Best Christmas Day 2013!

We had so much fun chatting with Nathan on Skype for Christmas. He smiled the entire time and it made my day! Love this boy! His positive attitude is contagious. Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas from Elder Hyde

Well last week was a pretty slow week but we are still doing great so I am really happy. Last P-day Elder Maughan and I got matching Duck Dynasty ties! They are super awesome and my new favorite tie :) That night we taught this crazy guy that looked like a Hispanic Albert Einstein haha He said he loves learning about religions and showed us huge bags of books from different religions that he has read. We tried to give him a pamphlet and he said this is baby stuff where is the real stuff. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and he told us that was more like it haha funny guy. He told us to come back with lots of scriptures ready but when we went back he wasn't there. Wednesday we had an awesome district meeting on the Holy Ghost and went to Buffalo Wild Wings because 3 people in our zone "died"(finished their missions) and that was their last wish. It was way good! That night we found some new people to start teaching but they weren't too interested so I hope they are there when we go back. We got to talk with Zaira's dad, Armando. He has some friends he wants us to talk to because of the amazing change he has seen in his daughter, he wants the same change for others. We also had a sweet lesson with Paniagua and it finally clicked for them that God has a body of flesh and bones. It is awesome to see people actually understand what we teach and see that "lightbulb" turn on in their head. Thursday we had our Christmas Party with about a third of the mission. It was super fun and we got to sing tons of hymns and watch Despicable Me which was really funny but really weird watching a movie...haha We also had a super awesome lunch and then we watched Joy to the World and President Bowen and his wife shared their testimonies about Christ and it was a really nice relaxing party :) After the party we went and helped this lady in our ward hang up lights and helped another lady move. Friday with weekly planning, facebook, and the ward Christmas party not a ton happened except for all of the people that told us would come to the party didn't show, but oh well. Saturday we got to teach Luis and his family and they fed us Strawberry Tamales! I didn't know they even existed but she made pineapple, strawberry, cinnamon, and two normals kinds and even though we had dinner right after we had to try some haha During dinner we got a call from the bishops wife to go sing at her daughters fairwell party and so we ate really quick and got over there to sing Called to Serve in front of the whole ward. When we got to the church we saw these kids huddled around another kid and all of their bikes in the road so we went to see if we could help them. The kid had crashed on his bike going down a big hill and landed on his face. His face was covered in blood and he had some crazy road burn on his back and leg that burned through his clothes to his skin. We helped him into the church to clean up and it was crazy, he had a major concussion and we called his dad to take him to the hospital. His dad saw him and just said "If you would have been wearing the helmet I bought you!" haha The kid should be alright tho. Then we had to go sing haha Sunday was pretty normal. Elder Maughan was feeling pretty sick tho so we stayed in to let him rest. Yesterday was fun, we got to go caroling and had our last 2 hour facebook training. I'm super excited to skype my family tomorrow! Merry Christmas :) Love you all! Elder Hyde

