Monday, June 26, 2017

Elder Hill signing off ...

Well this is it.

Two years gone just like that. Hard to believe. I am so incredibly grateful for every single day of my mission. I have loved every second of it. I can't begin to describe the gratitude and love I feel towards Heavenly Father and the Savior for allowing me to come serve a mission, and more importantly for carrying me through all of it. I have had some of the most amazing experiences, seen undeniable miracles, and have met some tremendous people. Serving as a representative of Jesus Christ in Portland, Oregon has changed my life. 

I know that the Savior lives. I know that He loves me. I have felt His presence and He has been there for me every step of the way. In front of the Preach My Gospel manual there is a message from the First Presidency, and the last paragraph in there says, "The Lord will reward and richly bless you as you humbly and prayerfully serve Him. More happiness awaits you than you have ever experienced as you labor among His children." And I can testify to the truth of that.  The joy I have felt here is indescribable. There is no greater feeling than being a part of someone's conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Watching people completely change their lives around to follow the Savior, and then seeing the hope and happiness that comes into that persons life because of that is the greatest blessing ever. 

I am thankful for all of the wonderful experiences and success I have seen, but I am also thankful for all the trials, challenges, and failures. They have helped me learn. They have helped me grow. And I am forever grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ and His atonement for allowing me to be here and experience those things. 

I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout these two years. It has meant a lot to me. And thanks especially to my parents and family for all their love and support through all of this. I love you guys.

I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He is our Savior. I know that He is the only way to find lasting joy in this life and in the eternities. He knows every single one of us. He wants us to be happy, we just need to rely on Him. Trust the Savior. I bear my witness that I know if we put Jesus Christ first in our lives then we will be happy no matter what life may throw at us. I know these things to be true with all my heart.

D&C 6:36 "Look unto me in every thought: doubt not, fear not." 

Well that's it! 

Elder Hill signing off.... See you on the other side! 

Monday, June 19, 2017

One Week Left ...

Hey!

So this week honestly nothing too exciting happened. We have just been trying to find more people to teach but it's been a little bit of a struggle in this area. The whole area is just really big neighborhoods with huge houses, but we are still doing our best and seeing miracles happen everyday!

On Saturday we had a Luau at Lynn's house (a member in the Tongan branch) for Elder Peterson and I going home. It was a ton of fun! We roasted and a pig and they made all of the missionaries dance to island music haha it was fun time. They had me and elder peterson bear our testimonies and it was a pretty cool experience.


I have been reflecting a lot on the past two years and everything that I have learned and experienced. It's crazy to think about who I was two years ago and what my testimony was like compared to where I am now two years later. I'm grateful for the countless experiences that I have had and for all the people I have met on my mission. I'm grateful especially to the Lord for allowing me to have this opportunity and carrying me through it.

One week left, have a good one!

Elder Hill

PS - Happy Father's Day!! Especially to my Dad ... love you Dad!

 Ice cream with the Sisters after doing some service

 Elder Martin (old missionary) visiting our ward

 David Archuleta & Jeremy Guthrie

Right before I threw a slug at Elder Kern :)

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

A week full of awesomeness!

Hi everyone!

So this past week was just full of awesome things!

On Friday, we had our departing temple trip with President and Sister Ballard. All of the missionaries that are going home this transfer get to go to the temple and go through a session with President and Sister Ballard, eat lunch in the temple cafeteria, and then go to the visitor center where President gives us some advice and teaches us some things. It was such an incredible experience. It was cool to be able to see all the missionaries you were in the MTC with and see how far everyone has come two years later. I was able to sit in the temple and really reflect on my mission and ask the Lord if He would accept my efforts. It was quite a memorable experience and it was awesome receiving advice and instruction from President Ballard, He has taught me so much and I'm so grateful to have had him as my mission president.
On Saturday, we went on a blitz with our Zone.  That's where multiple missionaries get together and go to one area to find new people to teach. I was with two other missionaries in my area and before we started we prayed that we would find two new investigators in the hour of time we had. The first two doors we knock on we find two new people that were both interested in learning more! It was so awesome! Another testimony to me that specific prayers get specific results.

