Christmas means Skyping with the family!!!

Hello! 

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, cause we did!

It was great to Skype home and talk to the family and it's crazy that I'm gonna be home with them in 6 months!

Thank you to everyone who sent cards or packages. I really appreciate everything that was sent! On Christmas, we opened our gifts in the morning and then had breakfast at the Long family's house. We had church in the early afternoon and our investigator, Tuesday came! She loved it and is going to get baptized in a couple weeks. Then we went back to the Long's house and had dinner with them! They're an awesome family.

Christmas Eve we were with the Nielsens. We ate dinner with them, had a white elephant exchange, and played games!  Nothing else too exciting happened this week...

Christmas Eve with the Nielsen family

I am grateful to be serving at this time. I was definitely wishing I could be home with family and friends, but I know that this where I am supposed to be and this is where the Lord needs me to be at this time. I am thankful for the birth of our Savior and how God gave us the gift of His Son so that we could return back to Him. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is a real living, glorified being. I hope you all continue to think about Christ even after this Christmas season!

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Love and miss you all!!

Elder Hill

Ran into a friend from BYUi ...

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! Dang I can't believe Christmas is almost here!...

So when I came to Portland I was told that it never snows here, only rains a lot. Whoever told me that, I think they lied. This whole week it has been freezing! And it snowed Wednesday, Thursday, and then Saturday! It's so weird because there will be a lot of snow, but then it will just melt a little and then freeze over and everything is ice. We couldn't drive Wednesday or Thursday and it was a good thing because when we drove on Friday, we saw two different cars next to our apartment complex that had rolled and flipped off the road. It was nuts... so we were walking for a couple days just trying to talk to people so it wasn't too bad!

On Tuesday, I went on an exchange with Elder Fitzwater in our Zone. He has only been out a little over a month and it was good to talk and work with him. I was in his area and we had a couple of really good lessons! He has the "greenie fire" and wants to work hard; he is learning and getting the hang of it. A cool story - We went and knocked on someone's door and a lady answered. I started talking to her and teaching her a little bit and after about 5 minutes she let us in and we had an awesome lesson with her. She opened up to us and bore her testimony to us about how Jesus Christ has helped her in her life. It was sweet. We set-up a return appointment with her and her family and she was super excited. After the lesson, we walked out and Elder Fitzwater was like, "how did you do that!? That was so cool I've never had that happen before!" haha I told him that it will come with time, but it definitely wasn't me that did that, it's the Spirit. I told him that you have to understand that we really can't do anything if we don't have the Spirit leading and guiding us.

On Friday, we had our mission Christmas party! The whole mission got together and we had a big lunch and hung out. There were some musical numbers, a hilarious skit, and then President and Sister Ballard bore their testimonies and talked to us for a bit. It was fun to see everyone and it was really cool to be able to think back to a year ago last Christmas party and where I was and how things have changed.

Saturday, we went and visited a non-member family because we heard they had a daughter that just had a heart surgery. The family has some pretty close Mormon friends and so they let us right in and we shared a message with them and we gave their daughter a blessing that she might recover. The family loved it and they are open to learning more!

On Sunday, we had dinner at the Nys family. They have a daughter who is 17 years old and she had her wisdom teeth taken out the day before. So we went over there for dinner and she was perfectly fine and acting normal, usually she is a very smart person. Then 15 minutes later she took her meds and let me tell ya I haven't seen anyone get so high from taking pain killers! We were at dinner and she was talking about the most ridiculous things. She was talking about people being constipated, she was talking about the Illuminati conspiracy theories and then about Tom Brady winning a super bowl, and so many other weird things. It was the funniest dinner ever. That family is really cool and we are close with them so it wasn't  too weird or anything haha.

With Christmas coming up, don't forget the reason of why we celebrate Christmas! Think of one thing that you can do this Christmas to come closer to Christ... I am so grateful for my Savior and if there is one thing that I have learned the past 18 months, it's that Jesus Christ is real. Sometimes we think of Christ and the atonement as some abstract thing that is out in the world somewhere, but Christ and His atonement are as real as you and me. Jesus Christ is there for us and His power is a very real thing. It can help us in our lives and carry us through the trials we face. I am thankful to bear His name on my chest!

Love you all, have a good Christmas!!

Elder Hill

Let it Snow ...

