Week 14

Week 14

This week was kind of a really rough one for me. There were things that happened and I struggled to be as happy and friendly as I normally am. I didn't feel as uplifted after I read the scriptures, and didn't really feel like talking to people that much. I knew it was a problem that I needed to figure out how to deal with, so that night (Tuesday) I said a prayer asked Heavenly Father to help me deal with my worries and sadness. The next day we walked to the church for our weekly district meeting and there was a surprise! All the missionaries in our zone were there, as well as President Aguilar. It turned out that He had a training he wanted to give us and so he took half the time of our district meetings to give his surprise training. It was very good, but the part I want to talk about is right after that. He said he wanted to have interviews with all of us, and so we did one by one. My turn came, and after we said an opening prayer, he asked me a question that nailed everything I'd been worrying about right on the head. Even though I originally had no intention of telling him about it, I spilled out everything and even cried a little. He gave some really inspiring words of encouragement in his broken english, and I felt a million times better. It wasn't until we were eating lunch a few hours later that I realized that that surprise interview was no doubt a direct answer to my prayer the night before. I have always had a testimony of prayer, but this experience strengthened me so much. I am so grateful to have been raised in a family that taught me the importance of prayer. It really is a blessing that I get to pray so often here in my mission, but you don't need to be on one to have a reason to pray all the time! Speaking of missions, congratulations Grace! Cuiaba Brazil is super lucky!! For anyone who is considering a mission, remember that if you have a desire, you are called to the work! And don't forget the amazing tool of prayer! You can pray to know if it's the right decision, you can pray to know when is the right time, seriously you can pray for anything!!! Sometimes you don't get an answer when you pray -  but I think this is one of those times when Heavenly Father is leaving the decision up to you because He trusts your choice. In that case, take a path with faith and stay in tune with the Spirit! I love this gospel and am glad to share it every day, (and I'm out of time!) Sorry for this scrambled email, I hope it was able to help someone!
Until next week!
-Elder Hilton

Week 13

It's the first week of my second transfer in the field and we've got more work to do. We are going to continue working with those we baptized last week as well as work towards finding more people that are ready to hear the gospel. (I forgot my journal today, so things might be a little disorganized because I'm going off memory)
 Remember the guy last week who almost ran us over with his bike? This week we went to his house a few times, shared some short messages, and got to know him a lot better. He really likes everything about the church, but he struggles with waking up in the morning and that's apparently the only reason he doesn't come: because our ward is at 9 in the morning. But this week was special! Yesterday was national Indepencence day for Costa Rica and because of that, the Bishop changed the time for church to 3pm! I was in the chapel practicing hymns at 2:35  when Keilo (that's his name) slowly walked in looking a little lost. As soon as I saw him I was so happy and I ran over and gave him a handshake bro-hug thingy and started talking with him. He was super excited to be there too, and he wanted to see the whole building, so we gave him a little 'tour'. He totally reminds me of Nate Griswold in the body of a 35 year old, hahaha! Anyways, when we showed him the room with the baptismal font, he went quiet and said he felt 'raro' but 'calma'. It was a really cool experience and we got to explain what he might be feeling. He has a desire to be baptized and now we are working with him and helping him set goals with keeping the Word of Wisdom. I think that is my favorite part of missionary work, helping people change their lives for the better, and seeing how happy they are when they succeed. I hope you guys realize this too, that if we will turn to the Lord, we can change. James E Faust said "He will give us the power to change our lives, the power to put away bad thoughts and feelings from our hearts. We can be taken from “the darkest abyss” to “behold the marvelous light of God” (Mosiah 27:29). 
Have a super good week guys!!
Love, Elder Hilton

week 12: TRANSFERS!!!

This week had I had the most spiritual experiences of my mission so far! Its the last week of this transfer and this Saturday there were 4 baptisms!!! But you'll have to read to the end to hear about them ;)

Tuesday
Today we did divisions and I was with Elder Lopez -the crazy one- and we made pupusas for our district meeting. They're sooooo yummy!! We had two lessons today and they went really well fortunately. Martin and Fatima have been reading the Book of Mormon with their families every night! Anyways, as we were contacting, Elder Lopez tried to teach me a new greeting to say to people walking by on the street and I was SO BAD. Apparently 'eso!' is a more casual greeting that guys say to each other and Elder Lopez said it to tons of people and every single one of them said something back. Then when I tried saying it they NEVER said anything back. Most of the time they just looked up and stared at me as I walked by. So i'm sticking with 'buenas!'

