Exciting and disappointing...but lots of good things

Howdy Y'all This week was pretty exciting and also pretty disappointing. I will start with the good stuff and work to the disappoint stuff because that's the order that it happened. So last Wednesday we had a sweet district meeting and I was asked to talk for about 5minutes about how the Book of Mormon has helped me make sacred covenants and how it has helped me in my personal conversion. Wow, I'm not sure if what I said helped anyone but I know it helped me a ton. Just pondering and thinking about the Book of Mormon and everything it means to me was a wonderful experience and I know sharing experience makes your own testimony grow. Just like speaking, teaching a class, sharing your testimony with someone, or going out or your way to give service or be more Christ-like. When we stretch ourselves or do something that is hard for us we become better and grow the fastest. I love the many opportunities that we have to grow and stretch ourselves to really progress in this life how our Heavenly Father wants us to. So back to Wednesday, I got my frosty from the push-up challenge :) Then the rest of the night all of the people we went to see fell through until we had our weekly set appointment with the Paniagua family. We brought hermano Salgado, our mission ward leader who is a boss, with us and it really showed me how important member present lessons are. So we went in to teach them about faith and acting on their faith since they still have had the same doubts about being baptized for 6 months and we felt like they needed that. Well, God had other plans because when we followed up with them about how taking a question to church went, they told us they felt really good but they felt like they haven't received their answer yet and still had the same doubts. As hermano Salgado tried to answer her questions about the temple and other things the Spirit was really strong and we asked Carolina Paniagua to offer a prayer and ask right then. We all got on our knees and she offered the most sincere pray I have ever heard her give and she asked a lot of amazing questions. After that she opened up a ton and talked about how she has felt alone in her life and hasn't really felt God's love and we basically just testified and shared experiences and wow it was amazing. We invited them to be baptized on Nov. 24th and they accepted as long as they had received an answer to her prayer by then. I felt like that lesson was her answer. Thursday was a little discouraging but we found this sweet guy named Derick who seems pretty interested. He is in his 20's and just seems like he is searching for more in life. Boy do we have what he needs :) I'm pumped to teach him more. Friday we fasted for Max and Carolina Paniagua to help them see their answer and be ready for baptism. Fasting helped us to be really spiritually in tune and all of the people we went to see weren't home but we found two people by some of the houses we went to and this one guy Ralio was working with his son on his bike and they seemed really interested and just their eyes were so bright when we left they seemed really happy about what we shared. Saturday was awesome! We found a jackpot of hispanics and we only covered like a fourth of the area we wanted to but it was awesome because we were teaching so many lessons and we found two whole families that just seemed kind of lost and want to know more. We also learned that night that Elder Maughan and I are together for another transfer which is sweet, we get to have Thanksgiving and Christmas together in this amazing area I'm excited! It was an amazing week and then we get to Sunday. Sunday was fine until we got to priesthood meeting and when some guy asked Max about his baptismal date, he said he didn't have one and so we talked to him and his wife after church and they said they just aren't ready to make that commitment yet. It was really hard to hear. They have come to church almost every week for about 4 months and they believe in the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and they are just so ready, it is really confusing why they are so hesitant. Well I'm out of time but this week was pretty great, just a little discouraging. This week we also met this girl in her late 20's that just loves us haha Her name is Martha and when we knocked on her door she told us how she had met with other missionaries before but then she started inviting us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas and wants us to sing for her family haha When we invited her to church she said she would rather go to English because she hates Spanish but when we told her we were Spanish speaking elders she changed her mind all of the sudden and wants to come to our ward haha She is funny and really made us feel right at home. Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!! Love, Elder Hyde