Needed a tissue today....another great missionary week...Meeting Mike

This week I get to start with a miracle and probably one of the coolest moments in my mission. So last Monday we had just finished emailing and went to get some lunch at Five Guys. We were in line about to order and this guy comes running up to us "Are you guys Mormons?!?" we told him that we were and then he tells us that his name is Mike and that he needs to be baptized. He told us that some of him family was LDS and that he felt like he needed to be baptized. He said that he had been looking for missionaries for a while now and he was so happy to have found us. He is just getting over some drug and alcohol addictions and said he has almost completed his AA program and is changing his life around. He ended up eating lunch with us and even singing happy birthday to one of the sisters in my district. It was so awesome! He calls us every single day to tell us how he is doing and talk to us about the gospel and what he is learning. He loves how simple the gospel is and how it all makes so much sense to him. The very next day the English sisters taught him and they set a baptismal date for Dec. 22! He is so cool and just makes me soo happy! Tuesday I had my 9 week follow-up so we got to have some awesome lessons with President Bowen and his wife and also the assistants taught us too. President Bowen really loves all of his missionaries and it's so great to feel the love he has for me and the love of our Heavenly Father that you can feel when he bears testimony. That night we found this less-active lady that we have been looking for. She is super awesome and really wants to come back to church but is just scared to. We were able to give her a blessing and it was awesome! She asked me to give the blessing and it was a really cool experience and the first blessing that I have been able to give since the CCM. Wednesday we taught the Paniagua family and they set their own baptismal date for Jan. 5th! They are so ready to be baptized, I just hope we can keep them on their goal and help them to be ready to make the sacred covenant of baptism. Thursday I got to see President Bowen again because we had President interviews and they were super awesome! He is an awesome man. We also got to teach a father(Enrique) and his son(Luis) about the restoration focusing on the Godhead and they said they have never thought of the Godhead like that before and they really liked it. They said they would start to prepare for baptism but they wouldn't set a date before they got to read and pray about it. Julie got to stop by Friday and give me the bags of presents, thanks mom! :) That night we taught this awesome dude named Gabriel and this guy Carlos that lived with him absolutely loved us and knew everything about missionaries and Mormons because he told us he used to be dating a Mormon before she died. He had a lot of questions about why her family wasn't sad at the funeral and other things. He had trouble hearing so we kind of had to yell about the plan of salvation to him but he was really interested. We also told him about some classes we have to learn sign language and he was super excited about that. We might have to go translate the class for him since he only speaks Spanish so that should be fun :) Rain. Saturday it rained a lot in the morning and soaked us to the bone. It wouldn't have been so bad but there was a lot of wind that made it pretty cold on bikes. To make it worse nobody we went to see was home, so that kind of stunk. Then we had a lesson with this guy who wouldn't listen to us or pray about what we shared but told us he was good because he liked what he believed and didn't want to see us again. Sunday we called lots of people to invite them to church and 5 of the 6 people we called ended up dropping us and telling us they weren't coming to church and to never stop by again because they didn't want to make time for us. Good thing for the Christmas devotional and a after an awesome lesson with Luis to bring our Spirits back up :) This morning we finally went inside the Lamborghini dealership across from our apartments. It was sweet! Sounds like it is nice and cold in Utah :) But at least you guys will have snow for Christmas!! Cali is awesome though. This week I have been studying about Hope and what we hope for in life. We should hope for eternal life through the atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be receive eternal life. When I was studying hope, in the TG is says hope is also expectation and so I started plugging that into scriptures and it opened a whole new window for me on hope and how when we are obedient to God's commandments we can hope/expect for these great things like eternal life. Always have hope because when we have hope, we have everything :) Love, Elder Hyde