week 61

This week has been a long one, and somedays were eventful, but most were not. My patience has also been put to the test many times this week, but I'll try to only include the good experiences this week :)

Tuesday

The highlight of Tuesday was the missionwide zoom call where President Caplin talked about his childhood and his love for water. He shared his experiences with scuba diving and applied it very well to the Gospel. 

Wednesday

The highlight of Today was the IN-PERSON district meeting! It's only my second one, and it's such a relief to see and be with other missionaries for a change. It went nearly an hour long, and afterwards I talked to my district leader (and old companion) privately about the challenges of my new area and he was able to help out a lot with his support and advice.

Thursday

We had another mission-wide zoom call today and this time the missionaries gave all the trainings and/or spiritual thoughts. My favorite quote from a missionary was this: "The Holy Ghost is like the sun on a good beach day. When you firsts get to the beach, it is the first thing you notice; the heat, the brightness and the mild burn. But then you notice the cool sea breeze, the water, the sand, etc. With all the new stimulus, you no longer notice the sun. But the questions to ask are 'Did the sun leave? Was is less bright or powerful?' The answer is no."

Friday

My favorite part of the week is always the Book of Mormon institute class, and this week it was given by Bishop Gauss who is fantastic. He served his mission in San Jose California and he shared a miraclulous story of someone he found in the street. As they talked and got to know each other, Bishop (at the time, Elder) Gauss found out that he had the same last name as a counselor in the ward's bishopric, and so he curiously asked if he might be related to him. The guy in the street slowly nodded his head and said "They are my parents". It turns out that he had ran away from them 9 years ago and never had the courage to talk to them again, despite the fact that he only lived a few blocks away. Elder Gauss and his companion were able to help him over the course of a few weeks, all while keeping it a secret from the ward counselor. The day finally arrived when Elder Gauss and his companion knocked on the ward counselor's door, and when it opened the said, "Brother (I don't know his name), we have someone here we'd like you to meet." Then they separated and there was their son after 9 YEARS of knowing nothing about him.

After the Book of Mormon class, we stayed on the call for another half an hour because President had an important announcement. I thought for sure it would be another COVID stage update, but with the serious tone I could tell it was something worse. Both President an Sister Caplin became very emotional as they announced that becasue of the threat that COVID is to President's life (he has terrible asthma) they had to go home. The mission department had given them the option back in March, and he chose to stay saying "I would proudly die for my missionaries in the service of the Lord" however this time, he doesn't have a choice. It was incredibly sad as they explained all this to us, and even I cried a lot. They will be leaving October 1st, so I made a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by then just for them.

Here is a fun little thought that I would like to share about Christ:

He told us to "Come, follow me." He didn't say "Come unto me" because that would imply that all we have to do is go over to him and stop. He said "Come, follow me" because he is MOVING! We need to continuously follow him, because if we don't Christ keeps moving and we can fall away. 

I hope you enjoyed this little email and that all of your weeks have gone well!

With love,

Elder Hilton

i got asked to prepare a song for the zoom meeting so I was able to finally go in the church and play the piano to practice!  It was so much fun!

week 59

Hello everyone! Thank you for all who were so kind and sent me emails or letters these last few weeks, because they have many ups and downs. I am doing my best to help guide Elder Hart in speaking better spanish / teaching with understandable, and the progress is slow and steady. This week we got to participate in community service and it was a really great change of pace in our week! We help load up a bunch of cars with food that volunteers were taking to other non-profit organizations, and while we waited for the next car, we put together hundreds of boxes! I'll attach some pictures :)

Here is a lesson that I learned through a hard experience: 

This week has been very similar to the last, however it ended pretty roughly on Sunday. We had worked diligently the whole week on preparing every one of our 10 spiritual meetings, and each and every member was prepared with their topics. Each one was spaced out by half an hour, however one by one, each friend we called failed to answer, even the ones who had confirmed with us in the morning or the day before! After we explained to ninth member for the ninth time that "our friend did not answer, but thanks for being prepared and willing"  I was on the verge of tears and after we hung up, I said that I need to walk outside and breathe a bit. Then as we were walking outside and I was hanging onto the hope of the last call we had left at 8:30, a text came through from that exact friend informing us that they can't participate tonight. Our last appointment had fallen 15 minutes before it started and that's when the tears finally left my face. I don't know what we could have possibly done during the week that would have changed the outcome of Sunday, but if I have learned one thing this week, it would be that thinking about the past or future too much negatively affects the thing we should be focused on - now. Last week my dad told me that the reason that the Hawaiians are some of the happiest, stress-free people is because their language is derived from one that has no past or future tense. They understood the true significance of the Savior's statement when he said not to worry about the future in Matthew 6:25. And there is a reason that both verbs are in present tense in 2 Nephi 2:25 when it says "Men *are* that they might *have* joy." This is something that I have been trying to apply more in my life, because I know it's true; what more reliable source of truth is there than the scriptures?? 

