December 26, 2016 (Green Christmas)

Hey everyone!

      I hope you all had a good Christmas yesterday! It was about 85
degrees over here and the sun was shining. What a great Christmas
haha. It is kind of nice but I think I miss the snow. I am looking
forward to having a white Christmas next year. Our investigators found
out that we didn't have a Christmas tree so they bought us one and
light to go with it! It was so nice of them. So we had some Christmas
spirit in our little apartment. Christmas Day we went to like 4
people's houses and ate, I didn't eat a lot at any of the houses
because I really didn't want to get stuffed again. Skyping home was
good, it was nice to see my family and catch up on some things. It's
king of hard to get into a good conversation because we don't have
that much time, but I was glad to be able to talk with them.

     We have a zone activity day today and we don't have much time to
email so I am going to end this short. Thank you everyone for making
my Christmas great! I love you all! Have a great New Years!

~ Love, Elder Hudson

December 19, 2016

Merry Christmas everyone!!

      I can't believe it's already a week away, it came so quick! This
truly is the best time of the year though. I have had a great week and
things are going really good here. We have been showing the new
Christmas video a lot with people, that has been our main finding
approach. It has worked pretty well! We showed it to one lady this
week on her doorstep named Shelly and she cried when she watched it.
She thanked us for coming around and sharing this with everyone. We
shared with her our testimonies of the savior and she invited us to
come back. I felt the spirit very strongly at her door. We have had
lots of little experiences like that this week, it's been great! It's
crazy how much those little experiences can build your testimony, I've
seen it happen time and time again throughout my mission.

      Last night we got to go to the night in Bethlehem event that the
church puts on every year. I went to it last year too. They do a live
nativity and set up a little village with shops and everything. Then
after there was some hot chocolate and cookies. We went with the
Uprichards. They absolutely loved it! I'm glad they were able to go.
We met with Richard this week too and he is a lot more interested than
we thought he was. He just doesn't express it. He said he would come
every week to church if he didn't have to work. Hopefully we can help
him with that. One step at a time.

      We have had about 4 families invite us over for Christmas so we
should be busy all day. The members here are awesome, I am glad that I
stayed for Christmas. Thanks to everybody that has sent me cards and
packages, I really appreciate it!! It helps during this Christmas
season to not feel so lonely haha. I think that's about all for this
week. Have a great Christmas everybody!! I love you all!!

~ Love, Elder Hudson

PS Elder Hudson told me he gets to go to the Orlando temple tomorrow.  He is really excited. 

It is a little warm here, doesn't feet like Christmas

Our advent calendar 

Our wimpy Christmas tree

Our investigators son, James, he wanted us to come to his school presentation

December 12th (Transfer week)

Hey everyone!! So yeah this week is transfer week and guess what?? I
am staying another transfer in valrico! My companion is staying too. I
am happy with that. I really didn't want to move right before
Christmas. I'm looking forward to another transfer here, the ward is
so awesome. Anyways this week has been pretty normal. Another full
week of knocking doors and teaching people about Jesus. I love it! The
Christmas video has been pretty helpful too. Most everyone we show it
to loves it. People have been more receptive recently due to the
Christmas season. I love this time of year!

There will be a nativity scene happening this weekend and we are
allowed to go if we take an investigator or less active. It is kind of
far away that's why. We will probably be bringing Tiffany and tony to
it. I went last year and it was really good! I am looking forward to
it. I don't feel like writing a ton today and I don't have much to
write about, so I'll leave it at at for this week. I'm doing good, no
need to worry about me. Have a great week everyone!

~ Love, Elder Hudson

December 5th, 2016

Hola Mí Amigos!

      I've been getting in touch with my Spanglish this week, thought
I'd throw some in here too! It has been a good week. We did run into
some Spanish people this week. Their names were Julio and Enrique.
Elder Tanuvasa and I had to break out our broken Spanish to try and
talk to them haha. We did alright, we invited them to church and gave
them the address and time. Who knows maybe they'll show up! We did a
lot of service this week too and we had the world wide day of service
. I hope you were all able to serve somebody that day. We
went to a couple places. We did some service for a member named
Brother Flakes. We have done service for him a lot because he had back
surgery not too long ago. We trimmed some of his Palm trees and some
other plants he had. We came back  to help him get a
ton of vines off his fence, there was so much it took us about three
hours to do. It felt good when we finished it though! We also went and
helped Tiffany out with the horses. Our mission President
wanted us to take pictures of our service and send it to his wife so
she could put it up on the missions Facebook page. So if you go on
there I'm sure you'll find me somewhere!

