Share the Gift

This week was all about sharing The Gift of Jesus Christ with
everybody. So I hear that you guys received some cards about sharing
The Gift in he Ensign. Well we as missionaries got 10 each day for the
month of December and wow we have seen some amazing miracles from
doing that. It has been a great blessing to have iPads to be able to
share the video right at the door. Almost every single door we knock
will at least let us show the video with them and most are way most
open to the restoration because of it. So go watch it if you haven't
yet! :) christmas.mormon.org

We got some rain this week and surprisingly it helped us to get into
even more houses because they didn't want us to be out in the rain. :)
We got soaked but it was a lot of fun and we had a lot of success.
This week I got to interview one of the sisters investigators named
Ricardo. He has been taught the entire time I have been in this area
and have overcome drinking, smoking, and a lot of others things and it
was amazing to see him finally be ready to be baptized. As we finished
the interview he acted surprised that we were done and he wanted me to
keep asking him questions. So we sat there and talked about his
testimony of Jesus Christ. He is awesome! President and sister Taggart
came to the baptism and it went great. Except that the water heater
wouldn't turn on and so they had freezing water walking into the
baptismal font and their faces were priceless.

Zone meeting was really great this week and president even came to
that as well. We saw president a lot this week which was a great
surprise. This month we are focusing on helping our investigators
understand the importance of church attendance and I'm really excited
for it! Next week is going to be packed with a Christmas celebration,
district meeting, a wedding for the other elders investigator and less
active member, transfer calls, leadership calls, and continuing to
share the gift!

I'm sorry that my letter is so short this week but I am love the
work and am really happy! Thank you for the really awesome package
last week. Everyday Elder Kemp and I have been enjoying a new little
gift and hopefully this week or next week we will be having a
"snowball" fight. :D I love you much and hope you have a wonderful
week and don't forget to share The Gift.

Love,
Elder Hyde

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

My week of Thankfulness

PDAY HIKE

I am so grateful for my wonderful family and friends and so this week
for my email I would like to follow an inspired idea I saw my friend
Elder Vierkant do a few weeks ago and just write an email of
gratitude. I am grateful for my family and their much love and
support. Im grateful for the the great privilege and blessing I have
to serve The Lord and the wonderful children of our Heavenly Father
with his infinite love that He has for each of them.

I am grateful for the investigators that we have to teach and the
willingness of the members to come out with us. This week we had a lot
of help from members coming to visit investigators and just be their
friends and be there for them to help them. I am also grateful for the
many people that allow us to come over and share this great message of
the restoration and fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This week
it was heartwarming to receive a message from an investigator for
thanking her for what we had taught her. She was humbled and wanting
to repent after she realized that she hadn't always kept the
commandments earlier in her life. We shared Mosiah 26:29-30 focusing
on
"...if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the
sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him
also. Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their
trespasses against me."
I am grateful for repentance. For the ability to be forgiven for our
errors in the life is such an amazing gift and as we testified of the
Saviors Atonement and the power of repentance to this investigator the
spirit testified to us and her that we can be forgiven and that the
Savior wants to forgive.

I am grateful for my companion and for the many things that he
teaches me every day. Elder Kemp and I are very different but it has
been a great learning experience to be with him for almost 4 months
now and be able to learn his strengths and how to use them in
missionary work.

I am grateful for my health and for the life that I have been given.
There are so many people that we teach that have poor health or have
problems with being happy with their lives or being positive and so
I'm very grateful for the growing up with the gospel in my life. I
have been so blessed in my life and taken most of it for granted.

I am most grateful for my Heavenly Father and for His great love for
us by sending His Son Jesus Christ to suffer the penalty for all of us
and gives us the strength to overcome our challenges and trials in
this life. I love you all and I am very grateful for YOU!

Love,
Elder Hyde

Elder Cardon is a very inspired man...

Sorry that I am writing two days late. Our Pday got changed because
we have Zone Conference with Elder Cardon from the first quorum of the
70 on Monday so our Pday is today. I will get more to that later but
it was an amazing conference.

Last Monday we were invited to family home evening and a newer family
in the ward had invited a part member family whom we have been trying
to contact for months. The family came and they shared a great lesson
about faith and we got to meet a great part member family. The next
day we had to go to the doctors with one of the elders in our district
who has been having back problems. Then we received a text from other
elders in the mission telling us that a less active member needed a
blessing in our ward. We went and found her and she called us Angels
sent from heaven and was amazed that we had come right when she was in
need of a blessing. Her husband isn't a member but after the blessing
he said the missionaries could come by to teach his whole family. She
is the only member so I'm excited for the sisters to go teach them. It
was a great experience to give a blessing to someone I had never met
before and just feel the spirit work through me. The whole day was
very guided by the spirit as we tried to put our training of relying
on the spirit into play. I can tell you that the Holy Ghost will guide
us if we listen. That night we were completely guided where to go and
found some great people. We were also guided to a part member family
we have been working with and just stopped to see how they were doing.
We just started testifying of the Savior and the wife opened up
telling us she had been reading about repentance in the Book of
Mormon. It led in perfectly to baptism and we invited her to be
baptized. She thought about it and then with a reassuring husband at
her side said she would. It was a great lesson and I'm really excited
for Maria Muñoz. In our past lessons we had focused on temples, and
families being sealed and so she said she really wants that. A
wonderful night of miracles.

