Sweet hike, sweet pics!

Hi everyone!

We just got done with a super sweet hike!! It was 7 miles there and back to a place called Ramona Falls. It was super cool and our whole Zone went. It was up the mountain so it was snowing too, but it was super fun. 

So this past week on Tuesday, we went to the other side of our area to a place called Government Camp. It's right next to Mt. Hood. It took us an hour to get there and we wanted to go find a potential investigator out there, but it was the wrong address haha. So we tried to talk to some people, but it's more of a tourist attraction town so no one was interested at all. We went into a gift shop and the cashier goes, "are you handing those out!?" She's pointing to the Book of Mormons in our hands. We were just like, "uhhh yeah, you want one??" She said yes and it turns out she grew up Mormon, but stopped going when she was 9 years old. We had a really good conversation with her! It's crazy the places that you will find people. 

So our Ward mission leader, Bro Smith, is the man. He is one of the coolest, but most spiritual people, out there. We had dinner at his house and we had a really good spiritual conversation and Bro. Smith was talking about some awesome stuff and bearing his testimony, and then at the end he was like, "you guys wanna go play some foosball?" So we went out and Elder Wheeler and I played foosball against him and his wife haha. 

Friday we had some really good lessons. We went to see a less-active guy named Scott and he had really been having a hard time with some things. After we talked about, I felt impressed to share with him a Mormon Message, "Hope Ya Know I Had a Hard Time" because it talks about a lot of the things he was going through. He started crying while watching it and said, "wow that was incredible, I really needed that." He was really glad that we came over to visit him. Then later we had a lesson in the evening with a couple investigators that we have been working with off and on. We knocked on their door and Josh, the person we were supposed to meet with was sleeping, but his girlfriend Katie wanted to talk for a little bit. So she comes outside and we are sitting on her porch and it is already sprinkling a little bit outside. We start talking to her and we asked about her faith in God and she just broke down and started crying and saying how if God is real then why do her family members keep dying? It was really sad. We told her about the Plan of Salvation and the purpose of life. While we are talking it starts to rain harder and harder, and it's just raining a ton and she's crying and it was just a crazy situation. We promised her that God is there, that He loves her and is watching over her and that she will see her loved ones again. We bore our testimonies and by the end of the lesson she said that she wanted to meet with us more. It was a cool experience! 

Thank you for all the emails and support!! I really appreciate it! Send me pics if you want! I love getting emails and pictures! 

Have a good week! 

Elder Hill

Replica of the gun that was used to shoot Joseph Smith 

Tracting in the boonies works, Elder Wheeler

Hello!

So the transfer is already half over. It's crazy how fast the weeks are going by. This week was alright, it wasn't as good as last week, but it still went pretty good. 

I told Elder Wheeler that I am convinced tracting in the boonies works for finding people and so on one of the days we went out into the woods and started tracting the houses out there and it was the worst haha. No one was home or they weren't interested at all so Elder Wheeler didn't believe me that it worked, but then I suggested the next day to try one more time and we found two new investigators!  So it does work even out in the middle of the wilderness haha. We knocked on this one house and a younger guy answered and we started talking to him. We asked if he had any Mormon friends and he said no, but he has been wanting to learn more! Elder Wheeler and I were just like wait what? That never happens haha. We also get to take a lot of pictures with different animals out in the wilderness tracting haha. 

We had Zone Conference on Thursday which was good. I always love seeing missionaries from the other Zones that I haven't seen in forever. 

We did a lot of service this week too. We helped make a nature walk for the blind. Not sure how that works, but hey it was still fun to help out. 

On Sunday our investigator John, the one that wants to be baptized because he doesn't want to be damned, announced in Sunday School class to everyone that he is getting baptized. So that was pretty cool! 

Thanks for the emails and support!  Love and miss you guys!

