I'm a jerk in recovery

Family and friends,

So, this week was rough, especially at the beginning. We did service with Sergio Martinez (who was baptized this past Saturday!) hauling bricks to build his new house. We loaded them all into a truck then unloaded them at his house. It was such an intense strain that we were all left dead afterwards. But, by the grace of God, I was happy. Dying in intense pain, but happy. Attached is a picture of all the bricks we loaded.

I also wanted to mention that recently I have eaten pigeon and rabbit meat, and both are pretty good! Rabbit is very, very much like chicken. I loved both.

The baptism of Sergio was a great time! He came up out of the water crying, and just hugged Hno. Ponce, who had performed the ordinance. Sergio tells us all the time that he wants to work like us, actively teaching the people everywhere, in the church and outside, to the members and everyone else, too. He is an inspiration, and he will be a great strength in this ward. He said at night after his baptism that he felt content with his life for the first time in a long time, and that he was just extremely happy in many ways. If anyone were to say he would end up falling away, I would not believe them.

Finally, to address the subject line. Yesterday in church we heard a very good talk about judging others and how we should judge righteously. The thought came pounding into my head at the speed of light that I have been judging so harshly everybody I come in contact with. That is something I never had opened my eyes to. That explained instantly all my problems and pains, and I felt extremely stupid for not having realized that before. I don't have a lot more time, so I'll just say that I have been a complete jerk, but I'm recovering from it. But I testify that if we come to Christ, He will show us our weaknesses, and we will be able to be humble. I like being humble. It makes me happy.

Love,

Elder Hill

Deuteronomio 28

Family and friends,

First off, I realized I didn't explain that those families that I took pictures with (in last week's email) are from the Cementista ward, not from Balloffet. Just so y'all know. Also, this time I'll include a foto of Elder Becerra.

So, I have even less time today than normal because we went to Valle Grande today, and we were there for most of the day. Valle Grande is like a miniature Grand Canyon, and it is very beautiful. See fotos attached.

Last week, we also got to know an old woman who is a member of the church but has not attended the meetings for years for health reasons. She also has very scattered memory, and thus she insists that there is a Temple in Mendoza already and that she has worked there. Also, apparently the Temple President while she worked there was David O. McKay. Wow. That's pretty cool. Or, it would be if it were possible.

I also forgot to mention that on my first Sunday, both I and Elder Becerra gave talks, along with the ward mission leader, as mission work of the members was the theme of that meeting. The mission leader also jumped on my singing voice, and I sang an intermediate hymn, Abide With Me (but in Spanish, for reasons which I hope are obvious). I got many compliments for that and for my talk, and that made me feel very welcome in the new ward.

Also, I suppose that the last email contained a bit of a lie - I was not all perfectly happy that weekend. I was happy when I wrote the letter, so I guess it wasn't completely a lie, but a partial truth is also a lie. I had a sudden depression spike on Sunday after church (even right after the wonderful talks and singing), and I was a morose vegetable all day until we finally tought a lesson. That was the first experience with depression in my life in over a year. (That "over a year", not coincidentally, coincides perfectly with the time in which I started working on my mission papers, just so y'all know the power of a mission.) That darkness extended over into Monday morning, but then I started thinking about other people and I naturally grew so much happier. Afterwards, my mind grew darker once more, but with working the next day it receeded significantly. I can still feel it there, lurking in the back of my mind, but I have found that I can win against it much more easily, now. I actually have people who legitimately need me, spiritually, and I can think about them to save myself. But, honestly, I feel so much better now. I feel a bit more unstable, mentally, but at the same time more sure, because now I know I can beat it again when I need to. That is an exceedingly important lesson to learn.

Now, to the scripture in the subject line. I found it one morning during a study of joy in all of its aspects, trying to find more joy in life. I used the Topical Guide (I love that guide so much) and found that as the first result. I initially passed it up, thinking stupidly that it was of no worth because it was from the Old Testament - what does the Old Testament know about joy? But I got to reading it, and I couldn't stop reading the chapter. It is a very long chapter, full of condemnation and curses to the Israelites for their wickedness and such, exactly as I was expecting from the Old Testament. But I got to the part mentioned in the Topical Guide, which is around verses 45-47. After all of the multitudes of curses and horrible things promised to Israel for all their generations (which, mind you, applies to us, as we are "adopted" into the house of Israel by the covenant of God), it says the following:

"Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee: and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart".

