November 26, 2012

Family!!

 

What a wonderful time of year that we are experiencing there is so much to be grateful for. Seriously. And the list just gets bigger and bigger. I love it, everyday I am more grateful that I get another day to go out and share the wonderful message about Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, and how the atonement of Jesus Christ can heal all things because we have a loving Heavenly Father who has prepared a way for us to return to live with Him. We had a truly amazing week last week. It was slow as far as the work goes. and we didn't teach much, but I had a whole new wave of appreciation for this knowledge that I have. I have been reading in 3 Nephi 11-25 (best chapters in the whole Book of Mormon) and it just has helped me realize how much the Lord truly does love us. I especially love in chapter 17 where it talks about the people crying because they didn't want the Savior to leave. I can understand why. This is why it is so important to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, people he will never leave us! I just want to tell everyone that they can find so much happiness in the gospel!

Anyway. But yes I think I am about 15 pounds heavier. whoops I may have gone back for seconds...twice. But whatever, thanksgiving was delicious. It truly wasn't so terrible being away from home. What a wonderful reason to be away huh!

 

Okay so about George. We met George tracting. We do a lot of that in these parts. But anyway we knocked on his door and he answered. They have the nativity scenes up at Kirtland and we have been focusing on that as our contacting. So we did our little spiel and he took the card and said that he was sorry he would love to talk but couldn't stand for too long. Interesting. So we asked him about it. Apparently he was out walking his dog one day and he was attacked by a coyote, it attacked his dog to and trying to get the coyote off it turned on him and pretty much took a nice big chunk out of his calf, it's all infected. This thing looked NASTY! hence he was going to have to have it amputated. He continued to tell us about his life. He is a marine corps, and loved the military. After he got back, his wife left him and then more recently his son stole everything out of his house. Including his car. Poor guy. We talked to him about the atonement of Jesus Christ and talked about faith. He sat there with a big grin on his face and just said there was no coincidence that we were standing on his doorstep. Oh, the Lord is preparing many people to receive His word. He is back in the hospital now and we are waiting until he gets out but we have talked to him on the phone. He keeps us updated about his leg.

I get to go back to Kland tomorrow for mission conference....WOOOT! I am so excited. It's been 9 weeks since I have seen other sisters! It will be a nice change. Elders are great and all but they sometimes don't play nice with sisters. They play a little rough sometimes and Sister Feldt isn't a real sports fan and the only way I can play is if she plays so it's kind of hard.

I'm so pumped for the devotional. I have a feeling that this month is going to go by very quickly. As will these next 8 months.

 

Love,

Sister Hillman

 

November 19, 2012

Dearest Family!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Oh my I can't believe that it is already time for this delicious holiday. Oh I have so much to be thankful for this year. What a year it has been. I'm sad to be missing all of the family celebrations but the fact that we have two families signed up to feed us on Thursday is going to make up for it. Again I am thankful for my overlarge stomach, that keeps expanding. Members here are so amazed at how much I eat, Compliment? Maybe but whatevs.

Oh this has been a good week. The Lord is good to those that serve him.We have found a lot of solid potentials this week. George gets out of the hospital woot woot, and he gets to keep his leg. I told you about George right? We have a return appointment with Cindy, we were able to do a lot of service this week and next week I get to go back to Kirtland! Oh I am so excited. It is just for Zone Conference but I get to go back to the place that I love. Oh how I miss it there! We found two new investigators this week, one is a family who we are meeting with after the holidays, everyone is peacing out for the week. Lame. I got called on to speak in sacrament meeting, any thoughts on the parables taught by Jesus Christ and how they can apply to us today? Oh man I want a topic like missionary work or something :) But it's good, it will teach me a lot about the savior and his teachings. Yesterday we had the opportunity to sb a potential and today we are going to go back and do service for them. We are ready for another busy week.

 

Sorry this is a short letter. It's a short pday today as we have an all day pday Thursday to celebrate turkey day. We have some shopping to do, I need to go get more winter clothes and they have some cute things at Target. Mom for packages just send them to the VC. They will get them to me somehow, and that will ensure that someone is there to pick them up and they wont get stolen. The next transfer is on the 19 of December so even if no one brings it to me I'll be able to pick it up then. I don't think I will stay in Lorain another transfer. But we will see I'm not the one who decides things.

Thanks for everything,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love Sister Hillman.

November 12, 2012

Hi Family,

Well we had a beautiful week following a super stormy one. It was about 72 for the majority of the days. It was so nice. I even broke a sweat tracting the other day. It was great! The Kirtland Nativities are up and running so we have been passing out cards for that. It seems so wrong to talk about Christmas when it is so warm outside. I can't believe the holidays are here. It's a busy time of year.

