Author Archives: Jim Hudgins

Hello!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello!
Date: 27 May 2013 08:17:09 AM MDT

Hello everyone.I hope everyone is doing great on your beutiful holliday there in the United States. Everything is going great here in Zapala and we are having some good success here.

I´ll start with a new investigator named Omar. He is a pretty cool guy and also pretty evagelical. But he is pretty willing to listen. He was a reference that we got from a member and she said that he was going through some hard times and that he could use a little help. So we went by and he accepted us even without us introducing ourselves. He told us that he has been separated for a little while now and he feels like he has failed God. We talked to him and we were able to share two lessons with him this week. We shared the restoration with him and also talked about how he could recieve the dirrection he needs. He said that he had listened to the missionaries before but he never asked God if Joseph Smith was a prophet so we committed him to do that. After the second lesson he told us that all the things we where teaching him we helping him a lot and that they were entering into his heart. We are really excited to be able to teach him and I think if we keep helping him feel the spirit of our message he will be ready to get baptized.

Luciano and the Familia Barraza are progressing really well. The family loves it when we come over. They all came to church this last week. The last lesson we challenged the Dad to prepare himself so he can baptize his son. He accepted and said he was going to do whatever he needs to do it. Luciano is awesome. He is only 9 years old but he is really smart. He reads all the things we leave him in the Book of Mormon and loves going to church. He is looking really good for his fecha on the 15.

So this week we celebrated the independance in Argentina on the 25 of may. We had a pretty sweet acitvity in the church where we all ate the traditional dish of the holliday called Locro. Its like a corn/bean/ a whole bunch of other stuff like cow stomache and basically every other part of the cow. Its pretty good and we had a good time. The members also brought some friends that weren´t members so it was good to introduce them a little to the church.

Well I hope you have a wonderfull memorial day. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

We got a picture here with the big bowl of locro that we all ate.

Big bowl of locro

Big bowl of locro

The second it with Elder Pereira in San Martín. You can see the lake that is right there next to the city.

With Elder Pereira

With Elder Pereira

This is a picture with Guille and Laura Venagas. The are like our parents here in Zapala and take us out on Pdays. Last week we went to see the virgin Mary haha. Sorry mom, I don´t have a close up of me and Elder Wagstaff.

With Elder Wagstaff and the Venagas Family

With Elder Wagstaff and the Venagas Family

Hello Family!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 20 May 2013 08:06:43 AM MDT

Hello everyone! Well it sounds like everyone is having a good time enjoying the nice spring weahter. Things this week went pretty well and we had a good time.

This week we were able to start teaching a part family the familia Barraza. The dad is a former bishop but right now is inactive. We started teaching them because they have a son Luciano that is 9 years old and not baptized. When we went the dad told us that Luciano has wanted to get baptized for some time now but it just hasn´t happened. But we when we went they were really happy to start going to church again and we committed them to start working to Luciano can get baptized on june 15. I´m sure that they are going to make it. They came to chuch and we also had an english class on Saturday and Luciano and his brother both came. So we are super excited to teach this family and hopefully we can get them into full activity again.

This week we had our zone conference. It was a really great conference. We talked about the importance of the first vision and how we can share it better and also the importance of the Book of Mormon and how we should use it. It was a really sweet conference and I think everyone was excited to go out and use the new things that they had learned. Right after we went out and worked and had a great lesson with Emilio. We shared with him the first vision and takled about the book of Mormon. IT was a lesson filled with the spirit. We comitted him to read the book of Mormon and he said he would love to. We were going to put a fecha with him but again the grandma interrupted and just went off and she just doesn´t give any room to change the subject. So hopefully tonight when we go by we can finally get him on date and help him progress toward baptism.

Well I love you all and hope you have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Here is a picture of Elder Yañez and his sleeping bad (bag?) suit! We were on divisions and I just had to get a picture with it on.

Sleeping bag suit

Sleeping bag suit

Dear Family

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hey!
Date: 13 May 2013 07:38:46 AM MDT

Well it sure was nice seeing you all the other day. But i guess that means I don´t have too much more to say in the letter. So unfortunately yesterday I was not able to see Yanet get confirmed. The reason: on saturday night I was struck again with food poisening. Yeah I was not a great experience so yesterday I just spent the day in the bed and we didn´t go to church. But we called Nestor and Yanet and she did get comfirmed so today we will go by and congradulate them and start teaching the lessons of retension.

