Always the Rainy Season

I told Aaron how much rain we've been having here, and he sent me a few pictures of the rain in Georgetown.

Trip to Suriname

Hello everyone! It is very hot here about 34 degrees C (94 °F) plus the humidity, so I'm really trying to stay hydrated and not get any heat exhaustion... it freaking sucks to be biking your guts out and then be expected to sit downk... yes they add a k to that word here... and to teach a full lesson with out sweating... it just can't be done! haha

I got my driving permit a few weeks ago. Since I'm not a citizen of Guyana I can only qualify for a drivers license for a month... then I have to go renew it for another month.. until I leave Guyana. This past week I actually got to drive to Suriname. It took simply put... FOREVER! We left at 2:30 in the morning... so like a normal group of boys would do.. lets just pull an all nighter and just not go to sleep. So Elder Larson, Strong, Dom, and myself stayed up all night long and then left for Suriname at 2:30 am. Haha not a good Idea.. I realize now how much dad wants to sleep when we go on long trips after he didn't get a lot of sleep... so props to you dad because that was a difficulty level of like 20 out of 10... :) I will never do that again. We got there about 7:00 am and then took a big ferry over the river and got our passports stamped so that we can stay in Guyana for another 3 months. Then we drove back... tired as crap... so we got back in Georgetown at 6:00 pm, so it was a long day for me... and I was sacked out in a lesson and didn't even notice. haha E. Smith thought it was pretty funny.

Well we have really been pushing the area hard! We had about 25 lessons this week, which I feel is really good because we started from the bottom of the teaching pool. We have about 12 new investigators that are super cool. We really enjoy teaching them. And they all live fairly close to one another, which makes teaching really nice.

Yesterday we had 110 at church which is super good! We have really been working hard trying to get the attendance up and I feel it is working! Interesting how if you love the lord... you will love the people and it is just automatic how things start to work in your area. 

Stuck in the Muck!

   My week was good. We really had some quality lessons this week and we got some new investigators. Our zone is doing really well which I'm happy about. We were at church yesterday and E. Poulson came up to us and said "I just struck gold for you two." He told us a woman named Sister C---- called him this morning and said she has two 11 year old daughters that want to get baptized. So we look at each other and said alright! Haha so we went over after church and met them and they are a less active family and want to start coming back to church. So we will have at least two baptisms this transfer... a little miracle from the Lord resulting from our diligence and obedience!

   A funny thing happened to me on Friday Night. Elder Smith and I were going to an appointment to a boy named C----. He's 14 years old and has been coming to church for the past 5 weeks. He has not been taught by the missionaries before, so he is really excited that we are starting to come over on a regular basis. Before we had the lesson with him we were standing on the street discussing what we were going to cover with him then we called inside. He came out and we talked for a few minutes... now my foot placement is not too good at this moment, because I'm standing on basically a two by four that is keeping me above a nasty trench that smells like decaying bodies. Elder Smith is in front of me and makes it safely over and doesn't look back to see if I make it. Well little did I know I was standing on the edge and my foot slipped off and my foot went straight into the goop about 3 inches. My sock and shoe was full of nasty black water.

   I gained my balance a little and then tried to pull myself up but my foot formed a vacuum and it pulled me back down a foot and a half in the worst smelling mud in the world! Now you don't want to know what happens in those trenches ... I guess you could use your imagination and you'll hit the nail right on the head. haha.... I sent out a pretty loud squeal and said "Elder We're going home." It was about 7pm and I wasn't doing anything smelling like that... so we clicked a few pictures and then left so I could wash off. We went back to talk to C---- for our 8:00 appointment. The bummer is that he has been discouraged by his family and told us that he is too young to get baptized. We were pretty disappointed about that. It's hard when you can see what the potential is of someone and they choose not to accept the gospel. I hope that if he doesn't accept it now he will later in his life. He still comes to church every week...

I love teaching the gospel and sharing what I know. It is the greatest feeling and I would not trade this experience for anything in the world! I love it that much!

I love you all and miss you tons...Love Elder Hill

Capitol of Guyana - Georgetown is HUGE !

Well Hello everyone back home in Murika!!!! :)

I'm doing well here and I am absolutely loving Georgetown and being with E. Smith, which makes missionary work sooo much easier. We are working hard and really getting to know the area good and finding new people to teach.

   I really enjoy my apartment! It it really nice because it has HOT WATER!!! It's pretty small in size but makes up for it in comfort... we live below the Poulsons and they are great by the way!
As zone leaders, we get to deal with the problems of the missionaries in the two districts we are over. It's a really fun job, we get to have a lot of conferences over skype and then this next week or so I will be flying to Trinidad for a Zone Leader conference which will be super fun! It will be about 4 days long so I'm excited to do that!

   There are 400 members but only 100 show up to church. There are two districts and we serve in the biggest district and the biggest area in Guyana... so that means lots of less actives to find and reactivate. I won't get bored here... tons of stuff to do and lots' of people to see! haha

   Something that I love about Guyana ... Everyone is big into sports... mostly Cricket and Football (Futball) but they are always playing on the street! So Elder Smith and I saw some older kids like 16 and 17. We decided to play a game of soccer to 3 goals - if we win they have to come to church and if we loose we give them copies of the Book of Mormon. They agreed! we won! ... against kids that do this everyday. 3-1! haha its funny... the sad thing is they didn't come to church but we did get everyone's phone number and address to go teach them and their families!   So it was a pretty fun finding activity. ☺

 Georgetown - Population 240,000