Homesick for Oakland, but learning to love my new home.

Dear Family,

    This has been such a hard, but good week. This is going to sound bad, but I am more homesick for my last area than I am for home :) I was not ready to leave Oakland. Its been really hard having this transition. I love it here, though and the Lord needs me here so I am happy and willing to work of course! Its just hard. The worst thing too,  is I saw one of our old investigators here who is the nephew of Consuelo. When I saw him that was hard. Also we had a ward activity and some of the families from Oakland 6th ward came. Then on Sunday night at dinner some members from Oakland were invited to come too. I loved Oakland so much, just everything about it, especially the members and Consuelo. I will going on exchanges with the assistants this Tuesday in Oakland so we will see if I come back.... haha. I know I need to be here in Richmond its just I could have finished my mission in Oakland.

My new companion is awesome. His name is Elder Cardenas. He is really good, but also young. He is so humble and tells me that he is learning so much from me. I am running this zone like Oakland and things are changing for the better. I got here and this zone was having a hard time for sure. This is also a tiny zone compared to Oakland. Oakland had 34 missionaries and 5 district leaders. This zone has 18 missionaries and 3 district leaders. This is a breeze for me right now. Elder Cardenas is just blown away though. We have zone meeting this week and I am really excited to be able to really change this zone and rise the excitement level of the missionaries. This zone can do so much more!

Monday night: So this was a tough night also to say goodbye to everyone. We met with one of our less-active families, the Rosales, and taught about the atonement. It was so powerful for the dad who is really offended by some of the members in the ward. Also as we taught their daughter who is muslin. She started asking us questions about what we believed. She is a Mormon but converted to Muslim and so when she heard us teach she had a few questions for us.

After that we went to visit Consuelo with the other Elders Gonzalez and Clark and with Milagro. They were so cute. They made us all dinner and it was super good. Consuelo was trying to do everything the best she could. I don't think at that moment she really realized that I was leaving... We ate dinner and talked and I shared about enduring to the end and then she said that when I go home she wants to come to Utah to visit some of her family members and then go to the temple for baptisms with me because we can't go here in the mission. I gave her a picture I had of us and her daughter Carla and Eduardo from Mexico. She loved that so much and then it was time to leave. When we began to leave Consuelo kind of panicked a bit and said, "already, You are leaving?" I said yes but that I would come back afterward and also it would only be four months. I know she will be fine. She isn't attached to me, its just the whole experience with her and her family and things were so special. She has a ton of friends in the church and her daughters that support her. She told me right before I left that she was so thankful and that I am her angel. She said she will never forget the feeling of peace she felt that first time we stepped into her home. She then began to cry and Marisol of course said, "Oh great, now are crying." I told her it will all be OK and Consuelo said she knew that and that by that time Marisol and the husband will be members. She is great. We then visited the Velasco family and said goodbye to them.

Tuesday: Transfer day. We got to the office for transfers and got my things unpacked and into the car of my new area and we left. I didn't know what to think. I had so many members calling me to say goodbye. Today was good though. We got our things ready and situated and groceries bought for the week. I live in El Cerrito which means "little hill". How ironic and also there are two wards called Hilltop and another Elder Hill in the zone. This zone is all about hills! We visited one of our investigators Alvero that night. He is interesting, but I have come to have such a love for him. He is really shy and won't look at us when we teach so that is weird. Also he smokes every hour. So that is what we are working with right now a lot. He is awesome though. We then visited sister Ruiz the less-active mom of our investigators that is preparing for baptism. Our investigator that is preparing for baptism is Christian he is 12. I never have taught a kid before so this is new for me.

Wednesday: Today we had a really good study this morning. We discussed a lot about the area and the zone so that I was up to date. I just get this area. I have been here barely a week but I know how to get places fine and I know our investigators and the members surprisingly well. The Lord blessed me in that to be able to get to know this area really quickly. We visited a few recent converts that afternoon and then that night we had such a miracle happen. We were sitting on Bissell street and my companion was trying to figure out who to visit because our plans had fallen through. I was looking through the potential investigator list and saw a family from Guatemala. I don't know if it was me just wanting that or the spirit, ( of course it was the spirit) but I told my companion we needed to visit this family so we did. Unfortunately they were not home but as we were leaving we were confronted by two black people and I am normal to that but it was interesting, they were hammered for sure. Right when they left the family we were looking for showed up. What a miracle. They let us right in and we taught them and added the family as new investigators. They are so awesome! We taught Christian that night. He is hard to teach because he doesn't talk and he can't sit still for very long. He is a lot like Alex.... haha.

