Give us this day our daily grind

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** This week was brutal, but was also super good, so that's good 😂

 ** Elder Blackham and I are getting super tired of fake friends, ngl

 ** The real friends are homies though, and we've got a couple that are super cool

 ** Our mission broke yet another record 🔥

So this week went pretty well, and we saw a lot of success, but it was a sweaty grind for each and every one. On days where we had enough time blocked out to find 8 or 9 new people, we'd find 2. On days where we blocked out more and planned with faith to find 10, we found maybe 5. We still found someone every day, and we ended up finding 32 (which is a lot for any other mission, I know 😂), we were kind of frustrated each time because we could have found so many more. For some reason, people just didn't want to come to church or learn about the BoM this week. Hopefully next week will be better.

On another note with the grind, a lot of our friends just randomly drop off the face of the planet. I found a few people that were super cool, one or two even wanted to be baptized, but they all one by one blocked us or just stopped answering. It's getting really frustrating to finally have some tangible success only for it to be ripped away two days later.

We have had some real and lasting success though, and the work is still so good. I found two cool guys this past week, both of whom came to church yesterday!

Fernando was just chilling by the bus stop when we talked with him. He's from Bolivia and speaks fluent Spanish, but he prefers English (he's trying to learn it). His English is really good, so we taught him and invited him to church! He's a humble guy who admitted that he doesn't have any faith in Christ, he wants to so bad. We told him all about it, and made sure he found his way to the chapel on Sunday. A sister in our ward, who's from Bolivia as well, sat by him and they began talking. When it was discovered that they're both from the same city in Bolivia, they were so happy. The Sister said to us, "He's my friend now. I'll take care of him." Fernando is so cool, and I'm so excited to teach him more.

George was this Chinese homie on the train. He and I talked for a bit, and he was kind of interested in checking out the church, but he wouldn't give me his phone number to stay in contact. We kept chatting, and we got on the subject of WHY he was interested in church (he has zero Christian background) and he said that he wants to find that community aspect. I told him all about how church is like a family, and he really liked that. By the end of the conversation, I asked again for his number, and this time he gave it to me! We kept in contact, and we showed him around the church before sacrament meeting. He really liked it, and we're set to keep meeting with him, which I'm so excited for. He's a cool guy.

Well folks, as a mission, we're only going up, and all the glory be to God for it. We found over 2500 people this week, with over 450 to church and 480 on baptismal date. We also had 121 baptisms this month, with 51 happening this week alone!! We've seen huge miracles and blessings across the entire mission, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it. Life is so good here, even in spite of the challenges we face. The bad just accentuates the good, and oh man is that good so GOOD. 

As I've said a lot before and probably will a lot in the future:

Life is good, God is good, and that's good enough for me.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: Hey, so this week is General Conference!! Y'all should prepare for this next weekend, watch previous talks and review previous notes, and prepare how you'll watch conference, where you'll watch it, and who you'll watch it with. Do your best to make it unforgettable, and it most assuredly will be.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

• Weirdly decked-out off-roader Toyota
• Super nice food from the food court
• Elder Blackham and my good self
• Lady with a dope saxophone in the subway
• Dope building in Forest Hills
• Beautiful sky
• Elder Kitchen met some priest and he tried to invite us to dinner and bash us lol

Heat Check (?)

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** We went to Olive Garden as a district, and it was super fun

 ** Favorite experience train contacting ever: teaching three homies on the train all at once about the BoM (one if them is running for governor of New York)

 ** We went to dinner with Indira and Patrick on Saturday, and it was AMAZING

 ** The week as a whole was really good BUT (↓↓)

 ** The end of the week was kinda weird, ngl

Quick request to start this off. Our mission has a goal of baptizing 113 people this month. As of last night, we were at 70, with 47 more people preparing for baptism this weekend! Please please keep these friends (and everyone else preparing or thinking about it) in your prayers. Pray that they will overcome opposition and obstacles to be able to make covenants with God and receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit.

Anyways that's my little soapbox request. Thank you all so much for your help. And now, on to the rest of the week:

District Council was on Elder Horton's birthday this past Wednesday, so both to celebrate that but also just to be epic, Elder and Sister Shiley took our district to lunch at Olive Garden. We had a great time, and the food was delicious. Nothing super crazy happened, just good times with good friends.

