Good Times!

What a beautiful week. I know I usually say it was a great or awesome week but I think beautiful is the best way to describe this week. So last Thursday Elder Clifford and I hit the road with President and Sister to go and make some visits to the Elders down in the provinces, Lubango and Huambo, to see how the work is going and to have a little Christmas devotional with them. The drives have been absolutely awing. This country is so beautiful. It is the rainy season so everything is super green and lush. I am currently in Huambo so I will send pictures next week when we are back in Luanda. It was so fun to be back in Lubango. It still feels like I'm coming home everytime that I pull into the city. I love it and its people SO much. We took Elders Dunkley and Money down with us because they are going to be serving in my new area. I took a day to show them around the area and to introduce them to the members in the area. It was so good to see them again! But it was even better to see them still active and living the Gospel. After a few days in Lubango we hit the road again and headed to Huambo. I was there 6 months ago when it was made a branch and it was cool to see the growth that has taken place. They are few in the branch but there was such a special feeling during church on Sunday. We will be having the Christmas devotional with them tonight, and then heading for Luanda tomorrow morning.  We watched the First Presidency Christmad Devotional with Lubango and I loved it! It's so nice to be reminded about the true meaning of Christmas. Christ. Elder Nelson's talk was so good. What a unique opportunity it is to be a representative of Christ during this special season. He has given us so much and has asked for so little in return. I hope that you all have a great week and that you are enjoying the Christmas season! I sure am. The Savior lives!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hyde

Great Week!

This week was SO good. I learned so much. Let me see if I can convey it to you all...

So the highlight of the week was the visit of Elder Hamilton form the 70. Him and his wife are awesome people and taught us all so much. He got in on Tuesday and wanted to "meet" with the assistants so we were pretty nervous about that. haha. Instead of having a meeting with us he interviewed each of us and it was so cool. He gave me a lot of really great advice and council. I think the thing that I learned most from him was the principle of Christlike leadership, showing how rather than telling how. Christ truly was the perfect leader and example. On Wednesday we had mission conference and got a lot of really inspiring trainings. Elder Hamilton helped us to realize the grand scheme of things in the work of salvation. A lot of times we get our eyes to set on baptism and forget about what comes next. He kept emphasizing that the straight and narrow path leads through the temple. So true! It was so great to have them here with us this week. 

It was a super productive week in our area as well. We are finding some awesome people. We have some couples that we are working with that should be getting married here in a few months that I am really excited about. It has been so cool to see these husbands and wives grow to love each other more and more as they have grown closer to the Savior. This work is so satisfying! I LOVE IT!

Oh yeah, today was transfers and I´m getting a new companion, Elder Clifford. We are super close friends so I´m excited about serving with him. We will accomplish a lot together.  We leave on Thursday on a trip with President and Sister down to the provinces to have a Christmas devotional with them and to see how things are going. It´ll be a great experience! 

The church is true and I love you all!

Elder Hyde

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a week! It flew right by... I know I always say that but really... This week was a quickie. It was great! I love Thanksgiving cause it´s a great opportunity to sit back and think about all that we have been blessed with. I am SO grateful for my amazing family and for all that Heavenly Father has blessed me with. I´m especially grateful for this mission. I don´t know what I would have done without it... I have learned so much and still have so much to learn. We were able to come together as a mission and celebrate Thanksgiving together, it was a blast. President and Sister Merrill had an awesome day prepared. In the morning we had the first annual Turkey Cup. A big tournement against the districts. It was SO fun. Our district made it to the Finals but wasn´t able to pull it together in the final and lost... I´m over it though... haha. Then after soccer we had an incredible Thanksgiving dinner prepared by the senior couples and the Merrill´s. As always I stayed away from the turkey but was still satisfied. 

This week we also had two baptisms! I don´t think I have ever mentioned the people but they are both so cool. Gizela is 21 and her whole family had been baptized but her and she finally decided to get baptized a few weeks ago. She is a super cool girl and will do a lot for our branch. The other is Guilherme, his mom is a member and he has been coming to church for the last few years. It was so cute to see him bare his testimony after the baptism. He was crying and it was so cool. His Mom and Dad aren´t married so we´re working hard on getting them married so that his dad can get baptized too. He´s been progressing really well and hopefully soon next year they will be married. They´re both in the picture. I am loving this area so far, there are some really cool people that we are working with. Sorry for the lack of detail but I´ve gotta run! 

Thanks for all of the love and support! I hope that you have a great week!  All is well here in Angola! I am happy and learning! 

Love,

Elder Hyde

The Good Life

Ya know, I am never going to get sick of being a missionary... I have never been more busy or more tired in my life, but I am so content and grateful for this opportunity that Heavenly Father has given me to serve Him and His children here in Angola. People always ask, "But aren´t you losing so much time and schooling during these two years?" We always, with a big smile on our faces, respond telling them how much experience and knowledge we are gaining during these two years of service. I wouldn´t trade these 2 years for anything! I only have 6 months left so Ineed to take advantage of every last second! 

I had an incredible week this past week. I got to go to Lubango! It was SO great to see all of the people that I love so much. The bus ride was quite the experience. The bus was suprisingly pretty nice, the air conditioning actually worked! I was hoping to get caught up on a lot of sleep but that didn´t happen... haha. I don´t know what it is but Angolans can talk and sing all night long without any problem... haha. I was the only white guy on both bus rides and on the way home I was pinned between a new mom and her month old baby and I don´t think she stopped breast feeding the whole ride. This is life! I love it! It was so good seeing the poeple I taught still strong and active in the church. I suprised Albertina and Alex and their reactions were priceless. It was so nice to sit down with them and catch up a little bit. We were thereMonday through Friday and it flew by.. My heart is still in that city! It still felt like home walking those streets. It was a great week! Sorry for the lack of detail...

