Monthly Archives: December 2011

Skype call with Kyle

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We finally were able to do a Skype video conference call with Kyle.  We had thought that call would be this coming Monday.  I woke up Tuesday morning to an email from Kyle stating that his mission president, Presidente Peterson told him to try and set it up for that morning 8:30am since he had meetings in Esquel (pronounced Eskel) that ended at that time.  Esquel is the town about 30 minutes away from Trevelin that have computers Kyle can use for Skype calls.  We hurriedly made calls to grandparents to see who we could gather together.  Wendy’s parents were able but sadly, Mom and George were not.

I connected everything to our TV for the big effect and we all waited for that call to come.  It was kind of neat having Skype open and being able to see Kyle log in before the call.  Everyone quickly gathered around the TV and seconds later, this is what we got.  🙂

We had a wonderful talk with our Elder Hudgins.  He has a full on farmer’s tan.  He said his feet were shredded the first few weeks because he was not used to the walking.  The people of Trevelin are very friendly though not necessarily interested in hearing about the Gospel.  The weather goes to the extremes being very hot one day and the next it is snowing in the mountains.  I found out I have been pronouncing Trevelin incorrectly.  It is pronounced “Tray-vay-lean” with a emphasis on the second syllable. He shared with us his appointment book for the day and it looked like he was in the middle of a busy day, appointments every hour.  All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas call with Kyle.

If I get some time, I will put together a quick video of the call highlights as I recorded the full call which I will add to this post. (jh)

Quick Christmas post

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Re: Is it working on your companions computer? Merry Christmas!
Date: December 26, 2011 1:36:39 PM MST

Well, this week we were supposed to have a Skype video conference call with Kyle.  Sadly that didn’t work out for him as he had one computer that had a bad mic and a second computer that had a bad camera.  All the other computers were in use so an email is all we were able to get.  By the time the kid in the cyber cafe gave up on trying to fix things, Kyle’s time was done.  We are hoping that Kyle will be able to do a Skype call to us next week.  Missionaries are allowed two phone calls or Skype calls per year home to parents.  Anyway here is a very quick email he gave us this week.  It’s a bit jumbled because he was rushed but still a nice one to share with us this last week he has had in Trevelin.  (jh)

Ok this is my email for the week. Sorry nothing worked out but I will talk to you guys next week.

I´m really frustrated right now so my thoughts are all a little jumbled but I´ll do my best to sum up the week. So this week hasn´t been too bad. Things are a little slow. We don´t have the best numbers but we are still working hard. We had a lesson with Tania. She is the granddaughter of Posperina, who was the women we confirmed on my first sunday. She seemed really ready and Elder Clark and I thought we wouln´t have too much trouble with her. But we asked if she was willing to do the things so that she could find an answer and she said she didn´t really want to do that in this point of her life. That kinda sucked to hear. She still wants to listen to our lessons so hopefully that will still work out. We still haven´t been able to find David. Which is really a bummer. I really think we can help him in his situation but he is never at his house. Its been tought trying to find some people to teach. Nobody lets us in their house and nobody is interesting in our message when we street contact. I really hope we will find someone this week.

This week i was able to go out on divisions with our district leader Elder Sharp and spend the day in Esquel. He is a pretty awesome guy and a really good missionary. He had six baptisms in six week with his last companion here in Esquel. We really didn´t have much success that day but the weird thing was the it was freezing. It actually snowed that night in the mountians. It was pretty funny how it was so hot last week then i had to wear long sleeves 3 days this week, and now today it is really hot again.

