Traslados (Transfers -- to Cementista)

Friends and family, salaam,

This has been an interesting week, with Elder Avila having been bedridden with stomach and head pain all morning for five days in a row, and unable to do all that much for the rest of the day. But I even saw a miracle in that, because all the lessons we had planned fell through, and they wouldn't have been good anyway because Elder Avila was too distracted by pain. So, I actually consider that a blessing, at least in light of the other rough circumstances. But then we also have our normal transfers, y yo me voy. They took me away from my dad, and that's so sad for us both. But now I have Elder Mazzeo as my companion, and I think that will be a blessing because he is an Argentino, so I will learn to understand the local accent better and continue growing accustomed to the culture.

But sadly, the scheduling was messed up by my journey to Cementista, Mendoza (my new area), and I have absolutely no more time to do anything here in the computer lab. I'll add a picture of my new companion, but anything more will have to wait until next week.

Just know that I love you all so much; para siempre Dios esté con vosotros.

Con mucho amor de Cementista, Ciudad de Mendoza,

Elder Hill

I've left Kansas (in Pellegrini)

Okaybe, friends and family, this will be short and sweet, and full of miracles. Buckle up.

So, on Thursday we had what is called a Tormenta Blanca, which is a "white storm", which is where all the missionaries in the Zone come to one area - mine, this time - to work and tract; and with those eight missionaries we managed to get a heap of references and six new investigators! We've only had time to try to visit a couple of them, as of yet, but they weren't there; but still, SIX?! And that in an area in which we had had no success in any way previously! Then, on top of that, outside of the Tormenta, Elder Avila and I found five more, making 11 new investigators this week! Miracle!

The next day we saw another miracle. We went all the way out into the middle of nowhere to visit a finca (a farm house) that is 13 km from our pensión. We got two flat tires on the way there, and we got another miracle of that happening right where there was a bicicletería, where they fixed it up for free. So we searched for the house, but nobody was there when we found it. We went back and inquired of a passing man which house belonged to that family, and he directed us to one house further than we had gone. We went back (about a kilometer to return) and found the house, and there were people there! We talked for a bit witht he two young men there, brothers whose parents used to go to church, and then we were allowed to share a message. We discussed the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as we taught I could see light entering their eyes, and to cut a long story short they believed everything that we taught them, and even accepted a baptism date for the 30th of March! The Spirit was so strong, and I know that Christ was there with us; just like we are promised, we were gathered together in His name, and He was there in our midst. I felt so distant from the city that I'm certain I wasn't in Kansas anymore, but I still felt at home.

Next miracle. Two night ago, we returned to our pensión at about 8:00 at night, intending to finish weekly planning, but then felt like we should leave and do something outside instead. It wasn't what we had planned to do, but we prayed and felt the same thing. We went to search for a reference we had received from the Tormenta, but had to ask for directions from a man who was just out on his porch. We got to talking, and he allowed us to enter and share a message. We began sharing the Restoration with him and his wife, and the Spirit grew so powerful that she eventually began crying. Again, to cut a long story short, which I could rant about for hours that I don't have, they are golden, and they are so willing to learn and to read the Book of Mormon. The miracle: we deviated from our plan and ended up finding prepared children of God because of it. Guys, follow promptings. They're so important.

Final big miracle. On Tuesday we found while tracting a teenager named Agustín who is interested. He allowed us in, we talked about God's Plan of Salvation, left him a pamphlet to read and pray about, but didn't think much about it. Then yesterday we visited again and discussed the last lesson and got to know his expectations of us a bit better, and he directly told us that he intends to learn from us specifically what he needs to do to follow the Savior and keep the commandments. He has never even been in a religion before, but he is so quick of learning, and more willing to learn and change than I have ever seen from anyone before, in any sense or situation, especially the Gospel.

So, to conclude, I want to testify that I have never known more strongly that this is the true church of the true and living God. All of this is so beautifully wrapped into one perfect whhole of truth, and my understanding and vision of the truth has grown exponentially even just since I left. I've been thinking a lot about the song Viva La Vida by Coldplay, and one part of the chorus sticks out to me: "Be my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field." And while I am here, and for the rest of my life afterwards, I will always strive to be His mirror image, His sword of justice and shield of truth, and His missionary in the foreign field of the world (because with so many turning away from Him, the whole world is now foreign to God).

I apologize for the rushed feeling of this whole letter; I have actually been pushing my time since I started writing this. But of all the things I can tell you, this is the most important: Jesus Christ lives, and He actually cares about every one of you. That, in and of itself, is a miracle: the Creator, the Bosom of Eternity, cares about you all individually. It's beautiful how perfect everything is in this universe, and how wise His eternal Plan.

