Everything Happens for a Reason

 Malo soifua ia outou!!! ("Hello, all you happy people!" - Droopy Dog)

This week went by crazy fast, and so much happened that I probably won't remember all of it, but here we go.

Last Sunday we had a big to'ana'i (big ol' Sunday dinner) with lots of friends and family. We had our family, the Webb family (from our home ward), and my sis Rosalie and four of her young-single-adult friends. At my Dad's request, we had his favorite Ecuadorian food, Arroz con Menestra y bistek, y patacones, which is not Samoan, but still tastes really good (basically rice with lentils, steak, and fried Ecuadorian bananas).

At the beginning of this week, my district received yet more shocking news. Our teacher and class lineup was changing drastically. First off, all of our classes were moving later in the day (first class moved back one hour, second class moved back half an hour). Secondly, we learned that Uso Tepa, one of our favorite teachers (probably THE favorite now that Sister Long left) was leaving the teacher role and becoming more of a tutor. We'll still see him, but nowhere near as much, and we're all suuuper sad about it because he is just awesome and so much fun. However, we did receive some good news. The first came in the form of Uso Tepa playing us a song on his guitar, which was a great time. The other piece was the arrival of our new teacher, Sis Macarilay. Sis Macarilay was born in the Philippines, raised in the US, and served a mission in Samoa. She's super sweet and super awesome, and we're pretty excited to have her as our teacher.

Other big news: I got my flight plans on Friday!!! I'll be flying out of Phoenix the morning of Monday, October 12th. From Phoenix I'll fly to San Francisco, and then catch a connecting flight to JFK Airport in New York. I'm super excited that I finally have a plan of action after so long without knowing quite what to do haha. I'm also finally equipped with all of the winter-type stuff I'll need, so that's pretty dang exciting.

As far as Samoan goes, we've learned some pretty hard grammar this week, including a doozy of a lesson about possessive pronouns. In case any of y'all were wondering, Samoan has eleven regular or emphatic pronouns, eleven more modified pronouns (which I actually like more, not gonna lie), and EIGHTY EIGHT POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS!!! Granted there's a formula to use to figure them out, and they're not too hard to learn/remember, but still, 88. Bleh.

We've also done a lot more SYL practice (Speak Your Language) with lessons and in regular conversation. We'll study a principle or lesson from Preach My Gospel, teach it to each other in English, and then re-study and re-teach it in Samoan. It's been kind of hard, but it works really well, and I've learned a lot about talking and formulating simple sentences/questions to say to people.

All of us elders had another round of TRCs (practice lessons) with Mariah, which went.....okay I guess. I mean, two companionships had really good lessons with her, and basically everything went right. But then the other two companionships, including Elder Brown and me, were unable to actually meet with her because she never joined the Zoom call. We ended up just leaving after about fifteen minutes of waiting, and we reported it as a missed lesson. Hopefully we can actually meet up with her soon.

Sam Fam (Samoa Family) Shenanigans of Week 4:

We began playing a really weird game of "Would You Rather" on our MTC group chat that's gone all over the place, so that's kinda fun. A few of the elders have gotten better on the ukulele, and will play at random times in breakout rooms or right after breaks. Elder Prince managed to yank Uso Gardiner back to the early 2000s by playing the MII Theme on his uke during class, which was really funny.

The crowning jewel, however, was when Elder Brown and I, just yesterday, made a missionary parody to the Pina Colada song called Gospel Discussions, and it's absolutely beautiful. I'm pretty sure our district is planning on making a music video of it, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Mafaufau Fa'aleagaga (spiritual thought):

Once again, I have two quick thoughts to share.

First is about listening. We focused a lot on just listening to people and getting to them because we love them, not just because we want to share a message. I found that the more that I just listen, or ask prompting questions, the more I grow to love someone, even if we're just talking over a video call. When I let them, and the Spirit, do most of the talking, we both learn a lot. In addition to that, when we listen actively and carefully, eventually something they say will lead to a gospel topic that we can teach them about, and a specific invitation that will bring them closer to Christ.

The second thought is about the Gospel of Christ. To quote Uso Gardiner, "the Doctrine of Christ is not a topic for one lesson, it's a lens through which we see every lesson." We've learned, studied, and taught a lot about the Doctrine and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's been incredible. My favorite lesson was when we talked about this being the great and last dispensation of the gospel. Uso Tepa was talking about how much we have here and now, and it took me aback when I really thought about it. In the scriptures (Bible, Book of Mormon, etc.), we read about only a small handful temples, and a couple dozen missionaries, and a few thousands of members/believers in the gospel of Christ. But now look at our world today. We have almost 200 temples, around 60,000 missionaries at ANY given time, and over 16 MILLION members/believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is truly the last dispensation, and fulness of times.

