Prayers are answered...

This week wasn't quite what I was hoping but it was good. Àngela
didn't get baptized this week which was disappointing. Her son really
wants to be there but he wouldn't be able to make it yesterday so she
will be baptized this Sunday between conference sessions which will be
super cool! This week she received her answer that the church is true.
She said she always believed it was and was going to get baptized with
that belief but now she knows it is what God wants for her. Her answer
came to her in a dream. In her dream she walked into a great big
church and she said they were about to do mass and she asked herself,
why am I here? I shouldn't be here, so she had to get up and run. Then
she came to a bunch of doors and none of them seemed right. When she
got to one door The Lord was there waiting for her and asked her about
her baptism. She talked to Him about how she was going to be baptized
soon and He told her that's what she should do and that He was pleased
with her. She got pretty emotional sharing it with group of us and it
was a really special moment. We were actually having an activity at
the church with all of the investigators in the ward and they all got
to hear her share her awesome experience. It made us all so happy
because she is doing what I wish all investigators would do. Act on
her faith by setting a baptismal date, then The Lord answered her
prayer to know if what we shared was right. She has been baptized into
a few churches and her dream had so much symbolism and I'm really
happy for her.

So when she shared that we were at an activity at the church with
tons of our investigators. It's amazing how many people will show up
if you say there will be free pizza and volleyball. We were able to
give them a church tour and we could barely fit in some of the rooms.
It was super cool. When we started finishing up we were all sharing
our favorite part of our day and the entire room rocked back and forth
and up and down for about 8 seconds. It was crazy! It was only a 5.4
earthquake and only knocked over a few water bottles where we were at
so it was all good.

This week we set a baptismal date with Olis for the 20th of April.
She is doing really well, but is waiting until this week to bring up
baptism with her husband again. I think he will be a lot more open
this time as he has been gradually becoming more open to the idea.
This week Àngela also was interview for baptism and when Elder Burrup
told her she passed she began to cry she was so happy. She is so
awesome and ready! This week we will have conference, our baptism, and
the other elders in our ward have a baptism so it's a really exciting
week. Also this week was a little slow on Facebook so of you have any
friends you think might be ready to hear the gospel suggest them as
friends to me and I will send them a message :) you never know who
might be ready to hear the gospel and so search, ponder, and pray. You
will find someone! :)

Love,
Elder Hyde

staying in Costa Mesa...

I am so excited and happy for this next transfer :) lots of good
things are going to happen and I'm really excited! So I'm going to be
in Costa Mesa with elder Arèvalo for another transfer. Still in the
same area where I began but I am excited to see the fruits of all the
hard work elder Maughan and I put in early on. Because basically every
person we are teaching right now, we found in our last transfer
together. We taught Angela this week and she is super excited to be
baptized this next Sunday. We taught her tithing and she told us there
is no doubt in her mind that this church is true and she needs to be
baptized. I'm so happy for her!

So this week during district meeting president and sister Bowen
stayed for our meeting. They are super awesome and it was a lot of fun
seeing how involved our mission president is and how much he loves our
Heavenly Father and savior Jesus Christ. He is super nice and after a
good district meeting he took us all out to lunch and elder Arèvalo
and I got to ride in his car with him and his wife in the way to
lunch. They are the nicest people ever. It was a sweet day.

Thursday I was on exchanges with elder Wagstaff and he is a super
good missionary. We spent the day focusing on talked to every single
person we saw. Even if it meant we had to cross streets, chase after
people, or have tons of cards ready when we saw a bus full of high
schoolers get out. It was a good day or learning and improvement. I
love those types of exchanges. It was also pretty fun just starting
conversations with people by saying, "hi, do you have Facebook" haha
we got some funny answers but actually ended up finding some really
awesome people that way. We also found this less-active lady and had
an awesome lesson with her. She said she has felt terrible every
Sunday because no matter what she would do she would always remember
that she wasn't renewing her covenants but she let excuses take over.
She was super happy we came by and promised she would come to church.
And when Sunday came around she actually came! :) it was super awesome
and the ward was really happy to have her back.

