Biking to Newport, Zaira Rodriguez Baptism, the trio ends...

Hola! This week was way awesome!! I should probably start with the baptism because that was the best part. First I need to talk about the morning really quick. So I forgot to set my alarm clock the night before and Elder Hawkins had already packed his away and Elder Maughan doesn't have one so we woke up to the District leader knocking on the door at 8:30 haha we felt so bad but it was really funny. However it helped Elder Maughan to not fall asleep during church for the first time in his life...We need to work on that with him haha So now to the baptism, her name is Zaira Rodriguez and she is 16 years old. Her parents have been separated for about 4 years and her dad moves out this week, which is partially the reason she was able to be baptized. She has a big family and her sister and mom are interested in the gospel so we will be working with her family more once the dad moves out. So the baptism was huge because this couple got married at 5pm yesterday and then right after got baptized at the same time as Zaira and they all had tons of people so the primary room was so packed that a big group of us didn't get to be in the room but my companions and I saw the baptism from the hallway. We had almost as many there as we do for a sacrament meeting. For the baptism she decided to have Elder Bojorquez baptize her because he was the missionary that found her a few months ago. It was really cool and she was so happy it was great! So last Thursday my companions and I took this amazing 25mile bike ride down to NewPort beach and rode alone the entire beach trail down there and it was awesome. I got some sweet pictures and some drunk people on the beach asked us to take a picture for them and then we ended up getting in a picture with them, they were really funny and were really confused that we all had the same first name.(Elder) Then that night we had a really interesting lesson with Mo. He is interested but has a hard time with the fact that we believe in saving ordinances like baptism because he believes that by just being baptized you aren't saved, and so we tried to explain to him everything and he said he would pray about it, so we will see what happens with him. Friday we had Zone Conference with Elder Ellis of the first quorum of the seventy and he is way awesome dude. That took all day, we learned a lot about the Holy Ghost, Faith, and Staying positive and motivated. It was awesome, and after the fed us a feast with steak, chicken, potatoes, huge yummy salad, cake, and lots of other good stuff. That night we got to play volleyball with the ward and others who weren't members and just wanted to play. It's a lot of fun every week. Saturday Aunt Julie, Uncle Ferron, and Hudson took us out to lunch to this good Mongolian place and it was a good change from the normal rice and beans we eat every day. She also gave us some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that were way good! I love food. That night we helped the Vasquez family clean out their garage. They are an awesome family and we will see them at least 3 times this week with service, dinners, and we are going to help them pass out candy on Halloween which will be legit. Well that was pretty much my week, I'm glad to hear that the Marchants farewell went well, I bet they did amazing like they always do. My companions and I joke that my mission actually starts tomorrow because the first three weeks have been so crazy and fun and now that Elder Hawkins leaves tomorrow morning Elder Maughan and I are going to finally get to work without having a trunky Elder Hawkins with us. So I'm excited to finally get completely lost in the work and be able to focus on the really important things but still have a lot of fun too. Anyways I love you all and love hearing all that is going on back at home. Love, Elder Hyde

