From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Howdy!
Date: 3 Dec 2012 07:46:19 AM MST

Hey everyone! Thank you all for the emails this week. They were awesome! This week was a good one with some really sick lessons finally. We were finally able to find Omar. We had taught him a couple times when I fist got here but we lost contact with him. We called him Monday night to set up an appoinment with him and we went by on Wednesday. We left him with a Book of Mormon and we gave him 3 Nephi 11 to read when we last saw him. We asked if he had read it and said no. Recently this past week in zone conference we were taught to read it with them if our investigators didn´t read what we gave them. So we read 3 Nefi 11 with him. At the end he told us that is clarified a lot of daubts that he had. We started talking about the Holy Ghost and how if testifies of truth and we also talked about the feeling we get when it is testifying. He then told us that he had really been searching and praying this last week to find the right religion. He said it was basically between our churh our his brothers church. On Sunday night he said that he said a prayer and said whoever calls me tomorrow that is the way I will go. But what happened was we both called so he was a little confused. We read a paragraph in the pamphlets that we hand our and stuff and said that we don´t always get our answers in dramatic events but usually through our thoughts and feeling and how. It then sites the scripture in Galatians about the fruits of the spirit and he said that that was how he felt as he was reading. We told him that that was the spirit testifying that this was true. The spirit was so strong at that moment. It really was a sweet experience and hopefully Omar will continue to feel that in our visits.

Last night we also had a pretty cool experience. We were walking around and all our appoinments had fallen through so we were just going around contacting some people. We saw this old guy sitting outside his door smoking a cigarette. We just intoduced ourselves and he let us in. His name is Oscar and was going through a really hard time right now. He has had experiences with the missionaries in the past and even remembers the names of the sisters that were teaching him. He said that he had made some really bad mistakes and how he is in risk of loosing his house because he has no money. We shared with him a message about repentance and how with the help of the lord he can put his life back together. He was so greatfull for us that we were able to help him out. We set up a cita to go back this week so we will see how is goes. I know that the Lord puts in specific places always. Its always a blessing to be an instrument in his hands to bless his children.

So Transfers are this coming week. We will see what happens. I´m pretty sure I´m staying but you never know. In his short time as mission president, Pres. Lovell is known to do some pretty crazy things for tansfers. So we will see. I love you all and hope you have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Here is a picture of some grifiti in downtown Trelew. I thought I was pretty thug. The other is a picture of our p day last week in Puerto Madryn.

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Good week
Date: 27 Nov 2012 07:28:37 AM MST

So hello everyone! Its nice to be writing you this Tuesday morning. Its not going to lie its really weird having PDay on Tuesday. Yesterday we had our zone confence so they pushed our pday to today. Thank you so much for all the photos from Thanksgiving. It looks like you all had a good time. And Tyler, please shave that nasty stuff you have on your face. So I just got done reading Spencer’s email and I must say I am utterly jealous that they had a huge party like that for thanksgiving. Here in Argentina we didn’t do anything. But it would be very difficult due to the very large distances in between cities. (The mission Argentina Neuquén is the largest mission in the world geographicaly, just a fun fact I learned the other week). But today our district is going to Puerto Madryn to have a little Thanksgiving celebration with the Madryn district so that should be fun.

But this week was full of tramites (i don´t know a good translation for that word). I was all around doing stuff to renew my visa so I was able to go back to Rawson. We did the tramites in the morning and then I was able to stay and eat lunch with the Familia Chemin. Oh man was it so good to see them again. It was the first time I saw all of them since I left. They are all doing wonderful. We were able to share stories about all the things that happened when I was in Rawson. It was really nice to catch up too. Their daughter Jazmin that was born the week I left is just the cutest little thing. But it was just awesome to hear that they keep progressing. Gustavo told me that he is preparing to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood this coming week. So that was just the coolest thing to hear. It really made me happy to see them preparing themselves to make saving covenants and progress in this gospel.

So we returned and to be honest we just had a really bad week. Once again all of our appointments fell through an nobody was home. I was really getting discouraged. It is really hard when you have these appointments and prepare to teach these lessons in the morning and you get there and they are not home. But the zone conference we had yesterday really helped boost my spirits. President talked about being pure and staying focused on our purpose so we always have the spirit. I made me realize a lot of the faults I had and made me want to change. The spirit was reeally strong throught the whole conference. It was amazing.

We went out back to work after the conference and I was just really feeling good. I was excited about visiting people and sharing the gospel. We were able to find two people last night! Which was more than we found in the last three weeks combined. It was so nice to share the gospel with someone new. Their names are Fabian and Daniela. They are a couple that live with together with their 3 year old son Franco. They are really awesome. Fabain has talked with missionaries a little bit before because he has 2 brothers that are members. We shared a message about the restoration and were able to help him solve a lot of his doubts. We invited him to pray at the end of the lesson and he asked in his prayer to know if these things are true. I know that if he will get an anwer to that prayer. Hopefully we can continue teaching them and help them build their faith.

