From Brazil

Hello from the beautiful metropolis of Brazil!

This has quite possibly been the best week I've had so far in Brazil! It was exhausting and busy, but that's why it was so good! We taught the most lessons we have this week and we've seen a lot of our investigators begin to progress!

Brenda has been doing great! I can't remember if I've talked about her before, but she's our investigator with a  baptismal date. She came to church yesterday with two of her grandsons! We're teaching her son's family too who lives next door, but the parents haven't seemed really excited to come to church or keep any commitments, but their kids wanted to come. I heard from the sister missionaries that Brenda even stood up in Relief Society and bore her testimony. Woohoo! We're shooting to have her baptized in the middle of December, but depending on how the next few lessons go we could move it up. Next week, we're going to teach the Word of Wisdom and help her stop smoking. If any of you have experiences from your mission that helped people stop smoking, I'd love to hear them, because I haven't done this yet as a missionary.

Elder Wallace and I have been getting along really well here. We have a lot of laughs and a lot of fun, while still working hard, so that's nice. One of our best laughs this week happened on Friday. The Sisters in Terre Haute found a headquarters referral hidden in their area book and texted it to us on Thursday night, so Friday morning we decided to go visit it. We were really excited and hurried over there to talk to this referral. While we were walking down the road we saw a burned down house, and I said, "Oh no..." Sure shootin', the house number, 31 south, was still visible on the house. It must have been a pretty old referral.... We had a good laugh about that one.

We had one disappointment this week with an investigator named Joey. We went to teach him on Thursday and he didn't answer the door. We visited him again on Saturday and he came and talked to us. He says he's not sure if he still wants to meet with us because the church he goes to told him that the Mormons take him away from the truth and all sorts of things. To add to that, they told him to rip up the Book of Mormon they gave him because they said it was a bad book. This church gives us a lot of grief because they are very anti. Another one of our investigators goes to that church and she has heard all sorts of weird rumors about us. It's kind of crazy to me that we would get so much opposition from some people when we're two guys that aren't even 20! Anyway he said he'd pray about it and let us know if he still wants to meet with us, so I hope it all works out.

The members here are very supportive like I said before. Our washing machine broke down on Monday, and we were told it would be fixed pretty quickly, but it still hasn't. Brother Spencer let us come and do our wash, so that sure helped. To add to that, he gave me a cake, card, and a box of pop-tarts. He's a super cool guy! The members here are the best, and they're all very close to each other and the missionaries. There's not a lot of members here in Brazil and the surrounding areas, and all of them except one are converts, so they love missionaries.

My birthday was great. Thank you so much to everyone for the things that were sent this week. I couldn't do this without all of the support back home.

Well it's been a great week and I hope it's been a good week for everyone back home! Love you all! :)

Love,

Elder Tom Hill

P.S. I added some of you to my weekly email group because I thought some of you might want to get this each week. If you don't, just let me know. Adios!

Hello from Brazil

Greetings Earthlings!

I say that because this week one of our investigators told us that she
had heard Mormons believe that we were aliens before we came to Earth!
I hear some crazy stuff out here! Anyway, hello family! :) This has
been an awesome week here. We got lots of work done and we had some
great experiences!

Tuesday night I got a call from my pops (Elder Ernest) and he told me
Ben was going to be baptized on the 26th and so that was awesome! And
then Saturday morning he called again and said he decided to move it
up a week! So we had a late night expedition to Avon to see Ben get
baptized!! Elder Ernest baptized him and it was easily the best
experience of my mission. The last lesson I had with Ben, I bore my
testimony and also sang hymn 136, I Know That My Redeemer Lives. When
Elder Ernest left Avon two weeks ago, he did the same thing but sang
Lord, I Would Follow Thee. Those were the two songs Ben chose for the
service. It was a great night and it was so cool to be a part of that!
When I was in Avon, Ben told Elder Ernest and I that he would keep in
touch with us, and I hope that's true.

