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
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