We were train contacting on our way to the church, and I experienced an epic encounter. This black guy, Kevin, was kinda looking at me from a little down the train car, so I walked over and sat next to him. We started talking, and I learned that he has read the BoM before and he wanted a copy of the Pearl of Great Price so he could read the book of Abraham. Unusual conversation haha. I realized partway through that the two guys sitting across from us were traveling together with my new friend Kevin. One of them was Kevin's uncle Derrick, who is currently campaigning to be governor of New York, and Chris, a good friend of theirs who's living with them as those three travel and campaign together. They all seemed super chill, and they're down to learn more about the BoM! They can't make it to church this week because they'll be in Syracuse, but they said they should be able to come this upcoming week! Super epic to find/teach all three of them on the train.

Saturday was a weird day (more in the next couple paragraphs), but the evening was epic. Indira and Patrick took us out to dinner at a SUPER GOOD Thai place near the church. It was definitely out of my price range, but they insisted on treating us haha. We each got appetizers and drinks and I ordered a Golden Salmon Steak, which was absolutely phenomenal. There was a lot of food, so we packed it up and had leftovers for dinner the next day. So good haha. See pics below (and Mom, it had mAnGOeS).

So as far as finding goes, we're literally going insane. Elder Blackham and I found 45 new people this week, which is my new all-time high. I also set a new all-time for how many people I found by myself in one day with eleven! Now that's crazy in and of itself, but what made it even crazier was that it happened in about two hours of street contacting. Also our mission found over 2800 people this week, so that's hype. God brings blessings, and He brings them in abundance.

Soooooo, here's the other part of that story. By Saturday morning we had found 43 people, had 20 confirmed for church, and had 11 on baptismal date. We realized we needed to grind out some contacting, so we spent the entire day just calling & texting our people to confirm for lessons and church as well as to gauge interest in meeting with us. By the end of Sunday (so roughly 36 hours later), we had found 2 people in two days, which is good but could have been a lot higher, we only had 2 people come to church, and we only have 4 on baptismal date. It was really frustrating (albeit not super surprising), and we spent some time during a companion study trying to figure out how to get our friends to stick around after we find them. It was weird to see so many people just fall off the face of the planet, but I guess that's just how life goes. We've got the skills and the desire and the plans, so I'm actually pretty excited to grind it out this week and see what we can do to improve our teaching pool.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga:

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

• Random huge crowd of high schoolers by the Mall (we couldn't see what they were all yelling about and recording, but it seemed wild haha)
• Elder Fanning and me (window pic and selfie)
• Queens & Subways
• Suuuuper good food with Indira & Patrick
• Cute pics of Elder Blackham and myself on the subway platform (day and night)

For the First Time in Forever

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** Zone Conference was absolutely wild

 ** The "find grind" was in overdrive this week

 ** Found out that you can, in fact, invite someone to be baptized within two minutes of meeting them and have them say yes (it does actually work)

 ** Hey we actually hit our weekly goals (that hasn't happened in a while...

 ** The Lord moves in mysterious ways

Zone Conference this week was absolutely wild. We had a great meeting, with some incredible trainings and messages (some of which will covered later in this weekly). Pres Holmes put a huge emphasis on the BoM, which I actually talked a little about last week. We had some great times all around. 

After the regular meeting ended, we went into the gym and had some fun times to celebrate smashing our previous baptism record as a mission. We had some "minute-to-win-it" type games, and we competed zone versus zone (see pic below). The prize is breakfast catered by Sis Holmes, so it got pretty intense haha. My favorite game was one where you had to balance pencils on the back of your hand, toss them into the air, and catch them all. After each successful catch, two more pencils were added. The goal was to be the first to catch 12. I played for my team, and I ended up breaking/setting the record by tossing and catching 28, which was literally all the pencils on the table. It was really funny because literally everyone (Pres Holmes included) stopped to watch me go bigger and bigger, and every time I caught them all the crowd went nuts. I ended up dropping one pencil when I tried to catch all 28, which ended the streak, but I went back later and successfully did it (see video below). It doesn't mean anything for my eternal progression, but it was fun haha (and no one ever broke the record, so I get that bragging right for the rest of my mission).

Finding this week was so much fun (except for the parts when it was absolutely terrible haha). With Zone Conference basically all day, we had less time overall to find new people to teach, so we had to kick it into high gear. The weather was also really bad for a couple days, so that didn't help. We spent a lot of time street and train contacting, and it was an absolute grind lemme tell ya. We found lots of awesome people though, and there's a lot of fire potential in our area.