The following day we had a meeting with all the district leaders in
the mission and we could tell right away that it was going to be a
different meeting than usual. Usually the assistants take half an hour
to go over some attributes of a good leader and then president has
twenty or so minutes to share some thoughts. This time the assistants
went through their part in less than ten minutes and left the rest to
President Taggart. He got up with tear filled eyes and talked about a
group of 5 missionaries that he had to send home that morning and how
much it broke his heart. He told us his tolerance level is at zero and
that we needed to let all missionaries know that if they leave mission
boundaries, they are on the next plane home. Also if anybody is
involved with secret groups on Facebook they will be sent home. Normally we
want to keep those things quiet but this time he told us to let people
know. It was a powerful meeting and the spirit was really strong. I
came out of that never wanting to ever even think about being
disobedient.

Our whole district has been pretty sick this past week. I think I am
the only one who didn't get sick. So almost everybody in the district
needed a blessing at different times this week and so it was a good
opportunity to serve. But we had a few more trips to the doctors and
so that wasn't too fun. We also were involved with about 6 hours of
service at a community center this week planning and decorating for a
big fundraiser event to help out the community. It was a lot of fun
and good to get out and do service. Soon we will have to be putting
service hours in as part of key indicators(numbers that we report each
week). As part of the "just-serve" project that will be starting in
the next few weeks.

We had some amazing experiences this week, including an early
thanksgiving feast, giving more blessings, teaching some amazing
people, and another great family home evening with the same part
member family and one of the bishopric members family. So I wish I had
more time but I probably can only talk about the Zone Conference to
finish off.

So to start we also had a meeting Sunday night with all recent
converts/less active members that could come and we had two families
that came. The Marin family and the De Leon family(the one who lost
their mom to cancer a few weeks ago). Elder Cardon had some recent
converts share their testimonies and then he gave an amazing discourse
of the restoration and how to know if what we share is true. The next
day we had a 6 hour zone conference generally based on recognizing the
spirit. He started by going over some amazing information about the
Abrahamic covenant and really just made the scriptures come alive. He
shared some amazing experiences of working with the twelve and first
presidency. His testimony is really powerful about their callings as
prophets, seers, and revelators. He meets with them and all of the
quorums of the seventies every Thursday in the Salt lake Temple to
discuss many wonderful and great things. They also have their own fast
and testimony meeting every first Thursday of the month in case some
of them don't have the chance to partake of the sacrament with so much
travel, which has to be so amazing. In one of the stories he shared,
an apostle was selecting where missionaries were supposed to be called
and one he just couldn't quite pinpoint where the missionary should
serve so he said he would come back to it and in the beginning of the
next application he just blurted out a mission and said that it was
for the previous missionary. Then he turned to Elder Cardon and said
"Sometimes it's as important to know when God isn't speaking as it is
to know when He is speaking." Wow. What a wonderful saying, especially
when recognizing the spirit. Then we went on with how the training has
been going and then he shared something else that I really liked. He
said "you are all here more for what you have felt than what you
know." And it's so true, we can have all the knowledge in the world
but if we haven't received a witness from the Holy Ghost then it means
nothing.

I have run out of time but I love you and know that The Lord loves
us, knows us, and will give us comfort, guidance, and confirmation of
the truth through His spirit.
Although I may be far away, I feel all your love every single day.

Love,
Elder Hyde

Transfers & Halloween

First of all I have to say thank you to my wonderful family who sent me an awesome Halloween package that made my day! So normally I wouldn't be able to get mail on a Friday but the other Elders that we drive around had a meeting at the office for their training follow-up and when I went in they had a package for me so I got it just in time. :D The plastic spiders have been great to put all over the apartment to scare Elder Kemp and it was just a very cleaver and fun box. Especially since we had to be in the apartment doing weekly planning that night. I'm still not sure what to do with the glow in the dark stuff but I'm sure I will find something for it.

Even though transfers weren't until today I will start with that. Elder Kemp and I will be together for at least another 6 weeks! I'm sure glad we get along really well and I love that man because we will be together for at least 20 weeks. Which is quite a long time to be with someone 24/7 but I'm really glad to be able to keep learning from him and be able to see him grow so much! With the district we only have one change. Hermana Jones is leaving to Costa Mesa, where I was born, and Hermana Russell is coming in. She was also in my district in Santa Ana 5, so it will be good to have her back.

