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