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!