¡Feliz Día de Gracias!

Hola familia y amigos!!!

Okay, first off, SO sorry, I´m like, definitely out of time... 4 months in the mission and i´m STILL trying to figure this time thing out ;) What are we going to do with me, huh? 

Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!! My companions and I are going to try to do some good old lion house rolls to celebrate :) But we might end up with just some cookies. Hey, but that's not what it´s about, is it? haha nope. This week I've been thinking about the things that prepare us in our life, and how grateful I am for the life that I've been given. What are the things that have prepared you for where you are now? What is preparing you now for something in the future? Even just silly little things. like, I ate "happy face pizzas" with my grandma Hill when I was little, and what do we eat a lot down here in Argentina- pizza without sauce with cheese and green olives :) 

I'm so grateful for my mission, and more than everything, for my Savior Jesus Christ.

I hope your holidays are filled with remembrance of our Savior :)

Love you all VERY much! 

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday Gene!

Love,

Hermana Hill

Corre Forest! Corre!

Hola Familia!!!!

First off, SO sorry that many of ya´ll haven´t been getting this email. The other computer that I was using had issues.... hopefully it works this time! 

It´s been another lovely week in Trenque Lauquen (which, by the way, means "sweet-water lake" in the language of the natives that lived here WAY back. Who knows if it actually does, but, urban leggend says so, gotta be true, right?). It´s been RIDICULOUSLY HOT. Like, we´re hitting 90s and 100s and its still spring... I mean, technically, November here is the May of my summer, so it´s normal. But with humidity, it´s like death out here. 

WHICH, brings me to a couple of miracles I wanted to talk about! We Misioneras are always looking for three things- people to teach, water, and bathrooms. Sometimes, we get lucky and find all three! One of these times was when we found Daniela. Hermana Boyce needed the bathroom, so we were patiently looking for the homes of members. But NOONE was home. Worst nightmare. So, we went knocking doors to find someone. The first door we knocked was Daniela´s. At first, she told us that she didn´t have time, so we asked her if we could just use her bathroom, she conceded, and let us pass. The other two of us talked to her while the other was occupying the bathroom. And it went SO well. She began to cry as we told her about the hope that comes from Christ and his help. Daniela has depression, and it´s SO hard for her to feel like she can have hope. But she told us that she wants to go to church with us and learn from us on those days that she feels good, "because this seems like what she´s been looking for". The spirit was so strong and my heart was and is full of love for her. I know it was a miracle that we found her that day, and I´m really excited to visit her more and hopefully help her and her family. It was a miracle that in that moment exactly, none of the members opened their doors, but she, the first one did. Even if that wasn’t, I´m grateful for the heat that led to thirst that led to a need for a bathroom that led to a great lesson. :) The same thing happened last night too! I can tell right now that summer is going to be full of miracles like these ones. haha at least, I sure hope so! 

Well, I´m out of time for now, but I sure love you guys! I hope all is well with you and that you´re learning and growing and doing great things. Let me know if there is anything that I can do for any of you, even from this far away :) God be with you and protect you!

Que estén muy bien! Les amo!

Hermana Hill

Pictures- yes, that IS mayonnaise. And tuna. And rice. in a tomato.

The lovely little theater of Trenque Lauquen.

And a selfie I had to take when my sweet companions didn´t feel good and were asleep. We´ve all got colds with the change of the weather... but It´s all good! :)

"I can make bread-what-what" (November 10, 2014)

Hola familia y amigos!

To explain the subject line (might as well start there jaja)- here in good old Trenque Lauquen, the youth have a tradition of going every Sunday night to the house of Gillé to make argentine pancakes :D  They’re crepes with dulce de leche! Talk about delicious! It´s just great. And it´s really fun to hang out with the cool kids! It´s awesome that they do things together cause they want to :) Keeps them out of trouble and keeps the branch together! Anyway, making a joke about English, Gallito said "Puedo hacer pancakes"  (panqueques) que=what and pan=bread in Spanish, so, being the happenin kid that he is, translated it to "I can make bread-what-what". The room of kids moaned at the terrible joke, but I thought it was hilarious... so there you have it! Bread what what.

