May 23rd / A Left Shoe, a Blitz, and a Fireside

Zone Photo! We were going for a super hero theme!

Dear family! You are excellent!

Thank you for sending the left shoe to me!! :D

I do have a jacket that is warm enough, thank you! For p-day today I’m gonna buy a sweater and pants that fit since my others are too big now haha.

Ah man! Wild how soon seminary is ending! I remember Arbitrary Chef Fridays. Those were good days I thought. I always liked the hot chocolate that had chili in it. That stuff was awesome! Hot chocolate almost doesn’t exist here, so I make chocolate milk in the morning and put it in the microwave that we have and its almost the same thing. Only just a little different haha.

+ The Zone Leader responsibilities are going well! We always have district meetings on Tuesday mornings here in Vila Lavínia. The whole zone comes here and then divides into their districts and I go to one meeting and Elder David goes to the other.

+ We did a blitz this week in Guararema, an area in the Zone. We all traveled there early Saturday morning and it’s kinda far so we got up at 5:30am and got there at 8:30am, had breakfast really quick at the chapel, and we all left with members to contact people and visit less-actives and inactive church members. It was very cool and we had an excellent time supporting the Branch there. The area is really touristy—reminds me of St. Helena and Calistoga! I’d gone there once with Elder Rojas in December when there were a bunch of Christmas lights and tons of decorations. There was also a bunch of heavy rain which was crazy, and lunch for everyone when we got back to the chapel around 12:30pm.

+ Only lunch appointments this week, though we got pizza last Saturday night.

+ I’ve been reading in Chapter 6 / Preach My Gospel about Christlike Attributes. It’s amazing to me that Christ mastered all of them. I really liked Moroni 7 and 10 from the reading. In 7, Moroni talks about faith and real intent which he then explains are necessary to receive a testimony of anything in Moroni 10: 3-5. I thought that was pretty cool. I’d never thought to read Moroni 7 with Paul’s writings—1 Corinthians 13 is about charity—so I’ve been reading there too. I've recently noticed that he says that charity is what defines a true follower of Jesus Christ—which is kind of intimidating. Means that we should probably try and develop that haha. I think that it means that we become the sons of God because we learn and develop his nature and we start keeping the first and second great commandments better, and that makes us eligible for greater blessings. We can become more like He is. I’ve had experiences with investigators, and it’s a very cool thing to feel that charity for them. Sister Silcox told me one time that actions are the fruits of our charity.

+ We’ve found great people to teach this week! We found a family of 4 to teach this week, and they came to church on Sunday! Please keep Kaué and his family in your prayers.

+ We were able to teach a lot of lessons which was awesome, and we were able to find many of new people to teach. We’re having a great time here and we’re working hard. We went to a fireside last night with the Stake President, President Bernardo, who will be released in two weeks at Stake Conference. He’s been the Stake President for about 11 years (a really, really long time!) and he had never spoken at a fireside before. He recounted the history of the Stake during his time as president—the changes that have happened, new people that joined the Church, missionary work there over the years, and so many things over the course of his service. It was very cool. He bore his testimony at the end and said essentially, “I’ve given it all I have,” and then bore his strong testimony of the church being the true Church of Jesus Christ here on the earth. It was beautiful and there were tears shed and laughing and everything. I really loved being there with the saints, and was struck by his testimony and how emotional he was. He shared Mosiah 2:17, which I really like—when we serve others, we are only serving God, and we serve others in order to better serve God. It was an awesome experience and has helped strengthen my testimony.

Well that was it! I hope you have an excellent week! Love you all!

Elder Hughes