Never been so busy in my life! 🏃🏼‍♂️🏃🏾‍♂️ & Dancing through the snow! 🕺🏾🕺🏼

November 27, 2018

Life in Wapiti is awesome! Though it's a little weird. I am a district leader still, so there's that, but also my companion is the zone leader. THE zone leader. Usually there are two, but this area is super crazy, so there's one. So, on top of the busy stuff that I have to do as a District Leader, we are running around all day, every day, because of zone leader stuff to do. I've never been so exhausted! But I've also been having an awesome time here!

I haven't met a lot of the people we're teaching, but we do have a family we're teaching that are all progressing towards baptism! It's a family of eight! Though I've never met them. They had a lesson with them yesterday, but we are on exchanges right now, so I wasn't there.

Crazy miracle though, at church a guy randomly showed up and pretty much said he wants to get baptized! His parents have been meeting with the missionaries recently, and they told him about how they are planning on being baptized and then getting sealed as a family.
So he asked us questions about what being sealed as a family means. We talked for a while, and he pretty much said that he's ready to start his own journey towards baptism. WOO!

One final thought,
My Grandma passed away recently and I'd like to ask you guys to pray for my Grandpa.

Have a good week! Keep yer stick on the ice.


December 4, 2018

Hello family and friends, this is Elder Hill in the Great White North with Elder W.  We just got done with P-Day sports--played some soccer and jumped in the snow a little bit.  It's been a pretty mild winter but it's getting cold now.

Crazy miracles happened this week.  The guy I talked about last week that showed up at church, it turns out that after our meeting with him on Sunday, he started reading the Book of Mormon.  He finished it on last Tuesday!  We met with him that night and have met with him all week.  He came to church again, and he's getting baptized on December 15th!  We are the greatest friends; he is awesome.

The other family we're working with, I've seen them twice but haven't been able to teach them yet.
Elder W: They are awesome.  They asked some really good questions about prophets and why we need them and what they do and how we know who will be the next prophet.  Their teenage kids who were not happy to be there previously opened up and asked a lot of really good questions and were interested in what was going on.  The mom asked about testimonies and why we share testimonies (she was at a testimony meeting) and they are really awesome--I would mistake them for a member family 9 out of 10 times.

They are on date for the 28th of December to be baptized.  It's exciting!

One last thing: I have stumbled upon a Ukeleli and I'm learning to play!  I don't know any Christmas songs, but I have a kazoo.  Merry Christmas y'all!

The Jacket of the Seventh Day & 😄Something new and something old😀

October 16, 2018

Hey guys! I want to let y'all know what happened at transfers!
(By the way, I'm not sick anymore.)
I am still in Lacombe and my companion is Elder B. He's from Utah/New Mexico/Texas. He likes long walks on the beach, cars, and other stuff probably.
I'm out of time now 😆, kind of a bad pattern. I'll work on that.


October 23, 2018

Great stuff this week!

We have a lot of people we're teaching now!
Two of them are both on date for baptism as well!
Good stuff happening, also Elder B doesn't actually like long walks on the beach, apparently...


November 6, 2018

Hello, this is Elder Hill in the Great White North.  I'm here with Elder B and everything is good.  Sorry I didn't post last week; I didn't take my tablet to Red Deer last week, so I couldn't. And it's snowing!  Well, snowing/snowed.  The concrete's wet, that's all that matters.  Everything's white outside; it's actually getting pretty cold.  The president told me that it's probably going to stay cold for the rest of the winter.

We are meeting with a guy who is a Seventh Day Adventist, which pretty much means that they worship on Saturday. They think others are wrong and don't keep the Sabbath Day holy because they say Saturday must be the Sabbath Day.  He's a really awesome guy and we've been meeting with him for a while, and he invited us to one of their sermons/meetings on Saturday.  It was interesting, to say the least.  Not as crazy as when we went to a Pentacostal church in Leduc, but I learned some stuff, and my faith is unshaken.  We had a pretty good lesson after that and he is progressing nicely.

We also have this guy we've been meeting with a lot, almost every day for the last three weeks--gone through all the lessons. He's on date to be baptized December 15th.  Also, someone got baptized last Saturday!  It was this kid who was pretty much already a member and didn't get baptized earlier, so he got baptized later and had to be taught by the missionaries, so that was a really cool experience.

