Elder Hyde is still in Granada Hills

Hiya Mama

That is cool that there is a nice pool with a little waterfall. we have a pool right front of our house here so that is nice haha, its good that I don't like water or that would be a problem. The house sounds like it is pretty nice even though the rooms are all in one hall behind a safe heaven door. i would not like that seeing as i have always had a room kinda off to the side away from everyone, well except China ..... and Cali ..... and ok, ok so only Rwanda in the houses there did i have my own little area but i really liked it. That is cool that the ARSO is good to work with and so dad is the RSO this time, I didn't know that. That is nice that she is letting you use her car, i bet it is really weird to be driving on the other side huh, and yeah that is going to be weird trying to switch back to other side when you go back to the states. I too wish i was there to navigate i think it would be so fun to be there but i rather be here and doing what i am supposed to be doing right now. so the house isn't completely done yet? That is fun that you get to be the Relief Society President..... oh sorry I mean CLO haha that's what i have always thought the CLO is like you plan parties you help people move in, other than the lifting part, you plan things for families and stuff like that haha. Wow, that is so cool about the maid, and that she has been working for like 30 years for RSO's. That is so cool about Finnerday's over 100 years old that is crazy and it sounds like dad is going to have a hang out spot now haha and Petah sounds cool, I like that he could be the iconic Safari guy haha and can you guys send some cool stuff from there like awesome shoes or something just anything awesome hahah cause well yeah why not its a cool old store with cool stuff from Africa. ................................. would the Gouda make it through the pouch to me unmoldy? that is cool that they use the US Dollar there kind of i guess .... can you get some cool Zim money though too? or is it all US now? and really everyone speaks English that is weird, is it like kind of being in rural England? or something like that? ....... they don't have like McDonald's there do they? cause if they do i am sad for Zim. 

Q&A with Elder Hyde

Q- Were you transferred?

A-No I was not Transferred

Q-Are you still with Elder Miller?

A-Yes I am still with Elder Miller

Q- What do you do for your morning exercise? 

A- I do some sit ups some prison pull ups stretch breath deep yeah just stuff I don't know, nothing uniform or a system.

Q- What do you do on P-Day?

A- Well we email and then ummm shop, laundry,  ummm sometimes there is zone activity, just stuff.

Q- Are you able to take people to the LA Temple Visitor's Center?

A- Yes we are but we haven't yet cause well we haven't.

Q- What is your favorite food right now?

A- Ummmmm i don't know meat and german pancakes just food stuff.

Q- Have you read this month's Ensign? 

A- Nope not yet. 

Love

Elder Hyde.

65% of the Mission Has Been in the Field for 4 Months or Less

Laurence the Lizard

Mother, go online or wherever and listen to the Nashville Tribute to Missionaries: The Work, listen to track 7 bless my son, cry then email me back. OK, listen to it all, cry then email me again. OK, back to answering you. I wont forget papa's birthday. Wow, 30 years friends with Mish and yay Hawaii.

I tell people that I'm going to probably do what my dad does. It is starting to cool off here, too ..... it is said we wore jackets today (thanks for the coat mama) it was like 70s and we felt so ashamed. How could two kids from Idaho and Utah, land of the cold and snow, feel like 70s are cool enough for jackets!!!!! 

So we had a lesson on Sunday morning and it went very well, Her name is Marie she is a nice woman. It went quite well, we taught about the Holy Ghost. The member who was with us asked if she wanted a blessing and she said yes so we gave her a blessing and then at church the Mission Hills Sisters had a member that need a blessing so we gave her one. Elder Miller gave Marie her blessing and I gave the Mission Hills member a blessing so we are blessing right and left, and then we had dinner with our landlord last night as well. It was very nice, it felt like being with a grandma and grandpa, well other than they didn't know anything about exactly what we do so we kinda explained it, but it is funny they call us by our first names so yeah haha. We have a meeting with a less active man on Tuesday so that will be interesting and he is a person that has told people no many times before so we feel like we can help because he said yes to us coming back. 

Well, the transfer is coming up so it will be fun to see if either of us leave or train, well we are pretty sure we are going to train because we are getting about 30 new missionaries this transfer and we will have about 210-215 missionaries and right now more that 65% of the mission has been out in the field for 4 months or less so yeah we are a very young mission hahaha. Then on the 10th, so Thursday, we had zone conference and we had Elder Kopischke of the 70 come and talk to us and it was very interesting because he was nothing like we were excepting. He was funny and energetic, hahaha and he taught a lot. So yeah, a lot I got for myself so I will just say that he did an almost informal lesson where we just talk a lot so it was cool and then we had to wait after zone conference because our ride had to talk to president so we were doing role plays with the assistants and some other elders. President came up and gave us some advice on what we could do better and other ideas we could use in our questions so it felt kinda special to get direct council and teaching from President while we were just using some extra time we had, so it was great I love President. 

