So Exciting....

So this week I wanted to start out with the response of one of our
investigators. During a lesson we asked her what it would mean to her
to have a living prophet. She exclaimed "it would be exciting" and it
was such a powerful moment to be able to testify to her that God has
called a prophet and He is guiding His church on the earth today. She
is devote in her baptist church but she has a wonderful understanding
of the importance of prophets. We have high hopes for her and her
awesome family that just moved here from Colorado.

We have been receiving some great opportunities to do service the
past few weeks and this week a member took pictures of us and printed
it out with our numbers on it offering free service and put it in the
laundry room of the complex so I hope we will see some fruit from that
soon.

I went on exchanges with Elder Randall this week and we had a really
fun day on bike. I miss being on bike. But we taught a member how to
use Facebook to share the gospel with his friends and then went
knocking and found a pretty cool family. That night we had an awesome
lesson with a guy named Jeri. He owns close to absolutely nothing and
lives in a tiny garage in an alley. He is a really humble guy that is
really looking for purpose and direction in his life. We committed him
to be baptized and it was a really humbling experience to see him and
hear his story. We even brought him soap so he can do his laundry
which he hasn't done in a very long time.

Jildalgo is doing well but the only time we taught him this week was
when I was on exchanges in the other area so I wasn't able to see him.
But he is really loving the truths that the gospel is bringing to his
life. So many wonderful people we are teaching but they don't come to
church because it's "too far" or "too early" for the to make it. So I
guess it's time for us to get out and find this week and help more
people feel how exciting it is to have a living day prophet!

I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of The Lord and that he
receives the revelation to guide us in these latter-days. I love you
all and hope you can keep studying the words of the prophets that we
received just a few weeks ago, because their words are glorious.

Love,
Elder Hyde

P.S. We also had our Halloween party this week so I will send some
pictures. It was one of the most well put together Hispanic party that
I have had on my mission!

Teaching & Teaching...

This week was just teaching from appointment to appointment. Almost
all week we had our appointments go through and we just were able to
teach a ton! It made the week go by really fast and kind of blurred a
lot together but it was wonderful. It was also elder Kemp's last week
of training so he is finally done and now we will have another hour
every single day to find, teach, and help people prepare for baptism.
Yay!

Some random things that happened this week were, finding maggots and
bugs in some rotten potatoes in elder Kemp's food cabinet, having an
IPad as our ward pianist on Sunday, and digging some trenches for some
trees in a members yard. The maggots were really gross and got some
disgusting slop all over. It was fun to clean up. And since the one
person who can play piano in our ward was sick we had the bishops iPad
next to the microphone playing the hymns, it was great.

On Sunday we got to go back to Santa Ana 5 and I got to confirm
Crystal Yulisa Sánchez, Yuvia's sister. Their family is great and it's
always a blast to see them. Plus confirming just makes me so happy to
bless these wonderful people here, and she was so excited. By the time
we got back to our ward we found Jildalgo already in sacrament meeting
just enjoying the talks with the ward and he was able to stay for all
three hours, which was a first for him. He loved it but it kind of
seemed like a lot to him to have three hours but the priesthood lesson
was way better this week so he likes that class now.

Congratulations to Clark and Kim! That was fun to see some of their
wedding pictures, and I hope Kim is doing alright. I love you all and
am doing great, I just don't have a ton to write about this week. Have
a great week!

Love,
Elder Hyde

Elder Hyde...blessings, word of wisdom, testimony

Well this week was a very full week. We had so many people to visit
and things to do, because of the lack of time that we had last week,
that looking back on the week it was just packed. Elder Hurley and I
got to go on exchanges this week and it was great to be with him. He
was a convert at the age of 15 and it's great to hear and feel of his
strong testimony. It's also very different being with someone that
hasn't grown up in the gospel and is new to the mission. I realized
how we basically have a different language as members of the church
and it helped me think of how investigators must feel if we use a lot
of new words. But we had a fun exchanged and it was fun to be part of
his first exchange of the mission.


We also had some great experiences and progress with some
investigators. One investigator wasn't following through with
commitments and so we had to have a do or drop type lesson with her
and by the end she came out of it with a new determination to read he
Book of Mormon and we even set a baptismal date with her so that was
awesome. The investigator that came to conference was able to make it to the priesthood hour at church and we were super excited. But then
the priesthood lesson turned to a why soda and energy drinks are
against the word of wisdom, which seemed to confuse our investigator.
So we will need to go over that more with him this week. We also found
a cool new family that is really active in a baptist church but was
really excited about the plan of salvation and asked us to come by
before we could even ask!


But the most impacting thing that happened this week was a two hour
trip to a hospital of one of our members in the ward. Her mom had been in the hospital for a few weeks because a tumor in her lung had become really dangerous. As we arrived at the hospital room the entire staff of doctors and nurses were with the family. The night before had been a rough one and she went from being able to see, hear, and move every once in a while to not being able to do any of that. The doctors had to tell the family that there was nothing more they could do. It was a heart wrenching feeling to see a family completely break down and not know what to do. It was one of the first times in my life that I felt
that I didn't have words of comfort that could give them the comfort
they needed. We gave them all blessings and it was a really
interesting feeling giving the mom a blessing when she was so close to
her death. The only thing we could do was testify of the plan of
salvation and especially the Atonement. It was a testimony builder to
me that the Atonement of Jesus Christ really does give us comfort,
peace, and happiness that can't come from anything else. It doesn't
mean we won't go trough hard times, mourn at the loss of loved ones,
or feel pain in the difficult times. But it means that we aren't going
through it alone. Christ has already suffered all of the pain, sorrow,
and sicknesses that we will ever go through and because of His
infinite Atonement for us we can have not only have the comfort and peace at the end of it all but also the strength to endure through the trial. I know that Christ lives. He loves us and because of His Atonement we can all feel strength, peace and comfort in the many trials we face in this life. I know that we all will live again and see our loved ones. And I'm grateful for the plan that God has given us so that we won't just see each other after this life but live together as families. I
love you all and testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ.