Baptismal Dates, 12 shirt & Facebook

Well it's Tuesday, sorry I was late writing but since we are going through facebook training here I will have P-days on Tuesday's for the next three weeks. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas :) and last Monday was awesome! Almost every door we knocked we taught a lesson so we only had to knock on like 5 before it was time to leave but wow it was a really good start to the week! I also opened my 12 shirt from my mom so that made me super happy :) Tuesday was pretty down, people were really closed off and it wasn't anything too exciting. Wednesday was pretty slow but we were able to stop by a member and teach them and wow it was an amazing lesson. Best one with a member I have ever had. The Spirit was soo strong and it was a cool experience. On Sunday we found out that the lesson we had with them helped them out a lot more than we even knew and I know we were inspired to go teach them even though they are active members. I think everyone can use a good missionary lesson every once in a while because even if they know everything that we say, it's not us or our words teaching them. It's the Spirit and what they feel that helps them. So that was a really good experience for me to realize the importance of helping all members out and in return they help us with our work :) Thursday was really slow and hard to talk to anyone because everyone was getting ready for their worship parties for Mary. So we stopped by Paniagua to see how they were doing and answered some of their questions about prayer. Well it was ridiculous all of the huge statues and idol worshiping that we saw plus how all of them were drunk while worshiping. It didn't make sense haha This world is super fallen. But I know that this gospel is what brings TRUE and EVERLASTING HAPPINESS. Friday we had facebook training! It is super weird that we will now have an hour a day to use facebook. They want me to let you all know that I will and should be adding family and friends but I shouldn't be chatting with you unless it is strictly about missionary work. I am going to be focusing on my area but they said if there is somebody at home that is interested I can teach them over facebook and I will be probably be able to Skype them with my companion and teach them to prepare them to meet in person with their local missionaries. It got me super pumped hearing all of the success stories and everything. Also they want friends and family liking and sharing any of my posts that I their friends can see it and the hope of the whole facebook and missionary idea is to create a huge social media burst of good, uplifting posts and to share the gospel in new ways. Our mission is one of 30 in the world who has the opportunity to try it and I am super excited, we also will get our ipads or android tablets in January. Saturday we got to teach Zaira with the awesome Plan of Salvation visuals that the Hamideh's sent me. It was awesome we basically had Zaira teach her little sibblings the Plan of Salvation and we helped her a little bit. Super awesome how much she has grown in the gospel. We also had a really good gospel conversation with her dad who used to hate missionaries and there has been a huge change in his heart. He accepted a Book of Mormon and is excited to learn more. The Paniagua family fed us that night and we also got to review the baptismal interview questions with them and they are sooo ready to be baptized on January 5th!! :) Sunday we pretty sweet. we had dinner with this member Hermana Connie and she invited a friend and basically ended up teaching the Restoration, Plan of Salvation and much more during dinner haha She is an awesome member and all we did was bear testimony and invite her friend to read some of the Book of Mormon and she was way interested. It is so much easier to work with people through members friends. Too bad she isn't in our area but I think the elders in her area are going to start teaching her now. That night we went to visit Luis because he didn't come to church or the Christmas program like he told us he would. He felt really bad for not coming but he had starting reading the Book of Mormon and praying every night so that was awesome. He wasn't understanding very much of what we read so we helped him understand what he had already read and read more with him explaining it as we went and it was sweet. Then we taught him the second half of the Plan of Salvation and it was sweet, when we asked him if he would prepare to be baptized on January 12th. He said yes, I asked him why and he told us because he wants to make it back to the celestial kingdom with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and hopefully his whole family. It was so cool, he is going to be a huge example for his family and most of his family is pretty open so I think the whole family is going to have baptismal dates soon :) Well this week was awesome! Thanks for all of the Christmas cards and everything! I know this gospel is true and I am so lucky to have this opportunity to share it with others. Love you all! and add me on facebook ahha my name is Elder Nathanael Hyde :) Love, Elder Hyde

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

I love Mondays!!!

Hola! Well the weeks are really speeding up I felt like I just wrote home haha. Last Monday for our zone activity we had a sweet turkey bowl, wasn't as fun as in Utah but it was pretty fun. Later that night we had a FHE with a family in the ward and it was really fun, e had water bottle chugging contests and shared some of our favorite scriptures. Tuesday we watched the movie Finding Faith in Christ with Zaira and all of her little sibling and it was really awesome they liked it a lot. The rest of the day was pretty slow but we were on our way to dinnner and we were going to be late but we rode past this guy and I had a huge promoting to stop and talking to him so I did and he was this awesome guy that is one of our new investigators this week named Jose. Wednesday we had an awesome zone meeting and talked about explaining the Godhead better in our first lessons with people and how it will help them become converted. It was a big answer to my prayers about how we can start helping people accept baptismal invitations. Then we had a sweet lesson with this recent convert named Robert. He is a super white guy that barley speaks any Spanish, like me :) haha, and only goes to the Spanish ward because of his girlfriend who goes haha he is super funny and has a really interesting situation because he hasn't told his parents that he is baptized yet but he really loves the gospel. He is 18 so we talked to him about serving a mission and helped him resolve some doubts he had and invited him to fast to know if he needs to serve. We also got to read some of the Book of Mormon with the Paniagua family. Then there was Thanksgiving!! :) We had dinner with the Vasquez of course and it was a super awesome day. We had a lesson/lunch with a less active family and later found out that we weren't supposed to go there because some other elders had to cast of demons or something there before. But nothing went wrong while we were there and while it was sad to hear the reason they don't come to church and one girl stopped filling out her mission papers was because they love alcohol and don't want to give it up. Really sad. But then we stopped by one of our investigators and she wasn't home but we starting teaching her son and he invited us in and seemed really interested. He said he is Catholic but it just hasn't made a ton of since to him growing up. He is a really cool dude. So Thanksgiving was awesome and I ate too much food haha but oh well. Friday was a good day we taught Belen and Efran some good lessons in the morning and we had dinner with the Paniagua family and taught they about fasting and even though they looked at us like we were crazy when we invited them to fast about if they should be baptized on the 29th of December, they accepted and are super awesome. We had volleyball that night and elder Maughan reached to hit the ball, fell, and ripped a huge hole in his pants right where you don't want them to. Those pants are done for haha and we had to hurry and get him home to change. Saturday we had exchanges and elder Wagstaff came to my area and I was senior companion for a day. It was a lot of fun and it is cool to see how other missionaries work. We found this homeless guy who was on the ground and looked like he was in a lot of pain. We stopped and tried to help him but he said he thinks he broke his left and wanted to stay there. He was starving and thirst so we gave him some cookies and vitamin water and just talked to him for a little bit but he didn't want anymore help but it was an interesting experience. I am really really blessed! Yesterday was a really awesome day, it started out as a pretty normal Sunday and when we went out knocking we just didn't feel right and we were just not teaching how we wanted to and everyone was rejecting us. We were pretty down by the time we got to dinner at the bishop's house. It was his sons birthday and we had tons of good food and cake and music after, it was super awesome and really got us pumped to go teach. We went to an referral that we got and one of our investigators sons answered and while the referral wasn't there he told us he wasn't doing anything so he invited us in and wanted to hear more. We had an amazing lesson with him and he is just an awesome dude. His name is Luis and he remembers missionaries coming to his house when he was little but now he is just trying to figure out what to do with his life. I love helping people and having answers to their deepest questions. Love the work, love The Lord, and I love you guys :) Love, Elder Hyde

