From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: hola!
Date: 17 Sep 2012 09:22:18 AM MDT

Well hello there everyone back in the USA. I have some news to share here. My bags are all packed and I am being transfered! And I´m sure you wont be able to guess to where because I am being transfered just a half hour away to Trelew! haha. I have been transfered to the other zone that is in Trelew and my new area is Parque 2. So that will be interesting. When I found out that I was being transfered I couldn´t believe it haha. Usually when you get transfered in this mission you have to take at least a  7 hour bus ride. So that will be nice. It would be nice to get to know other parts of the mission but i´m sure Parque will be a great place. But I sure am going to miss Rawson thats for sure. But at least I will get to come and visit P-days if I want. It pretty funny because whenever I tell anyone that I´m being transfered to Trelew everyone laughs because its so close and also because there is kind of a rivalry between Trelew and Rawson. So I guess I´ll be playing for the other side now. But I´m sure Trelew will be great.

So this week was pretty good. We met with Augusto and his mom Claudia this week and they are progressing well. They have both talked to the missoinaries in the past but Claudia has never really been interested. But now in our lessons with them she is very involved and Augusto always likes it when we come by. So thats really good. I can see a lot of good things in the future for them. We gave them a Book of Mormon the other day and they said that they would read it and were very excited about it. So we will see what happens.

The Pelozo family is also progressing well. The dad Daniel and the daughter Aylen are the most interested. We talked about the Book of Mormon with them and they were very interested. The mom Marta is a little closed and is always doing chore and stuff when we go by so that makes it a little difficult. The thing is that they dont have a wash machine so she has to wash by hand. So we asked a member that lives close by if she could lend the services of her washer and she said yes. We still haven´t been able to tell Marta but I´m sure that will make her really happy and also give her a friend in the church. So that will be really awesome.

This week we did divisions with Elder Menghini. We sure did have a blast. We were working in Playa Union and we were able to teach a bunch of lessons. One of them was with an investigator that the recently contacted. We taught the restoration and it was awesome. She was asking the perfect questions and we could answer all of them so she could understand. It also strengthened my testimony of the restoration. Its always awesome when that happens.

Well in the next coming week I´ll be writing from Trelew. I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Oh yeah my new comp is Elder Ruano. I think he is from Guatemala. He was my replacement in Trevelin. Also Elder Stokes is being transfered from Trevelin to my district in Trelew so that will be fun. It made me laugh a little in you letter about all the work you did. I´m pretty sure I´m always tired but after a while you just get used to it so I don´t really notice it anymore. But hey I´m going to sent a couple pictures. I hope you have a great week. I love you.

Elder Kyle Hudgins

A picture of me and Elder Hernandez with Puerto Madryn in the background.

Kyle mentioned that the computer he was on would not allow him to upload his pictures.  Hopefully next week we will see some new pictures. (jh)

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello from Puerto Madryn!
Date: 10 Sep 2012 08:51:54 AM MDT

Well today I am writing you all from the beutiful city of Puerto Madryn. It could be my last P Day here in Rawson so we decided to take advandage. Madryn is a pretty sweet city. Its right on the coast. We were able to see some wales as well right of the shore. It was really sweet we were they were really close too so that was awesome. And yes I did take some pictures.

Well this week was pretty sweet. The coolest thing was the rededication of the Buenos Aires temple. It really was a great experience. We were also able to attend the cultural celebration on Saturday night where they did a whole bunch of folklore dances and stuff. But the rededication was awesome. President Eyring, Elder Chirstofferson, and Elder Ballard all came. It was really interesting to hear Elder Chirstofferson speak in spanish, he speaks really well. One of the best parts of the rededication was the talk by Elder Eyring. One thing that really stuck out was in the middle of his talk he says “I need to add something…” he then bore his testimony about how the temple ceremony he recieves a confermation there there are apostles in the Earth in these days. It was a very powerfull testimony that he bore and also something that he didn´t plan on saying in the first place. But it was a great experience. It really felt like I was in the temple again which is something that I havn´t felt for a long time now so it was very nice.