The elections are over. It's been a crazy couple of weeks out here. We are truly glad they are over. We will see what the Lord has planned for us these next few years.

Thanksgiving sounds like it is going to be a big ordeal this year! You really are going to have a full house. Wo is me. We will be going over to a members home for dinner. He came up to us on Sunday and asked us if we had plans to which I replied "Well the gospel is still true so probably missionary work." My companion hates my sarcasm...oh well. He invited us over, he was telling us what he was cooking, stuffing, smoked turkey, cheesecake, pie, and had the nerve to ask us if that was going to be okay! and in my head I was like woah, you had me at stuffing, I mean really he is going up against chicken flavored ramen noodles here. Ha. The members are good to us here. My waist line has grown a little bit. Whoops. Thank goodness for that little elastic band :)

We have had quite the week this week. It's been very strange. First off a van pulled up to us while we were contacting (sounds sketchy right? don't worry we were fine) and asked us if we were JW's. No but we are missionaries for the Church...blah, blah, our little spiel. He drove off and we were like okay, wierd, whatevs! Then we were trying to find a LA, turns out he doesn't live there, he got evicted for drugs, (he must have missed the Word of Wisdom lesson), but we did find a really awesome potential living there. We didn't even ask if she would like to learn more, just asked if we could come back later, she wanted to talk to us about doctrine. Sweet. Then as we were walking out, a lady came up to us and was like new sisters huh? Do you know us lady. Turns out she was a LA who left the church and ended up meeting with the missionaries again, but her boyfriend won't let us come so she said we could stop by anytime between 8:30 and 4. Then not to long after that we ran into a former investigator from years ago, who told us he liked everything about our church except that we go to church too much. We have a return appointment with him on Thursday. Victor Zaborowski! There are some classy people here! You never know what you are going to find in missionary work :)

This is going to be a good transfer. It is very lonely only having one other missionarie around. The Elders usually call us every other day, but we didn't hear from them for about 4 days. Turns out our district got split so there was a little bit of confusion. Oh well. They are preparing for the missionaries coming out. It will be a crazy time for all. They are opening new areas. We are excited for this change!

Well family. I love you! The work is good. Have a great week! Share the message about the restoration with someone new this week! It will change your life!

Love,

Sister Hillman

November 6

Hello Family,

 

The good news is that we all survived the first time in history hurricane off the coast of Lake Erie. It has been a crazy, crazy week. I can't even imagine what the east coast looks like. They are in our prayers as well. We were stuck in our apartment for a couple of days. I thought I was going to die, there was nothing to do. So we shredded a lot of papers, old records. But then we finished that so we made phone calls but no one had power so no one was answering, so we updated the area book. We were out the door so fast when President Vellinga gave us the okay to go to our dinner appointment on Tuesday. I pretty sure there was running involved. We got a call from our mission president Tuesday morning asking if we were close to the Amherst elders. We weren't so he asked us to call a member to go check on them. Apparently no one could get a hold of them. My heart dropped, you could definitely hear the worry in his voice. We called Bro. Brown and he went to check on them.They were fine their phone had just died and they didn't have power to charge it so...whoops. President wasn't happy with them. But we were just glad they were safe:) So the clean up begins. We have been doing a lot of service these last couple of days. We raked an elderly couples yard the other day, they are catholic, but they were so grateful, it was the cutest. It is getting cold here. They are predicating a harsh winter in Northern Ohio this winter, something about lake effect and wooly bears (Sp?) blah blah...I did get my coat it will work fabulous. I got it at zone conference yesterday and the elders all had a good laugh when I put it on. It's big, long, and really warm so it will work! Thanks again. I owe you.

Oh my I can't believe it is time for transfers again. There will be no change and I will be in Lorain for yet another transfer. We were talking about Kirtland at zone conference yesterday and the nativity scenes and my heart longed to be there. But I guess there is something that I have to learn out here first. I just have to trust in the Lord, and Heavenly Father's plan.

I hope you will get feeling better soon. It is definitely that season. You are all in my prayers. Yes I have gotten a flu shot. Our mission strongly encouraged it. I'll try and find you the receipt so you can flex it. You will be in my prayers this week as will the rest of the family. How are grandpa and grandma doing? Still holding on.

Are you all excited for the election. Crazy that after today it will all be over. We are soooo excited for it. I am sooo tired of politics. I just want to teach the gospel. We are not having much success here but there is definitely work to be done. We just need to get the ward on our side. There are a lot of Christmas things coming up though so hopefully there will be some success there.

No real crazy fun plans for pday. We are going to the church to play volleyball and 4 square. Some of the Elders are getting transferred so that is sad. They really do become like your little brothers. Slightly immature but we still love them.

Whelp family. I hope all is well, please get feeling better. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Hillman