Weekly Update

Hello Family and Friends,
This week was an odd one, it was like one of those insanely hard weeks that seems like it was only a dream, but then something crazy happens at the end and everything just goes topsy turvy and you forget all the craziness. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Woodstock on exchange, we did some service and a ton of walking in the blistering hot sun with who knows how much humidity, then we spent the rest of the week biking all over our area from Heavens to Betsy, it was crazy. We had a lot of good lessons, one of our investigators wants to be baptized as soon as he can get away from his current church (he teaches primary), then another we finally got to teach him with his family, and they all agreed to read the Book of Mormon, but there was no clear commitment on coming to church. Then we gave our other investigator that just got back in town a date for next Friday, but it got cancelled because her Dad couldn't be there, so last night we had to reschedule, and it's now the 11th of September. It was weird, but I remember the first thing I thought when we set that was wow, what a day to have a baptism....I'm sure it'll be really cool. Anyways, we got a referral from some other Elders about a former investigator who came to church yesterday, it was awesome, and he wants us to teach him and his family so we're excited about that. We also met a new family last night that want to get back into a church and were happy to have us come back. The man that I mentioned last week who had been in the wreck, came to church with his family, and is hoping that his wife and daughter can be baptized soon, so that was really cool to see. In all we had 7 people at church yesterday (the record for my mission thus far). It was a touching experience, because we weren't expecting that many people to come. I truly felt like dropping to my knees and just giving gratidtude to my Heavenly Father, which I did later, but it was just amazing. I've been studying lately in 3Nephi, the account of Jesus Christ, and it always amazes me how many things he asks us to do, but then I always remember the scripture that we all know so well from the 3rd chapter of the book. I really have grown to love the scriptures, there's so many great things we can use to improve the qality of our lives, and work towards becoming perfect. I love the personal ministry of the Savior, he's just such a great teacher. I've really been trying to thinkg of the types of questions he used and apply it to my teaching, because our Mission President is really pushing asking inspired questions, and it definitely does work. I've also found it interesting as we studied the Christlike attributes in companionship study this week, that the whole time I was trying think of how to apply them, but all I could seem to think about was their role in the afterlife. It was weird, but cool at the same time. Then when I was on exchange, I found out that the other missionaries in our district just so happened to be studying the same thing, it was crazy. I have really been focusing on letting the Spirit lead, and it has been amazing to see some of the small miracles and things that the Lord has done, even in so short of a time. We're still having a hard time with finding, but things are starting to work somehow, so I'm just trusting the Lord and continuing to press onward ever onward, and I hope you are too. May we all try to remember the Lord and the influence he has in our lives, and strive to notice the small miracles that happen everyday to help us accomplish all the things we are able to. I know that as we do that, we will truly be able to feel the Love of God more abundantly, and will be able to know more about how much we have to be grateful for. I love you all, and I hope all is going well.

Elder Hughes