Nice and Hot in Teresina! (Week 7)

Hello Everybody!!!! Nice and hot in Teresina!!!!

But first, let me catch y'all up on my last week in the CTM.

Last week in the CTM was fantastic. I played the piano for the whole CTM. I played an arrangement of "I know that my Redeemer Lives" which I brought from home. I was also chosen to give a talk in church--my first talk in Portuguese. I spoke on "Measuring up to Jesus Christ" and that we need to "stop checking the box." I saw that y'all got the picture I had with Br. and Sister Barretos (see below). They came to talk to me after my talk. Grandpa called him as a stake president many years ago. Also, during an activity in the CTM--we were to knock on a door and talk to a member/instructor and share a spiritual thought (as practice for when we get in the field). Well, the person behind the door was Elder Viera! He had returned from his mission in The Atlanta North Mission. He was one of the missionaries that brought five investigators to our house for dinner from Portugal, so it was awesome to talk to him again--small world!

So about the heat. Oh I mean Teresina. haha!! I always used to complain about how I have a trait for sweating, but now I know why God gave me that gift. It helps a lot. Haha! It's awesome though.

Teresina is fantastic. My companheiro is Elder Moody from Utah. His grandparents are the Browns--they served as mission presidents in Portugal. He is fantastic, very fluent and we are working so hard. Apparently, it's really rare to have two Americans together but we are on fire--not just from the sun! But we had three people baptized this week. The first one happened on my first day in the field, and then two other people were baptized! I'll have to tell you all about them later.

My area is Ciadade Leste. We live in the Vale de Gaviao. We have a small apartment--I Love it! I have grown and learned so much in one week. We encounter miracles every day. I love the people here in Teresina, they are so nice and open. For example, we were getting haircuts earlier today and the barber invited us to go to his house for lunch. We are constantly handed food and all sorts of stuff. There are fruit trees like no other. On my first day, Elder Moody was pointing out as we were walking on one street: That's a banana tree, and that one is a mango tree, that one over there has oranges, and the other one has passion fruit and so many other fruits that I don't know the name in English.

The members here are awesome!! We have a lunch with them every day. It's like Thanksgiving every day. We basically fast breakfast and dinner. Every day it's, "Eat more, Elder" and I'm thinking "Noooooo, don't make me eat more.!" Lol. I guess I will just be accepting the "Dad Bod," you know. But, we are constantly sweating and are walking more than you can imagine, So, I think it evens out or I hope it does--Time will tell. One time we took our shoes off before entering the house for lunch. And when we came back they looked brand new. So awesome!! Oh and we had stake Conference this Sunday. How it works is the church rents out buses to pick everybody up to go to stake conference.

Don't have the time but I want to tell you all about how I'm living and all the cool sketchy things. Yall know I love those crazy things. Like washings clothes, getting water, the roads, sand, teaching in the coolest kind of houses, like made out of mud and sticks, literally.

Teresina is the coolest place ever. Every day I see something that's out of this world!!! So, because of the heat, everybody sits outside their house. Which is perfect for us. Whenever we come to a house we pull u chairs and sit outside the house in the shade. And all of the neighbors join in. Like a lot of neighbors. We will see all kinds of crazy stuff --whether it's like 50 random goats walking up the street, a bunch of 6-8 year-olds in a cart being pulled by a donkey just driving it themselves, I probably see about a hundred wild cats and dogs everywhere, and so much more. We came to an investigators house and walked in on a huge birthday party!! "Ohh Elder Hillam, Elder Moody come come! Share a message about families before we start eating. Come eat with us."

I want to tell yall about all the miracles we experience and about all of our investigators, but don't have time. But its amazing though!!!! Really amazing!

The mission is fantastic. Nothing's easy but it's fantastic.

Love. Elder Hillam!

Elder Hillam's In Teresina! (Week 6)

 Austin's in the field! Here's the letter the mission office sent to the family.

Elder Hillam and his companion, Elder Moody

Presidente and Sister Lago

Howdy Folks (Week 5)

One more week to go before the field!! Time has never moved faster!!

So last week I forgot to tell yall about our experience proselyting in Sao Paulo! So two Saturdays ago we hopped on a bus and took us to downtown Sao Paulo! They took us to this one massive street which was like the New York of Sao Paulo. We had one hour to get as many contacts as we could. Elder DeGroff and I did fantastically! We also ran into some Jehovahs Witness and had a long but great conversation!

Also forgot to tell yall last week we received our Provo Elders! They spent half of their time in at the Provo MTC while they were waiting for their visas! Elder Loveland from Pocatello Idaho and Elder Nye from Iowa! They are fantastic missionaries! They are a little behind with their Portuguese but are learning so fast!

The Sao Paulo temple is outstanding! It's now closed down but so thankful that we got to go last week. The temple looks really small from the outside but it is actually huge! We had some time before our session so we got to go to the laundry and fold clothes. It is huge!! Has so many floors. The wood, glass and marble work is amazing. I love to serve in the temple and so thankful I got to serve a little in Sao Paulo. It reminded me of serving in the Atlanta. Serving in the temple has helped me prepare for my mission in so many ways. I recommend it to anyone who is about to serve a mission. There are so many Christ-like examples and teachers in the temple. I also did the whole session in Portuguese for my first time!!

Continuing to cut more and more missionaries hair! This last week I decided to cut my hair. Cutting your own hair is so much more difficult. But Elder Figueredo (from Manaus) who I just met an hour before saw that I was cutting my hair and said he knew how too. So I told him what a wanted and he did a fantastic job. It was fun explaining to him in Portuguese.

I am so excited for the field. Teresina is the hottest mission in Brazil. I'm told that the Churrascos (Brazilian barbecue) are in the south of Brazil, but in the North, WE are the Churassco!!

Love you all so much!

Elder Hillam

Howdy Folks! (Week 4)

Hope all is going well back in the States! I'm loving it here in Sao Paulo. Time has never moved so quickly!

The CTM continues to keep things interesting! So the power goes out once or twice a week but usually only for 1 minute. But this last time we were singing the Spirit of God in our classroom before our lesson and right when we got to the chorus the power went out! We don't have these Portugues Hymns memorized and we couldn't see the lyrics so we just sang in English and sang a couple more hymns as well until the power went off. You could hear the whole CTM singing hymns.

So we had a water issue this week and I lucked out big time!! I washed all of my whites, and clothes an hour/one wash before all the water turned brown! But what I didn't know was that some other elders moved all my laundry to the dryer so when I came back to move the laundry I see all of these white clothes completely ruined and brown. My heart dropped! Anyways, a bunch of Elders and Sisters that were washing their clothes lost everything. Really sad.

The Food is amazing here and I've never had so much meat in my life. But I couldn't stand the fish pizza night. Tuna does not go with pizza.

My Brazilian roommates left last week and we miss them, but we have new ones!! Elder Lima from Sao Paulo and Elder Rolim from Curitiba. They are awesome! So every night I would practice reading a verse in the Book of Mormon with Elder Ferreira (old Brazilian roommate), I do the same thing now with Elder Lima but his accent is sooo different so it's really confusing. It's amazing how much the accents differ in Brazil.

I met one Elder (forgot his name) but I think he's from Sao Paulo. He said he knew another Elder Hillam back in 2010 when he was baptized. He told me he was really tall and red, so they called him red sausage. I was like yeah that's got to be my cousin Eric Hillam. Red and tall ;)

My district is learning so fast. We have decided to not speak any English this week and yesterday we did awesomely. I wish you could all meet them!

Every day I continue to see myself as well as others grow every day.

Love you all so much!!

Elder Hillam

Elder Hillam found Elder Cheek from Georgia!