Wednesday
We drove the 2hr bus ride to Los Santos to end divisions and we made pizzas from scratch for lunch. It was my first time making a real pizza (not just pita bread and tomato sauce and cheese:) We rode back to Cartago and ran into the Sister missionaries who asked if I could play a song called 'Peace in Christ' for their baptism on Saturday and I said I would try. (The real reason I accepted it was because I would have a reason to practice the piano:)

Thursday
Today we were walking down a street and a guy on a bike yelled out at us and started pedaling right for us.Honestly my instinct was to start running away cuz he was coming fast, but he stopped right in front of us and started yelling -in a nice way (like john the across the street neighbor in Idaho)- Why haven't you come to my house???? Then right there in the street he starting telling us about how he lost his Book of Mormon and he loved it and how it was a 'smaller easier-to-understand bible'  and how he wanted to talk with us and a thousand other things super super fast. We set up an appointment for a few hours later and gave him a new Book of Mormon and he was SO happy. He kissed it and rode off holding it up to the sky 😂 After lunch we went to his house and spent like 2 hours answering all his questions before we had to leave to go to the church to practice 'Peace in Christ' . We practiced for almost 3 hours and ran into a problem. Our district didn't know whether to have me sing or play the piano because none of them know how to sing and they need me singing to be in tune and I can't play the piano and sing at the same time. At length we decided that I would play the piano really loud :)

Friday
The baptisms are tomorrow so today we spent the day traveling to their houses and doing the baptismal interviews.

Saturday
Alright just so things aren't confusing, this is the order of stuff that happened today: a baptism in the morning, a wedding in the afternoon, and 3 baptisms right after the wedding, and then the wedding reception. okay

We arrived at the church early to practice our song one last time, and when the time came for the baptism to start, I was still sitting on the piano bench and it was assumed that I was gonna play all the hymns sooooooooo ill just say I did my best. Also our musical number went super good!! A little stressful because I was trying to conduct with my head and sing and play but overall it was okay and I'm grateful I could help invite the spirit. After lunch we went back to the church again to get everything ready for the marriage of Martin and Fatima. Then we waited for them. And waited. And waited. They were 30 minutes late :)
OH MY GOSH I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVEN'T SAID THIS ALREADY
Manfred brought his brand new Canon Rebel T6 and let me use it  and was so impressed with how well I knew the camera that he said he wanted ME to take the wedding photos! So I became a wedding photographer for the day!!! It was soooo fun!! I basically looked for moments when people were laughing or smiling or hugging or doing other happy stuff and snuck undercover shots like a spy. Now I really want to make a video for them but I know I won't have time...
After the marriage, we had 3 more baptisms, and we sang  'Peace in Christ' as a district again but there were like 100x more people. And someone turned on the fan during the song and it blew down my sheet music and train-wrecked the song. I took a deep breath, trying not to laugh (for some reason our district always gets the giggles in the most serious times) and started over. It all turned out great. After the baptisms, I became a waiter for the wedding reception and we had to leave soon after that to eat dinner with Manfred and get the surprise good-bye party ready for Elder Fugal - our zone leader who goes home in 2 days. I'm okay with that though because Clayton comes in 2 days!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday
Church was super awesome today. That's because in sacrament meeting the 4 people that were baptized yesterday were confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost and a blessing and the Spirit was really strong! Oh, also today was the primary program! so we got to hear all the cute little latino kids bear their testimonies and yell all their songs :)

Today
P-Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Clayton comes!!!!

Have a great week everyone!

Week 11

I don't have much time to write today because we've already spent most of the day. We walked to central Cartago to pay our bills and on the way back we ran into Jafet, a priest in our ward, and started a spontaneous game of soccer. We were in our church clothes so it was really hot but still super fun and we lost track of time :) But now I'm here at the church dripping in sweat typing as fast as I can!
This past week was more or less successful with less than half our appointments falling through, but something super sad is that Martin, the father of the family we've been teaching the past 5 weeks, said that he changed his mind about his baptismal date (and consequently his family's). It was set for Saturday (two days ago) but he didn't feel ready to take the step. One day (I don't remember what day it was) we were eating lunch with Hna. Andrea who has served a mission and we told her about Martin. She told us that in her mission every time somebody changed their mind about their baptism, it was because they weren't reading the Book of Mormon. So, the next day we visited Martin's family and asked if they had been reading the book of Mormon as we challenged a while ago, and it turned out that they hadn't. They said they didn't have time etc. but the reality is that it wasn't a priority, which I totally understand. Before my mission it was really hard to make reading the Book of Mormon a priority, and I rarely wanted to read it, but I can tell you that without fail I always felt uplifted when I chose it over other things. So we helped them understand its importance, and helped them chose a consistent time that they could read it as a family (as a family because Fatima - the mom - cant read, and one kid isn't old enough to read yet). They agreed and so far they've read every day since Thursday and have accepted this Saturday to be baptized! I know that the Book of Mormon can help people to have spiritual experiences and develop faith in Christ because it has done that for me. Here's 2 super awesome things that my favorite prophet said about the BoM:
"Those who have read the Book of Mormon prayerfully, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned,have grown under its power..."
"Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon regardless of how many times you have previously read it, there will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God"
Gordon B. Hinckley
So I challenge all of you to put that to the test! If you read it every week try to read it every day. If you've never read it, try it!!!!!!!!!

Love you all!
-Elder Hilton