Teach Repentance and Baptize January 25, 2016

Hello Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic week where ever you might have been.

Here in Buffalo things have just been balmy! It is amazing how every week is just so different and full of different experinces, I wish I could tell you everything but that will just have to what till I am back.

Things are going really well we have had a few roller coaster experiences lots of highs and lows, and it has been keeping us on our toes. 

In case you didn't hear there was a World Wide Missionary Broadcast where every Missionary in the world attended for the largest zone conference ever. It was really cool to be a part of it! They Focused entirely on Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. Several members of the quorum of the Twelve were apart of our zone conference and it was so good. I loved how straight forward and simple they were in their training. The Gospel is so beautifully simple, All we have to do is do our best, keep the commandment, follow the Spirit, be obedient, and teach simply of our Savior Jesus Christ and of the Power of Repentance! We can never speak too much of our Savior. We need to always have his name on the edge of our lips. I know we will see great things as we follow their council! I really felt inspired this week!

I saw another amazing miracle on exchanges this week. I was in North Tonowanda and while we were there a member called us up because he needed some help to move a projection TV from an old friend of his. Then Member Mike felt that he needed to call his old neighbor Rob that he hadn't seen in over two years,  Since he had last  seen Rob he had Joined the Church. As he was catching up with Rob he told him that he was now a Mormon and Rob was interested in learning more about it.  Mike said he would give him a Book of Mormon also Rob had a big TV that he was trying to give away which Mike was willing to take.. and that is where we came in.  We went over and moved this massive TV but it didn't fit in our car, so we had to wait for someone with a truck to come to pick it up. While we were waiting we basically taught Rob the First Lesson and it was fantastic! This man is so cool.  He has had a huge turn around in his life. He used to be a famous rock star. If you have ever heard the Song "Rock the Boat" he was the drummer for it. I think it was A one hit wonder or something like that. Rob had great questions and the coolest part was right as we were about to finish the lesson the member with a truck pulled up, it was perfect timing! I love those experiences.

We also took another trip up to the sites on Saturday! It was the branch temple trip but every one that was going to go to the temple canceled so instead we just had a sites trip with Nanii and Anthony. It was a great experience and both of them really like it! The spirit there is amazing, but Something that really struck me was when we walked out of the Grove, I asked Nanii what she was feeling and Nanii said to me "it feels the same in the Grove as it does in church." I found that so profound.It really is the same Spirit, and you don't have to travel to Palmyra to feel that Spirit. It can touch your heart any time you let it in! 

This Gospel is true! I know Joseph Smith was a Prophet, And I know that it is through Jesus Christ that we can Repent and become clean again!

I love you all! Hope you have a great week!

Love

Elder Todd Houghton

The Palmyra Temple

"Oh the Places You Go" January 18th, 2016

Hello again!

I hope you all had a great week! In all of your different places
through out the world!

I for one had a fantastic week! I seriously can't tell you how much I
love just being a missionary! It is just one continues righteous
party! It has its highs  and lows but it is all in all a great time!
I am blown away by the fact that Jenn is now officially a woman! How
crazy is that!
Once again we had a fantastic week and again this week has just flown by!
I love how random some the situations you get into on a mission! One
moment you meet a man on the street and then just two hours later your
in his living room with him telling you his life story, and then the
next moment he is walking you into his neighbors house. And then the
next moment he is showing you what his dog can do and then his dog is
checking your car for drugs. All of these very random, happened last Tuesday 

while I was on exchanges in a small town,Medina.

 The best part of that whole encounters  was that we gave him
a Book of Mormon and we set up another visit for next week! Oh the
places you go!

I also love the random situations that happen that you just know are
not  coincidence. So I was still on this exchange and we went to go visit
one of the investigators at his car repair shop out in the middle of
no where. We got there and met his son  there and he had lots
of questions which was great, but the random part was while we were
there this lady walked in that we had meet previously that day ten
miles away! We had gone and dropped of a bunch of books at a community
center and we met this lady! It was crazy seeing her again!
Apparently she is related to their investigator! Oh the people you
see!

It has snowed a lot this week, we had one big blizzard and we
came to the conclusion that we had to go to DQ for some blizzards, it
had to be done! Oh the things you will do!

I sure love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Todd Houghton

Yes, it's like the Eskimos January 11, 2016

Hello my dear family!

