"He was the happiest man you ever saw."

December 30, 2014

Dear family, 

It was great to sykpe you this week! Thanks for all you do, all your support, letters, and prayers. The call made me want to do a better job in my emails. We'll see how I do.

So this week Presidente Vasquez asked us to study the atonement. So I read every reference to the Atonement in Preach My Gospel. One thing I noticed by doing that is that almost every time that it talks about the Atonement in Preach My Gospel it also talks about the Doctrince of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, gif of the Holy Ghost. and enduring to the end). In following the doctrine of Christ, we apply the Atonement. Without that, it's just like, "God did this great thing for me, and through it I can be made clean from my sins, but how do I use it?" In this last general conference, Elder Jorg Klebingat of the Seventy said, "Because the Atonement of Jesus Christ is very practical, you should apply it generously 24/7, for it never runs out." We apply the atonement of Christ by having faith in him, by repenting, by making and keeping sacred conenats with him, by recieving the Holy Ghost, and by enduring to the end. It's that simple.

It the end of the sykpe call, Dad said something about me having an accent. I'm still not entirely sure it he was joking or not, but every now and then, I really do have trouble remembering words. For example, one day Elder Giles and I were talking and I couldn't remember the word for "mittens." I was just like, "What are those things called? Muffins? Miffens?" It's a struggle. Elder Giles and I try to speak just Spanish. I really want to improve my Spanish. I don't have a latino companion, but that doesn't have to stop me. But now my English suffers a bit.

I attached a photo. In that photo is me, someone named Danilo, Max, and Elder Giles. Danilo is another really cool guy. He's a little bit mentally handicapted, but he's basically pure goodness. When we first met him, we found that he loves to read. So I asked him if he was reading the Book of Mormon. He said no. So I explained a little bit about the Book of Mormon, then commited him to read it everyday for the rest of his life. He was just like, "Thank you so much! I didn't know I supposed to be doing that!" He read through it in about 6 weeks, and now is about half way through it again. Evertime we see him, he shows me where he's at. He's really poor and just keeps his scriptures in a ziplock bag. For Christmas I gave him a new ziplock bag. He was the happiest man you ever saw.

So Krist! And Ivan! That's so exciting! I'm so happy for you guys. I am going to miss the weekly updates comparing his size to various types of fruit though.

I love you all!

Elder Hilton