracting of all things) and we got to his door on exactly the right day at exactly the right time with exactly the right message and words. Only He could orchestrate such an event and I am so grateful we have been living worthy of the Spirit to be able to take part in it.
All the other people we are teaching are doing really well and progressing, we are excited about it. Elder Noll might actually start liking missionary work for the first time in his mission! Sad news: my old camera finally and completely died. No way I can save it anymore, but I still have that other one that Mom sent up a few months ago, so no worries. I am still taking pictures and everything, just not on the camera that I have grown to love and enjoy.
The weather has gotten cold again! Bah! Oh well, we have a half car still, so I can't complain to much. Better to be driving half the time than not to be driving at all. Especially when it doesn't get much above freezing all day long. I am going to live another 6 weeks on a diet of potatoes and salad, wish me luck, haha. At least people try to make it differently and creatively every night so it isn't too bad. Plus we get fresh fruit a lot more often than I ever have on my mission before, that is a huge plus. Especially when they have raspberries, yum!
Well, here is a challenge that our mission president has asked us to give at every dinner appointment we have from now on and I figured I should probably give it to all of you as well. "The 21 day challenge: take the next 21 days to find someone for the missionaries to teach! At every individual and family prayer pray to be led to someone who needs the gospel right now in their life or pray for them to be led to you. Pray to be able to recognize them and to be given the words you need to say. Write down everyone your family can think of that might be interested in meeting with missionaries, then pray over the list by name and pick one to invite. Then invite them to meet with the missionaries in your home on the 21st day of the challenge. To truly show the Lord your faith, set an appointment with the missionaries far in advance and do all you can to have someone to be there to meet with them. The Lord will bless and guide you to those who are prepared for the truth. Your family will come closer together and there will be a spirit of love and closeness in your home that you have not felt before." There it is. I highly encourage everyone to do it, because it will work. I know the Lord answers our prayers and it really does bring the Spirit into homes and lives and families to do missionary work than anything else I have ever experienced. Please write me back if anyone decides to do this and what the results were. Also, ask Sister Moilon in the 18th ward about her experiences or Bishop Louden - they have enough stories to share about this principle and how it has blessed their lives.
I love you all and pray for you all constantly!
Elder Hughes
This past week has been really great. Another transfer is now over and a new one just started today. I am still with Elder Noll in Taylorsville, which is great because we finally have a lot of good work going and a lot of amazing people we are teaching! I love being a missionary! My district has changed a lot though. We lost the sisters to another district and picked up another set of Spanish elders instead. Elder Hernadez is now back in my district again with his companion Elder Parra. Elder Parra went to Mountain View High School with me and wrestled there. Cool, huh? The only problem is that Elder Hernadez and Elder Jolly do not get along and I am afraid that they might be back at each other's throats again as soon as we have district meeting tomorrow. We will see though, there has to be some reason the Lord made such a big change. Elder Hernadez's area is about 3 miles west of Elder Fordham and Elder Jolly which is about 3 miles south of us. None of us are close to each other or touch each other. I think we are the only district in the mission that does that. Go figure. I am still district leader and I have to say that I am excited to do it again and to keep giving trainings and really learning to love the missionaries in my district.
The Lord has blessed us with many miracles this past week and we are so excited that He has done so! Steve Wright is excited more than ever to be baptized and to start coming to church. We are trying to help him to get clothes lined up so he feels comfortable in going and that is all he needs. We feel the Spirit so strong everytime we visit with him, it is marvelous. I love teaching people that WANT to be taught, haha. Humility is a major requirement for gospel progression is something that I have really learned. Here is a quote that I wrote to President Miller but I wanted to share with you because of the limited time: "Then we have the baptism of a man named Steve Wright and his son Austin (hopefully). That is the one that I am most excited for of all. The gospel has really helped Steve to change and find purpose again in life. When we tracted into him, he was just separated from his wife of 10 years after they had both hit each other. Then he found out that she had cheated on him for the whole duration of thier marriage with various other men. To make matters more interesting, he tore his rotator cuff and his ACL as well that week and lost his job. Talk about a huge wallop. He was heavily contemplating suicide when we knocked on his door and he let us in. After meeting with us a few times, things started to change. He started to smile again, then came true laughter, then he shaved (for the first time in months) and now he is getting nice clothes again so to come to church with us. What a miracle. He has read the entire first half of the Book of Mormon already as well as a lot of the Bible again (he has been Southern Baptist his whole life). He said if all those things hadn't happened to him, he would never have let us in the house but would have just argued with us. Instead he was humbled and open, and the Lord has really changed his heart and brought him true peace and happiness again. This makes everything that we do in the mission field worth it and I love Steve so much and I know the Lord loves him too!"
That is Steve's story and it rocks! The Lord is truly amazing - He put us there (tracting of all things) and we got to his door on exactly the right day at exactly the right time with exactly the right message and words. Only He could orchestrate such an event and I am so grateful we have been living worthy of the Spirit to be able to take part in it.
All the other people we are teaching are doing really well and progressing, we are excited about it. Elder Noll might actually start liking missionary work for the first time in his mission! Sad news: my old camera finally and completely died. No way I can save it anymore, but I still have that other one that Mom sent up a few months ago, so no worries. I am still taking pictures and everything, just not on the camera that I have grown to love and enjoy.
The weather has gotten cold again! Bah! Oh well, we have a half car still, so I can't complain to much. Better to be driving half the time than not to be driving at all. Especially when it doesn't get much above freezing all day long. I am going to live another 6 weeks on a diet of potatoes and salad, wish me luck, haha. At least people try to make it differently and creatively every night so it isn't too bad. Plus we get fresh fruit a lot more often than I ever have on my mission before, that is a huge plus. Especially when they have raspberries, yum!
Well, here is a challenge that our mission president has asked us to give at every dinner appointment we have from now on and I figured I should probably give it to all of you as well. "The 21 day challenge: take the next 21 days to find someone for the missionaries to teach! At every individual and family prayer pray to be led to someone who needs the gospel right now in their life or pray for them to be led to you. Pray to be able to recognize them and to be given the words you need to say. Write down everyone your family can think of that might be interested in meeting with missionaries, then pray over the list by name and pick one to invite. Then invite them to meet with the missionaries in your home on the 21st day of the challenge. To truly show the Lord your faith, set an appointment with the missionaries far in advance and do all you can to have someone to be there to meet with them. The Lord will bless and guide you to those who are prepared for the truth. Your family will come closer together and there will be a spirit of love and closeness in your home that you have not felt before." There it is. I highly encourage everyone to do it, because it will work. I know the Lord answers our prayers and it really does bring the Spirit into homes and lives and families to do missionary work than anything else I have ever experienced. Please write me back if anyone decides to do this and what the results were. Also, ask Sister Moilon in the 18th ward about her experiences or Bishop Louden - they have enough stories to share about this principle and how it has blessed their lives.
I love you all and pray for you all constantly!
Elder Hughes
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Happy Groundhog Day!!
Good morning everyone!