Hi everyone!

So this past week was pretty interesting. So many things happened!

Thursday there was a crazy snow storm and it snowed the entire day. The snow would freeze over on the roads so it was a blanket of ice and snow everywhere. And since Oregon doesn't do anything for their roads when it snows, the missionaries aren't allowed to drive the cars so everyone had to walk. Well, we live a little ways out of our actual area that we cover so we ended up just walking to the church and playing basketball with a member and our investigator. So that was pretty fun. 

Friday we had our monthly missionary leadership meeting with the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders and it was intense. Our mission's performance has gone down a little bit and our numbers have not been so hot the past couple months so President Ballard and President Newsom dropped the hammer down on us!  They told us that we need to step it up big time. They chastened us hardcore, but you could tell it was all out of love. It was a spiritual chastening haha.

Saturday evening we stopped by to see a part member family who recently had their grandmother pass away. The father is less-active and he has a 12-year-old son who is a non-member. The son was really struggling with his grandmother's passing so we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it. We then asked him to say a prayer right then to ask God if it was true and he said one of the most sincere prayers I have ever heard in my life. He told Heavenly Father that he was struggling with his grandma's passing and he really wanted to know if what we said was true and if she is alright. He told us he felt God was there listening and that he was happier after he prayed. The Spirit was super strong. The father said that we could start teaching him consistently!

On Sunday, I was able to go to a baptism back in the Moreland Ward (my first area)! A man named David was baptized after he had taken the lessons for like 20 years! I was able to teach him my whole six months I was there and I got to know him pretty well. It was incredible too see how he had changed over the past year. He was literally an entirely different person when I talked to him on Sunday. It was amazing to see how happy and at peace he was at his baptism, it was something that I had never seen in him a year ago. It's crazy how the gospel can totally change who we are and make us into someone so much better! 

 

Sunday night we had a Crèche and Carol for our Stake and it was cool to go and talk to everyone there. We had multiple people from the Stake come up to Elder Miller and I and say how we did a great job at stake Conference last week teaching in front of everyone. One guy said he really, really felt the Spirit and that it helped him a lot. It was so cool!! That's what being a missionary is all about!

Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season! Such an awesome time of year. Go and #LightTheWorld!!  Love and miss you guys!!

Elder Hill

 Transfers ...

 Mission lineage (left to right): Elder Whitten, Elder Giles, Tyler, Elder Parker

Tyler's good friend from BYUi - Sis. Downing finished her mission and was going home!

17 months down ... what???

Hello everyone!

So this past week I hit my 17 month mark which is so weird!  Me and a sister missionary and that came into the mission field at the same time I did, were talking at a district meeting and she said, "we are the oldest missionaries in the room right now." And I was like dang she's right, but yet I still feel like a greenie haha.

So this past week was pretty rad. It was transfer week and Elder Miller and I are staying together here in the Farmington Ward! We are both pretty excited and we are pumped to have a couple baptisms this transfer.

 Another visit to the airplane in the forest!

So I wanna first start with a crazy experience we had at Stake Conference this past weekend.... On Saturday night it was the Adult Session of Stake Conference, so there were about 300+ members there along with the stake presidency, the mission presidency, and Elder Robert Call who is a member of the Seventy. And missionaries could only go if they brought an investigator with them so we took our investigator, Tuesday with us! We were sitting there in the conference with Tuesday in about the 7th row and the conference is going great. There were some awesome talks given, and then Elder Call, who is the last speaker, gets up to give his talk. He starts talking for a little bit and then he says, "they had no idea that I was going to do this, but Elder Hill and Elder Miller come up here and join me." .... The look on our faces must've been priceless because me and Elder Miller looked at each other and we were just like oh crap. We had no idea that this was happening. We were both freaking out! So we go up there to the pulpit and Elder Call pulls us aside and he tells us to teach the first missionary lesson in five minutes to the congregation. And let me tell ya for the first 10 seconds looking out into the congregation of hundreds of people with your mission presidency, stake presidency, and a Seventy sitting right behind you, it was freakin scary!! But we just went for it, and the fear soon left as we got into teaching. I can tell you that if it wasn't for the Spirit leading and guiding our thoughts and words, then we would have sucked haha. But we taught the Restoration to everyone and we killed it!  After the conference, we went and introduced Tuesday to Elder Call and President Ballard and Elder Call said we did great! President and Sister Ballard said that they were very proud of us haha. It was a pretty cool experience. 

