Oct. 27 Our Investigators are great!

We had a great week of contacting and teaching. We destroyed my teaching, contacting, and investigators at church record. So yeah, it was a good week. But that doesn't matter. What matters is our investigators, the actual people! They are amazing and ready, well ok some more so than others but they are all great!

We have transfer calls this week and uggh I don't if I want to stay or go. It is the first time on my mission where I have split feelings about transfer. Usually I have known for sure, oh well.

But to the missionary work, we found a man named Stanley this week. He is the awesomeist guy ever. He was a referral. We received it last Saturday the 18th and the description said "Wants to be baptized. expecting visit early next week, available between Mon-Fri 10 am-12 pm." I turned to my companion and said I believe we should go by this guy ...... like ...... now. So we went over but it was 7 pm and so the house was dead. So we decided to go by on Tuesday. We went by on Tuesday but no one was there so we gave the number a call and no one picked up, so we biked away. We got about 3 blocks away when the phone rang and it was Stanley. He told us that Tuesday was bad, but tomorrow we could come by at 11. So we went by the next day. He told us that on Monday night, he was sad cause he had first talked to the elders a week ago and gave his info to them but nothing had happened. He saw another pair of elders and gave them his info. Then he prayed that the Lord would send someone that would teach him. The next morning we called him! So he already knows The Lord answers prayers.

His family is all members back in the Philippines and he was just hard headed when he was younger so he didn't get baptized. But his conscience is now telling him he must be baptized. So we set that we would come every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and teach him.We set the 29th of November as a baptismal date( but we are going to move it forward to the 15th) He is so great I have never met anyone who is so prepared and humble and loves the Lord. His Prayers are the most humble and Spirit filled prayers I have ever heard on my mission by an investigator. He came to our Ward Fall Fest on Saturday and came to church on Sunday. He is amazing, and thus is why I am probably leaving the area. I come into Areas that are not doing so hot and work to get them moving. Once they are going good, I get going. Also, the ward likes me too much. That is usually a sign I am leaving as well, haha. But it is ok, I am willing to go where ever I am needed. I don't have to be in the giant booming areas to feel good. Don't get me wrong, booming areas do feel good and I do enjoy that but I don't need it to feel good about my area.

Love

Elder Hyde

October 21st Got the Ball Rolling

We have definitely gotten the ball rolling here lately. We found a new investigator this week and it is cool because she is an older Thai woman. The reason that is cool is because my companion is Thai and has wanted to teach some Thai people on his mission. Slight problem, she doesn't speak very much English only Thai so I don't say much in lessons now which is weird.... We also went to a big Thai festival at the Big Thai Buddhist temple in our area. It was kinda cool. It felt like being back over in Asia. We taught 7 lessons this week but I was only at 4 of them because we had exchanges this week with our District leader. Then one of the 4 I was at was in Thai so I guess I was only at 3, hahah. We have to help them not get into the interrogator status. Also 4 of the lesson we had members at, and one of those was a dinner. I was not there for I was in Studio City with our dear old Elder Miller, figuring out what to eat like we always did in Granada Hills. And just having like oatmeal or something. It was odd how much it hadn't changed in like a year of not being together.

Well lately we have had good dinners it has been 6 or 7 a week for weeks. Which is much better than September when we had maybe 15 in the whole monthish and maybe 7 or 8 of those were in the last week.

We went to a fireside in the ward and Mark Deacon, he is a bishop in the Encino ward in our mission, spoke. He is the actor that portrays Christ in The Lamb of God video. He spoke about his experience which was pretty cool. The thing that I remember most is how he said that when he was lifted onto the cross in the film that there was a little movie magic. He had some hand holds he could hold and then a line connected to his back, but it still hurt a lot, and he wasn't even baring all of his own weight. He would repeat that many times. So then, if that hurt so much, he can't imagine what the Savior went through. So it is just completely amazing what the Savior did for us. And that He would do it for a lot of people who would still reject Him even though He had died for them. I know that we are completely unworthy of such love but am in awe that He still did it. I know that we can be cleansed from our sins through Him and only through Him, as His name is the only name under heaven that salvation can be brought to pass. I am thankful for our Savior and thankful for the love He has given us. I know that He Lives, which Brother Deacon said was the most important part of the film and the part that has the most impact on him. He is our Savior and wants to heal us through His Blood. I am Grateful to be one of His representatives and His voice as if a trump, which by the way I think aptly describes my level of speech, and am thankful for the time I have left to do so.