Ou te molimau atu e tatou ola i le aso gata ai, ma ou te molimau atu le moni o le talalelei toefuata'iina a Iesu Keriso. Ou te iloa pe afai ona e tatou fa'amaoni, o le a tatou fa'amanuia mai le Atua. Ou te iloa le moni o le Tusi a Mamona, ma ou te iloa alofa le Atua ia itatou. I le suafa o Iesu Keriso, lo tatou Fa'aola ma Togiola, amene.

I testify that we live in the last dispensation, and I testify of the truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that if we are faithful, we will all be blessed from God. I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I know that God loves all of us. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, amen.

Ma lo'u alofa uma lava (with all of my love),

Elder Hill

Photos (I have no idea what order they're in):

• Uso Tepa played us a hymn on his guitar, and we all loved it (even though the audio kept cutting out)
• Every once in a while, we'd all just lean in really close to the camera and just pick someone to stare at randomly. Uso Tepa figured it out eventually and joined in lol
• Our last picture with Sister Long (may she be remembered always), featuring Elder Brown's face added with Photoshop
• The lyrics to our Missionary parody of the Pina Colada Song (If someone wants to make a recording of them singing the parody and send it to me, I wouldn't be opposed to that haha)

NOTE:  Click on an image to bring it up in a larger size, for easier viewing.

"His Only Perfect Son"

 Malo soifua!!!

This week was full of grammar, memorizing, and teaching, and it was awesome. My Samoan is coming along much better, and I can actually almost talk to people! Very exciting stuff. It's a little frustrating that I've learned and memorized so many words for preaching the gospel, and they are all very important, but I know so little about just casually talking to people, which can be just as important for regular people and missionaries alike. BUT, I'm only halfway through the MTC 

(Missionary Training Center) time (povi pa'ia (holy cow) that's crazy).

As far as language studies go, we've now learned all four sentence structures (equitive, transitive, intransitive, and auxiliary), and we're beginning our Intermediate Core. My district set the goal to have the vocab for the first three lessons in Tala'i La'u Talalelei (Preach My Gospel) memorized by the end of the MTC, so that's what we're gonna shoot for. We still have a lot of grammar rules and sentence types to go over, so I'll have plenty to study these next three weeks.

For our doctrinal studies, we began going through each principle of the Gospel of Christ, one a day, and diving deep into the doctrine and scripture to fully understand (and know how to teach) each principle. So far we've covered Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance and Baptism, and each one has been incredible. The insight that I've received from my teachers, fellow elders, and the Holy Ghost have been amazing. I've had a lot of eye-opening experiences, and more faith/testimony building than I've ever felt before. One of my favorite lessons was on Wednesday with Sis Long. It was her actual and official last day of teaching us, and she decided to go out with a bang. She showed us a BYU devotional from 2011 with Brad Wilcox called "His Grace is Sufficient." (I strongly encourage all of you to go find it on YouTube or whatever and watch it). It was absolutely incredible. Wilcox explained Grace in a way I had never thought of before, and it felt like every other sentence was a quote worth writing down and putting on your wall. We also had an awesome discussion about it right after, and we all left feeling the Spirit on a crazy level.

As far as funny stories or shenanigans for this week go, we had a blast. It's kinda hard to goof off a whole lot or have a ton of fun together when we're all hundreds of miles apart, but we make do. Three or four of the elders in our district can play the ukulele (I'm starting to learn it as well), and they'll play hymns, or fun songs, or goofy ones in our free time in class. Elders Brown and Prince learned the Kahoot! theme song, and play it almost nonstop when there's a break in any of our classes. Uso Tepa also shared in the fun times when he was talking about goals and plans. He was talking about how we set goals, but our plan to get there doesn't always work. Instead of changing the goal we set, change the plan to get there. Tepa then related it thus: "What's every single return missionary's goal? Marriage, right? So if your goal is marriage, and you're in a relationship that isn't working, don't change your goal, sui le teine!" ("Change the girl!") We all laughed pretty hard at that one. (If you don't think that's funny, please just remember there's only eight of us elders, and three male teachers, so we kinda goof off on occasion).

In other news, for those of you that don't already know, I was reassigned to the New York ,New York City Mission!! I'll be leaving the week of October 12th (don't have the exact date yet), and I'm sooooo excited. It'll be a struggle to keep learning and studying Samoan while I'm on the wrong side of the country lol, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be going, and I can't wait to get out to the field.