This week we had quite a few lessons. We meet the most interesting
characters in Brazil. It always keeps us entertained. We taught two
guys yesterday that kept saying I looked like Eli Manning and Elder
Wallace had nice eyes. I would rather be Peyton Manning, but that
works too I guess. There's actually some potential with those guys
though, they were saying that we were different than what they had
heard about Mormon missionaries. And that's a good thing, because they
hadn't heard too good of things about us. They were excited when we
gave them each a Book of Mormon to read. We're meeting with them again
on Tuesday, so hopefully that works out.

Brenda, our investigator with a baptismal date of December 21st, has
been doing pretty well. We are starting to meet with her twice a week
now and she's already started to make changes in her life to prepare
for baptism. She didn't come to church on Sunday, but we will talk to
her tonight and see what kept her from coming.

One really cool experience this week that I know lots of people back
home will be jealous of is, is that I volunteered at the NCAA Cross
Country Pre-National meet. It would've been cooler if I was with my
running buddies, because the other elders didn't see the big
excitement was about a bunch of people running, but I still had fun!
We saw Utah State there, but they only had their top-7 with them. I
looked for people I knew, like Austin Costley, but he must not be in
their top-7 or wasn't able to make it or something.

After the Cross Country meet, we went to a pig roast that our Bishop
has every year. He's a judge in town and he seriously knows just about
everyone who lives in Terre Haute. So there were a lot of people
there, and it was a good experience. Our Bishop is an awesome guy
along with the other members. They're very supportive of us and I hope
I don't leave here anytime soon, because I'm starting to get attached
to them.

It's been a great week here. Thanks for the support! I love all of you
and I'm grateful for all you do for me! I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tom Hill

Elder Hill, Ben, and Elder Ernest

Conference and Transfers

Hello family!

This has been an awesome week! Conference was the perfect way to end
it! Maybe it's just because I'm a missionary, but I think it was the
best conference I've ever heard. Anyway, I'll talk about that more in
a bit!

I'll start with the biggest news! We got transfer calls last night and
I am staying here in Brazil. That made me happy because I feel like
there is a lot of work I can do here, and I'm excited to see it
progress. (It also made me happy because NCAA Cross Country Nationals
and Pre-Nationals are in East Terre Haute in November and December and
our Bishop said he could get us in to volunteer there. Awesome,
right??) Elder Easter is leaving and both of us are training new
missionaries. So on Wednesday we will go to transfer meetings and I
will meet my first born in the wilderness. I'm excited to train, but
also nervous. It's a lot of responsibility, but I know the Lord will
help me out!

Conference was incredible! I feel like Saturday's sessions were
focused on missionary work! I loved Elder Perry's talk about members
being key to the work. Something we've been trying to do with members
is to help them create their own family mission plans with specific
goals of people they will talk to, numbers of people they want to
invite to church and activities, and gospel discussions they will have
with coworkers, friends and family. I'd invite you to do the same
thing! If there is a plan, we can accomplish so much more than if we
just go into something blindly. This is especially true with
missionary work! President Monson announced that there are 15 million
members in the world now and 80,000 missionaries. I want to change
that a little bit. There are 15 million missionaries in the world now
and 80,000 of us are focusing on it 24/7. That changes perspective a
little bit. Imagine how much missionary work could be done with 15
million people all trying to share the gospel! Pretty incredible.

Just like any week there were some set backs and frustrations. We
invited three people to come watch General Conference with us, and
they were all pretty excited to come, but none of them came and didn't
answer our calls when we tried to call them. It was a little
frustrating, but that's just a minor setback. The work is starting to
get rolling here in this area, and good things will start happening
these next few months.

I hope everything's going well back home! I've heard some people tell
me things about conference already, but I'd love to hear everyone's
insights. I know the men and women that addressed were inspired and
that those messages can greatly bless our lives and the whole world. I
know President Monson's our prophet upon the earth today, and that the
other apostles really are the Lord's apostles and are guided and
inspired by Him.

