Category Archives: Companion: Elder Rivera

The best week of my life!

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: The best week of my life!
Date: June 25, 2012 9:19:55 AM MDT

Oh my goodness what an amazing week we had here in Rawson! Can I hear you all say FAMILY BAPTISM! Yes that is was happened this week we completed a family and baptized more of that same family this week! Together with Elder Nance and Elder Minghini our small district of 4 Elders baptized 6 people this past Saturday! Yes 6 people and all from the Chemin family! Oh my goodness it was the best day ever it was amazing. I´ll start with what happened on Wednesday. We went over to Gustavoand Fernanda´s house to make sure that the date for Gustavo was set in stone for Saturday. We then focused our attention on Fernanda´s son Tomas who is 13 years old. He lives with them and has sat in on a lot of our lessons. He has told us that he wants to get baptized and has been keeping commitments but never really set it in stone. So on Wednesday we invited him to be baptized on Saturday. He told us that he didn´t know. He still wasn´t sure. We were a little dissapointed a when we left that we weren´t able to get him to commit. But in our next appointment, Fernanda called us. She told us that Tomas wanted to get baptized on Saturday! So that was awesome. We went over on Thursday to prepare him for his interview and passed with flying colors.

So also another miracle. On Thursday night we were thinking about Facundo. He is 8 years old and is Gustavo´s son from a previous marriage. He lives with his mom so we have never been able to teach him much. But we did give him a Book of Mormom with all the pictures ans stuff. He came to church last week and loved it. So on Thursday night we were praying that in some way, Facundo could be baptized along with the rest of his family. We didn´t really do anything to tell Fernanda and Gustavo. But when we showed up to the church for the interviews. Facundo was there! We decided to go ahead and let him be interviewed and he passed as well. So there are our three baptisms. All miracles!

So meanwhile, Elder Minghini and Elder Nance have been teaching the kids of Gustavo´s sister, (the granddaughters of Hno. Chemin) Florencia, Doloris, and Ludmila. On Wednesday night we talked with Elder Nance and Elder Minghini and we told them about Tomas. We told them to do every thing could so that they could be baptized on saturday. On Thursday we got the news that they all had been reading the Book of Mormon and were ready to be baptized on saturday. Another miracle.

So on June 23 we had a baptism of 6 of the Chemin family. Gustavo, Tomas, Facundo, Florencia, Doloris, and Ludmila. It was the best thing ever. Hno, Chemin baptized 4 of them. I´m sure he was happiest man on earth that day. It truly was an amazing experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. On Sunday all of them were confirmed as well which was also really special.

So while all this was going on we also got transfer calls on Saturday night. We got word that Elder Rivera and Elder Nance are leaving. Elder Nance is leaving for Comodoro and Elder Rivera to Plaza Huincul. It was kind of a sad moment becase all of us have become so close with the Chemin family. So the decided to through us a big going away asado last night. We all had a really awesome time. At the end the parents of Florencia, Doloris, and Ludmila (who hosted the asado and aren´t members) both gave their thanks to all of us. It was a really special moment. I can say that I have no doubt that those two will be baptized sometime in the future.

So with all that said I hope you can feel how awesome this week was and how much the Lord has helped us in the work. And also how much he has helped this family enter the gate to an eternal family. It is the best blessing our heavenly father can give us and I am so greatfull to help people receive that blessing.

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

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

 

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: pics
Date: June 25, 2012 9:31:06 AM MDT

Some pictures of the baptism

This is from the asado from last night.

An amazing week! Plus Bonus more pics

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: An amazing week!
Date: June 18, 2012 8:45:11 AM MDT

Wow this week was awesome! The Lord sure has blessed us here in Rawson with some awesome investigators with righteous desires and with member willing to so some work!

