Monday, September 21, 2015

Homeless guys & Hard hats!!

Hi everyone!

Here's what happened this week in Portland ...

Monday:
Monday we went to downtown Portland with Gilbert to the famous Voodoo Donuts and some other stores. Gilbert said that he feels like he's known us forever, and it really does! Monday evening to Tuesday evening, I went on an exchange with Elder Roundy to the Milwaukie area. In Milwaukie's apartment they have English speaking Elders and Spanish speaking Elders living together and it was so fun going over there and staying the night in their apartment. They're hilarious!

Tuesday:
So Tuesday Elder Roundy and I did missionary work in his area and it was cool meeting the different members and investigators that they have in Milwaukie, but I still love my area in Moreland. 

When you don't have a bike helmet ...

Elder Roundy and Tyler...

Wednesday:
Wednesday I was back in my area and we had a few lessons during the day. Later when we were at the park planning a lesson, a homeless man comes up to us and asks what we're doing and so we talked to him and told him who we were and he seemed like a nice guy.  He even told me I was pretty! Haha. After we talked for a little bit he asked if he could have some cash and we told him we couldn't give him any (I didn't have cash on me and Elder Parker forgot his wallet), but I did give him a granola bar that I had in my bag. We grabbed our bikes and we started walking away, but he still wanted money and we kept telling him we didn't have any and he got really angry. He walked up to us and yelled, "you guys better call the cops because I'm about to beat the *beep* out of you if I don't get some money," then he grabbed my bike and threw it aside. He got closer and said "nothing huh?" and he was starting to clench his fist. I was like, "ohhhh crap were about to throw down with a homeless guy," but then Elder Parker said, "wait I might have something in my bag" and he pulled out a couple of crumpled dollars and gave it to him. He said, "it's about time," and he took off. Haha it was quite the experience.

We played basketball with Gilbert in the evening and had a lesson. He's coming, slowly but surely, along.

Thursday:
Thursday we had Zone Conference! Our Zone and two other Zones met together and had training practice and did a lot of other stuff.  President Ballard did some training and gave us instruction. We were at the conference from 8:00a to 5:00p.  It was an awesome meeting!  It was super long, but I learned a lot and I love seeing the other missionaries and getting to know them.  After Zone Conference, we went to dinner with Brian Da Hawaiian again at the same Chinese place he took us to last time.  He took 12 missionaries this time! Crazy.

Thursday to Friday night, I went on another exchange! This time I went with Elder Johansen to his area.  He is in the Young Single Adult Ward and their area covers the entire Stake.

Friday:
Friday I was with Elder Johansen and we had four lessons. It was so weird teaching people the same age as me because they're at the same stage of life that I'm in, and it's really easy to relate to them. They were all good lessons and then we went and played basketball in the evening with some guys from the ward. I love the YSA ward!

Saturday:
Saturday I was back in Moreland again and we went to the Care Center and played Sorry with Sister Pierce, Brother Roberts, and Rowan. Sister Pierce whooped all of us haha and then we had a good lesson with them. We had dinner with the LaPlants and then a lesson with Carissa finally! She set a goal to be baptized on November 14!  So hopefully we can keep that commitment and she can be baptized!!

Sunday:
Sunday we had Stake Conference and President and Sister Ballard spoke. There were some great talks given, I learned a lot! After conference we met our investigator Jonas at the church building and we gave him a tour and had an awesome visit with him. He wants to come to church! We had dinner with the Keys and then we had a lesson with some recent converts. It was a pretty crazy, but solid week!

Have a great week!

Elder Hill


Tyler's Hints and Highlights this week!

* We gave two more blessings this week! I think I am close to 20 blessings since being in this area, and they have been great experiences and have really built my faith.

* "Sacrifice is being willing to do the Lord's will. Consecration is wanting to do the Lord's will. Immense growth and immense change can only come from consecration."

* SMILE.
Spiritually- 
minded 
i
life 
eternal. SMILE.  Read 2 Nephi 9:39

* Read the scriptures!! The things you can find in there, especially the Book of Mormon, are awesome!!!

