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