Baby T - January 23, 2014 - Families are Forever

HUGS AND COOKIES FROM AUNT JULIE

This week was a little hard to be honest. I got a call from my family Friday night letting me know baby T didn't make it. That was a difficult night knowing that I will never see him in this life and just knowing all that my family had to go through made it a tough night. But the power of prayer is real and I know that our Heavenly Fathers loves us and will comfort us in even the most difficult of times. I know that my family will be able to see him again after this life and I can't even imagine having to go through this without the knowledge that I have. That is why this work is so important and I know even though I can't be home to comfort my family right now, our Heavenly Father is taking care of all of you. D&C 137:10 gave me tons of comfort and reassurance that he will be saved in the celestial kingdom and if we can do our part, we will live with him there for eternity. I am amazed at how much strength I have received from my own prayers and from the many others that I know are praying for me and my family. I think there will be some sorrow for the rest of my life, but as I rely on Jesus Christ he can give me the strength to overcome all things. Christ suffered EVERYTHING for us and He knows how to help us. It also gave me a lot of strength talking to a family that is so strong in the gospel and has so much hope and faith in our Heavenly Father's perfect plan for us. I remember the first night I hear he was having a little bit of trouble in the MTC and I was praying for him and I got this big feeling that he might not make it but it was also one of the most peaceful moments I have ever had. I forgot about that experience until Friday night when I was laying in bed. It gave me a lot of peace then to know that the Spirit can bring to our remembrance experiences that have helped us in the past.

Well I was really lucky to have a super busy week to keep my focus on helping others. I have found that the easiest way to overcome trials is just to get to work. Helping others really helps me to be happy and keep going. This week I got to go to the other elders area with elder Wagstaff for exchanges and it was sweet. It was nice to get a taste of a different area and other investigators. This week Angelina Lomeli came to church. The ward was super awesome with her and she really enjoyed it. I also got to do a blessing on their house earlier this week which was a cool experience. She told us starting this week she is going to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon every night with her family. Yesterday we met this guy Gustavo and he was so happy to see us. He invited us in before we could introduce ourselves haha He told us 6 months ago other missionaries stopped by and gave him a Book of Mormon. He has read out of it 2 to 3 times a week since. He loves it. He is Catholic and goes around helping people who are about to pass away. He helps them have hope in God and Jesus Christ right before they die. He is a way awesome dude who loves helping others. Well it was a challenging week that really strengthened my testimony and helped me really feel the love of our Heavenly Father. Thank you for all the prayers and nice emails of comfort and support I have received.

Love, Elder Hyde

I'm Exhausted....

So this week was the most exhausting week I have had on my mission so far. We were biking like crazy, about 100miles, teaching like crazy, 23 lessons, and finding new people everywhere, 11 new investigators. Wow I am super blessed in this mission! Tuesday was awesome, after Paniagua dropped us last week we were ready to get out and teach. So we didn't know where we should go, but we were guided by the Spirit to this hidden street that we never knew existed. We taught this really old lady named Costa. She loved everything we had to say but we had to because it a little short because she looked like she was going to fall over haha Then we found a lady, Yolanda Mesa. Yeah I know we taught a Costa and an Hermana Mesa in the city of Costa Mesa, California all in the same day. We were able to just keep teaching all day, it was awesome. Our last lesson was with this awesome less-active lady who really wants to come back to church and was wondering what she needed to do. Her husband isn't a member and had lots of questions and her son is 8 and is autistic. He is so funny and awesome. He loves hawks, has a pet snake that he carries around everywhere and can draw amazing animals. He watches youtube videos and then draws them how he sees someone else draw them he is awesome. He wanted to say the closing prayer and wow, it was the one of the most heartfelt prayers I have ever heard. He prayed to see more birds and blessed all the birds even though some birds would have to be eaten. He also told Heavenly Father that if he ever needs someone that he is always there for Him and that he loves Him, and he know that Heavenly Father loves him too. Such an awesome family, we are going to bring over the English sisters to pass them to them this Tuesday.

Wednesday we had an awesome zone meeting with our AP's. We got to do teaching practices with AP Elder Barnes and he is way awesome. It's way fun to teach with him. Later that day we found a new family. The Lomeli's. They are so awesome. They don't look like they would be interested but wow they want to change and have better lives. They have kind of been confused about God and religion because of the leaders in their other churches. The parents were baptized Catholic and then Christian but they haven't been to church for years. The mom is about 40's maybe almost 50, they have a son who is about 25, then daughters 23, 21, and 18 years old and another son who is 15. The daughters are the most interested and really want to find out for themselves if what we taught is true. It can be hard for them to focus and understand what we are teaching but they really enjoy it. Rosi is 21 and has a 3 year old kid and she is the most open. Her and her brother are awesome. After the lesson the mom wanted us to pray for the dad because his mind is really messed up from dark magic stuff and he always hears voices and weird stuff. We offered to give a blessing and he really wanted one. After we gave him one, Rosi asked for one because she told us she was trying to overcome some bad thoughts she had been having. I was able to give her a blessing and wow it was awesome. It is interesting giving someone a blessing that you just met an hour ago but it was an awesome experience. After her sister and her just looked at me and asked how I knew all of that stuff about her and how I knew exactly what she needed. We explained blessings again and wow it was a huge testimony builder to me of the power of the Priesthood. God knew what she needed and I feel so honored to be an instrument in His hands. Our Heavenly Father knows us and knows what we need.