Why did they receive such horrendous punishments? Because they did not find joy in serving their God. It does not even say that they were disobedient at this point, it only says they were not joyful. And according to all the context of the rest of the chapter, that is an extreme sin. I need you all to know that the missionary work in this world is not meant to be done by the missionaries solo, it must be done by the members equally, and, in truth, more than equally. Think about it: there are 16 millions of members, but only tens of thousands of missionaries. You do the math, and you feel the condemnation that God is trying to help us understand. It is just as James says in chapter 2 of his book: faith without works is dead. That definition, painfully, leaves millions of members of the living Church of Jesus Christ with only a little bit of dead faith. Why do we not share? Why not? Why do we not share?! If we cannot have joy in what we do, at least let us have fear until we learn joy, because "all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed". But above all, if we have faith, we have to show it, because if not, our faith is not alive. It is dead, as were the lamps of the five foolish virgins, and we will be shut out when the Lord comes in His glory. A scripture that comes to my mind often is the one that says, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I say, ye never knew me: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22). I think that it is time to rethink my entire life and really turn to Him; I have not been good enough. I don't believe that any of you should feel comfortable, either - if we really comprehended fully at all times how much we fall short of perfection, we would never, ever, ever, ever, ever be comfortable with ourselves. So shape up, because as President Nelson says, these are the last days, and the devil is mustering his armies to fight against the Church of Christ. This will not be an easy time; to the contrary, this will be the hardest time in all of history. We have to be ready. "Take your vitamins," says Pte. Nelson. It's going to be an exciting ride.

I ended up learning more about joy from the Old Testament than from any other book. Remember, all, that that book is scripture, and must be (and deserves to be) studied diligently alongside the other standard works. I declare it to contain the words of the living God, whom I worship and serve (which, in turn, I am striving to do with joy).

With so much love,

Elder Hill

Fotos:

• Sergio, un hombre que enseñamos; ¡se va a bautizar este sábado que viene! Está construyendo su casa.
• Elder Becerra
• (casi todos son de Valle Grande esta mañana; acá he descrito algunas fotos solamente para que entiendan)

Success!

Friends and family,

This week has been wonderful, because for the first time in my mission I have been teaching people who actually seem to want to hear. We started teaching ELEVEN new people, and taught 22 lessons in total. We also fixed a baptismal date for three people, all on the 28th of this month. I have never had so much success in my mission (or, at least, the type of success that is reflected in the numbers).

Elder Becerra is my senior companion, and he is a very good missionary. He's from Salta, Argentina. He only has two transfers left after this one, so if he is not transferred after these six weeks he will almost undoubtedly stay here for his last, as well. Thus, we have either one transfer together or three. That's fine with me, because he's a really good worker. We have taught with power, and I can feel his testimony is very strong, despite his only having been a member for five years until now. That's impressive.

The Balloffet area is huge, and we use bikes. I've only just started to understand the layout of it all, because after trying to memorize the routes to the houses of twenty different people simultaneously, I'm a bit confused. But I'm getting there.

I don't have a lot of time left, so I'll just put the pictures here and call that good for now. Just know that I am prospering, and that I don't want to be anywhere else.

Love,

Elder Hill

Fotos:

• Élderes Richards (mi primo de Snowflake, AZ, un descendiente de James Madison Flake!) y Anderson (Líder de Zona)
• Flia. Gaitán (él es el primer consejero en el obispado)
• Perrito
• Obispo Valdez
• Marcelo (padre de Lorena), Lorena, y Brian
• Hna. Ruth y sus hijos
• Hna. y Daniel Espejo, con el Patriarca
• Franco (un hombre joven)
• Hno. Ibarra (Pte. de los hombres jóvenes de la estaca)
• Flia. Acebedo (¡su hijo se llama Benjamín!)
• Flia. Zabala
• Los jóvenes
• Flia. Ortiz (ella es la Pta. de la Sociedad de Socorro de la estaca)
• Hno. Danto Hermosilla (el segundo consejero en el obsipado) es un Ute. Que vergüenza.

¡Traslados! (Transfer to San Rafael)

Family and friends,

This past week was my last in Cementista! Honestly, I have been feeling very strongly for the past two weeks that I was going to leave the area, and now here I am, writing to y'all for the first time in six months from not-Cementista. It feels great. It's not that I didn't like the area - I really, REALLY loved it - but I have felt a deep unrest from a feeling that I desperately need to be somewhere else, for some reason. It's a weird feeling.

But the way the timing worked out was horrible and cramped, although it worked out bien. We awaited the call with traslados information until midnight on Saturday, then only received a message from the zone leaders telling us to go to bed and await traslados in the morning. Great. When we left the pensión to head for the church, all we received was, "Elder Hill se va. Se puede despedir." Wow. That is not enough information for me by any stretch. I ended up sharing DyC 76:22 with the barrio for a simple testimony. Then I sat down, pulled out the phone to see if we had received any more information, and THEN I found out that I would go to Balloffet, San Rafael, to be with Elder Becerra. The best part? Balloffet is in Zona Alvear, my first zone! That means I'll have contact with Pellegrini, my first area!! I am loving it so much. Thus, here I am in San Rafael, writing to y'all.