This week we also saw some progress with some investigators. We are teaching a Mom, Claudia, and her son Augusto. We taught them the plan of salvation and also really focused on eternal families. It was really awesome. We were doing an exchange so I was with Elder Yobanolo a mini missionary who was baptized only 6 months ago. He bore his testimony of the plan of salvation and it was really awesome. The spirit was so strong and Claudia was in tears at the end. Claudia and Augusto are really animated about the gospel right now. Hopefully this week we will be able to put them on a baptismal date.

The familia Pelozo is progressing well. We weren´t able to find them very much this week but we did talk to them for a little bit on Thursday. The said that they were all reading the pamphlet that we left them and were very pleased with it. So its good to see them progressing. Daniel the dad also had some questions about alcohol and stuff so we talked about the word of wisdom and at the end he accepted it. So we well see how is goes this week.

Sorry I don´t have too much time. I hope you all have a great day and a great week. I love you all!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

Kyle mentioned that all the missionaries in the mission will be able to participate in the rededication of the Buenos Aires Temple this coming Sunday.  He is very excited for this opportunity.  I believe they will be doing the dedication in the same manner it is done in the United States.  That is, they will make stake centers and or ward buildings an extension of the temple requiring a special recommend to attend and hold the dedications within the local buildings for those who cannot attend the temple itself.  In Kyle’s case, the temple would be a bus trip of over 30 hours.  (jh)

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO
Date: 3 Sep 2012 08:26:42 AM MDT

Hello there my dear family. Well this week was a good week so I hope you´re ready for the good stuff.

I´ll start off with our conference with Elder Zeballos of the seventy. Yeah it was a pretty sick conference. I think its impossible to have a bad conference with a seventy. It was seriously awesome filled with the spirit. The hermana Zeballos started off and man she was pretty awesome. She was really energetic which was a welcome sight. Darn I forgot my notes but one thing that really stuck out to me was how she said that the mission rules are not just rules but rather commandment and whatever our mission president adds to that is also a commandment. Sometimes its easy to take the mission rule lightly because you can say to yourself “well its ok if I do this or that because any other member can do it.” but that is not true. As missionaries we are for sure not your ordinary member and its those commandments that make us extraordinary. Elder Zeballos was awesome. The first impression that I got from is was that he is called of God. It was nice because normally conferences with authorities we talk about goals and stuff but this one was more focused on how to help our investigators. He shared some really awesome experiences from his mission and from his time as mission president. The spirit was great and I really learned how I can help my investigators progress.

Another thing that was sweet this week is that we found a sweet family named the Pelozo family. So Elder Rivera and I actually contacted the dad in the calle. I put a star next to him name because it was a good contact but we never got around to passing by the house. So I was looking though my old agenda and saw the name so we decided to go by. We knocked the door and they let us in right away. We didn´t even have to introduce ourselves. They are a family of four Daniel and Marta are the parents and Aylen is 12 and Lautaro is 8. They were all so nice and recieved us so well. We talked about the restoration and of the church and of the priesthood. Daniel said that he really like the idea to be baptized with the same power that John the baptist had. So they all accepted the invitation to be baptized. Unfortunatly they weren´t able to come to church this week but I´m really excited to work with this family.

Another thing was that Gonzalo finally was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. He has been active but always has touble wakeing up on time and getting to church right at the beginning and when he did come early there was always some sort of meeting that made it not possible. But yesterday it finally happened. There aren´t many things better than seeing your converts progress. He was in tears after he was ordained and was so excited to pass the sacrament. It truly was one of the best feelings I have felt on my mission. It also strengthened my testimony of the priesthood and its power.

Well thats about all I have. Thank you for your letters. I got the camera and was going to take pictures at the conference, but I forgot it! Sorry but I´ll send a picture with my zone with Elder and Hermana Zeballos. I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Fwd: Elder y Hermana Zeballos-foto
Date: 3 Sep 2012 08:34:39 AM MDT

Here is the picture of the conference. Yes we have a pretty small zone. Their names from left to right: Elder Salinas, Elder Evans, Elder Rivera, Elder Ayala, Elder Wible, Elder Hernandez, Elder Antipan, Elder Yobanolo, Elder Minghini, Me

Oh the front row is Elder and Hermana Zeballos, Hermana and President Lovell and Hermana Hinze and Hermana Perez

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 27 Aug 2012 08:41:54 AM MDT

Well this week was a good one. We were able to see some signs of good things to come for us here in Rawson.