We don't have a scale but i know i lost a lot of weight because I was looking at a picture from the MTC and one I took a day or two ago and there is a pretty big difference so yeah it is pretty fun and then I have Calves of steel from biking haha. So yeah, I still get tired from biking and sweaty but yeah that's what I do. Oh, and yes the package was at the house when we got back from emailing so thanks mama it was great :) and nothing was spoiled cause I have eaten a bit of it all and i haven't gotten sick yet so that is a plus and thanks for the picture and thanks for the shirt and jacket and the MP3 player and olives and pickles, and everything else too mom. It is really good. If you could send CDs, I will then have more stuff to put on the player. Also, could you send me a good pillow? The one I have is well a crappy pillow so yes I would enjoy the comfort of a nice home pillow or a new nice pillow. It is really funny to see me sleep, I either have my head against the head bar or put my feet through the foot bars so I don't have a bruise on my head for ever haha so yeah I like being tall .... when I have a bed that fits me. haha  

We had our first animal encounter with a lizard that got in the house he was a nice fellow we caught him took pictures and released him i named him Laurence Lizard. so yes. i love you Mom, talk to you next week :)

MTC 

Granada Hills 4 months and a few pounds lighter

Just Chugging Along

Eric wrote to Seth this week.

Good to hear from you.  The Toronado is in the barn wrapped in plastic.  It is good to go. Conference was a good watch. First time I have watched all 10 hours of it.  What are you doing for work> Describe a normal day.

We are in the last week before departure mode.  Buying groceries, packing UAB and getting crappy tickets on Delta.  Yeah we can't fly United anymore, the contract is with Delta.

How is the biking going?  I liked it, it was kinda fun just getting into your  head and turning the crank.   Send us some picture of yourself.  It is always nice to see you.  I saw the ones you sent mom, I hope you are happy. You looked happy, So I guess you are since you are a what you see is what you get kind of guy. How is the teaching. Don't just say "yeah, just chugging along." Tell me how it is going.  Do you have investigators?  Any families?  Who are you working with, names, descriptions!!  I love you. Have a good week.

This is Seth's response to Eric’s letter:

Well, we get up at 6:30, then exercise, shower, eat, 8:00 to 11:00 studies, and then 11 to 12 lunch, then we go out and knock, talk to people etc. Then 6:00 usually is dinner, either at home or at a members house, and then either 7 or 7:30, depending when we get out of there, we either knock or street contact until 8:30, and then start biking home. We either get in like 8:55 or 9:00 and that's our day, usually. And I tell you, “just chugging along” because that's all we do. We have had one lesson since getting here. This lesson was with a Ukrainian man named Victor V, so we had a translator who would just answer questions without telling us what they were or what was really going on so we don't really know how the lesson went. We stopped by on Thursday and his daughter translated for us which was much better because she translated word for word so it was better. I am still working on my teaching. I do very well at the talking to them to get to know them and stuff like that, and I am good at putting it in ways that they can understand, with analogies and stuff. But I am still learning how to teach it well to people, but I am getting better, Preach My Gospel helps a lot and so do the pamphlets. We found a less active priest age boy who wants to start coming to church again so we are going to start with him this week. I don't know much about him since Elder Miller and the Elders Quorum pres. went there on splits. So I haven't met him yet but he sounds awesome, I think his name is Enrique and he is 16. No families yet, we do have a potential investigator who is a mom with a daughter that is 8. But the mom is in school, a mom, and a nurse so we can never find a time to teach her and when we do, something comes up that makes it not able to happen. But she seems very interested. Yes, yes, I am happy and right now those are the only photos of me so far, really I’m not one who is in front of the camera often, I like being behind it. And uggggggggghhhh stupid Delta why did they go with that? United is so much better and we have all of those miles with them. Oh is the bike just in the garage or in the barn too? We work with Brother Nelson, he is the ward mission leader, he is like 6 foot ish and then pretty wide, but not really fat, kind of an old white guy though, ummm Brother Thwaits, he is like 6 foot, red hair, trained tenor, and then plays a lot of instruments  he is the assistant ward mission leader. Brother Ravitch, he is Elders Quorum Pres. tall,30s, starting to bald. Brother Grover, 5'8" 25ish maybe 30, bio engineer, 1 year old kid, and wife. ummmmmmmm yeah that’s about it, oh the Sister missionaries help out a lot yeah Sister Bishop, 5'6" dyed black hair, smiley ummm yeah and Sister Rhodes, um 5'7" brown hair, nice kinda, serious-ish yeah.  

Elder Hyde with his MTC district

Q & A with Elder Hyde

Q-How has your week been?

A-Our week went by really fast and it was good we found a less active we are going to work with and stuff so it’s good.

Q-Did you get your package? If so remember to gush appropriately to your mom :-)

A- No I have not received my package yet but gush gush gush gush gush gush gush

Q-Did you enjoy Conference?

A- Yes I enjoyed conference it was amazing

Q-Where did you watch Conference?

A- Since everyone has cable it was pretty much just all of the missionaries at the stake center on White Oak Ave. so it was cool 

Q-Do you cook breakfast every day?

A- No actually Elder Miller mostly does cause I don't know, it just happens that way

Q-What do you eat for breakfast?

A- German pancakes biscuits and gravy pancakes bagels stuff like that 

Q- Are you learning your way around? Do you use maps, a Thomas Guide, or a GPS to find addresses?

A- We bike and we have a little map because our area is tiny.