Elder Hill

Spiritual Thought: "You and I may speak most eloquently of spiritual things. We may impress people with our keen intellectual interpretation of religious topics. We may rhapsodize about religion and “dream of [our] mansion above.” But if our faith does not change the way we live--if our beliefs do not influence our daily decisions--our religion is vain, and our faith, if not dead, is certainly not well and is in danger of eventually flatlining." -President Uchtdorf 

I like this quote from President Uchtdorf's talk in the last conference because it basically says that if we have faith in God and Jesus Christ then we need to act like it. Our actions need to be in accordance with our faith, because if they aren't then what is the point of having faith. If we believe in something and it doesn't change who we are and what we do, then what is the point of believing.

"Every single soul is precious" - Elder Ballard

Hi everyone!

So this week was super solid! We taught over 20 lessons this week which is the standard of excellence for our Mission! We were crazy busy all week.

Tuesday

Tuesday we met with a lot of different investigators, and we have one investigator named John who has been meeting with missionaries for a while now. He is a war vet and a little older and is a little slow with things. We had a really good lesson on baptism and we asked him if he would like to be baptized. He said, "every time I wanna do something, the government won't let me do it!!" His brother, who is a member, was like, "John, the government isn't involved in this." And he said, "oh, in that case I will think about it." Hahaha. 

Wednesday

Wednesday we had a really good day and taught six lessons! 

Thursday

Thursday we were supposed to go on a split with our Ward Mission Leader, but he had to cancel at the last minute and we felt prompted to go see this less active lady. So we went to see her and as we were visiting with her, her granddaughter walks in and joins us. She is a non-member and starts asking us questions and stuff and she said she wants us to come over and teach her more! It's crazy how the Lord puts people in our path 'cause we weren't even supposed to be at that house! 

Friday

Friday we stopped by another potential investigator that we had seen before and she told us to come back later, and so we did. She let us in this time and we had such a good lesson with her. The Spirit was strong and we asked her if she would be baptized if she came to know the Book of Mormon was true and she said yes. It was awesome!! Friday in the evening we went to go see John again and we talked a lot about baptism and we talked about how we have a clean slate when we are baptized and that all of our sins and guilt are gone, and he was like "wait, seriously?" We told him that it could happen for him if he was baptized and he got super excited and so we set a date for May 7th for his baptism! 

The work here is going great! We are super busy, but we had interviews with the Mission President on Wednesday and he told me not to get comfortable in this area because he has other things planned for me. I have no idea what that means, but I was a little bummed that I won't be staying in the Ward for that long. We will see what happens!! 

Saturday

Saturday Elder Ballard from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to all the missionaries in our Mission. It was so sweet. I was able to shake his hand again and he said, "Good Morning Elder." It was the most spiritually powerful good morning ever hahaha. It was really cool to hear from an apostle.

Our Mission President's wife, Sister Ballard, had her dad, Ken Garff, speak to us as well.  President Garff is a former Temple President. They gave some really good counsel and instruction. It really helped me gain a new perspective on different things about life in general... One of the things that stuck out to me the most that Elder Ballard said was, "every single soul is precious. A great price was paid for each one." It's just amazing to think about how God loves ALL of His children. Not just some, and not just those that are good people. He loves every single soul equally and the Atonement is there for everyone. Christ suffered for all. We have this knowledge and so it is our responsibility to share it with others and to bring others back to Heavenly Father. Christ gave his life so that everyone could live with God again, so the least we can do is help others along their way. "Have faith, have hope, live like His Son, help others on their way." 

Sunday

Sunday I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and I finished the book, Jesus the Christ! Hallelujah! 

I really appreciate all the emails and letters!! Thank you so much for all the love and support! 

Have a good week! 

Elder Hill

This is one of our Ward member's backyards ... the Sandy River!!

General Conference, Ziplining & Hank

Hello from the wilderness of Oregon! 

So my first week in the Sandy River area was awesome! Our area is enormous and it takes about 2 hours to drive from the west border to the east border. We cover the town of Sandy and then everything to the east until Mt. Hood. The members here are awesome and they love missionaries! They are also very missionary minded and try to help us out. We have been teaching this girl named Jasmine who is 13 yrs old and she is getting baptized on Saturday! She is awesome and really wants to be baptized; her grandma is a recent convert. We have also been working with some others that could have baptismal dates soon so we will see. Once you leave the town of Sandy all the houses are basically out in the middle of nowhere and everyone has huge acres of land. 