One practice that we learned from Zone Conference was inviting people to be baptized on the first street contact. It's a huge act of faith (both for the missionary and the friend) but the promised blessings are incredible. I tried it this week, and it actually works! We were on a train platform, and this guy named Tony was walking by. Elder Blackham stopped him and invited him to church, and he immediately said yes! We got his info and shared a brief message from the BoM. I read from 3 Nephi 27 and talked about how through repentance and baptism we can be held guiltless and spotless before God. I asked if that's something he wanted, and he said absolutely. I then asked if he would like to be baptized to receive those blessings, and he said absolutely! We put Tony on date for April 9th, and he's excited to work towards it with us!

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: My thought today is based on an experience I had while we were street contacting. Elder Blackham has a big emphasis on "feeling the vibe" while contacting (basically feeling the fruits of the Spirit's presence), and the other day I was absolutely NOT feeling the vibe. I got rejected a bunch all back to back, and one wonderful lady used some very choice vocabulary with me (that wasn't a problem except that it just added to my growing frustration and exhaustion). In that moment, I thought to pray and just give it to God. I realized I had been trying to find success through my own efforts, but I hadn't asked God for any help at all. I offered up a silent prayer and simply said "I literally can't do this right now. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm frustrated. I don't have the right mindset to get this done. Please help me." I didn't feel any significant change, but I kept plowing ahead, trusting in the Lord and His timing. In the next 30 minutes, Elder Blackham and I found about five new people to teach, which was insane. I offered up another prayer, this time one of absolute gratitude. I know that the change in our work was God's will, not mine. I also recognized that if I hadn't slogged through that rough patch of contacting, we never would have been in that right spot on the street corner to find those five new friends. The Lord truly does move in mysterious ways, and I'm just happy to be that instrument in His hands.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

• Zone Conference festivities
• APs playing games 😂
• Elder Blackham's nifty Chinese Plan of Salvation wood puzzle thingy
• Cool pic of Woodside
• Birthday celebrations (Olive Garden pic, pic with Elder Fanning, pic with recent converts et al. at the church)
• Found the ZLs train contacting
• Big crowd in the subway station
• Some epic KIs (key indicators) for yous (not to flex but also to flex 😂)
• A pinnacle of my life, throwing and catching 28 pencils with one hand to break/hold the record (video)

Wait, What Just Happened??

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** Yo it's my birthday

 ** I'm not sure how, but we tripled our last week's finding and it was epic (big things are coming to Rego Park)

 ** We found the hidden fourth Chinatown in NYC

 ** Pday in actual Chinatown

Once again, it is in fact my birthday this upcoming Friday. If you wanna be a homie and send me presents lol, here's my address:

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

So transfers happened (RIP Elder Rasmusson), and Elder Blackham came into this area. Literally the first day, things changed. I'm not sure what it was, but our vision and excitement for this area and for the work just exploded, and we found a TON of people this week. It's was super cool and we were so tired at the end of each day, but this has probably been one of my favorite weeks on my mission this far. Elder Blackham is a good dude, and we vibe really well. I'm excited to see where we can go with this area.

Because Elder Blackham is a Mandarin-speaking missionary, he has a great interest in anything and everything Chinese in this area. We were wandering around Queens looking for a good place to street-contact, and we found a pocket of shops and stores with signs in Chinese characters. My comp was in heaven haha, and we had some fun looking around and talking to the old Chinese grandmas (who are always blown away when a white guy speaks Mandarin haha).

Today was Pday, and we decided to go big. Our district found well over 100 new people to teach (a record for us and our zone), and we felt a celebration was in order. We took the 7 train into Manhattan; and Elder Blackham and I, the only two in our district who have previously served in lower Manhattan, acted as tour guides. We hit up the Met and blazed through the highlights there before going down to Chinatown for lunch. After eating, we visited some cool stores in the area and saw some cool stuff. We capped it off by visiting the gift shops in Chinatown itself and getting some cheap stuff for fun or to send home etc. Good times all around, and it was soooo nice to be back in Manhattan. Felt like I was home, ngl.

(I don't have the pics yet, so message me later if you wanna see 'em)

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: Less of a thought and more of an invitation, but I would strongly encourage and invite all of you reading this to read the Book of Mormon. It doesn't matter if you are a member of this church, you want to be, you don't want to be, you used to be, or you never thought about it. Just pick up a copy and read it. Read it and think about it, maybe even pray about it. Try to find what message it has for you,  because I promise that it does.

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

• Video of a Chinese street performer
• New logo for our district chat (because we're all super old missionaries lol)
• Shenanigans on a district call
• Elder Blackham with some spicy tofu (it was pretty good)
• Elder Blackham contacting a lady on the street, because why not
• RIP this guy's broken doors...