ELECTION WEEK

Whoops, I'm slackin. I accidentally forgot to post this on the 3rd. Sorry ya'll!

Man! I can´t believe that I have already been here for a month! It has been the fastest/slowest/craziest/awesomest month of my life. I truly have learned so much already about this Gospel and about myself.

President and Sister Thompson got hear on Saturday! Woo! All of us missionaries were really excited! I only got to meet him breifly but he seems like an amazing man!

This week went by really well, we were all kind of curious as to see what elections would be like, but they turned out to be fairly calm. We made sure that we avoided any possible trouble, and the members were good to let us know about anything that was going to happen. Like I mentioned in my last email we were in the house a little earlier for a few days just to be safe and then on Friday we all stayed in our houses and from what I hear so did the rest of Angola. haha. The people that we talked to said that Friday has been the most calm day in a really long time. But hey, better safe than sorry!

Even though the week was kind of slow we still had a lot of cool experiences. This last sunday (yesterday) we had a member of the 70 at our branch which was so cool! It was Elder Bricknell, from South Africa. Super cool man! He was just what the branch and us missionaries needed to hear. During Priesthood he spoke to the branch about missionary work and it should be done on their part! Woo! We definitely could use some help from the members. He talked to them about the importance of simply just getting them to church, if they can do that then they can introduce them to us and works a lot smoothly that way. He really just got them pumped up and helped them realize the importance of it. It was also good for the members to see someone a little higher up in church, most of them are really super new and haven´t had the opportunity of hearing from someone like him. He also spoke to us a little about truly giving everything that we have to this work. We need to serve 24 month missions and not 22 month missions. And what he meant by that was don´t waste any time. It really got us pumped and ready to go out and work 10 times harder. 

And the really cool thing is that this week we get another 70! On Tuesday we are having a training with Elder Renland of the 70 and President Thompson. President Kretly was going to come from Mosambique but he had Visa problems. But I think he is coming here in the next few weeks. The training will be with all of us Elders here in Luanda, I think there are about 20. I´m super excited! In the MTC we were blessed to hear from a 70 almost twice a week. So it will be really nice! Elder Renland is also going to have a devotional for all of the members on Tuesday night, it will be super good for them. We are going to try super hard to get a lot of our investigators there to feel the spirit that will most definitely be there. 

We have been making some really good contacts lately, like I said before, everyone is super open to hear what we have to say. 

This week I also went on a few divisions cause my companion is District Leader. And it was really nice to see how other Elders teach and do things. I really got an idea of what potential Elder Hobbs and I have. 

With us having to stay in the house a little more than normal I have been able to get a lot of good studying in. I love the scriptures! I don´t think I really appreciated them as much as I could have before the mission.

Oh yeah! Somehow we got a little keyboard in our house and I am killer on the piano... Not really.. But I can play a few hymns haha. Fun stuff. 

Go UTES!!!!! I´m happy to hear that we got our first win of the season!

Big shout out to Connor and his B-day this week! 22! 

That´s all from me here! I love you all! Keep on keepin´on!

Fica Bem,

Elder Hyde

Luke- Keep workin hard at football buddy!
Sam- Props on making Varsity!
Squid- I´m jealous you got to go to that concert!
Con- 22 never looked so good!

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!!!

Transfer #2 Begins!

Another really good week! This week was transfers but since I'm being trained it was no surprise that I'll be staying with Elder Hobbs in our area. Which I am totally okay with!

 

I feel like we really accomplished a lot this week, and made some really good progress with our investigators. On Saturday night we were able to set 5 baptisimal dates. AWESOME! We were able to have a really good lesson with Samuel (the guy from last week) and his brother Alberto. We talked about Baptism and the importance of authority, they had both already been baptized into other churchs but were super open and understood that authority is important. At the end of the lessons we set the date of October 6th for them to be baptized. They have definitely been prepared by the Lord! It's easy teaching them cause most of the time they do the teaching. haha.