(As far as reassignments in my district, everyone but Elders Wilson and Aloisio has one. Kauer is going to Minneapolis, Minnesota, Brown to Los Angeles, California, Mckrola and Prince to Independence, Missouri, and Tenney to Albuquerque, New Mexico). They're trying to break up the Sam Fam, but it ain't gonna be that way for long.

Finally, I have two spiritual thoughts from this week that I would like to share. The first one was from our discussion in class about repentance, and something that Uso Tepa said that never clicked for me before. He was talking about Christ's Atonement (John 3:16 type stuff), and he said "God loves us all so much that he allowed his only perfect son to be killed so that the rest of us may live again." I don't know why I never saw the importance of that before, but it hit me like a cement truck. God loves all of us, everyone, the sinners, the apostles, you, me, everyone that ever was, is, or will be, SO MUCH, that he allowed his ONE perfect son, the one person to ever lived that never broke the law, or made mistakes, or sinned, or failed to keep his covenants, the ONE man that was actually worthy to live God after this life, to die. Christ was the only person ever actually worthy to live with God again, but He died so that the rest of us sinners could have a second chance. If that doesn't make you want to rethink your life, and start repenting on the spot, and make His sacrifice really worth something I don't know what will (other than the Holy Ghost, but that's not important right now). I absolutely loved this insight, and I hope you all take the time to really think about it.

The second experience I wanted to share happened yesterday (Friday). All of us elders had our first Samoan TRC lessons yesterday or Thursday. We had to teach a young woman named Mariah a lesson for about 20 minutes, entirely fa'aSamoa (in Samoan). After our lessons we reflected in class about how we did. We realized that our lessons were majorly unsuccessful for one main reason, with a few subpoints. We were too afraid of the language, and so we never ended up making any sort of personal connection. Our lessons turned out stale and not very effective. Uso Tepa helped us realize what we had done wrong (gently of course, but he made sure we knew), and he helped us correct our mistakes. He said two things of note, the first being a well known saying, the other being something of his own composition.  "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." And, "Put less trust in yourself, and more faith in God."

The first one was pretty self-explanatory. We had never connected with her, never really came to love her and show her our love for her. The result was an awkward, stale and uncomfortable lesson for everyone. The second phrase was a little more interesting to me. Tepa wasn't saying not to trust ourselves, but the problem we had faced came from us only relying on our knowledge of the language and not at all on the knowledge of the Lord. I need to put less reliance and trust in my own knowledge, and focus it more on trusting the Lord to help me know what to say. (studying the language is vital, yes, but the Spirit is more important). Like it says in MF&F (Doctrine and Covenants):

"Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men" (Doctrine and Covenants 11:21)

"Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man" (Doctrine and Covenants 84:85).

The work of the Lord is moving forward, and I'm eternally grateful to be a part of it.

Alofa atu ia outou,

Elder Hill

Temporary Mission Reassignment

Elder Hill has received a temporary reassignment, to the New York New York City Mission.  He will report sometime during the week of October 12th, 2020.  Oct 12th is his last day of MTC instruction.  He will continue to study Samoan during his time in New York.  He is very excited!

Tasi Upu, Tele Uiga

Talofa lava!!!

This past week went by in a blur, but it was full of amazing stuff, so hopefully I can share a little of that with y'all.

We got some sad news this week. First, Elder Blackham was removed from our MTC district. All we know is that his training was "postponed." Whatever the cause may be, we'll miss him, and we all wish him the best. Also this week, just yesterday (Friday), Sis Long told us that she will be leaving the MTC so that she can finish up her schooling. We were all really sad about this because, despite having only known her for a week, we all already loved her so much. Hopefully we'll remember all of the amazing things she taught us, and hopefully whoever our new teacher is knows what they're doing because Sis Long set a high standard. Despite these sad events, the work goes on, and will continue to go on, regardless of who might be the ones carrying the standard of truth.

This week my soa Elder Brown and I taught two TRC lessons. These lessons are zoom meetings with "investigators," actors who portray non-members. Some of the people we talk to might actually be non-members, and they're all really good actors, so we have to do our best to be good representatives of the church and of Christ. Both lessons actually went really well, and my soa and I are feeling pretty confident about teaching lessons in English. During our second lesson, we were teaching a young woman about God and the restoration. Elder Brown was bearing his testimony to compliment something I had just said when suddenly he brought up Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I panicked for a moment because that wasn't part of our lesson plan at all, but I quickly realized that the lady's life story sounded a LOT like the young Joseph Smith. Deciding to roll with the spiritual promptings, I pulled up Joseph Smith History and the first lesson in Preach My Gospel, and we taught her about Joseph Smith. It was way cool to feel a direct spiritual prompting during a lesson, and to see it play out so well when we followed it. The lady was super receptive to the lesson, and we kept riding the spiritual high for the rest of the time.

