Wednesday, June 11, 2014

6/9/14 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

Well, there were changes today and guess what? I'm not going anywhere! and neither is my companion! So we get to continue working for another 6 weeks or so at least. So anyway, on to the good stuff.
 
Well I mentioned last week that my companion injured himself playing soccer with the zone. Well it turns out he sprained his ankle. We saw a doctor on Wednesday that gave us the diagnosis and told us that he should be off his foot for 10 days to recover completely. We talked with President and Sister Hall about it, and they had us go get a second opinion. So we went to another Doctor who treats missionaries, and he gave my companion a prescription and a different exercise setup and said he should be able to walk without crutches by Saturday (this last Saturday), and so that's been the major fun this week. As a followup, my companion is walking without crutches, and we are able to work without a problem. Thank you to all the people that pray for the missionaries. I'm sure it helped my companion to recover faster.
 
In the mean time, the work moves forward. We have several good investigators and should have another baptism this week. (oh, attached is a picture of Axels Baptism)
 
Axel is second from the right.
 
 
That's it for now. Nos Vemos!
 
-Elder D Hill
6/9/14 - Jordon

Well, not much to say for this week.

Tuesday, We had a lesson set with one of our investigators who we haven't been able to set a lesson with for a while. (I never did before this, as a matter of fact.) Well, about an hour before the appointment, she gave us a call and told us she wasn't interested anymore. I'm sitting there thinking, "Not interested? You haven't even given it a chance to be interested, and any time we stop by, you don't let us talk at all, so we can't testify to you of truth, so you can feel the Spirit. Of course, you're not interested!" Don't you just hate when that happens? I didn't say that, of course, but that's how I felt. On the plus side, she told us to stop by to say hi every once in a while. So, we're not out completely. There's still hope.

Guess what I got to do on Saturday...I drove a car!  I was on exchanges with one of the Elders in my District. He has some medical issues (bad knee and sprained wrist), so he has a car. Senior companion is usually the designated driver, and he's not the senior companion. So, I got to drive it around for the day. The reason this is so exciting for me is because I haven't driven a car for about seven months. I've been on bike for that period. On top of that, it's getting hot outside now, so it was nice to be out of the heat for short spurts throughout the day. Hehe.

As I mentioned last week, transfer calls were yesterday. I'm being transferred again. I don't know where to, but I trust I'm going where the Lord needs me. Perhaps I'll be back in Spanish. It's kinda funny. When I came out of Spanish, I was in the first English area for one transfer, then I had the five transfers in Gilbert Zone, and then this one transfer here. It makes a nice even buffer. (Spanish-1-5-1-Spanish)  We'll find out Wednesday.

That's really all I have for today. It sounds like everyone is doing great. Question: When did Tyler get a job? I remember him applying for jobs, but I don't remember him getting hired anywhere. Oh, well. Congrats, Tyler.

Oh, before I forget. Happy Fathers' Day!!!

Until next time.
Con amor,
-Elder Jordon Hill-
6/2/14 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

This week was pretty good overall. The highlight of the week was yesterday when we had Axel's Baptism. (pictures next week, my camera was dead & my companion didn't bring his camera right now to write and he has all the pictures) It was crazy before hand, but it all came together and happened fantastic. We had 4 other investigators in the baptismal service and the spirit came super strong.  We'll see what questions they have tomorrow.  I'm sure they'll have some.

Other fun news today, My companion sprained his ankle playing Soccer with other Elders today.  We've been having fun figuring out how to do everything we have to do with that going on. Keep him in your prayers that he can recover rapidly please. 

That's about it for now. Nos Vemos!

-Elder D Hill
6/2/14 - Jordon

Well, this week brought some fairly grand surprises. Take a look.

On Tuesday, we got a text from one of our young men, about to leave on his mission, saying that he had someone for us to teach. We set the appointment for Thursday. The lesson went great. She seems sincerely interested. She said she would read and prey about the Book of Mormon and that she would be baptized when she knew it was true. YAY!!!  We only have one problem........she currently lives in Tempe.  It seems like all the investigators we can fine in that ward live in other areas/missions. We'll find one eventually...I hope.

Also on Thursday, we traveled a couple stakes south for some family history training. I found Grandpa on Findagrave.com and attached it to his entry in FamilySearch. They have his birth date wrong on there though (Findagrave). Mom, could you see about fixing that.

After that our ride back decided to take us out for lunch. He was going to take us to a Wendy's far outside our area, but I felt it would be better for us to at least be within the stake boundaries (which happen to be my district boundaries) because we're not supposed to stop outside our area without pemission. Obedience brings blessings, right? Anyway, we decided to go to Costa Vida, within our boundaries. As we were leaving, a lady came up to us and asked us for a blessing. She identified herself as a member, and that she was going through a hard time right now. Not only were we able to give her a blessing, but the member was able to help her out in some other things she needed, as well. I love it when things like this happen. Had we stopped at Wendy's, we wouldn't have been where we were needed. Obedience certainly does bring blessings, to us and to others.