Well I guess I will start off with our baptism that we had on Friday. Gonzalo was baptized and it was a great experience. I was able to enjoy it a little more this time because I wasn´t all flustered and everything because I had already gone through the process. But man it was an awesome day. When somebody gets baptized its really hard to explain what its like. Its like a high because you just want more after you get one. It was really special because Gonzalo was able to be baptized by one of his friends Ema. (In the picture it goes: Me, Ema, Gonzalo, Elder Rivera). It was sweet. And on Sunday Gonzalo was confirmed. That was also a really special experience. I´m so glad I was able to help Gonzalo. He is really excited about being a member and wants to do what he can to get closer to the Lord. He is also really excited to get the priesthood next week so he can pass that sacrament. That will be awesome!

Man this week was really awesome. Elder River and I reached the estandarte of the mission this week! Last time when we were really close, we needed to more in sacrament meeting, but yesterday we had 10! And of those 10, 9 of them where there for the full 3 hours. That is almost unheard of for a lot of missionaires. Man I am so greatfull because now all these 10 investigators have taken giant steps in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am really excited to teach these investagators this week to see how they all felt in sacrament. Man I can not express how greatfull I am fo the help of the Lord in our work here. It has been amazing.

So another really awesome thing this week. We had a really good lesson with Fernanda and Gustavo and he said that he would be baptized this coming week Saturday. Fernanda Gustavo and their two sons Tomas and Facundo all came to church on Sunday and I think they all had a really good experience. I don´t know if I mentioned it but Gustavo is the son of Hermano Chemin our mission leader. So that will be a very special day. We are hoping that Tomas will have the desire to be baptized along with his dad. We are going to talk to them tonight and I´m sure that it is going to go really well. I´m really excited for that.

We were also able to find some really amazing investigators this week. We found Soledad, who has a daughter that has down syndrome. She has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ so we are excited to teach her. We also found Sonia. She has cancer right now and is a little down on life. We were able to teach about Jesus Christ and the plan of savation and she really liked it. We were able to put a baptismal date with her for the 14 of July. We found Beatriz who is having some marriage problems right now and is having a really dificult time. We had a lesson with her Silvia, and Virginia who is a member. We talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ. Beatriz came to church and had a really good experience so that is wonderful. I love finding new people to teach. Its always nice to have a lot of work. But its really dificult as well but much better than not having a lot of work.

Well hopefully this week will be as good as the last. We just gotta keep on working hard and we will keep all this great things going. I am so greatfull for this work. Its the best thing ever. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: more pics
Date: June 18, 2012 9:33:22 AM MDT

Gonzalo with the family. Now I also have some really bad news… I dropped my camera and it doesn´t work anymore. For right now I don´t know what I can do but I´m going to try to see if there is somewhere I can go to repair it. I sure hope so.

A week of miracles!

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: A week of miracles!
Date: June 11, 2012 8:43:55 AM MDT

Well we sure did have a pretty sweet week here in Rawson. It´s amazing to see the Lord´s hand in this work and to see him blessing the people who strive to follow Him.

This week we had a couple of mircles that I would like to mention. The first is with our investiagtor Silvia. She has been investigating the church for quite a while now and has finally received a testimony of the church and the restoration. She has been going to church every week and has been reading all the chapters we leave her in the Book of Mormon and more as well. She has been progressing really well. The thing that is keeping her from being baptized is that she is living with a man right now and she can´t marry him until she gets divorced. The problem is, she has to go to Buenos Aires to divorce her ex-husband and she doesn´t have the money to do that. So a while ago, we brought Fernanda with us to one of our lessons. Her husband Gustavo works with the government and she said that she would talk to him to see what he could do. So finally this week we got a call from Fernanda telling us that Gustavo was able to get the airplane tickets for her to travel to Buenos Aires. It was awesome and we then right away called Silvia to tell her the news and she couldn´t believe it. She was so happy and so excited. She recognized the blessing have come from the Lord as well.