Well, the weather up here in Utah is dead cold! Yesterday we were walking and I don't think I have ever been so cold my whole life - even with thermals, wool socks, jackets, sweaters, you name it. My face was definitely the coldest part of me and I think my nose would have fallen off eventually, haha. But we survived and were able to get rides for most of the night so that we were not out during the coldest part of the day. The weird part is that it was so bright and sunny yesterday, it looked like it could have been in the 80's because there was no snow or any real sign of winter. But go outside and it was like getting smacked by an ice wall. Utah can be so deceiving. I hope that if it stays this cold, it will snow! Cold without the snow is so pointless to me. Defeats the whole point of winter, lol.
Another transfer is almost over, that also blows my mind. It feels like I just got to this area yesterday and now I have been here for almost 3 months. We are finally having a baptism this Saturday! It is for a 9 year old kid named Chance and we are hoping to get a baptism for every weekend after that throughout February. We have people on date for baptism and they are sincere in their desires to work towards baptism so we are praying everything works out and that nothing monumental gets in the way. Something always does though, without fail Satan always has to rear his ugly head at some point in the battle. No baptism has ever been easy yet and I don't expect it ever will be in the future. Too much is at stake that we constantly fight against everyday.
Last week I had a baptism in my old area! It was the Reese family - Tina (45), Bailee (14), Dylan (11), and Cassidy (9) and it was probably the most powerful baptism I have ever been to. The family has been taught since July of last year and has been on date and off date for baptism since then. They have always attended church though and have always had a testimony of the gospel, they were just all waiting for each other to get there. It finally happened and it was amazing! Most of the Draper Mountain Point 4th ward showed up and the talks and the prayers and everything was perfect for the family. Everyone there had a great love for this family and had been praying for them to succeed on their various problems and it was a miracle for finally see it happen! It was nice to see them again and Tina tried to give me a hug afterward, which I had to refuse. Sometimes being a missionary is really hard that way. I had to give the talk on the Holy Ghost and I could barely make it through the Spirit was so strong. I an not normally ever a crier, trust me, but I was crying at this baptism. The whole family was just radiant and smiling and everything was perfect. It blew me away.
We got to give talks at church in Sunday too and I forgot how much I love speaking about missionary work. We are going to have to talk more often! I didn't get very much time either - they had a youth speaker, our visa waiter, then a rest hymn, then Elder Noll, then I was last. Turned out I had about 5 minutes and I took about 7 and only got through about 1 1/2 of the5 points I wanted to make. Everyone was laughing though and I was quoted in the closing prayer that the whole ward would become those "crazy smiley" people that bring others into the gospel. That was fun!
It never ceases to amaze me how much the Lord loves people or how many miracles we see everyday. We were visiting with Steve Wright last night and he is now on date to be baptized on February 26 and he told us the whole story of why we were let in the house. He and his wife had just had a bitter separation from each other after 10 years of marriage because of a domestic violence charge against both of them. Before they ever got into that fight though, he found out that his wife had been cheating on him throughout the entire marriage with various other guys. So he felt down in the dumps and he was contemplating suicide. The only thing that was holding him on was his two sons. Then he tore his rotator cuff and ACL and had to quit his job. So he felt even more worthless. That was when the Lord brought us back to his door and he allowed us in to share the message of the Restoration. Everyday since then about a week and half ago, his smile gets bigger and bigger, he has started laugh again, he has found new purpose for life and he loves the Book of Mormon and is so excited for baptism. Talk about a change! I am so glad that we have this gospel and church that gives us so much hope and optimism and can even light up the darkest lives at the darkest times! He plans on going to church this Sunday for the first time (the only time in his life he will have set foot in another church besides a Baptist one) and he is looking forward to it. He said if we would have come before all the pain started, he never would have opened the door or at least would have slammed it in our faces. But the Lord knew him and he said that the Lord gave him what was needed so that he would join our church. His entire outlook on his life and his trials has changed and it amazes me. I don't think I could do what he is doing and put it all behind me, but he is and he is being so blessed for it. I am so thankful we have a loving Heavenly Father and a loving Savior who atoned not only for our sins but for every heartache and depression and desertion we have to go through in this life. Steve has clearly shown me that the Atonement covers everything and he has allowed it to change his life.
We started to teach the Garcia family as well and I don't think I have ever had a more powerful first lesson. It was short, about 30 minutes. But the Spirit was so strong and spoke to both Br. and Sis. Garcia in such powerful and moving ways. They too have been very prepared because of their circumstances to hear the gospel and were so excited to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Br. Garcia gave one of the most humble, moving closing prayers ever - and the first he has ever offered out loud that wasn't a rote thing from the Catholic church! We are so excited for them, they are also on date for February 26 and are excited for that. They are struggling to get church clothes, we think, but are going to try the best that they can.
Another miracle happened as well, we got Brian Veiwheger on date for February 19 and all the supplies that he needs to quite smoking about a week before then! He originally only wanted to get baptized in May and wasn't williing to move it up. But we were praying really hard that the Lord would soften his heart and help his faith to grow and it did! When we extended the date, he at first denied it. But then he thought about it, prayed about it and accepted it with all of his heart. Then his mother told us that it would be the perfect day because it was her older son's birthday and he had past away many years ago. It would be a fitting tribute to him and the only way to bind the family together forever to have Brian get baptized so she was all for it and then Brian got even more excited about it and everything moved forward! AMAZING!
Well time is short and I actually wrote people letters today so something should be coming in the mail later this week! I love you all and pray for you everyday, I hope for all the greatest happiness for you!
Elder Hughes
Well, the weather up here in Utah is dead cold! Yesterday we were walking and I don't think I have ever been so cold my whole life - even with thermals, wool socks, jackets, sweaters, you name it. My face was definitely the coldest part of me and I think my nose would have fallen off eventually, haha. But we survived and were able to get rides for most of the night so that we were not out during the coldest part of the day. The weird part is that it was so bright and sunny yesterday, it looked like it could have been in the 80's because there was no snow or any real sign of winter. But go outside and it was like getting smacked by an ice wall. Utah can be so deceiving. I hope that if it stays this cold, it will snow! Cold without the snow is so pointless to me. Defeats the whole point of winter, lol.
Another transfer is almost over, that also blows my mind. It feels like I just got to this area yesterday and now I have been here for almost 3 months. We are finally having a baptism this Saturday! It is for a 9 year old kid named Chance and we are hoping to get a baptism for every weekend after that throughout February. We have people on date for baptism and they are sincere in their desires to work towards baptism so we are praying everything works out and that nothing monumental gets in the way. Something always does though, without fail Satan always has to rear his ugly head at some point in the battle. No baptism has ever been easy yet and I don't expect it ever will be in the future. Too much is at stake that we constantly fight against everyday.
Last week I had a baptism in my old area! It was the Reese family - Tina (45), Bailee (14), Dylan (11), and Cassidy (9) and it was probably the most powerful baptism I have ever been to. The family has been taught since July of last year and has been on date and off date for baptism since then. They have always attended church though and have always had a testimony of the gospel, they were just all waiting for each other to get there. It finally happened and it was amazing! Most of the Draper Mountain Point 4th ward showed up and the talks and the prayers and everything was perfect for the family. Everyone there had a great love for this family and had been praying for them to succeed on their various problems and it was a miracle for finally see it happen! It was nice to see them again and Tina tried to give me a hug afterward, which I had to refuse. Sometimes being a missionary is really hard that way. I had to give the talk on the Holy Ghost and I could barely make it through the Spirit was so strong. I an not normally ever a crier, trust me, but I was crying at this baptism. The whole family was just radiant and smiling and everything was perfect. It blew me away.
