Hello from Teresina! (Week 54)

Hello from Teresina!

Dont have time today! Will have to get back to yall next week!! Heres some updates!  

Today we had a mission conference. Sunday night we went to the bus station to pick up out 10:30 bus ride from São Luiz to Teresina. We arrived around 6:00 in the morning. 

Elder Cardoso was transferred to my last area. Cidade Nova! My new companion is Elder Smith! He is from Utah. I used to be his zone leader back when I first came a zone leader. He is awesome! I have already done some exchanges with him. He used to do a lot of cowboy work back in the day.

We had two baptisms! Luana and Adriano. They are incredible. Brother and Sister. Adriano wants to be a missionary really bad; already wants to do missionary work with us. The quorum president of the ward also received some revelation to call him as the quorum secretary. He is only 18 years old!! Luana was really nervous at first. She is 17 years old. But the young women in the ward are awesome. They all made friends super well. After the baptism, Luana chose to go to the young women's activity after the baptism which was a slumber party type thing. They all returned Sunday morning to go to church. They told me that she bore her testimony at the activity! Incredible! 

I was asked at the last minute to baptize and didn't have time to run and grab my clothes. So I used a jumpsuit. Pictures are great! 

Last P-day we went to Sao Jose de Ribomar! Tourist stuff. Enjoy the pictures and videos!! 

Bus Ride to Teresina

Baptism of Luana and Adriano

New Companion Elder Smith

Sao Jose de Ribamar

Jucara, Gongo, and Oysters (Week 53)

This week flew by! Like all the other ones haha.

Last week P-day was pretty adventurous. I tool a bunch of pictures and videos! They are a lot better than words (check out the blog for more pictures/videos)!

After our house was clean and the errands were finished, we went to a member.s house to eat Juçara or also known as açaí. This is the real stuff. It's like a purple juice that tastes bad alone. But, when you add other things it becomes a delight. You can eat it with all kinds of stuff--Sugar, farinha, fried fish, and shrimp, Ahhh, it's a delight!

We then left with a member to go to his house in the country. We were on the hunt for Gongo. I've been on the hunt to eat gongo for about six months now. You can only find it in the country, What is it? Well it's a big larva that lives in the balbaçu coconut. No one knows how this little guy gets in there, but he lives his whole life eating the coconut meat, So he just tastes like some good coconut. He's a delight. We got two machetes, covered ourselves with motor oil ( didn't have bug spray) and went into the jungle--like jungle jungle. We were cutting a trail to a balbaçu coconut tree. We were yelled at by a bunch of monkeys too. Picked up about 30 coconuts, returned back and started cracking them all up to find some gongo. We found about 10!
Look up all this on the internet!
We ate them all alive and raw. But the people like to eat them fried with salt and farinha.

We then went to the bay and ate some oysters off the dock, yumm!

In the zone we are working to help our missionaries understand their purpose. We are helping them to teach the gospel of repentance and baptism. Helping them to call this people to repentance. The people need to see that the way they are living their lives is not sufficient to live with God. They need to feel a need to repent. Without this feeling, and without this desire, no one will be baptized.

As  missionaries, one of the most important things we need to have is the spirit. We have to teach by the spirit. If you don't teach by the spirit, you have to drag your investigators along the path--almost controlling their agency. But when we teach by the spirit, the spirit brings them to make the right choices, and you don't have to drag them along, The Spirit will influence their agency--Help THEM to make the choices that you want them to make..


Have a super cool investigator that will be baptized this weekend. His name is Adriano. He's gonna be baptized because he really wants to be a missionary one day. He has 18 years. Super pumped for him.


Have and awesome week this week. Eat some Juçara, gongo and some oysters, Teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone by the spirit, Love you all!

Elder Hillam

Pictures!

Acai-- it's a delight!

Gongo

Gongo!!

Finding Oysters!

One Year on the Mission (Week 52)

Bom Dia Friends and Family!


Had and awesome week this week!

