From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Conference Week
Date: April 2, 2012 12:56:38 PM MDT

Well this week was a pretty good one and it was awesome to cap it off with conference!

We were able to go to Esquel this weekend and watch the conference through satellite. They also had it playing in English so I was able to watch it all in the chapel with all the other missionaries in the district. It was fun. I really liked a lot of the talks but my favorite would have to be Elder Holland´s talk in i think it was Saturday afternoon. I especially loved how he ended it. Él re bajó la cañe but as always with so much love. “If you have made covenants, keep them; if you haven´t made convenants, then make them; if you have broken covenants, repent and repair them.” and “Don´t delay, it´s getting late.” where my two favorite quotes from his talk. I really liked it because there are many less actives that have made all these covenants and they are not keeping them right now. It is so important that we keep our end of the deal when we make those covenents because then God can´t keep his end of the deal. I also really like Uchtdorf´s talk on Sunday morning about judging others. I thought it was really good for all the members here in Argentina. There is a huge problem with gossip, especially in Trevelin because its so small. People get offended and then never want anything to do with the church. I also don´t think it was a coincidence that his tie was the same colors as the Argentine flag haha.

Well we also got permission to watch the priesthood session at 9 from president but I really did not get much out of it because in the middle of it we got conference calls and some really crazy things happened in our district. Elder White has only been here for 2 transfers and he is leaving to go open an area in General Roca. The weird thing is that he only has one transfer left on his mission. He was really surprised when that call came. He thought for sure he was finishing here. Also Elder Prusse is getting transfered within the zone which hardly ever happens to Bariloche. And then Elder Clark sadly is being transfered to the Neuquen 2 zone as a zone leader. I was pretty sure he was leaving so it wasn´t too much of a suprise. But that now make 6 of the last 7 missionaries that have been in Trevelin have gone up to zone leaders sometime in their mission. Maybe a foreshadow of things to come? haha But really its not going to be fun to see Elder Clark leave. We have become great friends and have gotten along awesomely. But I´m still excited. My new companion´s name is Elder Stoke. Elder Clark met him once in Comodoro and he says that he is a way cool guy so thats good to hear.

Things are still going pretty good with our investigators. Cristina is still progressing but right now she can´t go to church because of the guy she is living with. So once she gets some money from her job she is planning on moving out. We went by her today so Elder Clark could say bye and she was really sad. She really believes that we have saved her and she really has a testimony. She is awesome and i´m sure she will be baptized in the coming weeks. Another awesome thing that has happened is that one of our references that we called in to the front office is getting baptized. The reference was a sister of Hermana Delfina in our branch. She lives in Trelew and now she is getting baptized. Delfina had us over for lunch this week and broke down when she told us her sister was getting baptized. She was so happy that we helped bring the gospel in her life by calling in the reference. It really gave me that good feeling. I was so happy to be able to help someone come into the gospel although is was a little indirectly.

Well thats about all I have for this week. I´ll send some pictures next week with Elder Clark and I and also with my new comp. We´ll see how it goes this week because it is my area, even though im jr comp i have to take a little charge in showing him around and helping him get to know the members and investigators.

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: ¡Hola mis queridos!
Date: March 26, 2012 8:29:17 AM MDT

Hey family and friends! How is everyone doing, I hope all is going well at home.

Oh my goodness, no me diga, 6 months already. Time has flown for me! It seriously has gone by so fast i can´t believe it. Probably won´t do anything special, just any other work day. Transfers are also coming up this next Saturday night so this will most likly be Elder Clark´s last week in Trevelin. Hopefull it goes awesome and we can have a good turn out at General Conference.

This week was a little up and down. A really good thing was the continuing miricle of Cristina. We talked to her on Tuesday and she told us that Hna. Margarita let her and her work in a little house that she has out back with her granddaughter. They started a tailor business and now have a lot of work. That was one of the things that Cristina really wanted so she could get some money so she can find somewhere to live. So now she is working and making so money so that is awesome. In that lesson we also put a baptismal date for the 14 of April. Hopefully this goes through and we can keep her progressing. She loves the talks that was have given her and recognized the hand of the Lord in her life with all these blessings she has recieved.