I hope you have had an amazing week! Happy Birthday Mother! I hope it
was a fantastic one! And Happy Birthday Jenn I seriously can't believe
you are almost 18! Your an adult! Crazy! I am so excited for ya!
Things have been going just swell here in the land of the pizza and
wild wings! I have been loving it!

We had some cool experience this week, and a lot of meetings. I just
added it up and we were in meetings for 13 hours this last week. They
were good but just take a lot of time.

We had a really cool miracle happen last Monday night, at FHE.  We had a
fantastic lesson on learning how to discern the voice of the Spirit
from the voices of the world.  It was outstanding! Everyone in the
lesson was fully engaged. Anyway.. we were on our way
back to the apartment after the lesson and we were just talking about how
good that lesson was and how great that family is. When Elder Glenn
said, " so this might be weird but As we were driving I was looking at
this house and just had a strange thought to tract the house. So we
turned the car a round, and when we pulled up to the house  Elder
Glenn said it was it was this house really far set back from the road
with a judge drive way. All of the lights were off and it was at like 9:15 pm 
9:15. We got the address and we called the sisters in that area to go
and knock on the house the next day. The next day the sisters call
us back add told us that they knocked on the house and met the lady
there. They said she was really nice and for some reason they told her
that they volunteered at an old folks home each week.  Apparently
this lady had just put her elderly mother into this same old folks
home! The sisters said that they would be happy to go visit her there,
and this lady told them how she felt that the sisters were sent by God
to her! She had been feeling very nervous about puting her mother in
the care center, but she felt so much better about it! It was so cool!
And the sister plan to go see her again! 

I also had great opportunity this week were we met these two Muslim
guys on the street in downtown Buffalo and we had a really good
conversation and after talking to them for a little while they wanted
to say a prayer with us! It was crazy the guy for the first started
talking aribic or something! And then we just prayed in the middle of
the street! Haha I just love the random people we meet on the mission!
we meet with Jesús 3 times this
week! And he came to church! So he is doing great and we set a
baptismal date with him for the 23rd of this month.  we are really
trying to work with him. He is just an interesting man. his mind is
kind of all over the place at times! Like we were having a lesson with
him about keeping the commandments, and he just pipes in, "yes it's
like the Eskimos, ( we were like ok where is he going with this?) then
he told us how the Eskimos would kill a rabbit and would take a knife
and cover it with the blood of the rabbit, and then let it freeze
until it would make a blood Popsicle, then they would take it just of
the village and the wolves would come and lick the blood of the knife
and it would cut their tongue and because the lusted after the blood
so much they would keep licking the bloody knife despite it would cut
them and eventually they would die." We were like yeah that's a great
analogy! Haha it was pretty funny!

And then church was crazy! I wish I could be in two places at one
time because we had four investigators at church!  It was crazy! We
were literally all over the place and gospel principles was on the
signs of the second coming  I hope our investigators didn't get to overwhelmed! But all in all it
was fantastic!

We are seeing so many great miracles! I love this work! And I love you all!
Have a great week!
Love

Elder Todd Houghton

Happy New Year

Hello again my Family! Wow It feels like I haven't written you since LAST YEAR!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years and that you have all set
some good goals for the year of 2016. I have set some goals for my
self. First thing is I am going to read the New Testament, Book of
Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants before I finish the mission! And
second I am going to run a marathon this year! If you know of any good
marathons going on in November or December of 2016 feel free to sign
me up. If any of you would like to run you are welcome to join me! :)

We have been having so many great experience this week! Wednesday we
went to the sites with Jesús! I was so excited, I guess you know I am
a missionary when I was more excited to go to the sites than I was for
Christmas. Haha! Well it was probably one of the most interesting site
trips I had been on just because Jesús is an interesting man. It was
good but he fell asleep during the Restoration, and then while we were
in the grove we were trying to make it a strong spiritual experience
but he kept bringing up random things  other then that everything else went well.
I think he had a good experience. Then we also helped him move to
 his new apartment the next day, and met his roommate John.
 We had a lesson with them and John was awesome!
 He said he would read the Book of Mormon, and found
everything interesting! And then Jesus came to church again this
Sunday!  So I guess you could say thing are going well. :)

We had another great experience with Chris. We  had a lesson
at his place and he said, "OK I will say it!" And he said the opening
prayer! I was astounded! The rest of the lesson flowed beautifully
from there!

New Year's Eve we had dinner at Olive Garden which was amazing! Then
we went to bed at 10:30 pm like normal. So that was exciting. All in all
it was a great week!

