Saturday, March 11, 2017

March 6, 2017 - Alma, GA

Hey Y'all! 

As for me and my week it was a pretty good week!

On Monday. we had a really fun P-day where we went fishing with Chico Juarez underneath a bridge. WE didn't catch anything but ALOT of mosquito bites. Elder Irons put his camera in his short pocket and reached down to catch a bobber that was floating away and his camera fell out his pocket into the water... He grabbed it as fast as he could but there wasn't much we could do about it until we got back to the apartment to put it in rice. Once we got back to the apartment we put it in rice and before we left we said a prayer and it we asked that Elder Irons camera would be able to work again and when we came back at the end of the day his camera was working better than it did before it fell in the water! Holy Cow!! We aren't sure if it was just the rice that made it work again but it is pretty weird that his pictures are clearer now than they were before his camera fell in the water. So is it odd or is it God?? haha

On Tuesday, we had district meeting and it was really good to see all the new missionaries in the district. We have 3 new missionaries that are now in this district and all them really want to be here and do the right thing. We took some time to get to know each other by getting to know their families. Its cool hearing about each person and get to know more about them. I really enjoyed all the fun stories and special moments that they had with their family before their mission. We talked a lot about simplifying our teaching and focusing on teaching our investigators on where they are at in the gospel and really working with them so that they understand the importance of coming to church. But after district meeting Elder Irons and I biked to go see Henry and when we biked to his house Henry was walking out with his Book of Mormon and pamphlet and said. "Fellas, I appreciate all that you do and I appreciate the things I have learned from y'all but this just isn't for me." So we found out that Henry just isn't ready to make the steps in his life to make the change, he just said he had a lot going on and didn't want the family he was living with to disown him because he became Mormon. So it was hard to hear but you never know the Lord is just preparing him to one day accept the message and make covenants with God. That night we stopped by to see Austin and he wanted to watch 17 miracles with us. It was my first time watching it and it was a really spiritual moment for him to really see true accounts of what happened as the Saints moved west. Some of the miracles he said were hard to believe but they were all true stories. The Saints went through so much as they traveled west. The Lord truly did protect them and watch over them. One of the most spiritual miracles was one of the daughters of this family died from the cold and starvation. The ground was so cold and hard that the parents could dig a hole for her and just had to put blankets over her and leave her there for the wolves. Before they left for Zion the family was promised that if they went to Zion that ALL  her family would make it to Zion. Well after they laid the daughter under the blankets the mom ran back and they warmed water up and poured it over the girls toes and she came back to life and made it to Zion. It was a really cool story but whats crazy is it actually happened.

On Wednesday, we got our church information into the the newspaper and also into the yearly Alma magazine which was really cool and hopefully good things come from it. Elder Irons walked around and tried to talk with as many people as we could. Its really cool in the south that so many people know and believe in Jesus Christ. Looking down the road and seeing there are 4 different churches on that same street is pretty crazy and you can see why Joseph Smith had that question of what church do I go to. Elder Irons was biking and his time stem got a hole in it and he had to bike on a lat tire back to our trailer and we are getting a new tire tube today so it will get fixed.

On Thursday, we went all over Alma this day!!! We started off the day by walking and we ran into a lady who we tracted into a few weeks back. She had asked that we pray for her and that she would like us to come by this upcoming Thursday and visit with her which was really cool. What was even cooler was when we stopped by Sister Mitchells home she knew Abby and Abby (new investigator) stopped by to sit at her home at the same tiem we were reading the Book of Mormon with Sister Mitchell and Abby accepted to read Alma 34 and pray about it. It was really cool how Abby ran into us and then literally ran into us again 15 minutes later and we got to visit and talk about the Book of Mormon.  This is the part where our day got hectic. Elder Irons and I walked back to our trailer and we rearranged some plans and we planned to walk to Brother Jones' home to get a ride to see Brother Dawson but Brother Jones didn't have his truck and it changed our plans because we remembered that we forgot to bake Brownies for a church we were invited to go to that night. So we walked over to the store at 4:30 the church event started at 6:00 and its about a 45 minute walk back to our trailer from the store but we made it back in 25 minutes... you could say we were movin' haha. We threw the brownies in the oven and they cooked and at 5:50 we left our trailer with freshly made brownie trays hanging off our bike handlebars as we rode to the church which was on the other side of Alma. It normally takes about 20 minutes but we got there in about 10 on a bike it was pretty crazy. Then when we got there, Brother Taylor called us and asked if we could come help him give a blessing to a member. So we had enough time to give them the brownies and race over to the house and give the blessing. After the blessing we went over to the church and had a great meal with them. We talked to the pastor about his church and our church and he was really intrigued at how we knew so much for being as young as we are. He was really impressed and it was fun being there with them. We biked home and we finally sat down we probably traveled a span of 30 miles in a day and it was pretty intense!

On Friday, we had a memorable day. Sister Taylor invited us to go and watch Lettie (their foreign exchange student) at her soccer game and we also got invited by a few high school kids to go to their soccer game too. So that night we went to the Bacon County High school soccer game. It was amazing how the Lord works because these police officers came up to us and one of them who was a member asked us about where we were from and we talked about what church he goes to. Come to find out he was going to be a missionary but wanted so bad to go foreign and because he was called to Mississippi he didn't want to go. Well he tells us that he ends up being stationed by the air force in Mississippi where he was called to serve his mission for a year and then his dad passed away in that same place where his mission was too. So that place was where the Lord needed him but he just chose another path in life. It was really neat talking with him. It dropped 30 degrees at the game and we were only wearing a a short sleeve white shirt and we were freezing when we left. Since Elder Irons bike tire popped we had to fit two bikes in Austins car and we put my bike frame and two of our tires in the truck and Elder Irons bike frame went in the back seat. Well his sister sat squeezed in the back while Elder Irons and I sat squished in the passenger seat. Talk about comp unity haha! But we made it back and it made for a good memorable night.

On Saturday and Sunday, we had Stake Conference in Tifton,GA and it was such an amazing conference talking about missions, reactivation, and enduring to the end in the gospel. There were so many testimonies borne about Jesus Christ and the spirit was so strong. Austin came with us and he really enjoyed the Spirit there. He told us that he really wants to be apart of this and he loves this church. We are looking forward to his baptism in the coming weeks and he is really excited about it. We talked with Brother Roberson a lot as we traveled to and from Tifton and he is a really amazing man with so much faith. He has gone through a lot but he really has been a leader and has taught me a lot in my time in Alma. There was powerful statement made by the speaker in stake conference where he said Jesus Christ didn't just talk about the Atonement but he went and performed it, would the Atonement been the Atonement if he just talked about it? So for ourselves we cant just talk the talk but we have to walk the walk and mean it.

I love Y'all and the church is true!! Keep on being awesome and I sure do miss and love ya!

-Elder Hill
#Almaisontheupandup
 
Best District Around!

Elder Irons and Elder Hill, Alma, GA

Fishin' in Alma, GA
 

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