Thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving! Or more like happy December! I hope you all had a wonderful week of lots of Turkey and wonderful food. I ate way too much. But it was a great week and we have a lot of exciting news for the holidays.

I will start from the beginning. Last Monday night we had two set family home evenings set up but both of the member families had to cancel last minute and we weren't sure what to do. So what evened up happening was we had a family home evening with the investigator families and then they became friends! :) It was a lot of fun to teach them all together and it was a great night. Tuesday basically everything fell through and then Wednesday everything and more went through and it was good to learn from both. This week for district meeting I had to come up with the whole thing myself and as I sought revelation for my district it was a great learning experience. It took a lot of effort and I felt like almost nothing was coming. Most of what I felt was right wouldn't come until the last 5 minutes of my personal studies each day and then 2 days before I changed the whole thing but as the meeting came and I could share that experience with the district I really felt like it was what the district needed. We went over the power of the spirit in conversion and how sharing our testimonies and how we came to know things are true can help our investigators know how they can receive their answers. It was a really good meeting and I really enjoyed it.

Thanksgiving was awesome! We had planned a huge service project but last minute it felt through. So we ended up spending the morning surprising two families that couldn't afford a turkey and gave them one. They were very grateful for it and I felt really good helping them out. Later we went to the Honda center in Anaheim where the Anaheim Ducks hockey team plays and we helped clean up from a thanksgiving service they did there feeding thousands of people. It was huge and there a ton of other volunteers that helped us missionaries as well. After that service we went to the house of the family Granja, who is the old bishop, and they had a feast for us. Not turkey, but ribs! :) Ribs, mash potatoes, rolls, brussel sprouts with asparagus covered in greasy onions, and avocado pie! The first time they made avocado pie I guess I looked like I loved it a lot and so every time I eat with them they make it for me. :D they are so nice! That night we went to visit some people that didn't have their family to be with and we had some really good lessons just sharing what we are grateful for. One family shared a really touching experience of how they met. She had been really sick for many years and lost her hair but her family wouldn't take her to the doctor. They met on a bus and then she invited him to a party and after she explained her sickness he asked her to be his girlfriend so that he could take care of her and help her become healthy. They are the sweetest young couple ever and now they have been married for about 4 years or so and her hair is starting to grow. She still needs a liver transplant and is working with doctors to see if she will be available for a transplant soon. It was a really touching story and they are so awesome. They don't have very much but they give everything they have to each other and to everyone else.

On Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder Wagstaff one of my zone leaders in the YSA. He is such an amazing elder and I learned so much from him. We went on two exchanges back when we were both in Costa Mesa and it was amazing to share all the many changes we have seen in each other since our first exchanges together. It was a great confidence booster and also a very spiritual exchange. I loved it. And YSA is so great, we spent the whole day teaching less active and recent converts. Young people have a lot of tough trials but wow they are so ready for the gospel.

Oh yeah I forgot to tell you that the church has a worldwide Christmas initiative of "He is the gift" using the hashtag of #ShareTheGift or #ComparteLaDàdiva in Spanish. We get special pass along cards that we use and need to give out at least 10 a day to get it going. Also on the 7th of December the church bought out all of the adds on the Facebook homepage to promote the video. So if you haven't seen it go check it out on Christmas.mormon.org or lds.org or even on YouTube. It's a great video and we have shared it about 20 times in the past 3 days, it's really helping bring people closer to Christ. As you watch it think about what the greatest gift that Christ has given you personally and then post it on Facebook! :) Share Christ with everybody! #ShareTheGift




Love,

Elder Hyde