Transfers!!!

Well ladies and gentlemen ...

We received transfer calls on Saturday, and I'm leaving Canby. I am getting transferred to the Sandy River Ward in the Mt. Hood Stake. So I'm going to be even more out in the country than Canby is! My new companion is Elder Wheeler. He is from Orem, Utah and has been out 19 months. I have heard a lot of good things about the Sandy River Ward so I am excited! And I'm going to be the district leader still over there so that will be exciting as well. It has been awesome serving in Canby and I am grateful for all the experiences I have had and for all the people I have been able to meet. I can't believe how fast those three months went by.  It feels like I just got to Canby and I'm already leaving, but I know I'm going to Sandy River for a reason. I think the one thing that I have learned here in Canby more than anything else is that God knows us personally and has a specific plan for each one of us. His hand is always in our lives and we are put through different experiences to become the person He wants us to become. No matter what we go through in this life, everything has a purpose and there is a reason. We just have to have faith in God that it is for our benefit. 

Nothing too exciting happened this week. Monday we had FHE with the Knowldens which was a lot of fun.  We shared a message and played Five Crowns with them. Throughout the week we did a lot of tracting out in the Boonies which has been our most successful way of finding investigators. We have met a lot of interesting people that way too. We knocked on this door and a guy opened it and we started talking to him and then we hear from inside the house, "don't talk to them, they pray to an alien on another planet!!" So that was kinda funny. A lot of people say that tracting in the country is ineffective but we were out doing it and this one lady answered and said, "I thought you would never find us out here!" She said they have been looking for a new religion and so we gave her a Book of Mormon and she said we could come back! So tracting in the Boonies does work!! 

We also did a lot of service as usual and then Saturday we got transfer calls. I totally thought I was staying because the Zone Leaders said this District is the best in the Zone and that President wouldn't change up the District Leader. So I thought I was staying for sure and then I find out I'm getting transferrered so it was a little bit of a surprise! 

Saturday and Sunday was spent saying goodbye to a lot of people. Nothing too exciting happened on Easter. Our dinner appointment cancelled so Elder Garfield and I made our own Easter dinner and we hung out with Arian, our crazy neighbor! I'm going to miss Canby and all the crazy people here!

Crazy neighbor, Arian

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

*Shoutout to my sister Nicole getting married! Wish I coulda been there! It looked awesome! 

*Happy Easter! What an amazing day in which we had to remember Our Savior. Our Mission President sent us an Easter email and it was awesome. Here is some of it as he talked about the Atonement:

"He who had created worlds without number was about to enter a quiet, secluded garden. There was no fanfare, no crowd to witness the most profound event in human history. This was a moment so sacred, so sublime, that no human mind could fully comprehend its transcending importance. The hour was at hand. The Son of God stood alone in all His majestic power against all that Satan could muster. Here was divine love in its purest expression doing battle against evil in its cruelest form. This was the place and the time for the Atonement of Jesus Christ." 

I haven't ever really been the most spiritual person in my life, but if there is something that I have learned in the last 9 months of serving a mission, it is that the Atonement is real. I have seen it change the lives of people and give them hope when they thought there was none. Jesus Christ, the living Son of the living God, suffered and felt every single pain, heartache, sorrow, grief, disappointment, and tragedy that anyone has ever experienced. There is not one person who has ever lived or will live that will go through or feel something that Christ hasn't already gone through Himself and it is because of this that we can be forgiven of our transgressions and feel peace in our hearts. He took upon Himself all of these things so that we might repent, and be able to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father. I have made so many mistakes in my life I wouldn't even know where to begin, but because God loves us enough to literally sacrifice His Son, I can be forgiven for those mistakes and feel peace. I am beyond grateful for my Savior and what He did for me. I know that I am nothing and could be nothing without Him. It is only through the grace of God and the enabling power of the Atonement that I can be reconciled to my Heavenly Father. 

Isaiah 53:5 "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." 

*Here is my new address just in case you want to send me a letter or something;)

Elder Tyler Hill
39415 Dubarko Rd., #39415
Sandy, OR  97055

Lifted a house while tracting ...