Well thats about all I have for today. I love you all and hope you all have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

So I have a picture with the Familia Chemin with Hno. and Hna. Chemin with Gustavo, Fernanda, Tomas, and Jazmin. Also Elder Hernandez and Elder Blatter.

The other picture is a picture from zone conference. Me, Elder Draut, Elder Hernandez, Elder Evans, Elder Blatter. We were all comps of Elder Hernandez.

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello
Date: 19 Nov 2012 07:56:40 AM MST

Hey everyone back at home! I sounds like you all had a week really tranquilo but thank you all for the emails and stuff. The week over here was also pretty tranquilo unfortunately. We continue to work hard thought so hopefully we will see some success shortly.

So this week was pretty fun. I had the opportunity to go on divisions with Elder Stokes this week. It was fun to be back dong some work with an old comp. I went to his area and we went to visit an old member of their ward. He is about 90 years old and we started talking about how their church got robbed the other week. He then started going off about the kids these days and how they dont have any respect. It was really funny we were getting all in to it with him and we just had a good time with him.

This week we also had a really good lesson with Ernesto. We were talking with him about sacrificing and how Jesus now calls for a sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He understood everything and he said a really good prayer. He is doing well with all that but there is just something missing that we can´t quite figure out so he can start coming to church. I know he feels the spirit in all our lessons so hopefully that will start to work on him and he will have some desires to come to church.

So you were asking about Thanksgiving and everything. I´m pretty sure that we wont do anything special. It will probably just be a regular day of work. But really it makes me think of how greatfull I am to be on a mission. Its amazing all the things that I have learned over this past year. I´m so greatfull to be part of this true church as well and to be able to recieve all the blessings that our Heavenly Father has for us. I love you all so much and I hope you all have a wonderfull Thanksgiving. Tell everyone hello for me.

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello!
Date: 12 Nov 2012 07:25:12 AM MST

Hello family! Wow you sure did get a lot of snow. Deffinitely the opposite of whats going on here. It is starting to get pretty warm but at least I´m getting nice and tan. But it should be getting around 35 degrees celcius this week which is really hot so thats something to look forward too haha. Well this week was started off really good but also had its difficutlties. But lets just focus on the good stuff.

So we went to see our investigator Ernesto a couple times this week. Boy is he a hard one but he always asks good questions. This week we went with Bishop Diaz to the appoinment. Man was he awesome for us in the lesson. Ernesto was saying that he always see people join churches and say that it changed them and all the stuff but then they fall away. We told him that the Church of Jusus Chirst helf us live the gospel which helps us continue in the church. We were talking about the gospel and Jesus Christ and how Obispo had taught it in his family and how it help them seguir adelante. He shared a way sick testimony and the spirit was really strong. I know Ernesto felt it. But unfortunately he still didn´t come to church. He still says that he needs to get some answers to some prayers before he goes. So that is something we will focus on this week.

This week we also tought Federico again. It had been a couple weeks that we had been able to teach him. We talked to him about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it can apply to him and how through baptism he can receive those bessings that come from it. It went really well. He says that he knows the baptism is important and we were able to put a baptismal date with him. Hopefully we will be able to keep helping him feel the spirit so he has the ganas to progess.

Well I´m really praying hard that this week we will be able to find more people to teach. I don´t think I have every worked so hard just to find one investigator. Hopefully we can get into some people´s houses so we don´t have to walk around in the heat this week. I love you all and hope you all have a wonderfull week. Enjoy all the snow!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello family!
Date: 5 Nov 2012 08:31:38 AM MST

Hey family! Things are going well here in Argentina. It is really starting to heat up, it´s nice to here that you guys are getting some snow up there haha.

This week was a pretty good one. We had stake conference and we also had transfers. There weren´t many changes here in our district. Unfortunately the only one who is leaving is our zone leader Elder Heaps who is going to be the next assistant. So that was pretty sad. It was probably the best district I have ever been in. But it should be good because Elder Nance who was with me in Rawson is coming to be the new zone leader so I´m sure we will still have a great time.

So this week we were able to finally find Sebastian again. He moved and we weren´t able to find him for a while. But we finally got in contact with him and found his house. It was not easy to find his house either. Everywhere in Argentina there are like 5 houses behind the house that closest to the street so that makes it difficult. But we were able to teach him and his girlfriend and it was a really good lesson. His girlfriend doesn´t have very much religious background but she really liked the lesson. We weren´t able to have much time but we were able to bring the spirit while teaching the message of the restoration. It was awesome. So hopefully we can start teaching them more consitantly and get them going to church so they can progres toward baptism.