Continuing with what happened yesterday, after the meetings ended, I took pictures with many people, rushed back to pack my things from 12:30 until 14:15 (which, by a miracle, was sufficient), then ran off to lunch with a member of the bishopric, then immediately afterwards went to Lorena's house to eat asado with her family. Then, after that, we went to San Miguel to make more asado with them before everyone parted the next day. The district leader (in San Miguel) was also transferred, so it was a goodbye asado for us both. It was great.

Honestly, I am also very sad about the state of Cementista. The barrio is very strong, but the people there don't want anything to do with my religion; and even if they receive us into their homes, and even if they want us to keep visiting and teaching them day by day, they never progress. Ever. In just the last couple of weeks, we dropped about ten investigators. We also found a woman who receives us but with whom we will never visit again. She's one of those strange omni-religionists that says she's a Christian but then says she likes the Budidharma more than the Bible, and that Jesus was one of the Great Teachers, not a Singularly Important Person. I explained with Ephesians 4:1-6 that either she is wrong about everything or she doesn't believe in the Bible, and simply invited her to think about that. She agreed to think about it, but it was obvious to me that she really wasn't about to give up any ground to us. Then, obviously, she started explaining to us the three types of Jesus: the Cosmic Jesus (the Creator), the Planetary Jesus (who visited Earth), and the One in our hearts. That doesn't make sense to me in any way at all, but fine. At one point in our visit she got up to get her Bible really quickly and Elder Cardozo and I just stared at each other in confused and shocked silence; he basically remained quiet the entire time because he hadn't a clue what to say. Needless to say, I was very frustrated afterwards. Well, I guess that wasn't "needless" to me, because if it were I wouldn't have said it. Whatever.

So, yeah, this week has been interesting and good, but it's had its hard parts. But overall, I am really, really happy. I am feeling good, and I'm ready to start my labor again in Balloffet, Zona Alvear.

Con mucho amor,

Élder Hill

No tengo tiempo para mandar fotos hoy por razón de traslados; esperen la semana que viene.

(No subject line)

Family and friends,

Just so you all know, family, with a recent change in the rules, I can no longer call siblings, only parents. Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you; I just can't call y'all.

Also, Lorena, the one convert that I have gotten here (I'll avoid the complexity of her not being "my" convert), says that when have short hair I look like the actor James McAvoy. She also calls me Megamind, sometimes, which is really funny.

Regarding Juana, the woman we found a couple of weeks ago who was going to be baptized easily in one week, she has stopped showing interest. She obviously keeps saying that she wants to be baptized, but she only needs to attend church one time to be baptized and she hasn't even done that. We have decided that if she doesn't attend this coming Sunday, we will have to drop her again, like the other elders did a year ago. Honestly, I am really sad about that. I had such hope for her; she could have received so many blessings. But instead she just decides to keep sleeping when we go to bring her to church. Qué lástima. But that's life.

Last P-day, we walked 6km from the pensión to Cerro de la Gloria with the elders of San Miguel, and that was a fun trip. This morning, we visited an acuario and a museo, and that was pretty fun. (See fotos attached.)

I don't have a whole lot to say about this week (apart from the fact that the devotional we had broadcast from Buenos Aires with Pte. Nelson was amazing!), so I'll end there, but I have loads of fotos, so enjoy!

With heaps of love,

Élder Hill

Fotos (no tengo tiempo para describir todos):

The fotos include ones from the acuario, Cerro de la Gloria, the Conferencia de Zona this week, and my spontaneous visit to Machu Picchu inside a Peruvian restaurant.

We are witnesses of the truth (well, Elder Cardozo is)

Family and friends,

I wanted to tell y'all about something that happened this week that was interesting. We were returning to the pensión after intercambios with San Miguel, and as we walked along a very long street between our two areas we walked by a police car on the side of the road. They hailed us, and we came over to talk with them. They asked for our IDs, and we offered them, then a woman continued to explain that they were in an investigation and that they needed a witness for a forced entry to take custody of someone, and that they were going to take us as witnesses. At that point, I had simply not heard well, and asked, "¿Cómo?" and immediately the woman rolled her eyes and started talking to Elder Cardozo. *sigh* I'm really starting to understand the whole biased society thing. I'm sure that no latino in history has ever misheard anything. Ever. (Is my sarcasm evident? Good.) But anyway, putting my annoyance aside, we explained (or, Elder Cardozo explained) that we couldn't be separated, so we both went with them, despite the fact that I was not going to be a witness just because I didn't understand the first few words they said. But it was an interesting time, and exceedingly boring and sad. We watched the police enter the house, present the charges to an accused woman, wait for someone to come to care for her under-aged children in her absence, and then take her in the van with us amidst tears from her and her children. They were in the middle of eating dinner when the scene started. It was rough, and I was praying the whole time for peace in the home. But after taking us all to a comisaría, Base Condor, near our pensión, we waited for another hour doing absolutely nothing aside from talking. We finally made it home at 00:30 on Thursday morning after multiple hours of the ordeal. But yeah, that was interesting.