We were able to have some really good lessons with Olis. She is
still trying to find some support from her husband. All she wants from
him is to be there when she gets baptized but he is being stubborn.
She told us that won't stop her from being baptized soon but she is
just hoping and praying her husbands heart will be softened. This week
I gave a sister in our district a blessing. It's been a while since I
have been able to give one and it was a really good experience for me
to feel how strong the spirit is during them and feel how much they
are guided by the spirit. Really cool experience. I love blessings.

Had one of the best Sundays of my mission. We had Olis, Angela
and her daughter Rosi came to church and we found out that Angela and
Rosi and related to someone in the ward, so that was super awesome and
they loved being there with family. Olis received a lot of personal
revelation during one of the classes and told us she felt completely
edified. Then later we went to a baptism that the zone leaders had and
brought Olis, Angela and Rosi. They loved it. Angela got even more
excited to be baptized next week and Olis says she feels like she will
be super nervous but super excited for when she will be baptized. For
her it's only a matter of when not if she will be baptized. Rosi said
she doesn't feel ready but that she really wants to work towards it
and make the changes that she needs to get there. Well next week I
will tell you all about Angela's baptism and elder Maughan gets to
come back for it so it will good to see him too.

Con cariño,
Elder Hyde

Good week and awaiting transfers this week...

This week was pretty normal but we were able to find some really
cool people. This one girl named Karla is a truth seeker and really
wants to find the truth. She said she used to go to church but she
hasn't gone in a while. She told us how she has been having these
really strong impressions that she needs to go to church but she was
sure which one because she felt like she didn't quite fit in the
Catholic and Christian churches she has gone to. But Sunday came
around and she wouldn't answer her phone or come so we are hoping we
find her again. We had an awesome lesson with Olis about the
restoration because she has had some doubt about a living modern day
prophet. The spirit was really strong and testified to her because she
told us she believes there is a modern day prophet and the only thing
holding her back is she wants her husband to be supportive of her
decision. We are praying super hard that his heart will be open
especially as we are going to have a lesson with her tonight and he
should be there too.
We were able to teach this awesome less active family and help
them feel the spirit again. They were super happy we stopped by and we
even get to have dinner and a family home evening with them tonight.
One of their youngest sons is 10 and hasn't been baptized. We are
really focusing on getting them all active and baptized so they can be
sealed in the temple. This week Elder Arèvalo gave a baptismal
interview to the zone leaders investigation so a zone leader Elder
Burrup and I got to go on exchanges in my area for a couple hours. It
was so much fun, all of our plans fell through but we went knocking
with a member and found two new investigators and even had the member
invited them to read the Book of Mormon and to come to church. It was
super cool. One of the new investigators in Jesus's dad. The same
Jesus that was supposed to be baptized this last Sunday but has been
so busy with work we haven't been able to see him, only random
appearances at church. But his dad is super interested in what we
believe and why his son has talked to him about the Book of Mormon and
wants to join our church.
Transfers are next week so I am probably going to a different
area since I have been in Costa Mesa my whole mission so far so I'm
excited to see what's going to happen but I really don't want to leave
the awesome investigators in this area. Also leadership training calls
are this Thursday so I might be called to train, which is what I'm
hoping. But whatever happens is great because I'm here to do whatever
The Lord wants me to. A really cool scripture I read this week was

1 John 3:1-2

1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth
us not, because it knew him not.
2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

I know we are the literal sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly
Father and while we might not comprehend all that we may become we
know that all that we were, are, and can become in because of Him and
His son Jesus Christ. He knows us, loves us, and wants us to become
like him. How wonderful and precious is that knowledge, and how
amazing it feels to often ponder and realize just how much we mean to
Him. I love being a missionary and be able to help others feel of the
love of our Heavenly Father through the spirit. And I know that we can
all do that through our examples and charity towards everyone. Thanks
for being such great examples to me on how I can show that love and be
a better disciple of Christ. I love you guys a ton!