Thanks for everything! Have the greatest week ever!

Love, 

Elder Hyde

They Keep Getting Better and Better

It is crazy that it is Monday already... I don´t know where the time is going. But, it was still a week never to be forgotten. I am learning SO much. My relationship with my Heavenly Father has evolved over the past few months or so. I still have so far to go but I am so happy right now. These past few weeks we have been focusing a lot with those we teach on Heavenly Father, sadly we realized that that is a point the we too often skip over and don´t give the deserved time too. It is critical that those we teach know who their Heavenly Father is, if they don´t it´s difficult for them to understand the plan that he has for them and their eternal potential. As we´ve focused on it it has been really interesting seeing what people´s beliefs are about God, but it´s also been cool seeing their eyes be opened as they realize who He truly is. 

We had some really cool experiences this week in our area. It was a great. We were focusing a lot on finding and found some very prepared people. One of those people is Princesa. We started teaching her this week and she is already on her way to baptism. She understood the restoration SO well. It is so easy to teach her! When the real teacher, the Spirit, is present in lesson it is so easy to know, because it doesn´t matter what you say or how you explain the principle, they understand. As we taught the restoration I was tripping all over my words but it didn´t matter, the Spirit taught what she needed to know. I´ll keep you updated on her! 

This week one of my old investigators from my old area, Germina, was baptized! She was so prepared. We met her at our investigator Mavinga´s house a little over a month ago. The Gospel was exactly what she needed and and she found it at the exact time that she needed it. I love this work SO much! There is so much joy in it. 

Tonight Elder Mariquele and I are catching a bus to go to Lubango! I am so excited to see all the people that I love so much there. It´s a 18 hour bus ride so hopefully I´ll get caught up on some sleep:) 

Life is good and once again, I´m happy! Thanks for your love and support! Have the greatest week ever!

Love,

Elder Hyde

Great Week

Once again it was an incredible week, full of learning and tender mercies of the Lord. We had a very busy week which made it absolutely fly by. I'll tell you about some of the highlights.

So I'll start with some of our new investigators, Santa and her family. Last Sunday we started teaching this new family that the Elders had miraculously found a few weeks ago knocking doors in our area. They were passing through Santa's little street when she opened the door and asked who knocked on her door. They were the only ones on the street and it wasn't them that knocked it. The Lord works in mysterious ways doesn't he? They took the opportunity to contact her and now we are teaching her and her wonderful family. Last Sunday we just got to know them and this Sunday we went back and taught the Restoration. They have a daughter who is Jehovah's Witness, and quite loud about it. haha. She's about 22. She came prepared to tell us how wrong we were. She read the Restoration pamphlet and everything. We told her that if she would sit through the lesson we would be happy to answer her many questions. It was frustrating her that we weren't really giving her the fight (Bible bash) that she wanted. But by the end she was contently listening like the rest of the family, and accepted the commitment to pray about the truthfulness of the message. I LOVE the message of the Restoration. You can't fight it. It makes so much sense. Especially to those who have been prepared by the Lord to hear it. This family seems to have real potential, I pray that they do our commitments and progress!

This week we got to go on a fun little trip around Luanda with President and Sister Merrill. It was so nice to see some of the beauty of this ginormous city. To give you an idea of how massive it is, we left at 11 and got back at about 7. We were stuck in traffic for a few hours, but still.. We went and saw a few government projects that city is working on to try and get rid of all of the congestion in the city, there are a few big Chinese companies building huge cities of apartments on the outskirts of the city to try to move some people out of the inner city. It's crazy. It was a really cool to see the whole city! 

I also started driving this week which was an adventure! I was worried that it would be difficult to get back into the groove with a stick but luckily it clicked right back:) The traffic is nuts here... Anything goes. 

Well, it was an awesome week! It flew right by! I'm loving my new area and I'm happy! Thanks once again for the love and support. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hyde

Great Week!

It was a great week! Transfer weeks are always bitter sweet because you have to say goodbye to the people that you have grown to love and adjust to a new area. But change is always good as a missionary! I am loving my new area and companion. We have a relatively small area which is cool. I´m really excited to get to know the branch better. I´ve loved what I´ve seen so far! My companion is a champ, I´m sure I am going to learn oodles from him. 

So this week we had some really awesome experiences that I would definitely call miracles. Let me tell you about one of them.. So on Saturday we were walking through our area knocking some doors and we decided to knock on a door that they had knocked on a few months ago and 24 year old girl came and got the door, we told her why we were there and she asked us to come back the next day. So yesterday we came back and had an incredible lesson with her and introduced our message to her. Before we ended with a prayer she opened up to us and kinda let it all out on the table. She said that she knows for a fact that the Lord sent us and that we were there for a reason because just before we knocked on her door the day before she had been praying that the Lord would show her some direction in her life. So cool! She is such a special lady! She then went on to tell us that one of her deep secrets that hardly anyone knows and said that she knew she could trust us and that we could help her. She told us that due to the war she was forced to be moved around a lot and has never been to school, she can´t read or write. We were shocked because she looked very well off. But we told her that we would do what we could to help and reassured her that the Lord sent us and that her life is about to change in a big way. It was such a cool experience! We look forward to working with her this week. 

I am never going to get tired of all of these things that I am experiencing here! It is such a blessing to be a missionary, especially at such a time as this. The church is true! Thank you for all of your love and support! Have the greatest weeks of your lives! 

Love,

Elder Hyde

Pics:

1. Elder Mariquele and I

2. Amelia, a girl that Elder Pimentel taught. She is Paulo´s sister.