* Go like and share my posts on Facebook :)

Monday, September 14, 2015

Another week gone!

Hello everyone!

Another week gone! I can't believe how fast the weeks are going by!

Monday:
On Monday we went to downtown Portland for Pday with some other missionaries and it was an experience. They have a bunch of nice stores and places to eat and it's a really neat place. As we were walking some guy yells out, "the Book of Mormon is a lie!!" We didn't see who said it but we just waved and kept walking haha. So many people were staring at us and giving us weird looks it was funny.

Tuesday:
Tuesday we went to the temple with our district! It was an awesome experience and the temple here is so beautiful. The whole thing is basically made out of marble. After the temple, we had a lesson with Annette. When we got to her apartment her clothes were torn and stuff. We asked her what happened and she said she was just at a house down the street (she pointed to a house with two fire trucks and an ambulance in front of it), that had caught on fire and that she tried to save the older guy that lived there but she couldn't because it was too hot. By the time the fire department got there, the man had burned to death and a lot of the house was destroyed. It was so sad and terrible and she was shaken up a bit, but she said the lesson/study helped her.

Tyler at the Portland Oregon Temple


Tyler with his District at the Temple

In the evening, we went and played basketball with Gilbert at the Stake Center and afterwards we went to the Family History Center there. One of the consultants there is a convert (someone who became a member of the LDS Church) from our Ward and he shared his conversion story with us. Gilbert said it really made him think. Gilbert said, "the Catholics are still a little bit ahead but the Mormons are catching up! It's a close race!" Haha. We got a ride home with some other missionaries and there is one song that we listened to over and over and we all jammed out in the car to it haha.

Wednesday:
Wednesday we did some proselyting on Facebook.  Usually every week we try to go on Facebook and share a short thought or add members and non-members in the area. If you ever see a post on Facebook from me feel free to like it, comment on it, and share it with others! After Facebook, we contacted in the park for a while and met some interesting people and then we had a lesson with Rowan. We made up this gospel Pictionary game where you pick a card and you have to draw whatever it says on the card and your teammate has to guess it. If they get it right there is a bonus question on the back that has to do with whatever they drew, and there are scripture references to go with it. It was pretty fun! She really liked it and Brother Roberts wanted to keep the game, but we told him we were going to use it with other people too! Gilbert then picked us up and he took us to dinner at some Southern restaurant that was super good. After dinner, we went and studied with him at his house. He asked the question about what makes our religion different if we believe in Christ? Elder Parker mentioned something and then I said, "the Priesthood," and I wish I could tell you what I said exactly but I have no idea, the Spirit kind of took over and just did Its thing and when I finished Gilbert said, "that's what I was waiting to hear. That made a lot of sense. Now why did it take you guys so long to tell me that!" Haha it was a really cool experience to just let the Spirit testify! We are breaking ground with him!

Thursday:
Thursday was uneventful. We just did weekly planning for most of the day (our coming week is gonna be solid). We met with the Daniels Family who have the parakeets and it was good.

Friday:
Friday we did a lot of different finding activities trying to find new investigators and we also stopped by to visit a couple of less active members.  We got a few to commit to come to church so that was good. Nothing else too exciting happened except that we did meet some pretty cool people ... like a shirtless guy doing yoga on a baseball field!  He was super nice, but not interested. 

Saturday:
Saturday we were super busy. We helped the Chiniquy Family move out of their house. We were over there for three hours in the morning helping them move all their furniture into the moving truck. They're moving to Camas, Washington, and it was sad saying goodbye to them. We did some more finding on Saturday and we met this guy named Rick who was way cool. He just moved to Portland and said that he used to have missionaries as neighbors and they would hangout. So we talked to him for awhile. We talked about prayer and we taught him how to pray. We got his number and he wants to start meeting with us! We then went over to the Care Center. There are three Sisters from our Ward that just got out of the hospital so we went to go see all three. They were all so excited to see us! When we went to see Sister Scott we had to put on masks, scrubs, and gloves because her room was sanitized. We looked like doctors haha. It was great to meet with all of them.