I will start off with my birthday. It was pretty relaxed. I hardly knew it was my birthday. We had a zone conference so that made it a little different than most days. It was a good zone conference. President Lovell talked a lot about the canges in the mission. He wants to start out with the basic things with our studies and planning. He is installing a new companionship study program to help us focus more on our investigators. It involves a lot of Prech my Gospel so I´m sure that is will show success. I´m excited to put this more in practice and hopefully we will be able to see more progress in our investigators. In the evening we had a noche de hogar in the capilla. We invited members and investigators. It was really good and a lot of people showed up. I think there was about 25 or something like that. We talked about the scriptures and watched a short movie and did a little activity. It went really well. Silvia and Oscar both came and so the brother of Gonzalo and Rodrigo. So that was good to have those investigators come and enjoy themselves. Some people brought some refreshments so afterward we ate those and everyone sang happy birthday to me in spanish and in english so that was pretty funny. But all in all it was a very good activity where we all had some fun.

This week we were also able to get in contact with a part member family. Hna. Mursilli who is a member is about 85 years old and one day we dicided to pay her a visit. We talked with her a little bit and also with her husband who is not a member. We also talked with her daughter who is a member as well but has a 10 year old daughter who is not a member. So we sat down with them and talked about the church and stuff and they were very reciptive. So hopefully we can start working with this family and see where is goes from there.

Another awesome thing that happened is that the 2 kids from Hno. Chemin´s other son, Ricardo, came to church. Gustavo and Fernanda have been telling us that they had wanted to go to church with them but the parents never let them because they said it was too early. But this week they went. After church we had lunch with Gustavo and Fernanda and Ricardo´s wife Romina came by and we started to talk with her about what her kids thought about church. She said that they loved it and were trying to tell her everything but there was just too much to talk about haha. So that is a good sign. We have seen a lot things with the family of Ricardo and we are very anxious to work with them but haven´t found the opportunity. But today we are going to stop by and hopefully we can talk more with Ricardo and Romina. I´m very excited to see what happens with this family.

So I´m really excited for this week for the opportunity to work with these two families. I sure hope it goes well. Thank you for all you prayer and I hope that you all have a wonderfull week. I love you all!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hola!
Date: 20 Aug 2012 08:51:53 AM MDT

Hello my dear family and friends. This week has been a good one and I also recieved some very nice packages in the mail today! So thank you very much! It looks like all is in order and nobody stole anything.

Well with this week I´ll start off with the service that we did with Silvia and Oscar. Oh man what a day. We spent about 3 hours picking some weeds, and I mean some big weeds. But it wasn´t too bad, it was a little fun in a way because in Argentina, they don´t belive in throwing away leaves, weeds, branches, stuff like that in the garbage. They just burn it. So we made a huge bon fire at the end so that was pretty sweet. I think that is something we should adopt in the United States, no? It makes things a lot easier. But the cool thing that happend after. Silvia and Oscar invited us to eat some tortas fritas and some tea. While we were eating Oscar said that he would come to church with Silvia Sunday. And yesterday they both came. Elder Hernandez said that after that he finally understood the scripture in Mosiah 2:17 “os digo estas cosas para que aprendáis sabiduría…” Usually when we look at that scipture we focus on the second part. But we sure did learn some wisdom in this situation when he said that he was going to come to church. I´m excited to see how this turns out and hopefully we can teach him more of the gospel.

This week we have also been working really hard with Ariel. He understands everything that we have taught and likes everything. This week we taught about the plan of salvation and about baptisms for the dead because he had a few questions with that. This lesson strengthened my testimoney because it shows that salvation is available for everybody. The only thing that I believe is holding back Ariel is that he isn´t accustomed to pray. He doesn´t have a very strong testimony of prayer and hasn´t asked if these things are true. So we are going to focus more on that and hopefully we can help him.

