First off let me just say
that it is crazy to think that it is June and that my year mark is
approaching, it's crazy how fast time goes if you get lost in the work.
As cliche as it sounds it is so true! I'm glad that y'all are doing well
doin your thang! It's great to hear everyone is staying busy and that
family reunion sounds like a blast and I'm glad its heating up
everywhere and the sun isnt just focusing all of its' energy in Georgia
cause thats what it seems like haha. Your gonna laugh at all my
experiences this week because so I hope you enjoy...
On
Wednesday, it was more or less a rough morning we got a text from a
member who was recently baptized saying that "if we call,text, or visit
her anymore she will call the police and I dont believe what you do and
she continued to say that I dont believe in the Book of Mormon..." It's
really hard getting to know someone really well and see their testimony
progress and then after all the work and worry you put into their
salvation they turn around and say it's not true and I dont believe it
to be true. She had alot of events that came up in her life that caused
her faith to be tried and with her new job she found it hard to make it
to church and enjoy the blessings of living the gospel to the fullest.
Even though we could see how things could and would unfold in the
future, things are what they are and hopefully over time she will come
back. But following that ordeal and trying to talk to her we had
district meeting and it was great a great meeting. If you remember "the
chair" it was my turn to sit in the chair and enjoy in the compliments
from the district. You could really feel the love. District meetings
message was really about how we as missionaries have a divine
opportunity to make a firm foundation on how we would live our lives and
if we are making the mission a better place. Super cool stuff! We drove
to Auburn to pick up the old phones from their district and we could
feel the summer heat approach us. We dinner with a member and she was
able to re-hem my suit pants which was needed haha:) We then had a great
Book of Mormon class as we studied from 2 Nephi 3-4 and the spirit
there was so strong!
On Thursday, we spent alot
of time in the car as we traveled to the small town of Buena Vista,
which if your a true sountherner it's spelling should be Boona Vista
because thats how it's pronounced so fun southern tip of the day:) We
then went on a 2 hour car ride to LaGrange,GA where we picked up their
districts phones. We spent a little time with them and headed back to
Columbus to meet up with Goeffrey. Geoffrey had hios birthday party a
few months back if you remember and after a long awaited visit, us the
Rivercrest sisters, and the Rivercrest elders decided to pay him a
visit. He asked us if we had girlfriends and he guessed our age and
asked us why we didnt have girlfriends/boyfriends. He is quite a funny
feller. We had mission prep later that night and we talked about how
much the Book of Mormon and the Bible correlated with each other. As we
talked about Adam and Eve and agency it's amazing how wonderful the Plan
of Salvation is and throughout this week that has been the message of
choice I guess you could say because it seems everyone we talked to
needed a feeling of purpose in life and thats what the Plan of Salvation
is there for.
On Friday, we drove up to Macon
for Missionary Leadership Council and it would be President and Sister
Cottles last MLC meeting of their mission which is very surreal. The
meeting was set up a bit different than normal instead of having just a
few speakers give longer trainings lots of zone leaders and sister
training leaders gave training's on certain principles. There were so
many good trainings where the spirit was present but 2 that really stood
out to me was a training by Elder Elliot who based his training off of
the question are you making your mission a better place and he read a
poem that really is full of the spirit. It's called "He's been there
before" if you havent read the poem I highly suggest it as it has really
taught me that the Savior has gone through more pain and suffering than
you and it wasnt for himself but it was for you and all of us. The
other training was by Elder Ballard who talked about the importance of
members in missionary work. He demonstrated it by having a strong
missionary hold up this bar that had waters at the end of the bar and
one missionary could do it alone and even when another missionary came
to help him hold it, it was still difficult for them both to do it for a
long time. But when 2 other missionaries (members couple) came in and
held the waters up the work seemed to be alot more efficient and
effective. It was a great training. President Cottle gave a training and
some announcements. We talked about new dress code policies and then he
brought up a topic. He said from the recent injuries from missionaries
he's thinking of banning basketball from the mission......... From the
increase of missionaries being hurt from going to hard they are getting
hurt from it causing President to contemplate about making it banned and
it was soooo hard for me to stay composed in the conversation but he
told us he'll leave that up to the next mission president. So send some
prayers our way haha. At the end we sang "Onward Christian Soliders" and
"God be with you til we meet again" and the spirit was sos strong as we
sang to the mission presidency.
On Saturday,
we planned and planned and planned some more. We planned out ZTM and
planned out our week. BUT funny story... so a member gave us some banana
bread a few weeks back and boy I love me some banana bread. Now we had
the banana bread sitting on the counter for a good 2 weeks before we
touched it and so we were having lunch and I still was a bit hungry so I
saw the banana bread and was like it's probably still good...So I
opened the tuppaware and grabbed a piece of the banana bread. As I was
eating it smelt super funny and no sooner as that smell made contact
with my brain I felt something wigglying in my mouth. I looked down and
the banana bread was crawling with maggots, it was as if the bread was
moving... HAHAHAHA even though I almost threw up then I can joke about
it now and say it was just some extra protein right??? Haha you gotta
eat some sort of bugs on your mission and we told a member about it and
between laughing and crying of laughter she said in some countries that
all they eat. For some reason that brought me some relief knowing that I
wouldn't die if I ate a few maggots and I wouldnt get dealthy ill. So
it all worked out haha:) WE biked to and from seeing people that day and
went with a few members to visit some people . We had a great dinner
with one recent convery here who was having one of our newly found
investigators at her house and she told us about a dream where she knew
that we would find someone that would eventually live with her and she
told us that as soon as you told me about her I knew that she was the
person I needed to help. So that just shows that God directs the work
here for sure.
Sunday was a great day! We had a
great service and heard lots of testimonies of families that lived in a
ward a long time and then were moving to Utah after a long time living
here in Georgia. Then I thought to myself that sounds familiar because
that was us last year and I had a crazy flashback moment. I then went
and taught soliders on Fort Benning about the Plan of Salvation. There
was a solider there that came back from his mission for 8 months then
decided to join the Army and we both taught a great lesson of the Plan
of Salvation and the man we were teaching said "It just all makes
sense!!" We were like "yeah it DOES!" He said he wants to be baptized
if he finds it to be true and I know he will! After church on Fort
Benning I went on exchanges to Cusseta and had dinner with the Wiese
family who are awesome and they have lots of horses and goats that they
care for. We then went and saw a man named Robert who had lots of
questions about the Plan of Salvation and being practiced up from the
lesson earlier that day the spirit guided the lesson and we were able to
answer lots of his questions and told us he was going to read all of
the Book of Alma even though we only wanted him to read 2 chapter in
Alma 40 and Alma 42. He was a great man! We then drove back to Cusseta
and stayed the night in the trailer that is run down, and there are
three missionaries in the very small trailer or "tin can" and because
it's so small they only have room for a cot and thats what I slept on
last night as I was woken up by cockroaches falling from the ceiling.
But life is great and I LOVE YOU GUYS, the church is true and I'll keep on persevering!!
-Elder Hill
#Cusseta #maggots #movingbread
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| Meetin' wtih Geoffrey! |
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| Second Coming?? |
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| Best District Eva! |
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