What's Up?! (Week 36)

Bom Dia!

We had another busy week as always! We had five baptisms! Woohoo! Four of them are from one family too! Caçia, Alyson, Pauloma, and Kaçia! We are working to help the rest of the family too. The other baptism was of Renato! Renato found us! He arrived to us one day and asked: "How can I be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ?" We helped him through the process of repentance and to stop with his addictions--which was really difficult. Renato is someone who truly is an example of trusting in the Lord until the end. He was even running a bad fever the day of his baptism. But said that he believed that it was only a test of faith. The fever went away after the baptism.

Big Happy Birthday to my Sister Marlie! We ate cake to celebrate! Hope all is well with you and Parker!

So the day of the baptism (Saturday), we had to travel to Esplanada to interview a person. We returned late from Esplanada to do the final touches on organizing the baptism. And this is when everything went wrong. Basically, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. The main problem is that we don't have a baptismal font in our area. All of the baptisms are done downtown. Our phone ran out of battery, then the phone of our investigator ran out of battery, not even Uber worked or the members that have cars. and so many other problems even until it was at the point where we were just laughing. But we just trusted in the Lord and it all went well.

It's been a ton of fun with Elder Groom from Lehi Utah! I'm the only one that stayed in the house. I'm now living with Elder Nieves from Peru and Elder Câmara from Rio de Janeiro.

Hope you all have the best week!

Love Elder Hillam

Baptisms!

Baptism with the Timon ward
Renato!
Birthday photos for Marlie

Alyson, Kaçia, Pauloma, and Çacia

Renato

Birthday Photos for Marlie

Happy Birthday Marlie

Boa Tarde! (Week 35)

Hey everybody!

Sorry, don't have time this week to email because of transfers today. Every transfer we have a meeting for all the zone leaders. Starts at 8 in the morning and ends at 1 in the afternoon. Then we eat lunch! Many cool things are happening that even I can't talk about!!!!

But anyways, I will stay here in Cidade Nova! I have a new companion Elder Groom for Utah! Woohoo. It's gonna be a lot of fun!!

We had a baptism! Wesliane! Her friend Fabiany invited her to go to a stake camp two weeks ago. She wanted to be baptized after. Miracles!!

Today I was able to talk to Elders that are serving in my last area (Taquari). Four of the investigators that we were teaching were baptized!! This is one of the best feelings! Will send pictures soon!

Some other random things of the week:

I gave a talk in church about obedience. It was sweet! We had so many investigators too!

One of the days of the week we falted (lacked) water--And we are always sweating throughout the day. So, when we falt (lack) water at night, it's rough because we hate sleeping not being showered--all sticky you know. But we had a miracle. It started to rain!!! And a lot too, right when we jumped into our beds. So we ran out under our roof and took a shower. Was so good!

We also traveled to Codó and Esplanada this week!

Have a fantastic week! Love you all!
Elder Hillam

Zone Meeting--three former companions!

Pizza!

Zone Meeting

Elder Benites

Zone Conference!

Baptism of Wesliane

Traveling to Codo!

Travel!

Haircut!

Caldo de Cana-- sugar cane juice

Caldo de Cana

Week 34

Hope all is well in the States! Will pray for those in Alabama! Go out and serve them!

This week was crazy.--many many Blessings. It's March Madness in the Planalto Zone! Haha!
So this week we had four baptisms!! Woohoo. Nilda, Maria Eduarda, Paulo, and Jonathan. They are all awesome. We baptized Maria Eduarda's brother three weeks ago. It's the best feeling to work with families! Paulo and Jonathan come from families that we are helping return to church. Nilda is super sweet! She's gonna teach me how to crochet!

We had our Baptism together with the Ward Timon. Was an awesome meeting!

Thursday was different because we had an appointment with the eye doctor to help Elder Cantero get new glasses. Woohoo! It only took 7 hours lol!

Sacrament meeting in the branch was awesome--four confirmations! We had 86 people in attendance! It was like a record. We also had a lot of investigators there too. After church, we had a meeting with the Stake Presidency. It was super cool. We talked about how we can help the branch. The key to building a branch/ward is the Sacrament. The Sacrament is a sacred ordinance. It's when we partake of the bread and water in remembrance of our Savior and the sacrifice He did. We renew our baptismal covenants weekly. If we all truly understand the importance of this commandment, the members will always arrive on time, come to church, and prepare before-hand to partake. Like our phone batteries, we need to recharge our spiritual batteries every week.

Hope you all partake of the sacrament each week with more purpose.
Have an awesome week!
Love
Elder Hillam

Pictures!
Haircuts!
District meeting in Timon
Baptism of Jonathan and Maria Eduardo

Haircuts!

District Meeting in Timon

Baptism of Jonathon

Baptism of Maria Eduardo

Refreshments after the baptism

Eating Acai!!!

Howdy Folks! (Week 33)

How you all doing?

Sorry, don't have much time today because of Carnival-- a big holiday in Brazil. Everything's closed. We're really lucky to use the Lan house (internet cafe) today. Carnival isn't huge in our area, thankfully. Instead of going out at night, many missionaries will be doing their studies then, instead of the morning. The law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom (abstinence from tea, coffee, alcohol,) don't exist during Carnival.

Tuesday-Thursday I wasn't working in my area.
Tuesday I was working in the area of Esplanada. We were able to get a ride back to our area late Tuesday night with some members--Irma Inacia and Gabriel! They are awesome! The next morning we left our area at 7:00 am to go to Codó. Elder Lusk and Elder Campos are doing great work out there!

The mission is flying by so fast. I've never been so busy in my life. Twenty-four hours dedicated to the Lord every day; I learn so much. After every week, which feels as if it's only a day, I look back and can't imagine my life without that week because I learned so much.

Love you all so much! Will have a better email next week!

Elder Hillam

Photos

Cool bridge in Codó. Oh, man, I wanted to jump in and swim.

Pday wood shop!!