Miracles

May 25, 2015

Dear Family:

This week has been pretty awesome, we have seen a lot of miracles here. This weekend especially has been awesome. This week we focused a lot on getting members out to lesson. Those are by far the best lessons. If you are reading this and have extra time, go tell the missionaries your schedule and when you are available. Members make a huge difference. We have one couple, the Foutanu's who are like 20 and from Samoa and they come out with us a bunch and since they are both converts they help so much. So we taught a lot of really good lessons this week and that always feels good.

One thing that has not been going well this transfer is finding. For some reason we just have not been finding new people to teach. We get a bunch of referrals and we talk to a lot of interested people, but it is hard to get people from just Potentials to actually investigating the church. However, that changed this weekend. We did not do anything differently really, but all of the sudden we found 3 new investigators in one day. It really is not that much, but I was on top of the world since we had been getting frustrated. Then on Sunday we had two investigators at church, which is really difficult in this area because the chapel is in a weird place and far away from our investigators. So that was awesome. Plus the members are really starting to like us and so we got fed really well this weekend.

We always appreciate when members feed us, so if you can not go out and teach with them then you had better invite them over for dinner or drop something off for them at the chapel. It makes it so much easier.

We also saw 9 bounce castles on Saturday and that was just another miracle that day. Overall this week I have felt really blessed to see a lot of miracles in this area. Each day has its ups and downs but I feel like the Lord is really blessing us for our hard work even if it does not always show up in obvious ways. It has just been an awesome testimony to me that the Lord loves all his children and is ready to pour out blessings and miracles in every area in the world as long as the people are ready to receive them. He is really just waiting on us to be prepared enough, and when we are finally ready for it he will inspire and guide us to miracles. Its been so awesome to see that this week and I am really excited for these next weeks that I get to continue building up this area.

So I am almost to the end of Transfer 1! I did not always think I would make it to this point so even this is a miracle!

Love,

Elder Hyde

Attending a Baptism

May 18, 2015

Dear Family:

This has been a pretty good week. We taught a lot more and we got my first week of 100+ OYM's! This week we are shooting for the 140 goal for each companionship in the mission. We should hit it too, which would be sweet. Our investigator pool has been shrinking down (we are planning on baptizing several of them) so we are focusing on finding more people and we should add some new investigators this week.

One of the highlights of this week was going to a baptism for the first time on my mission. The 1st ward elders had a baptism this week so we took a couple of our investigators with baptismal dates up to see it and to tour the visitor center. It was really good for them to see it and we are really excited for them. Church was fun too, we got one investigator out and a less active we have been working a lot with to come so Sunday was a really good day.

Last Tuesday I got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders. They are spanish speaking so I spent a day in the life of a spanish missionary. It was a lot of fun. I remembered a lot more of my spanish than I thought I would and it was a lot of fun! The Hispanic people around here are hilarious. They were all super nice to us too. And the dinner was awesome. I am a little jealous of them. But I can't complain. Richmond is a fun English area too. We saw 4 bounce castles on saturday. Our goal is 5 next week. But it will be tough, we are really going to work hard.

This upcoming week we have to go back down to Oakland to do a follow up on the New Missionary Training. We should be really busy this week and it should be a lot of fun. I am very excited to get to work this week! We have a lot of exciting things to look forward to and it should be a ton of fun.

Love,

Elder Hyde

Elder Schaeffer in Companionship Study

Goats at Farm Where Elder Hyde Did Service His Second Day in the Field

First Mothers Day Call

May 11, 2015

We had our first opportunity to Skype with Christian (a/k/a Elder Hyde) last night. He looked great! And he was happy. He told us about his ward (comprised of mostly retired people) and his investigators. He and Elder Schaeffer live in Hilltop and work in an area from Interstate 80 west to the San Francisco Bay. The great mixture of peoples, cultures and cuisines intrigues him, as do the experiences and opportunities of those he teaches. He is learning that the Lord truly does build up His kingdom from among the meek and lowly of this earth.

Oh, and he’s getting his first exposure to the gospel as taught by those whose experience in the Church can be counted in months, not years. The infectious exuberance displayed by these newest members in the kingdom has helped Christian adjust to missionary life.

Fall-Through Week

May 11, 2015

Dear Family:

So this will not be as long since I just talked to you guys but for everyone else here is a quick summary.