Bro. Knowlden in his purple suit!

 Bro. Steele, Canby Ward Mission Leader

 Kris Barrow. recent Church convert

Kelli Weisz, Lyssa (investigator), Tyler, and Cody Weisz

Elder Garfield burning a tie, celebrating six months on his mission!

Happy Almost Easter!!

Hi everyone!

Happy almost Easter! It's a perfect opportunity this week to invite someone to church, so don't be afraid! 

Tuesday we went on splits with our Ward Mission Leader Bro. Steele (he is awesome) and another member. We went to go see the Johnsons and they were sleeping; but the grandma answered the door and we had a really good conversation with her. She says she wants to learn more so that was exciting! 

You would think that with Easter coming up people would be more willing to listen and want to talk about Christ. but we had some rough times this week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we we did a lot of contacting and tracting, and we were getting yelled at left and right. We were tracting and this guy opened the door and was like, "you better get the *bleep* outta here right now! Go on get!" And then another time we were just walking down the road and someone drove by and yelled, "you Mormons are a *bleeping* joke!".... Then there were some other incidents, and it got to that point when we were just like what the heck are we even doing here. BUT then Friday I received a letter and it had a picture of missionaries with a broken bike and it said, "When do the best two years of my life start?" I was thinking, "haha ain't that the truth." On the inside it had the scripture, Alma 26:27: "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said.. bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." That scripture changed the week around. Even though we didn't have much success this week, the Lord knows what we are going through and what we need to do to have success, we just have to put our faith and trust in Him. So shout out to the person who sent me that, you know who you are! 

Tracting in the boonies ...

Random lake ...

On Thursday we hooked up Jerry Johnson, our investigator, with a dentist in our Ward to get some free dental work done for his toothache after the office closed. We went over there after they were done and we shared a lesson in a dentist office. We also took some pics of us being dentists!

We did a ton of service this week too. We chopped wood, helped plant some trees, pulled some ivy at a nature park, and of course played Pinochle with the old folks. It was hilarious because there is this old lady who likes to give you a hug and kiss on the cheek when she meets you, and I forgot to tell Elder Garfield about her so he is sitting there playing cards and she comes over and introduces herself and hugs him, and then he turns back around to play and she comes up behind him and kisses him on the ear! He jumps up and was like what the heck hahahaha it was hilarious. 

Love and miss you all!!  Have a great Easter!!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

* The new Church Easter video is out and I posted it on Facebook! So if you haven't seen it, go check it out! And don't be afraid to post or share it. 

* On Saturday it was "bring your own cup" any size to 7/11 for slurpees. So we found a couple big 'ole containers in our kitchen and got giant slurpees for $1.50 haha. 

* This is the last week of the transfer! We get transfer call Saturday so we will see what happens!! 

* Ponderize Scripture: Romans 8:31 - "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" As missionaries we get yelled at, mocked, and cussed at, but as long as we have God with us what is the worse that can happen? Another translation for this is "if God be for us, who can prevail against us?" When we rely on God and have His spirit and power, there is no one that can discourage, hinder, or stop the work and purposes that He has planned to fulfill. 

Sketchy house = Chicken lady

Hello everyone! 

Thank you for all the emails and letters you send. I appreciate it a ton!

This week was pretty solid! Nothing too exciting happened Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday we had an exchange; Elder Garver came here with me. He has only been out two months and he is an awesome missionary. We went tracting out in the boonies and as we were knocking on this door, we looked to our right and a goat was poking it's head around the corner of the house looking at us! Then, three more poked their heads around and then they all ran up to us and were standing on the porch with us, It was hilarious. If the person would have answered the door there would have been two missionaries and four goats on their doorstep, but they didn't answer. 

 Tracting with goats ...

Later in the day, we got a call from a less-active member who has been really stressed out with some health problems. She asked if we could give her a healing blessing. Elder Garver anointed and I gave the blessing. After, she was crying and said that she had received a healing blessing a couple months ago and that I said some of the exact same words that were said in the previous blessing given to her by a different person (well I didn't say them the Lord did cause it's what He wants to say). That experience just strengthened my testimony even more of priesthood blessings and how they come from God, not us. 

