Elder Hyde reported to the Provo MTC on October 26, 2011, and three weeks later made his way to the Lima, Peru MTC. On December 27th he reported to his area--Trujillo, where he will be serving for the next twenty-two months. I was able to go over to the Hyde Home on the 27th and be a part of a SKYPE call from Elder Hyde. It was amazing to see how much he has grown in only TWO short months. He bore his testimony to us in Spanish and the Spirit was so strong. I loved seeing the light of Christ shine through that "missionary glow" he had about him. His mom called me while I was at the mall and asked me if I would like to come over to Skype with a certain Elder. I was ecstatic to say the least, I drove over to their house as fast as I could. In fact, I was so excited that I parked my car in front of their house, nearly left the car running, almost left the keys in the car, and then proceeded to leave the lights on. Luckily, Rod(JJ's dad) was able to jump start my car after our fun filled night, I felt so silly. Of course he was really nice about it, in fact--he was almost relieved it was my car. The whole night I was there, JJ's brother and dad had been talking about a mysterious car parked outside the house with their headlights on--they had gone out three or four times to check on the "shady" car and make sure nothing fishy was going on. Welp, turns out it was my little car the entire time. WHOOPS! Back to Elder Hyde...
I ran into the house as soon as I got there, I didn't even knock on the door. I loved seeing his smiling face and having him ask me how my family was doing. I was almost in shock, being able to be skyping with him, therefore I let the family do most of the talking but that was more than okay. I was just happy that I was invited over and that I got to hear Elder Hyde's voice. I was happy to see that he still had his same JJ personality and quick wit; He had us laughing a few times. Lucky for his friends and family, his Mission President's wife keeps a daily blog (She is my hero) and keeps us up on all that is going on..The Blog is called:
http://terryandjanetturk.blogspot.com/
I am anxious to hear about all of his exciting adventures in Trujillo. His first area is Huamachucho,where he is being trained by Elder Shaw. (Pictured in the photo below taken from the Turks blog :))
Elder Hyde and I have been artistically decorating our envelopes as of late and me, being the competitive Gustin that I am, decided to "step my game up" and use my preschool teaching skills to my advantage. One of the many perks of working with kiddos is that you find yourself with a lot of stickers, markers, crayons, and construction paper. Here are some of my letters over the last few weeks..:) Most of the stickers represent inside jokes or give some positive yet humorous uplifting motivation. I would share some of his drawings but I'm obviously winning this competition--wouldn't want to embarrass him by sharing his stick figures, LOL. :)
Here are some more pictures of Elder Hyde in the Provo MTC and Peru :) More stories are sure to come, as well as pictures. Thanks for reading.
The weeks are flying--this is easy peasy. I'm thinking about him but living my life for ME as well. I couldn't be happier. The letters to and from Elder Hyde are positive, positive, positive..and I love hearing all of his stories and how hard he is working. He is extremely focused and I am excited for both of our "adventures" that lie ahead of us.
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| It was a tough first month... |
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| But month number 2 was smooth sailing--bring it on :) |
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Month three went the fastest, and the letters are
FINALLY starting to come frequently |