Elders with Pres. & Sister Ballard and Tuesday

On Thursday, Gilbert (investigator from my first area) drove to our area and took us out to Buffalo Wild Wings. It was sweet. He says he is still meeting with the missionaries haha and that he is STILL thinking about getting baptized. 

Things have been goin' good in our area! We are teaching a few people and should be having a couple baptisms this upcoming transfer! 

If you didn't know, the Church is doing a Christmas Initiative this year on how we can be more Christlike! So on Mormon.org they have 25 ways over 25 days to be more Christlike and there is something you can do everyday! I invite you all to go check it out and do the challenge and post it on social media!!

Have a great week! Love and miss you guys!

Elder Hill

 District meeting ...

Walking through the flooded park ... check out the bench! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Hope everyone ate a lot and got super fat.

For Thanksgiving in the morning, we went out and played in a Turkey Bowl with our less-active friend, Zack and some other people from the Ward. It was just dumping rain on us and it started hailing at one point, but we kept playing haha it was so fun. It was more of a mud bowl. Everyone was running and diving around in the mud, it was awesome. Later, we had our first dinner with the Nielsen family.  They have four younger kids and they are hilarious. It was fun! Then we went over to dinner with a Spanish family that had invited us over that week. It was a really cool experience. This family is from Puerto Rico and had only been in the USA for less than a year, so this was their first Thanksgiving. They wanted us to come over and have their first one with them. They live in a very small house and there was 10 people total. They didn't have a lot of food overall, but they did have a lot of rice, a small turkey, and some other sides and they were all so happy and excited! They got all dressed up and we were taking pictures and everything, it was really cool. 

We didn't have a lot of lessons because people were out of town, but we did have a really cool lesson with a girl who had been inactive for 10 years. She grew up a member, but became a hardcore drug addict and she was homeless for a long time. And then one day she just decided to call her dad and ask for his help. He drove six hours to pick her up and she started changing her life around. She now has a strong testimony and is an active member. It was cool to talk to her and see how she has changed.

We have still been working with RyLeigh and Tuesday and both are working towards baptism in December so hopefully that will workout!

I hit my 17 month mark this week! I'm starting to be one of the older missionaries now, so weird.... 

Spiritual Thought:

In Elders Quorum, they were talking about why we go through hard times and we started talking about how God is the perfect Pharmacist. He knows the exact healing balm that we need to become better. He has our trials and struggles perfectly calculated to what we need to become better. He has His divine strength and help calculated as well. He knows us perfectly and so He puts us in situations that allow us to live to our full potential, all while honoring our agency. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Hill

Portland Temple

Ouch!

What's up everyone!! 

This past week was a good one! So we have been teaching our investigator, Tuesday, and she is a Rockstar. We taught her the Word of Wisdom last week and when we were teaching her she was like, "why didn't you tell me this earlier so I could be doing it! I need those blessings!" She is so awesome and is still working towards baptism next month. Then we have our investigator, Ryleigh. We found her by knocking on a less-active lady's house and the lady let us right in and her daughter Ryleigh was there. Ryleigh is 12 years old and she is super spunky haha. We started teaching both of them and now Ryleigh wants to get baptized. So we set her date for Dec. 24th. She was excited to get baptized on Christmas Eve!

We had a weird experience with an inactive lady in the Ward. We go knock on her door and she opens it and was very nice to us. We were just talking to her at the door and then all of a sudden she looks behind us down the street at her neighbors house and says, "hold on stop talking". Then she just stares at the house for a little bit (there was nothing wrong with the house, there were a couple lights on inside but that's it.) and then she says, "I knew it". We asked her if everything was alright and she said, "they have my kids in there. I don't want them in there. Can we get in your car and drive by slowly?" (Both of her kids are around 25 years old and they weren't even living in the same city.) it was really weird. We told her that we couldn't give people rides and so then she just starts taking off jogging towards this house and starts looking in the windows. It was so weird! We were just like let's get outta her!!!

Last Friday, we were able to go to the temple and do an endowment session. It was awesome! I love going to the temple. There is a peace that is felt in the temple that you cannot find anywhere else on earth. It really helped me get a spiritual boost and receive answers to questions that I have. 