      This week has been pretty slow as far as finding new people to
teach. We have been doing a lot of work with the members lately. We
are trying to teach them the basics so that when they talk to their
friends about the gospel or they have questions they know how to
answer them without getting deep into it. We have found that most of
the members try to go for the deep stuff first. We are having a "just
ask and all the members have been encouraged to
invite someone to church. Hopefully we have been able to help them to
feel comfortable inviting people. We also taught all the youth
yesterday for the third hour about this. I guess we will find out next
week how it goes. I will let you all know.

      Tiffany and Tony are still doing good. We weren't able to teach
them this week because Tony worked late every night, but they did come
to church and even watched the Christmas devotional with some members.
I think this is their 5th Sunday in a row coming to church. They love
it, the ward has done a really good job at fellow shipping them. Other
than them we met a guy named Dave this week who it pretty cool. We met
him by knocking doors in his neighborhood. He invited us in and we
shared the whole restoration with him. He took a Book of Mormon and
was interested in learning more. It was a really great lesson. We will
be going by this week to see him again.

      So yeah, another week has gone by. It's December, there is three
weeks till Christmas. It's crazy how fast time goes by. I am excited
for Christmas though, it's my favorite holiday! I hope all of you are
able to give back this Christmas season. Think of others and what you
can do to help them. Do what the Savior would do. There is always time
in the day to help someone out, and plus, it makes you feel good!! I
love you all and hope you make the most of this Christmas season!

~ Love, Elder Hudson

November 28, 2016

Hey everyone!

     This week has been a pretty great one. Monday we had a zone
activity day and zone training meeting. It was a really fun day! For
the activities we played kickball, volleyball, signs and some other
small games. We all pitched in $5 for pizza. It was great. For the
zone training meeting we went over a lot of stuff. Since the last
Seventy came they have been discussing a lot of things. We are
basically going back to the basics. For a long time we had a lot of
extra rules that were put on by President Cusick but now we have taken
all those rules away except for the member meals rule. So now we can
email from our iPads and there is no time limit on Mondays for
emailing. We are going back to what a normal mission should be like.
It has been pretty nice actually. Anyways that was my Monday.

I went on an exchange with another missionary on Tuesday and it went
great!! His name is Elder Konecki. He has been out 4 months and is a
really great missionary already. He has so much energy though it's
nuts. He was literally running in between houses when we were
Tracting. Everyone we met loved him though. We taught 12 lessons that
day and got 9 return appointments. That is a really good day for us in
Valrico. We even got to do some service, it was a great day.
Thanksgiving went pretty good. I got stuffed just like last year. I
thought I was doing good but by the second house I was already full.
We had 5 dinners planned but one fell through. It was literally a day
spent eating. I had way to much food. I gained 6 pounds that day haha!
I'm surprised I didn't throw up. It was nice to be able to eat with
the members though. All in all, I'd say Thanksgiving was a success.

We have met a lot of new people this week and just a few have stuck.
It's kind of hard to keep people here longer than one or two lessons.
We are still working with the Uprichard's. we are shooting for
December for their baptism. They are such an awesome family. I am
definitely coming back to visit them. We already have it planned out.
They are going to take me and my last companion Elder Drumright to
Universal. Anyways I will keep you all updated. We met with our other
investigator Richard on Saturday and he came to church again on
Sunday. He stayed for all three hours this time and said he loved it!
He is doing great too. He just needs to get into the Book of Mormon
more. Oh yeah! On the exchange we had something cool happen. We had a
couple of people to stop by at night, one was a referral and the other
a guy we met on the street a few days earlier. It turns out that they
were both bad addresses, but the people we met were so nice and
humble. We were able to teach them briefly and set up a time to come
back and share more with them. I love it when things like that happen.

That is pretty much all this week. It has been great down here in
Florida, the weather is perfect right now. It doesn't really feel like
its Christmas time, but that's alright haha. You all should check out
the new Christmas video on lds.org and look at the calendar the church
has put out for December. It gives you ideas of was you can serve
others everyday. Don't be afraid to share your beliefs! It could just
change someone's life forever. I love you all and hope you're week is
great!!