Hola...Happy Thanksgiving...It's A Boy!

Hola! It's a boy :) Mom I am so excited for you and Alan and that you're having a boy! I knew it haha Well anyways I'm super excited for you and can't wait to see him! So this week was really exhausting. Last Monday was pretty sweet, I had to go to Ross and get some warmer clothes because for some reason Cali gets a little cold in the winter. Who knew? That night we had this lady drop us but we ended up finding two awesome people to teach so it all worked out. Tuesday we taught Belen the second half of the Plan of Salvation and she really enjoyed it, plus we brought an awesome member, hermano Ralegino, he is so awesome! Belen says she realized why she needs to be baptized again but this time actually confirmed. She really wants to learn more though before she sets a date on her baptism. Then we taught Derick the Plan of Salvation up to the Atonement and he although he didn't accept a date for baptism he said he would read and pray and really think about it. We also had a sweet lesson with Zaira and taught the Restoration with her and shared some of our favorite Book of Mormon stories and miracles that Christ performed. It was sweet to see how much her testimony has grown and how much the Restoration has helped her in her life already. Wednesday was amazing! We taught this less-active member and she told us how she really missed church and wanted to come back, and Sunday she did :) awesome! oh yeah, a MIRACLE happened on Wednesday too. This guy with tons of tattoos who was smoking sees us and yells "Hey! Are you guys Mormons?" We told him that we were and then he asks us "Do you have a pamphlet or something I can have?" It was soooo cool. This guy named Victor started telling us how he has made a ton of mistakes in his life but he really wants to change. He told us how he just felt like there was something more to life. He said he has seen missionaries around there a lot before and always had an urge to talk to us but it wasn't until then that he finally did. It reminded me how we need to stop and talk to everyone! He didn't have much time to talk to us but the small part we did share he really liked and he really wants to learn more. Way cool dude! We also taught this dude Armando, he loves anyone that talks about God and like to hear others beliefs, he said that Mormon missionaries are always welcome in his home. He is super nice, but it's really interesting that he doesn't like JW missionaries because they came into his house once and just went off on his how much of a sinner he is but he really likes us so that's good :) We also taught Efren and got him to pray at the end of the lesson. I think his first prayer ever. It was a cool experience! That night was awesome because we also got a referral from a Quorum of the 70 but we weren't able to find it :/ We were almost home that night when it was raining pretty good, and on the last turn to our apartment my companion slid and crashed on his bike into the middle of the intersection. It was a way crazy slide and he was lucky no cars were coming. He was fine except he said he left his dignity on that corner haha. Thursday we taught an awesome lesson to this lady named Martha. She said she had met with missionaries for a long time but they never really shared what they believed and she had never heard the name Joseph Smith before or the word Restoration. Weird situation but super awesome lesson. She told us about her childhood and wow she had a really rough life growing up and she also has had some bad experiences with other churches and the leaders so she is scared to come to church but she is really awesome. We also met this guy Efrain who really liked what we had to say and was just so awesome and prepared to hear us. That day I got letters from my awesome Mama, Cherrie and Del, and Grandma and Grandpa Grayson. Grandma sent me a lot of awesome poems and quotes that were awesome, Thanks :) The rest of the weekend was really awesome we met this really shy guy named Heiro and he had never prayed before but we taught him how and by the end of the lesson he said an amazing heart felt prayer it was so cool. We also found this guy named Oscar, he has 8 kids and that family is awesome. They are super Catholic but they love our message so we will see what happens. Elder Hawkins came back on Sunday with his dad, sister and girlfriend and a beard. That was super weird to see him and think that he was our companion 4 weeks ago. For Thanksgiving we already have breakfast, lunch, and at least 2 dinners set up so I think I might die with how much food I am going to eat that day. This week I weighed in 16 pounds heavier than when I got to Cali so I think it is time for a diet, but with the Holiday's coming up I don't know how it is possible. If I keep this up I will be 360 pounds when I get home. Fun stuff! I love Cali, I love serving a mission, and I love all of you! Thanks for everything and have an amazing Thanksgiving this week :) Love, Elder Hyde

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