Blessings, Snow Days & Pinochle Brawls

Hi everyone!

Monday
Monday we went up to Mt. Hood with Bill, he's a member who is coming back to church and getting ready to go through the temple. He loves missionaries and so he took us and another companionship up to the mountain to go sledding and see Timberline Lodge. It was so sweet, there was like three feet of snow! 

Wednesday

Wednesday I went on an exchange with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Shaw, and it was awesome. He's from Mesa, AZ! I went to their area which covers the other half of Canby. We did some tracting and then we had a lesson with Fabian, an investigator. He and his brother used to be in a gang and his brother was killed, but now Fabian has a wife and a family and is planning on getting baptized in February. Pretty cool!!

Thursday

Thursday we had a few lessons and we went on splits in the evening. I went with Cody who is a senior in high school. It was his first time going out with a missionary and we went and had a lesson with a less active guy. We had a really good lesson on the Book of Mormon and when it was over we got in the car and Cody goes, "that was so freaking cool!" Haha he will be a good missionary.

Friday

Friday we did service for most of the day. We went to the Canby adult center and we helped prepare lunch for all the elderly people and then we served it and helped them clean up. It was fun! We had a couple lessons later and one was with a less-active lady named Stephanie. She has been struggling with church and paying her tithing recently so we had a lesson about those things and I told her an experience I had about tithing. The next day we get a call from her and she goes, "Elder Hill! I want you to know something, your story gave me the strength to go pay my tithing in full! Last night I finally paid a full tithe. So thank you so much!!"... So awesome when you get calls like that!

Saturday

Saturday morning our whole Zone and another Zone (so like 40 missionaries) did service cleaning up a park, It was fun seeing all the other missionaries. After that, we tracted for like three straight hours and we got nothin! That is the worst..... but after that we received a call from our investigator family, the Johnsons. They asked us to come over because they had been going through some really hard things and they felt like they should call us. So we go over there and we find out that Connie, the mom, found out a couple days ago that she has cancer in her lymph nodes (lymphoma) and on the way home from her doctor's appointment their car broke down in Portland. They had been trying to find someone to help them tow the car back down to Canby because they couldn't afford to pay someone to tow it or fix it. They had tried everything and Connie was overwhelmed and broke down. We had talked to them about priesthood blessings before and she asked, "could you guys give me one of those blessings that you do?" We said of course. So Elder Prestgard anointed and I gave the blessing. The Spirit was really strong and Connie and Jerry (the dad) were very emotional through the whole thing. At the end of the blessing, Connie was crying and through her tears says, "that was the most incredible feeling I have ever experienced before in my life. I have never felt like this before. It feels like something was literally lifted off of me." We told her that everything would workout. It's pretty awesome when you can be an instrument in the Lord's hands like that! It was a really cool experience!

Thanks for all the support! I really appreciate it!

Elder Hill

Tyler's highlights this week!

*During Pinochle this week, two old ladies started yelling at each other and getting into it because they thought the other one was cheating haha. It was pretty funny, Elder Prestgard and I were trying not to laugh.

*A lady in the Ward asked us to be in the choir so now we are in the choir I guess haha. Should be interesting!