Good Monday morning everyone! Here's a little bit of my week!
Tuesday:
Early in the morning we picked up Elder Streiff from his SLC excursion to sign his Visa papers, and on the way home we got a car wash. We didn't know the difference between all the options so we picked the cheapest one and they still cleaned everything from the mats to the inside windows, dash, and trunk! Then while we were waiting for the car to finish, we talked to the lady at the cashier inside and she was so impressed with our Spanish! When she learned that we were missionaries, she asked if we had any pamphlets or pass-along cards and we all patted ourselves down and of course we didn't and we felt pretty bad, but we promised her we'd come back for the next car wash with some. She gave us her phone number and everything! Back at home lots of other awesome stuff happened, but I'm going to skip to 8:30 pm to the lesson with Alexander. It was INCREDIBLE! We invited his wife Nancy and she was pretty reluctant, but out of respect for Alexander's invitation she decided to give us a few minutes of her time. Alexander had just finish 2 Nefi 2 in his personal BOM reading study and we were teaching the first half of the Plan of Salvation and it turned out AMAZING. Never have I ever taught those principles so clearly and simply and Nancy was nodding her head and by the end of the lesson she was participating so much and Alexander was answering her questions CITING THINGS FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON. We eventually ran out of time, and she wanted to hear the rest so we told her we could meet again Thursday of Friday night and she chose Thursday. I'm so excited for her
Wednesday:
I sadly did not have time to write in my Journal today, but I remember we had a spontaneous lesson with Pedro who's our age living in the States by himself for 5 years now with the rest of his family in Guatemala... His oldest sibling had passed away a while back and he struggles being positive because he has no job and has been trying to find one since last year. We shared with him Russel M Nelson's video of the healing power of Gratitude afterwards and we hope that helps him out.
We also found a new guy to teach who works in Restoration (construction) and he is a very funny and talkative guy. Seriously sometimes it just amazes me how open and awesome hispanics are. It's something from their culture that I hope to incorporate into my future family. But anyway I remember that we also had a lesson of the Word of Wisdom with Tomás and Lesli that night and when we went throught the things we avoid one by one Lesli gasped and covered her mouth and looked back and forth between us and Tomás and it was really funny. We actually laughed out loud and so did Tomás (he has been taught by us since june last year) and we proceeded to explain the blessings and it turned out to be a great lesson as always with them.
Thursday:
Today was LOADED. By 8 we were driving to the Centreville Stake Center to set up for the zone conference with the APs. It lasted 3.5 hours and it was absolutely incredible. We did a great job on our training hyping up our zone to find the Facebook miracles that are waiting for them and emphasizing the importance of the safeguards for technology. I realized that I was going to miss being the companion of Elder Streiff a lot because next week are transfers. Anyways, after the conference President thanked us for organizing and conducting it and gave us our zone's time for the interviews that would be tomorrow. Afterwards, we changed in the car into our service clothes and went straight to service at "Habitat for Humanity" until 5. By then we were sooooo hungry since we hadn't eaten since 7:30 that morning and so we stopped at Jersey Mikes on the way home and got some sandwiches. Tonight we did lots of things the most memorable of which was the lesson with Paola and Luis from Honduras and Ecuador and they are a hilarious couple (but unfortunately there was really bad signal the whole time...)
Friday:
Today we did service at the Prince William County Food Rescue Warehouse and it was soooo fun! They were out of cereal so we didn't build any boxes today but instead we helped with lots of other things mostly moving arround pallets, cleaning, organizing, preparing orders, helping load cars/trucksk, etc. I got to know Elder Garcia a little better and he seems really cool. He will actually be going to BYU in August, so we might see each other there! And speaking of BYU, I freaked out when I saw that Rozlyn ny younger sister got into BYU!!!!! I am so proud of her.
For lunch we ate Chiptole and I got a fat burrito and it lasted me for lunch and dinner. Then we had about 20 minutes to plan our 7 lessons that night and we headed off to interviews. They went so well and I am so grateful for the leadership of such a loving, understanding man like President Duckworth.
Saturday:
Today was the day we all recieved the TRANSFERS. They always get emailed to us around 9:30 pm and so it was hard to focus the whole day just because of the excitement (and nervousness) but despite all that it was still a very successful day. We had 10 lessons planned, but only 5 ended up going through each one of which was so good, especially the one with Liliana! We had Hermana Urbina with us in the lesson and she shared her conversion story (she used to be a member of the same church as Liliana) and it was so powerful. It was so positive and nice that afterwards Liliana sent us a text saying "Gracias por sus enseñanzas hermanos, fue muy bueno verlos y escucharlos hoy. Dios los bendiga 🙏💙"
Then, and 9:15 we get a call from the Sudley D Elderes and they were wanting to do the district prayer (something we do weekly where we all pray for the friends we are teaching as a district) and we said ok and added the whole district, and then during the middle of the prayer the transfers were sent and our phones all vibrated and we looked up at each other for a second and then back down just excited out of our minds. It seemed like an eternity later but after the prayer they zoomed to the pdf that was emailed to us, and I started recording to get their reactions on camera :) Elder Streiff's reaction was pure shock and it was really funny. In a nutshell this is what happened: Elder Krogh is going to where Elder Streiff came from with Elder Streiff's old companion (He actually predicted it it was insane) and Elder Streiff and I are staying here. We will also be recieving a 3rd companion Elder Douglas who I know for a fact is awesome because I sat next to him of the plane here to DC, I knew him in the MTC before I went to Costa Rica and he went to Argentina. I knew we were eventually going to be together, I just KNEW it!
Sunday: Un día muy tranquilo... We were super excited to go to church today because we had quite a few new friends who promised us they would go, but that morning the bishop cancelled all the meetings because of the ice that was in the parking lot... So we were mad. Well not mad, but disappointed I guess. but the day turned out great other than that. We are helping a recently baptized family's parents work towards going to the temple and they are sucha a fun family :) We also had a lesson where we taught baptism and it was very powerful. We had another lesson with Elizabeth and she accepted our invitation to come and see what participating in the sacrament is like because she had read about it in the bible, but none of the churches she had gone to have done it. We finished off with an amazing MLC call and it's always great to hear from President Duckworth.
Today:
ITS TRANSFERS!!! We saw so many missionaries in all the picking up and dropping off that happened and it was the best thing ever to just talk to all of them and get to know them a little better. By the end of the day we came back with Elder Douglas and went shopping at Walmart and this old lady was determined to pay for our groceries, and we tried not to let her but she kept insisting and eventually won the battle :) We came home and unpacked and I called and talked to the family and Roz especially to congratulate her making it into BYU!! I hope we can take some classes together.
Tiny spiritual thought: I read a verse in the New Testament this week that I loved! fyi we read the Reina Valera version in Spanish so it's a bit different but directly translated it says this: "You then, endure your afflictions as a faithful sodier of Jesus Christ" 2 Timoteo 2:3 To me that's so motivating to think of myself and my fellow members of the church as faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ it makes me just want to get up and MOVE! Speaking of which, my time is up and I gotta move! Have a great week everyone!
Elder Hilton
1) My missionary buddies!
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