I was going to say I was not sick, since some people had been asking, but I'm actually feeling kind of sick today.  But we're good, teaching lots, being in the cold lots.  Our car ran out of gas on Sunday so we had to walk for a while.  That might be why I'm sick.

Elder L:  I had this old lady read my palm and figure out my greatest fears and told me how to conquer them.  I was like, all right, I feel pretty enlightened!

I love you guys!


November 20, 2018

Hello, Utahan friends!  This is Elder Hill in the Great White North.  I have a pretty good update for you this week.  The transfers are over and I am leaving Lacombe!  It's super depressing that I'm leaving; this place is awesome.  But I'm going to someplace pretty cool.  I'm going to still be a district leader in a place called Wapiti, which is near a place called Grand Prairie.  I haven't looked for it on the map yet.  My companion is going to be Elder K, of all people!  For those that remember, we were in the MTC together.  He's been to Leduc and served there after I did and did exchanges with me there.  It's been a long time since I've seen this guy but I'm really excited.  He's an awesome guy.

This last Saturday we had another baptism!  The fruit of our labors have paid of in Lacombe and two people have been baptized since I've been here!  It's been awesome to see people make that choice to follow Jesus Christ.  These are some of the best experiences I've ever had! 

Elder T and I were meeting with the first person who got baptized.  Some of her family are members but are not active in the Church.  She was choosing to go to Church anyway and finally got to the point where she wanted to be baptized.  Elder T and I were teaching her all the lessons and it's been great.  She got baptized this last week and wanted me to baptize her so I learned how to do that--first time I've done that.  It was a good experience.  I'm really excited for her and for her example to her family.

We're still meeting with some of the same people.  One asked us several "anti" questions about our Church, so I'm not a huge fan of that, but we're hopeful.  But, it's been a good time here in Lacombe and I'm excited to do some work with Elder K in Wapiti. 

Several people emailed me this week about the Holy Ghost and about following the promptings we get.  My brother talked about an awesome video he saw in the MTC and made a good point that if we are confused whether a prompting is from the Holy Ghost or from one's self, think about whether it is a good thing.  If it is a good thing, why wouldn't you do it, even if it isn't a prompting from the Spirit?  It's still something you should do, so don't worry about it.  Do every good thing and seek after those things.

My dad made another interesting comment about how if we don't have the Spirit with us, how are we supposed to know Jesus when He comes?  We've heard about some of the struggles that will be had by even the most faithful who will be deceived by false prophets and false doctrine.  In President Nelson's talk about receiving personal revelation, he said that it's imperative and essential for spiritual survival in the last days. My dad linked those two together and said, if we're supposed to be preparing for the Second Coming of the Savior, if that's the purpose of this Church, we need to have the Spirit with us.  Otherwise, when Christ returns, how are we supposed to receive that revelation of where we need to be and what we are supposed to do at that time?

I appreciate your emails and hope you have a good American Thanksgiving!  Eat a lot of turkey for me, because I'm really sick of turkey after so many Canadian Thanksgivings.  See you next time!

It's beginning to look a lot like 😬 - ☃️🌨🕺

September 18, 2018

Soooo, it snowed! A lot! We had Mission Tour on Thursday and had Elder Brian K. Taylor of the Seventy come, so we had to drive up to Edmonton on Wednesday. In the snow. We were fine on Wednesday, but the next day we had to drive from where we were staying to Mission Tour, and the people of Edmonton do not know how to drive the first few days it snows for some reason. We almost got into 3 car accidents on the way there! Terrifying.
But it was worth it! Elder Taylor pretty much changed the way we think as a mission. He gave some super nice suggestions on things we can do to increase the amount of people we are teaching, and it was awesome!
Because of it all, we have probably 8-10 people we are teaching all of the sudden when before we were only teaching 1-3 people.

Crazy story from the week,
We were out slapping doors here in Lacombe, and an aberration of the 3rd kind opened the door. It had the face of a burly man, but everything else was not so... like... opposite... it had a wig too! There was a skirt and bleh! Be glad that I can't really describe it. Traumatizing I tell you.

