Elder Hilton June 7, 2016-2018 : Week 12: Goodbye Conquista, Hello ILHEUS!!

When i found out i was being transferred to Ilheus, i was instantly filled with joy. i had only heard good things about this area, besides that it rains a lot and there are mesquitos. My area is Nelson Costa and we work in lots of other bairros ( a community or region within a city), and it is beautiful! My new companion is E. J. Sousa. Elder Brito trained him. im ready to work hard and have fun and grow.
WEDNESDAY: Even though i only got 3 hours of sleep the night before i left, i didnt sleep at all on the 6 hours bus ride. it was too beautiful! it was one of the best 6 hour rides i've ever had. despite how tired i was i couldn't keep my eyes shut. Looking outside was too interesting. I felt like i was on a safari.. I saw green mountains and hills, jungles/rainforests, waterfalls, rivers, animals, strange people, and a georgeous sunrise. On the way, the bus passed through a bunch of cities ( Itapetinga, Itabuna, and others) I loved how green it was; a big change from Vitoria da Conquista. when i arrived i was greeted by a friendly group of missionaries, including my new companion. we packed my luggage up into a taxi and headed out to my area. When the taxi crossed a bridge over a big river that opened up into the ocean i was literally freaking out and scrambled for my camera. It is so beautiful and a little ugly because of the poverty in some areas, but i love all of it! After lunch, we visited a more elderly couple, Ivo and Gloria. Ivo looks old and smells like smoke, but he is hilarious. he tells jokes and he loves the missionaries. he isn't a member, but is wife, Gloria, is. She is diabetic and she isn't capable of giving herself her diabetic shots she needs so sometimes she has us do it and i ended up giving her a shot. i DO NOT like needles and it was hard poking the needle into her. i really didn't want to do it, but she insisted haha. Another funny thing is that she legitimately believes that she was abducted by aliens and stayed with them for 16 years. She claims she saw two little men with antennas, and she also saw many colors floating around, in her words. She says no one believes her, but she knows this happened. pretty crazy, huh. i don't know what to think about it hahaha. She is really nice though and she is knitting me a pretty tie. After that we taught the Restoration to two women in their home.
THURSDAY: Lunch today was amazing. it was a long walk and the members house was located ontop of a big hill in the top floor of a big building/apartment complex. when we entered i was blown away with the view. you could see the ocean and everything. after lunch we went to visit José. I dont know why its always the shirtless men with huge bellies that are missing parts of their bodies. José doesnt have 2/3 of his pointer finger and he is missing the 1st joint of his thumb. After teaching him a lesson he tried to get us to eat some of his fish he had sitting out on a table. i didnt take up the offer, i only took some pictures :)
FRIDAY: It turned out there were some type of conflicts so we didnt have district meeting today. We went to visit a bunch of people and tryed to do verifications, but no one was home!! so we didn't visit anyone except gloria and Ivo again.
SATURDAY: E. Neves and E. bittencourt showed up around 9:00 pm. We woke up at 4:00 am to walk to the airport to drop off E. Neves. He flew to Salvador. I didn't like waking up that early, but it was totally worth it to see the sunrise over the ocean. It was absolutely beautiful and i got some awesome pics. We planned to work harder today because yesterday was bad. E. Bitencourt was with us for the day until E. Neves returned. E. J . Sousa was a fubeca (rule breaker) today! we walked to that silly card game place and he wasted an hour playing a silly game called ´´Magic``. its like Yu-Gi-Oh / Pokemon, but different. I wasn't too happy he was doing this,and i just sat and waited for him but after we invited the group he was playing with to church and one actually came on sunday so that was good!
SUNDAY: I was warmly welcomed into the ward. i made lots of new friends, and a lot of youth were excited to be my friend. They actually had 6 investigators show up to sacrament! that was really exciting. Members here like americans. they think i am a lot less smart than i really am. at this point in my mission, i am understanding a lot more than i can speak, and on many occasions i hear my companion talking with other members and the member asks my companion how i am, what my name is, etc. Its kinda annoying because i am standing right there with my companion and i understand them and can answer their questions. one time a member was talking about me to my companion and asked my companion if i understand hardly anything. ´´i responded before my companion saying, yes i actually understand a lot. i understood everything you just said about me´´ hahaha. he laughed and started talking to me more hahaha. at 7 pm we had Family night in the house of a member. we picked up Paulo, one of our investigators, and he came to family night with us. He was engaged the whole time in the lessons, games, etc and it was awesome seeing him making new friends with members. He is always open to learning and seems like a real nice humble guy. Before family night we did some verifications that the bishop asked us to do ( the bishop here is soo young! he is only 29 years old!) We walked sooo much! There were a few houses that were at the top of a huge steep hill and when we were at the top we could see the whole world; the city, the forests, and the ocean. It was awesome! i played double dutch jump rope with three little girls when we got to the top, while my companion was catching his breath. They were so smiley and it reminded me of Raimie. Playing jump rope with them on top of a huge hill and seeing the spectacular view of the city and the ocean and their cute big grins made my day. It made all the walking and sweating worth it.
MONDAY: Today we are going to go to the church and E. J. Sousa is going to play that Magic card game with some people he set up with and im going to play the piano in the chapel. then after we are going to the centro to buy a few things and to visit some tourism spots. it should be lots of fun.

I am so grateful to be here doing the lord´s work, helping His people. It isn't always easy but it is always worth it. When you serve others you come closer to Christ and develop a better relationship with those two people who are the most important in your life ; Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know it is important to pray. it can be easy to get lazy and ´´forget´´ to pray at times, but we need to develop a consistent pattern of prayer and always remember Him in our lives. One thing that helps me to pray is to remember that He can't talk to us if WE don't talk to Him. I'm grateful to be serving where i am in Ilheus and i look forward to seeing miracles happen amongst the people i serve. I love the Lord and i love this work!
Have a great week everyone!!

-Elder Hilton

SAYING GOODBYE TO EVERYONE IN CONQUISTA