Christmas was pretty good in Trevelin. We spent the evening with the Familia Nicklitcheck (I don´t know how to spell their last name). We watched the Christmas devotional and had dinner with them on Christmas eve. Here in Argentina Christmas eve is the big day. They have party all evening and then they open their presents at midnight. President allowed us to stay out till 11 and stay up till 12:30. So of course we took advantage of the Argentina tradition we opened our presents at midnight. Thank you so much for all the presents. I really wanted some ties and i sure got a lot of them so thank you everyone. On Christmas we went to church and their was only about 8 people there so not a very good turn our but i guess i kind of expected that with the tradition here. But after church we went to Esquel because they have a huge pension here and we did an asado. It was pretty good but im sure we didn´t do it right. It was tough but turned out good. We then played monopoly like all day so that was fun. Just a nice laid back day.

Well I hope all you had a wonderfull christmas I will talk to you all next week (

First Pictures from Argentina

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Kyle had sent some pictures from Argentina.  He actually sent them last week but they failed to arrive because they were too large.  That has now been fixed and Kyle resent the pictures.  (jh)

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 4:03 PM
Subject: pictures!

I had my first asado this week it was really good. I also saw Matt Kelly at the airport in Buenos Aires. He was picking up missionaries going to his mission so that was cool. I didn’t even know i was going to Argentina so it was a big surprise. Put that on my facebook my friends would probably like to see that. And of course we had to do the traditional map picture with my MTC district.

Kyle followed up with a quick little note that kind of fit with his email about the pictures so I thought I would add it to the post.  (jh)

oh and also one more thing. I forget to say this every time. Can you make it so i stop getting emails from facebook. When i put my email on there it started sending them to me. I promise i have not gotten on the website but seeing that someone said something about me is a huge temtation haha. If you could do that that would be awesome

Elder Clark and Elder Hudgins at an asado.

Elder Hudgins in Trevelin.

Elder Matt Kelly with Elder Hudgins at the Buenos Aires Airport.

From the left, Elder Todd Kimball, Elder Kyle Hudgins, Hermana Bretleigh Sandorf, Elder Runyan, Elder Hoth, Hermana Nelson, Hermana Sweet, Elder Hoth, Hermana Shoaf, Elder Dalton, Elder King and Elder Hancock.

Tough week

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Tough week
Date: December 19, 2011 7:15:00 AM MST

This week was tought! It was soooo hot this week. It was up around 100 degrees at least 3 days this week and I also have some pretty bad blisters on my feet. It sucks buy you just keep working. I know that if i keep doing the things i´m supposed to I will be put in the spots that i need to be. I think it was on Thursday this week. It was dang hot! We went out in the siesta and this town turns into a ghost town between 2 and 5. All the appointments we had fell through. So we decided to know (or clap) some doors but nobody was answered their door. It was seriously the worst day ever. We did that for a couple hours just walking around in the heat. We didn´t talk with anyone. After no success the whole day at about 8:30 we were talking with Hermana Montecino, a menos activa in the branch on her porch. Then a guy in the street calls for us and wants to talk. Hermana said oh he probably is just asking for money or whatever but we went to talk to him anyway. His name was David. His son 16 year old son was just killed a couple weeks ago. He was on his way to the cemitary and was asking us why this happened. He wondered why God would take away his son who was a good kid and not himself, who was a drunk. We talked about the plan of slavation a little and it was really awesome. I think he really felt something. He asked us to say a prayer for him in the middle of the street and it was just so powerfull. We got his information so we could talk to him. Unfortuately we haven´t been able to find him at his house. We will keep trying. But its cool how we just had this crap day, but i just knew that we had to be in the very spot at that moment so we could help David.

You were asking about investigators and stuff but we really don´t have meny new investagators. The 70´s of the area want us to focus on the menos activos. Its not really what i was expecting but there are a lot of kids in the familias menos activas who are not baptized. We had a lesson with the familia Lepin. She was offended by someone in the ward a couple years ago and hasn´t been to church for a while. Whe had an awesome lesson with the family and committed them to reading, praying, and going to church as a familly.

I gave my first talk in sacrament yesterday. It wasn´t too bad we had a good showing of people at sacrament, about 30, so that made it a little better. It was about faith in adversity. Everybody said it was really good so thats cool. It only lasted about 7 minutes and i had to write it all out. But im sure ill get plenty of chances to give talks in the branch.

