week two

                                                            

Hello family- I'mm now done with week two at the ccm and am still loving it . the latter end of last week was hard we hd three days of straight classroom- doing nothing but spanish. it is good ,but i seriously could not have sat in my seat any longer    or i would have died.
 but thats pretty much the same with everyone in my district. wW are a tight bunch of individuals, and sometimes it is so hard to get things done. We always are telling stories, singing Taylor Swift, courtesy of Elder pond with his not so good singing, (I mean I guess your companion can't be perfect after all.) and Elder Carlson who is the loudest most energized 5´4" person on this planet. he also talks so fast that our teachers can't understand him, and sometimes we cant... it's so fast. Well we also had our Thanksgiving dinner which consisted of turkey and rice and insta potatoes ha ha. not exactly what we were used to, but i got some potatoes so i feel like i am fine. But we have been working now on our new "investigator", which is really just our teach r And it is going great. Me and Elder Pond switch off with our quoting scriptures, and really have a good time with them. We do pretty good  they ask us anything to do with the lesson. Bu,t if we have to improvise at any moment in time, it really just does not go over well at all. ha ha. We stutter our way through it and usually just stare at each other. but, I feel like it's fine. We could be like a lot of the other missionaries- who can't even really plan for more than a minute. so i'm not going to complain. So right now i have the objective memorized, the baptismal interview memorized, the first vision memorized, and Moroni 10:4-5 memorized. i know it doesn't sound too cool, but it's in spanish so I feel like im the coolest man to walk the earth right now. Anyways i will start getting to the best week ever: so Sunday came after my hardest three days, where i was getting ready to blow a fuse , and then we had our 3 hour church, our then four hour other classes. With the presidency and his assistants we  watched legacy, another movie on christs crucifiction and went over a stress management class, and basically was in the classroom for a whole other day. on the flip side, except for sacrament meeting it was ALL in English, which makes your brain have to work in like first gear. so, i felt like i could relax. but remember how I said me and elder pond are like the exact same people. well i really wasn't lying. we both fall asleep in the meetings. but, it is still perfect because we never fall asleep at the same time. on Sunday, because it was the longest day of my life,(but in the best way of course) we both took turns passing out- but unintentionally. i only laugh at this because Elder Pond was the first to fall asleep. and I made fun of him. then probably thirty minutes into the lesson, he wakes up, And I have been laughing at him, and stealing his name tag, and tickling his nose with a string, etc., then probably 5 minutes after he woke up, I  passed out- so he decided to get even with me, and now we have a war with eachother every time one of us falls asleep. so, basically now I make myself stay awake. except for yesterday, my body was so hammered that i could not take it  anymore, so I fell asleep during our christmas devotional with all our mission presidents at the meeting. we,ll Elder Pond decided to take my name tag and flip it upside down . well, I went up and said," hello" to president staffer  with my name tag upside down. and i dont know if he saw it and is now regretting that im going to his mission thinking," this kid cant even get dressed by himself f,or if he was oblivious to it. luckily, i figured it out before the picture was taken. so Infixed it. But, Elder Pond is definitely getting a little suprise next time he falls asleep. And who knows when that's gonna be, because, he knows it too. so, he is gonna be scared to fall asleep in a meeting for the next week. anyways monday we went out and kind of saw the real world. and it is beautiful- in its own special way. traffic here is the craziest thing . it is always packed -  you jump in whenever you fee, l and everyone else is just supposed to understand that if you cut them off you had the right of way. i don't know who made the traffic laws here, but they need a reevaluation of their thinking. there is only one stop light that I have seen so far, and they also have round abouts with no lines, and three rows in it. And basically, the goal of the roundabout is to get as close to other cars as possible , honk your horn the loudest ,and cut off as many people as possible. I kind of want to drive here- cause it takes driving to the next level. pretty much i would get the highest score in driving 2.0 here. but we went to interpol and had our fingerprinting done. It was the first time we had seen a tv, so we watched the comedy thing called gags for like an hour and a half and it was on a 15 minute loop, but me were all so mezmorized by the tv, that we didnt really care. then after the guy man-handled you, and got eveything you could possibly want in a crime investigation we went to a little convenience store around the corner. I'm pretty sure the 14 of us that were there paid that guy's salary, plus his christmas bonus. we bought every single bag of Chips Ahoy cookies, Doritos, coke-a- cola,  "Inka cola" and any other American food we could possibly get our hands on. that shop was bare when we left, and that employee had the biggest smile on his face., it was great. so, that was Monday and then Tuesday we had our christmas devotional with the member of the seventy  his name was montoya, i believe, and we sang had a good time meeting our mission president, and the other people that were there. then we turned on all the christmas lights and it was beautiful and then we stayed up for another 2 hours. talking, eating junk food, and taking picture,s and just having a grand old time. but just fair warn:ing if you ever go to Peru and they offer you hot chocolate, DO NOT ACCEPT IT!    It was the grossest thing eve r i'm pretty sure there was chilli powder in it, and not enough of any of the good stuff, and add a little gingerbread to it and you have yourself an upset stomach. I won't give you the rest of the details, but, just know, don't try it. anyways, here is a picture of my squad 

