"Every single soul is precious" - Elder Ballard

Hi everyone!

So this week was super solid! We taught over 20 lessons this week which is the standard of excellence for our Mission! We were crazy busy all week.

Tuesday

Tuesday we met with a lot of different investigators, and we have one investigator named John who has been meeting with missionaries for a while now. He is a war vet and a little older and is a little slow with things. We had a really good lesson on baptism and we asked him if he would like to be baptized. He said, "every time I wanna do something, the government won't let me do it!!" His brother, who is a member, was like, "John, the government isn't involved in this." And he said, "oh, in that case I will think about it." Hahaha. 

Wednesday

Wednesday we had a really good day and taught six lessons! 

Thursday

Thursday we were supposed to go on a split with our Ward Mission Leader, but he had to cancel at the last minute and we felt prompted to go see this less active lady. So we went to see her and as we were visiting with her, her granddaughter walks in and joins us. She is a non-member and starts asking us questions and stuff and she said she wants us to come over and teach her more! It's crazy how the Lord puts people in our path 'cause we weren't even supposed to be at that house! 

Friday

Friday we stopped by another potential investigator that we had seen before and she told us to come back later, and so we did. She let us in this time and we had such a good lesson with her. The Spirit was strong and we asked her if she would be baptized if she came to know the Book of Mormon was true and she said yes. It was awesome!! Friday in the evening we went to go see John again and we talked a lot about baptism and we talked about how we have a clean slate when we are baptized and that all of our sins and guilt are gone, and he was like "wait, seriously?" We told him that it could happen for him if he was baptized and he got super excited and so we set a date for May 7th for his baptism! 

The work here is going great! We are super busy, but we had interviews with the Mission President on Wednesday and he told me not to get comfortable in this area because he has other things planned for me. I have no idea what that means, but I was a little bummed that I won't be staying in the Ward for that long. We will see what happens!! 

Saturday

Saturday Elder Ballard from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to all the missionaries in our Mission. It was so sweet. I was able to shake his hand again and he said, "Good Morning Elder." It was the most spiritually powerful good morning ever hahaha. It was really cool to hear from an apostle.

Our Mission President's wife, Sister Ballard, had her dad, Ken Garff, speak to us as well.  President Garff is a former Temple President. They gave some really good counsel and instruction. It really helped me gain a new perspective on different things about life in general... One of the things that stuck out to me the most that Elder Ballard said was, "every single soul is precious. A great price was paid for each one." It's just amazing to think about how God loves ALL of His children. Not just some, and not just those that are good people. He loves every single soul equally and the Atonement is there for everyone. Christ suffered for all. We have this knowledge and so it is our responsibility to share it with others and to bring others back to Heavenly Father. Christ gave his life so that everyone could live with God again, so the least we can do is help others along their way. "Have faith, have hope, live like His Son, help others on their way." 

Sunday

Sunday I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and I finished the book, Jesus the Christ! Hallelujah! 

I really appreciate all the emails and letters!! Thank you so much for all the love and support! 

Have a good week! 

Elder Hill

This is one of our Ward member's backyards ... the Sandy River!!