We are really excited with the familia Rodriguez because the accepted a fecha for the 6 of june. The mom was a little hesitant but Micaela told us that she has been wanting to get baptized for about two years now so thats awesome. Hopefully we can help them reach that goal.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Here is the picture for the baptism (I forgot my white tie haha)

Baptism of Yanet

Baptism of Yanet

Hey!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hey!
Date: 6 May 2013 08:16:16 AM MDT

Hello my dear family and friends. Well this was sure a fun week and we had a lot of really cool things happen as well. Things are looking really awesome for the whole zapala zone.

so I´ll start off with Yanet. So las week she was struggling a little bit and wasn´t too excited about her baptism. Nestor was really diligent though and wanted to really help her out. So on Friday we planned to teach them in the house of the bishop here in Avellaneda. We had a really awesome lesson with him and his wife and we went buy Nestor a Yanet on saturday and she said that she was really excited to go to church the next day. So on sunday they both came and had a good time. So we should be have her baptism this coming saturday which will be awesome. It made me realize even more the importance of the members in the work. Everybody is excpecting this missionaries to follow Jesus Christ but when a normal person tells you to do it it sure means a lot more.

So this week we were able to find another family. But this one is of three generations. Their names are Marta who is the grandma, Graciela her daughter and Gracielas son Emilio. They are all really awesome. They have had some contact with the missionaries in the past but we can´t find anything about them in the area book. But the first time we went over they opened up to us and told us about all the bad things that are going on in their lives right now. They really have a lot of dificulties. Yesterday we went by again and talked about how our faimliy can be together forever with the gospel of Jesus Chirst. It was an awesome lesson and right as we were inviting them to be baptized the grandma (she likes to talk a lot) interrupted and just went off on a huge tangent. Oh man! Afterward people came and the spirit was just not right to invite them. But we are excited for the next visit with them. They are really awesome and willing to keep commitments. Hopefully we can get that fecha with them this week.

This week we also had the zone training meeting. And man it really was a sweet meeting. The zone right now is super awesome and super animated about the work. We talked about repentance and a missionary gave just the sickest talk about it. I think everyone felt the spirit in the meeting and left ready to work hard. So the zone is really moving in the right direction so we are super excited about that.

Well I love you all and hope you all have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Hello Family!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 29 Apr 2013 08:36:48 AM MDT

Well this has been a really awesome week here in Zapala with Elder Wagstaff. We have had a good time sharing the gospel with the people here.

So I will start with the familia Rodriguez. They are doing awesome. Unfortunately we weren’t able to find them all week except for late Satruday night. We tried multiple times but could never get a hold of them or find them in house. So finally on saturday night we found them just in time to invite them to church. They said that they had been talking about it and were making the plans so they could go. So on Sunday they whole family was there. It was awesome. It was the ward conference so all the classes were really awesome. It was a great experience and the ward did a good job of helping them feel welcome also. The kids were all able to make friends. It was great. So they are doing really awesome. We really excited to find them this week so we can put a baptismal date with them and help them progress toward that.

So this week Nestor and Yanet got married! That was a really big step for them. We are super happy but now we have to make sure that Yanet is ready to be baptized. We have a baptismal date for her for this coming week but it still isn’t sure. Yanet isn’t were we would really like her to be in terms of her progression. They didn’t go to church and they haven´t been reading. This week we are going to be pressing hard and hopefully we can help her make that final step (which really is the beginning).

So this week the weather has been a little crazy. We had a huge rain strom on friday. The streets were like rivers. It was crazy. I´ll send some pictures.

Well sorry I don´t have too much for today. Just know that I love you all and hope you have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Me in the rain. You can also see the river that formed in the middle of centro!

Elder Hudgins in the rain

Elder Hudgins in the rain

The wedding of Nestor and Yanet

The wedding of Nestor and Yanet

The wedding of Nestor and Yanet

 

Hello!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello!
Date: 22 Apr 2013 08:14:09 AM MDT

Hey everyone. Well this has been a pretty sick week here in Zapala with a lot of cool stuff happening.

First I will start off with the familia Rodriguez. Oh my goodness this family is like every missionary´s dream. They are soooo awesome. Family is the mom, Carina, and she has 3 daughters and 1 son, Micaela, Laura, Tiara, and Lucas. They are all so awesome. We had actually contacted them about a month ago but we could never find when the mom was home. So the other night we finally were able to talk to Carina outside and everything was just awesome. She was super interested and said that she had been looking for a church for her kids for sometime now and they only live a half a block from the chuch here. So she told us to come back another day with a member so we could enter and teach them. And man it was just a sweet first lesson. They are so prepared. All the kids were involved and asking questions and all accepted the invitation so be baptized. They are so prepared, especially Micaela. She is 17 and has been investigating churches for a while. After the first lesson she told us she read the chapter and she even read more. She said that is just gave her more ganas to read after reading the first chapter. We invited them to church but unfortunatly Laura got sick and ther weren´t able to go. But we stoped by at night and they said sí o sí they will be going next week. We really are super blessed to find this family.

