I am writing so late.

Dear Family,

What is happening in Mexico? I saw the pictures of Mckenzie and that scared me! What does she think she is doing? She must be very cute but hey haha.(Kenzie has been on a service project in Mexico City. She met a boy there and has a little boy friend. I sent pictures of them to Austin. Good thing the boy will stay in Mexico) Everyone is growing up so much. Maylin looks so different; its weird! Alex is taller and skinnier. Sounds like everything has been going really well back at home. I have heard a lot about the weather in Utah from people around here, that is really crazy to hear about. Its so nice here and sunny. 

That's good my doctor called you, I told him to, but I wasn't sure when he was going to. I hope your happy that he called. Sorry I was late writing my letter we had a bunch of things to take care of because we had a Zone Activity today where we played basketball volleyball and also Apples to Apples which was a blast. We loved it! Ill send some pictures of it today. (Austin's cardiologist said everything looked good. His heart function was decreased, but he wasn't sure if it really was or just two different doctors measuring in two different ways. He will recheck in 6 months to see. He had two episodes where he had  13 bad beats and another with 15 bad beats in a row. This is bad. His pacemaker got him out of them before the defibrillator went off at 18 beats. So that was good. If he has another episode they will change his meds. Other than that, valves looked good!)

Zone activity held today. Austin is in the center. The only one dressed up.

So lets get down to what happened this week. 

One thing is I got a call from Elder Brogyay and I will be going to sister Siegal's baptism this Friday.  I am so excited! I saw them yesterday here at the temple going to "Why I believe" which is a fireside where new converts bear their testimony. I was so happy to see them there. She is doing so well and this Friday I will be going back to Concord for her baptism!

We had two exchanges this past week. I am tired, but doing really well! On Monday, I had an exchange with Elder Watanawongwurakula from Thailand.  I went to his area in Pleasant Hill in English  It was really fun! We had a lot of good experiences and enjoyed it a lot. His area is tough but we exercised our faith and found a lot of people that they will be teaching. We had a lot of bad experiences though with people yelling at us and swearing to get off their porch. All the good experiences though out weighed the bad. One of them we taught a guy who is a member, but very less active. We taught him in his trailer, which had nothing in it, but his painting supplies. We sat on the trailer floor and began to teach him. He just starting yelling and saying that all this Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon sounds like its all made-up. I was very strong with him, but I learned from my companion to just smile. Everything went well though, but he still thinks this is all crazy. The poor member tried to explain and testify but the man just was yelling and denying what the member was saying. 

That night we ate at a Thai restaurant and that was good. I have no clue what I ate in the seafood soup but I enjoyed it a lot. When we ended exchanges we finished them at the temple visitor center because my companion was in watching the Joseph Smith movie with Sister Garcia. When I got there we ended the exchange and went in to Sister Garcia and her family to finish things up. It was so cute though because we asked Sister Garcia if she had read Enos like we had left for her,  she said she did and liked it a lot, and then right after her little daughter said, "My mom is changing!" I was so cute but good to hear that about sister Garcia. 

On Wednesday we ate lunch with a member at a korean restaurant. I love the diversity in this mission! As we ate, a Jehovah's Witness (he was a worker there) came up to us and had us look up a scripture that somehow says that God is Jehovah ... (LDS people believe God is Heavenly Father and that Jesus is Jehovah) Oh dear. Later we attended some of the Zone's District meetings to support the district leaders. Those went really well! That night we taught a family that has been really less-active but they showed a lot of desire to come back. We gave the mom a blessing of health because she has cancer which was very special for that family to see that take place. 

Thursday I had my doctor's appointment and that went very well. The only place we could park was a 2-hour location and so right after the Echo-cardiogram we had to run and move the car and run back. I got back to the room right when the doctor came back (he knew we ran out) and it was funny because I sat on the table and I was sweating and wasted for running up the hill haha. But yes everything looked perfect and I am doing wonderful. No worries.

Right after the appointment we had another district meeting which was really good. We learned about revelation in planning and we learned a lot from our district leader. After that we began to receive all sorts of calls from missionaries and members with problems and referrals. That was really good! We are seeing a lot happening here.

