HOLA FAMILIA! (That is my favorite thing to say)
The Hughes clan is on quite a slew of adventures! How fun! I am sure grandma and grandpa and Riley are having a great time. It is always a blast to go on vacation with them. I remember well eating more than I ever had before haha. We got ice cream every single night! Good times. It sounds like everyone has been super busy, which is good. This week has flown by like all the rest of them. For her baptism I sang This is the Christ. Which in Spanish is "El Cristo Es"
That is crazy Spencer comes home so soon!!!! That is awesome. Time flies. It really does. No surprises about Mathew, he is such an amazing guy. It doesn't surprise me at all. I am honored to be his friend.
Elder P and I had a really good week. We have been really blessed here. We are still on the search for some new investigators. That is the huge challenge here. Sometimes we can find a lot of people, but almost all of them we have to pass off to the English missionaries, because we are looking for Spanish people!!! But it has been really good. We found this awesome guy from Africa named P. He was just outside weedwacking and we went up and talked to him. He was blown away by the fact that we would come out and leave our families to spread the gospel. We had one of the coolest lessons with him. I have 'holy envy' for the lucky missionaries that get to teach him. It was so cool to find him.
R is doing really well. She got confirmed this Sunday, and everything went great. I am so grateful for her. We are now starting to work even more with her daughter E. I have no doubt she will get baptized as well, she is just really shy so it will take a little more time. Not only that, but R is SUCH a good missionary. She invited almost all of her neighbors to her baptism, and she brought one of her friends to church on Sunday. It is so awesome. We all have a lot to learn about missionary work from the recent converts. They are the best missionaries.
We are teaching a guy named D and his little brother J and their mom L. We are super excited about them. D has been taught a lot in the past, but his big hold up was drinking. We could not get him to stop drinking. He really wanted to be baptized, and he loves the church, but that was the last hurdle. We stopped teaching him for a while, and one day he called us again after a couple of weeks and wanted us to come back and start teaching him again. Timing is so important. Now this time around, it has been so great teaching him. He is doing really well and he has a baptismal date for the 9th of November. Him and his brother are so fun to teach, because they are kind of like teaching kids. We teach really simply. I have come to see and learn that simplicity is so important. The gospel of Jesus Christ is really not that complicated, it just requires application. It has to be part of us. We cannot just talk about it, we must live it.
This week we made a lot of hospital visits which was kind of cool. The VA hospital is in our area so we get called in to go visit people there every so often. An inactive guy named C was there preparing for surgery. We had the opportunity to visit him a couple times. It was awesome. He is a changed man because of the trials he is facing at this time in his life. It was so cool to go and teach him and give him a blessing. He is truly changing his life, his perspective has changed. That is the key to life. Sometimes it takes big trials for that to happen, but we can learn to have that perspective change on our own. ALSO we got a call to go see Bro R who just had open heart surgery to remove a tumor from his heart. The R's are some of my favorite people of all time. They live in Duncan and I love them so much. It was awesome to go and visit him and his family. It was a surprise for them. Sister D was the one who called the mission office and sent us to go see them. It was so cool. It is a true miracle that Bro R is alive. Their family is so full of faith and love.
We have a lot of fun out here as well. In missionary work it is so important to learn how to laugh. Sometimes the situations we are in are pretty ridiculous especially when you knock on doors. We laugh a lot. One time this week, we knocked a door and all of a sudden I heard Elder P gasp and I look right to my left and there was a fake snake that looked SO real. I almost had a heart attack, because it was right next to me. We laughed for a long time about that one.
The work moves forward! We have been working so hard to find those that the Lord is preparing. I know that they are just waiting. I know that as we keep pressing forward we will find them.
The Gospel Principles class we have at the branch is the BEST sunday school class I have ever been in. I have been touched by the spirit so many times in that class. This week we talked about sacrifice. It has caused me to reflect a lot on why we make sacrifices and how grateful I am for the sacrifices that others have and are making for me. Ultimately, it has lead me to think about the sacrifice of the savior. He truly sacrificed for us. The greatest sacrifice of all time. We naturally come to love those who have sacrificed for us and those who we sacrifice for. That is why the Savior loves us so much, and that is why those who have used his atonement love Him so much. I thought of each of you on Sunday as we talked about this. Thank you for the sacrifices you make to make this possible for me. Thank you. I can never say that enough. Sacrifice is how we receive power. My life has been blessed by the sacrifices of others. When I am tired, when I want to take a break, I think of those who are and have sacrificed for me. Then I have the strength to keep sacrificing for the Lord. THANK YOU for your love and sacrifices for me. That has made all of this possible.
I love you all so much!
Adelante y Arriba (onward and upward)
LOVE
Elder Hughes
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