Okay now another crazy thing that happened. So we are at church on Sunday and we are sitting in Elders Quorum during third hour. Right as the lesson is starting the door opens and in walks Jeremy Guthrie (the MLB player in our ward I talked about last week) and right behind him is David Archuleta. Yeah like THE David Archuleta. Apparently Jeremy and David are super good friends and David was in town for a concert. There was also a fireside going on later that evening with David Archuleta so I guess he decided to come to church as well. But we had to play it cool and act normal so it wouldn't be weird for him right? So everyone is playing cool, until my companion tries to secretly take a picture of him during the lesson. We were sitting in a circle and David was sitting across from us. David sees what my companion is doing and he puts a piece of paper in front of his face so my companion couldn't take a picture haha. I leaned over to Elder Kern and said, "I dont think he likes that, put your iPad down." And when he dropped his iPad David finally put the paper down hahaha. It was pretty funny...... That evening we went to the fireside and it was awesome. Jeremy Guthrie spoke about his life and how he was able to be a faithful member of the church even while playing pro baseball. He gave a really awesome talk and one of the many things he talked about was when he was on the Kansas City Royals they kept winning playoff series and he didn't know what to do during the celebrations after the games because there was champagne flying everywhere. So he came up with an idea to wear goggles and a snorkel! So every time they won a series he would wear his snorkel and pretend he was swimming through the champagne. His teammates thought it was hilarious haha. Then David sang a few of his songs throughout the fireside and bore his testimony at the end.


Those are my cool things that happened this week! I have definitely been blessed with a lot of awesome experiences on my mission and I am so grateful for all of them. I know that the Lord loves each of us.

Elder Hill
 Service at a member's house ...
Tia - she was baptized about a year ago ...

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Another Week Gone!

Hey everyone! 

This week I had my departing interview with President Ballard!  It is crazy to believe that this was the last interview I will ever have with President. It was awesome; I love President Ballard.  He has taught me so much.

Nothing really too exciting happened this week in our area. This week we were able to do a lot of service. We did service at a middle school for an art festival, at a Catholic Church providing meals for the homeless, and for some members chopping down trees. 

A cool little miracle happened on Wednesday. It was 8:40pm, and we were just about to go back to the apartment for the night, but we still hadn't found a new investigator that day, and we were really praying hard to find one. We decided to go to a park to see if there was anybody we could talk to. We got to the park and there was a few different people there. We went up and talked to the first three people and none of them wanted to talk to us at all. So we tried the last person who was sitting on a bench. It was a Chinese man and he had moved here three months ago and he had just started studying Christianity. We told him that we were Christians and started talking about the Book of Mormon. He was super interested! We got all of his contact info, gave him a BoM, and we are hopefully going to start teaching him! It was a cool miracle!

On Saturday Elder Ardern and Elder Blunck from the Seventy came and spoke to half of our mission (thankfully we were in that half) and it was so good! Elder Ardern is from New Zealand and has a cool accent, and he is such a good teacher. There was one thing he said that really stood out to me. He told all of us to stop taking notes and to look him in the eyes. He said, "listen to me right now. The road to the terrestrial kingdom is paved with complacency."  That hit me because it is so easy to become complacent. It's so easy to think that we're doing good and can take it easy, but God wants us to always be progressing, He wants us to always be working and becoming better. Don't ever be satisfied with where you are at.

On Sunday, we had dinner with the Guthrie family.  The dad, Jeremy Guthrie, played professional baseball! He played on the Kansas City Royals and he pitched in the World Series in 2014 and 2015. He showed me his World Series ring and let me take a picture with it! So sick!
Hope you all have a great week!! Love and miss you guys!


Elder Hill

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Service, Companions & Nike!

Hey everyone!

The first week of this transfer was pretty solid! Here is some more information about my companion and area since I didn't say much last time. Elder Kern is from Saratoga Springs, Utah. He has been on his mission for about a year now and he likes to sing and play the piano. This is his third transfer in this area...

The Skyline area is different than all of my other areas. It is basically just a bunch of neighborhoods of super nice houses on a hill. There are no parks or businesses just all residential area so we do a lot of walking around the neighborhoods talking to people and trying to contact different members and less-active people. It's a different experience, but it's fun!