Then on Sunday, we had a recent Convert Fireside at the Temple Visitors Center, and I conducted the meeting again, I have never had so many opportunities to speak in front of big groups of people than I have had in the past 6 months haha. There were four recent converts that spoke and then President Newsome, the 1st counselor in the mission presidency, spoke. He talked about how he had a daughter pass away in an accident when she was 5 years old. He talked about how it has been the greatest struggle of his life and still is, but he then bore his testimony about the temple and how families are eternal and how knowing this has helped him so much. It was so powerful, everyone was crying. I love the temple and how our relationships here on earth can last on into eternity. 

Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving!! Love and miss you guys!

Elder Hill

 He took the stitches out himself and then the nail fell off, but it looks a lot better!

 Cloudy Oregon day ...

Some of Tyler's Zone at Zone Conference!

"I think I need a Bandaid!"

Hi everyone!

So this week was pretty crazy and good! I had to get three stitches and I went to a baptism!

So on Tuesday we had a Zone Conference (3 zones get together and have a training all day) and it was pretty fun. Elder Miller and I had to give a training to everyone on how to extend bold commitments, and it went really well! Even though we didn't have much time to prepare President Ballard said we crushed it😃

Then on Wednesday I almost chopped my finger off haha. We were out chopping down some branches for a member and we needed to start a burn pile. So I start chopping the small pieces of wood into smaller pieces with a hatchet. Everything was going great, I was cruising along and then I wasn't paying attention and I came down on the wood with the hatchet, but my index finger was in the way. I cut the fingernail in half and it cut into my finger a little ways. It didn't hurt at first, I was just like "oh man that doesn't feel right", and then it started bleeding a lot and then I said, "uhhh I think I need a bandaid". Eventually that evening, I went and got stitches and so now everything is okay, besides my finger looking really gross.

On the bright side on Saturday I went to a baptism in the my last area, the YSA Ward! It was for a guy named Scott that I taught once and became friends with. He is so awesome and at his baptism he got up and bore his testimony. It was sweet. He is already so solid and will be such a great member of the church!... and then later that day we went to the Portland Temple Visitor Center with one of our investigators, her name is Tuesday Buffinger. She is the nicest lady ever and is killing it with the Book of Mormon. She's almost read the whole thing. So The Visitor Center sisters toured us around the temple and Tuesday loved it. She wants to be baptized on Christmas Eve! So we set her baptismal date for then. She was like, "I'm free next Saturday, let's do it then!"  But she has to come to church a few times so we had to push it back a little haha. She is doing great.

 Sister missionaries with Tuesday at the Portland Temple

 Selfie with the YSA missionaries!

Things have been crazy here in Portland. President Ballard banned us all from going downtown because of all the crazy protesters. It's pretty relaxed out in our area though, nothing too crazy going on. 

Hope you all have a good week! Being a missionary is awesome, I love being able to share the gospel!

Elder Hill

Oregon drivers are crazy!!!

Hi everyone!

The weeks are all just a blur...

This week we saw some pretty crazy things. We were driving down a busy road and we saw way up in the intersection in front of us some guy swerve into a stoplight pole. It was crazy. Apparently he was drunk. We parked and walked up to the accident and asked if anyone needed a blessing and they said no everyone should be fine... and then the next day we were driving and saw a lady pull out in front of the person driving in front of us and they swerved and they ended up driving through a lady's fence into her backyard. Oregon drivers are crazy!

Other than seeing some weird accidents, we have been teaching this guy named Nelson. He is the one from Puerto Rico that we met at the park and he just moved here. He is a very humble man and really wants to know what is true and if there is a prophet on the earth right now. He said he would be baptized if he came to know what we taught him was true! He's awesome. 

Our teaching pool is pretty small right now.  We basically just started over this transfer and are trying to find new people to teach. And since President Ballard doesn't want us to tract, we have just been going to parks and talking to people. We also have been really trying to work with the members. The members of this ward are awesome!

Other than that, nothing too exciting happened this week. We had MLC (missionary leadership conference) and I bore my testimony in sacrament! 

Spiritual Thought  

Matthew 14:24-32: 

"24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.