 

So there is this member named Helena (the mom of Rebecca and Peugar, I sent pictures of them) who has been having a lot of money problems lately. She hasn't been able to find work in about 6 months... Basically long story short Elder Hobbs, Helena, and I all fasted on Saturday hoping that she would be able to find some sort of work, because her rent is due at the end of the month and she won't be able to pay it. She came up to us at Church the next day and said that she got a call from one of the places she applied and got the job! Wow! We were all so excited and grateful! My testimony of fasting definitely grew that day. The Lord truly will bless us if we put our faith in him.

 

Let me talk about our house for a bit.. haha. Out of the past 7 days we have had power for maybe 3. Usually the power just goes out for a few hours and then comes back on but it doesn't really seem to be coming back on lately... haha. It makes things interesting that's for sure. We still have water, but with out energy it doesn't get sent throughout the house so we get to bucket it out:) I really hope that it comes back on soon cause I really need to wash my clothes...haha. But that's just the blessing of Africa! We just need to tough it up and go with what we have! Because there are definitely a lot more people 100X worse off then us here in Luanda.

 

The one thing that I feel like I have really learned these past 7 weeks is that the Spirit truly does speak all languages. It doesn't matter that I am still kind of speaking Portuguese like a cave man. After all it's not me and my companion that are teaching, its the spirit.  And trust me I am so grateful for that!!

 

Big shout out to the UTES this week! Sounds like a pretty crazy game!

 

Com amor,

 

Elder Hyde

 

Luke- It sounds like you had a sweet game this week!! Keep killin it!

Con- Stoked that you made it on ESPN!

Sam- Glad to hear that your a tennis champ!

Syd- Thanks for the email sista!!!

 

 

Pics:

1. There's everything here in Luanda! We made it out to the beach last PDay

2. Me and my two favorite kids from the orphanage. Jelson and Alberto

3. All of us with President and Sister Renlund

WOOOOOOOOO!!! Awesome Week!!

This week was awesome! Probably my best one yet. Let me tell ya about it..

 

So on Tuesday we had a big zone (mission) conference with Elder Renlund of the 70. He is such an awesome man! It was so nice to be able to spend the day together as a mission with our President and the President of the Area.  We had some really good trainings and learned a lot of really good things that we all need to apply to our teaching and overall work. He talked a lot about the importance of simplicity. These investigators don´t need to know everything all of the deep/complicated doctrine. But, luckily for me, since I can´t exactly speek fluently it´s kinda hard for me to complicate things. haha. Each of us got to sit down with him for a few minutes and chat with him. It was so cool to be able to hear his council and wisdom. Later that night at about 7 he had a devotional for everyone in Luanda, it was AWESOME! About 140 people showed up, which was so cool. He spoke to everyone about the importance of the restoration and how any question about the church can be answered by refering back to the Restoration. It was awesome to see all of the members so contently listening and loving it.

 

 Yesterday was an amazing Sunday. We had 116 people at church! I think the record is 122 so we´re pretty close to breaking it. There are 3 companionships in our district and together we were able to bring something like 12 investigators. Awesome! We also got a lot of inactives there which is just as good.

 

A few weeks ago we met a man on a road fairly close to our house named Samuel. We were giving this drunk man that always bugs us a Book of Mormon and he came up and said that he would love one too. So I talked with him for a bit and got his info, and this week we started teaching him. He is such an awesome guy! Elder Davis were on a division on Wednesday and taught him for the first time, it was such a powerful lesson. Samuel is about 25 and has a ton of faith. He showed up to church yesterday and loved every minute of it. I think I´ve found my first "Golden" investigator. Since Wednesday we have taught him 3 times and he has started inviting his brothers cause he wants them to hear our great messege. I´ll keep you updated on his progress! So like I said I was on a division with Elder Davis this week and it was awesome! Our day went perfectly as planned and we had a lot of awesome lessons. He´s a stud and I have learned a ton from him.

 

We also got to go to the Orphanage again this week. We´re making it a weekly thing which I am so excited about! The kids are all so awesome and happy. We started by having some English lessons and then after just kind of hung out and played games with them to get to know them. This next week we hope to sing some hymns with them and get them feeling the converting power of the spirit. Mom, you would love it!

