Elder Jacob Hill: Tне Maинаттаи Дppяоасн

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

This is a long one, but a good one (trust me)
We had in-person Zone Conference this week, and it was super awesome.
We're coming to a close on our Saturday Science Guys series, and we decided to go out with a bang (stay tuned)
We got two friends to come to in-person church!! Definitely a miracle.
We met a guy who might legitimately be on the run from the US government, so that's cool

So this week was Zone Conference, and ours was held up in Harlem, so we got to take the metro up there. And let me tell ya, it's a different world up in Harlem. Lot's of interesting people there, and a very different vibe about the place. The conference itself was good as always. Sis Teuscher talked about faith, and Pres Teuscher talked about obedience. I'll touch on my takeaways in my spiritual thought below. After the meeting, a brand new senior missionary couple got us all empanadas and brownies, so that was real nice of them haha.

In case you haven't been on Facebook recently, Elder Hamilton and I release a weekly video called Saturday Science Guys to the "Church of Jesus Christ in Manhattan" Facebook page. We've had a couple of good videos and a couple of good seasons now, but alas, its time is coming to an end. With Elder Hamilton's impending return home on May 12th, we decided to end the show here (though he's planning on continuing it at home with a little rebranding). We have two more videos planned, one for this Saturday and one for the following Saturday. Make sure you all go like the page, like the video, and maybe give it a share or two. Anything to get the word out, haha.

Yesterday we got to of our friends to come to church!! The first was Craig, a guy we met this past week (more on him in the next paragraph), and we were pretty excited to see him there. The other was our friend Tony, and that was a huge miracle! He had wanted to come for a while, but he still hadn't officially talked to his parents about meeting with the missionaries and coming to church, so he hadn't yet. He showed up this week, however, and he had an amazing time! We have a few awesome members of the ward fellowshipping him, and they went to talk to him after church. And before we missionaries could even say anything, another young man and a few other adults came over and said hi and got to know him a little bit. He told us he loved it, and he's definitely coming next week ,so that was just the best.

Finally, that moment you've all been waiting for...

Tне Maинаттаи Дppяоасн

We met Craig this past week when HE rang the bell of our church building. We opened up and talked to him for a bit. He said he was looking for a bishop or someone who could tell him how to join our church because he wants to convert. With a start, we said that we were the right guys to talk to. We invited him in, and we had a long conversation about him and his experiences. Basically, he developed a new program that combines engineering, business, and philosophy to make capitalist markets more even and more mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, his creation was stolen by people from Wall Street, and for the past six years they, and the NSA, have been trying to sink him under to keep him quiet. The stories he told were pretty wild, but he seemed sincere, and he also really did express interest in converting to our church. I gave him a Book of Mormon, and we scheduled a follow-up for the next day.

The next day, we reviewed some of the BoM, and he shared some more thoughts and stories. He really resonated with the BoM, and he drew a lot of personal connections from the books of 1 Nephi and Alma. We talked a good bit, set up another time to meet a few days later, and he left. Right after, I did a bit of internet snooping about him and some of his claims...and they kind of check out. His whole bio checks out and exists, and I found other, independent articles about some of the things he mentioned (like psychological warfare and Direct-Energy Weapons, and oh, so much more). The more we talked about it and looked into it, the more real and legit it seemed, so that's pretty crazy. Also Craig never asked anything of us, other than suggestions for where a good spot in Utah might be that he can move to.

So yeah, that was pretty fun week. Elder Hamilton wanted to find ways to keep engaged during his last couple of weeks as a missionary, and he definitely got it haha.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: Sister Teuscher made a really cool point about faith from the Bible where it says that faith is an evidence of things that are true. She made the point that faith is not to blindly believe in things that we can't see but we're told are true. Faith, like the analogy in Alma 32, has evidences and signs of its verity. As you exercise faith, you will see the signs of the truth of what you believe, all the way until you become like the Brother of Jared, who had a knowledge of the things of God.

Week 6 of this transfer is next week, and I'm super excited. Week 6 always brings miracles, so stay tuned for some good stuff.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou,

Elder Hill

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