Sadly this week Uziel did not come to church, so it´s not looking like he will be able to get baptized this next week. It was really dissapointing for Elder Clark and I because we really wanted to get a baptism before he leaves. We will keep working with him to get him baptized and also Zulma to get her reactivated in church.

This week also the Elders in Esquel Uno had a baptizm. His name is Erik, 16 years old. I had the opportunity to teach him a couple of times doing divisions with the elders in Esquel. He is such an awesome kid. And going to the baptism just made me really want that. I really want to do all I can so I can help someone have the blessing of this gospel. It was the first baptism i attended since I have been on my mission and the spirit that was there was so awesome. When someone decides to make that descion and go through with it, it just can´t get anything better with that. Hopefully I have one with one of my own investigators in the next coming weeks.

Well thats about it for the week. Pretty uneventfull. But I´m really excited for this next week and especially for general conference. Hopefully the chance to listen to living prophet will get people animated about the gospel. I know I´m really excited for it.

I hope you all have a great week. I love you all and I love hearing your stories you have for me. Thanks for all you do!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Family and Friends!
Date: March 19, 2012 9:15:53 AM MDT

FA! This week was awesome! Elder Clark and I were able to see a lot of miricles this week. Which probably turned out to be the best week of my mission so far.

Anyway I will first start with Uziel. He is the son of Zulma and we have been trying to work with him but we haven´t been able to make much progress. We went to their house on Saturday night to invite them to church. They were just about to leave to go do some shopping in Esquel though so we weren´t able to talk much. We invited him but he really wasn´t so excited, he had no ganas whatsoever. We were a little down because we really wanted someone in sacrament so we can have some investigators prepare to be baptized on conference weekend. On Saturday night there was an activity at the church and Uziel´s sister came who is an active member in Bariloche. We asked her what she thought and she didn´t think he would be there. So Sunday came around, we weren´t really expecting much. But during the sacrament song, Zulma and Uziel both showed up. It was the biggest shock to me, but I was so happy! We went to their house yesterday evening and talked a little. He said that he had prayed and recieved the confermation that he needs to get baptized. We set the date for the 31 of March so I hope we can keep him animated about it and get it done.

The other miricle we saw this week was with a new investigator, Cristina. We found her a while ago actually but we haven´t been able to teach her. We went by with Pte. Ganga for the visit and it was awesome. Right now she has been really down on her life. The guy that she is living with does not treat her well and she said she didn´t have much self worth. We talked about the love that God has for  and that she matters to him. She broke down many times and the spirit was so strong. At the end Pte. Ganga gave her a blessing of comfort and that was also just awesome. The other crazy thing was that one of her old friends that she hadn´t talked to for a long time called her that same day to come meet up with her. That lady ended up being the granddaughter of one of the members of the brach Hna. Margarita, who Pte. Ganga told to go visit Cristina. So Cristina intorduced herself and then Margarita was like, “I´m supposed to visit you.” And they just started talking and stuff. We talked to her last night and she said that it was all an answer to her prayers. The day before she talked with us she was having very bad thoughts about her life and just didn´t know what more she could do. She said that she has no doubt that God put us in her life. We also gave her the talk “You Matter to Him” by Pte. Uchtdorf from the last conference and she says she has read it three time already and loves it. It was just an awesome experience to feel that we really were led by God and we were meant to help her through these trial in her life.

Alright so last week I had my interview with President Peterson. He is an awesome guy. He told us to share with him a scripture that has changed our life. When I was thinking I really could not think of one, but I could think of principle that have. The one that stuck out with the Atonement of Jesus Christ. While on my mission I have learned so much of the Atonement and it is the one thing I am so greatfull for. I shared with him Alma 7:11-13. Its probably my favorite scripture of the Atonement. He did all of that for us, but the only we we qualify for the blessing of the Atonement is if we follow the commandments of God. It truly is a blessing that everyone needs to hear and I´m so greatful for the opportunity to share it with the people of Argentina.