Like I said before, our English lessons are coming along pretty well. Unfortunately, this next week, my soa and I are teaching a woman in Samoan. No English allowed. Yikes. Hopefully we can study up enough, and pray enough, to have the spirit during that lesson as well.

As far as language studies go, we're cruising right along with Gagana Samoa. Some concepts or lessons are super easy, or they're really nice in application (like not conjugating verbs ever is kinda really nice), but some other things are way different and harder than other language or grammar rules. We're also almost finished with Basic Core, the first round of vocabulary and phrases to memorize. This next week we'll begin Intermediate Core, which is much more personal-goal based, but just as long and hard I'm guessing. Chee hoo.

Also, I guess I'll explain the Subject line. "Tasi upu, tele uiga" is a Samoan saying that means "one word, many meanings." Basically, some words in Samoan just kinda have multiple meanings for no other reason than they just do. I don't mean like one words meaning talk, talking, and to talk (though that is very common), I'm talking like the word "po" can mean "night" or "to hit" or "or". Why, you ask? Fa'aSamoa. That's just how Samoan is, my friends, and it makes learning vocab both easier (because there's actually less words to remember) but also harder (because it's harder to keep it all straight in your head).

Despite our incredibly large amounts of studying and working, we still find plenty of time to pull off shenanigans and crack jokes and it's awesome. My whole district, even the teachers, share a similar sense of humor, so we often end up laughing and joking at the randomest things in class. Elder Brown and I have figured how to make and set recordings of ourselves as the background to our video, so we'll set those up for a minute or two so everyone thinks we're in class, or sleeping, or whatever, then just pop in and actually join class. Sometimes, in our district group chat, we'll pick one elder and give him four to six words or short phrases he has to say in a conversation in the next class (words like German engineering, expired pickles, dashing, ear cheese, crazy frog, etc). It's really funny to me because we're all now much more engaged in the lessons because we have to talk a lot, and have it relate to the lesson, to say all of the "special vocab" for the day, but we also have a ton of fun, so it's a win-win.

Also, because I just know you're all soooo curious, my district (without my actually trying to) decided that I'm the ladies man of the district, so that's pretty fun (I mean teeeechnically Uso Gardiner IS married, but he's the teacher so he doesn't really count 😂)

Finally, I just wanna say that the Spirit is real, and I have such a strong testimony of that. There have been countless times this alone that I've felt the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost, nudging me towards bigger and better opportunities, and I'm eternally grateful for that. The power of prayer is real, and we can all feel the Spirit when we pray.

Ou te molimau le Atua tali ia itatou tatalo, ma ou te folafola o le a faamanuia le Atua ia te oe afea 'e tatalo. (I testify that God answers prayers, and I promise that God will bless you when you pray.)

Life is good, and God is even better.

Alofa atu ia outou,

Elder Hill

Pictures (don't have many this week, sorry):

• A couple of screenshots of my district saying I'm a ladies' man (I just think it's hilarious, tbh).  [For the record, young ladies do NOT text me, whether late at night or not.  Another elder was just teasing.]
• We play Kahoot! a lot as a district, to practice vocabulary, and it gets pretty competitive, so I was proud of my first place title (Elder Prince has taken first place three times, so I'm tryna steal his crown).  FYI, "Elder Mauga" means Elder Mountain instead of Elder Hill.  
• Uso Seki (Elder Brown's alter ego)

"Yes, the Chocolate Milk Really Is That Good"

 Talofa lava!!!

These past few days have been absolutely crazy, to say the least. I've settled into the daily grind of the home MTC pretty well, and I'm suuuuper excited to keep working with these fantastic faife'au tala'i (missionaries). Before I jump in, I'll do a bit of housecleaning, etc. Muamua (First), my p-day in the MTC is on Saturday, so that's when these letters will be written. Lona lua (Second), I can to receive emails etc to my mission email and private/direct messages to my Facebook Messenger, but I will not respond until p-day (so plan accordingly). Seki, here we go.