Elder Kern said that the area has been slow for a couple months and they haven't been able to find much. So we thought about different things that we could do to find people to teach and I told him one thing that worked well in my last areas was praying specifically to find one new investigator every single day. He said let's give it a try and we were able to find a new investigator for four days straight! It was sweet! So we have been really trying to involve the Lord in our finding. One of the people we found was when we were out looking for an inactive member.  We knocked on the door and his non-member father opened it. He said that his son had moved. We ended up having a solid conversation with him and he started opening up to us. He was saying how he had never read the BoM and that missionaries had come by looking for his son a lot, but had never given him a BoM. We taught him about it and committed him to read it. He said he would and we set a return appointment. It was a cool miracle from having specific prayers!

We also did a lot of service this past week! We were able to do some landscaping for a member, and then we did some tile demolition for another member. It was a super good workout! We were also able to do service at the Faith Cafe which is an organization put on by a couple churches that provides meals for homeless or struggling families. The people will come into a church and we will serve them beverages and a meal. It was a lot of fun. We were able to be the servers and just talk to the people.

Hope you all have a great memorial weekend! I'm grateful for this country we live in and for all the people who have sacrificed for our freedom!

Elder Hill
 Dinner with the AP's at Lynn's house ...
 Tyler with Jacob (he baptized him a few months ago)
 Lunch with Jasmine ...
Tile demolition for a member ...

The following pictures are from a tour of the Nike World Headquarters last week with the Sisters
 
   

Monday, May 22, 2017

My Last Transfer!!

Hey!

So transfer news came and I am getting transferred! I am going to be in the Skyline Ward in the Cedar Mill Stake with Elder Kern, for my final transfer. I am sad to be leaving the Canyon Road Ward; it was one of my favorite areas and so many cool miracles happened there! But I am excited to be going to the Skyline Ward.  It's up on the hill at the north end of our mission and it's a really wealthy area. I covered the area when I was in the Tanasbourne YSA Ward so it'll be cool to go back! After 8 transfers of being a Zone Leader I am dropping to be a normal missionary which is super exciting because now all I have to worry about is just working hard these last five weeks in my own area!

This past week was packed with lots of activities. For my birthday on Tuesday, we went to breakfast with the APs and then to lunch with some of the other ZLs! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! I really appreciate it!  I had an awesome day!! It was awesome also for the fact that we had like 5 lessons and we set a baptismal date for our investigators, Kaitlyn and Cameron, for July 1st! So that was a good birthday present! They are both excited to work towards that date to be baptized. We had a ton of lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday just running from appointment to appointment! It was the best!

Then Thursday things slowed down.  We did some service at Portland Community College and we helped out in a garden on campus. The lady there was teaching us all about gardening and what to do so that was kinda fun.

On Friday we went to the temple with Handfull! She loved it and we had a great lesson. Handfull is so solid!  She told us how her family asks her questions about why she was baptized and then she said that she bears her testimony to them about the Church and the Book of Mormon. She said that her family wants to learn more! Missionary work is the best! I'm sad that I won't be able to continue teaching her and Alex, but it was definitely one of my favorite experiences on my mission getting to know them.
This morning we went on a tour of the Nike world headquarters campus in Beaverton. It was so sweet. And then we got passes to get into the employee store!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes and gifts!

Love and miss you all!
Elder Hill
One last selfie with Elder Brian ...

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Happy Mother's Day!

Hi everyone!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! And a special happy Mother's Day to my mom! She's always been there supporting me through everything ... love you Mom! And we were able to skype home for Mother's Day so that was exciting!
This week wasn't super eventful. We didn't have another baptism this week so the baptizing streak is over, but we're working on it!  We had a lesson with our new investigator, Joey, at the Portland Temple Visitor Center on Wednesday! It was sweet, he really enjoyed it. He is a dating a less-active girl in the Ward and he wants to learn more. They both came to church and he wants to keep meeting and reading the Book of Mormon!

Most of the week we spent contacting people and trying to find more people to teach. We have a few people that we are working with and wanting to help progress!  Other than that nothing too crazy going on. This week is transfers so I will find out where I am going for the last transfer of my mission.  It's crazy how fast the time has gone!

Here is a spiritual thought for the week:

In Alma 7:11-12 it is talking about Jesus Christ and what He will go through for us. It is one of my favorite scriptures because it's saying that because Christ suffered everything we will ever suffer, He is the one person that can help us overcome any trial, challenge, or pain in our lives.