Thank you for all your prayers. I know there are all being answered and they have helped me out a lot and I love you all for that. There is no greater joy you get from doing the Lord´s work. I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: ¡Hola!
Date: March 12, 2012 11:32:20 AM MDT

Hey! How is everyone doing this week. Looks like you all had a great time this last week with Grandpa´s birthday. 78 years old! Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Well this week wasn´t much more different than the last couple weeks. Its still pretty tough but I am really starting to see my own personal growth working here in Trevelin. It is something that President Brinkerhoff told me before the mission and I can see it know. Its that i will learn to do hard things while on my mission. I can tell you right now that working in Trevelin is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life. We don´t have many investigators and as of right now, none of them are progressing. We are putting in a lot of time with the less active members and we also haven´t seen too much success there (except for this week we had three menos activos in church so that was awesome). This week was really hard to keep my head up and my faith strong as well. On Saturday was really had an awesome day planned. We were going to see all of our investigators and put fechas, re-put fechas and invite them all to church. We called them all the night before to confirm and they were all on board. We were really excited for the day. But unfortunately the day did not turn out how we had hoped. All of our appoinments fell through and we only ended up teaching one lesson the day. It was very dissapointing. Elder Clark and I were dragging our feet around at 8:00 and we really just wanted to go back to the pension but we decided to stay out and knock doors and street contact but that didn´t bring many results either. We were both pretty disanimated at the end of the day. Sunday was much like the same. We tried going to see our investigators we couldn´t find yesterday but they weren´t home again. It was a tough day until we went out with Presidente Ganga in the evening. He gave us a few references and we went around to them setting up appoinments. When we got back to the pension last night we were still pretty disanimated about the last week and especially the last few days. Then Elder Boyd called (the AP and the guy in that picture with Elder Clark and I at zone conference). He said that its awesome that we are being dilligent in out work. But we have to make sure we are working with faith as well.  We have to believe that what we are doing, Lord will guide us in whatever we are doing. We have to seek for his help. He told us to say a prayer before we go to bed and to ask specifically for help in finding investigators and to have a baptism in the next 3 weeks. And to do it with all the faith you can muster up. It was my turn and it was probably the most faith filled prayer i have ever given in my life. It has given me a good outlook about Trevelin and made me really excited to work with these references that Pte. Ganga gave us. There was one that I have been really thinking about. Her husband recently died. She is really good friends with the Ganga family so we are going to go by with them this week and i am really excited for that.

One really good thing that happened with our investigators was with Wanda. We had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation. She really does want to get baptized but she is having a hard time giving up the things in her live. Her friends aren´t a very good influence on her and she has a big problem about keeping the word of wisdom. We know that she felt the spirit in our last lesson with her. I keep praying for her to have the strength to stand up to the temptations of the world.

I have the hope that working with more faith and always improving the way we work will bring success to Trevelin. Thank you for all your prayers and I ask that you continue sending them this way. I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Love,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: some pictures
Date: March 5, 2012 7:53:35 AM MST

Alright so the pictures are me with all of our rent money that we have to pay the dueño. What a rip off. The other is of the spider we helped a guy make for carnaval. And the other is the delicious burritos we made. I never realized how much i love mexican food until I wasn´t able to eat it.

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hellooo
Date: March 5, 2012 7:36:14 AM MST

Hello everybody back at home. Its been a nice week here in Trevelin. Hope everyone is doing awesome at home. It sure sounds like everyone is doing great.

Bueno, this week was not the easiest but we did find some new investigators that I hope we can progess with. One of the news we found this week was through service. We were just walking down the street and we saw this old woman working on her lawn mower. We asked if she needed help and she answered bastante. So we ended up helping her take apart her lawn mower trying to figure out how to get the starter going but it we couldn´t figure it out. So we just cut her lawn with a push mower and a week wacker. She was very greatfull for our help and invited us to come back next week. So we are hoping that goes well this week.

The zone leaders also came here and Elder Clark and I did divisions with them. Elder Rodriguez, one of the zone leaders, was in this area about a year ago so he took Elder Clark around to some antiguo investigators so we will be visiting them this week as well. I really hope we can get some progress with these new investigators because the ones that we have now aren´t progressing as well as we like.

