Elder Jeffrey Hill

 Hey y'all!  This week was pretty good all around. A few of the families we are teaching have started to really progress, and we've been able to meet lots of new people who are interested in learning more. To be honest this week got to the point where we almost have too many people to teach and contact that we are working really hard to make sure people don't fall through the cracks. But this is the best part of being a missionary! Getting to work with people and see them progress. I'll admit, there are times when it's hard to be patient and let people progress at their own pace, but it's because I want so desperately that they can have the chance to see the blessings of the gospel in their lives. Now, as all of you have probably guessed by the title of this email, this week I hit 6 months of being a missionary. I wanted to give a quick summary of how I feel like I've progressed in the last 6 months: First off, Portuguese. Definitely the biggest adjustment, ...

 Hey all! This week I got a new companion. Elder Ceballos. He is actually from Venezuela but has been living here in Brazil for the last three years so he already speaks Portuguese really well. Unfortunately he caught the cold that I had a little bit ago so for a few days we were taking it easy. But he definitely didn't get it as bad as I did so I've still been able to leave our house every day to visit people.  This week we have had a lot of miracles! First off, we were talking to the Elders Quorum President one day and he let us know that our Progress Report (a list of people that we are teaching that gets shared with the leaders of the ward) is really out of date. I'll admit that I have never really used that list before so it really was out of date. But we were able to organize the list and also see a lot of families that were being taught a couple months ago who had stopped progressing or who had stopped being taught by the missionaries. We made a...

 Hey all!! First off, sorry for no email last week. I wrote a nice long email and included lots of good pictures, but as I was sending it out it somehow got deleted. So this email will include a little of what I wrote last week too.  Last week (as in not this last week but the week before) we had a mission tour. Two days, we were able to go meet up with our zone and hear Elder Uceda of the Seventy speak to us. It was such a special thing to hear someone who is so full of the Spirit share ways that we can better live the gospel and be better missionaries.  While there were a lot of amazing missionary specific things that he shared but also a lot of things that apply to all of us members of the church and pretty much everyone else too. One of the things that I loved that he shared was that to be a member of the church means to be a disciple of Christ. And to be a disciple of Christ means to be an imitator of Christ. So we are really trying to mimic Chris...

  Hello Y'all! Like you guys have probably heard from all of the other missionaries out there, Christmas and New Years normally means less people to teach. It was definitely the same here. Especially because the flue/cold is going around here pretty strong. Almost all of this week we heard a lot of  “I'm visiting family ”  or  “I'm busy with family ”  or  “my whole family is sick ”  and we weren't able to teach that many lessons. But we were still able to talk to lots of people and do our best to keep the work going. Then New Years Eve we had an exchange and Elder Azevedo came back to my area with me. It ended up being a pretty normal day. We visited a couple of people and were able to teach a lady named Edina who is really awesome. Unfortunately everywhere was closed so that messed up our plans to buy burgers for the new year. But we made some food at home that pretty much sums up my day. Then new years day after studies and lunch...