We got to give talks at church in Sunday too and I forgot how much I love speaking about missionary work. We are going to have to talk more often! I didn't get very much time either - they had a youth speaker, our visa waiter, then a rest hymn, then Elder Noll, then I was last. Turned out I had about 5 minutes and I took about 7 and only got through about 1 1/2 of the5 points I wanted to make. Everyone was laughing though and I was quoted in the closing prayer that the whole ward would become those "crazy smiley" people that bring others into the gospel. That was fun!
It never ceases to amaze me how much the Lord loves people or how many miracles we see everyday. We were visiting with Steve Wright last night and he is now on date to be baptized on February 26 and he told us the whole story of why we were let in the house. He and his wife had just had a bitter separation from each other after 10 years of marriage because of a domestic violence charge against both of them. Before they ever got into that fight though, he found out that his wife had been cheating on him throughout the entire marriage with various other guys. So he felt down in the dumps and he was contemplating suicide. The only thing that was holding him on was his two sons. Then he tore his rotator cuff and ACL and had to quit his job. So he felt even more worthless. That was when the Lord brought us back to his door and he allowed us in to share the message of the Restoration. Everyday since then about a week and half ago, his smile gets bigger and bigger, he has started laugh again, he has found new purpose for life and he loves the Book of Mormon and is so excited for baptism. Talk about a change! I am so glad that we have this gospel and church that gives us so much hope and optimism and can even light up the darkest lives at the darkest times! He plans on going to church this Sunday for the first time (the only time in his life he will have set foot in another church besides a Baptist one) and he is looking forward to it. He said if we would have come before all the pain started, he never would have opened the door or at least would have slammed it in our faces. But the Lord knew him and he said that the Lord gave him what was needed so that he would join our church. His entire outlook on his life and his trials has changed and it amazes me. I don't think I could do what he is doing and put it all behind me, but he is and he is being so blessed for it. I am so thankful we have a loving Heavenly Father and a loving Savior who atoned not only for our sins but for every heartache and depression and desertion we have to go through in this life. Steve has clearly shown me that the Atonement covers everything and he has allowed it to change his life.
We started to teach the Garcia family as well and I don't think I have ever had a more powerful first lesson. It was short, about 30 minutes. But the Spirit was so strong and spoke to both Br. and Sis. Garcia in such powerful and moving ways. They too have been very prepared because of their circumstances to hear the gospel and were so excited to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Br. Garcia gave one of the most humble, moving closing prayers ever - and the first he has ever offered out loud that wasn't a rote thing from the Catholic church! We are so excited for them, they are also on date for February 26 and are excited for that. They are struggling to get church clothes, we think, but are going to try the best that they can.
Another miracle happened as well, we got Brian Veiwheger on date for February 19 and all the supplies that he needs to quite smoking about a week before then! He originally only wanted to get baptized in May and wasn't williing to move it up. But we were praying really hard that the Lord would soften his heart and help his faith to grow and it did! When we extended the date, he at first denied it. But then he thought about it, prayed about it and accepted it with all of his heart. Then his mother told us that it would be the perfect day because it was her older son's birthday and he had past away many years ago. It would be a fitting tribute to him and the only way to bind the family together forever to have Brian get baptized so she was all for it and then Brian got even more excited about it and everything moved forward! AMAZING!
Well time is short and I actually wrote people letters today so something should be coming in the mail later this week! I love you all and pray for you everyday, I hope for all the greatest happiness for you!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Good afternoon everyone!
Can you believe it? January is almost over....and all the sisters that came out the transfer before I did are now going home. We are going to miss Sister Johnson in my district quite a lot, she was a great missionary and was a lot of fun to be around. The district that we have right now is AWESOME, completely awesome. All of us are so connected to each other and we all care and pray for each other and everyone loves each other. And it helps the work to move along and stay strong quite a bit. We all help to motivate each other and and are all concerned about each other's investigators and seeing them progress in the gospel. Even the senior couples seem really involved. It is the coolest feeling and the best.
I did get the box from the family and it has a lot of great stuff in it, so thanks so much! The grapefruit and oranges have also been a lifesaver because right now we all have this stupid cough/cold thing that none of us can get over. I think I have had it for a week and half now and there is no improvment, but we go into the doctor tomorrow and at least we are trying to get our vitamin C as much as we can. Funny thing is that no one else seems to be used to getting sick, I don't feel it is any big deal and that work can continue on as normal. My companions don't feel quite the same way and haven't been sick in years and never with a cough before. How does that work? I seem to get the same cough every year around January and it sticks around for awhile and I get sick fairly frequently throughout the year from various things, but then these people never get sick. Oh well, Heavenly Father has something for me to learn from it I guess.
You are getting a job Mom? Doing what? Playground aid? or crosswalk guard? or what? That is cool! I will be sure to pray for you on that and know the Lord will bless you.
Right now, Chance Johnson is progressing rapidly towards baptism on February 5 and we are so excited for that. Everyone else that seemed so solid for this upcoming weekend has now fallen off date thanks to no church attendance this past Sunday. I don't see how it can be such a struggle to get to church in this area, but it is. No matter how many times you invite or call or do whatever, the people just don't come. It is kind of frustrating sometimes, but we keep trying and the Lord grants us many sweet spiritual experiences for our efforts in trying to do what is right. We have been picking up a ton of new investigators lately, many of which seem very sincere and want to learn the gospel and we are so very excited.
We had interviews with president last week and he said something that was an answer to my prayers and that I really needed to hear. A lot of people in my district are struggling right now with various things and I have been trying my hardest and praying my heart out to help them, all to no avail is what it seems like at the time. But when we were in the interview President made me go through and report on everyone in my district and where thay are at right now and then he thanked me for all the hard work I had done. He said he really took a gamble when he called me as a district leader because he didn't know me at all or what I would do with it. But the Lord prompted Him to do it and so He did. He said he prayed often about that choice he made after that and that the Lord confirmed it every time and that my hard work and the changes that he had seen in people had also shown him that it was truly the Lord's will that I be a district leader at this time. If that wasn't enough, my training yesterday wasn't the best - I was losing my voice and coughing through most of it. But two missionaries ended up in tears by the end of it and said that from the things we had discussed they had received an answer to their prayers and that they now knew what the Lord wanted them to do. I had prayed so hard to know what to train on and where to go with it and I got some answers but nothing seemed to fit together, but thank goodness for the Spirit taking over and really helping missionaries with what they needed. It really touched my heart and made me grateful. I don't want to sound like I am boasting or anything, but as soon as I was praying for understanding about my calling, the Lord answered in so many wonderful ways that were what I needed. Plus He answered the prayers of the other missionaries in my district for their needs, He is amazing!
