THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!

Hi everyone!

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!  Best week since being out here ...

We had four investigators show up to church and we taught 18 lessons this week!! When you teach 20 lessons in a week that is the standard of excellence for missionaries and we were so close!! 

This week I want to start out with a funny, but terrible story! 

So on Tuesday we played basketball with Gilbert as usual. A while back I asked him to read Chapter 32 of Alma in the Book of Mormon (good chapter on faith), and on Tuesday I reminded him to do that. So later that night when we got home we got a text from Gilbert saying, "Hey Hill I read Alma Chapter 32 and I liked it. I really hope you wanted me to read that one and not Alma 1:32 because that verse just messed up my whole world for about 5 minutes! I'm going crazy man!" Elder Parker and I read the text message and looked up Alma 1:32 really fast. And this is what it says: 

"For those who did not belong to their church did indulge themselves in sorceries, and in idolatry or idleness, and in babblings, and in envyings and strife; wearing costly apparel; being lifted up in the pride of their own eyes; persecuting, lying, thieving, robbing, committing whoredoms, and murdering, and all manner of wickedness; nevertheless, the law was put in force upon all those who did transgress it, inasmuch as it was possible." 

We were like oh crap!! And just started dying laughing hahaha that is like the worse possible verse for a non-member to read!! So we called him and he said, "guys I know I haven't been going to church but dang man!! You guys are hitting me hard! I knelt down and prayed right there when I read that!" He was laughing about the whole thing and we explained that it was Chapter 32 not Verse 32 and he thought that it was pretty funny haha we all got a good laugh out of it.

Monday:

So Monday we went to the transfer meeting and we said goodbye to all of the departing missionaries
:( but I was also able to see Sister Downing again, and Elders Mortensen and Maloney from the MTC!! I love seeing all of the other missionaries! We got 28 new missionaries this transfer, I'm not the newest anymore!.. 75% of the missionaries in our mission have been out less than a year now. We had dinner at the Schuman-Curtis' and then had a lesson with David LaPlant. Both went well and David is getting super close to baptism. We are either gonna have him commit or we are gonna have to stop teaching him because he has been taking the lessons for 15 years. So hopefully we can finally commit him.

Tuesday:

Tuesday we had a busy day. We still hadn't fixed our bike and the bike shop was closed and we couldn't fix it ourselves, so we ended up walking two miles to our first appointment. Thankfully we had an amazing member drive us to our next couple appointments and attend them with us. We had a lesson with our investigator, Annette; a lesson with a recent convert Gayle, and then another lesson with our new investigator Pat. They were all back-to-back so it was a busy afternoon! All the lessons went really well! We then played basketball with Gilbert and Matt which is always a good time. We then had another lesson that evening with a recent convert family that was baptized not too long ago! It was a super solid day. And then it ended with Gilbert sending us that text and reading that scripture mentioned above!

Wednesday:

Elder Parker went to a meeting in the morning so I got to hang with Elder Peterson for a few hours. Elder Peterson came out the same time as me, and he loves sports. We got along really well, and we ate at a really good place for lunch called Killer Burger. Wednesday was a little slow, we only had one lesson but the Zone Leader's dropped off a new bike so we were able to actually bike!

Thursday:

Thursday was super solid! We had a lesson with our new investigator Jeannine! It went well and she wanted to watch the restoration movie so we might watch that with her soon. We then had a lesson with Annette and we took Brother and Sister Bishop with us. They are both converts and Annette loved them.  She related so well to them and Annette is starting to really progress! She wants to get baptized within the next few months. We then had dinner at the McDonalds house and Gilbert came with us! It went great! Gilbert said he really enjoyed himself and he thinks the McDonalds are super cool and he even came to Book of Mormon class with us! He is slowly coming around! He said that he's gonna take us to a court side Trail Blazers game! I almost cried tears of joy. 

Friday:

Friday we had another solid day. We met with a guy in Hospice Care.  He is 55 years old and only has a few weeks left to live. He has a Neural Virus which is causing some problems and he got it from a food handler when he ate at a restaurant. Meeting with this guy changed my entire perspective on life. He was talking about how he could be angry at whoever did this but what would that do.  He said that he was so blessed and he is so grateful for his life and everything in it. He said a lot of other things and I was just astonished. This guys attitude is so incredible. He only has a little bit of time left to live and he just feels so blessed. It makes me realize that I should never take anything for granted and always be grateful for everything Heavenly Father has given me.

We then had a lesson with James Fergason and it went well. After the lesson with James, we played a board game and had a lesson with Sandy Pierce (the lady with the amputated leg). Which was super fun! Later in the evening we had another lesson and just contacted after.

Saturday:

On Saturday it was a designated mission wide finding day. In the morning we went to this awesome park a couple blocks down (there's a pic of it below). We went on a blitz with some missionaries in a area next to ours. A blitz is like a split and two missionaries from one area go to another area and they find potential investigators with the missionaries there. I went with Elder Roundy and Elder Parker went with Elder Ellis (he has only been out a week). We found two potential investigators in their area. And then we did another blitz with Elder Johansen and Elder Beamer in our area. We found two more potentials so it was good. I love working with other missionaries. In the evening we had dinner with the Francis Family and our investigator Carissa came with us! She loved it and she and Sister Francis became best friends! We taught a lesson on tithing and she said she was totally going to pay tithing. She said it's really starting to feel like home since she has moved. She said she wants to set a goal for baptism within two months! Super exciting.

Sunday:

We had four investigators show up to church Sunday!! Gilbert, Annette, Rowan, and David LaPlant all came. Elder Parker and I were speaking in sacrament too so it was perfect! Everyone said they enjoyed our talks and Gilbert said that he could really relate to what I was saying so that was great to hear! 

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Highlights and Hints (random info) this Week!

* Super solid week!

*Our mission president said that he was reading up on Portland and he said Portland is top 10 in the USA in: best places to eat, best night life, most attractive people, best music places, best recreation, AND it is the #1 "Godless" city in America. Hooray.