December 7th, 2015

Hey everyone! So this week has been pretty good! I'll just start with Monday night. Our P-day doesn't last all day, it lasts until 6 pm. So after that we went to the Gonzales home. They were teaching them for a while before I got there and they have really been progressing fast. We set a baptism date for the whole family, January 2nd. I'm really excited for them and it’s been really cool to see people make commitments and come to know the truthfulness of this Gospel. On Tuesday we biked a ton. We biked almost 40 miles that day. We only have the car half of the time. I thought I was in shape, but I quickly found out that I really wasn't. We did get a lot done that day though. We had zone conference on Wednesday. It’s where we all get together as a zone and do some training. It lasted about 6 hours, so boring ha-ha, but good training. 

               After that I went on an exchange with Elder Ohlau. An exchange is when you pretty much trade companions for a day. So I went to Gulf port with Elder Ohlau. He is an interesting guy. He is like 24 and half bald ha-ha, but he is a really good missionary. He has about 6 months left of his mission. He is pretty goofy, but in a good way. Oh and we also were permitted to start listening to Christmas music! We are all so excited ha-ha. We went and bought a bunch of CD's to listen to. We got Michael Buble, Frozen, Pentatonix, and some others. It’s been fun, we sing in the car all the time ha-ha. Anyways Gulf Port is really sketchy, like really sketchy. We went contacting and I was scared for my life ha-ha! It was the most ghetto place I have ever been. We did talk to a few people that were willing to listen to our message and we showed them the new Christmas video the church just put out, by the way if you haven't watched it yet do it because its really good! That’s the main thing we have been using when talking to people. It has worked pretty well. So luckily we didn't get shot and made it home safely. 

             The next day I went back to my area, thank goodness. We went to Miguel's house that night and he prepared dinner for us like always ha-ha and we taught him more about the Aronic priesthood. He will be receiving it next Sunday. He seems really excited for it. He is my favorite person here ha-ha. He is just so nice and really wants to live the gospel the best he can. He is really excited to go to the temple too and do the work for his ancestors. We had a ward Christmas party on Friday and that was pretty good, just because there was a ton of treats there ha-ha. We watched some old movie about Christmas and the youth sang some songs. We have had a lot of our appointments fall through and we have had to drop quite a few of our investigators. So we are hoping to find a lot of people next week to teach. We have an investigator named Michelle who will be baptized on the 26th hopefully. It depends if she is in the hospital or not. She has a lot of health issues, but she is always laughing and making us feel welcome. I always love going over to teach her. 

              We had a baptism on Saturday. His name is Ryan and the sisters that were here before us were teaching him. So now we get to start teaching him the lessons again. He seems like a cool guy. I love Sundays a lot more now, especially sacrament. Its....refreshing I guess. I think Bishop May is gonna have me give a talk next Sunday so I'll let you all know how it goes. Oh and I've started to say y'all, not on purpose, I just catch myself sometimes ha-ha. Well that's all for this week. Thank you all for your letters and your prayers! They keep me going. Again, send me pictures of you guys! I love you all so much! 

       Love, Elder Hudson