25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

32 And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased."

We have been sharing this story with a lot of the members. It is one of my favorites in the Bible because it demonstrates so many principles we can learn from. The one principle that I think about is focusing on Christ. When Peter gets out of the boat and starts walking on the water, he is entirely focused on Jesus Christ, but as soon as he starts to worry about the storm going around him, he loses his focus and that's when he begins to sink. When going through life we are going to have many storms, but if we can keep our sights focused on Christ then we will be okay. As soon as we become distracted and lose that focus, then we will begin to falter. 

Have a great week everyone!!

Elder Hill

Can't beat Oregon in the fall ...

Watched the end of the World Series with Elder Miller and Zack ... go Cubs!

Happy Halloween!

HELLO EVERYONE! 

Happy Halloween!! So I have two weeks to catch up on. So much has happened.....

Well two weeks ago when I was in the YSA Ward still, we went to the temple with one of our investigators and it was awesome. He should be getting baptized soon!! And then a few days later one of the members in the Ward, Jordan Pregil, went on a mini-mission with Elder Craft and I. That's where he is basically a full- time missionary with us. He was with us for three days straight, 24/7 and slept at our apartment and everything. It was awesome. We are pretty good buddies so it was super fun and he said it was the best weekend he has ever had.  He has only been a member for 8 months!

At the Portland Temple with their investigator, Ben

Saturday, we got transfer calls! I was transferred to the Farmington Ward with Elder Miller! It's in the Beaverton Oregon West Zone and we are the Zone Leaders over that Zone now. This past week has been pretty sweet! Elder Miller is one of my good friends in the mission so we have been having a lot of fun! He is from SLC and he loves sports and the same stuff I do...... The area is huge, it reminds me of Canby. Half of the area is in the city and then it goes way out in the country. 

 Tyler & Elder Miller

 At the transfer meeting ...

Tyler & Sister Barney

This last week we were visiting a lot of members and getting to know them. We are trying to find things to do since we can't tract anymore. We have gone to a lot of parks and contacted people and have found a few people to teach that way. A cool experience we had was when we were at a park trying to talk to people and we were really struggling to find anyone who was remotely interested. So we sat down on a bench and prayed that someone would walk by our bench that would simply have a conversation with us. After our prayer ended, we started talking to the next guy who walked by and it turns out he was from Puerto Rico and was meeting with missionaries over there but he lost contact with them when he moved here to the states. He said he lost his Book of Mormon so we gave him one and got all his contact information and he wants to start taking the lessons again. It was sweet!

Everything else is going good! All the missionaries in our Zone are cool! We had a couple District meetings this past week so we got to know each other a little bit. I'm excited for this transfer! It should be fun. I hit my 16 month mark tomorrow which is crazy!

Tyler & Elder Miller on a random porch swing :)

Hope everyone has fun trick-or-treating. We are going downtown for P-day and Halloween!

Have a great week! Love you all!!

Elder Hill

Another crazy week!

Hi everyone!

Another crazy week! So much is happening, but I wanna start off with a story...

So some pretty crazy/scary stuff happened to one of our missionaries in the Zone... On Monday, the Rock Creek Elders left their apartment to go to an appointment. They came out of the appointment after 20 minutes to find that in one of their helmets there was a bag of Sour Patch Kids candy. They weren't sure where it came from and they were kinda skeptical if they should eat it or not, but they hadn't eaten dinner yet so one of the Elders (we will call him Elder F) decides to eat a couple. Everything is fine and they start heading back to their apartment. They get back to the apartment and Elder F starts acting a little funny. His companion didn't think anything of it, he just thought he was a weird kid. Elder F takes out the bag of Sour Patch Kids and decides to eat about 10 more. About 20 minutes later Elder F passes out. His companion, at that point, calls the mission nurse and calls 911. They rush him to the hospital and have to put him on a bunch of IVs and what not. The doctor said that the candy was laced with THC or marijuana and that eating two of them would get someone really high. Elder F. ate 12 of them! He was completely passed out for about 6 hours until they drained his stomach and released him from the hospital..... but the scary part is that we found out later that the bag of candy was actually stolen from the Westview Elders who live in the same apartment complex as the Rock Creek Elders. One of the Westview Elders recognized the bag and also that the candy was oddly cut in half just like his was, but he hadn't been able to find his bag of candy for the past few days. So someone stole this bag of candy from the Westview Elders apartment, laced it with THC, and then gave it to the Rock Creek Elders.... Portland is weird. Everything is okay now though, Elder F is doing well and he is just fine! Just some weird stuff going on! 