Thursday we found this awesome guy named Manny. We actually knocked into a sober living housing complex and the first door was the manager. Way awesome dude who told us he didn't want anything to do with us but that we should knock the other doors there and he told us who speaks Spanish. So then we found Manny. We started talking to him and he told us about how he has been shot dozens of times and stabbed all over. He showed us tons of scars and wow it was crazy. He told us he went to prison for 10 years got out for a little bit. Went back for 27months and now he is really ready to change. He hasn't had a drink or smoke for over 90 days or so and so he received the privilege of living it the sober living home. Awesome dude that wants to learn more and even told us he is trying to get his tattoos removed. He wants to change for his 3 girls and be a part of their life. Really nice guy, and man does he have some stories. Friday we talked to this really nice Christian lady who was interested in the Book of Mormon. We also had ward volleyball again finally and got Rosi to come with her brother and 2 cousins. It was awesome and we got to talk to her more about blessings and prayer and the Book of Mormon.

Saturday the Vazquez family invited us to have breakfast with them and then do some service. We made crepes for them and it was way fun. Then Hermano Vazquez took us to a Swap Meet for a few minutes and it was super fun and crazy. Sunday we had Ward Conference and it was way fun to hear from the awesome Stake President that we have. We also got to watch Finding Faith in Christ with this awesome non-member family that just got back from Mexico. The kids loved it because they knew who Christ was before but didn't really understand His importance. After they seemed to have a lot better understanding. Well a lot of other sweet things happened but I don't have time to write all of it. Love you guys. Thanks for all that you do for me :) Love, Elder Hyde

Hurt companion, baptismal date, saying goodbye to Paniagua Family, Everything always works out

Hola! Well this week starting with my companion, Elder Maughan hurting his ankle way bad playing basketball on P-day. He was being a little too aggressive and stuffed this kid against the backboard but when he came down he landed on his ankle and after a couple minutes it looked like a baby alien had hatched inside of his ankle. So that night we weren't able to go out because he couldn't walk on it. I also got a package from my dad with lots of random awesome stuff in it :) Tuesday was awesome. Even though Elder Maughan couldn't walk very well, he was able to bike slowly without very much pain. So we got to at least get out of the apartment :) On our way to our first appointment the AP's called me to see if I was done being trained. So I guess there is going to be a change in 5 weeks and they started figuring out transfers early or something because the AP's never call people so it made me super curious haha Anyways, none of the people we had set up for lessons were there and with my companions ankle we weren't sure how many doors we were going to be able to knock. But Heavenly Father was looking out for us because we only had to knock 2 doors and we taught 45min lessons at both and found some really cool investigators. Then we had a lesson with Efrain who we met on the street about 8 weeks ago and he has kept rescheduling our appointments. Well we went to teach him and he was super happy to see us. We taught him the Restoration and he loved everything we said. We set a baptismal date with him for Feb. 9th and he is just awesome. He told us this is what he has been looking for. He is really hard to reach at times but he is super awesome. He told us about this amazing experience he had about 14 years ago. He said he was super wasted and on lots of different types of drugs and was basically passed out on the bathroom floor when he saw a light and he felt like God was telling him to stop drinking and doing drugs. Well, he said he hasn't had a sip of alcohol since and hasn't touched any drugs either. It was super awesome. New Years day was really interesting. We found out Victor, the guy who asked us if we were Mormons and wanted to change, is in prison for who knows what. Yeah that was sad. Then we taught a group of drunk guys who had tons of questions but were surprisingly pretty respectful. One guy named Mario wanted us to come back when he wasn't drinking and teach more so that was cool. A day filled with drunk people and not very much success. Thursday we helped this older Asian lady get her suitcase up to her apartment and she was super funny and awesome. It's a rule that we can't teach people in our complex which really stinks sometimes because there is a lot of potential but after we talked to her about God and Jesus Christ a little bit she said she would be way interested in other missionaries coming over. She was super funny and made us laugh a lot. As we were walking back to our apartment a different guy stopped us and asked us if we were Mormons. He said both of his parents are Mormon but he is Catholic/Christian. He asked us to say a prayer with/for him and just said he is looking for more because his life is pretty hard right now. He was just visiting a friend there so he actually lives in the other elders area but he was really nice. Friday we taught a member and this guy that lives in her house isn't a member. We taught him too and he seemed way interested. He told us he has come to church before and really likes it. Friday we saw this lady trying to move by herself so we offered to help he and man did she need it. A single lady trying to move all of her stuff we felt way bad. So we spend 2 hours and hurry and packed up a U Haul full of her stuff. She was a super nice lady moving to Idaho to go to medical school. She kept trying to pay us a lot of money for helping but our mission rule is to not accept any money of any kind so it was funny. Saturday we taught Luis and his dad Enrique and when we got there one of our other investigators Andres was there visiting. They are friends, super small world haha So we were ended up teaching about 6 people in the house and we brought our zone leaders to pass off Luis to them because he is 21 and would fit better in the young single adult ward. It was a packed house and we had an amazing lesson. Sunday nobody came to church again :( dang. Every week people tell us they are going to come. We offer them rides from members, reminder texts in the morning, everything to help them and yet this is 4 straight weeks without a member coming. To start of the morning even better we went to the Paniagua's to remind them of the time change of church and make sure they were going to come since they were finally back from Las Vegas and not sick anymore. But Carolina told us her family wants to take a break from us for a while to debate whether this is right for her family or not. It was a terrible feeling having our awesome family drop us but after a nice fast Sunday at church we felt re-energized and ready to find some new. We found out that this awesome family just got back from Mexico that we taught once about 4 weeks ago and they are interested so we will see them this week :) We also found some awesome new investigators named Juan and Martin. One of them said his whole family would be interested and the other had never really thought about God and was wondering if he was even there. Really cool lessons, awesome new people. It was what we needed after a disappointing Sunday morning. Love you all, have a great week! Love, Elder Hyde