The other miracle came from the brother of Rodrigo, Gonzalo. He is the one who came with Rodrigo a couple weeks ago and really liked it. But he hasn´t been to church since then and never sat in on our lessons with Rodrigo. But this Wednesday night we had a noche de hogar and invited the whole family of Rodrigo and a few other people from the ward. We had a lesson about faith and we did a couple of activities and played some ping pong as well. It was a really fun night, but the best thing was that while everyone was playing games, Gonzalo was talking to us and said that he wanted to get baptized. We told him “yeah we can do that. How about th 16 of June.” Then he says well can we do it any sooner. So we say yeah how about this Saturday. Unfortunately his mom had to work and everything so we couldn´t do it this week. But Gonzalo is going to be baptized on Friday this week. So that was really sweet! He came to church, as well as their other brother and their cousin. So the gospel is spreading through this family and it is so awesome to see. The gospel really does bless families!

Another miracle came with Judith. She investigated a while ago and is now showing interest again. Last week we left her to read Alma 32. So when we came back to teach her again this week we asked how her reading went. When she was expaining what she read, Elder Rivera and I were both like, this isn´t was we left her to read. She actually read Alma 30 which talks about Korihor. Now I´m not exactly sure how but she said that she received the answer that she has had for a long time which is why have all these bad things happened to me. She has desires to be baptized but we need to help her quit smoking and get married. So that will be our focus this week and hopefully we will be able to have success with those things. The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways!

Well Thats about all I have for this week. I´m so greatfull for the blessing I have received and also for the blessings that my investigators have received. I know that the Lord is helping in the work. I hope you all have a wonderfull week!

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

more pics

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: more pics
Date: June 4, 2012 9:00:02 AM MDT

Some pictures at the birthday for Hermana Dalia,

The family of Rodrigo at the baptism. (All of them are nonmembers but they all had a great experience at the baptism so hopefully this will help them accept the gospel in their lives. Rodrigo´s parents were both in tears during the service. It truly was a sweet moment.)

The last picture is of the giant ant problem we have in our pension.

Awesome Week!

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From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Awesome week!
Date: June 4, 2012 8:51:33 AM MDT

Well this week sure was awesome! Rodrigo was baptized this week! It was such an awesome experience this week to be able to help him and to see him make a covenant with heavenly father. There was nothing sweeter than seeing the smile on his face when he came out of the water so that was very satisfying. I can´t really descirbe what it was like during the service. I just had such a good feeling. I was thinking of all the work I had done these past 8 months and it was probaly the hardest 8 months of my life. But I would do those 8 months all over again just to have that one baptism. I guess the best way to describe how I felt would be found in D y C 18: 15-16 and we will just leave it at that.

This week was also just really fun working. We were really stretching ourselves trying to reach the standard of the mission. We were able to do a lot of good this week and find a ton of new investigators, some really good ones too. But we fell short with 3 investigators in church when we needed 5. We were able to find a couple families that accepted baptismal dates and have some really good promise. So the work here in Rawson has some really good things coming forward and I´m really excited. For this next coming weeks.

Oh we also had a miracle this week when we found a menos activo knocking some doors. Her name is Nancy. We were walking around during the siesta and all our appoinaments failed us. So we decided to knock doors which we never do during the siesta because it just isn´t a very smart thing to do with sleeping Argentines. But we ended up knocking on Nancy´s door. Her whole familiy was baptized 6 years ago in Formasa Argentina but now they are all inactive. When we knocked Nancy answered the door with a face of inbelief and excitment at the same time. She then told us that she had been thinking about going back to church and wanted to go this week and that she had also prayed that the missionaries would find her again and teach her. So there was an answered prayer it was amazing. She came to church yesterday with her boyfriend who isn´t a member and her sister came as well from Trelew.We will be visiting the family more this week and hopefully we can get them all going to church.

This week was also just really fun. Last Monday was the birthday of one of the recent converts in the ward Hermana Dalia. So we went over there to play some games and eat some torta. We played some fargo, I forgot what they call it in spanish. But we all had a great time. The missionary that baptized her is in Trelew so he and his companion came and we all had a great time.

Man there really is nothing better than the mission. I am having so much fun and the rewards you get from doing the Lord´s work are priceless. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

Hello everyone!

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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

HOLA FAMILIA

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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