Con mucho amor de Argentina,

Elder Hill

Fotos (no tengo tiempo para explicarlas):

¡Estoy Argentinizando! (in Pellegrini)

(There were scheduling problems all over the place yesterday, so my companion the zone leader is giving me time today, too. Thus, my message is a day late. I'm not dead.)

Friends and family,

That verb, "argentinizar", is a local word that means "to Argentinize", just like "Americanize" in our vocabulary. I never thought of that before, and I think it's really funny. But anyway, I have to mention again the ongoing miracle in my life of my surprising ability to speak and understand Spanish; what I have accomplished is so incredibly far beyond my natural ability, and I cannot attribute it to anything but a Higher power. However, I am definitely still dealing with culture shock, and the severity varies daily. On the best days, I feel like I can understand and speak anything I want, and that Spanish is as natural as English; on the worst days, I feel an actual mental pain at every single Spanish word I hear or speak; but it is all slowly passing. I'll try to be patient with that; I'm obviously not giving up in any way. And guys, the people here speak so fast it sometimes feels like I'm in a society filled entirely with Jacob Hill, but Spanish; I hope that gives y'all more accurate imagery of how it feels.

But hey, I had a scary realization this week: I am already a tenth of the way done with my mission. This has been a painful couple of months, but somehow it has all gone by in the blink of an eye, and it reminds me of the fact that two years, believe it or not, REALLY is not that long. A little over a hundred weeks, and I'm already starting my eleventh. I'll try to get my head in the game, because I get the feeling that my growing isn't anywhere close to finished. I'll buckle up, because it'll be a fast, rough ride.

Now, one more challenge I've dealt with recently: the music rule. The Missionary Handbook only states that the music should not drive away the Spirit, and I selected the music I brought accordingly; but now I'm here, and it turns out that the interpretation of that rule by the Mission President (and, therefore, the law for our mission) is that, except on P-day (I'll take that small victory), we can only listen to hymns by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, other peaceful arrangements of hymns, and similarly peaceful instrumental music. That made me angry for a while, because, frankly, it seems like the interpretation of a zealot; that's how I felt. I decided to do the right thing and ask the Higher authority what He thought, and I got an interesting answer, almost immediately: the hymns have been ordained for use in the building of Zion. While the other songs I have are good songs that bring the Spirit, I realized clearly that they are not meant for this work, and thus do not bring the right Spirit. I have already felt it with a couple of the songs that used to bring the Spirit before: when I break that rule, it doesn't bring the Spirit anymore, because they are not meant to be played here. Seriously, there are still parts of my mind that are trying to start open warfare against that rule, because music is such an enormously gargantuan part of my life, but I have felt peace for choosing obedience. I still hate it, but I can see happiness in the future if I obey it now, so I'll do my best. It's a weird feeling. But obedience brings blessings, and exact obedience brings miracles, right? I can already feel that that's exactly right. It reminds me of what someone said in Mission Prep class before I left, that he had been scared to pray to know if he should serve a mission because he already knew what the answer would be; likewise, I already knew what the answer would be, and it was definitely the answer the kids in the Primary classes would have given: obey. Always.

Now for a couple of milagros. Elder Avila felt on Tuesday that he should call his family again for a reason he didn't know (not a selfish reason), but he asked me what I thought. I felt it was wrong, so I replied with a negative. He nodded, and we moved on. We went to a lesson, etc., and then returned to the capilla about two hours afterwards; he said he still felt like he should call them, but still didn't know why. He called them and discovered something: even in that small timeframe, his mother had had a fall and resulting ankle problem while running, and was in the hospital to care for it. That was astonishing, because I had felt a bit abnormally strongly that it wasn't right before, but the second time it felt good; and if he had called the first time, he would never have known about the accident. I won't even try to go into what would have happened had he actually called earlier, because I obviously can't know. I'll take it for what it is - a miracle. A small one, yes, but a miracle is a miracle, and miracles are impossible.

Second milagro. We were searching for the house of a member who had not been to church in a long time, and the search took us to a dirt path branching off the main road, lined with multiple tiny adobe shacks, all inhabited. They were basically the poorest abodes I have ever seen personally, but it was impressive that they seemed like normal families, just living their lives happily. It was humbling. But the member didn't answer the door, so we walked back. We talked with a woman who lived along the way about the Gospel, but she turned us away after a lengthy discussion about why she is angry with God for abandoning her, and that the purpose of life is to suffer, etc., etc. We tried to help, but she turned us down; so we just went to the next house and asked if we could share something, and we were greeted with the very common, "soy católica", but we were eventually allowed in, regardless. We answered some questions they had about the purpose of life by teaching about the Plan of Salvation, and bit by bit the woman who greeted us opened up. She never said anything, spécifically, but I saw it in her face that she believed what we were saying; and when we gave her a pamphlet of the Plan, she took it, gazed at it reverently for a moment, and put it caringly back on the table. That was so simple, but so powerful; it was the first time I have seen the Gospel actively touch someone's life in my presence. It reminded me of why I am here, and why I am loving this work, even if it hurts like the dickens right now. I'm here because this is true, and I'm here because it has become the resonant frequency of my soul, amplifying itself by its own power in my life, and it is more beautiful, perfect, and powerful than anything I could ever have imagined by myself.

