Elder Tyler Hill: One Month!!!

Hello everyone!

Here's what happened this week!

Monday:

Today we did P-day things and it was a swell time, but the best part of the day occurred at night. So we had dinner with the McDonald Family (Brother McDonald's name is Ronald McDonald haha) and that went great. We then had an appointment with our investigator Carissa! We have met with her twice now and she is super awesome and LOVES the Book of Mormon. We had taught her the Restoration last time, and tonight we talked about the Plan of Salvation. The lesson was going well and as I was talking I felt impressed to ask her to be baptized again and to set a specific date. So I was talking about our earthly life and the gospel and I related it to baptism and I asked her if she would still like to be baptized and she said yes. I then asked her if we could set the goal for her baptism to take place on August 22nd and she said that sounds great! Booooooommm! So exciting!! We finished the lesson and we had a member there, Dennis McDonald (Ronald's brother), and he bore such a strong testimony of the Plan of Happiness! It was an awesome lesson and now we have a baptism set for August 22nd. After that we went and saw a Sister in the hospital who's leg had been amputated and she showed it to us and it was really crazy. She is awesome and her attitude is so happy and makes me realize that if she is so happy with her circumstances then I really need to change my attitude and be more grateful because I am so blessed to be completely healthy. Never take that for granted!

Tuesday:

The bike troubles continue. We were going to meet up with an investigator, Fernando, to play basketball and he never showed up, which stinks cause I was so pumped to actually play! When we were riding back to the church which was about two miles away, Elder Parker's bike pedal fell off completely! Like the bolt holding the rod and the pedal came loose and fell off so the bike literally only had one pedal hahaha. Elder Parker had to ride it as a scooter for the next mile. In about a week span we have had four flat tires and an entire pedal fall off, what the heck!? But we fixed my previous bike and so we have two working bikes that hopefully will be good for at least a couple of days. We had a lesson with the Chiniquy Family, and it went well. Brother Chiniquy loves his new calling and Sister Chiniquy is warming up to us. They are a great family!

Wednesday:

Today we met with Brother Fergason and he is still doing well and he asked us to give him a healing blessing which was very cool. In the past month, I have had the opportunity to be a part of nine blessings, and was able to actually give six of the blessings. It's such an awesome experience to be able to do that and be a part of that. Later in the evening, we had dinner with the Francis Family and Sister Gillette. Sister Gillette brought us the famous Voodoo donuts. They have a donut with bacon on top of it haha it was so good. We then had an appointment with our new investigator, Gilbert! He is the friendliest guy ever and he bought us burritos. He owns this really cool record store. He is in his 50's and he is really good at basketball so we are gonna play with him. We had a solid lesson about the restoration with him, and we both bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and after we had finished he said "because of what you both said right there, I'm going to put my heart and soul into this." That is like the one thing we love to hear from anyone!! So hopefully we will meet him again soon.

Thursday:

This morning we were planning and we received a text from Fernando. He said that he hasn't had a meal in days. So we went to the park and brought him lunch and we met with him and then Larry showed up! Larry was guy we met last week that was super smart and was converted to Christianity in prison. We taught both of them as we ate and it was pretty good. Fernando said that he is coming to church. We then met with Gayle the recent convert and she is doing well. She has some health problems, but she is always in good spirits. After that we went to help clean the house of a less active member because they were having apartment checks. We helped them clean for a couple hours and then she gave us ice cream. We had dinner tonight with the Bishop Family. Brother Bishop is one of the coolest people ever. He is like 60+ years old and he is hilarious. Brother and Sister Bishop are both converts and they shared their conversion stories with us and also their marriage story. They said that we were the first missionaries they had ever told those stories to. We felt honored haha. They were some pretty awesome stories and they both got really emotional and teared up when they talked. Pretty cool.

Friday:

Today we helped Brother McDonald move some stuff from the church in the morning and then we went home to have lunch. While we were eating, someone from our apartment complex came and knocked on our door and asked if we could help them move some stuff out of their apartment, so we helped them for an hour. It was good to have some service opportunities because we hadn't had many of those so that was nice. We met with Brother Fergason again, and we had a good lesson with him and he said the closing prayer which he never does! So that was exciting. In the afternoon and evening we contacted potential investigators. We met an older man from Vietnam that spoke almost no English, but he loved showing us pictures and videos of his kids so it was fun to look at those. We left him a temple card and he really liked that. We also knocked on another guys door and he opened the door and said "oh hey it's the monks!!" He smelled strongly of weed and also had a joint in his hand haha. He came outside and talked to us for a little bit and he told us about how we were monks and how he was also a monk himself and that together we could save his son who was doing "the things of the devil", which he said was "drugs" hahaha. It was an interesting visit and he told us to come back. There are definitely a lot of characters in Portland.

Saturday:

One month today! Today we went on Facebook and we used it to proselyte and to add all the members as friends. If you have anyone that you know that is interested in the church, you could send them to us on Facebook and we can find the missionaries in their area. Also, if you see anything you like that I post, don't be afraid to like it and share it with everyone else! We had a lesson with Rowan and we played Monopoly again and taught her a lesson. I am terrible at Monopoly. I just make all these deals with Rowan so that she will win and Elder Parker will lose. And it works haha.

We met a guy in the park and we talked to him about religion and we asked if we could share a message with him right there and he said yes! So we sat down on the bench win him and shared a message and it was going pretty good until a homeless man came and started cussing at us and telling some crazy story. I asked he and I could go talk somewhere else so that Elder Parker could finish the lesson, but the moment was already ruined and the guy said he had to go. So frustrating!!

Sunday:

Today we had zero investigators at church, boooooo! But, the whole Chiniquy Family was there! It was Fast Sunday and I bore my testimony! So that was good. We had dinner with the Key Family and they have a son that is getting baptized soon. We met with Carissa again tonight! We had a good lesson with her and she is still progressing and things are going good with her.

Love,

Elder Hill

Tyler's Highlights and Hints this Week!

*It was 95 degrees or hotter all week! What the heck Oregon!?

*WE ARE STARTING OUR CAR SHARE WITH THE OTHER DISTRICT. WE GET A CAR EVERY OTHER WEEK AND WE GET IT THIS WEEK!!!

*Thank you for all the packages, letters, and emails I really really appreciate them!!