October 24, 2013 -Thursday - Newport Temple

Hola! Well this week was full of ups and downs haha It started out less than 5 minutes after I finished emailing last week, we got a text from Fabiola and her daughter Jennifer that neither of them would be able to be baptized or even meet with or talk to the missionaries ever again. :( It pretty much broke our hearts and made the rest of Pday not as good as it could have been but we decided to move on and the Lord would bless us. When we got to the Zone activity(which was basketball and volleyball) I got a letter from Jessica! :) That made my day a lot better and got me ready to get back to work. She is awesome! I have been doing a ton of biking since I have been in Cali. Two of the days we went 20miles each and in total we have gone 120miles so I have been a little sore some mornings which is good. I have also been eating a ton and I have gained 10 pounds in my first 2 weeks out here so I think I should start slowing down haha There is this family in our ward, the Vasquez family, and we see them almost every day. They are way helpful, need a lot of service, provide us with people to teach, come to teaching appointments with us, and feed us lots of food. When I heard working with the members in Conference, now I know what they were talking about because of the Vasquez family. Last week was a little discouraging because we weren't able to teach nearly as much as we wanted to and because one of my companions is so trunky it can be hard to focus at times. But we continued to work hard we just weren't seeing the results and Sunday night we felt a little down about our week. So you remember Zaira right? The one who ran away, well she had come back from running away and it was weird because her family didn't even seem to care or think that it was a big deal that she wasn't home for a few days. Anyways on Sunday night we got a call from this lady in the ward who had just talked to Zaira's parents and her dad said she could be baptized. Way crazy because her dad hated missionaries before, but we were able to talk to him and I think he respects us now and so she has been ready to be baptized for a while so on Tuesday we asked her to be baptized this Sunday and she was really excited to say yes and so it turns out I'm having my first baptism this Sunday!! :) :) This came as a complete surprise because we felt that her dad was not going to change his mind but the Lord works in interesting ways and I am just so excited for Zaira and he decision to find the truth for herself and act on her faith by being baptized. Also last week we were knocking and found this awesome Arabian dude named Mounir(Mo for short) and his is literally a rocket scientist. He is way smart, and loves the bible and knows it very well. We started talking with him and he seemed really hesitant but after a minute he became way interested and had amazing questions. We talked to him for a while and when we asked him if he would read the Book of Mormon, he told us yeah, and if it is true the Spirit of God will tell me. Then he asked us if we could come back in a week and answer any questions about the Book of Mormon and talk more. He is amazing and we are going to teach him and Zaira tonight so I can't wait for those lessons. The temple was way awesome today. It was nice to go through in English, since I have gone in Spanish my last 3 trips. I also wanted to to tell you guys about this golden family, the Paniagua family. I'm not sure if I talked about them last email but they are awesome. This guy Max, his wife, son and daughter are awesome. The parents and son are wanting to be baptized, they are just wanting to finish the Book of Mormon first to make sure they know it is true but I think they will want to be baptized in the next few weeks. They are coming to Zaira's this Sunday to see how they work and I hope that will give them even more of a desire to be baptized soon. Everything is moving along well. While the work is really hard and discouraging at times, the happiness and joy that comes if well worth it. I love being a missionary, I love just trying to continue to get better every week and I have seen a lot of improvement in myself but there is so much more that needs to take place, but just one step at a time. Love you all, that you for all the encouragement, Heavenly Father has blessed me so much to have so many that love me and that I love too. Have a wonderful week! I have Pday again on Monday so you will be hearing from me soon! Love, Elder Hyde

First Pday in Anaheim....off to a great start

I'm in Cali!!!! This first week in the field was so amazing! I have so much to say and I hope I have time to write everything that I was to. I haven't been able to write since before conference so I hope you were all able to watch it because it was such an amazing conference. Well it was a little sad saying all of the goodbyes at the CCM but it was so exciting to get out here so it was worth it. Elder Golding and I gave each other blessings the last night we had together and it was an amazing experience but because of that and packing, punch dancing in the forest, and all of the other crazy stuff we didn't get to bed until like 12:30am and I had to wake up at 1:45am to be on the bus and to the airport so I was super exhausted haha I got to call mama at the airport once I got to Dallas and it was really nice to hear from her but it made me homesick for a couple minutes but then I realized how amazing the work is that I'm doing is and I was fine. On the plane ride to Santa Ana the guy I sat next to a member and we had a really nice chat. When I got to Santa Ana the only missionaries were myself and hermana Smith and we found the driver and he took us to President Bowen's house and they had a really good lunch set up for us and 8 other new missionaries. It was way good to have some American food and talk to some new people. Later I met my new companions! My trainer is Elder Maughan, I call him mom, and Elder Hawkins, who is dad. Elder Maughan will be training me and Elder Hawkins finishes his mission in two weeks so he is almost done. Elder Maughan has been out for 7months and is 6' 7" and don't worry he isn't very tall because in our district alone we have a 6' 8" kid, and a 6' 10 and 1/2" guy who is huge. Elder Hawkins is way cool and is fluent in Spanish which helps a ton and knows how to teach the gospel really well so he helps us out a lot, even if he is really trunky(which is what we call Elders that are so excited to get home they are already kind of home in their mind haha). Both of my companions are super awesome and I'm really glad I am with them. After I met them we took my stuff back to the apartment and we didn't even have time to unpack because we had to go to dinner with a member family that had a non-member over for FHE. We had a really good lesson and they made us some good food. But when I thought I was back in America we have rice and beans every single day so I kind of feel like I'm still in Mexico haha but it's all really good food, just really spicy. Well by the time we got back and I got unpacked and such I had been up for over 24 hours so I was exhausted. Congratulations to Marta who will be serving with Erik in the Chile Vina Del Mar mission!! That is way crazy but I'm super excited for her and know she will be an amazing missionary. The area I'm serving in is called Costa Mesa 4 North and we have an amazing ward. There are lots of good members and a lot of people to help us with our Spanish. Well throughout the week I have already had some pretty random and funny stories. I got a sweet new bike and we rode about 35miles this week and I have a feeling we will be biking a ton. We have dinner with a member every night they are all so great. So this week went pretty well, we taught 8 lessons, most in Spanish, and we have had tons of meetings but this week should be better. So Thursday we stopped by one of our investigators named Zaira, she is 16 and has been wanting to be baptized for a while but her dad won't let her until she is 18 and out of the house. We stopped by to meet her dad and ended up having over an hour long conversation with him and he finally agreed to let us come by twice a week to meet with her. But either that night or Friday night she ran away from home for some reason and nobody has heard from her and we still don't know where she is so that is kind of scary. We have a lot of investigators that are way interested but then end up saying they are Catholic and they can't change so it makes it difficult to find Hispanics that are willing to listen to something different. Saturday was a way good day, so this girl Jennifer about 18ish is going to be baptized soon but she is being taught by the singles ward missionaries because she is in that age range but she wants her mom to have the gospel too so we stopped by to teach her mom the first lesson(restoration) and she loved it. It was all in Spanish and I was able to say the first vision, bear my testimony, and I invited her to be baptized and she accepted for Nov. 17th. Her only concern is her husband but we hope that his heart will be softened enough to let her be baptized then. We went knocking that night and there was this one house that we knocked at and then for some reason we starting singing "We wish you a merry Christmas" and the second story window opened up and a girl about 15yrs old asked us what we wanted my companion said trick or treat and then we told her we had a message about Jesus Christ and she and about 5 others girls, I think it was a sleepover or something, looked at us and one of them said "I think they're on drugs" hahahaha Well it has been a super good week and I love being a missionary! :) By the way my P-days are now Mondays but next week we get to go to the NewPort Temple so it will be Thursday next week but it should be on Monday from there on out. Love you all so much, thanks for the emails and package! Love, Elder Hyde

