4/7/14-Jordon

Well, another week gone by. Where does the time go?

 

General Conference this weekend was awesome! All the talks were amazing, and several were very benefitial in our current circumstances. A few that I really liked were Elder Holland's talk (primarily for his passionate testimony. Practically yelling at the world. hehe), Elder Zuick's talk (What are you thinking? Great for improving relationships), and, of course, President Monson's openning remarks in the Saturday Morning Session (a nice little shout out to the Gilbert Arizona Temple). I also liked Elder Oaks' talk in Priesthood session about women not being given the Priesthood, but being given Priesthood authority. My personal thought on that was that it should have been in a general session. It seemed to me like it was intended for sisters, too. I'm sure there was a purpose for it though. I wish I could convey all my thoughts and feelings regaurding everything that took place this conference, but I lack the vocabulary or time to do so here. I hope you were able to see it all. If not, you should definately go back and check it out.

 

Earlier this week. We were contacted by someone in the YSA Ward. She told us that she had talked to her 9 year old nephew about baptism, and he wants to be baptized. His mother is ok with it. So, we started up with teaching him on Thursday. It was a good lesson, and he appeared to understand it all. Our next appointment is set for this upcoming Thursday. I hope all goes well with his lessons.

 

With the realignment of boundaries, we also gained a family where the mother is a member and two of her sons are not baptized yet. The problem we run into here is that they are both mostly deaf. Mom, I wish I had paid better attention when you were working with Erin. It would have been very helpful here. Anyway, we contacted the missionaries nearby that do know ASL, and we have a lesson set for this Friday. Wish us blessings.

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Ok, I'm sure many of you have this question on your mind: When are we getting iPads? Well, I am sorrowed to say that it would appear that we will not be getting them for a long while, perhaps not even until next year. As I understand it, in many of the missions that do have them, they were not working out so well. Missionaries were not using the iPads in the manner that HQ had hoped for. However, I have not, as of yet, heard anyone who actually has direct access to such information say anything about it, so I don't know how acurate that information may be. But, that is what I have heard.

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Question for those in Illinois: Does anyone know an Elder Clingo? He is a missionary serving in Spanish, and he is related to one of the families in one of my wards. Just curious.

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That's it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I'll check back next time.

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-

 

4/5/14 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

Happy General Conference Weekend! I won't have much time to write later, so I'm writing a little early today. This week has been good. A lot of people have said that they will come to conference to hear the Prophet and Apostles speak. Thadeo is still set for his baptism next Friday, so I'll report on that next week. The Ramirez Family said they would come to conference as well. I hope they find the answers they need to settle their doubts about baptism. 

That's all for now. I'll see if I can find time to do a conference update Monday. Take Care!

-Elder D Hill

3/31/14 - Jordon

Well, this week brought a little bit of heart break, but over all was good.

 

Interesting "coincidence": On Tuesday, the crux of my training at district meeting was that people need to know who they are. As a person with amnesia struggles from not knowing who they are, so too does every person we talk to have difficulty in life because they don't know who they really are as sons and daughters of their Heavenly Father. Great minds think alike...or the spirit whispers the same message to different people at times. Good to know we're on the same page here, Mom.  (For those not clued in, Mom sent some words of wisdom with somewhat the same message.)

 

Do you remember that Stake meeting we had last week? Well, our fears were confirmed on Wednesday. We are no longer covering Freestone Park Ward. Instead, we have been assigned over Mesquite Ward. It was momentarily difficult to accept the change, but I know there's a purpose for every decision affecting this work. By the way, our wards' boundaries still don't touch. This is truely an interesting phenomenon, to me at least. It just builds my testimony stronger of this work.

 

Saturday, the 29th. Margaret got baptized! WOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOO! (Picture below.) She was a bit...no, very apprehensive and very worried about her trials, but she had the faith to go through with it. Statistically, we were not able to report it because of the reallocation of ward assignments (the other missionaries got the stat, and numbers don't really matter anyway), but I'm still counting it personally. I'm convinced that, at the least, I was in Freestone Park Ward to get her to baptism. As soon as she was cemented into getting baptized, I was out. The same thing happened with Brother Aug being released as Branch President. As soon as it was certain that DJ and I were going on missions, he was done. Even if these aren't the reasons for why, they sound good to me. One thing I've learned over the course of my mission is that, apparently, if I don't know why something is the way it is, I'll make up a few supporting reasons to ease my not knowing. Is that bad?

 

Me, Bro. Hanchet (in white), Margaret (also in white), Elder Jewkes

 

 

That's all for this week. Until next time.

 

Con amor,

 

-Elder Jordon Hill-

3/29/14 - DJ
Hola Everyone!

So I've now hit the 18 month mark.  All I ask is don't remind me how little time I have left.  It's a major distraction when I think about the time.