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week! Being a missionary
rocks! (<--- exclamation point!) :)

Love,
Elder Tom Hill

Brazil

This has been a pretty good week here in Brazil. It was definitely
better than last week, but that wasn't really hard to beat. We got 5
new investigators this week, and I think the work is really starting
to get rolling here in Brazil.One of our new investigators is named
Reni and she seems really solid! We taught her about the first vision
and the Spirit was so strong as we were talking about it. We asked her
what her thoughts were on it and she said, "I could see how that could
really happen." It was awesome! She's so cool. She told us the reason
she wanted to meet with us is that she wanted to know why Mormons are
so happy. She was committed to come to church yesterday, but it rained
like crazy yesterday morning! She called us about 10 minutes before
church started and told us that she wouldn't be able to make it
because of the rain and she was worried about driving because her eyes
aren't very good. I couldn't blame her! My eyes are pretty good with
my contacts and I was kind of sketched out driving! We'll meet with
her again sometime this next week and I'm really excited for that,
because she is definitely our most solid investigator in this area.

Speaking of this area, I got some bad news about my last area from
Elder Ernest. He sent me an email today and told me Ben hasn't met
with them since we met with him last. He also told me the momentum
that started to get going in Avon has kind of died off, but hopefully
it will start going again. It made me sad to hear that, but he says
Ben is still coming to church at least, he's just not progressing past
that.

Last night we had a fireside with the members that just live
specifically here in Brazil. It was great. They had Elder Easter and I
give a message on missionary work, and it was probably the best we
have taught together while we've been here in Brazil. The Spirit was
really strong. The members here are very supportive and they are
excited to have missionaries again. I wouldn't be surprised if in less
than a year, Brazil has a branch again. The work is definitely
starting to hasten in this area, and the members can tell too. I just
hope I can stay here a little bit longer so I can see this area start
to have some success. I'll find out on Sunday what's happening.

I can't wait for conference! I think it will have a totally different
meaning to me now that I'm a missionary. My testimony of the
Restoration, prophets, the church organization, and Heavenly Father
have sky rocketed these last 3 months! Which reminds me, my three
month mark is a few days away. Crazy right? It's an eighth of the way
done, so it's like the first lap in a 3200m. That's kind of crazy to
think about.

Thank you all for the emails and letters. I've received a lot this
week! I love all of you! :) Have a great week!!

Love,
Elder Tom Hill

From Brazil

Hello Family!

So first of all, I just have to say that I'm really grateful that I
can even send an email today! This library and its computers are a
pain in the neck, but it all worked out. We had to show them proof
that we actually live here by showing them mail that we've had, so we
sent ourselves a letter with our names on it. They almost didn't let
us use them because it just said Elder Easter and Elder Hill, but not
our first names. Anyway, just thought I'd go on a rant about it, but
the main point of that is that I'm really grateful that it all worked
out and that I'm able to email.

This week has been awesome! We talked to a lot of people this week. We
knocked so many doors, that I had to start knocking with my left hand
because my right knuckles were getting sore. That sounds dramatic, but
I'm serious! We set up a lot of lessons for this next week, so we're
excited to see what happens and I hope they all go through. A lot of
our lessons this week fell through, and two of our investigators
dropped us, so hopefully next week goes better in that regard.

We got two new investigators this week. They were headquarters
referrals from temple square. They had visited Salt Lake City and
wanted to know more about the church. They are an older couple named
Bill and Judy and they are really nice and interested. They say they
just want to learn more, and don't have any desire to change anything,
but we'll see what happens there.

