Rejoice in the Power of Agency

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

1. I got a son! We picked up Elder Fanning from the airport on Thursday.
2. We found a couple fine new friends, including one who's been having lessons and church over the internet while in Ghana
3. It's snowed and rained a lot
4. We got roast beef sandwiches at a deli that did not deserve the "Best in New York" title
   

So Basically:

Most of the exciting stuff this weekend happened in the back half of the week. Thursday was the day we were scheduled to pick up our greenie, and it was an absolutely crazy day. We were driving from appointment to appointment, filling the font at the church for a ward baptism, attending a meeting for social media, going to give service and shoveling snow while it was dumping snow, and driving home to get some actual missionary work done only to find out we needed to leave almost immediately to go to the airport. We drove to JFK Airport in Queens, and we waited for probably 30-45 minutes before any other missionaries showed up. We finally met up with the APs and with Pres and Sis Teuscher, and we waited for a little longer, chatting and trying to stay warm while waiting outside (we couldn't wait indoors because of covid restrictions). Finally, after around an hour of waiting, the first missionaries arrived to NYC. Our new companion, Elder Fanning, arrived first with an elder from Hawaii (who had never been so cold haha). Elder Fanning is from Washington state, and his original assignment is for Fukuoka, Japan. We figured a few things out with Pres, and then we finally put everything in our car, defrosted for a little bit, and drove home to get a little bit of work in before the night was out.

Elder Fanning is a pretty good missionary, and we're excited to have him. He's a good worker, and he's humble and teachable, so I've got no doubts that he'll be a great missionary.

We did a bunch of finding this week ,and we saw some awesome miracles. I found an awesome and super sweet friend on Facebook named Renee, and she's the best. She said that she doesn't normally accept stranger's friend requests, but she felt like it was a good idea to accept mine, and to reply to my message. She's never read the Bible, but she loves God and Jesus Christ, and I'm super excited to keep working with her. She came to church online yesterday, and she absolutely loved it!

Our other new friend is named LeBron, and he's also the best (they're both the best. Why? I said so). He was referred from some sisters in Manhattan, and he's super into talking about Christ. He's gone on multiple rants about how we need to put Christ first in our lives haha, and we missionaries just sit back nodding and laughing silently. He also came to church, Zooming in from Ghana to be able to make it. Afterwards he had nothing but glowing words for the service, and he super committed himself to come in person when he gets back from Ghana.

It's been snowing off an on for a while this week. Some days are just cloudy, and some days are sunny. Two or three days this week have dropped light amounts of snow. Today was one of those, but the snow became rain not too long ago haha. It's not quite my favorite to be in freezing rain, but it beats the snow. I'm just hoping that ice doesn't form with the mixture for snow and rain. Whatever the case, the weather has been fun, the driving not so much, and we're all very excited for spring haha.

Today being P-Day, we went out to go shopping and get some food. We celebrated getting out of a three-day quarantine (mandatory after picking up a new missionary) by going to a deli that Elder Kelley had heard good things about. We got some roast beef sandwiches that are apparently "the best in New York" and they were pretty good. The beef wasn't super flavorful, but there was gravy on it, and that was pretty good. All in all it was a good sandwich, but I personally wouldn't give it "best" status, soooooo....sorry not sorry.

Mafaufauga Faaleagaga: So this week we've had some ups and downs. A couple friends of ours either said they needed some space, or they are just not interested in learning more about the gospel. The sad news built up a little bit, and it was kind of frustrating and discouraging. A thought that came to me was a quote of a quote by my zone leader Elder Covey said last week: "rejoice in the power of Agency." I love that quote because it's such a huge part of our life on Earth that we have the ability to make choices. Even when their agency lets them walk away from us and the gospel, it's so important, and so special, that we even have the opportunity to choose, and that we can learn and grow on our own. God loves all of us so much that he let us choose for ourselves, even if that meant not choosing Him. I encourage you all to thank God sometime today for the gift that we have that lets us choose for ourselves, and "rejoice in the power of agency".

Basically, God is good, the people are great, and the work is amazing. I'm super blessed here, and I'm excited to train and to learn with my new companion. 

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou,

Elder Hill

Photos:

• Some jazzy pics from my apartment window
• "Elder Fanning has joined the game"
• Pics from the deli today. The sandwich was pretty good (but it cost too much, ngl)
• I met a dude who is a Norse Pagan, so that's exciting