I hope you have a great week! I love you all!
Happy new year!
Elder Todd Houghton
1. On the hill with the Matt Donner.
2.  Jesús

Oh Holy Night December 28th 2015

Hello again!

First of I can't tell you how happy I was to see all of you this week!
It was the highlight of my week!
I hope you all had a great Christmas! I sure did! So thank you so much
for all of wonderful packages! Christmas really felt like Christmas as
much as it can on the mission!

We also have had such a great week! Just full of interesting
experience, and miracles!

First thing-- some times I just feel like I am in the middle of a soap
opera, like we are just thrown right in the middle of these
situations and it just makes every day fascinating! One such
interesting experience was on Tuesday. We were driving down to go have
a lesson with Justin, We have been meeting with him weekly, and on the
way we got a call from Joanne, ( she is the one with a baptismal date for 
January 16th)  well she called us just distraught and told us of something
 bad that had happened in her family, And that she need us to come visit her!
 It was kind of cool how the timing worked out as well because Justin is one of her best
friends, and he lived not very far from where she was at! So we went
and picked up Justin and went to go visit her. That was a cool
miracle just how that worked out!

It was one of her friends house that we visited and let's just say
that it was a very sad home where there was very little furniture and
lots of drugs all over. Two of her friends were there and they added
to the picture perfectly, one was pretty high out of his mind. We had
no idea what we should do other than to pray with them, so we sat
and talked to them about prayer, and then about the power of the
Atonement! I wish I could have just taken a picture of that moment
because it was priceless!  We just prayed with Them!  I
love missions!

We also did some caroling which was also quite a highlight of the
week! Caroling can be one of the most awkward experience for everyone,
but we love to do it anyways! :) We went as a district and sang for
some of our investigators, one was the sisters investigator. When we got there I am 
pretty sure she was a little drunk, and
asked us to sing " Oh Holy Night" which is not in the hymn book so we
kind of winged it. And it turned out OK, but we were kind of all
leaning on each other guessing the words as we went! Haha

Church on Sunday Was Outstanding! We went to the Amherst ward instead!
And the best part was Jesus and Chris came! They are two guys that we
have been meeting with and they both came to church! They were like
fellow-shipping each other! I was just so  happy! And we are taking
both of them to the sites this week! I just love being a missionary!
I love you all!
Happy new year!
Hope you have some good goals set for the upcoming year!
And I will see you next year!
Love,
Elder Todd Houghton

We made a gingerbread temple for FHE last week!
Weather update for last week! Strangest Christmas of my life!

HO HO HO Merry Christmas! December 21, 2016

Hello Ho Ho Houghton's and Merry Chirstmas!

I sure hope you are enjoying your white Christmas, while we are
currently having  wet and rain  here in buffalo, not what I was
anticipating. But I am ok with it.

I seriously can't believe it is already Christmas!!! I am so excited
to talk to you in just a few days! There is just so much I want to
tell you all! I am just so excited! :) you can probably expect a call
around 10 am Rocky Mountain day light time! If you could send me your
skype name that would be Awesome!

We have had a very interesting week this week! I got my new companion
on Tuesday, Elder Glenn! He is awesome, we came out at the same time in
the MTC so it is kind of cool to be companions now, he is a good hard
worker and is super personable.  He is from San Francisco the Bay Area
and he is what you would think of a California beach boy, he is way
cool!

We had several  opportunities to get dirty doing some service.  We
dressed down and in our shirts and ties, my manly moment of the week
was carrying sheet rock up the stairs in my shirt and tie. I love
doing stuff like that!

 Everyone just finished up the semester for
school, so we are having  some good and bad come form it. The good is that
some people are actually going to have time to meet with us and will not
have to worry about school, and we also have many who are heading back
home for the break! So it's kind of interesting, Hopefully we can take
advantage of this time as much as possible!

 Also kind of a weird situation, we aren't going to have our branch the
next two Sunday's because so many from the branch are going home for the
holiday's. So instead we will be going to my first ward in the
mission! I am kind of excited!

I am so greatest for this time of year, even though it is darkest time
of the year, yet we celebrate the birth of our Savior who is the light
and the life of the world! He is the one that brings the light into
our lives! I am so great full for that!
Sorry this is a short one but I love you all so much! And I look
forward to seeing you soon!

Love,

Elder Todd Houghton