iFeliz dia de la madre!

Holllla

Yesterday was Mother´s Day here in Argentina and I am going to send you the talk I gave. I was hoping Kaylee would have her kid that day but oh well. Tell her thank you for the pictures! She is the cutest and so is the room she has all decorated. I hope all goes well, she is in my prayers!

Well I survived my first transfer!!!!! I am staying here in Zárate and am officially killing Hermana Jones! I am grateful that I get to stay here longer and be with Hna Jones for her last transfer. We are going to work HARD (as always of course :)) I am excited.

Oh, I found my camera cord, no worries :) Apparently it doubles as my charger.

Okay here is my talk dedicated to my beautiful mother, the one and only Melita Robins Hill:

Hola, hermanos y hermanas. Estoy agradecida tener esta oportunidad de hablar hoy. Es mi primer disurso en Argentina...si hay errores es la culpa de mi compañera, Hna Jones, porque ella me ayudó a corregir mi castellano.
El tema de mi discurso hoy es "qué influencia tuvo mi madre en mi vida y como me ayudó su ejemplo para salir a una misión." Cuando recibí este tema, estuve muy animada porque me madre es un ejemplo maravilloso para bien en mi vida. Per es difícil saber dónde empezar. Hay una escritura en Alma que pienso que fue escrita sobre mi madre. Se encuentra en capítulo 7, versículos 23-24.....
Mi madre tiene todos los atributos en esta escritura. Ella tiene cinco hijas, entonces ella necesita mucha paciencia y diligencia. Ella muestra su fe por su ejemplo. Nunca tuve una duda que mi madre tiene un testimonio de este Evangelio y confia en el Señor. Ella ha crado una famlia feliz en la iglesia. Mi madre sabe que la felicidad y la pas verdaderas vienen al vivir principios correctos. No es facil simpre. Sus hijas no son perfectas, pero ella eiempre nos ayuda a tomar decisiones buenas y cuando nos equivocamos, nos ayuda a volver en la senda correcta.
Cuando yo tenía cinco años, my familia y yo fuimos a Disney en California por vacaciones. Hay una montaña rusa se llama Space Mountain. Me ancanta las montañas rusas y quería levantar mis brazos durante el paseo. Mi madre tenía miedo que me volara de me asiento si yo no agrarraba bien. Pers, yo tenía determinación. Entonces, mi madre decidió poner su mano en mi pierna durante el paseo para asegurar que yo permaneciera en mi asiento. Yo podía tener mi libertad, pero mi madre siempre estuvo allí para mi seguridad. Estoy agradecida por la preocupación mi madre tiene por mi bienestar.
El año pasado, yo estaba pensando en servir una misión. Fue una decisión muy difícil y yo dependía mucho en el apoyo de mi madre. Ella servió una misión en Chile y puede relacionarese con mis dificultades en tomar la decisión a servir. Muchas veces yo fui a mi madre en busca de consejo. Ella siempre escuchabab mis dudas y preocupaciones ye me ayudaba a sentir tranquila. Aunque ella servió una misión, ella siempre fue imparcial. Ella solo quería el mejor para su hija. Cuando decidí hacer mis papeles, ella me ayudó con cada paso.
En abril, recibí mi llamamiento. Yo quise abrir mi llamamiento sola y cuando vi las palabras "Argentina Buenos Aires Norte" estuve muy feliz. Estaba animada y ansiosa para servir en Sud America, en el país al lado del país dónde servió mi madre. Y estaba muy emocionada al tener la oportunidad de predicar el Evangelio en el mismo idioma que mi madre habló en su misión.
El servir una misión requiere mucha preparación. Sería casi imposible prepararme sin la ayuda de mi madre. Yo estaba estudiando en la universidad y en el verano estaba trabajando mucho. Mi madre también estaba muy ocupada, pero siempre encontró el tiempo para hacer las cosas que yo necesitaba. Fue un tiempo de mucho estrés, pero mi madre permaneció tranquila y hihzo todo lo que necesitaba hacer.
Todavía recibo mucho apoyo de mi madre. Recibo un email de ella cada semana con palabras de motivación y amor. En uno de los emails, incluyó una escritura en Mosíah 28:6-8. Esta escritura habla sobre los hijos de Mosíah. Ellos querían servir en una misión, pero Mosíah quería confirmación del Señor que eso estaba bien. El se preocupaba por sus hijos. Mi madre aplicó la situación a si misma y cambió unas palabras. Ella escribió........ Ella tiene fe que el Señor me protegerá.
Aunque la misión es algo muy importante, yo sé que hay una misión más grande después de los 18 meses aquí en Argentina. Quiero seguir el ejemplo de mi madre y tener una familia firme en el Evangelio de Jesucristo. Las madres tienen un papel muy importante en el hogar. En Principios del Evangelio, dice......(p. 238, par. 2)
Estoy agradecida por mi madre, y también todas las madres en este barrio. Yo he visto el amor que ustedes demuestran a sus hijos y también a Hna Jones y yo. Es una bendición tener muchas madres aquí en Zárate, que nos dan comida, un lugar de refugio de la lluvia, y muchos abrazos. Gracias por sus ejemplos de fe y diligencia. Sé que no es facil, pero sus esfuerzos son reconocidos. Continuen trabajando ye sé que ustedes serán bendecidas.