And we're out of time! Sorry 'bout that, but here's a nice mushroom picture to make up for it.😁


October 2, 2018

Pretty much all that happened this week was that we are meeting with a lot of people. And the people we meet with have friends and family who also want to meet with us, so they can prove us wrong or something. So good and bad I guess. None of them are too solid right now, but I'll keep y'all updated on what happens with them.

Anyway, the snow is back, and I think it's here to stay for the rest of the year. #boyamiexcited
It's not too cold yet, but we have a good amount of snowman material to play with today since we're not going into Red Deer today.

I don't think my system was quite ready for winter, because I got sick again last week for a few days. But in the spare time that I couldn't go outside I've been reading the Saints book on Gospel Library. It's amazing! It makes church history easy to read and remember. It's also pretty testimony building. 10/10, would totally recommend.

I got to go on exchanges with Elder S this week! That was fun. I was in Red Deer with him and we were suuuper busy. We didn't even have time to talk to crazy people in the park!

Recently I've learned a magic trick that is pretty fun. You find someone with a mirror behind them and have them pick a card out of a deck, but they don't show you it. You then take the card, but keep it facing them. You then look at the mirror to see what the card is, and mess with them until they figure it out 😂
I killed Elder T with it haha. Probably will stop though... It's kinda mean.

This weekend is going to be spectacular! My last General Conference in Canada!
I've heard a lot of rumors from a lot of members about things that are going to be announced. They say if we thought last conference was big, this one will knock our socks off haha. Seriously, I've never heard so many rumors and speculations about Conference in my entire life. If it's all a ruse to keep people awake during conference, then they're doing a good job haha!
Though seriously, it's going to be awesome. Take notes people.

Don't have much else to say. Have fun with your 73°F weather you Utah people. (Its like -1°C here 😄)


October 9, 2018

Sooo, I was sick last week, but I was feeling better after a couple days. Then we had Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday, and we had four suppers! Four! I'm not sure which supper it was, but I woke up this morning with food poisoning! 🤣 that's 3 times since I've been with Elder T! That's gotta be a record!
Though I don't feel great so it's not gonna be a long post.

First, I want to have a shout out for a Bro again who is going to the MTC tomorrow! Hes gonna be the best missionary ever.

Let's talk about Conference! Home centered and Church supported! I think that's awesome! We're teaching a few young men in the ward, and I really think that would be helpful for most families.

I finished reading the Saints book by the way. Awesome book.

I'll finish up with my testimony.

I know the Gospel is true! I know the Book of Mormon is actually a record of Jesus Christ from the prophets in the Americas. "And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?" (Alma 5)

I testify that the Holy Ghost knows everything and we can receive that knowledge from Him.
Figure it out yourself! We have been given the tools! It doesn't depend on worldly knowledge, or intelligence. It depends on our relationship with God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

Alright, I'm sick, so I'm going to end it here. Have a good day!

Holy Smoke!

August 21, 2018

Good stuff happened!   We found a guy named A just walking around downtown Lacombe, and he seemed really interested! So we taught him stuff! We'll probably see him again!

Other than that, the only thing that's happened is that our district got a bit smaller. Sister P went to a different area. (Mid-transfers is what it's called, I guess.)

That's all I have time for, Be most excellent to each other!

August 28, 2018

It's been a fast-slow week you could say. We got bikes from some members, so we got to do a little bit of street contacting around Lacombe.

Also, one thing about Lacombe is that it is like the Utah of Seventh Day Adventists. Which is fine, but when we went out on Saturday to talk to people, we kept running into people who want to "bible bash" with us about seventh day worship. Not a fan. In my experience, "bashing" does literally nothing at all. They usually don't let us talk, and when we do they don't listen to it, so we just escape as soon as possible.

Also, Elder T was sick for a few days, then I got his sickness tenfold and just barely got out of "quarantine".  So not much else has happened.

Oh yeah, the email title is a joke, because British Colombia has been on fire. We've been getting all the smoke over here.

Huh... after writing it all down this week looks pretty depressing... 🤔
Oh well, I still had fun.

September 11, 2018

A lot of things happened.  Transfers happened and we're both staying here.  The only thing that changed is now we are teaching some new people.  A couple with a 2-year-old daughter is super solid and super humble.  The dad is working to be a pastor in the Seventh Day Adventist church, so he's a cool guy.

We've tried to schedule things with other people, but haven't gotten responses, so not a lot else is going on in that department.

