Article from North Carolina Mission paper that Elder Hutchings wrote

Elders and Sisters, we read in Preach my Gospel Chapter Six, Christlike Attributes under diligence that, "diligence is steady, consistent, earnest and energetic effort in doing the Lord’s work." Then directly following it says, "The Lord expects you to work diligently." I believe this often causes fear of what will happen if we choose not to work diligently. I don't want to dwell on that aspect, but on why Heavenly Father expects this. He knows our Eternal Potential, so he knows who we can become even when we often times forget. He asks us to do hard things because we, with His support, can do them. It does take effort on our part, but the more we exert ourselves the more we grow to our Eternal Potential. The wonderful thing is that we are never alone as we exert our efforts, we receive the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As we diligently strive to fulfill the task at hand, we can exercise our faith to call down this power. D&C 58:28: "For the power in in them, wherefore they are agents unto themselves." We can call down this amazing power and do all things. Now Go ye therefore and teach all nations!! - Matthew 28:19. 
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. ~Elder Hutchings

What a Whirlwind!!!

This week was extremely busy, it was crazy. Probably the busiest week I have ever had as a missionary.  I will not lie, I am so tired it is not even funny!

Monday- Was the big day for the ECLIPSE... we didn't even see it, there was a bunch of cloud cover! We had a really fun day, we went down to Shallotte's district activity. We had this like nerf war, really fun and we played this game called zombies down there! We scared the daylights out of this one missionary while playing. It becomes a really intense game. Think of Raptor or ghost in the grave yard, except you have a gun if your not one of the dead guys and you shoot the zombies to stay alive while they try to get you! It is crazy we turn all of the lights off and make it all spooky! It was well worth the drive down to Shallotte!  That night was great, we finished some stuff up for our zone conference that was on Tuesday.   We had a great lesson with Lake, we taught him most of the plan of salvation and it was really cool.  He said that he has always had a belief in the pre earth life but always wondered why no one taught it! Great night!!

Tuesday- We had zone conference, which is this huge meeting with all of the missionaries from the zone, about 30 in total.  President James and the assistants are there as well! Its always a great meeting. It always goes over though it is so funny.  Elder Rawlins was conducting and I looked over at him and was like I bet we don't get out of here till about 5! Now the schedule says that we should be out by 3:30, and we got out at about 5. Lets just say I won that one! Then that night we exchanged with Elder Miller and Elder McComb.  Elder Miller came to Wilmington with me and we killed it! We went and had dinner with Laura, which was good. Then the lesson afterwards was great, we taught her the last of the commandments.  She was great with it and totally loved it! Then we got to go and knock some doors. Elder Miller has been out for about 3 weeks now so he was pretty funny on the doors, but we found 2 new people who want us to come back this week that was awesome. One of them is trying to find more peace in this life with everything she has been through and was so happy that we had came by, even though we had to push really hard to get her to listen, because at the beginning she was just  yeah I'm not interested. But we didn't give up it was great!

Wednesday- I went and picked up Elder Rawlins and we exchanged back, and after that we ran out to try and tract a bit. Then we ran home for a minute to allow him to drop his stuff of and I packed my stuff up. We ran to a lunch with a member which was pretty good! We had sandwiches. Then we ran over to Leland and went on an exchange with Elder Cox and Elder Shore. I went to Leland which was tons of fun. We went and saw a few people that I knew from when I was there.  We then got to tract a bit before we ate dinner with the Carols who have fed me when I've been back there before, so they were excited to see me!! We had a great lesson with this lady and she was really interested in the thought of a prophet. This all happened after her dog tried to get me, but I was fine and it was all good. It was fun to be back in Leland though, always a great time, I just wished I had been able to see the Child family - love them! But its all good I will have another exchange!

