Today was so fun (the whole last week was too but I only wrote about one day:) and part of that was because we did divisions again - that's where you switch companions for a day. I love Elder Barahona, but right now there's only so much I can communicate to him, so when I was paired with Elder Thacker who is from Ohio I knew it was gonna be great. Anyways, I was serving in their area so Elder Thacker and I had to take a 2.5hr bus ride to Los Santos and HOLY COW it was the most beautiful drive I have ever been on.
We drove through the green steep mountain jungle with huuuge canyons and we couldn't even see the tops of the mountains because the clouds were super thick and only a few yards above us. We got there and it was basically a street with dirt roads branching off it up the mountainsides and we got right to work.
something super cool is that everywhere there are trees with fruit and you can just be walking and eat fruit whenever you want. I ate Jocote, some tiny pumpkin-like fruit that I have no idea what they are, a grape-like fruit with a big ol seed and a lemon on accident. because it was orange and i thought it was an orange.
Anyways, when the time came for dinner we pretty much had to hike a mountain to get to her house, and on the way back we crossed a rope bridge that I wanted to take a picture of, but 1 it was too dark and 2 i didn't want it stolen. It was probably fine but i was feeling extra cautious because Elder Thacker had told me all his dangerous stories, one of which is when he and his companion got chased by a guy with a machete yelling "QUE DESEAS!?" They ran as far as they could and took cover in a new investigators house who is someone that normally wouldn't let them in. So they taught a lesson and never went back to that area. It turned out that that same guy was arrested 2 weeks later for slashing someone in the head 😓.
Anyways we had an hour or so to keep contacting and it was going well. When the time for the bus was getting close, we looked at our watches and decided "hmmm one more" So we "Upe!"-ed this house and something awesome happened! The door opened and this little lady (well all the ladies here are little haha) walked straight to the fence and started ushering us in before we could even say that we were missionaries. In her house I taught about the plan of Salvation and about the questions that it answers and gave her the folleta and asked if she had questions. She did and Elder Thacker answered them because I couldn't understand her, but I could tell that she felt that what we were saying was true. It was such a cool experience to the point where i'm sad i don't get to see her progress (I leave to Cartago in the morning)
Sunday
Today was my favorite sunday because I recognized way more people, probably almost half. I recognized all the members we visited during the week and lots of the people we are teaching came too! Also today we got to give a blessing to Hna. Picon because she was feeling super stressed and it was good feeling to know that we could help. After church we went home and as I was just chilling/eating lunch/reading in Alma 29 I heard some noises coming from around the corner and I went over there and there was a bird hopping around and as soon as it saw me it flipped out and made a beeline for the window and ran into it over and over like a giant fly. we eventually got it out with a blanket, but when I went back to my stuff I found poop on the tablecloth :((( so I paused to clean it up and found more poop on my planner and some on my scripture too! I cleaned those too but now im nervous about where else there might be poop😂
Overall this week was a blast and lots of work. I was super happy to see that the people we taught came to church and a little tender mercy for me was reading Alma 29, especially verses 13 and 14 which talk about how Alma is so happy for for the opportunity to teach and his joy is full because of his and his brothers success. I felt like that too. Even though I was frustrated with myself sometimes, i found that the easiest way to keep going is to just smile. Ive been trying to follow the advice of my favorite prophet, Gordon B Hinckley:
"In my 90+ years, I have learned a secret.
I have learned that when good men and good women
face challenges with optimism, things will always
work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may
look at the moment, those who have faith and
move forward with a happy spirit will find that
things will always work out."
Have a great week everyone!
-Elder Hilton
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