We are doing good, Elder T is amazing.  We have a mission tour next week with Elder Brian K. Taylor, a General Authority Seventy, who is coming to the mission this week, so we're going to Edmonton tomorrow.  That's going to be fun because it's supposed to be snowing tomorrow with freezing rain.  I love Canada! 

Shout out to my brother who just had a birthday.  He's 19 and that's super weird.  Love you all, make good choices, wear knee pads.

People Galore; Busier than a pair of jumper cables at a family reunion!⚡

July 31, 2018

Some awesome stuff happened this week. There was this thing going on called Lacombe Days this last weekend. Pretty much it was another event more celebrated than Canada day.  There were a bunch of activities around town, so we decided to walk around and talk to people.  Some stuff happened, but nobody really wanted to talk to us, so we went to a certain sidewalk chalk activity where we drew the Plan of Salvation! It was awesome. We got to talk to a few people along the way too. Also we ended up getting a prize for it... that was weird.

We have an investigator who lives with his kids and grandkids, and the grandkid' s names are all watery names like, Ocean, Wave, Nautical, Pearl! There's just a ton of them too, so it's been fun to go over there. We haven't been able to teach him since I've been here, but we set something up for tonight, so hopefully that happens.

We also have been finding a ton of people to meet with recently. We randomly tracted into one lady who said we could come back, and then we came back and taught her the Plan of Salvation. She had a ton of questions too, so it was awesome!

I love being a District Leader. It's hard, but it's been super fun.

August 8, 2018

So we had zone conference yesterday, and it was an awesome!
Definitely learned a lot about how to be a better missionary. We talked a lot about Faith and how to best utilize our faith in the work we do.

So now that zone conference is over, we are having a huge p-day with everyone in the zone here! All the outlying areas got to sleep overnight, so it's going to be awesome.

Remember last week about the grandpa we were meeting with who has a bunch of grandkids with ocean names? (The smallest one is literally named Captain Tide!) Well his name is B, and we got to finally meet with him! It was pretty sweet. He is being prepared by God as we speak to hear the things we're sharing! He was talking about how are all those ancient Aztec or Mayan ruins must have had people living there with their own history and such, so he was pretty intrigued by our presentation about the Book of Mormon. We're hopefully going to meet with him again this week!

Also a miracle in disguise happened this week.  We had set up an appointment with someone in Lacombe at 6:00 pm one day, so we were excited about that. We were just going through our day, when our Ward Mission Leader texted us about how he got us a dinner at 5:30 that night in a town about 25 mins away from Lacombe. I don't think we figured out the schedule issue until after dinner actually...  Anyway, we got out of dinner and freaked out for a little bit. We tried texting and calling our appointment, but there was no answer, so we decided to go there as fast as possible and bring some chocolate or something to apologize. We didn't have any chocolate though, so we thought to go to a store really close to our appointment and buy some, then we met M! She was doing the checkout and said she had a Mormon friend, so we talked to her and she said we could talk to her about it later!

Also our appointment wasn't home anyway, so there was nothing we had to worry about at all!

August 14, 2018

The interview edition:
Elder T, what are your thoughts on the Lacombe area?
T: It's a really good area, we've been finding a lot of people lately.  We've had a lot of spiritual experiences.  My companion said maybe we should try the puppy dog approach and we found this girl, and she hasn't texted us back yet. That's okay, though.
H: Thank you for that.
T: Now the Settler area--we drive 300 kilometers in a day and show up to a lady's house, where's she's not home.  That's fine.

Elder S from Japan, what do you have to say to the grand old people?
S: Nothing
H: What's your favorite food?
S: I love Mexican food.
H: What's your favorite Mexican food?
S: Sushi.
H: He loves Mexican sushi.  I don't know where you get that, but I want to try it.

We have Sister O.  She is from Hawaii.  Tell us your favorite color.
O: Blue
H: Why?
O: Cause it's like the ocean, and the ocean's pretty cool.
H: She is very Hawaiian.
O: Correct.  And white.
H: Yes, she is white, somehow.