The zone leaders were also in our district meeting. One of the things we talked about was keeping a positive attitude. To be honest these last couple of weeks I have become a little discouraged. We haven´t been able to have any lessons with any of our fechas and havn´t had good attendence in church. Last Monday when we went out and worked in the evening all of our appointments fell through and we were left in the rain without anything to do. So we went around knocking doors in the rain for the last hour of the day. Nobody answered the door during that hour. It was tough. But Elder Clark are still keeping a good outlook and we start every day as a new day, forgetting the day before. I just know that sometime we will see the fruits of our labors if we keep working hard. Even when people don´t do the things that they say they will do you still have to love them and keep helping them recognize how these things will help.

The coolest thing that i get to see here, is the progession in the gospel with Prosperina. She gave an awesome testimony yesterday. Last month she said that she still couln´t say that she knew everything in this church was true but she wants to know. Yesterday she said that she now knows it it true to that was awesome. I could feel the spirit so strong in the chapel it was awesome. Their is no greater joy than helping people be converted to the gospel.

One thing that the zone leaders also suggested was work with the members more. They showed us a plan they made about how to work with the member. This is something Elder Clark and I are going to try and I really think that it will help the work here move along very well.

Thats awesome to hear about Jr´s call. Elder Clark is from Spokane WA. He says that that part of the state is more farms and stuff and also a lot of hispanics. Just let him know that anywhere you go and serve the Lord, you are going to love it.

Well I hope you all have a wonderfull week. I love you all. Send pictures!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Hello Everyone!
Date: February 27, 2012 8:03:08 AM MST

How is everyone doing. Its great to hear from you again this week. Thanks for all the emails, I love getting them every week!

Well this week was a little slow and pretty frustrating. We weren´t able to have any lessons with any of our fechas and we weren´t able to get any of them to church either. Elder Clark and I have gotten a little disanimated about our lack of success but we just have to keep working and I know we will start seeing some awesome stuff happen. And one awesome thing did happen this week. So we went to our appointments with Paola and Zulma with her son (they live right down the street from each other) on Saturday. None of them were home. We were really down about it because that had been happening all week. So in planning we put our back up plan to knock doors in the neighborhood which we usually never plan to knock doors (my reasoning was that I really wanted to find a new investigator in that neighborhood because Paola and Zulma aren´t the most reliable people). Not the best demonstration of faith, but it turned out really well in the end. So Paola was not home so we went knocking. We started with the neighbor and it turned out that she was really interested in our message. It was awesome! Her name is Wanda and she had so many questions, saying that she likes the Bible but just doesn´t feel it has everything because of all the changes that have been made to it. So that got Elder Clark and I extremely excited. We talked about the Book of Mormon and gave the lesson about the restoration. She was very receptive to it and we put a fecha for the 17th. And she said that she would go to church. So Sunday came and unfortunatly she didn´t come to church. We went by yesterday and she said that she had slept in but she had read all of the Restoration folleto and 2 Nefi 2 and she has no doubts. So that was sick. We set an appointment to go on Wednesday so hopefully we can keep her progressing. Its awesome when things like that happen and you can see that the lord is working through you and he is also working in other places preparing others. I love the verse Jacob 5:72 where it says that the Lord of the vineyard went to work with the servants. I know that He is working with us in Trevelin.

Last night we went out with Pte. Ganga to do some visits. Alright so here is a little story. So Pte. Ganga was at the verdulería and he left his teachings for George Albert Smith book in the store. So a couple days later he returned asking if he left it there. The cashier guy pulled it out from under his desk and said yeah but he wanted to keep it because he has started to read it and he loves it. He is like 100 pages in. He then pulls out a teachings of Wilford Woodruff book and says that he has already read this one and loves it. I have no idea how he got those books but we were very excited to go contact him with Pte. last night. We we went and we were going to give him a Book of Mormon but he was busy helping people so he couldn´t talk. The unfortunate part was that we found out he lives in Esquel. Puchas. So we will be sending a very sweet reference to the Elders in Esquel.

Yesterday I also gave the lesson in priesthood. Suprisingly it went really well. I was really suprised that i could speak spanish well enough to teach a class by myself. that was and I just felt an awesome sence of accomplishment afterward.

We had an interesting opportunity to lend service by helping someone make a float for Carneval here. We contacted a guy and he was making a giant spider in his garage and he said to come by and help him out. It was sick I took some pictures and I´ll send them out to you in the near future when I can get a working USB.