"11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

This week I learned that succor comes from a Latin word which means "run to the help of". So in verse 12 it says that Jesus Christ is literally running to our aid. He is there and has an urgent need and desire to comfort us. What an amazing gift that it is! We have the divine Son of God running to our aid, all we have to do is turn toward Him and ask for help. 

Hope you all have a great week! Love and miss you all!

Elder Hill

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Baptisms on baptisms on baptisms!

Hi everyone!

On Saturday Chad Ike got baptized! He was the one that Elder DeVries and I took to the Elder Ballard fireside back in March. The baptism was sweet! I was able to be one of the witnesses and I also gave the closing prayer! During the baptism they had Chad get up and bear his testimony and it was awesome. He is such a cool guy and has a strong faith in Jesus Christ that will bless him for the rest of his life.
Jacob LoGreco from my last area in Farmington was also baptized on Saturday! We had a ward activity so I wasn't able to go attend the baptism, but I was able to Skype in with my old companion Elder Merrell, and watch Jacob get baptized. So cool! He looked so happy and excited to be baptized. I am going to repost the story on how he was found from my Weekly Letter three months ago!

Excerpt from Feb. 6th: " ....a few months back me and Elder Miller started teaching a 12 year old named Jacob LoGreco. His grandma was a member and she had just passed away so we were starting to teach him and help him work towards baptism, but after a couple months of taking the lessons he wasn't taking it seriously and didn't care. He didn't want to come to church or read the Book of Mormon. So we told him that we couldn't come back and teach him anymore because he didn't want to keep his commitments.  He was a little upset, but he just said okay. Then on Thursday night, I was on a split with one of the youth in the ward, and I felt impressed to go see Jacob (it had been four weeks since I had seen him last). But I talked myself out of it because I didn't think it would be an effective use of time. I got the prompting again to go see Jacob and so I was just like fine we will stop by to just see how he is doing. We stopped by and Jacob was super excited to see us. We go in and he says, "I can't believe you guys are here! You will not believe what happened today." He said, "earlier today I was thinking about you guys for some reason, and so I decided to make a bet with God. I made a deal with God that if none of my friends could hangout today then I would go to church with you guys and get baptized. I don't know why I made that deal but I felt like I should. And today literally none of my friends could hangout. Not a single one! So I said okay God you win, I will get baptized. But, I didn't know how it would happen since you told me you weren't coming back anymore, but then 3 hours later you show up at the door!!"  You can imagine my excitement as he told me all this. I was freaking out, but I was also overwhelmed with gratitude that the Lord led us to his house."

So awesome right!? The Lord has a plan for everyone!

The rest of our week here went good! We took Alex to the Portland Temple Visitor Center and we talked to him about getting the priesthood and going to do baptisms in the temple. He was super excited and is working on getting the priesthood. He even got up in church on Sunday and bore his testimony!

On Thursday we went to the temple as a Zone which was great. In a month I'm going to be doing my departing temple trip, how crazy is that.

Saturday night Elder Brian and I put on a ward activity where we had a ping pong tournament at the institute building downtown! We had a good turnout and it was a lot of fun! I love serving in downtown Portland!

Okay, one last little miracle for the week. On Thursday evening we went to go see a less-active girl with our bishop. We had a lesson with her and her mom and it went really well! During the closing prayer I had the distinct impression to ask her if she had any friends that were going through a hard time that we could share a message with. After the prayer, I was about to ask her but before I could say anything Elder Brian asked her literally that exact same question word for word. She said, "yes there is actually! My friend is going through a hard time and he wants to learn more about the church." We set up a time to go to the temple visitor with them this week. I asked Elder Brian after the lesson when he thought of asking her that question. He said it was during the closing prayer. I was just like no way me too, word for word! It was a cool testimony to us that the Spirit will give us very specific promptings. We just need to be in tune with the Holy Ghost.

Everything is great here in Portland and the weather is even getting nice!

Have a great week!
Elder Hill

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Handfull gets baptized!

Hi everyone!