Well this week I have the wonderfull oportunity to have a zone conference on my birthday. How convinient haha. So hopefully it will be a good one. I love you all and I hope that all of you have a wonderfull week!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Family!
Date: 13 Aug 2012 08:42:48 AM MDT

Hey family and friends! It looks like you all had a great time this week in Park City. Thank you for all the pictures. Its always nice to see your faces.

Well this week was a tough one with a lot of citas that fell through so we had a hard time following with some of the commitments that we made with our investigators. We were able to follow up with Ariel though and he is doing great. He really liked church last week. We talked about priesthood authority because he doesn´t think that he needs another baptism. We really had a great lesson about it and he was able to understand. That was our biggest concern was if he would be able to understand it or not. But he asked the perfect questions and we were able to have the perfect answers for him. It was really fun. He asked the question how did Joseph Smith get this power and it was awesome to be able to testify of the restoration of the priesthood. We then invited him to be baptized and he said yes. So hopefully we can answer all his doubts and get him ready to be baptized in these next coming weeks. Its really exciting.

We are also seeing some progression with Silvia. The past month or so we haven´t really seen her much and stopped progressing. But this last week we met up with her and she said that she is preparing to go to Buenos Aires to do the things for her divorce. The other day she showed us he backyard which is a mess and asked if we could come by and do some service. We said yes of course but tomorrow we will be doing a lot of service haha. But that will be fun.

Sunday was a little down though. A lot of people didn´t come to church. Ariel, Silvia, Javier, Gonzalo, and Rodrigo all did not show up. So that is something that we are going to have to work on. In my mission I have realized how important it is to attend church every Sunday and to partake of the sacrament every Sunday. The church is where we are able to learn and grow and recieve a remision of our sins. Isn´t that great. That we can receive that every week! Its one of the things that I think is often overlooked. So hopefully we can work with all of those people and help them recognized the improtance of church.

I´m sorry I don´t have too much this week. I´m still waiting for my package. I haven´t checked today if it arrived or not but I don´t think so because the office hasn´t taken money out of my account. All I can say is thank you for the packages but now I am going to have no money haha! Oh well I´m sure it will be well worth it. Love you all!

Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello family!
Date: July 30, 2012 8:30:08 AM MDT

Hello my family. It sounds like all is going well over there in los estados unidos so thats really good to hear. Thank you for the letters every week. It always make me happy to hear from you.

Well this week was good but we were not able to reach our goal of baptism this week. Javier said that he still has problems with smoking and he didn´t feel ready. So that was a little disapointing but he is still progressing. We were able to re-put the fecha for this coming week so hopefully we can help him for this week. We shared with him Ether 12:27 and we did an extensive study of it. It was really fun and I was able to learn a lot from this little verse. I can´t remember what it says in English but in spanish it uses the word gracia. In the guia de las escrituras in the back of the spanish scriptures says that gracia is the gifts of the atonement of Jesus Christ. We used that and how you have to have faith in the atonement of Christ. We then talked about being humble and we referenced the begining of 2 Nefi 31 where is says that Christ was baptized to show that he is humble to God. So we shared that if we have faith in the atonement and we humble ourselves (by being baptized) our weaknesses will become strengths. So I think that helped him a lot and also it really helped me understand more of this little scripture.

This week we also were able to have a little fun. Our district organized an activity. It was a night of singing songs. A talent show type thing. It was really fun. All of the organizations had at least three representatives that sang songs and stuff. As missionaries we were the judges. We all had a good time. Its really fun to be part of things like that. I never really realized the importance of activities. They really help with the members. The members get animated from the activities and they always are a good way for them to invite friends. Hopefully in the future we can plan another one because they are both fun and very effective. Im sorry to say that I wasn´t able to take pictures because Rawson has exactly 0 cameras. I guess thats what happens when you shut off importation. So I haven´t bought one. Today I´m going to send it in to repair and hopefully it wont take too long.

