Mail Call...

Hello,

After yesterday, I'm beginning to think that I'm some kind of joke to the Mission Presidency...President Alba one of President Kings' counselors was at church, and he told me how sorry he was that I was being picked on and how he had told President King to leave me alone for a while. The day before that, another missionary told me that he had told him the same thing, so I'm really starting to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on...But anyways, the comments must have worked because I'm still here in Allatoona (But I haven't made it to a full transfer here yet so ya never know). This last week was weird, Tuesday we had a meeting that lasted until 4pm, and Wednesday we had to go to transfers, so half of our week was pretty much shot. Then everything we tried to do just tanked, except for Saturday. It made no sense to me, we got more accomplished on Saturday then the other 6 days combined. But, we had a couple of really cool experiences...First was Tuesday night, we have started playing basketball on Tuesdays, but no one showed up last week, so we were walking home, and on the way this girl pulls over and starts talking to us. She was really nice, and agreed to meet some other time, so later in the week we met her at a fast food restaurant, and taught her the first discussion. It was really weird because she said she doesn't usually pull over for strangers, but she felt inclined to so it was cool, I'm not sure how well the discussion went since she was pretty argumentative about some things, but hopefully she's reading and praying. We also met a member who has been inactive for years, and had not let missionaries into his home for 10 years. Apparently a member about to go on a mission told a lie about him that cost him a 6 figure job, and was still able to go on a mission, so he figured he didn't want missionaries anywhere near his home anymore, and hasn't let them in since. But, recently he got in an accident where almost every bone in his body from his neck down was broken, and he actually died, but he never lost consciousness (or his Spirit never left), and he heard a voice telling him it wasn't his time, that he still had work to do. The Doctor in the ER sent him to another Hospital becuase he was proclaimed dead, but when he got to the other hospital he woke up. Not only did he wake up, but he started moving around and pulling himself up and things. After several months, he started physical therapy, and everytime he hit a roadblock, something would prompt him to keep going. For example the nurses wanted him to walk, but he didn't think he could, but he felt something hit him in the back of the head, and tell him to stand up. So he did, and he started walking. Then just a couple of days ago he was depressed about never being able to walk by himself again, and he heard a voice tell him to let go of his walker, so he pushed it away from himself, and then walked to it. As he was telling us his story, I could feel tears in my eyes, and as I stood there listening I felt like this man should be teaching me about the gospel not the other way around. But, he now knows what he's supposed to be doing and is determined to get himself back to church, and it just so happens that we are the first Elders he has welcomed to his home in 10 years. I don't know what this has to do with me, but for some reason I got to be here to see it happen, and be part of this mans' story, and I'm truly grateful for it. On top of that, yesterday our investigator that has been out of town told us in church that she would like to set a date to be baptized, so we should be able to do that soon, and it just so happens that our ward has a Temple trip coming up the day we want to baptize her, so we're going to try to do it early so she can go. I'm pretty excited about that. The Lords' work continues to roll on, I hope you all are doing well, I love ya, and I miss ya. One last thing, We talked this sunday about gaining a Testimony, and how we do it. I would like to challenge you all to try this with any aspect of the gospel. First, you learn about it, second you desire or hope to know that it's true, then you act on that desire, and you will receive your witness. I know that by doing this we can strengthen our testimonies of the principles of the gospel, and I hope you'll all take an opportunity to do so. Until next week,

Elder Hughes