This week was a bit rough because almost every plan we had fell through and I was getting frustrated but its OK. I'm told you just have weeks like that. And we have a lot better plans this week. But Ii was disappointing because our numbers are lower than what we know we are capable of.

I had my first exchanges. I was with our District Leader Elder Geilman. Unfortunately that was an especially bad day on Fall-Through Week. But he is a really good missionary and I learned a lot from him. I love Elder Schaeffer but it was nice to have a second perspective on how I am doing.

We had a zone training on Saturday which was really good! There are three missionaries from Virginia and two from Maryland in our zone which was crazy. The AP's came and taught too. We are refocusing our priorities. Our purpose is to Find, Teach, and Baptize. Everything else is secondary. It was really good. As missionaries we have a lot of stuff we are expected to do, all the stuff I mentioned, work with members, retention and reactivation, etc. But really we need to be focused on finding, teaching, and baptizing. That is where we are best able to serve. We still do the other stuff because it is important but I really appreciated that the main focus is those three things.

Sunday was fun as usual, Church is always funny. It is the craziest place. Then we had dinner at the Maui'a's which is what I look forward to each week, they are the best. And I got to skype home and that was fun.

Although it was a rough week this past week, I am really excited for this next week. We have a lot of great plans and we are working really hard to be prepared so that the Lord can put opportunities in our path to fulfill our purpose. I think it will be a really good week

Love,

Elder Hyde

First Impressions of Richmond

May 4, 2015

Dear Family,

So my area is pretty interesting. Although we cover a pretty big area, we spend most of our time down in Richmond, which is cool. There are a lot of less actives down there and we do most of our OYMing (OYM is "Open Your Mouth")) there too. Richmond is pretty funny. A couple of highlights are the random four way intersections that have no speed bumps or stop signs making it quite the adventure. My other favorite thing is ghetto barriers. Ghetto Barriers are basically just a curb they put in the middle of the street to separate the nicer parts from the not so nice parts. So you can just be driving down the street thinking you are going to get to your appointment on time when you get diverted and have to go around the block. Driving in Richmond is an adventure, but it is fun.

We had a pretty great week this week. We taught 19 lessons, 1 short of our goal of 20. And we had one investigator at church and added one really solid new investigator that we are really excited about. We also are teaching a hindu man from Fiji with mysterious wounds on his feet that the doctors can't figure out. And we got a member referral! That was huge for us. The ward has had an interesting history with past missionaries so we are working on winning them over and it has been going well. One thing we have started doing is teaching one active member lesson a week, where we ask at the beginning if we can help them so it is not a last minute sort of insincere question, and then have an actual lesson that we plan for in advance. It has been going really well. As Elder Schaeffer is fond of saying, this area is about to blow up, its just a matter of time and the effort we put in.

My days are so full so I won't go in depth on each of them like last week but I will tell you the highlights I guess.

On Monday I got to teach my first real lesson with a totally new investigator and it went really well! Unfortunately he lives on the wrong side of the freeway in El Cerrito (we cover from the freeway to the bay) so we gave him to the 1st ward elders. But I was happy and I think he will be a really solid guy for them. We've had a lot of really good lessons this week in general. We ate at a Tacqueria in Richmond on Friday since we had no dinner and did not feel like wasting time and miles driving home. It was a letdown. But it was still fun. We are on the hunt for some authentic Mexican food and Richmond is the place to find the cheap but good stuff it seems like. What was a good dinner was last night at the Maui'a's. Brother Maui'a is a member who went to culinary school in Tennessee and is Samoan from Hawaii. He fed us really well. I love him, he is awesome. Unfortunately he has had trouble finding a good job in his field so he will be going back to school soon. His wife is not a member but has agreed to take 1 lesson so we are really excited. They are super cool and hardworking so I hope they do alright. We have a lot of polynesians in this area in general so it is fun. The ward is pretty funny, I like them.

This past week was really good for us, and we are very excited about the upcoming week, we have a lot of good people planned in to teach. This area will blow up soon, Elder Schaeffer and I are working hard on it.

Love,

Elder Hyde

At the MTC and On the Way to Oakland!

April 22, 2015

Elder Hyde, Elder Prete & Elder Hawley

MTC District

At the Mission Home!