Thursday- We exchanged back that morning and we ran over to a recent converts home to have a lesson with him. Brother Burwell, he is this super funny older guy! Then after the lesson we ran home to unpack and repack because we were heading up to Raleigh because we had an exchange that we needed to do with them as well.  Up to Raleigh we drove and then we get there, they needed to push the time back so we went and tracted some huge houses in their area. These people were so rich I was like whoa!!! Then we got to exchange after dinner. I went with Elder Shearer, and we went and taught this guy named Nathan, he was interesting so say the least... Then we ran over to another appointment with this guy named Sar. He is from Africa and is really cool, we taught him the restoration.  His son joined in as well and he is now interested in learning more so hopefully that turns out for them!

Friday- We woke up and went to MLC and man were the assistants helping us out because we spent the night with them and we didn't have to wake up at about 4:45 to head up to Raleigh for the leadership meeting because we were already there!!!  We had a great time setting up and getting ready. Then the meeting was great, it as well was suppose to end a lot earlier then it did. It was pretty crazy so long story short, we ended up back home by about 6:45.   That was a nice long day of meetings! It was fun though because President James is so funny in those meetings. He doesn't have a filter on some things and it is just the best thing ever! That night we just tracted - no real appointments but it was a good night!

Saturday- First normal day. We got to contact this guy who was referred to us by this member down in Florida. It was pretty cool and the guy seems really open to learning more and really pretty committed. We will have to be careful since the member is his soon to be Father in Law!!!  We don't want him doing this so he can get some brownie points!!!!  Just teasing him, he seems like a great guy!!

Sunday- Well to start off Laura had her baptismal interview and she is all set, it was amazing! I was so excited to see her and now we just have 2 weeks that we are working towards and she will be baptized. It is such an exciting time!  Then in the YSA Branch i gave a talk, and with how busy it has been I wrote my talk the night before.  I let them know that I was not prepared for my talk which was on Being Prepared for Spiritual Emergencies. Haha it was so funny, but i think it went well!! Everyone who I talked to liked it! 

So overall it was a great week really busy and pretty tiring but it was great!

Love Elder Hutchings

Sick days can't get us down!!!

Monday- We had a district activity that went really well. We all met here at the church and played some card games for a bit which was surprisingly pretty fun! Then we played some volleyball and chair soccer which are always fun.  The best news was I didn't hurt my ankle playing volley ball this time which is always good! Most of the time was spent playing chair soccer which is really my favorite game out here. Then that night before we left the Wilmington 2nd sisters stopped us and told us that they had someone that they wanted us to go teach.  We went and taught him, which turned out to be him and his 2 friends who are all pretty interested so we will see how it goes after the second lesson.  We will see if we can get them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. That was exciting because we were a bit skeptical of the appointment but it went really well! Then we spent the rest of the night tracting, which wasn't to much time since that night we came back to the church so some other elders could help elder Rawlins give me a blessing since I had been sick for a day or two!

Tuesday- Woke up feeling some what better but definitely didn't do any exercising.  I really wasn't up to it, was kinda sore from all of the sports that we had been playing yesterday but it went good! We had to do our accounting which was pretty weird since everyone had appointments on when they were needed to account but we got it all worked out, it took more time then we would have liked but it all went well.  In between the accounting we were able to go and meet with our investigator Lake, he is super cool. He is 18 and just moved here, he had read about 2 pages of the Book of Mormon, so we read some more with him and helped explain it more. It was a great lesson.  We are just working on getting him to come to church with us now! Then that night what was really awesome was that Babbs and Ronnie, people that I had worked with in Leland live here in Wilmington. So we went and met with them, they are in a bit of a rough spot.  It was good to see them and we started teaching Ronnie again who isn't a member. It was pretty great to see them and see if we can get Ronnie to a point where he can be baptized!