A really cool experience we had happened on Saturday. We were walking
down a road on a way to visit somebody that afternoon. We saw a guy
sitting and smoking on his porch and decided to talk to him. He showed
no interest and told us he was Roman Catholic. We asked him if there
was anything we could do to help him out and he said no. But then his
wife came out, and she was carrying a box, so we asked her the same
question. Again she said no. But then she thought about it and said,
"one second, maybe you guys can help." She went back inside and said,
"sure come on downstairs." It wasn't actually their house, but it was
their daughter's and her husband's house. We helped them move all
kinds of things out of their basement for an hour. They really opened
up to us. When we were done, they told us we had to stay for dinner,
so of course we accepted. The lady we met on the porch asked us about
our missions and she said, "That sounds like what the Mormons do!" We
told her that was us, and we had some good conversations. They really
appreciated it, and told us they would call us when they moved into
their new house that they were moving into in a month. It was a great
experience, and I could tell we had planted some seeds there. When you
plant a garden, you first till up the ground, plant the seeds, water
the seed and take care of the plant, and then harvest the fruit. This
is just like missionary work! The tilling of the soil is like breaking
down the walls that people set up when they first start talking to you
because they don't know who you are. After you do that, you can plant
a seed by sharing something about the restored gospel with them. I
feel like we did a lot of those two steps this week.

We had another interesting experience yesterday. One of the first days
we were here, a guy named Tom came up to us and told us that he was
just starting up a Christian church on the main road, and invited us
to come to one of their services. We told him we would try to make it
on one of the Sundays. Yesterday night, we decided we would go. It was
quite the experience! They were just a small congregation of about
20-30 people. They started out by singing some hymns. They sang "Count
Your Many Blessings" and "I Need Thee Every Hour". That was cool since
we know those ones. And then they started their praying and their
hallelujah-ing and amens and all of that jazz. Then, people stood up
and started "speaking in tongues" and shouting praises to God. It may
sound mean to say, but my testimony of the Apostasy and the
Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ shot through the roof! Then
one of the preachers stood up and preached a sermon about different
things. It was pretty intense! I would probably classify it as more of
a pep talk or something like that. We think he indirectly threw some
jabs at us, but we're not sure. But anyway, it was quite the
experience! And it was good because we got to introduce ourselves and
meet lots of people.

Well everything's going great out here, I hope everything is good back
home. I love being a missionary, and I think I say it out loud just
about everyday. The experiences we have here in Brazil are something
else, and there's never a dull moment.

I love all of you!

Love,

Elder Tom Hill

Hello from Brazil

Hello Family! (again)

 

This computer has a timer on it, and it says 17 minutes right now, so I'm going to type really fast, and hopefully it doesn't boot me off, but if it does, I guess you still have that first email I sent.

 

So this last week has been really exciting. The first couple of days this last week was filled with meeting new members, knocking doors, and trying to find people to teach. The last elders didn't leave very detailed records, so we basically had to start off fresh. We found lots of people who had a desire to learn more, and also found 2 more investigators this week!

 

One investigator that we met is named Kendra. She lives in a pretty big trailer park on the south side of town that we visited a few times last week. We have 1 (now 2) investigator in there and lots of potentials, so we're in there pretty often. People a lot of times are out of their trailers doing things, so there's an oppurtunity to talk to a lot of people. Kendra was out talking to her neighbor, and we went up and talked to her. She told us that she had seen us around and had wanted to talk to us and find out who we were, but she never got a chance. She agreed to meet with us a couple of days later. We came back and taught her about the Restoration and invited her to be baptized. Before Elder Easter could even finish saying it, she said yes. It was awesome. We thought she'd come to church, but she didn't make it, so something must have come up. We're meeting with her a few times this week, so we'll work out her concerns when we meet with her.

 

Another one of the investigators that the previous Elders were teaching is named Heidi. She is really shy and hard to read, but as we taught here she really opened up. She told us that she had felt something that she hadn't felt with the other elders, and we testified to her that that was the Spirit. She said that it sparked her curiousity and that she would read the Book of Mormon, pray, and try to find the answer to if this is true and that she should be baptized. We're really excited to see what can happen there.

 

I haven't been in contact with Elder Ernest or Ben, but if I have more time today, maybe I'll shoot Ben an email. I got a few questions on how the area is doing, and I have some of the same! But I imagine everything's going well, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ben is baptized either this Saturday or the next, but it's hard to say.

