"Hola! How is everyone doing? Thanks for your letter Alex, and I will write you soon. This has been so amazing here. My companion's name is Elder M. from Florida. He is such a great missionary and I have rally enjoyed our companionship. My roommates are Elder F. from New Zealand and Elder O'F. from Ireland. I love their accents! Our whole district except one companionship is going to California Oakland Spanish speaking. So it is really nice and I am enjoying them a lot. They are so funny! Mom, my health is great. I am eating well and drinking. I drink Gatorade for lunch so I feel great. Had gym yesterday and today. My companion and I did some running and worked out, and today we played basketball! My district is so fun. I feel good and am listening to my body. I am not tired and I feel great so don't worry.
Spanish has been fun to learn but very hard. My companion is going to be transferred to the advanced Spanish class on Monday so I will be in a 3-some with Elder F. and Elder O'F. I will see what happens. My companion's mom is from Panama so he is fluent in Spanish. It is a little hard to be his companion sometimes because of that, but I am fine. We have talked about it and I ironed his shirts this morning! HAha. Yesterday we met with our first investigator, Santiago. He is a great guy. He is here alone from Mexico and doesn't know if there is a God. I could understand about 70% of what he was saying, but I couldn't speak. It was very hard. My companion could talk with him perfectly so that was good. I felt so bad that I didn't open my mouth. I talked to my district teacher and he explained that we must not fear, and the Lord will help me. I have been learning that I can't worry about the language. I just need to worry about the doctrine. I just need to have faith and open my mouth and I will be blessed with the gift of tongues. I don't know why it was so hard for me, I was so scared to talk to him. I bore my testimony, but it wasn't very good. It was very, very hard and so I have been praying for faith and for strength that I can trust the Lord and open my mouth, We get to teach Santiago again today at 6 p.m. and we are redirecting our lesson to help him have faith that there is a God. We are going to start with singing I am a Child of God, in Spanish and then a prayer. We are then going to teach him in testimony that God lives and that we are His children and that He loves us. God wants to talk to us, but we have to pray. We then will challenge him to pray and then we will testify that if he does he will feel that God loves him and that God lives. I will let you know how it goes.
I saw Isaac and Ryan C. (they were Austin's friends from home) a couple of times. I have talked to them and said hi a few times.
I really love it here. I love to be able to constantly study the gospel and increase my faith. It is hard and I am learning where I am weak. I love all of you and I hope you are doing well. Don't worry about me, I am doing fine.
My roommates have been pretty funny, but I have been trying to teach them to be obedient on going to bed on time. It is a joke now because we kind of locked ourselves out of our room when we were showering and we barely got to bed on time. It is great here. The Spirit is very strong and I am learning a lot. I have been praying for strength and good health and I have not been tired. I started to get a migraine, but popped some of my pills and it went away. I wasn't worried because if it didn't get better I could ask my companion for a blessing. I haven't lost anything.....yet!!! I feel great. I am humbled though because I am very weak. I am learning that I am not as great as a missionary as I thought I would be, but I think it is also because of my companion being fluent int he language and I am not. We will see. I am being humbled and learning and trusting in the Lord.
I notice that my dreams are in Spanish. I guess that is good. All I ever hear is Spanish, constantly. It is good though that will help me learn better.
Hope everything is okay. My P-day is Thursday. I also leave for Oakland with everyone else on March 21. I will let you know. The MTC is have its 50th anniversary, so the First Presidency is coming to speak to us. I am very excited for that!!! I love you guys again!
Time is up! Write to you soon.
I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!
Elder Austin J. Hill
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