I love Trenque Lauquen :) My companions, Hermana Burgos and Hermana Boyce are jems. I can´t imagine being here without the both of them. Knowing that any one of us could get transferred at any time is a little sad, cause we balance each other out and I have learned a ton from each of them. Hermana Burgos is from Peru :) It´s great to get to learn Spanish from her! It keeps me from falling in to speaking English during those moments when we´re not talking to people on the streets. That has helped me a ton! I´m going to make it a habit so that whoever I´m with, I can keep learning tons of Spanish. Like I’ve said before, if I want 100% of blessings, I´ve got to put in 100% effort.  "What isn´t part of due process won’t be part of due product"-Presidente Pareño. Hermana Burgos has taught me a lot more than just Spanish though. She´s very loving and humble and relates the scriptures to the lives of the people around her like a boss. I hope I can learn to do that better! Hermana Boyce is from Holiday Utah, and she too, has taught me a ton. She´s a great cook, and loves a clean floor (so I sweep a lot, a happy companion is a happy companionship).  My mom would be so proud! Mom, I don´t leave dishes in the sink (I can just see you now, not believing me or thinking it´s a miracle. yeah... it IS a miracle). Hermana Boyce is super strong. She doesn’t take no for an answer. Not only that though, a car literally ran over her foot, and she walked around for like 3 hours before asking us to go back to the house to ice it. What?! Yeah, sometimes her strength is pretty freaky.

To close, I want to talk about patience. It is CRAZY important, and it´s something I really want to be better at. When you don´t think you have enough faith or knowledge or blessings or whatever, have patience. Pray for it- it´s a hard thing to have sometimes. But I know that practicing patience will definitely bless your lives!

Search the scriptures, seek ye the best books, pray, go to church :) Sorry that this wasn´t really the most spiritual of letters, I´ll work on that... ;) Love you all tons and tons and tons! I hope that all is well with you! Write you more soon. Have a wonderful week!

Besitos!

Hermana Hill

TRENQUE LAUNQUEN (November 3, 2014)

Hola familia y amigos!!!!!

Can´t even hardly begin to believe it- I´ve been transferred from my first and beloved area of Villa Mitre and am now in the area of Trenque Launquen! haha yes, that is a name. Tran-kay Lawn-ken. It´s the name of a city, AND a perfect yodeling name if you ask me. Just say that a couple times like a Swedish chef. Don’t you just love it!?

Man, I don´t even know where to start. Leaving your first area is HARD (so I´ve heard, and so I testify.). It ripped my heart out to say goodbye to the ward members and investigators of Bahía. I´m more than lucky, very blessed, to know that I can see them again at the end of my mission! That area is really close to the office of my mission, and so when I finish, there’s no way that I can stop myself from running to my area to give those people another goodbye. Yeah, that´s like, one of the only reasons that I’m getting by right now, cause dang, I just love those people so much. I hope and know with all my heart that they will be just fine and more than fine just great! Oh the testimonies that they left me! I wish you all could have heard them! Hector is sharing the gospel with everyone he knows and this past Sunday received the priesthood :) There´s not much that makes a missionary happier than that folks. Antonia made me cry. Cristian told me with all the confidence and surety of his  11 year old self: "Gracias por todo.". Maria gave me a bracelet and told me "Nos Vemos, esta no es adios." And told me that I will always have my Argentine grandma. Man I wish I could mention every one of these people that I love so much. I just am so so grateful for the time that I had with them. Any time with them would have been a blessing. I couldn´t ask for more. I´m just so grateful to have gotten to serve them. And man, if I feel like this right now, after 4 months in my mission, how am I going to feel when I finish it? I´m warning you all right now, I might come home without a heart. It´ll just be easier to throw it into the Atlantic.