 

And one last thing, in case I don't get a chance to email just Mom. My address is 115 N. Franklin Brazil, IN 47834. There are a few things that I've been thinking that would really help to have, but I'll either include that in another email or write a letter home today if I run out of time.

 

There's a lot of potential here in Brazil, and I'm excited to see what miracles we see this week, because we saw plenty this last week. One that really stuck out to me, is that with all of these people with so much potential and desire to learn, we've been going through our Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon?) like crazy, and we were almost out. We're not getting more supplies in a few weeks, so we started praying and looking for more copies of the Book of Mormon. Then that day that we were praying and looking for more, a member gave us 4 copies! Always look for tender mercies! (1 Nephi 1:20)

 

I love all of you!

 

Love,

Elder Tom Hill

Hello from Brazil!

Hello Family!

 

Hello from Brazil! I didn't think I'd be serving foreign! Just kidding..... kind of. Wednesday I found out that I would be transferred to the Honey Creek ward, which is a ward in Terre Haute. The ward covers 2 counties though, and our proselyting area is Clay County which is where we live; Brazil, Indiana. The reason I said I was just kind of kidding about serving foreign, is that Brazil is quite the place. It's a really old city, and the people are pretty poor, but it's a really cool place. There used to be a branch out here in Brazil, but it didn't end up working out, so it just became part of the Honey Creek ward. We are the second set of missionaries to be here, and before us there haven't been missionaries here in Brazil and Clay County for over 10 years! The other Honey Creek missionaries wouldn't go out that direction very often, because it's about 30 minutes out of Terre Haute, so there's a lot of work for us to do here.

 

My new companion's name is Elder Easter. He's been out 3 and a half months (and I've only been out 2, crazy I know!) and we got double-transferred in. Which means neither of us were in this area. So last week was a little stressful to figure out where we were, and how to get around, and who people to visit were. To add on to that, the last Elders didn't leave very good records, so we basically had to start out fresh. We're starting to figure out why it is that we got double-transferred in; we've heard and realized some interesting things about the last Elders.

 

Last week, we met with the Honey Creek Bishop. He is a really nice guy. He's a judge here in Terre Haute, and pretty much everyone in town knows who he is. He's very missionary minded, and he put us right to work, visiting lots of people out our direction. He invited us over to dinner on Sunday for a fish fry. There we ate fried catfish, snapping turtle, and a raw fish salad. The people out here are definitely what we like to call "true hoosiers".

 

I'm going to rewind a little bit. On Tuesday, before I got transferred, we had a lesson with Ben. He told us that he felt like we were pushing him to be baptized, and that he didn't feel quite ready to be baptized on the 7th of September. We had a really spiritual lesson and told him that this was all about him and if it felt like we were dragging him to be baptized on the 7th, than we were doing our job as missionaries poorly. He said he'd keep reading and praying to find answers. I'm sure he will be baptized, it's just a matter of time. At the end of the lesson, I sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and bore my testimony to him for one last time.  It's been really cool to teach him and to share my testimony with him, and he know he was one of the reasons I needed to serve in Avon those short 6 weeks. It was hard to leave just a few weeks before he'll be baptized, but I know I'll keep in touch with him for a long time. (The first picture is me with him. The picture was kind of taken at a weird time, so we look like we're fake smiling, but the other one was blurry, so I guess I'll go with this one. And the other picture is Elder Ernest and I with a Muslim guy we were teaching named Feroze Ohab who was really cool.)

 

Well things are going great out here. Change is hard, but it's also exciting. I'm excited for this new challenge, and Elder Easter and I have already seen miracles.

 

I love all of you!

 

Love,

Elder Tom Hill

 

P.S. I'm emailing today instead of yesterday because of Labor Day....but you probably figured that out. Just thought I'd let you know! Love you!

                                                                 Elder Hill and Ben
                                                                      August 2013

                                              Elder Hill, Feroze Ohab, and Elder Ernest 

                                                                 August 2013