Thursday: This afternoon we found another new investigator. He is the uncle of Alvero. His name is Jaime. This man is great but very difficult. He has been suffering from depression for ten years. He was really amazing in the appointment but just was depressed, if that makes sense. He said that he wants to change his life. After the lesson we saw some other miracles as we talked with people in the streets wanting to change their lives. I also talked with the stake mission representative and set an appointment to meet with him. The zone leaders here were not working with the stake at all. I am changing that for sure.

We found an inactive member today just in the street. He was baptized in Boise, Idaho but left the church shortly after. It was interesting to listen to him and said that he loves the church just can't accept Joseph smith. My companion is so good with talking with everyone. He doesn't let anyone pass by him without sharing the gospel with them. We then taught Alvero again that night. He is doing well and he finally gave up smoking for 1 hour. We are working with him to stop smoking for 3 hours so we can sit in church. This is tough. We taught about the purpose of this life and how to overcome addiction. The members that came used to be really bad alcoholics and smokers which was perfect. So powerful testimonies for sure.

Friday: Today we had our weekly planning and zone planning. Zone planning went interesting. I am trying to figure out how this zone runs, but also we got a lot done. We are planning to do a training in zone meeting on working with ward mission leaders. It is the training that Elder Bradford and I gave a while back that really helped Oakland. During planning my companion was blown away by the goals I wanted to set. I told him, "What? We can achieve them!" He said "ok, I have never seen goals that high here." Faith needs a boost in the zone! I feel like such an old missionary. Well actually I am the oldest missionary in the zone..... 

That night we taught Christian again and it went a lot better. We used a lot of the lds videos that I knew and it really helped him understand. That night we had a mission call with all the zone leaders which was new. It was in preparation for Elder Audikits a 70 who will come for a mission tour. I am the pianist for the meetings... How fun.

Saturday: Today was great also! I have been teaching a lot to my companion and he is so funny because he just says, "wow, I have never thought of that before." He couldn't believe how big Oakland zone was. We had a great district meeting today. Our district leader is Elder MAcias from Guadalajara Mexico. We have a lot of new missionaries in our district so I feel really old for sure. We taught Jaime again and this is starting to get interesting. I don't feel good about it because I think it is more than just depression, i'm pretty sure it is a medical depression. I love this man though and want to help him but we aren't doctors and also he needs more help than just the gospel. We then had the ward activity that night. It was great! It was hard to though because some of the members from Oakland 6 came and so I was super happy to see them. but that made me area sick again.

Sunday: Church went well. Alvero walked to church!!!! That is really far and also he fasted with us and didn't smoke for 3 hours. That is such great progress on his part. He loved church but is so shy that he doesn't look at anyone or anything. He smelt like smoke bad and so me sitting  by him made me feel sick but hey I love it, its my purpose. We took his cigarettes away from him and held them during church so that was fun also. he so can give it up it is just going to take a lot more boldness on our part. After church we had dinner with the chacon family who are so awesome. He is the Mero chiwis! They got to know me a bit better and had to make jokes about how old I am. That night we taught the Romero family again, the Guatemalan family we found. They are so amazing. The dad couldn't be there because he had recently had a surgery but the mom and the daughters were there. it is a family of 4 (which is our baptismal goal for October :) The members we brought were also from Guate and they were perfect. They had gone through the same experiences as this family has in coming to know the church. The Romero family has known the church for a while and has always been very impressed but had never met missionaries until we showed up so this is there time. The mom told us that she wants this and the dad can't stop talking about how he feels with us and how we wants to change. We are going to invite the whole family this Tuesday to be baptized for the 20th of October. We are so excited!

I love it here. I is a little rough but nothing like West Oakland where I am from. There is a place here called the "iron triangle" which is very rough. I love the signs here on the streets that say ," Please no shooting" and has a no sign on a gun. That is so Richmond/ Oakland kind of a thing. Lots of Spanish people here though. Don't worry though we are safe, and we don't walk at night or anything. Love you all!

Love, Elder Hill