Anyway we also had another sweet miracles this week. One day were were trying to find an old investiagtor and happend to find a less active family. They said they had only lived in the house for a year so they were kind of lost and none of the church members new where they lived. But we found them and talked to them for a while. They have had a lot of problems adjusting to their new home and the new neighborhood. We found out that she also has a son that is 10 years old that is not a member. So this week we started to teach them and hopefully we can help them progress.

Also there was the familia Barraza. They are a family have have been members of the church for a long time. Sealed in the temple and everything. The hermano was bishop also but they have been inactive for about 8 years now. The other week the temple presidend from Buenos Aires came and had a fireside. They went and then the next day they came to church. They have a kid that need to be baptized as well. So hopefully we can help this family as well come back into full activity again.

So also some really crazy news. Elder Lunsdskog is being transfered to Neuquen. My new companion is going to be Elder Wagstaff! Man i´m super excited. This transfer sure is going to be a sweet one.

Well I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Hello Family!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 15 Apr 2013 08:17:56 AM MDT

Hello everyone! Well It sure looks like you all had a good time getting together this past weekend. It looks like you had some hamburgers. As good as a nice asado is I do miss a nice barbaque with some hotdogs and some hamburgers.

Well this week was a pretty fun one where we were able to have a lot of fun in our area trying new things to try and find some more investigators. We were also able to make some progress with a couple of our investigators. Yanet and Nestor are doing great. This week they found out for sure that they can get married without the permission of her parents so they were super happy for that. They have seen a lot of their prayers answered and that has helped them a lot. They had been praying to Nestor could find a job and just last week they police department called him and he had to do a couple tests so he could get a job with them. So that was a blessing for them and now with the news of the new law for marriage, its just another one. They both came to church yesterday and had a really good time. So that is awesome. They are progressing well for the wedding date on the 27 and the baptismal date on the 4 of May.

We were also able to make a lot of progress with Lucía. She has been have a really hard time keeping her commitment of going to church. So we toughter her the restorationg and really focused on extending that comittment. It was so nice to here her finally accept that comittment firmly. But there was also another cool exerience on Sunday mornging with her. So she told us that on Saturday night she stayed up realy late watching movies with her kids. She didn’t think she would be able to get up for church at 930 in the morning. So she told us that in her prayers at night she told God that if he really wants her to be in church then he will wake her up in time. And in answer to her prayer that actually happened. That was a sweet experience and i’m sure that it will strengthen her testimony of prayer. She still says that she is afraid to ask to see if the church is true though. She is still afraid of offending her mom. So we will have to think of some way to help her out with that. But she is progressing little by little.

Well I hope you all have a wonderfull week. I love you all. Thank you for the pictures. keep sending them! Have a great week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Here are some pictures of our little hike we did last week. Its a hill called Michacheo that give you a look at all of Zapala.

Pointing to Michacheo

Pointing to Michacheo

From the top of Michacheo

From the top of Michacheo

 

Hello

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello
Date: 8 Apr 2013 08:15:32 AM MDT

Hey everyone back at home. I hope everyone had a good conference weekend. We had a good time with a little miracles here and there as well.

So the conference was awesome. Confernce seems to have so much more meaning in the mission. Unfortunately I wasn´t able to see the priesthood session. But we downloaded the audio and we will listen to it in out pension later. Too bad I wont be able to see Spencer though. That would be awesome to be in the choir there. Too bad I can´t sing. This time I watched it all in spanish, which to be honest isn´t as enjoyable and a lot more tiring but it was still nice to hear all the words spoken. I really liked Elder Cooks talk about peace. But also that made saturday conference great was because we had a surprise investigator come. His name is José. We found him in the area book and went and contacted him earlyer in the week. We we talked to him, he wasn´t interested at all and said he wouldn´t be willing to pray about our message. But we invited him as well to the confernece. When he arrived Elder Lundskog and I were shocked and super happy. He loved the first session so much that he stayed in the chapel during the break and stayed for the last session. It was awesome. Unfortunately he left before we could talk to him. But Elder Nelson´s talk about the restoration was a great talk just for José. So hopefully we can find him this week and talk to him about how he felt or if he has any questions. Hopefully the spirit touched he heart and he will have desires to listen.

So this week was pretty crazy because we barely had any time to work in our own area. On Wednesday we were in Neuquen and on friday we were in Cutral Co and the we had General conference and that made it a little hard to help our investigators to keep comittments. The week we were working really hard to Yanet and Nestor would go to the conference. But something came up and they didn´t go so that was a little frustrating. But we did have a good lesson with her and she said that she knew the Book of Mormon was true. So thats awesome. We also hear of a possiblitly of a new law that says the anybody over the age of 18 and get married without the permission of the parents. So we will have to look more in to that and that really could be a huge blessing for us. Lets hope that it is true.

Well I love you all and hope that you all have a wonderfull week.

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Hello everyone!