Hey mom I made it to Cali and I'm loving it! I got a little more sleep on the plane ride to Santa Ana and the guy that checked one of my bags was a convert 3 years ago and he was happy to see a missionary so we talked a little bit and the guy I sat next to on the plane was a member so it was cool to talk to him about everything. Sister smith and I were the last two of all the new missionaries to get to the presidents house and we had lunch and such. We watched some safety videos and played some ping pong and I am going to meets my trainers in like 20 minutes but I know I'm going to be part of a trio and I will have two trainers for a while and then one of them will leave in like 4 or 5 weeks or so. Well 9 other missionaries came to the mission today, 6 girls and 4 boys. Fun stuff, I will send pictures next week probably. Well he said we probably have lessons and appointments tonight so I'm excited to get out to do some work, te amo mucho! Love, Elder Hyde LOVE HIS MISSION PRESIDENT ALREADY FOR LETTING HIM SEND THIS QUICK MESSAGE HOME! THAT'S WHAT MOM'S NEED TO KNOW THEY ARRIVED SAFELY!!!

Oct 8th....Elder Hyde is off to Anaheim

I received a happy phone call today from my awesome son! He was waiting for his flight in the Dallas airport. It is always good to hear from him but to know he arrived back in the United States safely warmed my heart. He sounded very tired from a very early start. I hope he received a little more sleep on the flight to Anaheim since I am sure he will hit the group running when he arrives. He mentioned he was tired of rice and beans and hoped to eat at a Panda express soon. I am sure food he was familiar with was his utmost desire after eating cafeteria food for 6 weeks. He asked about family and the baby. We talked a little about how the baby will be over a year old when he returns. We talked about the wonderful conference we enjoyed this past weekend. I told him I thought of how we must be watching at the same time but in different countries. He loved his companion but said he was ready to move on to the next step in is mission journey. We will anxiously await his next letter to hear how the remainder of his day went and all the fun adventures he may be having today. Love you son!!!

Oct 3, 2013...last P-day in CCM..