Testimonio


Well there you have it! I had to type fast so there are probably some typos.

Sorry I don´t have a ton of time to write all the details of the week, but things are continuing to go well! The biggest challenge is getting people to go to church. We´re searching hard for people who are being prepared for the gospel. I know they are out there! We just have to do everything possible to find them.

Oh read the talk "The Challenge to Become" by Elder Oakes. Hna Jones told me to read it and it is de diez. I have been trying to work on not just going through the motions and doing things, but becoming something better from the things I´m doing. Make sense? Anyway, Elder Oaks explains it much better than me. Read it :)

Now I will send you some pictures. K? K.

Love you all!

Hna Hill

Con amor, su rubia

Dearest Family:

How are you? Thank you for your great emails every week! Haha, dad, yes I´m grateful I don´t have big flying cockroaches everywhere. Luckily there has only been one so far! We´ll see what the summer brings. As always, thanks for the football updates. Poor Utah State.....maybe they´ll have some luck someday..... McKenna, good luck with your half marathon! Way to be. I don´t think I could even run a half mile anymore. Although, I did run the fastest mile I have ever run in the MTC. Those days are long gone...now I´m fat. Hannah and Camri, good luck with youth takeover! I was telling my companion about youth takeover just the other day. Good times. You´ll have to let me know how it goes. Kaylee, good luck with having a baby! Pahaha. Seriously though... Bah, like I said, send me a picture of the squirt right away!

In Argentina I am blonde. Isn´t that weird? People are always commenting on my blonde hair and call me a "rubia."

We have been helping with an English class every once in a while and it´s a lot of fun because I can actually speak! It´s great because they ask us about what we are doing here as missionaries and we are able to teach people about the church. There are classes for adults, teenagers, and younger kids. It´s funny because for a while, the teacher thought that our last names were our first names, so everyone called us Jones and Hill, thinking that was our first name.

Last week there was a ton of rain. A bunch of the streets were all flooded. We shared the scripture 3 Nephi 14:24-27 with a lot of the people we visited. The wise man built his house upon a rock!

This Sunday was DE DIEZ! (This is a saying in Argentina that means "of ten"....which means, like, "awesome!") It was the confirmation of Pablo and Oriana. It was also fast Sunday. During testimony meeting Oriana got up and bore her testimony. It was so great, she is the best. It has been amazing to see this family progress and see their desires to do the right thing. I am excited to teach them more about temples and how they can be sealed for eternity! I wish everyone could realize how important this is. Next week I have to speak in church! But I´m excited because it will be mother´s day here and the theme is....about my mom! And how she influenced my decision to serve a mission. Awwww. I´m going to need more than ten minutes!

I love you all!

Hermana Hill

Fishers of Men....and sometimes fish

FAMILY!!!!

So much to write about, so little time. Sorry for the shortened email last week. We had to go to capital to do all the stuff to make sure my companion is legal and then we got to cruise the streets since it was Pday. So much fun! We got to do some souvenir shopping and of course go to McDonald´s...which are everywhere around here. We were on a street called Calle Florida. It was packed with gente, it kind of looked like New York (from what I´ve seen in pictures of course). Anyway, it has been a crazy and awesome last couple weeks, I hope I remember everything I want to tell you!

First off....we moved! We are now the proud owners of a cute little white box we call our new home. I am so grateful...it´s nice and clean and the shower actually works! I forgot to tell you that in the last couple weeks at our old apartment, the gas went out for a few days so we had some ice cold showers. And then the gas went back on and the water went off for a few days. We ended up having to go to the church in the morning to wash our hair in the sink. Hahaha it made for some good pictures. Luckily the contract was up at that apartment so we have a brand spankin new house. We also have a new pet cockroach! Yum. I saw him while my companion was in the bathroom and when I saw it she thought someone was breaking into our house because of my reaction. Luckily Hna Jones is brave and took care of it. RIP, little (big) guy.