Tyler and Elder Parker visiting Sister Scott at the Care Center


We went to Papa John's for dinner. When we walked in this guy at the register goes,"hey what's up guys how's the mission!?" We talked to him for a little bit and he ended up buying us a large pizza and he wasn't even a member of our Church! Such a cool guy. 

Sunday:
On Sunday our investigators, Rowan and David LaPlant came to church so that was exciting. Annette and Gilbert couldn't make it so that was a bummer. Sunday nothing too exciting happened. So overall it was a pretty good week, and hopefully next week will be even better!

Have a great week!

Elder Hill


Tyler's highlights this week!

*Thank you so much to everyone who sent packages, letters, and emails!! I really, really appreciate all of them! All of the love and support is awesome! It makes the days and weeks so much better when I hear from you all. So keep it coming!

*It was over 90 degrees here but they are saying that the rain is supposed to start coming.

*It's so cool to build such close relationships with the investigators and the members here in this area. I have met so many awesome people and become such good friends with them!

Monday, September 7, 2015

BIKES ARE MY NEMESIS

Hi everyone!

So here's the story that goes with the title ....

I had a very good working bike that we got a week and a half ago. On Wednesday we get a text from the Zone Leaders saying that the missionary needs his bike back (the one I had), but they were going to drop off another one. So Thursday they came and they took our bike, but they didn't have the other one so we were on foot for Thursday and Friday. On Saturday they bring a bike to us and within the first 10 minutes of riding it the chain falls off three times. On Sunday the chain completely snapped in half. I'M DONE WITH BIKES! There are five bikes in our apartment and only one of them works!! I'm going to get some rollerblades or something instead.

So despite more and more bike problems, we had another solid week and had a lot of lessons! A big part of this week was service!! Our ward is doing a community service project this coming weekend so throughout the entire week we were passing out flyers.  We went downtown and put them up in all of the store windows. It was a great way to meet people. 

Nothing else really too exciting happened this week, but there are a couple of things that were super fun. We had Family Home Evening (FHE) with the Tupou Family (super cool Tongan family) and they have a two-year-old named Zedekiah that loves taking pictures with me haha. Later in the week we watched 17 Miracles with a less active member, Brother Fergason, and he liked it! It's a super good movie, everyone should go watch it! 

Tyler with his friend Zedekiah!

On Saturday, we passed out more flyers then we went over to Brother McDonald's and helped him take out his washer and dryer and put in new ones. When we were finished, he went with us over to Gayle's house and we cleaned up her entire front yard and it took us like three hours! She was super happy and grateful so that was good! Saturday evening we went over to Annette's house and we had a super good lesson with her. She came to church last week and so we invited her again this week and she promised to come. We thought it would be great for her to come to testimony meeting and so we were super excited for her to come.

So on Sunday we were sitting in Church and we get 10 minutes into the meeting and she still isn't there! After 20 minutes, just before people were going to bear their testimonies, Annette walks in and she has her dog on a leash with her! It was kinda funny, but it was so awesome to see her there! She cried during testimony meeting (which is a good sign!) and she stayed for all three hours! It was so awesome! She's really progressing!  I almost cried during testimony meeting too. Brother McDonald (the guy we did service with and who always goes on splits with us) got up and said, "I would like to bear testimony of our missionaries. If you haven't gone out with these guys then you are missing out. They don't come any better than these two right here. They are special young men." Brother McDonald is the man! So grateful for him and all that he does! And his wife is like our mother! Sister McDonald will feed us any time, any day and it doesn't matter how many times she has fed us that week. There are so many awesome people in this ward!! I love everyone in it and I love this area!

Have a good week!

Elder Hill


Tyler's highlights this week!

* On Friday, we didn't have a bike and we had to walk to our appointment which was about two miles away and it started pouring on us.. Yay
  

* We saw some really sweet houseboats down by the river!