~ Love, Elder Hudson

November 21, 2016

Hey everyone! 

       So another week has come and gone just like that. This week hasn't been too eventful but it has been fulfilling. We have been doing the usual, tracting, visiting less actives and members, doing service, ect. We were able to do some service this week with some of the other missionaries in my district. It was in the Lithia area just below ours and we helped a lady named Sister Brozak who is a member stack some hay. She had about 80 bails or so. They were a lot lighter than the ones I stacked by home haha. It was a lot of fun and we got to take some pictures with her horses and donkey. Her husband also had a huge collection of old Texaco stuff out in a separate building. I felt like I was on American pickers or something ;) I always love doing service though. 

       We were able to bring Tiffany and James (Uprichard) to a baptism down in my last area Apollo Beach. It was a really good experience for them to see what it was all like. They are all still doing well. We had dinner with them yesterday with the Eve's family in the ward. They got along so great and are already good friends. We are shooting for December for their baptism. We have had to drop quite a few people because they have either cancelled on us multiple times or just aren't interested anymore. It can be hard sometimes to just stop teaching somebody, but there is no effort wasted. Who know's, maybe the next missionaries that come along will find them again and they will be ready. Most of the time you never know how much good you actually do. 

       We are having a zone activity day today along with zone training meeting. It should be really fun! We have  a bunch of games planned and My companion and I will actually be doing a musical number for the training meeting. I will let you all know how it goes, I am pretty nervous because I haven't ever performed for anyone. Hopefully I don't make a fool of myself haha. 

      The weather is really cooling down, so much that we have decided to just work out in the apartment in the morning. Florida gets a lot colder than you would think, and with the humidity its a lot worse. It is time to bring out the sweaters. 

      That's pretty much all for this week, I hope you all have a wonderful week of thanksgiving, which reminds me, we have 3 dinner appointments scheduled on thanksgiving so we will see if I can make it. last year we had 3 appointments too and I stuffed myself on the first visit haha. Love you all!!

From the sunshine state,

Love Elder Hudson

Sister Kurihara, who I actually went to junior high with..small world!

November 14, 2016

Hey everyone! 

       Yet another week has passed. I have officially passed my year mark! It doesn't feel like I have though, I still feel like a new missionary. We will see where the next year takes me! Nothing too exciting happened this week. We have been talking about doing some service projects with our districts or even our zones this week. President Cooper has really been pushing service lately. He says he wants us to do up to 10 hours of service per week. I think that is awesome, I love doing service. We also might go caroling when it gets closer to Christmas as missionaries. I love President Cooper, he has all the great ideas! Hopefully we will be able to find service to do, we offer it to basically everyone we meet. I'll keep y'all updated. 

       The Uprichard's came to church again yesterday and they are still loving it. The ward is doing a great job at fellowshiping them. They said that they actually look forward to Sundays now. They area really diving into the book of Mormon now. Now that we've got them started they can't stop! They want to read like 10 chapters between visits haha. They are awesome, we hope we can commit them to a date to be baptized soon. They said they would be baptized but not sure about a date yet. They have to work through some things first. I will let you all know how it goes. I have learned 3 songs on the guitar and ukulele now from Tony, it's pretty fun! The ward wants us to play music at the ward Christmas party in December so we have been working on some songs. Maybe I will record some for you all. 

       Other than them we have just been tracting and street contacting and visiting members. It is hard to find such solid people like the Uprichard's. Oh and their son James said that he wants to be baptized so he can pass the sacrament and one day be an Elder, he is jumping all in! Their whole family is loving it.

       Also, just a random comment, I bruised my tailbone like 3 weeks ago mountain biking and let me tell you, its not fun at all. It hurts to do anything and there is not much you can do other than just wait to let it heal. So yeah that hasn't been fun. Still pushing through it though. That is about all for this week. Maybe next week will be a little more exciting. Have a great week everyone! Love you all!

Love Elder Hudson 

Elder Hudson and his new companion, Elder Tanuvasa

November 7th, 2016

Hey everyone!

       This week has been pretty good, a little hectic with transfers and everything but it has been alright. My new companion is awesome! He is a lot like my last one Elder Drumright. They are both Hawaiian, play guitar and ukulele, like to sing, easy going and fun! I am glad we are companions, I was worried that I would get some stiff missionary who just works and doesn't like to have fun with it. I am very happy with transfers haha. 