I also got sick this week. I have no idea what it came from. But we wern´t able to go out because I was throwing up and stuff. Its really boring staying in the pension all day. I would much rather go out and work even if we don´t have the most success. I love this work and I am so glad to be a missionary. There is nothing else i would rather be doing right now.

Well I hope you all have a great week. I wish for the best in everything for all you back home. Love you all!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins

From: Kyle Hudgins <kyle.hudgins@myldsmail.net>
Subject: (No Subject)
Date: February 13, 2012 8:00:47 AM MST

Hey how is everyone doing this week? Thats awesome news that ad finally got a job. I was praying extra hard this week and its really is sweet to see Heavenly Father answer all the prayers. This week for me has been another tough one but we made a couple break throughs that really are getting me excited for the future here in Trevelin. On Wednesday I did divisions with the district leader Elder White. He is a really bold missionary and when he is in a lesson he has that goal and will do whatever it takes to get it. He came here to Trevelin so I thought it was a really good opportunity to take advantage of the situation. We went to a lot of our investigators that day trying to put some baptismal fechas. Well, our first two lessons where really spiritual I thought but the investigators still would not accept the invition. It was a little frustrating but we felt we did all we could do. Finally in the evening we went to Zulma, a less active member, to help her son with his english homework. After he had finished helping we taught him a little bit about baptism. He has told his mom that that is somthing that he wants to do so we gave him the challenge to prepare himself for March 3rd and he accepted. It was awesome. His mom pretty much taught the lesson. She knows so much and she really needs to be going to church. I really hope that this will help her in her reactivation process.

We also had a really awesome experience, this week while contacting a reference we recieved last week. I can´t remember the last name but the last name is Marchan. We went to his house in the afternoon and he wasn´t there, but right as we were about to leave he pulled up in his car in his driveway. The first thing he said was that he wasn´t interested, and that he had just returned from the cemetary where he went to his wife´s grave who died recently. He was saying that he doesn´t want anything to do with us because he was mad that God would take away his wife. He said that he was just so lost right now and doesn´t know what to do. We told him that this is the reason we where at his house at that very moment. He still resisted and didn´t want to talk. But we were presistant with him and said that this is the help and direction God has sent and that there is a reason that we were at his house at that very moment. He still was resistant. But we asked him one last time if he wanted to talk to us and he said no and then in mid sencence he just stopped talking and started to cry and then said alright one day i will talk to you guys. So sometime this week we are going to go over there and drop off a talk for him to read that i just read this morning by Elder Worthlin called “Sunday will Come” its awesome. I´m so greatfull that we were put in his path to help him at that very moment. I really hope and pray that he will accept us when we come by his house.

Another sweet thing was that we put 2 other baptismal feches this week with the familia Uribe. I think I have talked about them before and how the dad lost his job recently and has to go work in the fields now. We put a goal with him and his 9 year old daughter to be baptized on the 3rd of March. They said that they would go to church on Sunday but they didin´t show up which was dissapointing, but i hope we can get them progressing and coming to church next week.

Things with David took a little bump this week. We went by his house and the door was open and everything and we could see some beer bottles in the house. One of his friends answered the door and we asked for David and he then looked behind the door and says hey the mormons are here and then you can here someone say oh tell them im not here. So that was really a bummer. That was something that really hurt. Its hard to see someone you help change their life and then make a mistake. We haven´t been able to find him since then but I hope we can really soon. We go by his house every day looking for him because we really want to help him and he know how happy he can be. I know he can still make this change in his life. We just have to keep praying for him so we can find him and help him out.

Thank you for all the support from home. I haven´t recieved the package yet. It will most likely be either next week or the next. Oh yeah i totally forgot. This week we are going to Trelew for a conference where Elder Foster from the second quorum of the seventy is going to be there. I hear that authorities usually drop cane at these conferences. I just hope he doesn´t do it on me. Its going to be fun because i will get to see Elder Kimball again and Elder Clark has some converts that we are going to go visit. I´m excited and I´m sure that i will learn a lot.

I hope you all have a wonderfull week!

Les amo,
Elder Kyle Hudgins