 

So anyway we had a good week. The down side is a lot of people seem to be going out of town for "Semana Santa" (holy week) which is the week before Easter, but they are preparing for it now so they don't want to meet until after then.  The up side is that one of our investigators is getting Baptized on the 11th! We went to teach him, and we were planning on inviting him to be baptized that night., [but] before we started we asked if he had any questions for us, and he asked "When can I be baptized?"  It doesn't get much more perfect than that!  So he is set for April 11th. Look for pictures in my e-mail following the baptism.

 

I'm out of time. 

 

Nos Vemos!

-Elder D. Hill

3/24/14 - Jordon

Ok, so this week has been fairly interesting. A few things that happened include Transfers, Interviews, and a secret stake meeting.

 

Transfers were this past Wednesday. As I reported last week, Elder Jewkes is still my companion, and we're still here in the same area. I got the opportunity to sing "I'll go where you want me to go" again. Everyone loved it. Several people wanted to know why I had been hiding my talents.  I didn't think I was hiding them. Maybe I just never had the opportunity to display them properly. hehe.

 

Thursday we had our Mission President Interviews that we have every other transfer. In my interview I got confirmation of my thoughts. Every transfer President Nattress asks me if I'm doing alright where I am, and if I miss Spanish. My answer is, and always has been, that I'm fine where I am, but will happily go where the Lord needs me. In the interview, I spoke my mind. I wanted to know if the reason he keeps asking me that question each transfer is because the impressions he is receiving for me are that I should stay where I am, and he's worried that I might be getting anxious to go back to Spanish. In essence, he said "yes." That made me feel better. I truely do want to go where the Lord wants me, I want to say what He wants me to say (in what ever language), and I want to be what He wants me to be.

 

This Sunday, the stake had a special meeting, and everyone was invited. However, every leader who did know what was going on, was sworn to secrecy about what was happening. It was an interesting surprize. They rearranged the ward boundaries in the stake. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but they also desolved one of the wards, resulting in an imbalance of missionary assignments. We now have a companionship with only one ward and a companionship with three. This wouldn't be so bad, but the easiest fix would be to take the ward that happens to have the same time as their existing ward. This means that there would be three companionships that have wards that meet at the same time (myself included). As such, the mission leadership is counseling together to see what should be done. I may end up losing one of the wards.  I hope that's not the case, but if the Lord wills it, I will give it up. I'll give you the update when I receive it.

 

Margaret is having trouble. Satan is really working hard on her. Her baptism is set for this Saturday, and the closer we get, the more problems she is having. Preparation-wise she is doing just fine, but life is getting hard for her. We just need to have one more lesson with her before her interview. I hope she can make it through. I ask that you keep her in your prayers throughout this next week.

 

That's all for now. Until next time.

Con amor,

-Elder Jordon Hill-

3/22/14 - DJ

Hola Everyone!

So, as you know there were transfers this last week, And I´m still here as secretary.  I´m still in Politecnico and Elder Smith is still my companion.  So it´s another 6 weeks until I might leave. I guess this means I´m doing something right that I´m still here. [Pres. Hall says I´m gone at the end of this transfer.]

 

So Sunday was great! The Ramirez Family came to church. They originally were going to only stay for the first hour (sacrament meeting), but after they said "that seemed to pass fast, we can stay for the next hour", so they stayed for the Gospel Principles class.  Then they decided to stay for 3rd hour as well. It was awesome. They loved it. The Bishop teaches Gospel Principles and made a good impression on them.  Overall great!

 

We also are teaching an older couple. The husband just retired and is trying to adjust to being around the house all day.  It´s great with them.  As we teach everything makes sense to Elvira (the Wife) and as Ramon(the husband) expresses his opinion of how he thinks things are supposed to be, we find out his opinion is what we teach.  They are so ready to hear this.  They are just a little hesitant to change from the religion they have had their whole lives, but the spirit is working through their hearts and they agreed to come to church this week. We´ll see what happens tomorrow. 

That´s about all for now.

 

Hasta Luego!

-Elder D Hill

3/15/14-DJ

Hola Everyone!

So this week has been crazy as usual for the week before transfers.  President has been helping us to be extra prepared by sending anyone that has to wait at his house for anything (like a missionary with a doctors appointment in 3 hours) to come help us here at the offices to prepare for changes.  As a side note, this will compete my 3rd transfer as secretary.  Elder Smith is currently my longest running companion and if I stay this will be the area in which I have spent the most time.  It doesn´t feel like it, but a lot of time has flown the last few months.

 

Ok, on to the good stuff. We had a lesson with the Ramirez Family. this is the family that has told us they would come to church, but hasn´t the last few weeks.  When we sopped by for our lesson this week we asked if they had any questions, and they said yes! They then proceeded to summarize the Introduction, Testimony of Joseph Smith, and the first 5-6 chapters of 1 Nephi.  It was Fantastic! We spent nearly the whole lesson answering their questions. The funniest part was they told us that when they were talking to their son, who is about to get baptized, and he asked them "Why didn´t you go to church?!?"  He told them how much they need to go. Great lesson.

That´s all for this week. 

 

Nos vemos!

-Elder D Hill