Elder Jeffrey Hill

 Hey all! I have now spent a whole week in Brazil! I am learning so much and having a great time. I feel a little more adjusted now that I've had some time to get into a schedule and have a little more structure to my day. My focus right now is learning to u understand Portuguese, cuz I am still barely understand anything. But I got a little bit of time to figure it out. I love missionary work! This week we invited one of the people we're teaching to be baptized and she agreed! We have a few people we're teaching who we hope will accept that invitation soon. And we are working with one person who will be baptized this week. I've only been here for like 10 days but the work has begun full force. I go to bed exhausted every day but it means I sleep amazing haha! And even though we are working all day every day we still don't have enough time to do all the things we want to do. But were helping God's children to come into Christ with everything we do.  This Saturda...

  Hey all! I made it to Brazil! On Thursday I headed to the airport and then traveled for about 24 hours to get to Recife. On Friday I met my mission president and my trainer and we had dinner at the President's house. Then on Saturday, I came to my first area.  My trainer is Elder Souza and he's awesome. He is from Brazil, but he speaks pretty good English which is a relief. So far most of our time has been spent getting to know the area because we are taking over for the sisters who used to be here.  I can't understand anyone haha. I have actually surprised myself with how well I can speak Portuguese, but people talk so fast here that it's super hard to understand. My goal right now is definitely to work on understanding people better. So far things have been really great. It's definitely been an adjustment, and it will probably be another few months before I really feel like I have a hang of things, but I am super excited.  On Saturday we helped a family in one o...

 

Hey Mom and Dad! I just wanted to let you know that I made it to Recife safely. I met up with President and Sister Crane and were getting ready to get settled. President and Sister Crane will give you some more info tomorrow. I love you!!

  Olá! Tudo bem?? Well, yesterday was the last day of my 6-week missionary training at the MTC! I'm done! It's honestly crazy that I've already finished MTC. But probably even more crazy is the news that I should be flying to Brazil on Thursday! I'm still waiting on my official flight plans but with just a little bit of good luck, the next time I write to you all will be from Brazil. I'm so excited! And maybe just a little nervous about going to Brazil where speaking Portuguese becomes a lot more important.  I wanted to take a tiny bit of time to reflect on the MTC now that I'm done. It has honestly been an incredible experience. I had no idea how drastic of a change I would see in myself after only six weeks. I am grateful for the good habits that the MTC has helped me to better develop like daily scripture study and prayer. I'm also incredibly grateful for the great progress I've made in learning Portuguese. I have felt the gift of tongues in my life a...

  E aí!  This week has been full of exciting news. First off, a few days ago I received my flight information to go to Denver on the 22nd of September. Then, yesterday I got a phone call saying that my visa is ready and the church is getting ready to mail it to me. They said that it would be a few days but that soon I should get an update on when I am going to Brazil! Depending on the mission travel agency and my mission in Brazil, it's still possible that I still go to Denver for a little while, but it's also possible that I head straight to Brazil! Either way, I'm super excited now that I know Brazil is in the near future. This week, MTC was pretty normal. I have gotten in the groove of listening to and (trying) to speak only Portuguese in all of my classes. I definitely still have a ton to learn, especially because my MTC teachers are still talking pretty slow so we can understand them, but learning Portuguese seems a lot more doable now than a few weeks ago. Toda...