Week 21

Hey!

This week wasn't too exciting.... We unfortunately had to drop our investigator Joyce.... She wasn't willing to pray about the Book of Mormon to know if it is true because she thinks she doesn't need anything else but the Bible.  That was very difficult to do.  It was so hard to see her be so unwilling to further her knowledge about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  It made my heart ache to know that she doesn't believe that we are children of God... I want her to have that knowledge because it's helped me so, so much!  Oh well though.... hopefully we at least planted a seed that will start growing eventually.

This week we also had a church tour with our other investigator, Jessica.  That was super fun!  It was the first church tour that I have ever given before and it was so neat!  I was hoping that Jessica would come to church on Sunday but unfortunately she didn't :(  We are continually working with her to get her to come because I think she and her kids would really enjoy it if they did come.

This week we also had Interviews with President Eaton!  I loved being able to see them again!  I have missed being able to see them every week so it was nice to see President and Sister Eaton again.  And once again I was able to go on exchanges with Sister Evans-Bottoms.  She is great!

I loved the Relief Society Broadcast on Saturday!  There were some great messages about being covenant keepers and how that can be a blessing to our families.  I learned so much and can't wait for the Ensign to come out so I can read them again!  Conference this weekend is going to fantastic!

This morning, a member in our ward took us down to the Northwest Wildlife Trek.  It's just like a zoo but it's with all of the Northwest animals.  It was so cool and so much fun. :)

Well, that's about it for now :) Hopefully this week will continue to be successful :)

Love,

Sister Megan Hills

Week 20! ...Time is flying!

Hey Hey Everyone!

Man, this week was a crazy busy week.  I LOVED it! :)  I always love when we are super busy and have lots to do... sometimes I wonder if that is such a great thing or not because it also makes me very stressed sometimes.  This week we were able to make a lot of contact with some Less-actives and our two investigators. :)  TWO investigators!!!! We are slowing moving up in the world of investigators! This week we were able to contact a referral that a member gave us and she was able to become a new investigator.  Her name is Joyce and she LOVES the Bible... No Joke!  She was having a hard time finding anything in the Book of Mormon that looked familiar to her.  Sister Wolfe and I (we were on exchanges) left her with the commitment to read 3 Nephi 12-14 and compare it to Matthew 5-7 like it says you can do.  She Bible bashes just a little bit, but we don't know if she's doing it to prove us wrong or if she really wants to understand.  We have a lesson with her tonight at 6:00 so we are hoping that the lesson goes well and that we can help her understand.  Crossing our fingers!

We also were able to get in contact with a less-active member of the ward and she is awesome!  Her name is Cassandra and she is so nice!  She has had some difficult trials in her life and isn't coming to church because of some things that happened there.  I've come to think that she is just punishing herself since she isn't partaking of the Sacrament every week instead of punishing everyone else like I think she wants to do.  We did talk to her about the Relief Society Broadcast and she said she really wanted to come so that makes us excited!  :)  We told her we would sit by her and help her feel welcome.  I'm super excited for Saturday and the chance that we have to go to the broadcast!

We also had a lesson with our investigator Jessica on Saturday!  It was so awesome to be able to get to know her better and talk with her about prayer.  She told us that she's been going to a lot of different churches, trying to find one that has a lot of activities and stuff for her kids to do and is family oriented.... our church to a "T"!  We have a church tour set up with her on Wednesday (first church tour I have ever given) and I am super excited!  

The only other super exciting thing that happened this week was that our car got broken into.... We had a meeting (PEC) at 7:30 am and by 9:00 they had broken in. They smashed the passenger window and took everything out of the glove box.... so frustrating sometimes.... but that was an adventure!  We were in church for maybe 30 minutes and then we were outside dealing with our car the rest of the time.  It was POURING rain the whole time we were out there so we were soaked!  This actually has happened a little more frequently than we would like..... last Sunday (9/15) 3 members had their cars broken into.  Ours has been the worst though because they've just messed with the locks on the other cars, but apparently it's quite a big deal in our parking lot.  All throughout church, Priesthood Brethren are patrolling the parking lot because it's happening so frequently.  The response that we got with our car being broke into was crazy!  Tons of people were out helping us and patrolling the parking lot.  Elder Wilson and Elder Thomson (our Zone Leaders that are in our ward) were great help with knowing what to do.  I am so thankful that we have such awesome Zone Leaders and ward members and their willingness to help us with anything!