and we are hands down the best. also yestday all the latinos had their p day and so all us white kids got together and played soccer and not gonna lie i am hand down the best defender i didnt know i was this good at soccer. there is a kid who went to lone peak and then to byu for soccer and by the end of the game i was trash talking him up. its elder garcia and he is dand good i stuffed him as a goalie and a defender and then also scored a goal and there was pry somewhere close to like 40-50 of us playing. after elder garcia came up and told me i was a stud and i said thanks and then told him how good he was cause really he is amazing. anyways just wanted to brag about myself a little more and tell you im doing fantastic. but that if you dont mind sending some merican food here that would be nice too that stuff is like gold. and inca kola is liquid gold. at that convienience store i bought a liter and a half was the bottle size and its already gone. woo hoo thats pry why im doing so good because im on a sugar high.... oh well love you all until next week.

First email home

Hello family everything is going so well. FYI Wednesdays are going to be my p days. Well first week in the MTC, things were a little different than expected, but not a whole lot. It's been a little different going to sleep so early and getting to sleep in till 6:30a.m. instead of 4:30 ha ha. I think nacho libre said it best when he said, "my life is good I go to church and make meals for the children." Cause that's how it feels sometimes that I am here with a bunch of  children. for example, Elder Hale.

 he is from ketucky and he is a little bit on the plus side, but  he's a little on the plus side of his heart too. he is a good kid, a convert of about a year and a half. he definitely ain't no city slicker and loves making a good joke. me and him are good friends now and he is one of the Avensados of the CCM of centro de capacitacion por missionaros. (MTC) But so far, He has trapped us in our rooms., Pushed the shower curtain open with a long mop stick, and has taken most of everyones name tags and switched them with everyone elses tags. We also got introduced on how to bake a cake by these avensados and i don't know if i am allowed to say this, but basically everyone in the district uses the same toilet to go the numero 2 and there is no flushing allowed. so that is kind of the environment that i have been placed into for the next 6 weeks. If i hadk known this is what it was like I would have put my papers in like 3 months earlier ha ha. Well that should be enough about the fun stuff of the ccm so ill move on to the sprirtual aspect. My testimony was pretty ok before the ccm however it has felt like i have been here for 2 years already in the first week and everyone here agrees. so it feels like my testimony has shot through the roof.  and in just a week of spanish here i have learned more than the three years in high school could have ever taught me. also if you are looking for a good spiritual video Because of Him is hands down the best two and half minute video on this planet. and i was almost in tears and since we all know how much that happens you obviously know that it is pretty good ;) I love this place with all my heart and sorry but not sorry this is the place i want to be. this place is amazing and has kept me on my toes from the minute we walked in at 3 oclock in the morning. I pretty much havent even had time  to think about you guys other than this hour i have had to read and write to you. So i haven't even cried .how sad is that? ha ha. ok so,Eelder Pond my companion is from Longview, Washington. and he is pretty much just like me: strong headed ,very firm in the gospel, and loves learning. that was a joke -but really we are pretty much the exact same people, so it has been so fun. we get things done, we have pretty much everything you need to have memorized in the first couple weeks in the first 5 days. but he has been such a stress relief in knowing that I can depend on him and that we can work through teaching our "investigator" and