Handfull got baptized this week!! It was so awesome! The baptism went great, so many people from the Ward came! Handfull was so excited and she was so happy afterward. She really wants to do all she can to follow Jesus Christ! Then the next day at church I had the opportunity to confirm her a member of the church and give her the gift of the Holy Ghost! The Spirit was strong and it was a great experience. It was a big testimony builder for me as I felt the Spirit and the love of God confirming that Handfull was doing what the Lord wanted and that He was very proud of her. She has made so many changes in her life and you can see the joy in her eyes. And I think that is really the miracle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It can transform anyone to have the countenance of Christ in them; and make them a better, happier person.
 Tyler, Handfull & Elder Brian at Handfull's baptism
 Elder DeVries baptized Handfull!
Handfull's Ward supporting her baptism ...

At the beginning of the week we went on two exchanges. From Tuesday to Wednesday I went with Elder Moore, one of our district leaders, to his area. And then from Wednesday to Thursday Elder Wilcock, the other district leader, came to our area with me. It's always good working with other missionaries and learning from one another. Elder Wilcock and I were able to have a lesson with one of our investigators who lives downtown and is a lawyer. He is a super smart guy and he was interested in hearing what we had to say. He was a very logical thinker and so it was difficult to help him see why we need faith. But after we testified of prayer and the Book of Mormon you could see his countenance change and the Spirit working in him.  He took what we had to say very seriously and he wanted to know for himself if it was true. So hopefully he will read the Book of Mormon and receive an answer!

On Friday, Elder Brian and I were looking for an apartment in a huge complex. We had walked around for 30 min and we couldn't find this apartment anywhere. During the whole time we were walking we talked to a lot of people and none of them wanted to talk to us at all. So we were getting pretty frustrated. After walking around forever we were finally able to find the apartment, but no one was home of course. We were both thinking alright Heavenly Father has us here for a reason we need to find out what it is. And then the door right next to us opens and a lady walks out. We start talking to her and she said she had some Mormon friends but didn't know what we believed really. We gave her a Book of Mormon and were able to get her number and setup a return appointment! Heavenly Father has a plan, even if it is a little frustrating to us! He knows what's best haha!

Hope you all have a great week! Love and miss you!

Elder Hill

 View of downtown Portland ...
Really old building in Portland!

Monday, April 24, 2017

It takes 3 hours to fill the baptismal font!?!

Hi everyone!

Another great week! We had Alex's baptism on Friday and it was awesome! Throughout the week we were meeting with him and getting him all prepared and ready to go for his baptism. It has been awesome to see his knowledge and testimony grow over these past couple of months of teaching him. He is such a great individual and has a magnetic spirit about him.

Friday was such a hectic day! So first off, I don't know what happened or what I ate but I woke up Friday morning with the stomach flu, and it was not fun. I was so upset because we had a jam packed day and Alex asked me to baptize him and I was just like there is no way I am going to let this ruin the day! Before the baptism we had lunch with a member and I just sat on the couch the whole time and rested and prayed that it would go away until the baptism was over. Thankfully I started to feel a little better. Lunch went a little long and we ended up getting to the church an hour and a half early to fill up the baptismal font, but we didn't realize that it takes 3 HOURS to fill up the font. Elder Brian and I looked at each other and were just like oh no. We turned on the water and then we found a hose in the bathroom next to the font and we were running water from that into the font as well. It wasn't filling fast enough! So we improvised and went to the kitchen and started filling up buckets of water and throwing them into the baptismal font! We were running back and forth from the kitchen like mad men trying to fill it in time! It was crazy! But we got it filled just in time! The baptism went great, and it was an amazing experience being able to baptize Alex! He was so happy and giddy afterwards it was incredible haha. You could feel the love of Heavenly Father so strong as he was baptized..... and then right after the baptism was over my stomach started killing me again (but Heavenly Father answered my prayer!) and I just went home and slept it off and I was fine the next day.

The rest of the week was solid. We had Zone Conference on Thursday and Elder Brian and I presented our Zone vision to everyone. President said our vision was the best one out of all the zones! And then we and the other Zone Leaders had to act out the first 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon in front of all the missionaries in the zone conference. It was hilarious! I played Laban haha.
 Mission Leadership Conference
We have been teaching a few other people too. We met this one guy at GNC named Austen. He works the register there and we taught him the whole first lesson at GNC, it was sweet! He is interested in learning more and we are going back there on Wednesday!