Well thats about it. Its really weird being here for Christmas in the summer. Its not that big of a deal here it seems. It makes me miss the Christmas spirit in the states. But Christmas eve is the big day here. We are going to a memebers houre in the evening and on Christmas we are going to Esquel to be with the other missionaries and do an asado or something and just hang out it will be a fun day. Can´t wait to talk to you next week its going to be awesome!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

¡Hola!

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: ¡Hola!
Date: December 12, 2011 7:22:24 AM MST

Hey everyone back at home, I hope everyone is doing good and getting ready for the Christmas season! Anyway, this week was another tough one. I still can´t understand everyone very well but its getting better every day so thats good. I´m starting to participate more in appointments. I can understand pretty well when we are talking about gospel stuff but not really when its just every day conversation. I hate to say it but this week was a little dissapointing. We had distirict conference yesterday. President Peterson came down, the whole district presidency and an area 70 we all there for the conference. Elder Clark and i spent most of the week sending out invitations to the menos activo families. We thought we made some pretty good progress and were expecting at least some of them to show up to the conference. Unfortunately we only had 4 people total (Presidente Ganga and his wife and another regular member and his daughter) make the 30 min trip to Esquel for the conference. It just sucked. Even though none of the menos activo families didn´t show up i hope our presence and us talking with them will make them a little more willing to go to church in the coming weeks. One familiy we talked to, the mother found a new job so now we will be able to reteach the lessons a again and hopefully get them going to church.

There is a lot of work to do here. The members are a little wish washy and most of them are old and feel like they have already done what they need to do and can rest now. I wish we had more people at the conference because thats what they stressed a lot. MEMBERS NEED TO HELP DO MISSIONARY WORK! just a message for everyone at home.

Anyway we had a couple cool experiences this week. We were doing service at this guys house (menos activo). He is like 95 and his daughters are always there and they are way nice. We shared a message at the end and invited the daughter to listen. We talked about prophets and the restoration a little and she agreed with it. She said to come back on Tuesday so that she can give us lunch and wash our clothes. Also the other day we were meeting with another hemana (another menos activo) and she had a friend there. We shared the message of the restoration and she said that she would like to listen to our lessons. So hopefully those go through well. I haven´t really taught too many lessons yet and don´t have many new investigators but now with conference out of the way hopefully we can find some.

So with Christmas i know i can use skype on Christmas day. If you could make a skype account for me and set it all up that would be sweet. Im not exactly sure what time yet. I´ll probaly go up to Esquel for that because i don´t think any of the computers here have cameras.

So yeah. Hope I have some better news next week. Just gotta keep on working. Gotta keep experimenting on ways to get this branch going! I know we will find a way.

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

Well, missions are hard!

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Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Well, missions are hard!
Date: December 5, 2011 7:14:24 AM MST

This sure has been a crazy week. Its crazy to think that im in argentina right now. It is definitely a shock. When i was in the airport, i was just like thinking oh my goodness what im i doing i cant understand anyone! And i still cant understand anyone! it is very frustrating. We have had a few lessons and i haven´t said anything in them because i have no idea what people are saying. It is probably the hardest thingk i have ever had to do. But really i have only been working for a couple days now. im just being impatient. I know it will come with time, i just want to know it now! But yeah Trevelin is pretty awesome. But there is so much work to do here. Its a very small branch here. yesterday at church we only had 25 people there. There are like 15 menos activo familias that our branch president Predidente Ganga has been really stressing us to get to work on. Pres. Ganga is very concerened about the work here. The members of the branch do really do a lot to help out with missionary work. He feels that the only poeple that do that is him and the missionaries. We are a little by ourself here in Trevelin. The district president who is in Esquel hardly ever comes here to a sacrament meeting and he is just very stressed out because of all the work. There is a lot to do, we just need to change some things that we are doing around here. But thats really hard for me when i can´t understand people and can´t speak very well.