      The last couple days that Elder Drumright was here we did some finding but mostly just went by to a lot of the ward members and our investigators to say goodbye. He was here for 6 months and really loved the people here. They were sad to see him go. Change is good, it brings more growth and experience. We had a pretty good Halloween, we went to a less actives house and talked with him for a while and helped him hand out candy, people thought we were dressed up haha. After that we went to the Uprichard's and spent the rest of the evening there. Tony has been teaching me guitar and ukulele. I am picking it up pretty fast, I can already play one song! We do this thing with them where we teach them our lesson and then they give us a lesson on guitar. It has been pretty fun. We are actually working on a musical number with Tony for sacrament meeting in a few weeks. It should be really good!

        The Uprichard's are so awesome. They came to church again this week and plan to keep coming. They love it! We are continuing to teach them and are trying to get them into the Book of Mormon. They should be baptized by the beginning of December. I will keep you all updated. 

We had another Zone conference on Saturday with the whole mission and another general authority seventy came. His name is Elder Klebingat. He is German. The meeting lasted from 8am to 6pm. It was long, but so so worth it. He is an incredible teacher. I felt the spirit so strongly when he was telling us his conversion story. This church is true, I know it is. I am so thankful for my mission and how it has strengthened my testimony. This week I will hit my year mark, then it is all downhill from there,(time wise). I am so grateful for every single moment of it, even the times that I was really hating life, it taught me something important. I love you all and thank you for all you do. Have a great week everyone! 

Be not afraid, only believe!

Love Elder Hudson

Elder Drumright's last day

Our investigators the Uprichard's

Zone conference

New companion Elder Tanuvasa

October 31, 2016

Hey everyone!

      This week has been pretty eventful! I will try to hurry and get all of it in the email with the time I have. So I guess first of all this week we have transfers and guess what....I am staying in Valrico! Elder Drumright is leaving though..he is going to the very bottom of the mission in Port Charlotte. I am really going to miss him. We became really good friends and are definitely going to stay in touch, plus he is my connection to Hawaii! I will be getting Elder Tanuvasa. He is Polynesian, he has been out a little longer than I have and is supposedly a really good missionary. I am excited to meet him. Transfers will  be on Wednesday so we have a couple of days left together. We are going to make the most of it! My trainer Elder Nilsen is going home tomorrow, he has finished his mission. It is crazy how fast time fly's! He was just passed his year mark when I was put with him, now he is going home. He is an awesome missionary, I am glad that we were in the same district the last little bit of his mission. Ahh transfers are always fun!

     So this week we had 7 people come to church! It was a miracle that everyone we have invited came. We finally got the twins to come and they loved it. We had our investigator Richard come and he came dressed in his kilt...he is an interesting guy haha. Then finally we got the Uprichard family to come!! They are loving the church and the people. Even their kids are liking it. They also came to the trunk or treat on Saturday, everyone already loves them and they feel so welcomed. They said they are coming next week for sure. It was such a great Sunday. We got pictures with them all because Elder Drumright really thought he was being transferred, so good thing we did. Also during the trunk or treat we had a caramel apple eating contest and I won! haha it was pretty hard to scarf that thing down but I did it in a little over a minute, it was a lot of fun. 

     We haven't done too much finding this week. We have been trying to focus on doing more member work. We have been stopping by members and sharing a message with them and seeing if they know anybody we can teach. It has been good so far just to build our relationships with the members, they really trust us and are inviting people to take the lessons or just check out the church. Hopefully we can really get something going. 

     We also carved some pumpkins this week with the Uprichard's, the pumpkins turned out to be pretty cool. Tonight we are just planning to go to a less actives and some other members, we decided it probably wouldn't be the best idea to knock doors tonight. Although it might be good because more poeple would answer their door..we will see haha. Anyways that is all for this week, I hope that you all have a safe Halloween and get as much candy as you can! 

Fight to the finish

Love, Elder Hudson 

Random picture in front of the new Wendys

Strange bug

Carving pumpkins

Caramel apple eating contest.  Elder Hudson won!

Richard, our interesting investigator that came to church

The twins and james (the Uprichard's son)

The Uprichard family you have been hearing so much about!