Elder Jeffrey Hill

  Hey all! This week was pretty normal in terms of missionary work. But the definite highlight was a devotional we had with an Apostle, Ulisses Soares! Unfortunately, this devotional was actually on zoom, so I didn't get to meet home or anything, but it was really awesome still. This devotional actually included every missionary in Brazil, which is also kind of cool.  Elder Soares is from Brazil so he was especially excited to be speaking to his people. Just like everything else here it was all in Portuguese (I know weird right), but I actually understood almost everything! I still don't understand most people, but I guess an Apostle brings the Spirit so strong that the gift of tongues just worked a little extra hard for me that day haha.  But I really did love his thoughts. His talk was focused on doing the little things. Studying the scriptures every day, praying every day, going to church and so forth. Certainly not what I would have chosen to talk about if I was talki...

 Hey all! Another week over just like that! This week literally flew by. I have now spent a whole month in Brazil and it's crazy to think that transfers are already near.  I started off this week with a new missionary training at the mission offices. It was awesome to see some of the other new missionaries and hear some of their stories. And it's always amazing to learn from President and Sister Crane and the other amazing missionaries here. On the way back from that we ran into a guy who has lived here in Brazil for a long time but is from New York. He says he doesn't speak much Portuguese but enough to get around. We talked to him for a little and he had some crazy stories from his life.  This week I had two more exchanges. And both of them were with other Americans! The first was with Elder Lizon who has been here for like 5 months now. So he could lead the lessons and talk to people. But the other one was with Elder Fleming who showed up at the same time as me. So for...

  Hey all! This week was full of a little more of the normal again. We ended up having lots of meetings, devotions, etc. which it turns out are even more boring when you don't understand the language very well haha. Were planning a big service project with the stake in November focused on eternal families, so we've done a lot of planning and prep to help with that. We've also been trying to work with members more so we participated in a ward devotional last night to share some of our goals and such. This week the work was a little slow. One person who we're teaching is working to be baptized and agreed to live the Word of Wisdom which was super exciting! We had two other people accept the invitation to be baptized this week, but unfortunately, their parents don't really love that idea so we are working on ways to help them continue to learn even though we're not sure if or when they can be baptized.  We met a lot of new people this week. We shared a message in t...

  Hey all! This week was a bunch of new things for me. I don't have tons of time to write this email so hopefully there aren't too many mistakes haha. I hope you all are doing well! First off, we had zone conference this week! It was amazing and really helped to motivate me to work hard so that I can learn to be a better missionary. Some key takeaways that I loved were the importance of teaching with the spirit and the importance of keeping our vision wide. Missionaries don't teach people. They help people to feel the Spirit so that the Spirit can teach people. I love this principle and thinking of missionary work this way helps us to focus on the individual and their needs as they seek to feel and learn from the Spirit. Similarly, because it is the Spirit, He does the teaching, it isn't our job to pick who should be taught. It is our job to share with everyone! And with that, we should expect miracles like baptizing nations so that we never exclude anyone. This week I ...