Second off....conference! I love conference! I can´t believe how fast it went by. I could´ve sat there forever watching it. We went to the stake center to watch it and most of the missionaries are English speaking so we had our own separate TV to watch it on in English, which I am very grateful for. I mean Spanish is great and all...but.....yeah. It was funny because during the last session, the power went out. We were so sad! So we said a prayer and then one of the Elders suggested that we call another district to see if they could put their phone up to the TV so we could at least listen. It was super bad quality and a Japanese man was speaking (the one with the crazy name) so we couldn´t understand anything. But then a little while later the power went back on! This, dear family, is a great example of having faith and then acting on it. We could´ve said a prayer and then just sat around, but instead, people made suggestions on how we could solve our problem. And then we were blessed to be able to watch the end of conference. It reminds me of that quote "Pray as if everything depends on God, then work as if everything depends on you." Those Elders definitely taught me a great lesson! I think my favorite talk from conference was the one by Carl B. Cook. I loved when he said "Look Up, Step Up, Cheer Up." I think that will be my motto for a while. I also was able to make some goals of things I need to work on, for example memorizing a scripture every transfer. I encourage you to make some goals according to what you learned at conference also! Oh and yes, it was really cool when they talked about Buenos Aires and the Provo temple. None of the missionaries I was with knew about the whole Provo tabernacle thing so I told them about it and about how the picture of Christ wasn´t burned. Also, none of them knew what Angry Birds is...I had to explain it to them. It´s really hard to explain....

Last the best....BAPTISM!!!!!!!! Pablo and Oriana were baptized between sessions of conference on Sunday. It couldn´t have been a better day. There were also two other people who were baptized from other wards. So many people in white! It made me want have a baptism every day. I always thought that when missionaries said that it had nothing to do with them, they were just trying to be humble. But it´s so true. All we do as missionaries is invite and the rest is up to the person and the Lord. They were a family prepared for this and I am just grateful I got to see it happen.

Hermana Jones and I are going to go fishing today. Yes, fishing. Apparently there is a nice little river here in Zarate! Last night we visited Lorenzo and Luisa and told them we were going to go and they got us fishing poles all ready. All we have to do is buy some worms :)

Now that I have an MP3 player you can send me songs through email if you can figure it out! If you can, I would really appreciate the song "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" Also, if you are able to, it would be cool if you could send me HLJ rings, small pictures of the Buenos Aires temple to give to families, a picture of my baptism, and I guess I didn´t bring my camera plug for computers. I have my SD card, but apparently not a lot of computers have spots to plug those into. So, not super important, but might be nice to have these things.

Biking is going well. My thighs are massive. But I think that´s mostly from all the food ;) I tell people how Hill is Cerro in spanish but they just get confused. Probably because I can´t explain it very well in Spanish haha. It´s funny though because there is a word in Spanish "gil" which is pronounced the same as Hill and it means "stupid"...how embarrassing! Mom, I´m glad you had a good time on your trip! Send me some veggies from the garden, will ya? Kaylee....send me pictures of your baby ASAP!!! I can´t believe he´s coming so soon!

Oh, and to all my friends who are reading my blog, you are allowed to email me (rachel.hill@myldsmail.net). I can´t email back but if anything important happens such as mission calls, marriages, 100% on a test, etc...I would like to know right away! Speaking of, congrats to Collette!!!!!! That is so great. Tell her she needs to send me an invite :)

Word of the day: Esposas. Which I found out last night is both the word for wives and...handcuffs. Jajaja

Sorry this is so stinkin long but I figure it makes up for my little one last week. Hope all is well! I love you!!!!

Hermana Hill

McDonalds

Hi

I am in McDonaldś and have FOUR MINUTOS to email you!!!!

Everything is great.

The McDonalś here are nuts. (Name that movie)

We are going to have the baptism of the Baldiś this week in between sessions of conference!!!

I love conference.

Estoy animada.

Mom, have fun in England/Wales!!!!

Rest of the family, have fun wherever life takes you!

I had a dream that we all met Mandy Moore on a vacation and dad was telling her all about it.

I LOVE YOU!!!

<3 Hermanita Hill

Cascos

¡Hola! ¿Cómo andan?