Elder Hyde

Temple this week!

The reason that I'm emailing on Wednesday is because we got to go
to the temple today. Wow I LOVE the temple. It was well needed and
just an awesome experience today. This past week and a half we were
able to teach Zaira a few times and she shared an awesome experience
that she had with prayer. She was super sick the whole spring break
and then she realized she hadn't been reading the scriptures or saying
her daily prayers for a while so she decided to pray. After she read a
couple versus from the Book of Mormon and said she knew she would get
better. The next day she felt completely better. She said it was
really comforting to see God answer her pray and so quickly. She also
asked us a question that really got to me this week. She asked us why
she wasn't born into an LDS family and wished she would have been. We
showed her a Mormon message called "The Will of God" and it explains
how God is the "Gardner" in our lives and knows our full potential and
what He wants us to become. We might not always know why we are placed
in the situations we are but I know it's all part of our Heavenly
Father's plan for us.

We also had exchanges which was super awesome. I got to go with
zone leader elder Burrup, who was my old district leader, into the
young single adult ward for a day. They only work with people who are
between the ages of 18-30. We weren't having a terribly successful day
and we only had an hour left. We had some goals that we really wanted
to hit so we prayed that we would do all that we could to hit those
goals but that we needed His help to reach them. After the prayer we
made sure we were doing all we could and we ended up finding two new
investigators and teaching a couple lessons in that last hour to reach
what we had set out to. It helped me to realize even more that
Heavenly Father really listens to our prayers and even though He knows
what we need before we ask for it, we still need to ask with faith and
be ready to ask on what he guides us to do.

Olis is doing really well, she wants to be baptized really bad but
she is talking with her husband because she wants him to receive the
gospel too. The Lomeli family is doing good and Junior came to church
with Angelina which was good but Elizabeth and Rosi didn't make it. I
crashed on my bike for the first time this last week. Elder Arèvalo
forgot we were supposed to turn and tried to pass me as I was turning.
But oh well I'm fine, just some scrapes and bruises. Saturday we got
to do some service for a member who just moved into a new house with
about 2-4ft of garbage covering the whole back yard. From cement
blocks to old CDs we got to clear up most of it into one of those huge
garbage containers. It was fun. That's all I have time for, have a
great week!

Love,
Elder Hyde

Every week is amazing...

Every week out here is so amazing! Even though every week we have
somewhat of the same routine, every week is so different and I learn
completely different things, I love it. So this week we were able to
teach Olis about the law of chastity and it was one of my favorite
lessons I have taught so far. We were able to share a Mormon message
called "Watch your step." In the video Jeffery R. Holland talks about
how one decision can have a big impact on our lives, especially when
it comes to the law of chastity. It was a really cool lesson and she
was so happy to know that God has given us that commandment because
she wants the best for her little boy and that is something that will
give him a good home life growing up. She is super ready to be
baptized, she is just talking it over with her husband. She also came
to church and loved it, the gospel of Jesus Christ is really
transforming her life :)

Well we have had a lot of rain this past week and it was fun to
bike while it was pouring but we were able to teach lots of pool
because we went out through the rain so it made it worth it. I don't
have a lot of time this week but I want to share a scripture that I
found that I really love.

"Abstain from all appearance of evil"
(1 Thessalonians 5:22)

I love this scripture because there are so many things that may not be
"bad" in this life but give off an appearance of evil or ungodliness.
We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father and I think for that
reason alone we need to have that higher standard or abstaining from
even the appearance of evil things. As a missionary I have to be extra
cautious of this to gain and keep the trust with members and
investigators. But I know this scripture applies to everyone, so I
invite all of you to follow this scripture and I know as you do you
will have a refreshing sense of the divine purpose that our Heavenly
Father has for us and our potential in this life and in the life to
come. I love you all, keep us the awesome mission work with your
friends, family, and neighbors. I enjoy hearing of all your successes
in sharing the gospel with those around you.

Love,
Elder Hyde