Elder Hyde - Memorial Day!

This week I feel like I wasn't in my area very much haha We had
exchanges with the other elders in our district and with the zone
leaders so it was a fun week! When I was in my area we were working
with the Lopez family who is less active. They have a special needs
kid named Nacho and he is sooo awesome! He reminds me of Cody from
special needs mutual from home. (Nathan served 2 years in the special needs
youth program before he left for his mission)
He is way funny and always just puts a
smile on my face when I get to spend time with him. Tuesday we had
some miss communication with a member that turned out to be really
good. We asked him to come out with us to a lesson at 8 but he came at
7 and decided to just start talking to people around the appointment.
He found this really awesome guy and we showed up and jumped in the
conversation and it was sweet. Members are so crucial to missionary
work and so many people are more open to listening to someone like
them. I think most of the people that are being prepared right now
will be found by the members through their efforts to reach out to
their coworkers, family and friends.

Cool story. The sisters in our ward had a baptism this week and the
guy, Rufino, who was baptized was found by a member named Nick at his
work. Nick didn't know if the guy spoke any English so he got a
Spanish Book of Mormon and used google translate (Because he didn't
know any Spanish at all haha) to write a brief testimony in Spanish
inside the cover. Then a year and a half later and a lot of tracking
down by the sisters he was able to come and share his experience at
the baptism and someone translated for him. He was so happy that the
small act of giving a coworker he didn't know a copy of the Book of
Mormon gave Rufino a chance to better his life and come closer to
Jesus Christ. We can all do this :) By following the spirit and
continuing to read scriptures and pray for opportunities the find
those people that we can share the gospel with.

This week I went on exchanges with elder Etchart and it was a lot
of fun. He used to run cross country in high school so we got to talk
about running a ton. He has to stop running because of super bad
stomach problems. Kind of what I went through but worse. He is a
really good missionary and is super knowledgable about lots of random
things. I also had exchanges with zone leader elder Gallego. My
highlight of the exchange was teaching this awesome investigator named
Patty. She is working on overcoming her same sex attraction but she
has a lot of faith and I sure she will if she lets her Heavenly Father
help her. She is hilarious and has a really good feeling for the
gospel. We taught her about repentance and how she can be forgiven.
She is awesome!

So this week was really awesome with everything. Today we have a
huge stake party at the park. It's called the Elota and all the wards
are there playing soccer and eating tons of food. We stopped by for a
minute this morning but are heading back right after this. It's been
fun the see all the Costa Mesa members and all the Spanish
missionaries in the mission.

Love,
Elder Hyde