Anyway, yesterday was pretty awesome day at church. We had a confimations of an hermana who was baptized last week. She had been investigating the church for 20 years and finally got baptized last week. It was really cool to be part of the confirmation. Also yesterday in tesitmony meeting i felt that is would be a good idea to introduce myself to the brach. It was my first testimony i have given in spanish in sacrament. I was a little nervous but Elder Clark said that is was perfect spanish so that was cool. Elder Clark is a pretty awesome guy. He is from washington and has been out here for about a year. We have been getting along really well and we are doing our best to change this branch around.

I had my first Argentine meals this week. All in all pretty good. On saturday we had lunch at pres. ganga´s we had this raviolli stuff and it was really good. Elder Clark said thats pretty much the norm. Yesterday to break our fast we had chicken milanesa. Its like chicken fried steak but with chicken. It was really good. So yeah im pretty excited about the food here. The milk is delicious and so is the cheese.

Well i hope you have an awesome week, i love you all!

Les amo
Elder Kyle Hudgins

Letter and picture from the Mission Office

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We received an email from the mission office this morning.  It included a picture of Kyle with President Peterson and his wife as well as a scanned hand written letter from Kyle. The picture and transcribed letter are below.  (jh)

¡Hola Familia!

Just wanted to let you know that I finally made it to Neuquén!  It was a very long trip.  We arrived Tuesday night at about 11:00 PM.  Once we got to Buenos Aires at like 10:00 AM, they put us all in a bus to go to a smaller airport in Buenos Aires.  It was like an hour bus ride all the way across town.  We passed the Buenos Aires Temple which was awesome.  Tyler would like to know that we passed the stadium where River plays.  That was cool as well (But they say in this mission we are Boca fans).

So we got to the airport around 12:00 and I was pretty much in shock because I couldn’t understand anyone.  I had no idea what was going on, it was just crazy.  There was a guy that was just telling us what to do and where to go and he only spoke Spanish so it was a little difficult.  He was a nice guy and bought us lunch (Argentine pizza, it was a lot different than American pizza but it was alright).  Our flight to Neuquén wasn’t till 7 and 7 hours in an airport is a really long time!

We met up with 2 other missionaries from Paruguay and Mexico who were going to Neuquén as well.  It was fun talking in Spanish with them.  So when it was time to board the flight we got word that it had been delayed an hour (what’s another hour when you have been traveling for 30 hours!).  So we boarded a little after 8 and after another air taffic control delay we finally took off at 9.

It was so good to finally be in Neuquén.  We meet the President and his wife and the AP’s there and they took us to the mission home and got my first taste of empinadas.  They were very good.  I’m sure I’ll have plenty of those while in Argentina.

Well just wanted to let you know that I made it here safe and I love you all!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

Hermana Nola Peterson, Elder Kyle Hudgins and President Darwin Peterson

Argentina at last!

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We just received a phone call from Hermana Nola Peterson, the wife of Kyle’s mission president.  After 36 hours of planes, airports and delays, Kyle is in Argentina.  Upon arriving at 11:00pm ART (Argentina Time) Kyle and his fellow travelers got to sleep in after arriving at the mission home.  They spent Wednesday and Thursday (Nov 30th and Dec 1st) in training classes and a bit of time in the evenings tracting in Neuquén.  Hermana Peterson said that Kyle and his companion were able tract into a lesson which they taught. I am not sure how much of a role Kyle played in that discussion but I am sure it was an eye opener to participate in a real conversation at real speaking speed with native Argentines. Thursday night they caught a bus and are now traveling for about 9 hours to their town of Trevelin.  Trevelin is a beautiful small town nestled up to the Andes south of Beriloche. His companion is an Elder Clark from Washington state.

Kyle’s P-Day and thus, day he will read and send emails is the normal P-Day on Mondays. We can’t wait to hear from him and will post any information as it comes.  (jh)