That night we ate with one of our investigators Sister Cobos at a member's home. The dinner went well but after we had a lesson and tried to teach about the Atonement to the investigator. She just couldn't understand. We know that the Atonement is complicated already to somewhat understand, but she hasn't understood a lot of what we have taught. We are trying to figure out what we are going to do because we don't feel like she is capable for baptism meaning that she can't 1) understand what we are teaching and 2) make her own choices. We will teach her something and the next day she will have forgotten. She has trouble remembering what we left her to read and things like that. We talked to the bishop in our ward about it, but he just left it at, we have the keys as missionaries to determine that and he doesn't want part in it. So this next week we are going to figure things out. 

That night we were so excited. All of our plans were working to help our investigators attend a relief society activity at the church. The relief society president even called our investigators to invite them and they all accepted and wanted to. We were so happy. When we received the call from the relief society president and heard she invited our investigator to the activity, Elder Bradford did the rare Oakland Zone Leader dance. It was so funny, and he is going to teach it to me, but it is only used on special occasions. We had so much support from the members, which makes me excited to continue being a missionary after my mission. When the time rolled around for the activity one thing after another happened and only one of our investigators was able to attend the activity. We were bummed but it was good. That night we visited sister Garcia again and went over her reading in Enos and she loved it. It was amazing to see her have read and to have pointed out things that she liked and had applied them to herself. We talked about praying and how she can ask God for an answer. We have had trouble lately with her praying in lessons but she ended with a prayer and it was powerful. We can see that she is seeking for her own personal testimony. We are so happy and will hopefully be inviting her with a date this next week. 

Friday was hectic, but good. We had our weekly planning which we had to do quick because we had a member ask us for a blessing of comfort after planning. We ran over there with the second councilor in the elders quorum presidency. We gave her that blessing and talked to her about the priesthood a bit. Then our night got crazy. We got a call from some elders and were asked by president to bring them to an interview, they were bike elders. So we had to change all our plans and cancel some appointments. We went to Berkeley and picked them up then headed to the mission home for the interview. As we were there, we began exchanges with the Cambodian elders/ English elders. Elder Bradford showed me also all the stake key indicator reports we have to do next week. That looked fun! yeah so after that I went to a Cambodian activity at the temple and ate some interesting food., They mostly spoke English, but some only spoke Cambodian.

So Saturday was a lot of fun. I was with an Elder from Manti, Utah and we got a long really well. He is really funny. We had some good teaching opportunities and then spent the rest of the day searching for less active Cambodians to teach. We learned a lot and also I was able to help him a lot in his area and also with his district. We had a lot of fun! 

Sunday was great also. We attended our meetings and had 2 of our investigators attend which was really good! One of our Spanish district baptismal candidates for that day at 5:30 disappeared so that really killed those Elders. It was sad. I learned something really interesting though from a talk on the changing power of the Book of Mormon  He said, "A lot of people are not saved, because they don't change for the Lord." The Book of Mormon has the power to change us. I have been learning a lot about that lately. That night also we taught an investigator and had a really uplifting experience reading from the Book of Mormon with him. He got emotional when he prayed at the end. 

I have been learning a lot. Indicators for Sunday night were crazy. It went really slow and didn't get to bed till 12. It was really good though and had some good experiences talking with our district leaders. We then discussed our Zone Focus for our conference call this morning. We are learning a lot together. Its been a little hard because I feel like my companion doesn't take my suggestions, but I do recognize that I am younger and don't know as much but we are working on working in unity. I am learning a lot about working in a companionship now, because we need to always be together and have the spirit. I am really developing a lot of good attributes.

Thanks Family I love you all! This next week is crazy we have interviews with President, Zone Council, exchanges with the assistants, a baptism, another exchange with bike elders. I am not going to be on the bike. I will keep the car. Then we have stake reports all Sunday at the mission home! I am pumped! Thanks mom and Dad and family! I love you all! have a great week! 

Thanks Love Elder Hill

No idea about this one.