Mitchell Hill's Mission Blog: September 19, 2016

Hey Y'all!

So I wanted to start out with a really funny card Elder Weston bought today at the store. There's a picture of two rednecks looking at a shiny car and one says" Thats a nas car!" The other says" Yup real Nas" Then on the inside it says and thats how Nascar was invented haha:) When you say Nas put a southern drawl on it and its makes the joke even better:)

This past week was sure one to remember!

On Monday, We emailed and then headed off to Macon for MLC. Sadly we werent able to have a P-Day on Monday because there were 2 General Authorities that were going to be in Macon to lead MLC. MLC was definitely one to remember. When we arrived at the building and sat down you could tell there was a general authority there. I don't know any other way to describe it than that. Elder Uceda and Elder Meurrs of the 70 were there and gave us some really profound lessons. One very memorable comment he made was he broke down Philippians 4:13 and used the Greek translation for what the words mean. It really changes the scripture and makes it way more meaningful. Phillipians 4:13 says " I can do all things through Christ who strengthenth me." And the Greek translation is I can overcome all things with Christ who strengtheneth me. The way he was talking about it really touched everyone in the room. The meeting was amazing! Because it takes 2 hours to travel from Evans to Macon we stayed the night at the mission home because we had zone conference the next day. It rained super bad the whole meeting and Elder Weston and I traveled to Warner Robbins for the night to spend dinner with a member. His name was Starky and we went to a 50's style restaurant. It had a really cool vibe and it was great seeing Elder Weston soooo happy to see him! We returned back to the mission home and stayed the night. It was a lot of fun being there with everyone and knowing we would be together in 9 months sleeping there was really cool too haha.

On Tuesday, we got up and had to manage getting ready with 12 Elders with one bathroom in 1 hour was really tight, but we made it work haha. On the way to zone conference I was a bit nervous because I would be conducting a multi-zone zone conference in front of 2 general authorities. I was a little bit nervous, but its not like I haven't handled situations like that before. It really was a really neat opportunity where I was able to sit right next to Elder Uceda and Elder Meurrs to introduce them and conduct the meeting. After I had sat back down after initially starting the meeting and I sat down, it hit me of how much better I have become talking in front of people on my mission. I didnt stutter or make any mistakes and Elder Uceda even told me I did a great job of inviting the spirit and conducting! So you could say I gave my self a pat on the back:) The zone conference was amazing! Elder Uceda talked for 3 hours and normally when someone talks for that long it can get boring, but I was engaged the whole time. While he was breaking down scriptures and explaining things you could just tell he was a general authority. Elder Uceda really spoke to me about the importance of good studies and receiving revelation which is all some we love receiving. There were so many things that he helped me understand, but my favorite thing was how he drew this 8x8 grid on the board and asked us how many squares are there? Doing basic math we said 64. He said that's it and our mind was broadened and we saw how many more possibilities of squares there were. He said there is in total 204 squares in an 8x8 grid. He applied that to studies and said that there are so many more concepts we can understand than just the basic 64, but connecting principles and applying it to yourself is where you find more squares in your studies. On the way back from Macon we drove through Milledgeville and because Elder Showers was driving through Milledgeville too we stopped in at the apartment and almost a year later we were in the exact same apartment with each other! We saw brother Fraley and it was great seeing him there:) It as a packed day, but I loved the spirit in the meeting and it was very memorable!

On Wednesday, we had to pick up some groceries cause we couldn't on Monday. The highlights of the day were at night teaching Carolina O'reily and her kids about the Plan of Salvation. The y'all had really important questions and with the help of visual aids they really understood the lesson.

On Thursday, in the afternoon we picked up Daniel Storrer and went to go see Zina Eddy. If I were to "rank" the most spiritual Restoration lessons I've taught this would be up there. Zina gave us an ultimatum and she said" If I don't feel anything after this lesson I'm sticking to believing in Islam. Right after the prayer the spirit entered and everyone could feel it. She asked questions about prophets, we were led, by the spirit, to Jeremiah 1:5 and it made it clear to her that there was more than one prophet besides Jesus Christ. Which is a large belief in the Islamic faith, where they believe there is only one prophet and its Jesus Christ. We bore testimony and she accepted to baptized!! She is coming to church on the 25th and we are excited!! We found Zina by tracting but even before that we prayed with a member who lived close by to open the hearts of the people and in turn we found Zina! Gotta love being a missionary! We then later on took out Alex Gomez and talked to people while tracting. Found some really nice people but no one really seemed too interested.

On Friday, we planned a majority of the day, but Elder Weston and I have really developed a good relationship of planning and its made such a big difference in how we do missionary work!

On Saturday, we played ultimate Frisbee with the Army and got all my competitive juices out for the week, definitely needed. The highlights of the day were seeing Scott. He's been less active for 30-35 years and we prayed about what chapter we should read with him from the Book of Mormon. We decided on 3 Nephi 18, talking about how Christ administered the Sacrament. It was cool because he had prayed about coming to church for the sacrament and after we had read it, it was affirmed he should go to church and on Sunday he came!!! Which was really cool! We are going to watch conference with him and he is excited:) We went by Sister Coopers and on the way there we talked to this elderly lady and immediately she said to us. I know you boys from somewhere, don't know where but I've seen you before. She accepted to have us over and we are seeing her on Wednesday!Super Awesome!

Sunday, where do I begin, Church was really great and I sure did learn a lot from the speakers. One of them talked about being prepared for the lessons and how if a teacher brings a jug of water and the hearers bring a cup they aren't prepared to takeaway much more than a cup but if they bring a jug it will mean a lot more to them. After church we went to the Gomez family and had lunch. They fed us a Mexican style taco and gave us these sea urchin looking things called leaches. They taste like a grape but they have a pear texture. Kind of funky. I'll just say right now that Sunday I was about to explode with such a full stomach! After lunch we hada lesson with Dan and the Urbanawiz family where we talked about temples and learning. She is getting baptized this Saturday!! We are sooo excited for her!! She is sooo ready:) We then went to Dinner where we had lasagna, homemade bread, and it was with a family where it would be mean to not going and get 3rds. Then after dinner we traveled to South Carolina for a lesson with an 8 year old getting baptized friday. The Yalso's

fed us tacos after the lesson. It was a full day. But the lesson at the end of the night teaching the girl about baptism was so sweet. We sang When I am baptized with her and it meant a lot to her. We left her with a Book of Mormon with our favorite scriptures and they loved them!

Alright Y'all the church is true and just like a seed a testimony comes a little bit at a time:)

-Elder Hill

#NCAAhereIcome #motivatedanddetermined #ZoneConf.