8/23

Dear baby Sophe,
I love you! thanks for writing me! my favorite color is sea green. Your school sounds awesome. You probably look so cute with your haircut and a uniform. I hope you have tons of fun playing with Jier and working out! I love you.

Dear Brockly,
Dude don't worry about those refs! They probably need glasses anyway. I hope you're hitting hard, but don't get hurt. Your teacher sounds awesome, does she give you candy? Love you Brock! Keep working hard and being good!

Dear Family,
I'm so glad to hear from you and to hear that you had such a good family home evening. Right now I look back on the big spiritual experiences like that that I've had in my life and I am so grateful for them. Those are times when God is letting you know that He is there and that He lives. I can't express how important it is to seek after experiences like that.
Things have been going great this week. I went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders. The whole time I was with him he had hunter like instincts in searching for service opportunities. We helped some people rearrange their shop, we helped a lady clean a cooler and carry out to the a car, and we helped this lady carry a bunch of empty beer cases to a garbage can. It was awesome. I've never felt like that before on my mission so far. His name is Elder Snow and he is a good missionary. He is really funny and can make everyone laugh. I think a lot of your prayers were answered last week. I am doing so much better at talking to everyone and laughing with them. It was a really good week this week.
Greg's letter is hillarious because it's almost exactly like out here. There is only the nasty box milk and no tortillas. It is really really hot right now and I have a tiny little bit of athletes foot on one of my feet but it's going away. Last week a cyclone I guess passed by the island but it didn't hit us. There were the biggest waves I've ever seen in my life, it was so cool.
We have an investigator that is going to be baptized.
We weren't able to set a date with him yet and he didn't come to church yesterday because he had to go tell the priest at his previous church about it... he said. But he is a good person. We met him when he randomly showed up at church one week. He said he talked to missionaries one time. We couldn't find anything in the area book about him but last night I found a pass along card on the ground that was from the missionaries that were here about a year ago and they had written his address and last name on it. So it just goes to show you that maybe one of these days someone that we shared a little message with then never saw again will come to church in a year and want to be baptized.
Thanks for writing me and sending me a package! love you!
-Elder Hill

8/18 To Von

Papa,

I guess I'm bad at hiding my emotions. I was very, very down last week. But you are exactly right. I read in the first chapter of Preach My Gospel that depression and discouragement come when you don't have faith. Last week was very hard for me. I even began to doubt all that I am doing here and even my testimony a little. I prayed a lot every day. I began to see how much God has blessed me in my life. I began to see all the answers to prayers that I have ever received. And, I had a dream where I saw uncle Matt. He smiled and laughed and we were making jokes and I gave him a big hug. I am totally convinced that God is there and that he hears our prayers. This week at church, we had three investigators attend. My integrity has grown so much here. I am learning more and more each day. I love The Book of Mormon and the scriptures now. Thanks for all that you do for me Dad. I love you a lot.

Elder Hill

8/18 To family

Dear mama,

Last week was pretty depressing but it's all good now. No worries. It's just that everything is so different here and I'm not used to listening to atheist people all day telling me all sorts of things.
I dont think I told you last week but it was a new transfer and I'm in the same area with the same collegue again.
I'm close to reaching the six month mark of my mission. I've grown so close to some of the members here. We watched a bunch of church videos today at the church and we saw one about Zions camp. There were really hard things they had to do and Joseph Smith kept receiving revelation to keep them out there and it was a huge trial for a lot of them and there were even deaths. But everyone of the men that was in the
Zions camp was later called to a position in the seventy or the twelve. and Joseph Smith gave a talk and said that none of them would have been ready to sustain a calling like that unless they had shown God that they were willing to make a sacrifice "even as great as Abrahams" and they were prepared by the hardships they endured. A mission is kind of like that in a way. At least for me. President Hinckley said in a talk that "its a hard thing for the shy diffident young men to serve a mission, but how blessed they are for the tremendous faith they have to do it" I'm not gonna lie a lot of things have been pretty hard for me out here. But as I've continued to do the things I've been asked to, there's no doubt in my mind that the Lord has blessed me and guided me.
Thanks for writing me. Sounds like the normal crazy stuff. I hope Brock's okay. I hope your having really good family home evenings every week. Love you.
-elder hill

8/10

Cher famille an-mwen,
Yes the computers are always weird here. I try really hard to write good letters but we only have an hour, and for part of that we have to write our president.
The parade sounds like it was awesome. I remember last year when I was driving the jeep through there and I didn't have a shirt on and a lot of the ward was there haha. Also,I was wondering, did you sell the jeep to get the new one?
It's probably really really nice weather there. It doesn't get cooler anywhere here except at night when we turn on our air conditioner. It has never bothered me but it is always super hot. Today we had to buy a bunch of water because there might be another greve uh strike. We were walking back from the store with it and it was so heavy and I was trying all these crazy ways to hold it above my head and stuff but it didn't work. This guy gave us a ride, it was cool because that doesn't happen very much. He was from a religion that always kind of argues with the missionaries so it was cool.
I will try and send some pictures next week.
That's scary that Mitch did that with his little twig body.(He rode a steer) awesome though.
Where is Justin Greer going on his mission? Time is going pretty fast for me. The first transfer was really slow but the last one seemed so fast. I will be legal in a couple months but like I said another strike might happen. But if I get my papers that means I can leave Guadeloupe to go to other french places like French Guyana. That's where I really want to go.
My area is doing fine but I'm getting pretty down because we haven't been able to get our investigators to church for pretty much my whole mission. We have a lot happening we've been fasting and praying for. Also our branch sounded pretty discouraged about doing missionary work at branch council on Sunday. Also I'm starting to finally understand most everyone. I'm also finally starting to not be shy. I'm still really awkward but I'm starting to be able to talk more tranquil with everyone.
That's awesome that Mike MC came over. I thought that carter played soccer in England or something. That's kind of weird actually because I was thinking about when I was friends with him this morning. I remembered that we used to always go to Tori Shemanski's house to hang out. Crazy how life goes by. Il faut faire avec! I love you family. I'm doing great. Thanks for your prayers and letters!