We have Elder F, one of the zone leaders, from El Salvadore.  What is your favorite part about being a zone leader?
F: Good question.
H: Sing us a song, then.
F: (singing in Spanish)

Sister S, if you could baptize anybody in history, who would it be?
S: Jesus Christ.  Just kidding.  I meant, I would have him baptize me.  Wait, hold on.  This is really awkward.  If I could baptized anyone?
V: You can't, you don't have the priesthood.
S: Okay, if I were a male and I could baptize anyone, maybe one of my family members?  I don't like this question.
Other: Donald Trump.
S: Ha, ha, okay, yeah, Donald Trump, that's a good answer.

Sister V:
V: Ha ha, it's come around!
H: Tell us anything.
V: Sometimes I think about the word "enough", and I think about it too long and it doesn't become a word in my mind anymore.  So weird.  Also, isn't it weird that the word "pony" rhymes with "bologna", but bologna is phonetically spelled bo-log-na.
H: I'll remember that for the rest of my life.

Other zone leader, Elder E, tell us, why are we here?
E: We are here because every Tuesday we get a day off, kind of, from 8am to 6pm, and it's probably the worst day of my week because it should be longer, but whatever.  So we're here playing sports with half of our district because everybody else is dumb.
H: But that's okay.  Anything else you want to say?
E: I just want you to know if you are living in the States, be grateful for what you have, because the prime minister here is a lot worse than everyone makes it sound.  Donald Trump is a lot better than everyone else makes him sound.

Sister P, what...
P: Things are going good.  Help the missionaries, we appreciate it, we'll help you in return.  Let us do stuff, let us serve you.
H: Wise words.  Let the missionaries help, we're good at it.

This has been the weekly post, interview edition.

The Sound of Music (in the Park)

July 17, 2018

Here is what is happening for transfers this week! I am going back to the Red Deer zone! In a place called Stettler/Lacombe with an Elder T!
Also I'm a District Leader!

Literally everything that we did not expect to happen.

July 24, 2018

Craaaazy stuff being a District Leader, like wow! I have so much respect for District Leaders now.

So let me tell y'all what went down this last week.

We drove into Edmonton from Slave Lake on Tuesday, which is why I didn't post much. Then we all stayed at random places with other missionaries. The next day was transfers, so we drove to the Temple and I found my new companion Elder T!  Elder T and I are actually technically brothers. Our trainer was Elder J, and he was trained the transfer after J left Leduc, so he's only one transfer younger than me.  He's from Utah, around the valley somewhere close to where I live. He likes long walks on the beach, he races dirt bikes, and that's it.

Our area is actually pretty funny. We live in Lacombe, but with Stettler's area attached our boundaries to all the way to the next province (like a state, but not...) to the east.   Also there is probably about 30 churches in Lacombe. 30! Everyone here is super religious, but every time we talk with someone they tell us exactly which church they go to in Lacombe, and it's always a different church!  I think it's funny.

The first night here we went tracting and heard about this thing called "Music in the Park", which is this thing that happens every Wednesday night in a park in town. There's food trucks, a new band every week, a market inside and outside the building, and the reason we would be there: people! There was so many people! We talked to a bunch of people there, and when the band saw us going around they started playing a Jesus song dedicated to us! Though then they did a song about being best friends with the devil soooo 😂

We don't have a bunch of people that we're meeting with, but we've been finding a bunch of people who are interested. When we meet with them this week I'll write about them, but for now there are too many.

Also! I'm still a District Leader! I had to give a training and everything on Thursday. I was super nervous and unprepared, but everyone said it was really good, so I won't worry too much about it. 

Something that District Leaders do every week is Stewardship calls. Stewardship calls is something that happened every Monday night, and I talk to every companionship in the district, then write down a bunch of information about people in their area. It takes forever! We have a pretty big district, I'd say. We have us, then we have Red Deer 1st Ward Elders, and 1st Ward Sisters, then we got 2nd Ward Zone Leaders, then we got 3rd Ward Sisters. So we have about 10 people total. I went to bed late last night 😴 I am so tired. But it's fine, I've been having a blast in Lacombe so far.


Finally, I wanted to make a huge shout out to my Brotha' Elder Jaden Hill who is going to the Taiwan Taipei Mission! I'm super excited for ya bro! He gets to ride bikes and wear sandals all day in the rain! Gonna be a good time.

I love all you guys! Have a wonderful week! For those in my zone getting my emails (Elder M and Elder C) I'll see ya in Red Deer!