This week we were also able to talk to Federico. He is doing well and gave the final prayer in our lesson. He still hasn´t really thought about his own baptism but he recognizes the importance of baptism so thats good. He is still having a hard time coming to church because of futbol but hopefully he will be able to continue to feel the spirit and have desires to come.

So this week we had stake conference. It was really good but they talked a lot about eternal families and stuff which is not the best topic for a missionary to here but it was really good. I also saw Hna Ganga who was visting her daughter in Gaiman so that was awesome to see people from Trevelin. A sad thing is that they took out the missionaries in Trevelin. Its sad to hear but I think it will be for the best. I really loved those members there.

Well I hope you all have a wonderfull week full of great things to share with me next week! Love you all so much!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello family!
Date: 5 Nov 2012 07:51:34 AM MST

This is a picture of our last district, and also a picture of our zone a couple p days ago, we went to Madryn and ate some choripanes.

Top row: Elder Lee, Elder Hudgins, Elder Stokes

Bottom row: Elder Heaps, Elder Ruano, Elder Wagstaff

Top row: Elder Higgs, Elder Pace, Elder Hudgins, Elder Stokes, Elder Wagstaff, Elder Lee, Elder Lang.

Bottom row: Elder Heaps, Elder Ruano, Hna Gomar, Hna Ojeda, Elder Sangroni.

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hola
Date: 29 Oct 2012 09:20:57 AM MDT

Hey family! Things are going well here in Argentina. It is really starting to heat up, it´s nice to here that you guys are getting some snow up there haha.

This week was a pretty good one. We had stake conference and we also had transfers. There weren´t many changes here in our district. Unfortunately the only one who is leaving is our zone leader Elder Heaps who is going to be the next assistant. So that was pretty sad. It was probably the best district I have ever been in. But it should be good because Elder Nance who was with me in Rawson is coming to be the new zone leader so I´m sure we will still have a great time.

So this week we were able to finally find Sebastian again. He moved and we weren´t able to find him for a while. But we finally got in contact with him and found his house. It was not easy to find his house either. Everywhere in Argentina there are like 5 houses behind the house that closest to the street so that makes it difficult. But we were able to teach him and his girlfriend and it was a really good lesson. His girlfriend doesn´t have very much religious background but she really liked the lesson. We weren´t able to have much time but we were able to bring the spirit while teaching the message of the restoration. It was awesome. So hopefully we can start teaching them more consitantly and get them going to church so they can progres toward baptism.

This week we were also able to talk to Federico. He is doing well and gave the final prayer in our lesson. He still hasn´t really thought about his own baptism but he recognizes the importance of baptism so thats good. He is still having a hard time coming to church because of futbol but hopefully he will be able to continue to feel the spirit and have desires to come.

So this week we had stake conference. It was really good but they talked a lot about eternal families and stuff which is not the best topic for a missionary to here but it was really good. I also saw Hna Ganga who was visting her daughter in Gaiman so that was awesome to see people from Trevelin. A sad thing is that they took out the missionaries in Trevelin. Its sad to hear but I think it will be for the best. I really loved those members there.

Well I hope you all have a wonderfull week full of great things to share with me next week! Love you all so much!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: ¡Buen día!
Date: 22 Oct 2012 07:52:30 AM MDT

Hello family and friends. Everything is going well here on this side of the earth! It sounds like things are great all the way up there. Its nice to finally be entering into summer here in Argentina but it is getting a little warm. But it is better than rain and snow I guess.

So this week was a really tough week but we sure had some good experiences. This week we went to a baptism. Elder Stokes and Elder Wagstaff taught the kid, Ezequiel that got baptized and we all went because he invited us all. He is a great kid who always comes along with us on p-days. Its a pretty awesome story that he has and how he was found. He was really happy to be baptized and bore his testimony to all of us. It really was an awesome baptismal service.

After that we had a stake mission activity. We all went to the Union 2 chaple and we watched the movie 17 Miracles. We didn´t have the best showing but the movie was great and I think everyone there was able to feel the spirit during the movie. After that we had another activity this time with the ward. Yesterday was mother´s day here in Argentina so the Elders quorum did a dinner for the mothers. We ate some fideos caseros. They were really good. But these activities really helped in getting our spirits up from this really dificult week.

