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!

October 24th, 2016 (Crazy Week)

Hey everyone! 

          This week has been full of exciting things! I don't even know where to start...I guess I'll just take it from the top. The week started off kind of slow but on Thursday that changed. We were parking lot contacting and the very first person we met was a woman named Tiffany and her son Donovan. We invited them to come take a tour of the church and she said, "yeah! lets go right now!" So we were pretty excited and she followed us to the church. We gave here a tour and she really liked it! She said they have been looking for a church to go to. Long story short they came to church on Sunday, the only bad part is they live outside our area so we have to pass them off to the Riverview missionaries. It was still cool though! I know the Lord put her right in our path that night. Then on Saturday we had a surprise. Someone knocked on our door while we were doing companionship study in the morning and I looked through the peep hole and saw two women standing there. I knew it was the Jehovah witness. We opened the door and they were pretty shocked to see us. They kind of told us their message and gave us a little pamphlet and left. We were nice to them of course. It was just weird to have someone knock on our door for a change! 

       Tiffany and Tony are coming to church next week with their kids for sure. They are still progressing and are doing great. We met with Richard again this week, he is still reading through the book of Mormon and praying so we will see where that goes. We tried to meet up with Brandon Roaton this week but he wasn't home and didn't answer his phone. We get that a lot around here so I am not surprised. Hopefully we will be able to contact him again. We are doing our best! We met a lady this week named Dianna. She was super nice. We actually invited her to do a church swap on Sunday and she was all for it. So she came to church with her husband and it went really well. They are both really friendly and invited us to come over to their home to share more with them! Then after our meeting was done we went to their church which is Bell Shoals Baptist. Just up the road from our church. Let me tell you guys, they really put on a show! It was nuts! This church was massive! They had a huge stage and lots of fancy lights and fog and a huge choir. Everyone was singing and clapping their hands saying, "Amen!" "Praise the Lord!" Basically your typical baptist church. Elder Drumright snapped some photos haha. It was a neat experience to say the least. 

      We saw a gator this week! It was my first time seeing a gator up close and personal. We snapped some good pictures too. I'll send em y'alls way. All in all this week was pretty great. I am only about 18 days away from my year mark, but who's counting? I am so grateful for making the decision to serve a mission, I have learned a lot about myself and what I want in life and have been able to help so many people. It's truly amazing. I hope you all have a great week!!

Love Elder Hudson

PS I forgot to put it in the email today but we went mountain biking this morning with a member, it was so much fun. Elder Drumright wrecked about 5 times though haha. I only wrecked once and hit my face on the ground. It didn't feel to good. 

October 17, 2016 (Let the miracles flow)

Hey everyone! 

        This week has been great! We have really been giving it our all and have been seeing our efforts pay off. We are teaching a guy named Richard who came to the church this week for a church tour. He is a very interesting and smart guy. He really felt the spirit there, when we got to the chapel he prayed and told us he received an answer to a question he has been praying about for a long time. We were able to teach him the full restoration and we committed him to baptism on November 12th. It was so cool! Then the other day when were tracting we met a lady walking her dog named Mandy. We got talking to her and it turns out her whole family is mormon in Virginia so she knows about us. She was really open to us though, we shared the restoration with her and gave her a Book of Mormon. It was a miracle we met her that day because that was her one day off in like 5 years and she always walks her dog in the morning, but for some reason she didn't today. It is all in Gods timing, she was so grateful and said it was meant to be. Then we met a guy named Brandon Roaton in the Walmart parking lot the other night and he was just so excited to see us. We taught him about the restoration and we set a baptism date for November 12th as well. He was just all about it and really wants to be baptized. I could go on and on with more, but that would take a long time haha. It was just a really good week! 

       Last P-day we were feeling adventurous so we went to Buffalo wild wings with the providence Elders. It was my first time there, it was good! Then on Tuesday for my 11 month mark we got sushi just like I told ya'll. We went to Sunflower Cafe. Their sushi was actually really good. We got 3 different rolls, it made my day. Elder Drumright and I have a lot of fun while working hard at the same time, we've got the best of both worlds haha. Oh and we also found a turtle on one of our members driveways so we figured we would take some pictures with it. I am sure you will like them ;) We are still teaching the Uprichard family and they are progressing slowly. They are such a cool family, I am sure they will be baptized, it just might take a bit longer for them. Life is good here in Florida, its cooling down a bit and the work is going so good. That's really all I have for this week, sorry it was kind of a random one haha. Have a great week everyone!! 

Love Elder Hudson

"The coolest door I've ever knocked"

"Cool mailbox"

"A plant we are growing, but I'm not sure what it is."

"Took this picture while we were waiting to be picked up"

October 10, 2016

Hey everybody! 

         So first of all, the hurricane that came through Florida was pretty bad on the east coast but it didn't really affect the Tampa area at all. It was just real cloudy all day and there was some wind. Everybody we would talk to would warn us about the storm and were saying that there would be 50 MPH winds here. Non of that happened, it was kind of disappointing. I was hoping to see a little storm at least! Oh well, I am glad that we were safe. Besides the hurricane this week has been pretty great!

