These past few weeks have been flying by and its crazy to realize its already October!
This past week has had lots of meetings, but I still learned a lot of how I can be a better disciple of Jesus Christ.
On Tuesday, we drove to Aiken, SC for exchanges with the Barnwell Elders. On the way there it was foggy outside and we drove through downtown Augusta and it was really cool to see skyscrapers again, it brought me back to Denver! During district meeting we did a fun activity where we played a game called "stump the bishop". Its where someone has brought random objects and the person has to apply the object to a gospel principle. The game is definitely harder than it looks and depending on what object you get it can be very hard! I remember I got a garden gnome with a very smiley face holding a pumpkin, a wheat, and on the ground there was a squash. So the way that I applied this object to the gospel was I thought of the harvest and normally in the scriptures when it talks about the harvest its either talking about missionary work or the second coming. I looked at the pumpkin, squash, and the wheat and I applied it to the things we carry with us after this life are the knowledge we have gained, but we all bring are talents and abilities to offer for the world so that through our talents we can bring in more people to Christ. We all have many gifts from God and we need to use them. After district district meeting we headed through South Carolina through some very southern small towns and going through those towns it made you feel like it was about 20-30 years behind the world. All the cars were older, buildings were of a 50's style type and there were lots of kids on their bikes riding around town. We met a lot of people who rejected us, but we had a dinner with the Mccoys and had a great southern cooked meal with them. We went back to Barnwell and visited with a man who has overcame cancer twice and was searching for something more in life. We shared the Book of Mormon with him and helped him understand it more. We ended the day off with visited this elderly lady who just lost her sister. We comforted her and prayed with her and it seemed to help her out.
On Wednesday, we had our own District meeting in Evans and the whole district was really just down and out for no particular reason. We enjoyed our time together in the meeting and lunch. The highlight of the day was at night we were able to talk to Carolina O'reily where we invited her to watch General Conference this weekend and talked about prophets. The spirit really helped us understand the importance of a prophet and if God was the same yesterday, today, and forever then he would have prophets today. It really helped my mind become prepared for General Conference and I think that's one of the reasons why I got so much out of conference. We ended the night off by welcoming a new family into the ward by helping them move in. They are an awesome family and we are excited to get to know them a little bit more.
On Thursday, we were able to do a lot of service for Sister Barnes and during all the service we found many lizards and frogs that we took pictures with:) Sister Barnes made us some really good Cajun Chicken and I'm convinced that she makes the best rice in the world! Its sooo good! A lot of Thursday was trying to find investigators and trying to help understand how we can best help the investigators that we do have.
Friday, It was a pretty fun day:) So a year ago when I was in Waynesboro I remember that I was kind of upset when I found out that I was being transferred right before the stake wild game dinner in Evans. So it was cool how a year later they had that same dinner and I was able to be there, but better than that I was able to help setup for it but setting up tables, getting my domestic skills on by making table decorations and then following that we were invited to go use our manly meat carving skills while we carved a wild boar. So on both ends of the spectrum we helped prepare for this event that would happen that night. There was expected to be 600 people there and at least 200 of them were non members. We visited a few people and they all were pretty busy that day, but you never know what seeds you plant. We went to the wild game dinner and because it was a stake dinner a lot of the Waynesboro members came up to Evans. So I got to see Bishop and Sister Teel as well as other friends. There were soooo many people there and we also took a lot of food home with us which is always a plus!
Saturday/ Sunday, I've never been more excited about General conference before and I remember back when I was younger how I treated conference. I remember most times the only thing that I really got out of conference were some really good cinnamon rolls, but now its one of the biggest spiritual boosts. We watched the first session at a home with a less active member. We had a bit of a hard time pulling the conference up on his tv, but with some fervent praying we brought it up. There were so many teaching moments I learned from conference, but one of my favorite talks was by Elder Uceda. As soon as they announced his name I was like I shook his hand, but his talk really brought the spirit into the room. His story about himself as a missionary where he almost fell off the Inca bridge but because one of his companions stayed back listening to a prompting he was able to pull him up to safety. There were so many different aspects of the talks that I enjoyed. Things that really stood out to me at conference on the Saturday sessions were
1. Dont look past the mark and only focus on the here and now. When your building a tower you've got to start at the foundation you cant build the highest point without building up to it.
2. I also loved when K Brent Nattress talked about belief and knowledge where some people know its true, but do they still believe it? Do you willingly serve or do you treat your calling as a job you have to grudgingly do?
3.I loved the focus on missionary work by Dallin H. Oaks where he talked about how we can benefit from social media and find ways in our life that we can share the gospel.
4. M Russell Ballards talk about where will you go? He will never abandon His Church and … He will never abandon any one of us. This church is true and we have to actively try and really try in this life and then thats where Christs grace comes in after all we can do.
I don't have a lot of time this week, but know that I love you and thanks for everything you do for me!
-Elder Hill
#Conference was awesome!
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| Bringin' home the Bacon! |
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| Downtown Augusta, GA |
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| Lizard Likin' the Nametag! |
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| Makin' the flower arrangements! |
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