 

It truly was such an awesome week, and I´m confident that this next week will be too! Elder Hobbs and I are making a lot of progress in our area and as of right now have 5 people with a Baptisimal date. The next baptisimal service will be on the 22nd and combined with all of the Missionaries in Luanda we will have 15 baptisms! Woo! We have 1 girl that will be baptized on that day who is awesome! We started teaching her about 3 weeks, her dad served a mission in Congo about 10 years ago and for some reason has never pushed the church on his family so that´s where we come in! We´re starting with his oldest daught Loriana who is 15 and after her his wife wants us to teach her. They are going to be an awesome family!

 

It is so cool to see how the spirit works on people! It´s a pretty powerful thing!

 

I love you all so much! Keep on keepin´on!

 

And come on Utes....

 

Elder Hyde

 

Lukey- Keep your head up buddy! I heard you had a sick catch!

Sam- Tennis star! Thanks for the email!

Squid- I hear you had a crazy busy week as always! You rock!

Con- Holla at the 22 year old! and thanks for the updates.

Weekly Letter!

WOOOOOO!! It was a really good week. And a really fast one. We had a lot of cool experiences!

I forgot to mention it in my last email but last Saturday we did a service project for "Moãs que Ajudam" (Helping Hands). It was really super cool. We went to some schools that needed some help with clearing out old metal desks and overall really just needed to be cleaned. So we stayed at the first school for a little while and got dirty and then made our way over to a little nicer school and were supposed to paint it. But, we prepped it and everything and got it all ready but then the people that were supposed to bring the paint never showed... Africa... Haha there´s no real sense of time here. Everyone kinda just goes with the flow. But, it was still way nice to be able to get out and serve! It was really cool to see how once people saw us working they all wanted to jump in. Service is contagious!

This week we had a really cool opportunity to go to an orphanage and play with the kids. Elder Richter knows someone from back home that is here for her husbands work and voulunteers at this orphanage everweek and invited us to come and help.  It was the coolest thing, the kids were so awesome! They did a little program for us and sang and then just hung out and played games and stuff with us. It was actually a fairly nice orphanage there were probably about 30 kids, ranging from 5 to 18. Individually they don´t have families but together they are all definitely one big family. They invited us to come back and do it every week and we were super excited about that:) We´re going to help teach them English and stuff out the Book of Mormon and our Pamphlets. Haha. They are already very happy but I can´t imagine how happy they would all be if they had the gospel in their lives. It was a really super cool experience! I love the kids!

So Elections are going to be this week and we are the first set of missionaries here for elections so we don´t really know what to expect quite yet so we´re going to be very cautious. Elections happen every 5 years. The actual election day is Friday and President Thompson (Who still isn´t here) has decided that we´ll all stay in our houses that day just to be safe. And a few days before and after be inside at about 6. You´re probably wondering why elections are so crazy haha. And frankly I don´t really know all that much. But, we´re just going to be safe because all of the different parties like to get together and drink and you never know when a riot could start or something crazy like that. I´ll update you on how it went next week:)

Elder Hobbs and I had a really good week. Yesterday we taught a Portuguese man named Sebastião, and he comitted to be baptized  so we were pretty excited about that!

My Portuguese is still comin´. I get frustrated at times but I just need to remember that all this is done in the Lord´s way and in the Lord´s time. I think that kind of applies to everything in life. I truly have fallen in love with this country and its people. I can´t wait to be able to communicate with them in the way that I want to:) I mention it in all of my letters, but these people are so ready! There´s not a single person that I´ve met that has been rude to us or shut us down. We´ve just need to build a strong foundation before we can let this country explode with the gospel! Which it will!

My testimony has grown a lot this last week. I have been studying really hard and found some really awesome, eye opening things in the scriptures. I love the scriptures! We are really blessed as missionaries with a lot of time to study, it is imperative that we take advantage of the time that we have.

