Elder Tyler Hill: Brush with Death & Basketball School is in Session

Hi everyone!

Can't believe another week is gone! There are only two weeks left of the transfer holy crap!

Well this week started off with us almost dying...... So we drove to Family Home Evening with our good friend, Ryan Doss, and the activity is pickin' blackberries. To get to the berry pickin' place, you have to turn off a main road onto a smaller road. The smaller road has a small hill you have to drive over to get to the place. So the FHE activity goes great and everything. On our way back home we start driving back down this small road, and then all of a sudden Ryan just floors it to like 60mph (Ryan is known for his crazy driving so it's not a surprise) and as he is flooring it we are about to go over the small hill and I am thinking, "the stop sign and the main road are not too far after this little hill," (something Ryan completely forgot) and so we go flying over this hill and Ryan sees the stop sign but it is too late. He tries slamming on the breaks, but we catch air and land past the stop sign. We bounce/skid through the four lane main road, and THANK GOODNESS there were no cars driving either way or we would have been dead. We go flying over this main road and on the other side there is a huge barley field. We dodge a tree and go flying a good 40 yards into the barley field until we skid to a stop. Thankfully we were in a big Silverado truck so there wasn't really any damage to the car, but holy crap it was INSANE! Talk about lucky to be alive hahaha. It was a small miracle!!

In other news, we had lunch with Gilbert this week! He is one of my investigators from my first area! It was super awesome to see him. Hopefully he will be baptized soon; he is working on it!

So we were walking in the park one night trying to talk to people and we see some guys playing basketball. Elder Argyle and I both love playing basketball so we go over there and we ask these three black guys in their 30's if we can play with them and they say, "pffff you guys ain't ready to ball," and they turn and keep playing. We were like okay fine and so we go ask these five college age looking guys if we can play with them and they say, "yeah sure we will go get those three other guys you talked to and play 5 vs. 5 full court". They go over there and get them and I say to Elder Argyle, "dude, I won't play very well in my church shoes and shirt and tie," and he just turns and says, "Bro, God will help us play good". And he was right! Haha it was probably the best basketball I have played in a long time. Elder Argyle and I were on a team with three of the college age kids and we killed them. It was like those YouTube videos you see of missionaries dunking on people! There were cars driving by yelling, "go Elders!!" Haha Elder Argyle and I did really well and one of black guys said, "I can't imagine what you guys play like in sneakers" haha. Little does he know that we played better in our missionary clothes. It was pretty awesome though! We were able to get one of their numbers and talk to them about what we do as missionaries. We will hopefully be able to meet up with them again!

Sunday we had a huge regional (Portland and Vancouver) conference! There were like 1,000 YSA people at this sacrament meeting. It was so cool meeting so many people! And one of the speakers for the meeting was Ryan Doss, the guy that almost killed us in our Ward haha. In his talk he gave us a shoutout! He said, "I love the Elders. Elder Hill and Elder Argyle are some of the most solid individuals I know! They are the best people. I love going out with them." I wanted to cry haha, that kid is awesome even though he did almost kill us.

Spiritual Thought: I was reading in 2 Nephi 2:4: "And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free." I thought that was really cool, how it is really up to us if we want eternal life. It is free to everyone; there is no person that has lived or ever will live that doesn't have the opportunity to gain salvation. If we want it we can have it, we just have to do the things that will allow us to gain it. Since it was 7/11 last week... It's like getting a free slurpee on 7/11. Slurpees are offered to everyone, and they are free. There is no one that isn't allowed to have a free slurpee. But to actually get that slurpee you have to do your part and go get it yourself. You have to drive to 7/11, walk in the store, grab a cup, fill it up, put a lid on, and straw in it. You can't just sit at home and expect a slurpee to appear in your hand. Salvation is free, but it is up to us whether we get it ourselves. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us and want us to gain eternal life and salvation. And I know as we do our part in doing those things to gain that, then They will make up the rest. Christ suffered for everyone, not just a select few, but for everyone. We all have the same opportunity but it is up to us.

Love you all!!

Elder Hill