I Got "MyPlan" Today.....

Malo Soifua!!!

Today on the Elder Hill Show:

 ** Interviews with Pres were amazing as always (they're getting more and more nostalgic)

 ** Finding has still been pretty tough ngl

 ** Two more of our most progressing people dropped off 

 ** Pretty cool miracle happened to us with looking up party member families in Yonkers 

 ** The work moves forward, "no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing"

I got an email from the mission headquarters about MyPlan today, so that was fun. For anyone who's unfamiliar, MyPlan is this thing you get right before you go home, and it's all about helping you prepare and make plans etc to get back into school, work, dating, all that good stuff. It's super helpful, it's just a reminder that I wasn't looking forward to haha.

Also on the topic of me being a crusty old missionary, I had my interview with Pres Holmes this week, and it was super good. As my time runs low, our interviews get more and more reflective and nostalgic, and it's great but also awful haha. I am excited to go home and do so many other awesome things, but I'm brokenhearted about leaving this behind. (I'm sure every missionary ever can relate lol).

I'll go out of order and put the miracle here so that people will read it before they get too bored haha. On Friday we were having a tough go of it (more in that later), and we decided to drive 30 minutes to Yonkers to look up two less-active member families that had unbaptized children. The first family lived in an apartment building, but when we got there nobody answered the door. I began second-guessing if we were supposed to come out there, but I felt to just try the other family. We drove over there, and they lived in a house in another part of Yonkers, but they weren't home either (it's possible that both families might have moved without us knowing). We felt kinda discouraged and again I wondered if we really were supposed to be there. 

As we stood on the doorstep of the second house, a lady two doors down opens her door and yells "Mormónes!?" We both looked over in confusion, and her son walked over and asked did we were Mormons. I replied "....sure. what's up?" He led us over to the lady, and we talked with her and her kids. 

She told us that her and her husband are members of our church in the Spanish ward there in Yonkers, but they hadn't been to church in a number of years. She told us that she had been thinking about church, and she had been wanting to come back to church this Sunday, when she looked out the window and saw us standing a few doors over. She also told us that she has two kids that were baptized and three that weren't, but she wants them to be! We talked for a little (and they gave us ice cream haha), and we got their number so the Yonkers Hermanas could reach out. We also gave her 9yr old son a blessing if healing for some cuts and scars he got from a big mean dog that attacked him. A sad situation, but a powerful spirit was there.

On Sunday that family came to church for the first time in years, and the Hermanas are working with them to help the kids be baptized! Truly the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and the Spirit guides us to exactly where we need to be to see the hand of the Lord.

Now to the less cool stuff haha (more or less).

This week was pretty good, but it definitely had some challenges. Finding was still slower than expected, and it's been kind of frustrating for our whole district. We're doing everything we can, it's just not panning out how we were hoping.

I'm pretty sure our two most progressing friends, Michael and Aisha, each found or were given anti material of some sort. Michael was literally so cool, but he up and blocked our number out of nowhere. Aisha accepted a baptismal date only to text us the next day and say she doesn't agree with our church and she can't talk with us anymore. Boom, both gone. Not gonna lie, that was pretty frustrating. They both had such potential, but now they're gone. It's been really discouraging thinking about how the last four or five people we've taught who were on track to be baptized all blocked us or ghosted us or rejected us. It's made it hard to keep grinding and finding more people who actually will progress when that nagging thought from the adversary keeps tugging "they'll probably fall off too, it won't be worth it." 

BUT IT IS WORTH IT. I know that, and I know that God knows that. It doesn't matter what happens or who walks out on us, this is God's work. I'm just an instrument in His hands. As the prophet Joseph Smith said:

"The standard of truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

I'm reminded as well of a quote by Elder Holland that I can't remember, but I'll paraphrase: "This is a gospel of happy endings. If it's not happy, it's not the end."

Whatever the actual quote is, it's amazing and I love it.

Mafaufauga faaleagaga: that ↑↑↑

Alofa tele lava atu ia outou uma,

Elder Hill

Ata:

 - Nice pic of the chapel in Scarsdale (funny story: I uploaded it to Google maps because why not, and then the very next day I was talking to a lady on the street and she googled the church, and the picture came up haha)

 - couple pics from zone hike last Monday

 - Member bought us Five Guys, so that was hype

 - A super nice guy we know from where we give service was working a cotton candy booth at a local art fair, and he gave us free cotton candy 

 - Cool doormat (I wonder if it's worth $100....)

 - Me & Earl in our apartment building

 - "Hey look, it's a sleeping squirrel" - Elder Earl