8-19-13 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

So really, there is not much exciting happening right now. Diego is set to have his baptism this coming Thursday.  Also one of the YSAs in our ward brought his non-member girlfriend to church. We have an appointment with them tonight.  Really the work is starting to pick up here. We are striving to be more focused and diligent, and we are reaping the blessings that come from that.  And to top it off, transfers were today; and Elder Vazquez and I are staying right here. There are no changes in my district. So we are going to keep running with the investigators we have and see what we can find for new ones too. 

Really I am beginning to see a lot of things, and how they all work together. I´ll let you know more as I discover it. 

 

I´ll leave you with the favorite scripture of ex-President Tervort:

 

17 Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto ^aMoroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the ^bdevilwould never have power over the hearts of the children of men.(Alma 48:17)

If you want to see the qualities of Moroni, see Alma 48:11-17.

That about covers it. Take care everyone!

 

-Elder D Hill

8/19/13 - Jordon

Well, this week doesn't have much to tell. Our investigators still aren't making it to church for some reason. We're trying to clear out all concerns they have but even those that have nothing to do on sunday still aren't coming for some reason. 

 

In brighter news, we have managed to add a few more people to our teaching pool. Each week we seem to be finding another person or two, and now our pool is substantially larger than it was when I got here. Unfortunately, I don't really have any cool missionary work stories this week.

 

However, transfer calls went out last night. Guess who gets to spend today packing. Yup, me. I have been told that I'm leaving my current area. My suspicions are that I'm getting moved to English for this next transfer. As I've stated in previous emails, there are currently 3 Elders in the mission that were called Spanish speaking: Myself, Elder Macfarlane, and Elder Clark. Elder Macfarlane is staying, and Elder Clark is leaving, however, he was called as Zone Leader, as well. Also, I did not receive a call asking me to train one of the new missionaries coming in, so I'm guessing I'm going English for a little bit. However, there are a couple missionaries who were called English, but natively speak Spanish. My thoughts are that I am possibly getting paired with one of them, and we're getting sent down to Florence to make preparations for a Spanish branch down there. (Currently there is no Spanish ward that covers that area.) We'll have to wait and see what happens. I'll let you know next week.

 

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Last week (not this week), we received some unexpected visitors to our door. The first to show up to our door were a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses inviting people to come to a convention down in Tucson. We thanked them for the invitation and then invited them to take a few minutes and hear about the Book of Mormon. They attempted to counter by asking where "Mormon" appears in the Bible and were startled when we openly declared that it doesn't. We attempted to continue, but they said they had to go and walked away. That was kinda interesting.

 

A little later, a man came to the door, introduced himself, and asked us if we owned or rented the house. He was looking to sell us some extermination services (I think). We declined but talked a little with him, and he went on his way. I think he was a member.

 

After that one, we heard a knock at the door and wondered who it could be now. (We don't normally get any visitors to our door, so to get 3 in one day was quite rare.) I checked the peep hole. I saw a car parked out front, and in front of the door stood a man who seemed oddly familiar. I opened the door and my suspicions were confirmed. It was Brother Both! He motioned for Sister Both from the car. I asked them something to the effect of "What are you doing here?", and they responded that they were in the area and said that my mom had asked them to deliver something. I then saw in Sister Both's hands a bag containing a couple containers of cookies. It was a rather pleasent surprise. We really enjoyed the cookies. Thanks Mom. [The Boths, friends of ours, tell us he stood at the door with his mouth open, unable to say anything for a few minutes!]

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So it's official! As of today, backpacks are no longer allowed. I got my satchel a while back. Attached are some pictures. As I expected, my shoulder was in a bit of pain with all the weight on one spot, so I did a little bit of modification and added a belt clip. My shoulder doesn't hurt so much any more.

 

 

 

So for about the last 15 weeks give or take a few. I have been working on a rather special project during my language studies. The results are also attached [4 pages of Spanish verse.  When translated, it is the Shakespearean Three Little Pigs he likes to perform.] Enjoy.

 

That's it for this week. Transfer news to be related next week.Talk to you then.

 

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-

8/12/13 - Jordon

GO FLINTSTONE!!!

 

Now that I have you at least somewhat confused, I shall explain. A little bit ago, Elder Macfarlane and I were driving home. I was tired. We pulled up to a stopsign and Elder Macfarlane (driver) performed a "California stop" (or "New Jersey stop" as you may know it). Upon doing this, Elder Macfarlane exclaimed, "California stop." However, in my tired state, I was almost positive that he said "Go
Flintstone." How I interpreted "California stop" as "Go Flintstone", we haven't a clue, but that's what happened. For some reason, that has become my favorite phrase. Since that moment, whenever we have a moment of miscommunication, or just when we're discussing words in general, I will often say "Go Flintstone."

 

Anyway, things seem to be picking up a little. This week, the number of lessons we tought has increased from the previous few weeks. It appears that we will not be achieving our baptismal goal this month, but we're still trying our best to at least give people more knowledge about the Restored Gospel, and working to set things up for next month. For the moment, we don't really have any "solid" investigators, but we're doing the best with what we have. Unfortunately, I don't really have any awesome stories this week.

We are, however, making a bigger push to have members with us everyday. We hope the added testimonies of the members will help bring souls unto Christ.

 

That's it for this week. I hope you're all doing well. by the way, I love the Minion Missionary. It made me laugh.

Also just a heads up: Next week we have transfers.

 

Until next week.

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-

8/12/13 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

Well It`s been another week here in Mexico. Our baptism fell through. He ended up working late, and his phone died, so he couldn`t tell us. We`re hoping we can make it work for this week though. 

