These are picures are from our trip to the playa.
Hno. Chemin the mission leader. He is such and awesome guy.
With Presidente and Hermana Peterson
This picture is from an activity that we had on Friday for 25 de Mayo which is a patriotic holiday. It was fun we ate the traditional dish locro which is like a corn chorizo stew type dish that isn´t too bad.
From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello everyone!
Date: May 28, 2012 8:59:32 AM MDT
Well we had another really good week here in Rawson. The work is still going along really well and we are trying to prepare a lot of people for baptism so that is really exciting.
Our investigators are all doing really well. We are progresing with a lot of them so that is really good. Its really awesome to help them all prepare for baptism. Gustavo had a fecha for this saturday but unfortuantely that fell through. But he is still doing really well. He says that he need to tell all his friends that he is going to get baptized before he does it. But he is very sure that he is going to get baptized. The goal would be for this week. Hopefully we will be able to make it happen. We were also teaching Rodrigo a lot this week and preparing him. He is set to be baptized this week as well. We just need to make sure that the parents are ok with is and then it should be able to happen. So needless to say I´m really excited for these two. They are going to be our main focus this week and helping them prepare to make a covenant with God.
This past Monday was awesome. So during the day Hno. Chemin took the four missionaries here in Rawson to Playa Magangna. It was a really cool playa. It had all this rocks and stuff that we could climb around and everything. There were little crabs that we got to play around with. And it was also really cool to see the ocean which I haven´t seen to much of in my life. In the evening with did a family home evening with the whole Chemin family. There were a ton of people there like around 25. It was awesome. We were able to share a message about the atonement of Christ and played some games and then had a huge asado. It was sweet. We all had a great time.
On Tuesday we had a special zone conference. It was kind of a going away conference for President Peterson. We talked alot about planning and also the Book of Mormon. It was a really good conference and I learned a lot and strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon so that was sweet. We were able to have and interview with President and Hemana Peterson also. It was basically and opportunity for them to express their feeling for us and for us to express our feeling for them. So that was nice just to thank them for all they do. We had a testimony meeting at the end that was awesome, very spritual.
Well I think that is about it for the week. I hope you all have a great one back at home. I love you all!
Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins
From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: HOLA FAMILIA
Date: May 21, 2012 9:04:51 AM MDT
Wow this week was awesome! I hope that can give you a bit of the evidence of how much I am liking my new area right now. Elder Rivera and I did a lot of awesome work this week and I am super pumped for the next coming weeks hopefully full of mulitple baptisms!
Anyway so I arived here in Rawson at about 6:00 in the morning on tuesday. I didn´t really get the best nights sleep on the bus so it was a very tiring day. Everyone was just saying “jeez Elder just go take a nap” but it was still really fun to work on my first day here. It was fun getting to know a couple families in the ward and finding some new people to teach. The next day the zone leaders thought it would be a great idea to take me out of my area and do divisions. So on wednesday I was in Trelew working with Elder Reid. It is the same Elder Reid that Nana and George met his grandparents while in the MTC. It was actually really fun working with him, he is awesome. An rumor has it that their area is one of the best, most successfull in the mission. So we had a really great time. We found a family and put fechas with them. It was awesome. I was really able to learn a lot from my day with Elder Reid.
So the thing that made this week so awesome is that we were able to progress with a lot of investigators. We put 10 fechas this week which was by far the most that I have done in a week. It was amazing to see the spirit work and see people accept the gospel. One familiy we are working with is the son of the ward mission leader. The wife, Fernanda, was recently baptized about a month ago and she is awesome. Her testimony is way strong. The best thing was that we were able to see a miricle with this family. So on wednesday while I was in Trelew, Fernanda went out with Elder River and Elder Johnstun the other zone leader. She said that is was probably the closest she had felt to God in her life. She told us that that night she said a prayer for every one of our investigators that she visited with and also prayed that her family would accept the gospel. She said she prayed with everything she could and felt closer to the savior than ever before. So meanwhile, they have been trying to keep their house. The owner of the house wanted to sell it and Fernanda and Gustavo didn´t have enough money to buy it. So Gustavo, the husband, was talking to the owner about the situation and didn´t feel like it went the best. But the next day (the day after Fernanda went out with the missionaries) the owner said that he was no longer trying to sell the house and that they could stay there. So they were extremly happy about that and Fernanda knew that they had been blessed by the Lord. So the very next day we went to their house and tought them. The lesson was awesome. I don´t know if I had felt the spirit so strong before on my mission. We were able to put a fecha for Gustavo on the 26 of May. So right now we are really focusing on preparing him for baptism. We talked to him last night and he said that he is ready, just waiting for one answer. So we will be working with him a lot this week to help him get that answer and I am really excited for that. We were also able to get a baptismal date for their son Tomas for the 9 of June. He is really excited to and has a desire. So to say the least I am really excited to work with this family and help them recieve the blessing of an eternal family.
So Sunday was pretty awesome. We had 5 investigators in the capilla this last week. Two of them were Rodrigo and Gonzalo. They are bothers, Gonzalo is 14 and Rodrigo 11. Rodrigo had been to church before and has expressed a desire to be baptized. But Gonzalo has never been to church before and I don´t thing he has been tought very much. But they both came to church and LOVED it. After sacrament we had a quick lesson with them right there in the chaple. Gonzalo said that he really didn´t want to go to church this morning but because we went by to pick them up he came. But after he said that he had such a great time especailly with all the young men. He told us that he wants to get baptized as well so we put a fecha for the 16 of June and also put on for Rodrigo on the 2 of June. We talked to their parents later in the afternoon to get permision to teach them and they were all on board and said that they would support them. So that was awesome.