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello everyone!
Date: 1 Apr 2013 08:23:06 AM MDT

Well this week was a great week with a lot of wet weather these past few days. But it was a fun week and we are really excited for some new investiagtors that we found.

So I´ll start with Yanet. Things are going good. On tuesday we went by their house and they told us that they already have a wedding date set for the 27 of April. So that was sweet. Yanet and Nestor are doing great so we put a fecha for Yanet on the 4 of May. So now the only problem is that she is only 18 years old and she needs her parents permission. That kind of has her scared. The relation with her parents is not that good and if they find out that she is getting married to be baptized they deffinatly will not give permission to do it. So that kind of has Yanet a little discouraged and unfortunately they did not come to church yesterday. So that has been a little frustrating but I know that if we do all we can that it will be in the Lords hands. I just hope that they can excersize their faith so they can receive these blessings.

So this week was had interviews with president and the assistants came by early and we did intercambios with them. I went with Elder Heaps to go to the terminal to pick up some other missionaries. Meanwhile Elder Lundskog and Elder Zimbleman we working and they found a sweet new family. They are old investigators that we contacted a couple weeks ago. We were just walking in the street and we started talking to a little kid. We told him to ask for his parernts to come out. So we talked to his mom a little and she was really nice and really interested. So we are excited to teach another family and hopefully we can help all of them receive an answer that this is the true church. We also found that same day a woman named Andrea. She is awesome with a lot of questions. She studies with a lot of religions and really wants to find dirrection. She has family that are members in Chile so hopefully we can help her out and get her on date so we can help her get that dirrection.

So also another really awesome thing is we are teaching some Gypsies. I didn´t know they actually existed until the mission because there are a ton in Argentina. They are super nice and willing to listen. We invited them to the conference last week but they didn´t show up. When we went by this week they told us that they went out looking for the churhc but couldn´t find it. So that was a bummer but at least they have desires to learn and know more.

Well I love you all and hope you have a wonderfull week!

elder Kyle Hudgins

Some photos of our last p day. We went to primeros pino to go look for some piñones. They are like a pine nut that only come from the araucaria tree. This is like the only place in the world that has those tree (or so they say).

Araucaria trees

Araucaria trees

Me and Elder Lundskog

Me and Elder Lundskog

Me and Elder Lundskog

A cool waterfall.

A cool waterfall

A cool waterfall

Hello Family

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From: Kyle Hudgins
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 25 Mar 2013 07:31:59 AM MDT

Well this week was pretty awesome. We had a couple of miricles and a lot of good things happen to our investigators.

Anyway, I´ll start with Yaneth. I don´t know if i mentioned about her a while back, but she is the girlfriend of a member menos activo here. Before I got here she had gone to church quite a few times. But my second week here her mom made her stop going to church because she says we are a cult. So we had no contact with her for the past 2 months or so. Also her boyfriend Nestor got discouraged and everything and we lost contact with him as well. But this week we went by and found Nestor. He recently had a surgery and wanted us to come by. So now he is living with Yaneth behind his grandmas house. We talked and asked Yaneth about her situation and explained that she wanted to get baptized but her mom wouldn´t let her. But now that she is living outside the house she told us that she really wants to now. So we talked with them and told them that they first need to start doing all the things to get married. So this week they comitted to start all the tramites and everything. So hopefully in about 2 weeks they can get married. And right after that Yaneth will get baptized. It was awesome and really an answer to our prayers. We had been praying a lot for Yaneth but she just wasn´t living in a good eviroment in her house. Yesterday she came to chruch and we had a special stake converence via satelite. Elder Russell M. Nelson, Elder Clayton and Elder Bowen all spoke and it was an awesome conference. Elder Russell spoke (in castellano as well) about how we can only recieve the exaltation by being married in the temple. So it was perfect for them. I´m super excited for these two. We showed Yaneth a picture of the temple and loved it. So we are super blessed to have them coming to church again.

Also with Roberto. He was getting a little disanimated because he is realizing now that he can´t really progess more with out being married. But we comitted him to come to the conference yesterday and also to prepare himself for the general conference in two weeks. He came yesterday and loved it as well. I love it how all the people who spoke were very direct and I think it help Roberto understand the importance of marriage in God´s plan. This week we will go by and hopefully he will be doing a little better. We keep praying for him that he can commit to live the law of chastity. Hopefully these conferences will help him have enough faith to do it.

So this morning we got an email from President telling us that Elder Cook of the twelve is going to be visiting the mission on June 1! So that is going to be an awesome experience. Im very excited to meet him.

Well I love you all and hope you all have a wonderfull week! Thank you for all the letters!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

A couple pictures from San Martin.

San Martin

San Martin

So its kind of hard to tell but in this one we climbed a really steep mountain to get to a neighbor hood that was on the mountain side.

Steep climb

Steep climb