 

My first week as District Leader seems to have gone by normal. nobody in my district was assaulted or killed so I guess I`m starting on the right foot. (that`s a joke, laugh)

 

Something that was pretty cool is that we climbed up to the B.  It was a great view. It would have been better, but unfortunately there was a lot of polution that day. 

 

 

As a side note the pic below is of the new Mexico MTC (previously El Benemerito de las Amèricas) 

We aslo had a mission conference this last week. There was a lot of good things but the biggest was when President Hall talked about Loving one another because there has been problems in the mission merging the missionaries from the Northwest mission with those that changed missions from the West. President addressed this generically and specifically during the conference and admonished us to Love our companions, love out leaders, love the other missionaries and learn from them, and love all the people of Mexico.

That about covers it. Other than that it was business as usual.

Take care everyone!

-Elder D Hill

8/5/13 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

Well, there were some surprises this week. No Baptisms, but we have some lined up for this week. President Hall decided to come to our sacrament meeting this past Sunday. On top of that the Stake President came, too. It`s amazing how just having people like them there changes the meeting. Over half of the testimonies testified about missionary work, It`s Truth, and how the Lord Guides it. This happened when President came to San Pablo too. (Did I mention he came to San Pablo? if not he came the day before I was transfered to here)

 

In other news there were transfers again. One of my Zone Leaders finished his mission and my District Leader went to a new Zone. Elder Vazquez is now with the New District Leader... Me.  I don`t know what President is thinking making me District leader but I`ll do my best. 

 

In other news, we have a new family that we started teaching. The elders quorum president introduced us to one of his neighbors, and we set an appiontment to come back and teach him. When we came back for our appiontment the neighbor said he didn`t have time, that really he respected everyone, but wasn`t interested, and started talking about how he was from the country. When my companion asked what part we found out that this Brother had gone to College in my companions hometown. After this came out he invited us in and we met the rest of the family. We have a return appiontment tomorrow, so we`ll see how it goes.

That`s about it. Nos Vemos!

-Elder D. Hill

8/5/13 - Jordon

Well, this week was kinda interesting. It's the start of a new month, and with that we needed to set a new baptismal goal for the new month. Elder Macfarlane and I took it to prayer, and the answer we arrived at was a little startling. We consulted, and the goal we decided to set was 6 convert baptisms in the month of August. That's the highest goal either of us has set yet, not only that, but as you know, the work has been very slow here in spanish work. But, we felt good about it. We are going to see how this turns out. We certainly will try our best to acheive it.

 

Towards the end of June, we found a family that seemed fairly interested. Unfortunately, they were going on vacation for the summer, so we weren't able to meet with them at all. Well, yesterday we stopped by to see if they were home yet, and they were. They invited us in, and we talked about the Book of Mormon. They were super interested in eveything we said. There are 4 members of the family who are over 8 years old. This may be an answer to the baptismal goal.

 

A while back, we pulled into the church parking lot. I don't really remember the full situation, but the Sister Missionaries were already there, and the attached photos were the result. (Note: No vehicles were harmed in the making of these pictures.)

 

 

 

That's all for this week.

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-

7/29/13 - DJ

Hola Everybody!

So not much to say this week. The work has been progressing normally, and we didn`t have any baptisms this week; but we have a couple of investigators for the near future. as for my area, it`s great. 

 

We are between the Benemerito(the school turned Mexico MTC) and the B on the hillside.

 

I haven`t climbed up to the B yet but it`s on the plans for the near future. (Can`t let Jordon have all the fun with the A) 

 

As it turns out, our downstairs neighbor is in the MTC presidency. (He might be President, but I seem to be recieving conflicting information on that point.) 

 

For those that have viewed my pictures as of late, yes, I`m losing weight here in the mission. I`ve lost about 78 lbs so far and plan to keep going. 

 

I`m excited for the things I`m hearing are happening back home. It would seem that missionary work is taking off all over. 

 

That`s really about it. Nothing super exciting happened this week.

Some spiritual advice from My Mission President:

"When you let the Spirit dominate the Body, you start to discover who you really are."

Nos Vemos!

-Elder D Hill

7/29/13 - Jordon

Well, this week was interesting. We haven't been having much improvement as far as investigators are concerned, but we were able to have a few decent lessons.

 

We taught a man named Raymundo about the Book of Mormon. He was a former we found in our area book. When we first started talking to him, he wasn't really interested in what we had to say. He said that most of what he had heard about our church didn't coinside with what history says and that if the Book of Mormon was actually "the word of God", everyone would already have heard about it (like the Bible, Torrah, or Quran). After some discussion, we gave him an explanation about what the Book of Mormon is and how we now have it (the Restoration through Joseph Smith). He was a little intrigued about Jesus in the Americas and said he would read about it. It was a strong lesson.

 

We had another great lesson with a lady named Taylor. We OYMed her on the way to visit a part member family. She was really nice. She said that she has LDS friends and has gone to church with them once or twice, but she didn't understand much. Apparently, no one had ever told her about what the Book of Mormon is or really even what we believe as a church. So, we taught her about the history of the Book of Mormon and how we now have it. She really liked it, and said that we made it sound interesting. The spirit was strong. We invited her to read and pray, and she said she would. Unfortunately, she doesn't speak any Spanish, so we had to give her off the the English Missionaries in the area.

 

We've had several similar lessons thoughout the week, most of which were English, so they were passed on. Sometimes, I question if the reason I'm here is to give people a good first impression of missionaries. haha. Whatever the reason, I'm trying my best to do what God wants of me.

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Beware of Rhinos

This week, I got a flat tire. The cause of which was a nail about an inch long that I rode over. It went through and punctured both sides of the tube (outer and inner rim). When I showed Elder Macfarlane that I had a flat, he asked if I had run over a rhino. After finding the cause of my tire void of air, I responded yes. Be careful on bikes.

 

That's all for today. I love you all.

until next week.

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-