People always make fun of our helmets. The other day some guys walked past and said "Hola chicas, no se van a caer, pongarse cascos!" I didn´t understand them of course, but trusty Hna Jones filled me in later. Jaja...I think we look cool.

By the way people always love seeing pictures of all my family and friends. Whenever they ask where I´m from and I say Utah, they´re always like "ah, the fábrica"-which means factory. Because Utah is the factory of Mormons haha. And then they ask to see pictures and they always say "¡Que lindo!" Oh by the way McKenna, there is a 19 year old boy named Pipo that thinks you are pretttty cute. We´re trying to help him see the importance of going on a mission so I told him that you only like return missionaries haha. I love showing people pictures because there isn´t much I can talk about in Spanish but I can definitely talk about my family. In fact, I´m going to include a picture of me showing pictures to a man named Lorenzo that my companion sneakily took. He´s a less active member that I met yesterday and now we are tight. It was kind of weird because a few nights ago I kept waking up with a scripture in my head that I couldn´t get out and I don´t know why. When I woke up the next morning it was still there and I thought maybe there is someone I need to share it with. It was Matthew 28:11--"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden...." When we gave our spiritual thought to Lorenzo and his wife Luciana I decided to share that scripture and I asked Lorenzo if he would read it. He said he would and my companion and Luciana just started laughing because he has never read when the missionaries were over before. He said how much he loved that scripture and if he could pick one out of the Bible, that is the one he would pick.

Oh by the way, could you send me a picture of my baptism day perchance? I feel like that would be good to show investigators who are thinking about baptism.

Speaking of baptism, we went to visit a family of a girl who has a baptismal date coming up. When we came, they were just leaving. To her baptism. In some other church....? It was weird! We were like oookay, and later on we happened across the place where she was getting baptized! It was in this small little building with all this loud music playing.....weird.

Last week we did a lot of traveling because Hna Jones had to go to leadership training. It made for some long days but it was good to hear from President Gulbrandsen.

La flia Baldi is continuing to progress. We read part of Alma 32 with them and how baptism is an act of faith. They are so great, they always have so many questions and are so curious to learn more. This Sunday, Pablo wasn´t able to go to church because he got called into work, so we had to move the baptismal date to October 2 since he has to attend church (or watch conference) three times before getting baptized. It was kind of disappointing because that day we had about eight investigators tell us they were going to go to church that week, but only two ended up going. We even went around to pick people up but no one answered their doors when we came. But, one of the investigators that came was one we weren´t even expecting to come at all, so that was good!

One of my new favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon is Alma 26. Have you ever noticed how much the Book of Mormon is about missionary work? It´s crazy! I am reading with new eyes now that I am here on the mission and am realizing just how important this work is and how much joy it can bring. I´ve been working on being fully invested in this work because right now I feel like I´m more in just survival mode.

Okay mom, let me answer your questions. Anyone can email me, but I can only email the family back. I prefer letters, but emails are also nice. Los dos! The colorful building is a school next to our apartment. There are so many cool old buildings. I want to take pictures of everything but there just isn´t the time! My area has a lot of really humble homes and there is trash everywhere, but yeah a lot of times I have to remind myself I´m in a foreign country. I´ll add some more pictures so you can get a better idea of what my area looks like. I use flia as an abbreviation for familia. Don´t worry, I have dodged the construction equipment thus far :) Haha I told my companion about that and she had a good laugh. We are hopefully getting my brakes fixed today! Oh and I bought an MP3 player so I can get music from other people. I should´ve just brought on of those in the first place like you said, instead of my ipod....

Sounds like you are all staying busy with your talks and all! I´m sure they are life changing. I can´t believe you are going to England! Please send me post cards. Dad, thanks for the BYU update. Ugh, I really probably would´ve cried if I watched that game haha. Hna Jones went to BYU so she has been getting updates from her family too. Let me know how the Utah game goes. GO COUGS!

Well familia, these emails are super long but I feel like there is so much to tell you! Thanks for everything, I love reading your emails every week. Keep on keepin´ on!

Love you!

Hna Hill

Let me blow ya mind

FAMILIA!!!

Where to start? Well, I arrived safely! I am in an area called Zárate. It is about 1 1/2 hours from the mission home. We are the furthest district away (in the North of course). My companion is just so great. Her name is Hna Jones and she is from Washington. It´s kind of a relief that I got an English speaking companion or else I would be sooo lost. She´s my little mom here. I follow her around like a puppy. (There are tons of dogs everywhere here btw). She´s really funny and she takes care of me. It´s true that when you come here you wonder if you learned the right language haha. I understood Spanish in the MTC just wonderfully! But holy moly, the Argentine accent is tough. Let´s just say I nod and smile a lot. Hna Jones and I joke around that I´m just there for the looks and she does all the talking. No worries though, I WILL learn this language!