         We met a guy while we were knocking doors on Tuesday named Dwayne Johnson...sadly not the Dwayne Johnson you are all thinking of haha. He was cool though and we were able to teach him the restoration and set up another time to come by. We will see how that goes. Oh and I saw another drug deal this week. Some people just really aren't that sneaky. There were a couple of guys that pulled up in the Mcdonald's parking lot and one guy came to the others window and they exchanged something then left real quick. We see stuff like that all the time. One thing that we have started doing this week is car tacting. Whenever we are at a stop light and there is someone next to us we flag them down and just say whatever. We usually invite them to have a church tour, learn about Jesus, read the Book of Mormon or if we want to be bold we just invite them to be baptized! It actually works! We set a baptism date this week with a guy named Cory by doing it. We got his number and are meeting with him this week. It seems weird at first, but people think we are weird anyways haha. 

       We went on an exchange this week with our district leader Elder Stout. He came to our area with my companion and I went to his area with Elder Tye which happens to be my last area Apollo Beach! It was so good to go back even for just a day. I got to see my last ward mission leader Brother Briones, he is awesome, probably the best ward mission leader I'll ever have. We had something really cool happen though while I was on the exchange. We were contacting at a gas station and there was one guy there who I saw that I felt really impressed to talk to. So we walked up to him and we told him that we are helping people to be baptized. He responded and said, "Well it's about time I got baptized!" His name is Nick and was so excited to see us! We set a date with him for November 12th and got his information. He was so prepared! I love it when stuff like that happens, that's when you know Heavenly Father is watching out for you and placing people in your path. 

       Other than that we have been meeting a lot of new people this week and the area has been looking up! We are doing so good out here, I am really starting to love this area. I am going to be at 11 months tomorrow, we are celebrating by going to eat sushi. I'll send some pictures of course. Time is flying by! I love being out here on a mission, there is just so many great things that have happened from it already. If there area any of you reading this email that are thinking of going on a mission, stop thinking and just do it. There are only good things that will come from it and it will strengthen your testimony of the gospel so much! I hope that you all have a great week and thank you for your concern for me! I love you all!!

Love Elder Hudson

beautiful sunsets in Florida

Hurricane Radar picture

we decided to deep clean the apartment, this is what we found in the drain.  Gross!! 

My missionary tag is getting a little faded after 11 months

Halloween decoration

October 3, 2016

Hey everyone! 

         This week has been pretty good! There have been a couple of crazy lightning storms and a ton of rain, nothing out of the usual. It was bike week this week too so when its raining and there is lightning we can't do much. We usually just take cover in the closest place we can find. Luckily this week we were in lessons when the rain started so we just got to have like an hour lesson haha. The lightning here is so crazy though, I love it! It makes things interesting and it looks cool. I got some good pictures. Anyways this week we met the coolest guy. It was on Monday actually when another Elder started talking to a guy in his car while they were stopped at a stop light and invited him to come to the church for a tour. He accepted and gave them his number. This was when they were on their way to zone development day at our building. We were supposed to meet him on Monday but he couldn't make it so we scheduled for Wednesday. Since he was in our area we are teaching him. He came to the church and we gave him a tour and then taught him about the restoration. He has a crazy story, he was in the military when 9/11 happened and has been through a lot. He has died 17 times and suffered the worst brain injury in medical history and lived. He is very humble and religious. To make it short we set a baptism date with him for October 29th! He said he is going to come to church next week and start reading the book of Mormon. It was a huge miracle! 

          Conference weekend was great! We got to do some service Saturday morning and helped a member put up a new fence. I always love doing service, its good to switch things up every now and then, tracting can get boring haha. I loved conference though, there were some great talks given. I loved the talk by Kazuhiko Yamashita about being ambitious for Christ. He told the story of the missionary with the prosthetic leg who had to be reassigned to another mission where he didn't have to bike. Maybe I liked it just because I am a missionary too but I really connected with that talk. Sometimes, speaking figuratively, as a missionary you can feel like you have a prosthetic leg that may be holding you back and you begin to question why you are there and if you are even doing any good. I know that there is a reason I am put in the mission and different areas I am. There is a purpose to fulfill and people here that I am meant to meet and touch. That goes for every missionary. The Lord knows best and has his hand in all things, I trust in that every day. There were many other good talks, but I liked that one a lot. President Monson is looking great too! I was very happy to see him and hear his words. He is very simple but strong. I am so grateful to have a living prophet today! I hope you all had a great conference as well. We were at a members house for all of the sessions. We were supposed to have investigators come to the church but they weren't able to make it. We had fun at the members house though, they have like 6 kids and do a lot of activities and have treats during conference. They do conference right! Anyways that's all for this week. It has been great and I really needed that boost from conference. I hope you all have a great week and never forget who you are as a child of God. 

Love Elder Hudson