This week we had some really great experiences and saw The Lord blessing us with many miracles. One of our investigators named Elsa called us this week saying that we couldn't come teach her at her house anymore, we think it's because of her husband, but that she wanted us to come to her daughters baptism in the YSA ward this Sunday! It was a really spirit filled baptism and we found out that a good chunk of her family are members and they talked to us a lot about how much they have been trying to share the gospel with the family and it's amazing to see the change in the whole family from doing so. Then we had a huge miracle, an amazing member family from our ward was at the building and as the baptism ended and it just so happens that they live right down the street from our investigator. Then they invited her over to be taught at their house and it was just great to see them connect so well.

Jildalgo is doing really well and went off on a 25 minute story in the middle of the lesson about how stressed he had been a few days earlier because he haddn't been able to get work for a few days and everything felt that it was coming down on him at once. Then he remembered to pray and he said it completely changed his day and then he got work for 3 days in a row, which hasn't happened in weeks! He was able to pay the rent and get food for his family and he just said it really strengthened his faith. He is doing great and reading and praying often. :) The only problem is that he got called into work Sunday morning and so he couldn't make it to church.

We are also getting ready for a member of the seventy to come next week which is really exciting. We are having the Zone Conference on the Holy Ghost and I'm excited to learn a lot from it. Plus we all get to write talks about how we have come to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost on the mission and then he will choose a few missionaries on the spot to share them. Which is great because I know that it's the Holy Ghost that guides us in The Lord's work and so as we can better recognize and follow His promptings we will become more effective missionaries overall. I think the biggest thing that I have come to find on the mission about the Holy Ghost is that He guides us way more than we think, and that He is always willing to help us if we are willing to listen. Keep the commandments, listen for promptings, act on every good feeling or impresson and our loving Heavenly Father will never let us down.

Love,

Elder Hyde

So Exciting....

So this week I wanted to start out with the response of one of our
investigators. During a lesson we asked her what it would mean to her
to have a living prophet. She exclaimed "it would be exciting" and it
was such a powerful moment to be able to testify to her that God has
called a prophet and He is guiding His church on the earth today. She
is devote in her baptist church but she has a wonderful understanding
of the importance of prophets. We have high hopes for her and her
awesome family that just moved here from Colorado.

We have been receiving some great opportunities to do service the
past few weeks and this week a member took pictures of us and printed
it out with our numbers on it offering free service and put it in the
laundry room of the complex so I hope we will see some fruit from that
soon.

I went on exchanges with Elder Randall this week and we had a really
fun day on bike. I miss being on bike. But we taught a member how to
use Facebook to share the gospel with his friends and then went
knocking and found a pretty cool family. That night we had an awesome
lesson with a guy named Jeri. He owns close to absolutely nothing and
lives in a tiny garage in an alley. He is a really humble guy that is
really looking for purpose and direction in his life. We committed him
to be baptized and it was a really humbling experience to see him and
hear his story. We even brought him soap so he can do his laundry
which he hasn't done in a very long time.

Jildalgo is doing well but the only time we taught him this week was
when I was on exchanges in the other area so I wasn't able to see him.
But he is really loving the truths that the gospel is bringing to his
life. So many wonderful people we are teaching but they don't come to
church because it's "too far" or "too early" for the to make it. So I
guess it's time for us to get out and find this week and help more
people feel how exciting it is to have a living day prophet!

I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of The Lord and that he
receives the revelation to guide us in these latter-days. I love you
all and hope you can keep studying the words of the prophets that we
received just a few weeks ago, because their words are glorious.

Love,
Elder Hyde

P.S. We also had our Halloween party this week so I will send some
pictures. It was one of the most well put together Hispanic party that
I have had on my mission!

Teaching & Teaching...

This week was just teaching from appointment to appointment. Almost
all week we had our appointments go through and we just were able to
teach a ton! It made the week go by really fast and kind of blurred a
lot together but it was wonderful. It was also elder Kemp's last week
of training so he is finally done and now we will have another hour
every single day to find, teach, and help people prepare for baptism.
Yay!

Some random things that happened this week were, finding maggots and
bugs in some rotten potatoes in elder Kemp's food cabinet, having an
IPad as our ward pianist on Sunday, and digging some trenches for some
trees in a members yard. The maggots were really gross and got some
disgusting slop all over. It was fun to clean up. And since the one
person who can play piano in our ward was sick we had the bishops iPad
next to the microphone playing the hymns, it was great.

On Sunday we got to go back to Santa Ana 5 and I got to confirm
Crystal Yulisa Sánchez, Yuvia's sister. Their family is great and it's
always a blast to see them. Plus confirming just makes me so happy to
bless these wonderful people here, and she was so excited. By the time
we got back to our ward we found Jildalgo already in sacrament meeting
just enjoying the talks with the ward and he was able to stay for all
three hours, which was a first for him. He loved it but it kind of
seemed like a lot to him to have three hours but the priesthood lesson
was way better this week so he likes that class now.

Congratulations to Clark and Kim! That was fun to see some of their
wedding pictures, and I hope Kim is doing alright. I love you all and
am doing great, I just don't have a ton to write about this week. Have
a great week!

Love,
Elder Hyde