"Soy un hijo de Dios"

Dear family,

It's been a good week here. Time seems to be going really fast now.

First some answers to some questions.

1. Allergies/asthma: Not been a problem. It seems like should because there's some much greenery here, but it's not a problem at all.

2. Food: We pretty much just cook our food. We eat a lot of pancakes, eggs, cereal, and other easy quick stuff. When members feeds us it's usually some combination of eggs, beans, and tortillas.

3.Transportation: We usually walk everywhere. A few times a week we take a bus to one of the outlying parts of areas, but for the most part just walking.

4. Spare glasses: I haven't gotten them yet. It's on the to-do list though.

One thing Elder Andeasen and I are working on is improving our first visit with members. We decided that one don't want to do is just go straight into the restauración. We've seen that that's not so effective. What we've decided to do is find out their needs, and then teach to their needs, from the Book of Mormon. This gets the Book of Mormon in their hands right from the beginning, and also gives them a desire to read it. This seems to work better, but it's much harder. We're getting it down though. One thing that we're finding that helps is to start with a hymn. This sets the tone and invites the spirit. One that we've been singing a lot is "Soy un hijo de Dios," or I am a Child of God. This really seems to have a powerful effect on those we teach, especially on children. One time, we were teaching a man and his little boy. We sang them this song, and by the end of it, the boy was in his dad's lap and they were hugging each other. The spirit was there, and now we could teach.

 Earlier this week the branch president and his wife invited us to teach one of the missionary lessons to them. As we planning, we decided to teach the restauración. We wanted to apply it to them though. As we were thinking in what their needs might be, we received the impression that they needed to know that the Lord was pleased with their service and all that they are doing. And they're doing a lot. There are all lot of important callings unfilled right now, so all the extra work falls to them. So after we taught them the lesson, we just told them about the impression we received that morning. The hermana, Hermana Flores, just started to cry. She said she hoped that it was true, that the Lord was pleased with them. She said that in her patriarchal blessing it says that they will have many opportunities to serve, and that the Lord would be pleased with them as they fulfilled those opportunities. She said she's been feeling stressed lately, because they are doing so much. We testified of what we had already said; that the Lord was pleased with was they were doing. The spirit was so strong. It was was a really cool experience.

I love you guys! Thanks for your emails.

Elder Hilton