Wednesday was the first official day for the Samoan at-home MTC in the United States. I learned that right now there is only one district of Samoan missionaries in the Provo MTC, which has exactly nine elders. Yep, there are all of nine elders that make up the entire Samoan district for the United States. Chee hoo. Our district has only one sister, Sis Long, and she's one of the teachers, so that doesn't really count. My district contains my good self, Elder Kauer (who's from my own Allen Ranch ward), Elder Brown (my soa/companion, who USED to be from the Allen Ranch ward), and Elders Prince, Mckrola, Tenney, Aloisio, Blackham, and Wilson. Two of us live in Arizona, two in Colorado, two in Utah, one in Idaho, one in Nevada, and one in Washington. It's a real party. Our teachers, Uso (means brother) Tepa, Gardiner, Reese, and Sis Long also live who knows where, so we're having a great time connecting over Zoom and studying together. We had one class that day (a kinda first-day-of-school-type gig), and then had a workshop later in the day. This workshop was with over 400 other elders and sisters from around the world who were also starting their online MTC experience that same day. One of the speakers, Elder Kelly Mills, talked at length about the blessings and the change that we'll experience on our missions. He shared a number of amazing conversion stories for both members and non-members who drastically changed their lives by going on a mission. He ended with, "Do you want to be happy? Do you want to find yourself? It starts today. Elders and Sisters...welcome to the work." The whole audience exploded in excited energy. A couple of elders even said in the chat, "Can I leave for my mission like right now???" It was so awesome to see and be a part of 400+ missionaries all riding the spiritual high into our MTC.

Wednesday night our stake Relief Society had a dinner for all of the missionaries in our stake district (again all elders, go figure). After that, we got to hear from Pres and Sis LeSueur, the Provo MTC mission president and wife. They live in Gilbert, and they came personally to talk to our district, and it was so cool. They talked at length about being good disciples of Christ, and how that would bless us even further on our missions. Pres LeSueur also spoke about how when Christ said "as I have loved you, love one another" he was commanding his apostles and disciples (the entire missionary force at the time) to love each other specifically, as that would help bring the spirit into their daily lives. It was a great lesson, and I really hope I get to hear from them again. (For the record, in response to a question about the Provo MTC chocolate milk, Pres LeSueur said "Yes, the chocolate milk really is that good. I've seen plenty of weight gain in the MTC from the chocolate milk alone." Truly an inspired man, haha.)

Thursday and Friday were full days of missionary study and work. With a few hours of study in the morning, a three-hour class at 11am, and another three hour class at 4pm, it's a multiple full days' worth of work crammed into 16 hours a day, and it's amazing. Each night I go to bed exhausted but immensely satisfied with what I've accomplished. Our classes vary between classes on missionary work and classes studying Gagana Samoa [Samoan language]. Each class is three hours long, and they're packed with spiritual content and understanding that just blows the mind. At this point I think I might have the most Samoan memorized or understood (thanks to the Malolo family and the Embark app), but we'll see how long that actually lasts haha.

Also on Thursday the home-MTC elders in my stake met at the church to play basketball. It was a great time, and we had a lot of fun. I actually rolled my ankle or something like that during a game, so I sat our for the rest of. By the next game I was feeling okay on my feet, just a little tender, so I got up to play again (we switched from full-court to half-court so I wouldn't have to run). I then (somehow) proceeded to destroy the competition, scoring five or six shots (100% shooting after the injury), a couple good rebounds, a couple good drives, and a beautiful block. I found it kinda really funny that I managed to play one of the best games of my life AFTER injuring my ankle. But hey, it is what it is.

My Samoan is coming along pretty well already. I feel incredibly blessed to have had the pre-MTC training and other help that I did, because it's really paying off now. I can already feel the blessing of the Gift of Tongues (Meaalofa o Gagana). The first scripture we learned, and now one of my favorites because of all of my experiences and blessings related to it, is Moronae 10:5:

"Ma o le mana o le Agaga Pa'ia e mafai ona 'outou iloa 'ai le moni 'o mea uma lava." Or, to the palagi, "And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things."

I testify that this is true, and that if we are faithful and worthy, and look to the Lord for the help that we need, we will be blessed by the power of Christ and his Holy Spirit.

I can't wait to continue learning, studying, and growing. The Lord has something great in store for me, and for everyone, and I'm beyond excited to know what it is.

Alofa atu 'outou (love y'all)

Elder Hill

Pictures:

• La'u itu o le siteki, ma 'o Peresitene LeSueur ma 'o lona ava (my stake district, and Pres LeSueur and his wife)
• Lua Elder Hill (two Elder Hills)
• La'u MTC (My MTC)
• La'u itu (my district)