Thursday, I was able to do a baptismal interview for an investigator in another ward and it was probably the best one I have been a part of, her testimony was awesome. She shared some experiences that led to her conversion, and then she said the closing prayer of the interview and it was incredible to hear her express so much gratitude to Heavenly Father for allowing the Gospel to come into her life. I felt as if I was able to catch a tiny glimpse of the Divine love God has for His children. 

Friday we had a mission-wide fast for finding new investigators. We had been consistently finding one new investigator per week which is not that good and then on Friday and Saturday we found four! We spent a lot of our time tracting and contacting potentials or formers and God just placed people in our path who were receptive and ready to learn, so hopefully things will progress with these people. 

Sketchy house where a "chicken lady" lives ...

Sunday we had FHE with a part member family and they have a nine-year-old girl that prepared a scavenger hunt for me and Elder Garfield. The loser had to get dressed up in a costume, take a picture and have it posted on Facebook. Well, I barely lost, and a lot of you know that I am pretty competitive so I wasn't too happy haha. But it was fun and I looked pretty snazzy in the costume haha. Elder Garfield even wanted to try on the costume cause it looked so good haha. It was a fun FHE!

 

Sunday night the missionaries all sung in a choir at a fireside so that was pretty fun, It was a good fireside!

Thanks for all the support!  Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

* I am halfway through reading Jesus the Christ... The book is forever long, but it's good.

* The Church's new Easter video is out it is called #Hallelujah, go check it out!!

Mules, Temples & Fender Benders!!

Hi everyone!

This week was long! We didn't have a car the whole week because I may or may not have ran into something a few weeks back that put a crack in the front bumper, but we won't talk about that. So it was in the shop all week, but we get it back today and they are still letting me drive so that's good. We walked everywhere this week and it was actually pretty fun. We were able to talk to a lot more people and knock on more doors. 

Tuesday

Tuesday we had a Zone meeting about working with members and I was asked to conduct the meeting which was kinda fun. It was a solid Zone meeting. 

Thursday

Thursday we had our temple trip! It was awesome. We are so lucky to have a temple in our mission that we can go to every other transfer. It kinda recharges you spiritually and you can receive answers to your questions! 

Friday/Saturday

Friday we prepared/served food at the Canby adult center. We haven't been able to play Pinochle because we have been busy and all the old folks that play came up and asked us where we have been haha. We told them we would be back this week so no worries. Friday to Saturday we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Hintz to their area. We were able to have a lesson with the ex-husband of one of their investigators (the ZLs never met him before) and he wanted to talk because he felt as if God didn't love him because of the mistakes he had made. We had a really powerful lesson with him and the Spirit was really strong when we taught him about our Heavenly Father. He was in tears by the end and we gave him a blessing! It was a cool experience. We ended the exchange Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night we had a lesson with Kelli (one of the youth in our Ward) and her friend, Lyssa. We had a lesson on the Plan of Salvation and Lyssa was like, "what, you can learn more after you die??" Kelli invited her to church and Lyssa said yes which is exciting because she had said no before and had never really been to church. We talked to her after church on Sunday and she said she liked it! 

Sunday

On Sunday we had dinner with a family who has a bunch of puppies and a mule named Gus so we took pics with them.

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week

*We found one of those things that tells you your speed when you drive by it so we wanted to see how fast we could run (like that episode on the Office). We took a video and it said I ran 16mph!! I'm pretty sure it was wrong cause it dropped down to 12 haha.

*Easter is coming up and the Church is coming out with a new Easter video so be on the lookout 👀 

*I hit my 8 month mark last week. Already 1/3 done, crazy. 

*Scripture this week - Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." 

Nobody is perfect and everyone will make mistakes, but even though we may mess up a billion times, God still loves us unconditionally. He wants us to be happy and He is there for us. His loving arms are always extended toward us and no matter how far gone you think you are, He is there for you.

"Our sisters are getting married without us!!!"