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So, I'm having difficulty with something right now. I'll be honest...I haven't been able to call the office and tell them about going home in October, yet. For some reason I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm giving it to lots of prayer to see if going home in October is actually what the Lord wants of me. I'll let you know what happens.
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As you know, I've recently had a blowout with my bike tire. I got it replaced. Next item in need of repair: My seat. I've included before and after shots. 
 

 
What do you think? And, before you ask...Yes, it's a sock. I couldn't think of anything to use to fix the issue, and I had a companionless sock, so I got creative. It saves me like $30, too.
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Well, that's it for this letter. Transfer calls this Sunday. Aren't you excited?! Until next time.
Con amor,
-Elder Jordon Hill-
5/26/14 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

Firstly I want to say Congratulations to Tyler on Graduating from High School! Now you can go to the YSA Branch!
 
So this week was pretty good. Axel is progressing still and all plans are for him to have his baptism this coming weekend.  He's excited and is hoping his family will come even though they are generally against him getting baptized. He shared an Experience with us that his grandmother asked him why he wanted to change religions instead of just getting on better terms with his current one? After explaining his reasons she said that if he's happy and it's bringing him closer to God, she's ok with it. Score one for the catholic grandma!  With grandma on board it should be a bit easier for everyone else to support him as well. 
 
We also found a new old investigator. Actually a whole family of them. They are old investigators that We decided to call and see if they might be interested in listening again. They are great, they like to ask questions and are open to what we say. The only problem is that they work the weekends out of town so they can't ever make it to church, but we're working on that. 
 
All in all that covers the highlights of the week. Nos Vemos!

-Elder D Hill

PS: Dad, thanks for the 3 card monte, it really messes with people and is impressive for may of them (missionary and member alike). It also comes in handy for those that saw my tricks before since it gives me one that I know they never saw before.
5/26/14 - Jordon
 
Well, this week has been fairly interesting, and I've realized a lot, too.

Do you remember Bailey, the one having parental issues? Well, her 18th birthday was this past Saturday, so she now no longer "needs" parental consent to be baptized. However, she has now decided that she is going to wait for a bit to be baptized, so she can have the support of her father. Family status: Parents are divorced. Mother: Less-active member. Father: Less-active member who asked for his records to be removed from the church, and is now a tad anti-LDS. Grandmother: Active member. We recently found out that, apparently, her mother is actually quite supportive of her being baptized. She knows that if Bailey joins the Church, she'll have good moral values and will instantly make friends with similar values (other members of the Church) wherever she goes. And, what mother wouldn't want that for her child. I think she was even saying that she would come to church with Bailey after her baptism. That's excellent. The trick right now is the father--He's not too comfortable with this. As I understand it, he currently is living with Grandma (active) who lives nearby. Also, in June, more family (also active members) are coming for a visit. Surely there will be a family gathering discussing this issue. We're hoping for the best. More to come.

On Friday we found a new investigator! (YAY!) Or, to be fair, a former investigator who hasn't met with the missionaries for a long while. (but it still counts! ) His name is Steve, and we were introduced to him through his member neighbor. And, well.....we're not certain what to make of him. He's really nice and respectful. He loves meeting with the missionaries, and he has lots of questions. However, a lot of his focus seems to be on topics considered "deep doctrine". We're making plans to adjust that focus toward the missionary lessons. We'll see how it goes in our next meeting with him (Wednesday). We'll find out soon.

I had an interesting realization, a bit ago. The missionary mantle carries with it many blessings. The blessing I realized this time was that your mind is somewhat quickened as missionary. In that, I'm referring to remembering names and faces. Back home, I was horrible with remembering people's names whom I had just met. Well, recently,we had dinner with one of the families in one of our wards. This family has seven kids. In addition to us, they also decided to invite the neighbor family over to join us. Well, that family has five kids. And just because, one of the girls from another neighbor family decided to join us, as well. (Don't freak out, all of them were members.) So, to total everything up, there were 13 kids. Well, by the end of dinner I was able to learn everyone's name and then repeat them all back (pointing and naming) at the end with maybe one or two mistakes. (For me, that's a fairly big feat.) Playing the name game with larger families is fun for me. It really helps me learn the names of the members of the ward. I think it also helps with member trust, too, because it shows them that your putting forth effort to get to know them. It's fun being a missionary.

Also, I realized that I made a mistake when I was younger. I should have continued with Karate until I got to black belt, at least. It might have been a good achievement to have for the future (job interviews/resumes?), but at the time we were getting lessons for free while Mom was one of the instructors for the kids. Now I kinda wish I could go back to karate to get the black belt, but unfortunately, that will cost money for lessons now. Oh, well.
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Ok, one more thing. Just about every morning, one of the Elders I live with makes bacon and eggs for breakfast. Well, this causes the room to get a bit smokey (as cooking with grease tends to do). Well, one morning I got an idea. There's a window in just the right spot that the sun shines through and illuminates the smoke. I took a picture and added a caption. Scroll down.
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Revelation
You can receive it, too.

Hehe. Well, that's it for today. Until next week.
Con amor,
-Elder Jordon Hill-