just build off each others' testimonies. but all these elders are pretty fun. Soccer and volleyball are definitely the two most loved sports here. And I definitely have no offense in soccer, cause i can't even walk right. but elder pond can't help falling and scraping his knees either, so  I feel like I look great compared to him. (and he has been playing soccer his whole life ) the foood here is pretty good other than it is an egg for breakfast with toast and lunch and dinner is chicken and rice or maybe some other meat platter if you're lucky. what I wouldn't do for some Sweet Baby Rays(BBQ sauce) right now. but you know they love chickens- when the only varience between your meals are if they have hatched or not. oh well i don't complain too much it's just every once in a while, you want a burger, or a steak or something. but I have had more fun in this week than i have for some time. it has been so cool to me. also i feel like i would be lying if i didn't say that the book mom gave me did make me shed like 3 tears- thank you so much for that, and i will do my best to be the best. anyways, so don't worry bout me I am just having the time of my life. This gospel is amazing and the Lord has blessed me so much He is so good to me. love you all so much
Elder Hyde

the decision to serve

Garrett turned 18 in February, but was still in the middle of his senior year of high school.   He was not extremely anxious to submit his mission papers . Baseball season was rapidly approaching and he had discovered that having an amazing girlfriend was really important and super fun.  Russ and I agreed that we wanted serving a mission to be Garrett's decision and did our very best not to put any pressure on him.  Would keep quiet about it at least until school was out.   Garrett finished school and graduated May 19,2016.  Still  He dragged his Missionary feet.   He played club baseball with our local college and worked full-time for Russ.   By July almost all of his friends had received their mission calls and most were gone.  He started to get bored and decided to commit fully to his decision to serve.  the paper work began He arranged appointments with the bishop, and stake president I finally got into the middle and arranged dentist visits, doctor appointments, and helped arrange wisdom teeth removal plans.    He didn't realize how much was involved submitting papers.

He was ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood on Sunday, (Sept 11, 2016)
then went to the temple during the following week.

once everything was completed He had one final interview with the stake president to review his papers and they were off to the first presidency, and  it was time for us to just sit back and wait. AlthoughGarrett had full faith  that the Lord would send him where he was needed-He  expressed a desire to family only  that he hoped he could go somewhere foreign, speaking Spanish(since he had taken three years of Spanish in high school). We were told to expect about 2-3 weeks before the call would arrive. we were told by kids tracking mission calls that if the postage was under$1.50 that the call would most likely be stateside.and if over$1.50 "possibly" foreign- this according to the calls issued in our area of StGeorge.

On Wednesday, August 23, 2016, a large envelope arrived in our mailbox.the postage on the large envelope was $1.99 oh-dear!! Because the call arrived late in the day and we wanted as many family members who wanted to attend the opening to be able to, we sent out an announcement to family and friends that Garrettt would open his call on Friday evening.   It was going to be hard for all of us to wait two more days, but figured that was our best option.  Finally, on Friday evening after family and friends arrivedGarrett opened his call he read, "Elder Hyde you have been called to serve in the Peru.Lima.West mission.   Yay- Foreign and Spanish speaking, but not so scary that mom wouldn't be able to sleep- haha ha. ALL were excited about the call He was to report the MTC(orCCM) in Peru on November15,2016.