I am so thankful for all the experiences I have had and the people I have met here on my mission.  Just in these past 8 weeks of being in the YSA Ward, my testimony has grown so much. The Lord is blessing us and we are seeing so much success! We are going to be having another baptism this Saturday for Handfull Morris! It will be another great day! 

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

 Elder Miller at transfers ...
Elders Brian & Rockwood at transfers ...

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Happy Easter!

Hi everyone!

Happy Easter! Hope everyone had an awesome Easter Sunday and thought about the reason why we celebrate Easter!

This week was super busy! It was the first week of the transfer so we had all of the logistical stuff that we needed to do, and a bunch of meetings to attend, but it was awesome!

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went to PCC and set up our booth and talked to people about the new Easter video that came out. We were actually able to talk to quite a few people so that was good.

On Friday we had Mission Leadership Conference all day and then afterward we were invited to a Family Home Evening that was going on in a family ward! We thought it was just going to be a couple people, but we showed up and there ended up being 12 people there and 4 non-members, it was sweet! We shared the Easter video with everyone and then we gave them all Book of Mormons! Two of them were YSA age and so we set-up return appointments to visit with them again. One of them is from Iraq and the other is from Persia! They were excited to read the Book of Mormon and learn more about it.

Saturday we went downtown again to go whiteboarding! There was a Saturday market going on and so we were able to go around talking to so many people. There were lots of people who wanted to write on the board so it was awesome! We handed out like 75 pass along cards to people with our number on the back! After that we had a lesson over the phone with our investigator, Alex. We hadn't been able to contact him for about a week so we were a little worried. But we called him and he was like, "what's up guys! So I'm still getting baptized this weekend right!? Can we move it to Friday instead of Saturday?" And we were just like heck yeah we can! So Alex is getting baptized this Friday which will be sweet! He is an awesome guy and he has made so many awesome changes in his life.

Sitting on top of the Institute building in downtown Portland

Then on Sunday we had a lesson with Handful. She was about to get called into work but she told them that she couldn't come in because she had to go to church! So she went to church and then we had a lesson with her after. During the lesson she looked at us with tears in her eyes and said that she read the Book of Mormon this week and that she felt very strongly in her heart that God wants her to join this church and get baptized. She said she is ready right now to be baptized and that she knows she needs to do it to follow God. She wanted to move her baptism date up to this weekend but she still needs to be taught some of the lessons so it's still on for the 29th! The work is going great here; the Lord is blessing us!!

Hope you have a great week!
Elder Hill

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

I guess you need Sisters ...

Hi everyone!

Transfers happened this week... Elder DeVries is getting transferred to Oregon City and I am staying in the YSA Ward! My new companion is Elder Brian, he's a cool guy. It's his first transfer as a Zone Leader so it will be fun! I'm super pumped to be able to stay in the YSA Ward!

So nothing too crazy happened this week.  We had to push Cameron's baptism back because he is still working on the Word of Wisdom, but we did have an awesome lesson with our investigator, Handful Morris.  She is from Libya and we have been teaching her for a couple weeks now. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she said that she is ready to commit to following God and wants to be baptized! So we set her date for April 29th! 

This week we went to Portland Community College and set up our booth for the new Easter video. We went with the Sister Missionaries serving in the other YSA Ward and so many more people came up and talked to us! It was crazy we found two new people to teach and so did the Sisters. People would come up and start asking questions and then we would show them the new Easter video, give them a Book of Mormon, and setup a return appointment to teach them. It was so sweet! I guess you need Sisters if you want people to talk to you.
 Portland Community College booth with Sister missionaries ...
Lunch with Sister Mercado & Sister Gutierrez

The YSA Ward is awesome, I love this area! Time is flying by, I only have 11 weeks left! So crazy!

I hope everyone has had a chance to watch the new Easter video. If you haven't, it's on Mormon.org and you should go check it out! The video talks all about peace and it makes me think of the scripture John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

In this verse, the Savior is talking to His apostles and He is telling them that the peace He offers is far different than the peace of the world. We think that we can find peace in money or worldly possessions, but lasting peace can only come through Jesus Christ. His love can bring peace to our soul, which is far better than any temporary pleasure. And how do we access this peace? By following Him. If we live His teachings, and put our trust in Him through prayer and faith, then we can receive a peace that is beyond anything ourselves or the world can create.

Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Hill