So we had our district meeting on Wednesday and each person had to get up and introduce themselves and tell of a miracle that happened during the week. Hna Jones talked about how we taught la flia Franco, a less active family (the first night I got there) and she had been thinking and studying a lot about what she should teach them. She felt like it should be about temples. Long story, but that is exactly what the family needed. Hna Franco even started to tear up a little. They came to church this week and it was awesome.

Want to hear my miracle? Well, remember how I was really excited when I found out that we don´t have to ride bikes in this mission? Guess which area got bikes only three weeks ago? You got it! When Hna Jones told me that, I just laughed and thought oh boy this will be an adventure. But the miracle is....I haven´t died yet! In fact, it´s kind of enjoyable. I find myself riding along thinking to myself ´wow, I am riding down the streets of Argentina on this beautiful day, teaching people about the gospel.´ It´s pretty cool. Remember how I didn´t bring any skirts that are good with bikes though? Haha don´t worry, I bought some spandex to wear but....I still look pretty funny. Pero........está bien! I did have one funny moment on my bike when I ran into the back of Hna Jones. It´s not my fault my breaks are mal! But don´t worry, the random guy driving past at the time got a good laugh out of it.

The people here are so great. Everyone is so loving and willing to listen. It didn´t take me very long to get used to the kiss on the cheek thing. Except sometimes the men don´t know they aren´t supposed to do it to missionaries and that can get a little awkward. Haha it has only happened once and I hurried and turned my head so he ended up kissing the back of my head. Once we were riding our bikes and a man came up next to us and saying stuff (that I couldn´t understand of course) but my companion later told me that he was saying how he knew we were spies from the American government. Hahahaha I look the furthest thing from a spy....

My apartment is.....well, you know. Haha it´s good. The only problem is that it kind of smells like an outhouse. We live right above a DELICIOUS bread shop, which smells super good, so the smells balance each other out :) I blew the fuse with my hair dryer on Sunday. Ooopths. Don´t worry, we figured out how to fix it after many attempts. It involved using brooms.

Speaking of bread, the food here is ohhhh so good. I am going to get muy gorda. Let me tell you what we eat...pizza, pasta, empanadas, bread, meat, fruit, ice cream. Need I go on? Pretty much all my favorite foods in one place! And the members feed us a ton. We have lunch with a member family every day. And lunch is a huge meal. We don´t really have dinner but a lot of times people will feed us cake or mostly this really good chocolate milk that I´m pretty sure they make with whole milk. Yum.

Right now we are trying to get a lot of less actives back to church. I guess there are technically about 1,000 members, but only like 30 cometo church. No bueno! We don´t have a ward mission leader or a gospel docterine teacher, so we do both those things. We have a lot of work to do, but the ward is getting more into missionary work and so far a lot of people have started to go back. It´s going to be good.

Let me tell you about a family we are teaching that I am really excited about....la flia Baldi. It is a family with three daughters, ages 9, 3, and a few months. The wife, Graciela, is a less active member but she wants to come back to church and have her husband and daughter get baptized. On Saturday we had a ´noche de hogar´ with them and a family in the ward. It was so great! I was able to talk about Joseph Smith a little and recite the first vision and then at the end, I committed the husband, Pablo, and daughter, Oriena to get baptized on September 25! They came to church on Sunday as a family and we are having another family night tonight with another family from the ward. They are such a cute family and I´m excited that they are progressing.

What else...? The weather is perfect right now...mmm. I wish it stayed like this forever. I haven´t bought rainboots but I got a coat. Hna Jones thinks I can get some boots from some other Hnas from our mission. My mission president and wife are SO NICE. She is learning Spanish too, so she can relate to us. They are both very loving and caring.

It sounds like you are all doing well! Tell McKenna I felt bad I couldn´t call her back :( Apparently it eats a ton of minues off my calling card to call from a pay phone. My 500 minutes was only like an hour. I tried calling her back but it told me I didn´t have enough minutes. Sounds like the shower was a lot of fun! I can´t wait to see the little guy. Thanks for your emails! This is probably the best way to communicate.

Well this is super long and I have to go, but know that I am just happy and content and learning and I love you!

Hermanita Hill

Argentina!

Please check for Rachel's new address on her profile in order to send your letters or packages. :)