Weekly Letter

Is it really Monday again? Time is really starting to pick up!

It was a really solid week here in Luanda! Elder Hobbs and I were able to get a lot of lessons in and make some really good progress with our investigators. Also, this week we had a baptism! WOO! It was such a special meeting. The girls name is Loreana, she´s 15 and just moved to Angola about a year ago. Her Dad is a super strong member of the church and served a mission in Congo. It was so cool to see him baptize his daughter and then the next day give her the Holy Ghost. We´re now going to start teaching his wife who isn´t a member but has been coming to church with them for the last few weeks. This family is awesome and pretty soon is going to be eternal! At the Baptisimal service on Saturday we had 12 baptisms! It was so cool to see all of these people absolutley beaming after they were baptized. There is only one font here in Luanda so we all get to do them together, which is acutally super cool. The church is on the move here in Angola!

This last Tuesday we also had another awesome Zone (mission) conference. President Kretly and his wife flew in for a mission tour and were here for about a week. They are so awesome! We had some really awesome trainings with him and President Thompson. They are both so inspiring and loving. President Kretly talked to us a lot about potential, our personal potential and the potential of this country. He reiterated the 4 things President Hinkley said were key to being a good missionary. The one I liked the most was to smile. There is incredible power in a simple smile. That is something I really have discovered here. A simple smile and a thumbs up to either the kids or anyone on the street will just make them beam. It´s something I have really been working on doing since I´ve got here and it has actually helped us make some pretty good contacts. SWEET! We also talked a lot about we need to focus on the most here in Angola to build a strong foundation for the church. Families. This Gospel truly does bless families so much and they are the strongest forces in the branches here. He introduced something called Qualified Contacts to us. Basically just looking for married (legally.....) men, 25+, that are already Christian. We are already seeing some awesome effects from it. President Kretly is an incredibly motivational man that made all of us feel like we can conquer the world. It was a really awesome conference. 

Our branch has been doing so well this last month! Yesterday we had 120 people in Sacrament Meeting. WOW! The house that we are using as the church doesn´t even fit all of the people anymore, which is a pretty good problem to have. We need chapels!

My Portuguese is making good progress! I´ve found that the more and more I step out of my comfort zone and don´t worry aobut making mistakes the better I do. Our teaching as a companionship is probably about 50/50 now. Which I love! I teach a lot more simply obviously but as long as the spirit is present it really doesn´t matter. I truly have seen some amazing blessing from the Lord in the 2 short months that I have been here. It´s all about trust. If we truly trust in him he WILL bless us.

The next few weeks are going to be really good! The next baptisimal service, 2 weeks, Elder Hobbs and I should have about 4 investigators being baptized. I love this work!!!


I love you all! Keep on keepin´on!

Com amor,

Elder Hyde

Sam~Good luck this week yo! I´m so proud of you!
Luke~I heard about your awesome game dude! I hope that interception was for me!
Con~Holla bruh. Thats dope that your so involved there at the U.
Syd~I hope you had a good week sista!!!