Wednesday- Well that night was interesting, I woke up twice only to find that my fever was breaking and both times i was really really sweaty which was gross, but i just went back to sleep. Then that morning I felt great.Then it was time for our exchange with the Shallotte Elders so we headed down to Shallotte for district meeting. It was a good meeting, this one older missionary couple took like half of the meeting which was really funny but it was good. Afterwards I stayed in Shallotte with Elder Lambert.  It was a pretty great day. We had quite a few appointments that we went to.  Then I got to do a baptismal interview for their investigator who is doing good but will need to be interviewed again. But it was all good, but let me tell you about the dinner that we had in that ward, we had ribs and they were so good.  They gave us peach cobbler and it was so amazing!!

Thursday- Elder Rawlins and I were back together. Which was nice but we needed to go on another exchange with the Wilmington 2 elders.  So I again left the area and went to the other ward. It was a great day as well, I was with elder Manu who is this big Samoan guy from washington! He was really funny. We got to go to this birthday thing where the investigators fed us some cake it was really good cake to!  We taught this funny old black couple who were Jehovah witnesses. The whole time they had something to argue about but we taught a good lesson to them and they invited us to come back and teach again! So that was exciting! While out tracting we found this guy swinging this thing around, well come to find out he is a fire dancer guy and this is a new thing that he will be using.  He was cool but not super interested in learning more at that time! The concluding lesson that night was so good, we taught this guy who came to church because he started talking to one of the members of the church at Walmart. Then after she told him he decided to come. So we taught him the restoration that night and he is super solid just really looking for truth and he said that if he came to know that this was all true that he would be baptized it was really cool!!

Friday- I am once again in my area and now this is for the rest of the week, and Elder Rawlins told me how everything had gone and what all had happened and how this ladies mom had a heart attack while they were teaching her it was crazy.  That night we went and taught her, her name is Gwen. She is the nicest lady, we have taught her  3 times now and each time she is like okay I get it, she does have some memory issues from a stroke a few years back but she is doing really well!! Then most of the rest of our day was spent tracting or planning but it was a good day just not to busy or exciting! That night though at 2 am Elder Rawlins woke me up, a cockroach had been crawling on him while he slept and now he had to find it.  It was back behind my bed, so I get my blow dart nerf gun and we pull the bed away and boom first shot got it even while it was trying to run away!!  We disposed of the body and went back to bed!

Saturday- Was cool we went back into this area that was super rich and we found a few people who were interested. This one guy though had  this pond connected to his house it was probably the craziest thing I had ever seen.  His house foundation went into the pond... He was really well off! Then as we were walking out we found this turtle. It was a cute little turtle and you know us so we picked it up and took a few pictures with it, only a small photo shoot not to big or anything. I think a few people saw us but what the heck right! Then we visited this one less active member and it was a good chat with him, he makes these like metal sculptures and has all this army gear, quite cool.  In the process of trying to spark some kindle of fire in him again he says well boys I'm not active and I feel like the terrestrial kingdom will be good enough for me... But we told him it wasn't and were going to keep trying to get him back to church! Then the rain came down it dumped for a bit it was pretty crazy, then we got a call from the 2nd sisters again asking us to go to another appointment.  It was in this pretty rough part of town and we were both scared but the guy was really nice and we had a pretty good lesson. At the end he like told us that he believes that aliens are god... so we will see how this teaching process goes!

Sunday- Laura came again to church and she told us that next week she is going to be bringing like 3 of her friends.  She keeps telling everyone at church that she is going to get baptized and become a member!  Babbs came to church it was really good, I guess Ronnie was feeling sick so that was why he didn't come but we will get him there next week!! Then in the YSA ward we got asked to bless the sacrament, it was pretty crazy  because this is my second time doing it in church. But it was fun! We were expecting more people to be at church with school starting but it seems like not to many people have popped up yet which is kinda scary since the YSA branch is tiny and there is like 5 active guys not including us... But they should be fine haha! The rest of the night was pretty busy with some tracting and appointments but nothing else exciting really happened!

That is about all of my week in a nut shell it is pretty great, really a fun week this week. Lots of driving and exchanges!!

Love Elder Dylan Hutchings

The Big House

Photo shoot!!

Me and the Turtle!!

Babbs at Church!!!

