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