I saw everyone from Nueva Concepión! Yay! So cool.

December 7, 2015

Temple trip! I saw everyone from Nueva Concepión! Yay! So cool. I attatched a picture of me with the M family. President M´s parents say that they are planned to get sealed when they have a year of being members. That unfortunately will be right after I go home. But I´m still really excited for them. I feel a very big conection to that family.

The family Hernandez came to the temple. Wendy, who is the one who is most ready to be baptized, had surgery on her eye, and the doctor prohibited her from getting her face wet for a month. So her baptism will have to wait a bit.

This change is only 4 weeks long so that no one will go home on Christmas. Next change will be 8 weeks long to make up for that. Elder W has changes. I have been called to train, so if everything works out, next week I will write home with the brand new missionary. I´m pretty excited.

I still don´t know much about Christmas. I imagine it will be like last time. We´ll skpye in the house of a member at whatever time we want. Even in the morning.

I love you all!

Elder Hilton

So I´m finally learning how to recognize stress and deal with stress. It only took me 20 years.

November 30, 2015

Dear family,

I´m feeling much better. I´m now completely recovered. I was well taken care of. My companion helped, and some members and even investigators gave us food to make sure I kept eating.

Unfortunately we didn´t do much for Thanksgiving. They don´t celebrate it here. We did sing a few Thanksgiving hymns in companionship study though. 

I haven´t gotten my package yet. I imagine that it has arrived but that it´s still in the office. I should get it next week.

I´ve been pretty stressed this week. And I finally figured out why I never got stressed until the mission. It´s not that I never got stressed before the mission. It´s that the moment I got even slightly stressed before the mission I would release it all on the piano. I made my best music when I was stressed. And because I played the piano so much, I never got the chance to recognize it for what it was. So I essentially was always stress free. I was never stressed for more than a few hours. But now I don´t have that outlet. So I´m finally learning how to recognize stress and deal with stress. It only took me 20 years. 

We´re going to have another temple trip for investigators this Saturday. That should be a great experience.

The H family is still progressing. They´re always in church now.

Well, I love you all!

Elder Hilton

"Ah, dengue is terrible."

November 23, 2015

Well, from your emails it sounds like several of you were sick this week. I hope you all feel better. This week I was sick too. I said before I left the office that I was exited to see what adventures awaited me. Adventure number 1: dengue!!

Ah dengue is terrible. It´s somewhat like chicungunya. It´s carried by mosquitoes too. Chicungunya is more painful, but dengue is more dangerous.

I started feeling sick right after writing you guys last week. Once we got home from writing last week we took my temperature and I had a fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing we did brought it down. It stayed that high for all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday is started coming down. It hovered between 100 and 101 all day. On Friday my fever finally broke.

The good thing is that the only symptoms of dengue that I had was that fever and a chicken-pox-like rash. So I actually felt ok. No headache, no nausea, no joint pain or anything. 

Now I just feel a little weak but I´m getting better fast. 

Another good thing is that this is one of the most successful areas that I´ve had. It´s definitely easier to manage an area if you´re not in the office. Even if you have dengue.

We have some really good investigators, the Hernandez family: Morena, Wendy, Kevin, Delma, and Caren. All of them go to church. Wendy is almost ready to be baptized. She wants to do it. She should be baptized within the next month and then the rest of the family will follow.

Aguilares isn´t as small as Nueva Concepción. Normally about 70 people go to church every week. It´s definitely much more self sufficient than la Nueva,

As far as water goes, I´m back to only having it half the time.

Something cool happened this week. A member called S M who got baptized about half a year ago and is now less active called us. He called us because he remembered that they had taught him about the different "phases of progression" in the gospel. He told us that he got baptized on a Saturday, then the next day the they layed their hands on his head, and then they gave his the aaronic priesthood. He said then they told him about the Melchizedek priesthood. They told him he need more preparation in order to receive that. Then he got a new job and had to work Sundays so he stopped coming to church. But then he remembered what they told him about the Melchizedek priesthood. He remembered that he was still missing something. So he called us. He wants to come back to church now. And he wants our help. That was so cool to hear! That experience strengthened my faith.

I love you all!

Elder Hilton 

I´m in a place called Aguilares.

November 16, 2015

Hello family!

Well, I´ve left the office. Things are very calm now. My last week in the office was very busy. We didn´t even have time to study or proselytre on Monday or Tuesday before changes. They always let us now which areas they are going to open really late so we always have to scramble right before changes. They reopened Los Lencas II and put in sister missionaries so we had to emplty out the apartment in front of our house in a very short amount of time. We were using it as a storage unit. It was full of everything from closed areas: fridges, beds, tables, microwaves, etc. It was pretty crazy.

We also gave a presentation to the new missionaries about updating the online referrals. That was cool. That is something that we´re starting. We´d never done something like that before.

But now all that is over. I´m in a place called Aguilares. Things feel so calm now. I like it. Aguilares is actually where Elder Caldwell went when he left the office. It´s a branch. It´s actually fairly close to Nueva Concepcion. So it´s pretty likely that I´ll have to go over there for some meetings.

My companion is Elder W. We actually were in the MTC together so I already knew him. He´s a good missionary. Very obedient.

The house was a disaster when I first got here. But it´s already a lot better. My second day here we got up early to clean up a bit. We filled up 7 bags of garbage. Then we ran out of bags, but there was still trash left.

Well, I love you all!

Elder Hilton