So last Monday, we made cookies again. We doubled the recipe and made a little bit over than 100 cookies. We were planning to bring them all for the little zone conference/district meetings. But the the assistants arrived Monday night to do splits with us, and we ended up eating all of them.

Splits with the assistants are always the best. You learn a lot. You discover a lot of your weaknesses and change them into strengths. The assistants right now are Elder Kaiser from Colorado, and Elder Morais from Goáis. Kaiser is also the name of one of the biggest beer brands in Brazil. Its like having you name Elder Bud Light. It's always a good time with them.

Baptism!!! We had a baptism of Irmã Esmeralginha! But everybody calls her Natinha. She is incredible and dropped everything to follow the Savior. She lives really far away from the Church too--São Jose de Ribomar which is really close to the ocean!

Also gave a sweet talk in church about obedience. It went super well and was a lot of fun

The Zone had a great week!  We helped the district leaders leave their district meetings with goals and plans for the rest of the week. It helped open up everybody's minds and plan for the next week!

Also ate one of the most delicious things that I have eaten on the mission. It's called dobradinha. It's made from the cow's stomach lining. Look it up. 10/10-- 5 stars

This past week I also took some time to review one year on the mission. I read past journal entries and past photos. I saw how much I have grown in so many ways! Its actually incredible. Everybody needs to serve a mission. I also established goals for this next year on the mission. Super grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ--that we can repent everyday and become more like our Savior. We are wasting our time here if we are not taking advantage of the Atonement. 


Will be leaving here now to go drink açaí and eat some weird awesome food.


Oh and the 1st counselor in the stake presidency here served with Wade Hillam, my cousin in Rio de Janeiro, President Buas.
Hope you all have a fantastic week!


Pictures!!!

Splits with the Assistants! 

One year on the mission!! Pizza

Elder Cardoso

We found an awesome shortcut

Baptism of Irmã Esmeralginha

New Area and Soccer in Brazil! (Week 51)

Hello all!

We had another great week in the breezy Sao Luiz! Super excited for every week that we have to work in the Lords Vinyard.

In the next month or two, we will take a part of three wards to make a new ward called Lima Verde. For the month of July, we will give the new area a big part of our time. This week we had a lot of success. Its a ton of fun to work in an area that has never had missionaries. No one knows about the church! We were able to get some help from the members give a ride to all the Lima Verde investigators to go to church. The stake is planning on reforming a new building this month for the new ward! Super pumped.

We all know that Brazil is the land of Football. These last two weeks have been different as the South America Cup and the women's soccer world cup.  Brazil won the South America Cup which was huge. The best place to be is in the street. When Brazil scores, everybody cheers super loud inside their house and the fireworks from all around the city go off. It was pretty fun!

Held a bunch of chickens this week. We are gonna go cook them up on Saturday. We also hope to eat Iguana soon too. Apparently tastes just like chicken

The Sao Luiz Leste Zone continues to get better! We are working really hard to achieve our goals for this mês.

Here is the team!

Elder Hillam
Elder Cardoso - São Paulo

Elder Aristimunho - Uruguay
Elder Gonçalves - São Paulo Brasil

Elder Nieves - Perú
Elder Chaves - Manaus Brasil

Elder Hernandes - Maceió Brasil
Elder S. Silva - São Paulo Brasil

Sister Miller - Arkansas USA
Sister Chaque - Argentina

Sister Benites - Matto Grosso do Sul
Sister Ruiz - Ecuador



Hope you all have a great week!!
Love you all!!
Will have some sweet pictures next week!!

Elder Hillam

Mission Council (Week 50)

Hello Family!!

Have to be super quick this week. We are in Teresina today for the mission council.
Left Sao Luiz 9:30pm last night on the bus, and arrived here 6:30 in the morning. The mission council started at 8:00am. Our bus leaves back to Sao Luiz at 10 tonight, Travelings the best!!!!

Will respond next week!!!!

Was an incredible mission counsel as always!

This week we had a super cool activity that happened in our zone. It occurred in the newly renovated ward building for Araçagi. The new building is incredible!!

Leadership Council Meeting in Teresina!