This is a view from the edge of Sandy to Mt. Hood. We cover everything you can see in the picture or as Elder Wheeler says, "our area is everything the light touches!" haha

Tuesday

Tuesday we did a lot of service.  We helped a member do some yard work and then worked at the food bank in town. We also were able to go visit some people so I could get introduced. 

Wednesday

Wednesday we had a couple lessons and then in the evening the Ward was having a mutual activity about missionary work so we went and they asked us a bunch of questions about missionary life.  The youth here are awesome! 

Thursday

Every Thursday we have a Book of Mormon class with anyone who wants to come so we did that and then in the evening we went on splits and I went with Bro. Shaffer. We went to go visit this family who used to take the lessons, but they hadn't been taking them recently and so we went to go see them and they want to start meeting with us again. So that was exciting. 

Friday

So apparently in the Mt. Hood Zone, missionaries like to pull pranks on each other ...  We were doing service with some of the Sisters in the Zone and Elder Wheeler wanted to prank them so we did haha.  Then, later that night when we got home, all of our bed sheets were in the freezer! They swear they didn't do it... So the prank wars are apparently starting. 

Saturday

Saturday was General Conference! We watched the first two sessions at a member's house, the Stevens, and then the Priesthood session at the Stake Center. The Priesthood session was awesome!! I really liked Elders' Nelson and Uchtdorf's talks. There were so many things said that answered questions I had.

Sunday

Sunday we went over to the Smiths to watch the morning session and they live out in the middle of nowhere. They have a zipline that goes across a giant pond in their front yard and so after the morning session we went to go ride the zipline haha. It was sweet. We watched the afternoon session with Jasmine and her grandma. Her grandma is hilarious!  She is a recent convert and says the funniest things. In the evening, we visited and contacted people. 

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

*Elder Ballard is coming to visit our Mission again this Saturday so that should be awesome. -

*Hopefully you all enjoyed conference! If you didn't see it, then you can watch it online!

This is Hank, one of our less actives enormous dogs. He is scared to go 

through doors so he walks through them backwards ...hahaha

Transfers!!!

Well ladies and gentlemen ...

We received transfer calls on Saturday, and I'm leaving Canby. I am getting transferred to the Sandy River Ward in the Mt. Hood Stake. So I'm going to be even more out in the country than Canby is! My new companion is Elder Wheeler. He is from Orem, Utah and has been out 19 months. I have heard a lot of good things about the Sandy River Ward so I am excited! And I'm going to be the district leader still over there so that will be exciting as well. It has been awesome serving in Canby and I am grateful for all the experiences I have had and for all the people I have been able to meet. I can't believe how fast those three months went by.  It feels like I just got to Canby and I'm already leaving, but I know I'm going to Sandy River for a reason. I think the one thing that I have learned here in Canby more than anything else is that God knows us personally and has a specific plan for each one of us. His hand is always in our lives and we are put through different experiences to become the person He wants us to become. No matter what we go through in this life, everything has a purpose and there is a reason. We just have to have faith in God that it is for our benefit. 

Nothing too exciting happened this week. Monday we had FHE with the Knowldens which was a lot of fun.  We shared a message and played Five Crowns with them. Throughout the week we did a lot of tracting out in the Boonies which has been our most successful way of finding investigators. We have met a lot of interesting people that way too. We knocked on this door and a guy opened it and we started talking to him and then we hear from inside the house, "don't talk to them, they pray to an alien on another planet!!" So that was kinda funny. A lot of people say that tracting in the country is ineffective but we were out doing it and this one lady answered and said, "I thought you would never find us out here!" She said they have been looking for a new religion and so we gave her a Book of Mormon and she said we could come back! So tracting in the Boonies does work!! 