Now, a thought about the Gift of Tongues that I have so often mentioned: it is not just for missionaries. None of the gifts of the Spirit are only for missionaries. They are promised to all of the disciples of Jesus Christ that earnestly seek to follow Him, and we are even promised that we can develop more, if we seek after them diligently, with real intent to share those gifts with others as Christ did in His life here. We can all be such unimaginably beautiful instruments in His hands, and we can all be so powerful, if we just follow Him. I really don't have any more time, but this testimony suffices me: all true disciples of the Redeemer have His power, not even only to those who hold the Priesthood; all of us can have the power to do all things He did through faith and through the gifts of the Spirit, which are given to those who actively seek Him. But be sure to ask God for them in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is as a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed (James 1:6).

Con amor abundante,

Elder Hill

Fotos:

• Hamburguesas reales (con horrible calidad de foto, sé)
• Yo, andando en bici
• En bici otra vez
• La calle Diagonal Pellegrini
• Los Élderes de Pellegrini, y los misioneros futuros de Pellegrini
• Tomando mate
• Un tenedor muy rudo

You Are the Moon (in Pellegrini)

Greetings, gringos!

I wanted to mention something I heard in the devotional with Elder Renlund that I thought was funny (also, pictures from that event are attached, finally). Sister Renlund said that during her mission she wouldn't give the men the time of day. Then she corrected herself and said she would give them the time of day, but not a date. I thought it was hilarious.

Anyway, there is not much to say about this week, because we were traveling back from San Rafael and then for the rest of the days we were mostly just cleaning the area book, which took huge heaping loads of time. And yet, even so, we have so little time that it's almost hilarious to me. Oh, but one interesting thing happened this week: we knocked on a door and waited for a long time, then when someone finally came out it was an old, big man, one eye a milky white (in short, very imposing), who came out in a rage and yelled at us to leave because we were "Mormones" (even though we're not), and there was only one God. Elder Avila started saying, "Sí, hay solo uno Dios, y Él vive," but he would have none of that, and he looked like he was about to hit him. We left, thanking him for his time (to which he spat, obviously), but overall it was a great experience. Honestly, I'm not disheartened by that. One thing I've come to know very powerfully is that, if there really is a God of justice in this universe, everything will be dealt with in perfect rectitude, eventually; thus, I need not worry about anything that anyone else does wrong, because everything will be paid back exactly, every last penny of every debt, in one way or another. I have come to take a lot of comfort in that.

I've found two things now that I like in the Gospel better in Spanish than in English. The first is that we can be cleansed from sin through the Atonement of Christ; in Spanish, it says, "podemos ser limpios...", and that is so much more powerful than the English, because "ser" refers to the nature of things, and thus we aren't just becoming clean temporarily, we are becoming clean, accepting cleanliness into our nature. The other thing I like is what it says in Moroni 10:5, that we can know the truth of all things. In Spanish, that verse says "podréis conocer la verdad de todas las cosas", and "conocer" means "to know", but in a more familiar way, like you know a person, or know a map. Thus, the meaning of that verse is not that we can just know the facts of truth, it's a promise that we can know the truth inside and out, like a friend. I like those so much more than the ambiguity of English.

I want to end my short letter with a song. It's called "You Are the Moon" by The Hush Sound, and it talks about how beautiful people really are, though they don't see it. It starts with the Moon rising from the horizon and seeing its reflection on the ocean, broken and scattered by waves. It says: "All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas; the shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe. I will bring a mirror so silver, so exact, so precise and so pristine, a perfect pane of glass. I will set the mirror up to face the blackened sky; you will see your beauty every moment that you rise." And thus it concludes. I just want to remind you all that God is trying to show you all how beautiful you are by showing you our Brother, Jesus Christ, as an example of what we are. If we really are children of God, en serio, then we are so much more beautiful than we can even comprehend. This is my witness to you all today, and I mean it with all my heart.

Thank you all for your support to me in the forms of letters, encouragement, kindness, etc.; it means the world, especially now that I'm on the other side of the world. Dios esté con ustedes.

Con amor de Argentina,

Elder Hill

Fotos:

Élder Prosser (un asistente del Presidente) y yo

(de izquierda a derecha) Yo, Élder Thornton, Élder Vazquez, Élder Kummer, en San Rafael

Este hielo es muy interesante