Well here are photos. We went to The City Walk mall up by Universal studios

Love ya,

Elder Hyde

North Hollywood District with the Zone Leaders

Elder Tobchan, Elder Ashworth, and Elder Hyde on a bus

Elder Hyde and an angel that smelled slightly of chips and salsa

Elder Hyde, Elder McCauley, and Elder Lee at Universal City Walk mall

"This week was the best week both in experiences as well as numbers, but numbers aren't important"

This week I found a GPS that worked at a yard sale for 5 bucks so of course I bought it.

We had a lesson on eternal marriage in Sunday school, and then in priesthood we taught with the heads up of only Sacrament Meeting because the teacher had to leave. But it went very well. It was on chapter 19, whichever one that is in the Joseph Fielding book. It is an interesting subject about sacrifice and all. We can never understand the greatness of the atonement but we can try to understand it and apply it.

This week was the best week both in experiences as well as numbers, but numbers aren't important. Well we had a great week. We were working at Spanish work level this week. We had a lot of lessons and a lot of contacts. We were going around on Tuesday visiting people and slowly making our way towards a lesson we had. But we had moved faster than we had expected so we still had time before the lesson. So we went by a referral that lived near our investigator, hoping to catch him at home. We knocked on the front door 2 or 3 times but no one answered, even though we could hear someone in there. We were about to leave, until I remember that in the description when the referral came it said to go around back to get in. We went around back and a man was sitting on a small mattress on the ground. We asked if he was who we were looking for and he was! So we sat down and gave a quick first lesson and just kinda of got to know him a little. We asked if he would like to come to church with us this Sunday (the 12th) and he said he would like to. So we left to go to our other lesson which is with our investigator with a baptismal date, Angel. He is 15 and the son of a LA, well she isn't really LA anymore, but whatever. We were going to teach about The Gospel of Jesus Christ, but when we showed up, since we weren't able to get a male over 18 to come with us we had to have the lesson outside. When he came down he was carrying a big bottle of iced tea. So we had planned to teach the Word of Wisdom next week but I accidentally just started in on it this week, but it was following the Spirit I guess..... or me being absent minded one of the two..... I'm going with the Spirit and I'm sticking to it. He committed to live the Word of Wisdom so that was great, now to see if it stuck.

We went by Lance’s on Saturday and it was good. We took Brother Gary Pike (he was in The Lettermans if that means anything to you). He is our ward mission leader and Lance was great. He had read out of the Book of Mormon and he remembered like all he had read. It was only 4 chapters, but it was great. He would say the names wrong or put like a French accent on them and Brother Pike would correct him all the time. It doesn't matter right now how you say them he is reading it! Yeah, Brother Pike is an interesting fella.

It’s hot but it is cooling off , but then it will get hot again, so yeah.

We went to the Thai temple on Saturday where they have their Thai market and food stuff and we got some and I ate sticky rice and kabobs, so yeah it was fun.

I think I liked Elder Bednar’s conference talk the most. It was kinda fun and it is weird to know we were watching some of it at the same time, but mostly cool.

We have a Halloween party on the 25th and we get to be the chili cook off judges, so yay! Oh I like chili now.

I have run out of time so I will talk to you next week.

Love you
Elder Hyde

Safari So Cal Style

Yep, our investigators are coming along. We had a lesson with Lance on Saturday. The day before we were going to a less active member’s house and we saw him out front of his house so we stopped and said Hi. He said that he thought we were set for Saturday and I said yes and he remembered the time, too. So I kinda took that as a small sign he might be more there than I had thought. But after the lesson, once again I am not too sure. He would get a word and then just use it a lot until we would use a different word and then he started using that all the time. But not in the right place or anything he would just kinda substitute it for a lot of different words. So we asked in ward council if we could have a member come with us and kinda have a third party evaluate so then we could maybe get an idea from someone other than the 2, 20 year old kids. Yeah, Joe is pretty awesome. He is coming along.

And yeah, it is also good though that I stayed instead of Elder Hui. Because we got three new missionaries in the ward this week because they switched the sisters to elders and I got a new companion. I am closer with Joe and able to better relate to him.

Elder Tobchan is my new companion. He is from Thailand, but has been living in Colorado for a few years. The cool thing is that our area has one of the largest Thai temples around here so that is pretty fun for him cause there are lots of Thai people. I don't have a recent photo of him but I have one from about 6 months ago when he was up in Valencia the same time as me. This was on Preparation day, we went bowling. Oh, cool thing, Elder Tobchan’s step dad works for the State Department too.

We watched as a mission the new film Meet the Mormons this past Wednesday, and it was amazing. It really helps just show that we are normal people and not crazy cult people like everyone thinks, so yeah um it was good.

I am good now. You know me I kick things pretty quick and Joe's Grandma and Mom took care of me while I was sick.

Look! I went on a safari of my own!

Love you,

Elder Hyde