Trenque Launquen is beautiful! There are SO many trees! In the center of every street is an island of grass and trees. We live in an apartment building that is super clean and super white. I´m in a Trio! I still don´t know one of my companions but I love my other, Hna Boyce already :) She’s from Utah too, and I´m pretty sure that our other that is coming is from Peru! woo! I´m so excited to get to serve these people! I´m going to work with all my heart to leave this place better than how I found it (which is already so great) and I´m going to give it my all to leave here with no regrets and the same feeling of love that I had when I left Bahía, if not more. (Yep, so basically I´m working towards leaving here completely dead. it´s all or nothing folks.) ;) 

I´m so grateful for the blessing and opportunity that I have to be here in Argentina and to serve a full time mission. There was a part of President Uchtdorf´s talk in the Women’s conference that I really love and have been thinking about lately (thanks mom for sending me all those talks in English!). He described blessings and miracles like this (these aren´t his words, and please look up the talk so that you don´t have to rely on my butchered version): God is ALWAYS sending us blessings and knowledge and inspiration and all of the things that he wants us to have. They are like a rain shower pouring down upon us. Why then, do we sometimes feel like we´re not getting any of them? Like we don´t understand? Like we don't have miracles? Because our umbrellas of doubt, sin, and fear are keeping them from us. Oh how I pray that we can open our hearts and close our spiritual umbrellas!  Learn, seek ye the best books and the best spiritual gifts to open your lives to receive these blessings that you NEED. Do those things that he has commanded of you. They’re for your protection and benefit!  They’re beautiful. Don´t go without the Sacrament- I have understood more and more than ever that we need the opportunity to renew our covenants and promise to make more every week. Prepare yourselves for it! Study these things, I promise you with all my heart and might that you will see blessings in your lives! Things are hard to understand.  Desire to understand, seek, act, ye SHALL find!

I love you all so so much! May the Lord bless you and keep you this week and that you have much success! Cuidasen mucho!

Les Quiero!

Hermana Hill

Mosquitos and Caladryl, what more does one need? (October 27, 2014)

Hola familia y amigos! 

Perdon, this letter is gonna have to be short! Once again, I wrote all those who wrote me before emailing the group email (oops)... Would ya´ll just stop being so nice and sending me such great emails?! (PLEASE know that that´s sarcasm! I love getting letters!)

Bueno, so that you get a little bit of a spiritual note, I´ll start with talking about our little Sofia. Sofia has been talking to the missionaries for at least half a year, if not more. And FINALLY she had a date to be baptized this past Saturday. She was so so excited and so ready, but in the end, her mom told her that she didn´t want her to unite with any one church. Or that she wasn´t old enough to do so. It was especially hard, cause Sofia thought she could, and we thought she could, for a long time. But in the end, nope. She´s going to keep going to church, and we´re definitely going to keep teaching her, but it was hard to watch this girl, who is so ready and excited to make covenants and be clean from the things she´s done, to have to wait for who knows how long. We´re going to keep praying and working so that she can. But I know that she´s going to be alright (of course) :) And that soon she will be able to be baptized. In the meantime, she can definitely still feel of the comfort that comes from reading the scriptures and going to church! We´re all so grateful for that! I´m grateful for the example of Sofia. Even though she can´t do this right now, she is deciding to be happy and keep going and wants to keep improving her life more and more! It´s hard, there are lots of crazy influences all around her, but she’s so strong and works so hard! She works hard to make time for her scriptures and church among all the crazy things that she has to do!

I know that miracles exist and are real, and I know that Christ lives! I love you all so much! I´m sorry that I really ran out of time this week. To explain the title, like, 10 members this week told me "CALIDRYL. Buy it! OFF spray. Buy it!" Yeah, my legs are a disaster, I´ve come to terms that they´ll never be the same again... haha oh well! Also, we have pets! We get to clean up slugs every day in our house- be jealous. I´ve named the one in the picture Mundungus. Yep. He´s a regular. I learned the word for slug in the MTC (babosa) and thought- HAH! Never gonna have to use that. I was deceived. 

Love you all so much! Hope all is well with you! Bye!

Hermana Hill

Oh and Happy Halloween!

"¡¿Como Andan Las Elderas?!" (October 20, 2014)

Yep, you heard correctly! Someone asked definitely asked us "how goes the elders (in feminine form)". We laughed about that for quite some time.