I'm attaching lots of pictures from the week and some pretty good ones of Mt. Rainier!  I am also sending some of each exchange I have done this transfer.  Enjoy!

I think that's about it for the week!  Much more exciting than the last few weeks! :) Loving my mission and all the things I am learning and experiencing!

Love you!

Love,

Sister Megan Hills

Week 19

This week was pretty good :) Nothing super exciting happened in our area but we are working hard at getting some new investigators. We are mostly working with less-actives and Part-Member Families to get people to teach right now. It is slowly starting to work out. We are still working with Jessica but we weren't able to get in contact with her this week. :(  Not fun but hopefully we will have some success with her this week.  We were able to do a couple exchanges this week also. Those were super fun! I really learned a lot from the exchange with the Sunrise sisters. I was with Sister Lloyd in her area and she seems like such a solid missionary! Even though she has only been out 4 months longer than I have, she sure seems like she has it together and she totally knows what she needs to be doing at every turn! We had such a great day together and we both learned so much!

I know that being out here on my mission is where I need to be at this time in my life.  I know that the Savior lives and loves each one of us.  I know that fullness of the gospel has been restored to this earth.  I know that Joseph Smith was the Prophet of the Restoration and that Thomas S. Monson is the living Prophet on earth now.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and that it truly does testify of Christ.  I know that we can all be missionaries even just by our daily examples.  I am so thankful for this privilege to serve the Lord with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength!  I would not be the person that I am today without this wonderful experience!  Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers!

I love you!

Love,

Sister Megan Hills 

Photos: Sister Mosbrucker and Sister Hills

Week 18

Hey!

Nothing too exciting has happened down here in Graham yet. I am loving being with Sister Mosbrucker for my companion! I have already learned so much from her and it's only been 1 week! This is going to be a great transfer! We are working hard to find new investigators and are also working to contact a bunch of the Part-Member Families in our ward to get some people to teach. On Friday, Sister Parry and I found a new investigator while Sister Mosbrucker was at a Training meeting up at the mission home. Our investigator's name is Jessica and we are continuing to work with her and hopefully she will make some progress.  She wasn't able to come to church yesterday because she had to work.  We really don't have anyone else to teach except for Jessica at the moment but we have been and will continue to work really hard at finding more people to teach! :D

Hope everything is going well back home and everywhere else in the world :)  Thanks for everything!

Love,

Sister Megan Hills

Week 17 :) Good bye Lake Sawyer :(.... Hello Graham! :D

Hey Everyone!

Sorry this is going to be a shorter email but I don't have a ton of time to write.  Last week was such a blur.... I don't really remember what happened last week.  I do remember that at District Meeting last Tuesday, Elder Platero (our DL) added up the total lessons that we had the week before and we were at 86 lessons for the week!  Elder Platero then challenged all of us to get 100 lessons as a district this past week.  Well, Monday night comes and we all did a conference call together to figure out how many lessons we had for the week.  We had 104 LESSONS last week as a district!  It was such a fun and cool experience to try and get that many lessons and it seemed to unify all of us even more as a district.  Friday, we also we able to "kidnap" Sister Higgins and take her with us for a couple hours.  It was so much fun to be with her and it was also such a testimony builder about having members present at lessons with investigators.  We were able to have 3 lessons with Sister Higgins present and we were able to find 2 new investigators.  It was really nice to have Sister Higgins with us as well because when Sister Hopkins and I didn't know how to answer some of their questions or didn't know what to say, Sister Higgins was able to jump right in and help answer their questions.  If you ever get a chance to go out with the missionaries, I would recommend going with them!  It is such a fun and neat experience! :)

As you can tell from the subject line, I GOT TRANSFERRED yesterday! :D  It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone in Lake Sawyer but I am so excited for this new adventure.  I was sent down to Graham to serve for these next 6 weeks!  My new companion is Sister Tarryn Mosbrucker.  She's 22 and has been out on her mission for 14 months.  She is a Sister Trainer Leader (the sister equivalent of a Zone Leader) so I will be going on a TON of exchanges this transfer!  I am so excited! :D  Graham is south of Puyallup and Mt. Rainier is in our Zone!  Hopefully we will be able to go hiking on P-day a bunch! :)

Mom, I got your package you sent with the cookies yesterday.  I don't know when you sent it but now you can figure out how long it took for me to get it.  I will attach pictures next week and I will write a letter for you this week but it probably won't get in the mail until Monday.

That's about it for the week.  I will have a bunch more to tell you next week!

Love all of you!

Love,

Sister Megan Hills