Amanda's Letter

Dear Family,

I am glad to here mom is back home from the hospital! Take that ICU!!! You´ve got nothing on her!! 

This week we saw loads of miracles. But I had a moment this week that rivals for top experience of my mission. So while I was in Colorado there was a less active father who had a daughter serving a mission. I grew to love the family a lot and I really had nothing to do with his change, we just had him come teach lessons with us all the time,  but during the 9 weeks I was there I was able to see him come back to the church. There were few moments in my mission that have more sincere from his wife giving me a hug with tears rolling down her face as she read to me the letter from her daughter who was serving a mission when she found out that her Dad had received a temple recommend and that they could be sealed the day she returned from her mission. Ever since that experience I have made sure that I keep tabs on all the missionaries families to make sure they are very much spiritually alive when their children return from missions. 

Well the Familia K.... was baptized about a year and a half ago and their oldest son is serving his mission. They haven´t been coming to church but the family is amazing. This week we had the whole family come with us to teach another recent convert lesson and the families clicked, pero de 10!! The Marinero family asked Hermano Kim why his family joined the church. I wasn´t quite sure what he was going to say because about 6 weeks ago he told me he wasn´t quite sure if God existed but he bore such powerful testimony of the change that comes when one is living in harmony with the gospel. The familia marinero began to cry and we had a mini testimony meeting. The spirit was strong and I know it testified to everyones heart. At the end Hermano Kim borrowed a  guitar and we all sang How Great Thou Art at the top of our lungs. I just wish I could have sent all of this to their son. This Sunday when I arrived to church the Familia Kim hadn´t gotten there yet and I called and they didn´t answer. I was sad they didn´t wake up but at the end of Relief Society (we have church backwards here, sacrament at the end) the presidenta welcomed Hermana Kim, and Hermano Kim to Relief Society (it had been a long time since they got their so early that they had both come into the RS room) It made me so happy! So grateful for the changing power that comes with the spirit. 

I love my comp! Hna. Barney! I knew her before the mission so that is way fun! We found our Robles family this week. Father is less active. Mother super receptive with two cute kids. 

I am fasting from English so it is weird to be writing so much English. Spanish is still a struggle. I still speak wrong. I can understand everything and I talk too fast. But I still don´t know the rules. Guess I should have had more Spanish lessons while doing the dishes with you, James! Oh and I am a huge RIVER fan!! And it is not because they won it all either. 

The Gospel is True.

Life is wonderful!

Hermana Hill 

Triumph: Try with a little umph!!!

Dearest Family,

I had the strange desire to write this in the form of a poem but not think will be happening... What rhymes with family? Clearly the length in the mission is directly correlated with the loss of creativity. 

Good thing I talked with ya´ll last week cause this week my voice is a mix between batman, and that frog voiced kid from little rascals. Its getting cold and managed to catch a little gripe. It was able to work fine though, just hope no one gets the wrong impression and a long with all the other misinterpretations about our faith is that they all their ´´homely Mormon women (mark twain)´´ talk like men too.  I did get a fever for a day or two and woke up in the middle of the night due to moaning. I thought the unrealistic thought of ´´the nerve of Hna. Sagers to wake me up!!´´ but then I came to the sad realization that the awful guttural noise was coming from my own throat. I am up to three blankets at night.... Its getting cold (yes, mom, I am thinking about turning off the fan)

Dad, this monday I decided to print off all your articles from the Ensign and downloaded your articles and humored myself listening to some strange man trying to be my Dad. I came to thinking, can you send me ´´Dealing with Differences´´ from that fireside that you gave with Mom before she died. That way I can listen to the both of you. And also Dad, you inspire me!! I love the way you write! I found myself crying during personal study the next day and now I am 5 paragraphs into memorizing The Family: a proclamation to the world. I love you so much. I am so grateful for the temporal sacrifices you made to be one of my best friends!! 

This Monday I realized, being the last week of the transfer, that this might be the last week I had to work with Hna. Sagers. We made some awesome goals and worked incredibly hard this week. We found so many potentials. The line kept coming to my head from my memorizing ´´Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of Heavenly Parents, and as such, each has a Divine nature and destiny.´´ I was overwhelmed with the love I have for not only you guys back home, but all my brothers and sisters. 

Mom, know my prayers are with you. Keep me updates on the surgery! I didn´t realize how serious everything was. You guys sounded so nonchalant on skype last week! 

Love you all!

Hna. Hill 

1. Need I say more.

2. At your request mom, here is a normal faced picture as well...

Amanda's Letter

Dearest Family,

Feliz 5 de mayo!! I celebrated by stilling some Mexican candy from Elder Garcia yesterday during leadership meeting!! Love spicy candy!! And I got my hands on some legit Mexican spices for tacos. Hay carramba!! 

Oh, what time is Ryan calling yáll for mothers day? Don´t want to crash the party, I will call on Saturday for cinco minutos and we can figure that all out then. All I ask is answer the phone... (not like the airport Mom, just kidding! I love your guts!) 

This week was weird. We had consejo and we ended up spending about 2.5 days in Mendoza. I got really good at medical translating though. Right when I was filling confident with my Spanish they through me another whole line of vocabulary. And before you get the idea that I am dying of some exotic parasite you should know that 1. this is Argentina and their is hardly anything exotic. 2. That would be my companion whose suffering from parasites 3. Really the nurse has been in the U.S. for the last couple of weeks so I ended up translating everything to help her catch up. Next day was President Avila last zone conference so we only really worked 3 days this week. 

I have this really complex thought process that I will try to write down. During Zone conference an Elder I had worked with at the beginning of my mission got up to give his last testimony. When I had worked with him he was not exactly obedient and it was sad for me to see him waste so much of his mission. But as he stood to speak I was amazed by how much he had changed in the last 4 or 5 transfers. The spirit testified powerfully, and taught with his heart. At that moment I realized that he would be returning a hero. He had served a full mission, and from what I could see, he would leave reconciled by the grace of our Savior and, thus, would leave perfect. 

This week ´´give us this day our daily bread´´ really caught my attention and as I was thinking about this and in relation to the manna that the children of Israel gathered daily I couldn´t help but think of this Elder, and who we are really comes on a daily basis. It goes both ways. It doesn´t matter how disobedient you were yesterday you can repent and receive your daily bread for that day. And it doesn´t matter how hard I work I cannot save my bread for tomorrow. With the sound of the alarm I must wake and give my all, yet again. It was slightly disheartening at the moment I came to that realization. That the work never stops. That there is never a break. That even when I am released I still need to stand in the face of opposition and I know that if I keep doing what I am doing I will never receive a break. So why do we jump out of bed when the alarm rings? Why to we continue to serve when we are rejected? Why to we continue to cry with those that mourn knowing that they probably will choose to cry even if there are reasons to laugh? Why do you continue to love your children even though they never listen to what you say? Because we show our love to God by being obedient. Because the faith to build must be followed by the diligence to maintain. Because we know that in order to live (spiritually) we must collect our daily manna. And in order to live joyfully now and for forever we must be spiritually alive.

The gospel is true. I testify of that. And because it is true, life is wonderful.

Love,

Hermana Hill