Happy Memorial Day!

Hi everyone!

This week was interesting! Not a lot happened. It was a little slow with a lot of lessons cancelling and people being gone for the Memorial Day weekend. 

We had interesting thing happen on Tuesday.  We were driving down the highway and we saw one of our investigators sitting on the side of highway in the grass. He is a little different and has some mental illnesses. We were like what the heck lets go talk to him! So we pull over and we walk up to him and he just starts yelling and screaming and telling us to leave him alone, but we calmed him down.  He was ranting about how the government is violating his rights and that he is going to move to Canada. And then in the middle of his sentence he just stood up turned around and walked into the bushes behind him. Just literally walked straight into a bush ... it was so crazy!! We were like what the heck just happened??

A lot of people ask what is the hardest thing about being on a mission. There are so many different answers, but I think the main one is that the hardest thing is when you're teaching someone and they know that what you're sharing is true but they still don't want to be baptized or join the church. They say that they can feel that it is true and that they know the Book of Mormon is true but aren't willing to change their lives for it. It's so hard because you know how much it can bless their life and they just won't accept it... It reminds me of Lehi's dream when Lehi partakes of the fruit of the tree of life and the only thing he wants is for his family to do the same but they won't. Must've been frustrating for Lehi haha cause that has happened to us a couple times of times this transfer and it is the worst. But the area is still doing well and I love it in Mt. Hood! 

Thanks for all the love and support and for the emails! Happy Memorial Day!! We took some sweet pictures!! 

Elder Hill

 

God Works in Mysterious Ways!

Hi everyone!

So there were a lot of really cool and interesting things that happened this week! So first off I wanted to talk about how God works in crazy ways. About six weeks ago, we were having dinner with the Graves Family here in the Sandy River Ward, and we asked if they wanted us to go visit anyone, and at first they said no, but then at the last second Sister Graves said, "wait, I think you should go visit this less-active lady" so we said, "okay sounds good." A couple days later we visited this lady and we ended up meeting her granddaughter, Trina, who lives there and she is a non-member. She is actually really interested and so we started teaching her and have been teaching her for the past few weeks! Then a couple weeks later, we asked if she needed help with any service and Trina said, "yes I have some friends over in Damascus that need some help in their yard" (the blackberry vines people). So we've gone over there a couple of times to help and this last time we went over there they kept asking us questions and we taught them the first lesson! They want to come to church and take the discussions now! Sadly we have to give them to the Sisters serving in Damascus cause that's their area, but I just thought how crazy it was how God works. We never would have even met these people we did service for if Sister Graves didn't feel prompted to tell us to visit that less-active lady.. So cool!! 

On Wednesday we were meeting with our investigator Martha again, she is the older lady who thinks the Book of Mormon is super fascinating. So we were over there and as we were teaching her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ there is a knock on her door. Martha gets up to go get it and there is this older lady there and we are thinking, "oh cool it's probably her sister and we can teach her too!", we were dead wrong haha.. So she lets this lady in and she pulls up a chair and she is just glaring at us. We were just like what the heck is this lady's problem. So we get up and introduce ourselves and all she says is, "so you're the Mormon boys huh?" And we just said "yeah! Do you have friends that are Mormon?" And she says, "no. I'm a witness." (As in Jehovah Witness)..... We were just like, you have got to be kidding me right now haha. We tried to make conversation with her, but she wasn't really feeling it. Apparently she was offended that we were meeting with Martha or something because she said that she has been meeting with Martha every Wednesday for forever. But that's okay haha, we wrapped up our lesson the best we could but it was awkward.  You could cut the tension with a knife haha. But Martha said she still wants to keep meeting with us so that's good! 

Saturday Elder Kirk and I were able to attend the baptism of Linda Conley in Canby! Elder Kirk served in Canby 2nd Ward for six months when he first started his mission and he taught Linda for a while, but then she stopped taking the lessons for almost a year because she felt too much pressure or something. When Elder Prestgard and I were in Canby 2nd, we finally started teaching her again! And she was finally baptized on Saturday. It was so awesome to be able to go and see that, she was so happy afterwards it was awesome:) 

 Linda Conley's baptism!

Tyler & Linda after her baptism!

Things have been going well here in the Sandy River Ward! We have been having a lot of success teaching people. Brother Smith (our Ward Mission Leader) was so excited in Ward Council on Sunday because he brought up how we are leading the Stake (10 Wards/branches) in teaching missionary discussions. So that was pretty cool to hear! 

Thanks for all of the emails! And keep sending pictures, I like those!! 

Hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Hill

Zone Meeting, Mt. Hood Stake 

Happy Birthday!

Hi everyone!

This week was busy! We have been teaching a lot of lessons and it's been good! My new companion, Elder Kirk, is from Emmit, Idaho. He has been out for 20 months, and we have been doing pretty well together. 