On a brighter note, we have a couple of investigators with baptisms coming up! Ben is getting baptized on November 12th and Tyler is getting baptized on November 26th! It's so awesome to be able to teach them and see how the gospel makes them so much happier. You can see their countenance change, and their minds are cleared. It's such a cool experience to be a part of that. We have been working with both of them for quite a while so it's great to see how far they have come! I love being able to help people change their lives and be happier.

Oh! and I forgot to mention, Elder Ballard came to visit again on Saturday. No big deal. Grandpa Ballard just coming for another visit, it was my third time seeing him on my mission.... We are so lucky to be able to have an Apostle come speak to us so often! I learn so much, and every time he comes it is the most spiritual meeting ever. There is one thing that he always does when he speaks. He always says "Go to Gethsemane and think about what the Savior did for you." He would talk about how no matter what you are going through, if you are having a hard day, if you are burdened, if you are depressed, if you can't go any further... pause and think about Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Think about what He felt, what He went through, for YOU. If you do that you will IMMEDIATELY find the strength and motivation to keep going. It was an amazing experience hearing from Elder Ballard and shaking his hand again! 

I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that He is real. Sometimes we may wonder if Christ was an actual or person or if this is some fanciful story, but it's not. Jesus Christ is real. He lived and died for each of us, so that we may be reconciled to God through Him and that is the only way in which we can return back to our Heavenly Father, is through His son Jesus Christ. Think about the reality of the Savior for you and your life, and how you can make that relationship more real and meaningful.

Hope you all have a great week! Enjoy the nice weather! 

Love and miss you all!

Elder Hill

 District Meeting at Skyline Memorial

Zone service project at a middle school ...

"If you love Jesus, make some noise!!!"

Hey everyone!! 

So this past week was pretty interesting.... we had MLC (missionary leadership council) on Friday, and President Ballard has made the decision that we are no longer allowed to go tracting (door knocking) anymore. He wants to have us focus on the members and working with them because that is where all of our baptisms are coming from. Tracting is pretty ineffective in Portland, but now we can't do it at all anymore. So crazy! Everyone was freaking out cause that's what missionaries are known for is knocking doors. It will be interesting to see what happens! 

The reason for my heading... earlier this week we had a lesson with two girls that we had met, Leslie and Jenny. They are both super friendly and really outgoing, and they are both really involved in their church they go to. We had a pretty good lesson with them and we invited them to come to church with us on Sunday, and they said, "yeah maybe, but we have church on Sunday too! Do you wanna come with us?" So we made a deal that we would go to church with them if they came to church with us! So at 10am Sunday morning we roll up to the Calvary Christian Church in our full on suits and missionary attire haha. People were giving us funny looks, and we had multiple people ask us (in a nice way) "what are you guys doing here?" We would just tell them that Leslie and Jenny invited us!

The service was pretty interesting. They had a band and some singers and one of the guys on stage was like, "if you love Jesus make some noise!!" We love Jesus so we were yelling "yeeeaaaah!!!"... The first 30 minutes was the band playing some songs and the crowd singing along, and then the next thirty minutes was the pastor giving his sermon. It was pretty cool, he just taught out of the Bible. After the service we were mingling with all the members talking to them and stuff, and we actually ended up getting a lady's phone number that we could go do service for haha. As we were talking to the lady we could see the pastor behind her, staring us down. So we go over and start talking to the pastor! He was a nice guy but we could tell he wasn't too fond of us. Overall, it was an interesting and fun experience!!

We had six investigators at church! Leslie, Jenny, Ben, Nate, Joran, and Zach all came! We couldn't even keep track of all of them.  We were trying to introduce people to all of them. Ben and Nate are two interesting guys that we are starting to teach. They showed up to church in these long Chinese robes that have some symbols on them. The symbols mean "new beginnings" so they wore them since it was their first time at church. It was really interesting. Right before sacrament meeting was about to end they both got up and stood by the door and bowed toward the pulpit and then walked out, but then they came back for Sunday School so that was good!

Things are going great out here in Portland. It rained every single day last week..yippie.

Hope you are all doing great! Love and miss you guys!!

Elder Hill

P-day Activities ....

Famous ice cream place!