This place is home now. All of the weird things are starting to be not so weird. I´m loving every minute of it!!

Thanks for all of the updates and pictures! I love you all!!

Shout out to Mom and Dad on 25 years!!! Yall are the best!!!!

Elder Hyde

Lukie! For 6! Nice work brotha!

Con good work onthe first week! Keep it up bruh.

Sam, good to hear that your killing it in Tennis!

Syd, good to hear about your friends! And stop flippin people off.

Love you guys!!

1. This one is of Rebecca and Peugar. They were baptized about 2 months ago and are awesome. They moved here from S. Africa about a year ago, so they speak English, which is really nice.:)

2. Elder Davis and I at the Helping Hands project.

3. Elder Davis, Richter, Hobbs, and I at the helping Hands thing.

4. Sweet view of part of Luanda

5. Most of the mission playing some soccer!

Week 3!!

Another awesome week over here in Angola! It´s almost summer so the weather is starting to warm up... The weather really hasn´t been bad at all yet, it actually gets kinda chilly at night. haha. But from what the other elders have told me is to prepare for extreme heat here in the next few months. I´m good with it though, I still need to lose a few pounds that I put on at the MTC. :) And either way that shouldnt be a problem because of how much we walk. I wish I had a pedometer so I could tell how many miles we walk a day. Fun stuff!!

 

So let me talk about my week a little bit. First off, it was way fast! It feels like I was sitting here emailing 2 days ago. This week Elder Hobbs and I had some really cool experiences. I made my first contact all by myself. Let me tell ya about it. So we were sitting on a taxi, Elder Hobbs was on the bench behind me and I was on the one in front of him next to the window. This man got in and sat next to me and I noticed that he was reading some book about the Bible so I knew I should probably talk to him. But I wanted to see if I could get him to talk to me first. haha. So I pulled out a Restoration pamphlet and just started flipping through it and kept noticing that he was glancing over at it. So eventually I just sat it on my lap and after about his 5th glance at it, I felt prompted to nudge him and ask him how he was. (in Portuguese). Then he answered me and after a sec asked if I spoke English and I very hapilly responded YES! It´s pretty rare to get an English speaker here, so I was pretty stoked. Haha. We talked for a bit and then I gave him the pamphlet and exchanged numbers. Who knows if it´ll go anywhere but I was proud of myself for doing a contact alone:) So that was cool.

 

The other day on Friday we were riding another taxi out to an appointment and met this guy named Gabriel on the taxi. He´s a super cool guy. He´s part of like the Angolan SWAT team. Pretty legit. He´ll be a good guy to know, haha. They ride around on motorcycles with big guns. Gnarly. We talked to him the whole ride and then gave him a pamphlet and our number. Before the day was even over he had already texted us wanting to meet. This guy is Golden! We ended up meeting with him last night and probably had one of the best lessons yet since I have been out on the mish. Not only because the spirit was so strong but also cause I was able to speak fairly well. The language is comin´! I´ve just need to be patient. And realize that I´ve been here for 3 weeks.

 

We taught an awesome lesson to a man named Carlos. He´s a really cool Angolan guy that actually speaks English as well, he learned it in S. Africa. But his girlfriend was there so we did most of the lesson in Portuguese. We committed both of them to be baptized on the 22 of next month, and they both agreed and were excited! He is so sincere and really does have a desire to follow Christ, he just says that everything he does he puts his all into it, so he just wants to make sure that he wont be dissapointed 2 years down the road. We obviously assured him that he wouldn´t be and all was well. I´ll keep you updated on him. We had another women named Ida set to be baptized this next Saturday but we had to move it back a bit cause she was given an ultimatum by her boyfriend that she needs to pick him or the church. ugh.... We have faith that she´ll make the right decision.:)

 

So our house is absolutely awesome like I´ve mentioned:) One thing I hvent mentioned though is all of the blessed cockroaches...They´re everywhere haha. I have one that I find every night by my toothbrush. I always kill it but I guess his friends are just hiding waiting to fill the next slot. It´s all good though I´m totally used to it. And don´t get the wrong idea, I know I´m in Africa so you´re probably thinking that theyre like the size of my fist, but theyre actually pretty small little buggers. They keep it fun:)

 

We had 111 people at church yesterday! The room that we meet in was packed! I sat on the stairs cause there weren´t enough seats for everyone. That´s definitely a good problem to have!

