Getting Into All Sorts of Trumbull

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 * I got bullied by a Samoan

 * Connecticut is waaaay different than NYC lol

 * Members here are super nice

 * Knocking doors is less nice (though honestly not terrible)

 * Basketball with the Elders

 * Yo they got Walmart hereeee

So at transfers I finally got to talk with Sister Tauelia. She's originally from American Samoa, and she was called to serve here in the NYC mission. She grew up speaking Samoan, and over the past threes years she became fluent in English and Spanish (she's a Spanish-speaking missionary). She saw me from across the parking lot at the Woodside chapel and, in true Samoan fashion, yelled "ELDER HILL COME OVER HERE!!!" And so I did haha, and we had a great conversation entirely in Samoan. Hers is waaaaay better than mine, so I was struggling to keep up, but she helped me a bit (except for when she would roast me for not understanding what she had just said haha). She told me (in a nice way) that I need to get better at listening and comprehension, and I think she's right. I'll definitely start grinding that in my language studies.

I met up with Elder Lee and Elder Steele there, as well. Elder Steele actually goes home in a few days, so he's just staying with us for about a week. He had to stay in Queens to do all of the departing missionary stuff, so Elder Lee and I said our final goodbyes and we hopped in our Chevy Equinox and drove for about 90 minutes to our apartment in Connecticut. I hadn't driven in a while, so that was all kinds of fun. Also, driving got very different once we left city limits and then state limits. Connecticut definitely has some urban areas, but nothing even comes close to NYC. Our apartment, which is way nice btw, is actually in Bridgeport, which is NOT in our area. Our area covers Trumbull, Monroe, and Fairfield, so that means we get to do lots of driving haha.

The vibe here is very different. Everything feels slower, and things just don't rush like they did in Manhattan. The members are pretty nice, but they like to talk forevvveerrrrrr haha. We had dinner with a family here, and it was fantastic. The food was divine, and the conversation was great. At one point during the meal I looked at my watch and discovered that we'd already been there for an hour. By the time dessert had rolled around and we were wrapping everything up, that rounded out to about two hours. We definitely weren't planning on that, but it ended up being pretty good. We may just have to start reining in the members here haha.

Also, just a small note, completely unrelated and unimportant to probably everyone but me, but THEY HAVE WALMARTS HERE!!!!! Elder Lee and I had to make a quick run to get a few things for the week, and needless to say, I was very very happy haha. (see attached pic)

Our zone leaders live super close to us, and we meet up a few mornings a week to play basketball at the church, and it's been so fun. It's been good to get back into the swing of exercise and good old-fashioned sweat, and it's been a lot of fun to play ball with some great elders out here.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: Testimony time. I don't remember if I've talked about this here before or not, but I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about testimonies. Something I realized this past transfer during my study on faith is that having a testimony does NOT mean you know something. It just means that you have the faith, and you've seen seom evidences to support it further. Now that doesn't mean that testimonies are bad or inferior or anything. It just means that you still have room to grow, and you still have room for faith, which frankly is good news to me. Remember, the first principle in the Gospel of Christ is to have faith, NOT to have knowledge. No matter how much I know to be true or have a testimony of, I'll always cherish the simple ability to believe, or even just the desire to believe. It truly is a gift from God that we can have faith, especially faith in Him and His Son Jesus Christ.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

p.s. my new address is 225 Golden Hill St, Bridgeport CT, 06604, Apt 6A

Ata:

• Selfie I got with Sis Tauelia at transfers
• Arizona who? I'm already home (lol) [Note:  Jacob worked at Walmart for a couple of years before his mission.]