Sorry I don´t have too much for the week. But I hope you all have a wonderfull week and you guys too could send me some pictures! As much as you guys like recieving pictures of me, I like recieving pictures of you. I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello family!
Date: July 23, 2012 9:22:51 AM MDT

Well it has been a good week here in Rawson which is really good. We did some fun things this past P-Day as well. Last week we went to Playa Union to check out the wales and the dolphins. It was pretty awesome, and the first time I had ever seen wales. I didn´t have a camera but we took some pictures with Elder Hernandez´s camera so I will steal his pictures. I promise I will go and buy a camera today!

The week we also made a lot of progress with Javier. He went to visit him on Tuesday and he told us that he had been feeling pretty down the Saturday before. He was thinking of going back to Formosa. He told us he said a prayer before he went to bed and then he woke up on Sunday with a lot of ganas to go to church. I loved church and for that he stayed. We set his baptismal date in stone for the 28th so this week we should be having a baptism. So thats really exciting. He has really showed what its like to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He is so humble and willing to do what it takes to be happy. We committed him to quit smoking a little over 2 weeks ago and he hasn´t smoked since then. In his words “I´m doing the impossible.” With the help of the Lord there is nothing impossible.

This week we also had a really crazy experince. As I mentioned last week we started to teach a less active member Angel and his grandson Rodrigo. We went by there house this past Monday and his daughter (the mom of Rodrigo was there as well). We entered and the daughter was in tears and everyone was just really sad. We found out the recently before we arrived that the boyfriend had came and taken her baby away from her. Elder Hernandez and I had no idea what to do or what to say so we had to trust in the spirit to give us the words. We were able to talk a lot about faith in Jesus Christ and we also gave them both blessings of comfort. It was really an amazing experience. After the lesson the spirit was in the room and everyone felt better. It really strenthened my testimony and I´m sure the testimonies of this family were strengthened as well. Hopefully this will be the boost that they need to return to the church.

Well thats about all I have for the week. Its amazing to see the hand of the lord in the work and one of the biggest blessings of being a missionary. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: ¡Hola!
Date: July 16, 2012 9:01:04 AM MDT

Hello familiy! I hope everyone is doing well this Monday morning. It was another great week here in Rawson and things are looking really good!

I´ll start with Javier. He is doing really awesome. I don´t know if I have told his story but he is from Formosa and came down here to be with his kids who are members. He is really awesome and really humble and really wants to change is life around. We have been teaching him for about a month now and he has been coming to church regularly. But he has a big problem with cigarettes. He smokes a lot. So we taught him the word of wisdom this last week and he was on board. We took away his recently opened pack of cigarettes and threw them away for him. His is really excited about it, and is preparing well for his baptismal date for the 28 of July. Also this week we took Gustavo with us in the lesson. With Gustavo it was like letting a little puppy out of his cage. He had been wanting to go out and visit people and in this lesson he was testifying left and right telling him that baptism is the best thing he could do. It was awesome.It was really awesome to see a person converted like that. It doesn´t get much better than seeing a convert testifying that they know that the gospel is true.

Last week we also recieved a reference for the bishop of a guy named Angel who had been menos activo for many years and came one day after church to pay his tithing. He told the bishop that he wanted to return and wanted to baptize his 8 year old grandson that is living with him. We were so excited with this reference but we couldn´t find the hose for a week. We called him a couple times as well and he said that he would call us back because he didn´t have time. We were a little discouraged about it. But we talked with the bishop to get more details about where he lived and we found it yesterday. We entered and were able to talk to him and his grandson. He told us that he didn´t understand how to work his phone and for that reason he couldn´t call us back. But he was really happy that we came by. His granson, Rodrigo, had been telling him that he wanted to go to church and get baptized so that was awesome to hear. We put a date with both of them for the 11 of August so Rodrigo and prepare to get baptized and Angel can prepare to baptize him. It was an awesome experience and I´m really excited to work with these two.

Also this week we met our new mission president, President Lovell. We all had interviews and is was a pretty sweet experience. The first thing he mentioned was that he met you two. He then said that I was lucky to have such loving parents. And thats very true. We only talked for about 10 minutes but I know that President Lovell is going to be a great mission president. It will also be interesting to see the changes that come into place but I know they will all be for good.

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

Con cariño,
Elder Kyle Hudgins