Well, I am running out of time because we are at a library and only get 30 minutes to do all the emailing we need to do, but I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Can you believe it? January is almost over....and all the sisters that came out the transfer before I did are now going home. We are going to miss Sister Johnson in my district quite a lot, she was a great missionary and was a lot of fun to be around. The district that we have right now is AWESOME, completely awesome. All of us are so connected to each other and we all care and pray for each other and everyone loves each other. And it helps the work to move along and stay strong quite a bit. We all help to motivate each other and and are all concerned about each other's investigators and seeing them progress in the gospel. Even the senior couples seem really involved. It is the coolest feeling and the best.
I did get the box from the family and it has a lot of great stuff in it, so thanks so much! The grapefruit and oranges have also been a lifesaver because right now we all have this stupid cough/cold thing that none of us can get over. I think I have had it for a week and half now and there is no improvment, but we go into the doctor tomorrow and at least we are trying to get our vitamin C as much as we can. Funny thing is that no one else seems to be used to getting sick, I don't feel it is any big deal and that work can continue on as normal. My companions don't feel quite the same way and haven't been sick in years and never with a cough before. How does that work? I seem to get the same cough every year around January and it sticks around for awhile and I get sick fairly frequently throughout the year from various things, but then these people never get sick. Oh well, Heavenly Father has something for me to learn from it I guess.
You are getting a job Mom? Doing what? Playground aid? or crosswalk guard? or what? That is cool! I will be sure to pray for you on that and know the Lord will bless you.
Right now, Chance Johnson is progressing rapidly towards baptism on February 5 and we are so excited for that. Everyone else that seemed so solid for this upcoming weekend has now fallen off date thanks to no church attendance this past Sunday. I don't see how it can be such a struggle to get to church in this area, but it is. No matter how many times you invite or call or do whatever, the people just don't come. It is kind of frustrating sometimes, but we keep trying and the Lord grants us many sweet spiritual experiences for our efforts in trying to do what is right. We have been picking up a ton of new investigators lately, many of which seem very sincere and want to learn the gospel and we are so very excited.
We had interviews with president last week and he said something that was an answer to my prayers and that I really needed to hear. A lot of people in my district are struggling right now with various things and I have been trying my hardest and praying my heart out to help them, all to no avail is what it seems like at the time. But when we were in the interview President made me go through and report on everyone in my district and where thay are at right now and then he thanked me for all the hard work I had done. He said he really took a gamble when he called me as a district leader because he didn't know me at all or what I would do with it. But the Lord prompted Him to do it and so He did. He said he prayed often about that choice he made after that and that the Lord confirmed it every time and that my hard work and the changes that he had seen in people had also shown him that it was truly the Lord's will that I be a district leader at this time. If that wasn't enough, my training yesterday wasn't the best - I was losing my voice and coughing through most of it. But two missionaries ended up in tears by the end of it and said that from the things we had discussed they had received an answer to their prayers and that they now knew what the Lord wanted them to do. I had prayed so hard to know what to train on and where to go with it and I got some answers but nothing seemed to fit together, but thank goodness for the Spirit taking over and really helping missionaries with what they needed. It really touched my heart and made me grateful. I don't want to sound like I am boasting or anything, but as soon as I was praying for understanding about my calling, the Lord answered in so many wonderful ways that were what I needed. Plus He answered the prayers of the other missionaries in my district for their needs, He is amazing!
Well, I am running out of time because we are at a library and only get 30 minutes to do all the emailing we need to do, but I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Good morning everybody!
Life is amazing! This past week has been one of the fastest and busiest of my mission! I don't know where all these blessings came from, but I am eternally grateful for them and the experiences they have given me. We were able to find quite a few familes to start teaching this past week - all of which are honest, sincere seekers of truth. No more of these bashing, hating on Mormon people! We started to teach Chance Johnson. He is an unbaptized 9 year old who has been attending church regularly with his aunt for the past 3 months. His mom is currently in prison and finally gave her consent for him to be taught and baptized, which is his heart's greatest desire. Teaching him is like teaching a nursery class though - very little information, a lot of repeating, and everything is as simple as we can get it. He is mostly deaf and has a hard time speaking. He also suffers from severe ADHD and so it is very hard to keep his attention focused on anyone thing for more than 3 or 4 minutes. It has been fun though to try to teach as simply as possible, get down to the bare basics of the doctrines needed to understand for baptism. He also suffers from short term memory loss - he very much reminds me of Dori in Finding Nemo the way that he acts and speaks and does things. It's not bad, just different than anything I have ever done on my mission. We really love him a lot though and he is set to get baptized on February 5 after his uncle gets back from Surprise, AZ so he can baptize him. Another family is the Garcia family. They are both not members but walked up to the bishop while he was shoveling his sidewalk and asked to be taught about the gospel. We were so excited but it took us so long to find them! They live in a mostly Hispanic home and there has to be about 30 people living there - 5 or 6 families. Everyone that lives on the top floor where the front door is had no idea what we were talking about. Finally we got someone and pointed to the bishop's house and asked for who wanted to be taught - they led us to a door in the backyard and we finally met Sister Garcia. She and her husband have been very prepared for the gospel and really want God and the church in their lives right now. Both of them were soaking in the scripture we shared on Sunday and were excited for us to come back this evening. They are amazing! We also starting teaching a Native American lady named Juanita and her two daughters. Juanita has been meeting with missionaries for over the past 20 years before she moved into the apartments that she lives in now. I don't know how she has managed to not get baptized for so long - the Spirit was there so strong last night as we bore our testimonies and shared about the Book of Mormon. She gave us a little test though asking us why we were on our missions. We all answered truthfully and apparently passed the test because she set up a return appointment. She said she hates "fake" missionaries and that you can always tell the missionaries who lie about their testimonies and who aren't out for any of the right reasons. We all bore simple, humble testimony though and apparently that was what she was hoping for. She broke down in tears towards the end of the lesson and agreed that she deserves to be in this church and to get an answer about the gospel. She doesn't feel worthy of it though or that other people in the church will accept her - she doesn't trust anyone. She barely trusted us after feeling the Spirit so strongly last night. We are excited to keep teaching her and working with her, but she has some major struggles ahead of her, I fear so we will see what happens.
In other news, Sherry Thomas has finally managed to get Sundays off so she can attend church this Sunday and shooting for baptism on the 29th of January. She is so excited for baptism and has a strong testimony of the gospel and Book of Mormon. It was great to finally see her put her faith in God and ask for Sundays off and have the belief and promise that she will still be provided for in the future. It took her a long time to get to that point, but it was a miracle and blessing to watch her get there.
The Beckstead family is doing great as well. They are loving the scriptures, praying, coming to church, you name it they have turned around 180 degrees and are now accepting and embracing it. What a miraculous change! We hope to be able to get Gavin - their unbaptized 9 year old - baptized this Sunday after church is over. Then to keep working with the whole family to help them get to the temple sometime in the next year. They are amazing and we love them as well.
