I'm a little bit country ...

Hello everyone! 

Another week gone by, there's only one week left of the transfer. I've already been in Sandy for almost three months! This week was a little slower than last week with the work. The first couple of days we did a lot of service and let's just say that I am definitely living the country boy life. In the past week and a half, I have bucked hay 3 times, chopped or stacked wood 3 different times, planted and weeded corn, and have seen and played with almost any farm animal you can think of haha. It's been awesome but I still like the city better! 

Elder Kirk was really sick for a lot of the week with the flu so we weren't able to go out and do much. I had to stay in the apartment with him and so I was able to do a lot of studying and reflecting. I'm almost at my halfway point and it was interesting to look back and see the growth and development I've had from just one year! I was also able to study my patriarchal blessing more in depth, and it really is true how those blessings are literally scriptures for our own lives and can help us to know what paths to follow. 

On Saturday, we had a pretty memorable experience. We got a text from our Bishop saying that he had received a call from a man and he said that he needed missionaries to come by to talk to. So we get his address and go over there and this man, probably in his 60's, opens the door and was just so happy to see us he was in tears. He said that he saw some missionaries on the street a couple days ago (the Young Single Adult missionaries) and he got our Bishop's number from them. So we go in and start getting to know him and it turns out he is a convert of about three years. He was living in Missouri and his friend convinced him to move out here to Oregon. So he moves out here with his friend and they are living with a bunch of random people in this house, and then his friend abandoned him. He doesn't know where his friend went and now he has been living in this house for 8 months with 4 people who are addicted to meth (but he is clean and sober). He has disabilities so he doesn't have a job. All he has were the clothes he was wearing and a backpack. He doesn't have a bedroom, he sleeps in a recliner in the corner. It was the saddest thing in the world. He is the most humble man I have ever met and all he wanted was someone to help him feel safe. There is only one other person in the house who doesn't do drugs, and he said all the other people are terrifying. We gave him a blessing of comfort and safety and I had the opportunity to give him the blessing. The Spirit was so strong and he started crying through the whole thing which made Elder Kirk and I start crying. We then read Alma 7 with him and talked about the Atonement and how Christ knows everything he is going through. It was a really humbling experience. Any worries or problems that I thought I had were completely gone. It helped me realize how blessed I really am, and it helped magnify my perspective of why I am actually out here... And the cool thing is that he came to church with us yesterday and he loved it!

Thank you for all the emails and support!! I really appreciate it, it makes a difference:) 

Have a great week!! 

Elder Hill 

11 Months Down!!!

Hi everyone!

We had a pretty good week this week!  We had three of our investigators come to church yesterday so that was sweet. So there is a crazy story with one of our new investigators.  Her name is Denice Brown and she was taking the lessons about a half-year ago and was coming to church frequently. She was just about to get baptized, but her husband was really against it so she stopped coming to church but kept taking the lessons and working towards baptism.  Well, just four days before her baptism her husband had enough and said, "you have to choose between me or the church". We never want to breakup a marriage or family so she was counseled to stay with her husband and she decided to not be baptized.  But the crazy part is that just two days after he said that to her, he was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He was a vibrant, healthy man and then out of nowhere right after he said that he got cancer.  A couple months later (a week ago) he passed away. It was so sudden and devastating, but now she wants to start taking the lessons again and she came to church yesterday.  I just thought that was crazy because God doesn't make any mistakes and everything happens for a reason. It made me think of the scripture Alma 24:27: "thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people." God's purpose is to bring about the eternal life of His children and He will do whatever it takes to do that.  I know that her husband will have an opportunity to accept the gospel in the next life so that they can be together for eternity and the amazing thing is that Denice already understands that. 

We taught and met with a lot of awesome people this week! One of the coolest and humblest people we taught was a less-active man named Paul. He is a Vietnam veteran and was the gunman in a helicopter.  He has done and seen some crazy stuff.  He hasn't forgiven himself for some of the things he had to do and so that's why he doesn't come to church.  He started crying talking about it.   We talked about the Atonement and how it is infinite and covers everything.  He said nobody believed some of the stuff he had to do.  He said that Sylvester Stallone interviewed him for a movie once trying to get as much info as possible about the war for a movie and Stallone couldn't even believe the things he had to do.  But he came to church on Sunday with us. He is an awesome guy! 

This Sunday we got a new bishop and he is amazing! One of the best I have ever seen. Super excited for the ward!! 

This past week, I hit 11 months! Almost halfway there, it is flying by!! 

Thanks for all the love and support! Have a great week! 

Elder Hill 

 Tyler & Sister Torrie

Tyler & Elder Katieli 

 Tyler & Elder Hintz

Tyler & Elder Deer (haha!!)

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!