There were some crazy things that happened this week. So on Wednesday night we came home and we were planning and we get a call from some elders serving in the Ward next to us (they also live in the same apartment complex as us so they're just a couple doors down). And one of them told us to come over now, and he sounded serious so we booked it over there. Apparently the missionaries had gotten into a huge fight with each other and they broke a bunch of chairs and a bookshelf in the apartment. We were like, "oh crap! we have to do an exchange with them before they kill each other." So one of them came and stayed with me at our apartment and Elder Kirk stayed there. President Ballard drove out here and handled it the next day haha. It was nuts.

On Thursday, we did splits with the High Priests and I went with Brother Nash. We went to go visit a less-active lady and there were two doors to this duplex she lived in and Bro Nash didn't know which one was hers so we knocked on both. One didn't answer and the next door a guy opened it. His name was Jim and he looked like the definition of an Oregonian hippie. He said that the lady we were looking for lived next door but she wasn't there. So we started talking to him about his religious beliefs and we had a 45 min conversation with him and he had some interesting views. He said the Second Coming is going to be this year and that there will be "fire in the skies". Brother Nash thought it was funny, but he said that we could come back! So we will go visit him again... 

We have started teaching this lady named Martha, and she has never heard of the Book of Mormon, but she grew up reading the Bible. She keeps telling us how fascinating it is that Jesus Christ came to the Americas and that people sailed over here from Jerusalem. She always gets so excited talking about it, it's awesome. We have also been doing lots of service. This week we had to put in an irrigation system in a guys backyard and then we spent three days cutting down blackberry vines for some people. You're not in Oregon if you don't cut blackberries at least once a month for service.

Sister Torrie photo-bombed one of the pictures! 

"Doing service with all the blackberry vines.  We cut a hole through the middle of the bush."

And I turn 21 today! Our Ward Mission Leader asked us what we were doing for my birthday and I told him we are going clubbing and that he was invited haha. He said he is down....

Thank you so much for all of the birthday packages and cards and emails!! I really appreciate it and it means a lot to me:) 

"Opening presents this morning.  Elder Kirk got me a tie!"

"The Sisters and a couple of Elders got me some birthday gifts!"

Hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Hill

Same area, new companion

Hi everyone!

Well, I'm staying in Sandy! I'm getting a new companion named Elder 
Kirk from Idaho. I'm super excited to be staying Sandy! Hopefully we 
will be able to finally get a baptism here. 

This past week nothing super exciting happened. We did a lot of 
service and taught some lessons. On Sunday, I was able to Skype 
home and see the family! It was so awesome. Crazy how fast the time is 
flying by, it feels like I just Skyped home not too long ago.  
Elder Wheeler and I had to teach a lesson in church at the last minute 
and it's really cool how you learn to just get up start talking about 
a gospel principle and just go with it. It was fun. 
Sorry for the super short email! Not a lot of time today and not a lot 
to talk about. But I love and miss you all and I'm grateful for all 
the support I receive from everyone. Thank you for all of the 
birthday cards and packages. This is my last time emailing as a 20 
year old! 

Have a great week! 
Elder Hill 

Elder Kendrick & Tyler doing the wrap challenge

Meeting Elder Ballard for the second time (lucky!!!)

 Check out Mt. Hood in the background ...

Our "new investigator" Snoop Dog reading the Book of Mormon :)

10 Months!

Hello everyone!

So this past week I can't really remember much about what happened. 
Weeks are going by so fast they all seem to blur together.  But I did 
hit my 10 month mark so I am in the double digits! Crazy! Sometimes I 
feel like I just came out. 

This week had its up and downs. Our baptism that was supposed 
to happen this Saturday isn't going to happen anymore because he 
doesn't want to keep some of the standards, so that is a big bummer. 
We did set a baptismal date with this couple that we taught last 
week ... the lady that we taught in the rain! We set a date with her and 
her husband for the 28th of May so that was exciting. 

Something cool that happened this week was that we had an appointment 
fall through at like 8 in the evening and so we were out in the middle 
of nowhere trying to find a less-active and they weren't home. So we 
were like let's knock on all the houses on this street, maybe a miracle 
will happen (it was 8:30 at night and there were like 3 houses on this 
long road). So we walked to them and knocked them all and no one was 
home except for this last house. We knocked and a lady answered the door 
and she had just had a baby six days ago and she had three other kids as 
well. She said that they have been looking for a church to join and 
they want to learn more. So a miracle did happen!! It was pretty 
sweet. We are finding lots of people to teach we just need to get them 
to church. 

Things are still great out here in Mount Hood! The members are awesome 
and the weather is getting better!... And Mother's Day is coming up so I 
get to Skype home! 

Hope everyone has a good week!!  
Elder Hill 

 The Elders got to make a pen!