Elder Hilton June 7, 2016-2018 : Week 71: You Never Fail Until You Stop Trying

Hello Everyone! How are you all doing? This week for me was great although it was the smoothest week I´ve had. Last Sunday we didn´t have any investigators at church, but we did receive good news that Diego will be getting married on Friday November 10th and soon after we will baptize him. After church we ate lunch at our recent convert family´s house (Romilda, Lucas, and Luana) She is so awesome. Every single visit we mark with her she has a full meal prepared for us to eat after the message. We don´t even expect it, she just loves us and shows her love by making us lots of food. It has been very fun seeing them grow in the Gospel and integrate with the members. I can see how they´ve become happier people. Romilda has already introduced us to a few friends of hers, and we taught some of them this week. We are now in a trio because Elder Costa e Silva is training Elder Cantuário to be the next financial secretary. President has spent the whole week in the interior doing zone conferences and we stayed here taking care of the missionaries in the capital and other areas. We helped the assistants with all the things they needed to travel and take to the zone conferences in the interior.

Unfortunatley this whole week I´ve been feeling rather sick. Monday through Friday I did normal office work and taught lessons at night. I won´t talk a lot about our office work, because it´s not that interesting. In the office we just work on our normal tasks and solve heaps of problems to make the mission run. Here is a funny story. On Monday my cold that i got the Saturday before got worse. I was having a sore throat, headaches, and a cough. Out of nowhere i got a bad bloody nose. Then on Tuesday Elder Cantuário and I went to the bus station to buy 2 tickets for an Assistant Elder. The company that we buy through is called AguiaBranca. We got there and there was a huge line. They had gotten a new system on their computers that day and they were having problems with it. The system crashed, leaving everyone stressed out and panicked that they would miss their buses. We ended up leaving the line and walking across the main street to the Bahia Mall to buy some office material at the Kalunga paper store while we waited for the bus company to fix their system. We ate lunch at the mall as well. After we ordered our food, we sat down at a table and out of nowhere my nose started to bleed again. I grabbed a napkin and tried to discreetly shove it up my nose. There was an old lady sitted at the table next to me and she called my attention and told me to lean my head back. Then she ordered me to take an icecube out of my Guaraná and rub it on my nose to help stop the nose bleed. I couldn´t believe it! I thought it was already embarrassing enough to stick a napkin up my nose, but there I was with my head leaned back, rubbing ice on my face. Everyone was looking at me in the busy food section in the mall. I thought it was kind of funny. I just had my food get put in a to-go box and we went back to the bus station. The system was running so we waited in the line again. When we finally got to the front of the line, the system failed again and we had to wait even longer. Eventually we bought the 2 tickets we needed and went back to the office to help this assistent Elder get ready to travel.

By Wednesday my sore throat and headaches were gone, but i was left with a persistent dry cough. We went to the Bus station again to buy more tickets and also to exchange the things we bought at Kalunga. We had accidentally bought all permanent markers instead of erasable white board ones! After district meeting and lunch we went to the hospital. I didn´t want to, but my companions kept insisting because they were worried about my bad cough. We waited for 2 hours in the hospital, just to be attended for 5 minutes. The doctor prescribed some medicine that we bought afterwards that costed over R$ 150 ! Its some antibiotic and another pill.

Thursday we went to the airport to drop off Elder Boémia. He went to a different city to do some heart procedure in a hospital. That night, we did a division. Elder Costa e Silva stayed with Elder Boémia´s companion (Elder Palma from Mexico) and I was with Elder Cantuário. Friday afternoon we picked up Elder Boémia from the airport. In our area we are searching for more people to teach and things are going well. Sometimes it gets discouraging when you´ve walked the same streets for several months and have already knocked on practically every door. I know that there are always people that are ready to receive the restored Gospel. We just have to do our part, exercising our faith, and putting forth our effort to find and teach them. My companion shared with me this quote: ´´It is not necessary for us to serve a mission to enter into the celestial kingdom. We must serve a mission for others to enter the Celestial kingdom´´. This is motivation to serve.

In summary, serving a mission is difficult, but it brings you closer to Christ and makes you a man. I never know exactly what the future holds for me, and sometimes i feel uncertain, but i know that whatever comes, i can handle with my family´s help and the Lord´s help. I love this quote, ´´Let your smile change the world, but don´t let the world change your smile.´´. I know that God lives and that Christ´s atonement is real. There is a Savior, people can change, they can be purified and become stronger by receiving the extra strength of the gift of the Holy Ghost. This changes the world. Recognizing God´s hand in our lives puts smiles on our faces. This is the good news of the Gospel that i was called to declare.
I love all my family and my friends.

- Elder McKay Hilton