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