Man I truly have been blessed to be here in Rawson. The work here is amazing. We had 120 people in church yesterday. It was crazy. It made me so nervous that when I had to go introduce myself I pretty much forgot all of my spanish. The young men are awesome. On saturday morning we played some futbol with them and had a great time. My comp is awesome. Elder Rivera and I are getting along really well and he is helping me out with my spanish. I can´t wait to see with the future has in store here in Rawson.
Well I hope you all have a good week back at home. Just know that I love you all.
Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins
Sometimes I have found that large emails from Kyle take long time to be delivered. This one must have come in after I was already in bed in spite of the time stamp from the email. (jh)
From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Pictures
Date: May 14, 2012 6:31:32 PM MDT
Alright so the first picture is of Presidente Ganga and Hermana Ganga.
The second is the Castillo Family.
The third is the Nicklitscheck Family.
The last is Prosperina with here daughter Patricia and her two kids, and Tania, Prosperina’s granddaughter that lives with her. I´ll send more pictures of the pension next week.
From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello everyone!
Date: May 14, 2012 6:21:51 PM MDT
Well I just got here to Esquel to get ready to leave here to Rawson so I thought that I would take a little time to write a quick email in the nearby cyber. So yup I´m going to Rawson and I´m pretty excited for that. I´m excited to see the beach. That will be fun to go from the mountains to the coast. My new companion is Elder Rivera from El Salvador. The people in my district that know him say that he is a really funny guy so we will see how it goes but im pretty excited to speak spanish all the time now. It will really help me.
This week was a little tough especially for me. It was hard to focus on the work with transfers coiming up but all in all we had some good success. We were able to find a lot of new investigators so that was awesome. There was this one girl, Maria. We were just walking down the street and and Elder Stokes had the impression to knock this one house. So we went and she answered and all we had to say what our names were and she let us in. We walked in and she had an open bible on her table so that was awesome. She is already married so that is a very good sign (not a lot of people are married around here). We had a good talk about the church in the time of Christ and his authority and she told us to come back in the next week. Hopefully they will be able to progress in the gospel because that was really a miracle.
Well I don´t have too much time so I just want to wish all those mothers out there a happy (late) Mother´s day. I´m so gratefull for my mom and I have been able to realize all the things that she has done for me in my life on my mission. I love you mom and thank you for all you do for me.
Well Next week i´ll be able to fill you in on my new area. I hope you all have a great week and I love you all!
Elder Kyle Hudgins
We were able to have a Skype call with Elder Hudgins today though it did have some problems. First, as the image shows, the camera on the computer that Kyle used was zoomed in quite a bit.
About half way through the conversation, his camera completely stopped working. We were able to continue a wonderful conversation with him without video so all was fine.
Kyle is being transfered to the town of Rawson which is at the same longitude as Trevelin but on the Atlantic coast. His companion will be an Elder Rivera from El Salvador so he will get the opportunity to speak nothing but Spanish.
Kyle also mentioned that he has been surprised at how much he will miss Trevelin but he is excited for a new adventure.
I took a few snips out of the audio of our Skype call. The first is Kyle’s advice to the young men and women of our ward though it applies to all young men and women thinking of a mission.
Advice to prospective missionaries
The second audio is Kyle’s testimony in Spanish.
2012-05-13-spanish-testimoney
Tomorrow will be busy for Kyle as he hops on a bus Monday evening. We aren’t sure if there will be an email and pictures. If there are, look here first. (jh)
From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hola everyone!
Date: May 7, 2012 9:40:15 AM MDT
Well this week wasn´t a bad week here in Trevelin. We are still working hard to try to get some more investigators but there are some things that are really looking up.
This week we found two new investigators that are pretty sweet. Their names are Ivan and Alejandra. They are a young couple and about to have a baby in the next coming weeks. We found them a couple weeks ago when I just felt an impression to knock a door because we hadn´t done many contacts for the day. We then saw a sticker on a door that said “Confiar en Dios” or trust in God so we thought it might be a good one to try. She invited us back but we hadn´t been able to find them but we finally did this last week. We talked about the restoration. They had a lot of questions about why there were so many churches. They said they thought all were good but didn´t know which was the best. We talked about how Joseph Smith had these same questions and how he prayed to ask God which one he should go to. We didn´t have too much time to get into much else but we committed them to pray about it and ask God. I have a lot of hope with these two. They expressed that with having a baby they want to have something to help them raise it well. So we will see how it goes this week and hopefully we can get them with a baptismal date.
Cristina is still progressing. She is reading the Book of Mormon and loves it so that is awesome. The thing that is holding her back is church and her marriage situation or lack thereof. We met they guy that she lives with this week and he was really nice with us. He seemed like a nice guy very contrary to what we have been told. So this coming week we are going to try to teach him. Maybe that will be the key and will give her more support in progressing in the Gospel.
This week Presidente Ganga made a lot of changes in what the members need to be doing. We had a branch council this week (which includes most of the branch) and he really talked a lot about visiting and home teaching. He assigned every active member with a less active person in the branch. I´m excited to see how this will work out. I´m sure it will be really good for all the menos activos in the branch. Being on my mission I have been able to see the importanct of vistiting and home teaching. Many times I have seen people stop going to church because they don´t have a very good realationship with the members. Visiting and home teacher will help out a lot with that and help them have a friend in the church.
Well thats about all I have for this week. We have transfers coming up next Saturday. I have a hunch that I might be leaving but you never know. At least I´ll get to tell you when we get to talk on skype next Sunday! I can´t wait to see all of you. I hope you all have a wonderfull week full of exciting stories for you to tell me about.
Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins
In the cold morning on the country side of Trevelin.