We are also meeting with a man named Steve Wright. He is from Texas and a Baptist. But when we went over the Restoration of the gospel last week, I really think he was struggling to hold back tears. He accepted the Book of Mormon and was excited to start reading it and praying to find out if it is true or not. He believed everything we went over with Joseph Smith and where the Book of Mormon came from and was so happy to finally learn the truth that Joseph Smith didn't write the Book of Mormon but translated it. His face lit up when we read that from the Introduction page and he got excited about it.
Jennifer Golson, a less active member, is excited to attend church this Sunday. She fed us dinner on Monday night because she wanted to give us something in return for helping her find the gospel again. She has been praying constantly for the past few weeks and her face has really started to change and light up. That is one of the coolest parts of being a missionary is seeing that transition on people's faces as they start to swith from dark to light and the smile that comes with it.
In other news, I got the fruit box from Sister Hord. Boy, was that a surprise when she called me, haha. She just dropped the fruit off at my apartment and I got it later in the evening last night. I was so excited to open it and see what was on the inside! I am going to be pigging out on grapefruit for as long as I can! And oranges! Delicious! No more of these cheap supermarket oranges that taste so nasty, but the real stuff! We were also having a heat wave with temperatures in the 40's the past few days, it was great because we didn't have the car. Today though, it is snowing and snowing quite a bit so as always Utah proves to be bipolar and shift back and forth between weather patterns. Biking the past week though was really great and we are all sore from it, we have also been working out pretty good in the mornings. I do 100 situps, 500 crunchies, and about 20 minutes of running or jumping rope or doing stairs. I don't think I have sweat so much in my life as I have the past week from doing all those things! Swimming was so much easier and you never felt gross, haha. But I am enjoying it and it has made a big differnce - I have more energy throughout the day and can sleep a little bit better at night. Also throw in some lunges and shoulder workouts as well. I still can't do a push up - my shoulder kills me after doing 3 and it hurts for the whole next day and half. So I stopped doing those and just do stuff that doesn't hurt. I am ready to never eat sherbert again in my life! Every dinner appointment we get more sherbert because that is about the only dessert that Elder Noll can eat, which is fine and great. But the family doesn't ever want to eat it, so they make us finish the whole half gallon before we leave, lol. So after my mission, I will avoid sherbert at all costs. That and I have discovered how much I truly love eating meat and how much I miss it. But at least lunch and dinner I can get a protein kick from making my own food. It is not bad, but I could never be a good vegetarian, or at least a happy one haha. That is still crazy to me that everyone is starting to come home and the difference it makes. I am so not ready for that moment yet - there is way to much work still to do! I hope everyone is doing well and loving life!
Much love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Life is amazing! This past week has been one of the fastest and busiest of my mission! I don't know where all these blessings came from, but I am eternally grateful for them and the experiences they have given me. We were able to find quite a few familes to start teaching this past week - all of which are honest, sincere seekers of truth. No more of these bashing, hating on Mormon people! We started to teach Chance Johnson. He is an unbaptized 9 year old who has been attending church regularly with his aunt for the past 3 months. His mom is currently in prison and finally gave her consent for him to be taught and baptized, which is his heart's greatest desire. Teaching him is like teaching a nursery class though - very little information, a lot of repeating, and everything is as simple as we can get it. He is mostly deaf and has a hard time speaking. He also suffers from severe ADHD and so it is very hard to keep his attention focused on anyone thing for more than 3 or 4 minutes. It has been fun though to try to teach as simply as possible, get down to the bare basics of the doctrines needed to understand for baptism. He also suffers from short term memory loss - he very much reminds me of Dori in Finding Nemo the way that he acts and speaks and does things. It's not bad, just different than anything I have ever done on my mission. We really love him a lot though and he is set to get baptized on February 5 after his uncle gets back from Surprise, AZ so he can baptize him. Another family is the Garcia family. They are both not members but walked up to the bishop while he was shoveling his sidewalk and asked to be taught about the gospel. We were so excited but it took us so long to find them! They live in a mostly Hispanic home and there has to be about 30 people living there - 5 or 6 families. Everyone that lives on the top floor where the front door is had no idea what we were talking about. Finally we got someone and pointed to the bishop's house and asked for who wanted to be taught - they led us to a door in the backyard and we finally met Sister Garcia. She and her husband have been very prepared for the gospel and really want God and the church in their lives right now. Both of them were soaking in the scripture we shared on Sunday and were excited for us to come back this evening. They are amazing! We also starting teaching a Native American lady named Juanita and her two daughters. Juanita has been meeting with missionaries for over the past 20 years before she moved into the apartments that she lives in now. I don't know how she has managed to not get baptized for so long - the Spirit was there so strong last night as we bore our testimonies and shared about the Book of Mormon. She gave us a little test though asking us why we were on our missions. We all answered truthfully and apparently passed the test because she set up a return appointment. She said she hates "fake" missionaries and that you can always tell the missionaries who lie about their testimonies and who aren't out for any of the right reasons. We all bore simple, humble testimony though and apparently that was what she was hoping for. She broke down in tears towards the end of the lesson and agreed that she deserves to be in this church and to get an answer about the gospel. She doesn't feel worthy of it though or that other people in the church will accept her - she doesn't trust anyone. She barely trusted us after feeling the Spirit so strongly last night. We are excited to keep teaching her and working with her, but she has some major struggles ahead of her, I fear so we will see what happens.
In other news, Sherry Thomas has finally managed to get Sundays off so she can attend church this Sunday and shooting for baptism on the 29th of January. She is so excited for baptism and has a strong testimony of the gospel and Book of Mormon. It was great to finally see her put her faith in God and ask for Sundays off and have the belief and promise that she will still be provided for in the future. It took her a long time to get to that point, but it was a miracle and blessing to watch her get there.
The Beckstead family is doing great as well. They are loving the scriptures, praying, coming to church, you name it they have turned around 180 degrees and are now accepting and embracing it. What a miraculous change! We hope to be able to get Gavin - their unbaptized 9 year old - baptized this Sunday after church is over. Then to keep working with the whole family to help them get to the temple sometime in the next year. They are amazing and we love them as well.
We are also meeting with a man named Steve Wright. He is from Texas and a Baptist. But when we went over the Restoration of the gospel last week, I really think he was struggling to hold back tears. He accepted the Book of Mormon and was excited to start reading it and praying to find out if it is true or not. He believed everything we went over with Joseph Smith and where the Book of Mormon came from and was so happy to finally learn the truth that Joseph Smith didn't write the Book of Mormon but translated it. His face lit up when we read that from the Introduction page and he got excited about it.
Jennifer Golson, a less active member, is excited to attend church this Sunday. She fed us dinner on Monday night because she wanted to give us something in return for helping her find the gospel again. She has been praying constantly for the past few weeks and her face has really started to change and light up. That is one of the coolest parts of being a missionary is seeing that transition on people's faces as they start to swith from dark to light and the smile that comes with it.