This week we had a ton of appointments that fell though on us. I think we had at least 10 appointments that were really solid that did not go through. So that really was hard on Elder Ruano and I. We weren´t able to see the investigators that we put baptismal dates last week all this week. So that was really frustrating. But we were able to go and look for some old investigators. We found one. His name is Mario. Man does this guy smoke a lot. In our 45 min visit with him on Friday, I think he smoked 5 cigaretts. He says that he really wants to quit. So we set up a cita with him and we visited him yesterday. We talked about the atonemnet of Jesus Christ and how through its power he could stop smoking. We talked about praying, reading the scriptures and going to church, and how if he does those things he will be able to resist the temptation. He agreed to do all of it so we invited him to pray at the end of the lesson. He said he didn´t want to but we were persistant with him and he finally said the prayer. It was a simple and very powerfull prayer he gave. I felt the spirit really strong and I knew that God was there by his side ready to help him.

Well thats about all I have for today. I hope you all have a wonderfull week. I love you all!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Family!!
Date: 15 Oct 2012 08:53:54 AM MDT

Hello everyone back home. Looks like you all had a good time this week with lots of fun things this week. Congratulations to Justin and Kennedy for getting married this pased week! Things sure are changing at home!

Well this week was a very good one. We were able to find some new people and we were able to committ new investigators to baptism. I´ll start with Federico. He is the brother of Karen and we started teaching them this week. We talked about the restoration and he really understood everything. He doesn´t know a lot God or Jesus Christ but he has a lot of faith that they are there. He is a quite kid but he has desires to learn more. We were really focusing on the Bookf of Mormon in the lesson an how it is the way that we can know these things are true. We comitted him to read it and pray about it and said that he would. Unfortunately he wasn´t able to go to church this week because he had a birthday party to go to, but I have a lot of faith with Federico because Karen is progressing really well. She shared her testimony and the feelings that she had when she got baptized. It really brought the spirit and she with be a big help for her brother.

The other people we found this week were Schirley and her daughter Maria. It was a contact that Elder Ruano did a while back but we were never able to find them. But we finally got into the house this past week and man Schirley is awesome. We talked with her and her 10 year old daught about the Book of Mormon and how with the Bible we can know exactly what God´s plan is. Schirley talked to the missionaries when she was a little kid with her mom and she really liked it. So we left them with something to read and to pray about it. Schirley said that Maria goes to an adventist school so she is used to reading the bible. Maria said she was really excited to read this new book. Maria even said the prayer at the end so she is awesome. I´´m excited to teach these two and I´m sure we can get them progressing.

So this past week in church was really awesome. We had testimony meeting and Angelo and Janet both bore their testimonies. The were both really awesome and they both brought the spirit so stong. Its awesome to see these two become converted. Janet reciently had her baby so that had just made them stronger. It really is a blessing to here one of your converts say I know this church is true.

Well I hope you all have a wonderfull week. I love you all very much!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

This is a picture of our last P day. We went to play some tennis on the clay courts here in Trelew

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 8 Oct 2012 08:42:19 AM MDT

Well this past week was really good and especailly with the opportunity to watch general conference. It really was an event that uplifted me and strengthened my testimony. Unfortunatly we were not able to watch the priesthood session but all the other ones were really awesome. I would have to say one of my favorites was by Elder Bednar. I really liked how he talked about being converted to the gospel and not just having a testimony. I really liked how he related it to the parable of the 10 virgins and how you can´t barrow the oil of conversion. I had never thought of the parable that way. And of course the other one I liked was Elder Holland. He had just so much love for the gospel really and makes sure everyone has the opportunty to recognize their faults to repent. It was awesome. I really liked all the talked thought but those two really stuck out to me.

Well this week we saw some really good things. We are really focusing on going throught the area book and contacting old investigators. This week we found Sebastian. He is a 20 year old and he was investigating the church only about 6 or 7 months ago but the missionaries stopped because they could never find him. But we were able to talk with him about the restoration this week. He accepted it very well. We talked about the authority and he said that this is something that he believes is true about the church. We tried to commit him to baptism but he said he wanted to wait because he wants his girlfriend to do it with him because she is not baptized in any church. So we set up an appointment to talke with them both but unfortunately they weren´t there. But we talked to him last night to set up another one and we well be seeing him this week. So hopefully we can help these two gain a testimony of the restoration and get a baptismal date.

We are also teaching an investigator named Omar. He is a really cool guy. He has been taught a lot and he knows a lot about the church. The only thing he has a problem with the praying. We were talking a lot about the restoration and prayer with him. We committed him to pray and he also prayed at the end of the lesson. Unfortunately he was not home when we came by for our next appointment so we don´t know how it went. I know that praying is the key thing to recieving a testimony of the gospel. Its the only way that you can know the truth. Hopefully he can recognized this and we can help him form that testimony.

Well thats about all I have for you guys this week. I hope its a wonderfull week. Happy birthday Mom, I hope you have a great day on Wednesday! I love you all!

Here is a picture of our lunch in between sessions on Sunday. Elder Wagstaff and Elder Heaps made us some really good taco salad.