But the day before, we saw a couple of miracles, too. Elder Hernandez (from San Miguel) and I had made really loose plans for Wednesday, and I didn't understand why but I felt like I had a spiritual confounding effect while planning, like God was impeding my mind so I would stop planning. So we left for the day, and the first person we tried to visit, Gabriel, had given us a false address. The woman who answered the door told us to try the next door. When we knocked it, a girl a bit older than I am answered and beckoned us inside welcomingly, saying that she was a member. To cut a long story shorter, they had just been talking the other day about going back to church, and suddenly we appeared! Miracle one. Miracle two: we found randomly in the street two young men who were in the same situation, who were wanting to go back to church but not wanting to just show up without knowing anyone. Thus, they wanted to find the elders first, and there we were! Miracle three: we found another man only a few steps afterwards, who is a relative of the first family that we found that morning, and was heading for their house! We got his address, and we'll try to visit with him this week. Then, as we were exploring some barrios that we had never visited before (in all my six months, we had never been; weird), we found an old woman who invited us to come another day. We came afterwards and were able to testify that there are Prophets on the earth now, which brought her more peace. Then, in the nighttime, we found yet again a chico of the first family from that morning, randomly on the other end of the area with his girlfriend. That day was full of miracles and weirdly fortuitous coincidences. (Side note, we discovered that day the compound Base Condor, which, weirdly, we ended up entering that night on official business, obviously unexpectedly. Weird.)

I don't have more time, but I just want to remind you all that I know that I am on the Lord's errand, and that I am led every day by Him. I am honored and grateful for this unparalleled opportunity.

Con mucho amor,

Élder Hill

Fotos:

• Yo y Élder Hernandez
• Soy yo
• Élderes Cardozo y Hernandez en Cerro de la Gloria esta mañana
• Dulce de batata con chocolate (Mamá, amarías esto)
• Soy yo. Que facha.
• Yo, otra vez
• Élder Cardozo subiendo la pared del canal
• Terreno del Templo (Site of the future temple in Mendoza, Argentina)

Luke 9:54

Family and friends,

So, first of all, I just have to say Mendoza is a bit weird, and now I understand even better why it really isn't doing very well: yesterday, the entire province shut down for a holiday (which is already kinda dumb by itself), but even the days before and after are holidays, and nobody worked anywhere! And, to top it off, what was the holiday? El Día del Niño. They're celebrating the existence of children by not working for three days in a row and therefore making everyone die for lack of money. And don't forget the siesta that lasts for three or four hours every day. I'm legitimately confused at just how lazy that is. Mortals. The politicians keep saying that they'll "seguir mejorando Mendoza", but if they want to do that, why don't they pass a law that makes it impossible for companies to shut down for the siesta? Maybe that wouldn't be the best idea, but they aren't using ANY ideas, so... I'm just really confused. Elder Cardozo says Buenos Aires isn't like this at all. But that's fine; it gives us more opportunities to teach people, I guess, so in a spiritual way it's beneficial for the people.

But this week, we saw miracles. We had a goal to find three new people to teach, and instead of three we found NINE. That's a bit of a difference. I feel really good for being able to serve more people thus. We taught a dozen lessons, and every one was full of the Spirit. We even had one in which the woman we were teaching, named María, seemed just to be bearing our presence and not internalizing anything; but then suddenly in the end, after we finished teaching the Restoration, she broke down crying and thanked us from the heart for having come to share that message of peace. What?! I thought she was barely paying attention, just having listened out of respect, but suddenly she had tears of joy! That was wonderful, especially after having a lesson that felt a bit more discontinuous than normal.

We had intercambios twice this week, once with district leaders and once with zone leaders, and I loved it so much! I love how hard they work, and they're a good example for me. I also discovered that Elder Anderson (see fotos) and I have some interests in common. He is the FIRST missionary I have met here that loves choir and theatre, and he says I'm the first missionary of that type that he has met, too. He doesn't do math or science, but you can't have it all, I guess. It was legitimately fun talking with him and being able to geek out about something that someone else actually likes. He was Javert in a production of Les Miserables! It was a great time. I can't even describe how relieved I am to have found someone who likes SOMETHING that I like. Everyone else is just insane about cars, girls, and... nah, just more cars and girls. I like more complexity, more culture than just an exceedingly worldly view on everything. That's far too simplistic for me, and it's a relief to have found a friend who I can relate with.

I don't have any more time, but I just want to assure you all that God is with us, the Spirit stronger now than ever before. I know He is here.

Just another day in the life.

With heaps of love,

Elder Hill

Fotos:

• Intercambios con líder de zona Élder Anderson
•  "One of these things is not like the others."