We also did a lot of service as usual and then Saturday we got transfer calls. I totally thought I was staying because the Zone Leaders said this District is the best in the Zone and that President wouldn't change up the District Leader. So I thought I was staying for sure and then I find out I'm getting transferrered so it was a little bit of a surprise! 

Saturday and Sunday was spent saying goodbye to a lot of people. Nothing too exciting happened on Easter. Our dinner appointment cancelled so Elder Garfield and I made our own Easter dinner and we hung out with Arian, our crazy neighbor! I'm going to miss Canby and all the crazy people here!

Crazy neighbor, Arian

Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

*Shoutout to my sister Nicole getting married! Wish I coulda been there! It looked awesome! 

*Happy Easter! What an amazing day in which we had to remember Our Savior. Our Mission President sent us an Easter email and it was awesome. Here is some of it as he talked about the Atonement:

"He who had created worlds without number was about to enter a quiet, secluded garden. There was no fanfare, no crowd to witness the most profound event in human history. This was a moment so sacred, so sublime, that no human mind could fully comprehend its transcending importance. The hour was at hand. The Son of God stood alone in all His majestic power against all that Satan could muster. Here was divine love in its purest expression doing battle against evil in its cruelest form. This was the place and the time for the Atonement of Jesus Christ." 

I haven't ever really been the most spiritual person in my life, but if there is something that I have learned in the last 9 months of serving a mission, it is that the Atonement is real. I have seen it change the lives of people and give them hope when they thought there was none. Jesus Christ, the living Son of the living God, suffered and felt every single pain, heartache, sorrow, grief, disappointment, and tragedy that anyone has ever experienced. There is not one person who has ever lived or will live that will go through or feel something that Christ hasn't already gone through Himself and it is because of this that we can be forgiven of our transgressions and feel peace in our hearts. He took upon Himself all of these things so that we might repent, and be able to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father. I have made so many mistakes in my life I wouldn't even know where to begin, but because God loves us enough to literally sacrifice His Son, I can be forgiven for those mistakes and feel peace. I am beyond grateful for my Savior and what He did for me. I know that I am nothing and could be nothing without Him. It is only through the grace of God and the enabling power of the Atonement that I can be reconciled to my Heavenly Father. 

Isaiah 53:5 "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." 

*Here is my new address just in case you want to send me a letter or something;)

Elder Tyler Hill
39415 Dubarko Rd., #39415
Sandy, OR  97055

Lifted a house while tracting ...

Bro. Knowlden in his purple suit!

 Bro. Steele, Canby Ward Mission Leader

 Kris Barrow. recent Church convert

Kelli Weisz, Lyssa (investigator), Tyler, and Cody Weisz

Elder Garfield burning a tie, celebrating six months on his mission!

Happy Almost Easter!!

Hi everyone!

Happy almost Easter! It's a perfect opportunity this week to invite someone to church, so don't be afraid! 

Tuesday we went on splits with our Ward Mission Leader Bro. Steele (he is awesome) and another member. We went to go see the Johnsons and they were sleeping; but the grandma answered the door and we had a really good conversation with her. She says she wants to learn more so that was exciting! 

You would think that with Easter coming up people would be more willing to listen and want to talk about Christ. but we had some rough times this week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we we did a lot of contacting and tracting, and we were getting yelled at left and right. We were tracting and this guy opened the door and was like, "you better get the *bleep* outta here right now! Go on get!" And then another time we were just walking down the road and someone drove by and yelled, "you Mormons are a *bleeping* joke!".... Then there were some other incidents, and it got to that point when we were just like what the heck are we even doing here. BUT then Friday I received a letter and it had a picture of missionaries with a broken bike and it said, "When do the best two years of my life start?" I was thinking, "haha ain't that the truth." On the inside it had the scripture, Alma 26:27: "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said.. bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." That scripture changed the week around. Even though we didn't have much success this week, the Lord knows what we are going through and what we need to do to have success, we just have to put our faith and trust in Him. So shout out to the person who sent me that, you know who you are! 

Tracting in the boonies ...

Random lake ...