In other news, I got the fruit box from Sister Hord. Boy, was that a surprise when she called me, haha. She just dropped the fruit off at my apartment and I got it later in the evening last night. I was so excited to open it and see what was on the inside! I am going to be pigging out on grapefruit for as long as I can! And oranges! Delicious! No more of these cheap supermarket oranges that taste so nasty, but the real stuff! We were also having a heat wave with temperatures in the 40's the past few days, it was great because we didn't have the car. Today though, it is snowing and snowing quite a bit so as always Utah proves to be bipolar and shift back and forth between weather patterns. Biking the past week though was really great and we are all sore from it, we have also been working out pretty good in the mornings. I do 100 situps, 500 crunchies, and about 20 minutes of running or jumping rope or doing stairs. I don't think I have sweat so much in my life as I have the past week from doing all those things! Swimming was so much easier and you never felt gross, haha. But I am enjoying it and it has made a big differnce - I have more energy throughout the day and can sleep a little bit better at night. Also throw in some lunges and shoulder workouts as well. I still can't do a push up - my shoulder kills me after doing 3 and it hurts for the whole next day and half. So I stopped doing those and just do stuff that doesn't hurt. I am ready to never eat sherbert again in my life! Every dinner appointment we get more sherbert because that is about the only dessert that Elder Noll can eat, which is fine and great. But the family doesn't ever want to eat it, so they make us finish the whole half gallon before we leave, lol. So after my mission, I will avoid sherbert at all costs. That and I have discovered how much I truly love eating meat and how much I miss it. But at least lunch and dinner I can get a protein kick from making my own food. It is not bad, but I could never be a good vegetarian, or at least a happy one haha. That is still crazy to me that everyone is starting to come home and the difference it makes. I am so not ready for that moment yet - there is way to much work still to do! I hope everyone is doing well and loving life!
Much love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Good afternoon everybody!
Well, time is really short today. The library is packed and we did not get a computer until 5:15 so I don't have very much time left to write because we have an appointment at 6. Life has been very busy and full this past week. We picked up a new missionary on Saturday - Elder Abbott. He is a visa waiter waiting to go to Mexico, so his visa should come sometime in the next two months. Until that time we are trying to fit in Spanish language study and other things to help him to keep the language while at the same time helping our area to work hard. Should be interesting. He has a strong testimony of the gospel and loves talking to people, which is great. He hates the cold though, more than I thought anyone ever could. So much that it doesn't allow us to get all the work done that we need to, but we went and bought warmer clothes for him today like thermals and wool socks so we will see if that helps at all or changes anything. It is interesting as well to watch someone go through the exact same thing that I went through a little over a year ago - wondering if you are really supposed to be where you are at. Amazingly, miracles still happen everyday to confirm to me that everything is alright and that things will keep heading in the right direction. I hope the same things are happening to Elder Abbott, he gets easily discouraged when we knock on so many doors and everyone rejects us, but the Lord has blessed us with quite a few appointments with new investigators this week so we will see how that goes. I have faith that things can and will work out for the best! In other news, we had leadership training almost all day the past two days. Went over Mormon.org (every missionary is supposed to be using it weekly now), obedience, how no missionary in the world can teach the great apostasy well or correctly, how to do better role plays, better district leader councils, etc. Lots and lots of discussion and debate and trying to figure out where the mission should go. Lots of awesome spiritual experiences as well. It was good, but an information overload for sure. Our area looks like it should hopefully be picking up this week and we have had no trouble finding ways to keep busy. We are working hard and truly being blessed as a result - although Elder Noll still refuses to see it but we are working on that. This past week was actually nice and sunny! No more of that terrible nasty plague that has been labelled "the inversion". I think a better title would be called the "fog of death", but whatever works. It finally snowed this week and cleared out all the pollution and we finally got some nice sunshine to break up winter. It was a treat. Hopefully, it keeps snowing frequently so that the inversion does not come back to stay but the air remains clean and safe to breathe. I find it really hard to believe that Elder Gibson is now home - that is just crazy!!! It feels like he just left and it means that I am coming home sometime soon, very weird. Also, everyone else will be getting home soon, also weird and hard to believe. Tell him that he is awesome from me and hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to respond to the letter that I just got from Brazil from him - except now to his home address, that will be different. Life continues on in the mission field at an ever faster pace. I don't think time ever slows down for anyone, sometimes I wish it would. But oh well. Life is great and I am loving it!
Lots of love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Well, time is really short today. The library is packed and we did not get a computer until 5:15 so I don't have very much time left to write because we have an appointment at 6. Life has been very busy and full this past week. We picked up a new missionary on Saturday - Elder Abbott. He is a visa waiter waiting to go to Mexico, so his visa should come sometime in the next two months. Until that time we are trying to fit in Spanish language study and other things to help him to keep the language while at the same time helping our area to work hard. Should be interesting. He has a strong testimony of the gospel and loves talking to people, which is great. He hates the cold though, more than I thought anyone ever could. So much that it doesn't allow us to get all the work done that we need to, but we went and bought warmer clothes for him today like thermals and wool socks so we will see if that helps at all or changes anything. It is interesting as well to watch someone go through the exact same thing that I went through a little over a year ago - wondering if you are really supposed to be where you are at. Amazingly, miracles still happen everyday to confirm to me that everything is alright and that things will keep heading in the right direction. I hope the same things are happening to Elder Abbott, he gets easily discouraged when we knock on so many doors and everyone rejects us, but the Lord has blessed us with quite a few appointments with new investigators this week so we will see how that goes. I have faith that things can and will work out for the best! In other news, we had leadership training almost all day the past two days. Went over Mormon.org (every missionary is supposed to be using it weekly now), obedience, how no missionary in the world can teach the great apostasy well or correctly, how to do better role plays, better district leader councils, etc. Lots and lots of discussion and debate and trying to figure out where the mission should go. Lots of awesome spiritual experiences as well. It was good, but an information overload for sure. Our area looks like it should hopefully be picking up this week and we have had no trouble finding ways to keep busy. We are working hard and truly being blessed as a result - although Elder Noll still refuses to see it but we are working on that. This past week was actually nice and sunny! No more of that terrible nasty plague that has been labelled "the inversion". I think a better title would be called the "fog of death", but whatever works. It finally snowed this week and cleared out all the pollution and we finally got some nice sunshine to break up winter. It was a treat. Hopefully, it keeps snowing frequently so that the inversion does not come back to stay but the air remains clean and safe to breathe. I find it really hard to believe that Elder Gibson is now home - that is just crazy!!! It feels like he just left and it means that I am coming home sometime soon, very weird. Also, everyone else will be getting home soon, also weird and hard to believe. Tell him that he is awesome from me and hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to respond to the letter that I just got from Brazil from him - except now to his home address, that will be different. Life continues on in the mission field at an ever faster pace. I don't think time ever slows down for anyone, sometimes I wish it would. But oh well. Life is great and I am loving it!
Lots of love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Last year of the mission?
Happy winter everybody!
