Happy Fall from Elder Hughes (the Taylor version) | week 59

Hello there familia!

I am really sad to hear about grandpa Cahoon. I am sad that I didn't have the chance to say goodbye to him. I know that he is once again reunited with grandma Cahoon. What a wonderful reunion that will be. I had the feeling that he wouldn't make it before I returned from my mission. I will miss him, and all of our christmas day memories at their house. He always showed me so much love. I always knew that he cared. He was such a happy and calm man. I am sad that I won't be able to be with all of you this week at the funeral. Please give everyone my love. Give grandma and grandpa a big hug just for me. I love them so so so so very much. Give everyone my love. I will write them an email as well. I am so glad that it all happened calmly at home with his family. I have gained and understood better than ever how beautiful the plan of our heavenly father truly is. Death is just one step in that plan. It is one necessary piece of the puzzle. It makes me realize how incredibly grateful I am for the savior. He truly overcame death for us. It is funny because my companion and I were talking this week about death and how there truly are things much worse than death. Death is just a new step, it is a moving on, and one day we will all pass through it. I love grandpa rolly and I know he is in a good place. Reading the scriptures always fills me with hope and with the spirit. It really doesn't matter where we read, it always blesses us the same. Read them when things are hard this week. That's what I do.

Your trip to Oregon looks like it was a blast!!!! It looks really cold and wet there. I haven't felt cold or wet in a long time haha. It is finally actually feeling a little bit like fall this week haha. It makes me laugh that it comes around mid november that it actually cools down a bit. What a good time. I miss our family vacations. I always tell people that we didn't even leave our state for most of our favorite vacations. That is why I love cali.

How awesome the pictures of Spencer coming home!!! Those make me so happy to see! Mark and Jamie and Spencer all look so happy and wonderful. That day will come fast for us, so don't worry about it :) I am SOOOO excited as well to talk to you all soon for Christmas! It should be wonderful.

As for this week. We had a pretty good week. As always we had not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that we needed to do. I am so grateful for the immense opportunities that we have as a missionary to serve. Really we are always missionaries and we should always be serving, but as a full time missionary we have so many opportunities to serve. I am so grateful for your sacrifices to make that possible for me.

We had a full week of lots of teaching. D is progressing well. M is also doing great. We had some really good lessons with her. We found an awesome new investigator named S. It really is a miracle that we found her and started teaching her. We have a bus stop that we seem to always find people at. We call it the magic bus stop. We have found quite a few referrals and investigators there. We were walking past it, and now we ALWAYS talk to everyone there when we go to the bus stop, because it is so magical. We met S there and she kind of laughed as we went up to her and talked to her. It turns out she laughed because she says that mormons seem to find her everywhere. She had a really good mormon friend who influenced her alot, and then in jail she went to the LDS worship services, and then we 'happened' to find her at this bus stop. We have started teaching her and it is going really good. She is really pregnant. The pregnancy has been making her really sick, so our lessons have been getting interrupted alot for her to go throw up in the bathroom. It has been an adventure haha. We laugh about it alot. She is doing really well, and I can really feel like the Lord has led us to her.

This week the Sisters had an eventful baptism. I interviewed the family that got baptized this week. I love baptismal interviews. They are so awesome to see. It is like seeing a mini conversion story every single time. It was a mom and her 3 awesome kids that got baptized. The kids by far had the best interviews. Truly children are the closest to the savior. They said some of the most hilarius and amazing things. They call their baptism their "second chance." I love that. It truly is a second chance, and we get that second chance every single week as we take the sacrament, and every single day that we repent. I love second chances. This truly is a gospel about second chances and third chances and fourth chances on and on until the day where we wont need any more chances, we will be perfectly clean and happy. Their baptism was crazy. They actually got pulled over on their way there and got their car taken away. So one of the members had to go pick them up on the side of the road so that they could get to their baptism!! Meanwhile Elder P and I entertained the awaiting audience for an hour haha. With lots of singing and messages. The baptism went great in the end, and the spirit was really strong. Yay for second chances.

We had the primary program this weekend. The missionaries were honorary members of the primary this weekend haha. There was only 6 kids in the program so they called us in. It's ok we still feel like we should be in primary anyway. :) I have been thinking alot about small and simple things. In life really the small and simple joys and acts of love matter most. As a missionary I have learned so much about how the gospel really is so simple and beautiful. We sometimes complicate things for ourselves. As things were really hectic and crazy before church, because sometimes our branch is just barely holding it together haha, I was NOT thinking alot about the small and simple things. I am grateful as we sang with the primary that the spirit reminded me about how important the small and simple things are.

I am really excited for a new and exciting week here. We have lots of good things happening in our area. We are having a mission conference this week, a member of the 70 is coming Elder Paul V. Johnson. It should be great. I am really excited.

My thoughts and prayers are with you always but especially with you this week as you have the funeral for great grandpa cahoon. I love you guys so much. I wish I could be there to give you a big hug. Just send a prayer up and I know that the Lord will be able to give you the hug I can't give. I love you all. I am so incredibly grateful for the plan of salvation, and for this gospel of second chances. I love you. Give all of my extended family my love and hugs. I truly love all of them.

LOVE

Elder Hughes

PS read this amazing article. What an honor it is to be a missionary. The Lord always protects us.http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865590735/Surviving-the-typhoon-A-story-of-fear-faith-and-what-it-means-to-be-prepared.html