On Thursday we hooked up Jerry Johnson, our investigator, with a dentist in our Ward to get some free dental work done for his toothache after the office closed. We went over there after they were done and we shared a lesson in a dentist office. We also took some pics of us being dentists!

We did a ton of service this week too. We chopped wood, helped plant some trees, pulled some ivy at a nature park, and of course played Pinochle with the old folks. It was hilarious because there is this old lady who likes to give you a hug and kiss on the cheek when she meets you, and I forgot to tell Elder Garfield about her so he is sitting there playing cards and she comes over and introduces herself and hugs him, and then he turns back around to play and she comes up behind him and kisses him on the ear! He jumps up and was like what the heck hahahaha it was hilarious. 

Love and miss you all!!  Have a great Easter!!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

* The new Church Easter video is out and I posted it on Facebook! So if you haven't seen it, go check it out! And don't be afraid to post or share it. 

* On Saturday it was "bring your own cup" any size to 7/11 for slurpees. So we found a couple big 'ole containers in our kitchen and got giant slurpees for $1.50 haha. 

* This is the last week of the transfer! We get transfer call Saturday so we will see what happens!! 

* Ponderize Scripture: Romans 8:31 - "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" As missionaries we get yelled at, mocked, and cussed at, but as long as we have God with us what is the worse that can happen? Another translation for this is "if God be for us, who can prevail against us?" When we rely on God and have His spirit and power, there is no one that can discourage, hinder, or stop the work and purposes that He has planned to fulfill. 

Sketchy house = Chicken lady

Hello everyone! 

Thank you for all the emails and letters you send. I appreciate it a ton!

This week was pretty solid! Nothing too exciting happened Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday we had an exchange; Elder Garver came here with me. He has only been out two months and he is an awesome missionary. We went tracting out in the boonies and as we were knocking on this door, we looked to our right and a goat was poking it's head around the corner of the house looking at us! Then, three more poked their heads around and then they all ran up to us and were standing on the porch with us, It was hilarious. If the person would have answered the door there would have been two missionaries and four goats on their doorstep, but they didn't answer. 

 Tracting with goats ...

Later in the day, we got a call from a less-active member who has been really stressed out with some health problems. She asked if we could give her a healing blessing. Elder Garver anointed and I gave the blessing. After, she was crying and said that she had received a healing blessing a couple months ago and that I said some of the exact same words that were said in the previous blessing given to her by a different person (well I didn't say them the Lord did cause it's what He wants to say). That experience just strengthened my testimony even more of priesthood blessings and how they come from God, not us. 

Thursday, I was able to do a baptismal interview for an investigator in another ward and it was probably the best one I have been a part of, her testimony was awesome. She shared some experiences that led to her conversion, and then she said the closing prayer of the interview and it was incredible to hear her express so much gratitude to Heavenly Father for allowing the Gospel to come into her life. I felt as if I was able to catch a tiny glimpse of the Divine love God has for His children. 

Friday we had a mission-wide fast for finding new investigators. We had been consistently finding one new investigator per week which is not that good and then on Friday and Saturday we found four! We spent a lot of our time tracting and contacting potentials or formers and God just placed people in our path who were receptive and ready to learn, so hopefully things will progress with these people. 

Sketchy house where a "chicken lady" lives ...

Sunday we had FHE with a part member family and they have a nine-year-old girl that prepared a scavenger hunt for me and Elder Garfield. The loser had to get dressed up in a costume, take a picture and have it posted on Facebook. Well, I barely lost, and a lot of you know that I am pretty competitive so I wasn't too happy haha. But it was fun and I looked pretty snazzy in the costume haha. Elder Garfield even wanted to try on the costume cause it looked so good haha. It was a fun FHE!

 

Sunday night the missionaries all sung in a choir at a fireside so that was pretty fun, It was a good fireside!

Thanks for all the support!  Have a great week!

Elder Hill

Tyler's Hints & Highlights this Week!

* I am halfway through reading Jesus the Christ... The book is forever long, but it's good.

* The Church's new Easter video is out it is called #Hallelujah, go check it out!!