How are you all!? This week has been another great one! 

First matter of business- FELIZ DIA DE LA MADRE!!!!!!!!!! Okay, okay, I realize that it is NOT mother’s day where most of you are, but down here, in spring, it was. Just know, I was definitely thinking about you, mom, and my grandmas and my aunts that are all so great! So, happy argentine mother’s day!

(Someone is playing Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel (one of my favorite bands) on the panpipes outside of the cyber today... Could Argentina be more cool?!)

Okay, I don´t have the email of my dear brother Zack, so he gets a whole paragraph here for his own self! Sorry ya´ll, but he deserves it! Zack, I´m so stinking proud and happy for you!!!! Grandma G told me you got ordained an elder and I cried- I´m just so happy and excited. My heart is full cause I just know that you´re doing the right things and climbing in the right direction on God´s path. Keep on climbing! I´m so happy for you cause I KNOW that this is going to bless your life right now, and forever! I can´t tell you in the way I want to from so far away, but I´m really proud of you Zack and really happy that my big bro is doing really great things. Miss you tons, know that I’m trying to send you a big hug right now- feel it? Good. Love you!!!

Wow, so sorry everyone, I´m so out of time! Just know: another great week. Weather´s crazy. We´ve found people to teach and are searching hard for more. There are no coincidences in the Plan of our Savior. The chocolate milk here is just like the kind I had when I was a little kid- the yellow nestle boxes and everything! SO DELISH. Reminds me a lot of Grandma Hill. I made our oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with argentine ingredients. Yummy! The sub for brown sugar here is black and super moist... so my cookies looked dark brown, a little hard to know when their done, but eventually (after a few, sad little charcoaled stubs) we had delicious cookies that all the town wanted to try. Thanks mom for the recipe! Here, we say "eh" more than the Canadians. That´s gonna be a habit hard to break! Remember Hector? HE IS SUCH A HUGE EXAMPLE. He broke his leg, people are turning down his work cause he´s a Mormon, his cousin came to spit in his face cause he´s Mormon, and he´s SO firm: "of a truth, I’m more firm in my faith. I need to share my testimony next fast Sunday". He then proceeded to give us facturas (sweet bread with chocolate, sugar, and dulce de leche) "I just gotta thank you. I feel very content. Very firm". I hope I can be like Hector one day! I´ve been studying the talk "the fourth missionary" by Bro. Cordbridge or someone. It´s so so great! It talks about missions (obviously) but we can definitely apply it to our lives! I hope you can all read it. Even just a part of it, cause it´s really good. NOTE- if it makes you feel guilty, don´t. just keep going on the path doing great things and continually changing! :)

Okay, cause I´m out of time, just so that you have more to read (haha sorta) here´s my letter to my prez this week. Short too, but yep!

Katie’s mom’s attempt at translating: We are looking MUCH to find new investigators.  We have some, but they are not progressing (this week it will happen for sure).  Those who are progressing are children without the permission of their parents.  So we're working very hard, and one thing we have worked to remember is that we have to be thankful for the miracles and moments we have. Because if we are not thankful for what we have, why should we have more? And these people here need miracles, in Villa Mitre 2.  Two very happy grateful missionaries who will work very hard with joy this week.

Estamos buscando MUCHO para encontrar nuevos investigadores. Tenemos algunos, pero no estan progressando (¡este semana, va a pasar por seguro!) Los que estan progresando son niños que no tienen el permiso de sus padres. entonces, estamos trabajando muy muy duro, y una cosa que hemos trabajado para recordarnos, es que tenemos que ser aggradacida por los milagros y los momentos buenismos que tenemos. ¿Porque si no estamos aggradacidas por lo que tenemos, porque debemos tener mas? Y estas personas acá necesitan milagros, entonces, ¡quidado Villa Mitre 2! dos misioneras muy felizes y aggradacidas van a trabajar con gozo muy duro este semana. 

Love you all so much! Keep the faith, work hard, smile big! Have a GREAT week!

Les Quiero mucho! Ciao!

Hermana Hill

PS- oh yeah, I also went to Walmart last week ;)