Seek This Jesus

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** Exchanges are epic. They're even better when they're catered haha

 ** Sleepover with the boys (RIP Elder Rasmusson)

 ** Church this week was insane

 ** Miracles as a mission are a real thing (we broke some serious records here)

 ** Transfer news....(I'm staying here, don't worry)

First things first, my birthday is coming up in less than two weeks! If you wanna be one of my absolutely favorite people and send me something haha, here's my address:

37-47 98th St #2F, Corona, NY 11368

I had an exchange with Elder Kitchen this week, and it was a ton of fun. We're both the older missionary in each of our respective companionships, so we enjoyed being able to just hit the grind and not worry about anything in particular. We ended up finding six people that day, which was way cool. Four were for their area and I snagged two for my own. That day was also Elder Kitchen's one year mark of being in NYC, so we naturally had to celebrate. We got food at KFC, and after some very funny and strange circumstances that I'll omit here, Sister Holmes ordered us ice cream for dessert later that night. Good times all around.

Earlier this week, Elder Rasmusson and I figured out how to mass text everyone in our area book, so we sent our church invites to probably around 800 people. His phone EXPLODED with replies of all kinds, and it took us a few days to respond to them all. It worked a little too well haha. It was super funny, but it also worked out because a bunch of people would just randomly text back "sure I'll come". On Saturday we called through everyone who said they might be able to come, and we ended up teaching and finding three or four of them! (I can't quite remember how many lol). We ended up finding five that day, which was a huge miracle because our goal was three and we needed some Divine help to make it happen (also finding those five meant we hit our weekly finding goal a day early, which is always amazing).

Now as far as church actually went today, it was NUTS!! Only one of the friends who confirmed, a lady by the name of Grace, actually came to church (she brought her ESA dog though, so that was pretty cool haha). HOWEVER, two other friends, Nikolai and Elliot, both randomly walked into the church building. They both had gotten our text invite but had never really responded. They both showed up though, so that was way cool. Hopefully we can keep them all coming next week and the weeks after that.

Our mission has set a goal of 69 baptisms this month, which was one more than our previous record. We ended up being blessed with 109 baptisms this month!!! So many miracles and tender mercies were poured out on us in the New York City Mission, and it was absolutely incredible. Almost every zone beat their goal, some by large amounts haha. Life is good here, the work is better, and God is always the best.

Today (Monday) has been a crazy day to be sure. Elder Rasmusson did some final packing and prep, and we headed over to Junction Blvd (two streets over from our apartment) to meet up with the district to hang out and have some fun. After that, we went back to our apartment for last minute stuff before an Uber came to take Elder Rasmusson to the airport. We said our goodbyes and he climbed and headed off to the Shadow Realm (that's a Jimmy Neutron reference for all you fans out there). Elders Fanning & Kitchen, the other English elders, also came to our apartment, and I'm staying with them for the rest of the night into tomorrow for transfers.

Speaking of which, transfer news. As is obvious, Elder Rasmusson is gone and off to Leeds, England. I found out that I will be staying here and will be receiving Elder Blackham, a Mandarin Chinese-speaking missionary. I've heard good things about him, so I'm excited to see what happens.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: Hermana Braithwaite gave a really good spiritual thought in district council based on the phrase in Ether 12 titled "Seek this Jesus". It was really cool to think about "this Jesus" or specifically "my Jesus". A lot of people think about Him differently and believe different things about Him. There is a real and pure side to Him, a character untouched by human bias or tradition. Seek THIS Jesus, the One that really came and sided for all of us. Seek THIS Jesus, the One who gave up everything so that all of us sinners could have a chance to repent. Seek Him, and don't ever stop. Do it for the rest of your life, and it'll be so so worth it.

If you ever want help seeking this Jesus of whom the prophets spoke, let me know! I'd love to help in any way I can.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

- Elders Kitchen & Fanning have some multi-color LEDs in their apartment, and it leads to some funny stuff 

- Elder Kitchen and I at the mall eating KFC and at our apartment eating ice cream (thanks Sis Holmes)

- Found a random mirror in the stairwell while knocking, so naturally we had to pose

- Cool pictures of the city/subway

- Week 6 district pics

- Cute doggo on the train

- Nice sidewalk graffiti

- More cool sunset pics with Manhattan in the distance