Well, life here in Utah has been very cold and very wet this past week. Lots of snow and very cold temperatures to ring in the new year. As always, whenever the biggest snowstorms seem to hit, we did not have the car. So we were trying to stay as dry and warm as possible while running around visiting everybody. Quite a feat. Thankfully, Aunt Kara and Uncle Blair were driving by once and picked us up and took us to an appointment. Other people have been very nice as well. We also have been doing a bit of bike riding in the snow and that is quite a workout. Like moutainbiking but with a whole lot less traction and a whole lot colder wind in your face. But I haven't biffed yet or anything thanks to Heavenly Father, I am sure He has been watching out for us and taking care of us this past week. The temperatures are still staying below freezing so the snow is still on the ground everywhere and ice is always covering everything. I have slipped walking a few times on black ice in church parking lots. I didn't know those could be so vicious, normally you think of church as a nice, peaceful place to visit. Oh well, life goes on and everybody can't wait for summer.
As people seem to remind me in almost every letter I got today, this week marks the start to the last calender year I am serving a mission and that is a very weird thought. It is also weird this will be my last winter where I try running around in the freezing cold in a suit coat and pants and not something a little bit more practical, haha. I am so not ready to return home at all so the fact other people are already reminding me is so weird. I have so much work left to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.
Sadly, this week has been kind of up and down. Ups are awesome, but the downs are always terribly hard. One of our main progressing investigators - Kimberly Dance - is now in jail. After taking verbal abuse from her ex-fiancee for so long, she finally had enough so she keyed his car. He caught her doing it and called the cops and she is not awaiting trial for vandalism. She was finally seeming to get the gospel too and the spirit was so strong in our lessons. That phone call about her was a real shock and disappoinment. We are praying hard for her though and the ward is showing great support - her fellowshipper, the relief society president, and the bishop have all been down to visit her and work with her. We are hoping for the best. In other news, the Beckstead family showed up for church this week! That was a miracle! Not only did they show up, but they enjoyed it! The only thing holding the family back now is tithing and the word of wisdom. He isn't very excited abou giving up coffee, not at all. But he said he would at least try to give it a shot. So we will see what happens. Jennifer and Jayden Golson should hopefully be attending church this week. They are less actives that we are teaching. Jennifer is really excited to attend church and to turn her life around. We committed her on Monday to quit smoking and coffee and she accpeted. We worked out a smoking plan and she is excited to finally be rid of her addiction. Thank goodness that Elder Ballard gave that talk on addiction last conference, it has been a huge source of inspiration and help to a lot of people that we have been teaching. So that was awesome meeting with them again! Sherry Thomas is still "trying" to get work off on Sundays. She has a great desire to be baptized, but struggles with the faith necessary to ask for Sundays off or to get a new job. We have committed her several times to do so and maybe she will finally do it. When the Spirit is there in the lessons, she will be all gung ho about it, but as soon as the lesson is over and the time comes for her to act, she loses faith and chickens out. It is kind of frustrating because we know the Lord will bless her if she will take this leap of faith, but we keep praying and working. Cioni and Lei are from Samoa. She is a convert to the church and he is a Seventh-Day Adventist. Wow, do are they quite stubborn and love to bash in that religion. We tried to share the first lesson with them and got most of the way through it just fine, but when we came to the Book of Mormon, he had a fit and would not accept any of it anymore. Plus he believes we worship on the wrong day of the week. So he started shouting at us (and he is from Samoa so it is quite intimidating) and trying to get us convert to his beliefs. Needless to say, we don't have a return appointment, but at least by the end of the meeting we were able to commit him to at least read and pray about the Book of Mormon asking if it wasn't true. According to Moroni, "ask if these things are not true" and so he is asking just that and we will see what happens. That was crazy. Absolutely crazy. We are also now teaching Steve. He is a Southern baptist from Texas, but at least he was opened to what we have to say. I don't know if we will ever manage to get him to church, but he has now started to read from the Book of Mormon and really wants to find out for himself if it is true. So we have faith for him there. He was a really nice man though, believes deeply in that "Southern hospitality." We should be seeing him again tomorrow. All these people came from tracting out an apartment complex about the size of the Groves in our ward. About as shady and sketchy as the Groves apartments are too. Luckily, God protects His servants and we have never had any problems but we here crazy stories about all the stuff that happens in there after dark and police always seem to be patrolling around the buildings in the complex whenever we visit. There are still good people in there too and we are excited for the prospect and blessing of having new investigators to teach and more work to do. We keep praying for more stuff to happen, but we will have to waith and see. It seems missionary work is 90% of being disappointed with cancelled appointments, angry people at the door, etc. and 10% success from people who are really searching. But that 10% is more than worth it and makes all the difference. I feel so at least. My companion disagrees though so we are working on trying to boost his spirits somehow. Winter is just so hard a season to do that in is the problem. But I keep praying for him and doing whatever I can.
I had an amazing day yesterday, I went on exchanges with Elder Jolly. He is one of the Spanish missionaries in my district and has been out about a transfer and a week. We had a blast together - he is 100% obedient, has that new missionary fire, and we both talking to people and doing missionary work! It was the perfect night! Granted, we had to teach a few lessons in Spanish so that was impossible for me, but he did great on his own. Surprisingly, the gift of tongues works when you are on exchanges and I was able to understand everything that was said - even though it has been years since I had Spanish in high school and that was pretty much worthless Spanish at that. I couldn't say very much in return, but I could still understand. It was a huge blessing and I have been thanking Heavenly Father ever since. We were blessed with an amazing lesson last night, the Spirit was so strong. People that want to be on missions and so are obedient and want to work hard are the people I want for companions. Some reason, I never get those people. But for exchanges it helps to boost up my spirits and remind me what missionary work is really all about. Elder Jolly was totally touched by it as well and said it was the most fun he has had on his mission so far and why couldn't I just switch to the Spanish assignment and be with him. It was good for one night though and now I know what I can work on to help my companion and the other Spanish elder be more obedient and actually want to work. The sad part about all this was that I finally got to hear how really disobedient most of the missionaries are in the mission from attending a district leader council yesterday and it is not pretty. Not one bit. It feels like I am fighting a losing battle, but at least I have Elder Jolly with me I guess for now. He is determined to stay obedient as well and I have high hopes for him.
Oh, New Year's Eve was a blast! We had another mission wide activity and had Elder L. Tom Perry come and speak to us about missionary work. It was quite a treat. Being in this mission sure does have some benefits. After he spoke and shared the most powerful testimony of the Restoration I have ever heard, we got to have some fun times. We were allowed to change into P-day clothes and then they had volleyball, basketball, and board games going. Plus we could watch Toy Story 3, which I found to be a riot. Good movie. The games were fun too and I am finally holding my own in volleyball in every position - I can serve, set, bump, and spike as good as anyone else. It was a blast! Basketball is another story and something I don't think I will ever be blessed to love or understand, but it is fun to watch at least. Apples to apples is always a good game too, even if I can never get one single good card. It was still fun to get to know some missionaries better and enjoy their company.
I think that is pretty much everything that happened this week. Lots of things are going really fast right now and it is getting hard to keep up. We are doing our best though and have faith for the future. I love doing this work and I love being where I am at. I love the people that we serve and I love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This is truly amazing!