Amen.

Elder Hyde

Conference & The FIRE!

Well since I was able to email on Thursday the most significant
thing that happened was the amazing general conference that we had! :D
Also we had a pretty fun experience on Wednesday morning that I forgot
to share. So it's 4:00am and Elder Kemp turns on the light and says
something is wrong. I have been sleeping with earplugs because of our
neighbors that fight so I couldn't hear the fire alarm going off. So I
was telling Elder Kemp to go back to back because it was 4 but then he
opened the front door and yells that there was smoke! So that got me
out of bed and ready to go pretty past. Haha we had to hold our
breathe as we ran down the stairs and out of the building to where the
fire trucks were and so we got to chat with the English elders and
some members that came outside as well. One of our neighbors left the
over on over night and so it caught the apartment on fire. So now our
apartment still smells like smoke. Fun experience though.

Back to conference. WOW. I loved it! :D There was so many inspired,
question answering, and action provoking talks I left really uplifted
and inspired. I really liked all of talks about our ability to choose
and act for ourselves especially to face the right way, growing our
own testimonies, staying in the boat, and tools to exercise faith. We
also had a conference miracle when we were going over to the Spanish
side of the church to watch elder Martin give his talk in Spanish and
when we got in there we just see one of our investigators chilling
there watching conference. We felt discouraged that all of the time
during the week that we spent inviting people and nobody had come. But
in the last conference our investigator didn't even tell us he was
there but he was just enjoying it. It was amazing! We were so happy to
see him and then the best part is that he came for the session when
Elder Bednar gave his talk directed toward people investigating the
church. He loved it and it was a big blessing and miracle to have him
there. I hope you all enjoyed conference and your week!

Love
Elder Hyde

Yuvia Baptism....JOY!

So much has happened since the last time I emailed I don't even know
where to start. :D but since we went to the temple today we don't have
a whole lot of time to email. So I will start with the highlight! So
on Sunday I got the opportunity to go back to Santa Ana 5 to baptize
Yuvia Alexandra Sánchez. There were three people being baptized. Yuvia
and her sister Crystal and then a members son named Greg that is about
15 and the last member of his family to be baptized. It was a really
wonderful experience. The best way I could describe it would be that
my heart felt like it was going to burst with joy! :D Little Yuvia and
Crystal were just so excited and happy and it was wonderful to see
them and their whole family. Their mom wants to be baptized as well
but she is just trying to get her divorce filed and then get married
to her boyfriend. So that was the reason we referee to them as the
Ramirez family because half of the kids last names are Ramirez and he
other half Sánchez. Just to clear that up. Haha But I just absolutely
love that family and the many ward members that we there that we
worked with to help the family feel so loved and welcomed by the
church. It was really the members that made the difference.


Some other wonderful miracles that we have seen lately have come from
talking to people about general conference. We have seen a lot of
people open up and a lot of the investigators actually commit to
coming when they are never sure about coming to church. So I'm really
excited for general conference and to see a lot of people come to hear
from the prophet and apostles. We have seen a lot of success already
with trying to involve the members more in our finding. At dinner
appointments we share a message and instead of asking who do you know
that needs the gospel or needs help or however we would normal say it.
We invite the head of the house to offer a kneeling prayer with us and
the whole family to ask our Heavenly Father where we should go and who
we should visit and invite everybody to listen to wherever or whoever
comes to mind. We have found a lot of success from this and have seen
The Lord hastening his work through the members. Because even if they
don't have a referral the might have a street or an area they feel we
should check out. When we go try where they tell us we have been
finding new investigators, less active members, and just success. Then
when we report the success to the member in the area they told us to
go it gets them excited to come out with us and join in the work. We
are looking forward to continuing to do this and I think it's an
awesome way to involve members.


Also on a funny note we have been teaching this less active fourteen
year old who loves us coming by but has a hard time understanding and
applying the scriptures. So while we were planning to teach him and we
didn't know what we should do. Then we saw the bag of frooties candy
that the family Marchant sent to me and so we had the great idea to
help him teach scripture stories. We spend a couple days the past week
explaining to him the story when Nephi and his brothers go to get the
plates from Laban using frooties as the characters. Now he is able to
pay more attention and understand the scriptures more fully. Plus if
he understand what goes on he gets candy at the end. So that's been a
fun new challenge. But he is a great kid so it's a lot of fun working
with him.


This week we had the opportunity to also see a movie! We got to watch
"Meet the Mormons" with half of the mission and it is a great movie!
Mom, you're going to laugh, cry, and want to bring all your friends. I
think is it really top notch and to quote my mission president it's
like "An I'm a Mormon video on steroids." So invite all of your
friends, family, and everybody to see it! Well thank you for your
emails, prayers, and love. I feel really blessed to have such an
amazing support system. Especially my Heavenly Father and savior Jesus
Christ. Serving a full time mission is tough, tiring, and even at
times discouraging. But the rewards extend on for eternity and I feel
the most blessed that I have ever been in my life.


Love,
Elder Hyde

1. Familia Ramirez/Sánchez. The kids Crystal is in back, Yuvia in
front of me, and then Richard, Kevin, Javier, Jason, Marisol(mom) and
grandma. 2. More ppl including Greg who got baptized also