I love the scriptures even when they "are not plain unto me" because I have the help of modern prophets and apostles who "delight in plainness unto [their] people that they may learn" - 2 Nephi 25:4 Recently I have been studying the Old Testament and the covenants God made with his children and the insane amount of symbolism and foreshadowing to events that will happen many centuries ahead (in the New Testament and Book of Mormon) never ceases to amaze me. Our Heaveny Father is an artist, and his paintings are perfect. 

Something I thought about is that we are all like little pencil artists when we create our families. Every choice we make and action we take is another stroke on the canvas of our very selves, and sometimes it's messy! But thanks to Heavenly Father's plan, through the Atonement of Christ we can erase those mistakes and re-try. The truth is that by the end of our lives we will have countless erase marks, but they don't matter because Christ is the person who lifts us up to the person we were trying to draw. He paints over the pencil according to the corrections we made and we will be PERFECT with his help. I think that made sense :) 

Thank you for reading this short email! I hope you are all doing well and if you have free time, I would love to hear from you! Until next week,

Elder Hilton

I made my grandma Teresa's Tallerine!  It was SOOOOOO good!

week 58

 These last two weeks have brought lots of sudden changes, mostly for the better. First off, things things with Elder Kraemer were the best they have ever been. We worked better than we ever have any of the past weeks, and there was also much more positivity. After a week of stress, I feel like I'm finallly getting a hold on how to manage so much work effectively and efficiently. And then last Monday President Caplin called. It was at 7:00 a.m. sharp and he told us that new missionaries were arriving and that we needed to make accomodations for them. "Therefore you, Elder Hilton, will need to be companions with Elder Hart and the new elder will fill your place in this area. You two will be re-opening a new area that closed when Covid sent home a large group of missionaries." Right then I started to pack up my things because he said that I would have to be in the other apartment by noon, and we had a 2 hour activity at 9. After the district activity (which I planned, it was pickleball by the way:) I immediately was dropped off at another new apartment as the Elders who were living in it before left to their new one. I was honestly very grossed out at the condition of the apartment, and so I spent the rest of the entire P-day cleaning the house until I couldn't anymore. I guess I was either really focused, or I didn't keep track of the time very well, because I didn't even get to properly say bye to my family let alone write up an email. However, here I am, and now I have the time - in a clean apartment. This area has exactly the opposite problems as my last one. Instead of not having enough space in our schedules because of the sheer amount of work to do and people to contact, we are opening up an area with very few people, and we will need to be creative to find ways to find new people to teach. I believe in the power of revelation and that we will find new people if we listen to the Spirit. I've been placed with Elder Hart for a reason that only God knows, but I know it's a good one and I will do my best to help him in every way possible with love. 

Miracle of the bicycles: 

(Thursday) Today a miracle happened! We were in need of bicycles as soon as possible, (this area doesn't have a car, and it's really far to walk anywhere) and on Monday when we had called the stores, NOBODY had any bicycles. We figured out that many stores just get their bikes from Dick's Sporting Goods, and when we called them, they didn't have any either. They told us they would be getting their next shipment of Thursday (today) So today we called in the morning and they told us that the shipment arrived, but it was a small kid's bike. They had nothing in stock still and the next shipment was Tuesday. That was disappointing, but when lunchtime came around we decided to walk to Panda Express to use some coupons that came in the mail, and as we started walking home, I felt this strange desire to go and see for myself that there weren't any bicycles at Dick's, even though it was in the opposite direction. My companion felt the same, and so we walked the extra distance, entered the store, walked all the way to the bike section in the back, and there sitting on a huge, otherwise completely empty bike rack, were two black, conservative bikes of our size! 

We were able to call our parents and get those bikes, and now we had so much more access to so many more things! We can go to the Church building to teach, we can go to Walmart now, and also the district meetings! It is a blessing and I know God is looking out for us.

Funny story: 

One night as I was preparing for bed, I looked at myself and thought, "Wow, I really need a haircut... is there time?" I looked at the clock and decided I could probably get it done in the nick of time. I got out all the stuff, cut my hair quickly until I thought it looked good enough, and before I put it all away, I asked Elder Hart, "Hey, it's not TOO bad in the back, right?" (because I can't see back). He paused, and said "Um yeah there's a line right here... Do ya want me to fix it?" I replied " Do you think you can?" He said, "yeah... here" and he took the cutters and slowly brought them to my head, clearly uncomfortable like he had never held one before. I didn't worry because I had already put the right size on the cutters so he couldn't mess up. Unfortunately I didn't notice that he had them upside down in his hand, and as he stroked the machine, lots of hair was cut. I don't know why, but I didn't react very fast and he got like 2 more strokes before I whipped my head away and "woah woah woah you hold it like this"  and then he said "oh." and tried it again but this time it didn't cut anything because my hair right there was now GONE. And that's how I got a big chunk of missing right of the upper back part of my head 😂

my new companion

video call to my fam