Much love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
Well, life here in Utah has been very cold and very wet this past week. Lots of snow and very cold temperatures to ring in the new year. As always, whenever the biggest snowstorms seem to hit, we did not have the car. So we were trying to stay as dry and warm as possible while running around visiting everybody. Quite a feat. Thankfully, Aunt Kara and Uncle Blair were driving by once and picked us up and took us to an appointment. Other people have been very nice as well. We also have been doing a bit of bike riding in the snow and that is quite a workout. Like moutainbiking but with a whole lot less traction and a whole lot colder wind in your face. But I haven't biffed yet or anything thanks to Heavenly Father, I am sure He has been watching out for us and taking care of us this past week. The temperatures are still staying below freezing so the snow is still on the ground everywhere and ice is always covering everything. I have slipped walking a few times on black ice in church parking lots. I didn't know those could be so vicious, normally you think of church as a nice, peaceful place to visit. Oh well, life goes on and everybody can't wait for summer.
As people seem to remind me in almost every letter I got today, this week marks the start to the last calender year I am serving a mission and that is a very weird thought. It is also weird this will be my last winter where I try running around in the freezing cold in a suit coat and pants and not something a little bit more practical, haha. I am so not ready to return home at all so the fact other people are already reminding me is so weird. I have so much work left to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.
Sadly, this week has been kind of up and down. Ups are awesome, but the downs are always terribly hard. One of our main progressing investigators - Kimberly Dance - is now in jail. After taking verbal abuse from her ex-fiancee for so long, she finally had enough so she keyed his car. He caught her doing it and called the cops and she is not awaiting trial for vandalism. She was finally seeming to get the gospel too and the spirit was so strong in our lessons. That phone call about her was a real shock and disappoinment. We are praying hard for her though and the ward is showing great support - her fellowshipper, the relief society president, and the bishop have all been down to visit her and work with her. We are hoping for the best. In other news, the Beckstead family showed up for church this week! That was a miracle! Not only did they show up, but they enjoyed it! The only thing holding the family back now is tithing and the word of wisdom. He isn't very excited abou giving up coffee, not at all. But he said he would at least try to give it a shot. So we will see what happens. Jennifer and Jayden Golson should hopefully be attending church this week. They are less actives that we are teaching. Jennifer is really excited to attend church and to turn her life around. We committed her on Monday to quit smoking and coffee and she accpeted. We worked out a smoking plan and she is excited to finally be rid of her addiction. Thank goodness that Elder Ballard gave that talk on addiction last conference, it has been a huge source of inspiration and help to a lot of people that we have been teaching. So that was awesome meeting with them again! Sherry Thomas is still "trying" to get work off on Sundays. She has a great desire to be baptized, but struggles with the faith necessary to ask for Sundays off or to get a new job. We have committed her several times to do so and maybe she will finally do it. When the Spirit is there in the lessons, she will be all gung ho about it, but as soon as the lesson is over and the time comes for her to act, she loses faith and chickens out. It is kind of frustrating because we know the Lord will bless her if she will take this leap of faith, but we keep praying and working. Cioni and Lei are from Samoa. She is a convert to the church and he is a Seventh-Day Adventist. Wow, do are they quite stubborn and love to bash in that religion. We tried to share the first lesson with them and got most of the way through it just fine, but when we came to the Book of Mormon, he had a fit and would not accept any of it anymore. Plus he believes we worship on the wrong day of the week. So he started shouting at us (and he is from Samoa so it is quite intimidating) and trying to get us convert to his beliefs. Needless to say, we don't have a return appointment, but at least by the end of the meeting we were able to commit him to at least read and pray about the Book of Mormon asking if it wasn't true. According to Moroni, "ask if these things are not true" and so he is asking just that and we will see what happens. That was crazy. Absolutely crazy. We are also now teaching Steve. He is a Southern baptist from Texas, but at least he was opened to what we have to say. I don't know if we will ever manage to get him to church, but he has now started to read from the Book of Mormon and really wants to find out for himself if it is true. So we have faith for him there. He was a really nice man though, believes deeply in that "Southern hospitality." We should be seeing him again tomorrow. All these people came from tracting out an apartment complex about the size of the Groves in our ward. About as shady and sketchy as the Groves apartments are too. Luckily, God protects His servants and we have never had any problems but we here crazy stories about all the stuff that happens in there after dark and police always seem to be patrolling around the buildings in the complex whenever we visit. There are still good people in there too and we are excited for the prospect and blessing of having new investigators to teach and more work to do. We keep praying for more stuff to happen, but we will have to waith and see. It seems missionary work is 90% of being disappointed with cancelled appointments, angry people at the door, etc. and 10% success from people who are really searching. But that 10% is more than worth it and makes all the difference. I feel so at least. My companion disagrees though so we are working on trying to boost his spirits somehow. Winter is just so hard a season to do that in is the problem. But I keep praying for him and doing whatever I can.
I had an amazing day yesterday, I went on exchanges with Elder Jolly. He is one of the Spanish missionaries in my district and has been out about a transfer and a week. We had a blast together - he is 100% obedient, has that new missionary fire, and we both talking to people and doing missionary work! It was the perfect night! Granted, we had to teach a few lessons in Spanish so that was impossible for me, but he did great on his own. Surprisingly, the gift of tongues works when you are on exchanges and I was able to understand everything that was said - even though it has been years since I had Spanish in high school and that was pretty much worthless Spanish at that. I couldn't say very much in return, but I could still understand. It was a huge blessing and I have been thanking Heavenly Father ever since. We were blessed with an amazing lesson last night, the Spirit was so strong. People that want to be on missions and so are obedient and want to work hard are the people I want for companions. Some reason, I never get those people. But for exchanges it helps to boost up my spirits and remind me what missionary work is really all about. Elder Jolly was totally touched by it as well and said it was the most fun he has had on his mission so far and why couldn't I just switch to the Spanish assignment and be with him. It was good for one night though and now I know what I can work on to help my companion and the other Spanish elder be more obedient and actually want to work. The sad part about all this was that I finally got to hear how really disobedient most of the missionaries are in the mission from attending a district leader council yesterday and it is not pretty. Not one bit. It feels like I am fighting a losing battle, but at least I have Elder Jolly with me I guess for now. He is determined to stay obedient as well and I have high hopes for him.
Oh, New Year's Eve was a blast! We had another mission wide activity and had Elder L. Tom Perry come and speak to us about missionary work. It was quite a treat. Being in this mission sure does have some benefits. After he spoke and shared the most powerful testimony of the Restoration I have ever heard, we got to have some fun times. We were allowed to change into P-day clothes and then they had volleyball, basketball, and board games going. Plus we could watch Toy Story 3, which I found to be a riot. Good movie. The games were fun too and I am finally holding my own in volleyball in every position - I can serve, set, bump, and spike as good as anyone else. It was a blast! Basketball is another story and something I don't think I will ever be blessed to love or understand, but it is fun to watch at least. Apples to apples is always a good game too, even if I can never get one single good card. It was still fun to get to know some missionaries better and enjoy their company.
I think that is pretty much everything that happened this week. Lots of things are going really fast right now and it is getting hard to keep up. We are doing our best though and have faith for the future. I love doing this work and I love being where I am at. I love the people that we serve and I love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This is truly amazing!
Much love and prayers,
Elder Hughes
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