Hola Hola! This is my last P-day in the CCM(which stands for Centro de Capacitación Misonal Mexicó) and it is crazy how fast it has gone by. Am I ready? Of course not, but I´m excited to face the struggles and the fun times that will be coming soon! So my week has been really good, a few days have been hard to study because our district is so excited to leave but other than that it has been really good. I haven´t felt too sick this week except for eating way too much dairy which has caused my stomach to die really bad this week but oh well that´s life haha My week started off really good with a letter in the mail from Megan :) It made me happy and then we had an amazing lesson and the elder that has been struggling shared one of the most sincere and powerful testimonies I have ever heard. He talked about how he used to feel like he had nothing to offer because he was bullied and tons of terrible things have happened in his life but because of a small feeling of love that he felt from his Heavenly Father he was able to get through it and wants to help others. We all felt the Spirit and as a class we talked about teaching from the heart and if we will open up like he did we will probably be able to get our investigators to open up too. Friday we had a lesson on our goals and without goals we will not reach our full potential and so I have been trying to come up with some good long-term and short-term goals. That night we got to order leather scripture cases that are hand made and I am way excited to get it when it´s done. I will send pictures when I get it. Saturday our teacher asked my companion and I to teach our investigator Cristina in front of the entire class for about an hour, her lesson was on unity and having the Spirit, and I am honored that she picked us. We have a really strong companionship and so it helps us to have pretty good lessons even though we are probably the worst in our class actually speaking español, the Spirit is a universal language. That is why I try so hard to have the Spirit with me, and I have a lot of work to do with that because a lot of the time it is hard to but I know I´m getting better at it and so I just need to keep working on it. We also got to teach our other investigator Guadelupe and it was a powerful lesson, the first one the I have full out cried in. We talked to her about trials and showed her ¨Mountains to Climb¨ which is a Mormon message and I recommend watching it. She is getting married soon and so we also talked to her about marriage and love and showed her ¨Enduring Love¨ which is also a Mormon message. Those two are definitely some of my favorite and be ready to cry if you watch them, but I recommend to watch both of them. It was great we knew exactly what we needed to say and since all three of us were crying I think it was exactly what she needed too. After we went to this grove of trees that we love to pray in and wow I what an amazing experience. That same night we talked about faith and read over Alma 32 which really helped my faith. The hermanas needed blessing that night and I feel like I am getting a lot better at listening to the Spirit during blessings and really saying what our Heavenly Fathers wants for them and I love being able to be an instrument in His hands. Sunday was my last sacrament meeting here and someone tried to play a prank and set out grape juice for all of the branches to pick up instead of water for all of the sacrament meetings but our branch president said we needed to get water which I felt like was appropriate because the only time not to use water is when you don´t have water with you but it was pretty funny that someone switched it. Anyways Sunday was great and we had a really young devotional speaker that talked to us about Lots wife and how she turned into salt not just because she looked back but because she longed to go back and wished she wouldn´t have left in the first place. Right then half of the audience turned into salt!! Haha Just kidding but I think a lot of people needed that talk, and I realized I need to let go of home more and be looking ahead not behind. Monday was kind of a blurr but I remember that our night teacher Hermana Castillo gave us an amazing lesson about how we can be really creative with our lessons and I feel like I need to change all of my lesson plans haha After the lesson though she talked to us about how she loves us a ton but she is kind of disapointed because we haven´t been progressing with our español as much as we should be and in other things and she knows that we can be so much better. Even though she said it with love it hit one of the hermanas kind of hard and so I gave her a blessing after and she seemed a lot better. My teachers Hermana Bair and Castillo are amazing and I wish I could have them in the field to help me but I can have the Spirit which is the best teacher so I´m not too worried. On Tuesday my companion and I went out during out language study and talked with some native workers and I was suprized with how well we could understand them and communicated back with them. The first guy was a member but we still talked to him and gave him a mini lesson and then we talked to this guy named José Gonzalez and he wasn´t a member but he was really interested when we talked to him about prophets and then we talked to him about general conference this weekend and he was excited that the prophet and apostles in our day would be speaking to us. We gave him tons of info and got his information to the missionaries in the area and so I hope that things go well with him but I will probably never find out :/ but at least we got to talk to him. We also tried to give him a L.D.M. but I guess some other missionaries gave him one the day before or something haha We had a devotional that night and the speaking was way cool. In our DDR(District Devotional Review not Dance Dance Revolution) we took some time by ourselves to pary about and write down questions we have going into conference and so I should challenge all of you to write down ANY questions that you have about ANYTHING and if you listen to the Spirit and ponder those questions they WILL be answered. Wednesday we got to teach some first week missionaries and it was fun except for they couldn´t really understand anything we were saying it was frustrating haha I got to go to the temple this morning and I could understand most of it and I was really happy with that. Also thanks mom for the letter and card that will help me a lot thanks! Well hope you all have a wonderful week and have a great conference experience. I love you all mucho! I´m not sure when my P-day will be out in the field so I´m not sure when I will be able to email again and how much time I will have but I will email as soon as I can and thank you for all of the emails they make me really happy :) Love, Elder Hyde