Elder Tyler Hill: #PrinceOfPeace

Hi everyone!

What a party this week was! General Conference was so awesome! I loved all of the talks especially Elder Rasband and Elder Uchtdorf. I loved when Elder Rasband was talking about the Holy Ghost and how that the FIRST prompting we receive in any situation is pure inspiration from heaven. We should never postpone a prompting, which is something I have been trying to work on.

This week was sweet. The new Easter video called #PrinceOfPeace came out and so we have been going crazy with it. We have been handing out the pass along cards like candy. We went downtown Thursday and Friday with a whiteboard with the question, "what brings you peace?" We had people write down what brought them peace. It was cool to see the different things that brought everyone peace and then while talking we were able to transition into talking about what we do as missionaries. We were able to handout a couple Book of Mormons and dozens of pass along cards, it was awesome. There are definitely some strange people in downtown Portland, but everyone needs the gospel!

On Wednesday, we went to downtown Portland to do service with a Christian church. We made dozens of sandwiches with the members of their church. Then we took the sandwiches, hygiene kits, and clothing and walked around downtown handing them out to all the homeless people. It was a really cool experience being able to see the reactions of others and to do a small act of service for them!

The past couple of days have been crazy with our investigators. So first off cool story that happened.. Elder Joaquin Costa spoke in Sunday session of Conference about his conversion story and getting baptized. It was the perfect talk for one of our investigators, Cameron, but he wasn't able to watch conference. So after the session we called him up and tell him that we have to show him something. Cameron was almost baptized a couple months ago, but it didn't happen because he was trying to quit smoking but couldn't do it quite yet. So we met up with him and show him this talk. After the talk we asked him what he thought. He said he really liked it and he felt really happy. We asked him if he still wanted to be baptized. He said yes I do, but I am still struggling with smoking cigarettes.. He has been trying really hard to quit for a couple months now and it is the only thing holding him back from being baptized. He was saying how he really needed to quit, and then I had a prompting (and I knew I needed to act on the FIRST prompting). I felt prompted to say, "Cameron, as personal representatives of Jesus Christ we can promise you that if you give up smoking right now and go this whole week without smoking a cigarette, and then get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost on Saturday you will never have the urge to smoke again."..... the Spirit was there working on him. He replied, "Yes! I want that! I can do it!" And so we are now hoping and praying with all of our might that he will not smoke and he will be able to get baptized on Saturday! So awesome!

And then Chad (the investigator who met Elder Ballard) should be getting baptized in two weeks! He's doing great working with the Sister Missionaries.

We had another lesson with our investigator Alex who is doing awesome. He is getting baptized on the 22nd! He is super prepared and ready! And then we have Handful Morris who came and watched Conference with us and people from the Ward, and as she was riding home with a member she told the member that she loved Conference and that she isn't scared to join the church anymore and wants to be baptized!!

So many awesome miracles happening. The Church is true people. Jesus Christ lives. He is the Savior. He has been with me every step of the way these past 21 months and has brought me more joy than I have ever felt. If you follow Him you will be happy. Have a good week!

Elder Hill