Capture the flag Zone style

This week was really fun!

Monday- we had a zone activity and we went out to the beach, it was a ton of fun! We played some soccer on the beach and some capture the flag it was all really fun. It was like the perfect day to go as well.  The weather wasn't the best so the population at the beach was pretty low so that was fun. Ever missionary in the zone ended up showing up which made it quite a bit of fun and we were able to meet everyone and put a face to all of the names that we know. So that was good, all of the new missionaries are so young. They like all just graduated and I'm over here like this old decrepit man - LOL!!! It is so weird... But it was a good day. We took food from a place called cook out, which is like my favorite place ever and ate it out on the beach. Everyone needs to try it, it is the best stuff ever! That night we went out to work.  We were still on bikes but we made it to all of our appointments and we even got to see one of our investigators who we were in need of catching up with. Then we ended the night by giving a blessing to some of the sisters in the district it was a pretty good day!

Tuesday- Was a bit odd our usual schedule was thrown a bit off but we were able to go out and get done what we needed to. We went and taught this guy named Ricky.  He was so cool, and he fed us so that was great! He made super good potatoes and ribs.  It was the best! After that we booked it in the rain on our bikes because our car had finally gotten finished.  We biked up a rode called market which was super sketchy but we made it! Then we were able to make it to our other appointments for the night, so it all worked out. We had our one and only meal of the week that night with this super awesome member who took us to Jimmy Johns! We also got a call that night to tell us that one of investigators baptismal dates will be able to be moved forward significantly so that will be really good.  That was an exciting call!!

Wednesday- We headed up to district meeting in Jacksonville. It was a great meeting, really fun and they had a ton of missionaries in the district up there!  Afterwards elder Rawlins stayed in Jacksonville and I took a new missionary with me to Wilmington for exchanges. All we did that day was teach and it was so awesome. We just went from appointment to appointment. We taught this guy named Tom first and we read Alma 7 with him and focused the lesson on the atonement of Jesus Christ. Then we taught this guy named Lake who is YSA age and that was great.  We read the intro to the Book of Mormon and he committed to reading and praying about it. Great lesson, then we went and taught the restoration to this one lady who ended up not letting us come back, but that is alright! Then we taught Kayla who we talked about reading and praying and it was awesome and she said she had gotten an answer to her prayers and believes it is all to be true!

Thursday- We exchanged back and had a pretty fun day, we went and met with Brother Burwell. We tracted into like 5 muslims and then we tried to visit this bible referral and it turned out to be a bust.. and then we met this man named Lateef Peace!!! It was so funny and a great appointment!

Friday- We went and did quite a bit of teaching, we went and were tracting in this one awesome neighborhood where everyone is super nice and we found this lady named Toni, she was super cool!! Then we went and taught our investigator Gwen, and the lesson went so well. We taught most of Plan of Salvation and then invited her to be baptized, and she said yes if she received and answer to her prayers!

Satuday- we went and taught Laura the rest of the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom and she is so solid!! She is going to get baptized it is so awesome!! She gave her cigarettes to us to get rid of!! It was awesome best day ever!!

Sunday Laura came to church and we had a great time.  The YSA ward was great - this girl went way over on time for her talk it was awesome. A lot of new people moved in and what not with college starting again!! It was a great day and we found 2 new people to teach!!

That was mostly the week if you have any questions just ask!!

Love Elder Hutchings

Craziest Contact Ever!!

Monday- We went and tried to catch some more gators and then got some dairy queen. It was pretty great, I really enjoyed it! We didn't do to much since everyone needed to pretty much get stuff done with transfers so that was fun. That night we went out and worked and we found these 2 new investigators  and it was pretty great. One of them is the daughter of an investigator that we found a few weeks ago.  We are trying to get the whole family to start meeting with us so hopefully that all pans out. We met with a less active that we are teaching and that was fun, he told us he is on this world renowned martial arts team it was pretty funny. Then we ended the night with going and giving some of the sisters blessing for this coming transfer.  One was called to train and the other was bringing in a new leader. So that was pretty cool.