 

The kids. They are absolutely awesome! No matter where we are, without fail, when we walk by kids they always yell "Amigo!", and flash a thumbs up to you. Most of the time they run up and want a high five too, which I am more than happy to give. Ah... I love it here. The work is hard, but the results heavily outweigh how tired I am or how stressed I am. These people are ready for this Gospel in their lives. We´ve just gotta give it to them! And that we´ll do!

 

I love you all so much! Enjoy your last few weeks of summer and live it up! Thanks for all of the emails and support!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hyde

 

LUKE congrats on making weight my man! You´re going to kill it this season. Just make sure your makin´good decisions so you can go out and score all them touchdowns!

Week Two!

What is up!!??

Two weeks down! It was another really great week. I feel like I´m finally adjusted and used to this crazy/amazing culture. 

So I forgot to mention it in my last email, but on my second day I went to my first Angolan funeral! Crazzzy! It was for one of the member´s mom. So basically how it works is you wait at the gate to the cemetary and then they carry the casket in while they´re singing and crying until we get to the grave site. (I wish I had a picture of the cemetary, it was super crowded and nuts). So we got to the grave site and a little Angolan man jumped out of the hole with his shovel so we could start. A few people spoke, including Elder Richter, and then they lowered the casket into the dirt hole while everyone was singing and stuff. Then we all sat there and watched them fill the dirt in. Definitely a little different than how they do them in the US of A. 

So this week, like I said, was awesome! The language is definitely coming a long, slowly but surely. This week we taught quite a few lessons and I´m starting to help more and more. Lessons are pretty stressful because I´m focusing so hard the whole time just trying to understand what´s going on and then when Elder Hobbs looks at me it´s time to rock and roll. I can definitely see progress though. :)  It was also a really good week because the Elders waiting in the US waiting for their visas, Elder Montgomery and Castleton, got here! And Elder Clifford got here on Saturday as well! We have a pretty awesome mission, all of the Elders are so solid. It was nice, I got to see all of them today while we were playing soccer. It´s so cool that we can all get together at President´s apartment and hang out together for a few hours. In Luanda right now there are like 20 Elders or so, and all of us get together on P-day. I still don´t know everyone but I´m getting there. Oh yeah, another great experience this week. We met a man on a taxi and gave him a pass a long card and he ended up calling us a few hours later and wanted to get together and talk with us, so we made an appointment to meet at the chapel. When the apointment came around we realized he was quite as interested in the Gospel as much as he was in us. Yeah.... He was gay.... We ended that lesson pretty quick and probably wont be having another one.. haha. There´s a little bit of everything here!  My second Sunday was awesome! I love how the church truly is the same even on the other side of the world. Even though we´re having sacrament meeting in what used to be a houses living room, we still renew the same covenants and feel the same spirit. 

These people are so amazing, I´m growing to love them more and more everyday. They are all so humble and for the most part really nice! It´s election month so it´s kinda crazy and going to continue to get more crazy. The President right now basically has a monopoly on Angola, he owns all of the major Angolan companies. His campaining strategy is make"Cuka" the countries beer dirt cheap two days before the election to make every like him and vote for him. Crazy. 

I´ll just kinda talk about the city for a sec. It´s crazy how trends transfer so fast. It seems like every Angolan boy is rockin´ the mohawk and dressing like kids from the US. haha. Also, like I said in my last email, there are extremely rich people and extremely poor people. Parked next to a shack with a tin rook you´ll see an 60 thousand dollar Range Rover or BMW. It´s pretty interesting. 

Sorry this one isn´t quite as long as the past ones... I sent some pictures so that took some time. 

I love you all so much! Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Hyde