Tuesday- Was transfers we were the only ones who didn't go up.  We were so out of the loop for what was going on but we found out pretty fast because we get a rooster of the mission of where everyone is.  Elder Dobson got called to train which is pretty exciting! We took this YSA out with us to go teach and sadly our lesson fell through but he was a good sport about it.  He tracted with us for a little bit! Then we spent most of the day tracting.  We had a few really good contacts but it wasn't super eventful but that's okay because the rest of the week was!

Wednesday- we took the car in to get the tire fixed because we needed take it into the shop  later and we didn't want the tire to go flat while it was in the shop. So we cut it really close since we took it in right before district meeting, but they got it done before it started so that was good. Then we took the car in after the meeting and we started our bike week off! It was pretty great, I feel so skinny again. We biked all over the place and it was kinda scary.  We found these two really cool new investigators. Then that night we met this less active part member family who is super nice and want us to come back for dinner.  He was so cool, he ran the heart machine for the first open heart surgery here in North Carolina and joined the church in 78. Just a really cool couple who we are hoping to teach!

Thursday- We biked a ton, we biked clear down to where Laura lives so we could have dinner and a lesson with her. It was a ton of fun. We also met with Tate Bagley who is this really cool Priest. Dinner was really good!!  It was a pasta dish and Laure is Italian so it was really good! Then the lesson was just awesome. We taught her all about the plan of salvation and Tate was really involved with it as well! I really enjoyed it and then we were able to commit her to be baptized and she was all for it. She had already asked for her moms blessing and everything!!  It was amazing and Tate was like whoa whoa!!! It was great. Then she gave us these shrimp that she had caught that morning it was super cool! Luckily we didn't have to bike a ton after that because it took up a ton of our night but it was well worth it!

Friday- We got a call and the sisters needed some help fixing a bike so we went and helped them with that and then tracted some YSA apartments which was fun. We had this one guy who opened the door and let us right in and and told us that he will not be converted that he was catholic, but that he would convert us. So after about 5 minutes of us trying to get him to listen to us we both just stood up and walked out because he started  bashing with us.   We needed to leave so we said sorry sir we mean no offense but we do need to be going because this isn't what we are trying to do and what we are about!!  Unfortunately he was like jvihdiubasj and so we just walked out.  We ended up finding 2 people who were super interested in hearing and invited us to come back! Then that night we went out tracting again and this time we meet this guy.. Ken and he idk what was up but he thinks the government is microwaving him with radiation and he had this lab coat and a helmet and everything. It was pretty crazy. He went on for days telling us all about it. Then he gave us this card with his website on it to get the word out - it was crazy. Then he tried telling us that the government can read minds and that the weed smokers below him are government goons who are using pulse cannons on him hahaha it was the best!!!

Saturday- It feels like all we did was bike and it was so hot. As we biked to this recent convert we got dumped on by the rain and what not it was the worst. But we had a great lesson, I thought I was going to catch pneumonia though because his house was so cold!! Then we spent the rest of the day tracting and we found a few people but most everyone was nice just not to interested!! We finished the night by stopping by this family from the Congo and we set up an appointment with them so it was a pretty good day.

Sunday- we had church and it was really good, Laura was telling everyone she had made up her mind and was going to get baptized. It was awesome, sadly, all of the cool sales guys from the YSA ware are going home so we won't have any cool priesthood in the ward except the elders quorm president. But it will be alright!! That night we biked the farthest ever!! We live 3 miles outside of our area so that doesn't help but we biked 30 miles.  The people we went to see weren't even home, it was so frustrating. But we were rebels and went across this closed off bridge!!!  It was completely finished though so we were all good.  It was a great Sunday.  I was so tired from all of the biking this week though it was crazy and really hard but we did it!!

Love Elder Hutchings

 The picture is me being a rebel!!

Our last district meeting

The size of Moths here!!!!