It's getting Chilaaaayyyy in Chillllleeee!

Holy cow where does the time go. Because I HAVE NO IDEA!!

WHAT A WEEK FAMILY. THE CHURCH IS TRUE AND THE GOSPEL IS GREAT AND JESUS LIVES HALELUYA!!

THIS WEEK WAS JUST A DANG DARN GOOOOOODDIIIIEEEEEEE!!!

We be teaching, we be preaching, and miracles be a working. Let me tell you the miracles be flooowwwwiiinnn in like a river and it's so grand!!

This week was all about finding new people to teach. We have been having a hard time helping our investigators progress so we made it a goal to find new investigators and help other menos activos and it worked and it was just so great!!

So this week I had to lead my sector for the first time and I was so terrified. Because I don't know how to talk to people and yeah it's a lil scary and I was afraid that my relationship with the members and our investigators wasn't that strong because I haven't been able to say much. But don't worry because it was stinking awesome!

Before this day started I said one heck of a prayer and begged Heavenly Father to help in every way possible. Then after I tried to use about every ounce of faith I had in my body I just went forward and promised myself to follow every single prompting or thought I had and see where it took me. 

....and HOLY COW I AM FOR SURE DOING THAT FROM NOW ON!

I'm telling you all this day was incredible. We found so many people who needed the good news of the gospel and it was because the spirit was there helping me every single step of the way. I was able to lead the sector and talk to EVERYONE and words were just put into my mouth. The hermana who was with me ends her mission in 2 weeks and she said that sometimes when I would talk to people she swore we had been out the same time!! and it was just so awesome!! But let me just tell you.. I know it wasn't me at all!!! I swear the man in the sky loves me so much and I just feel His love and his help everyday. I didn't really understand when people would talk about how the spirit speaks for you but now, DO I. 

We taught this one investigator this week and we found him when we were on exchanges and he is just so awesome. He loves to talk things out and have discussions and I just love that about him. So when we taught him this week I was a little nervous because he knows a lot about the Catholic church and about the bible. But we started talking to him and in the beginning  there was a bit of contention but then I remembered something that Elder Bednar said in one of his talks that whenever you don't know what to do or if the conversation is going south, always open your mouth and start talking about Christ and the spirit will guide you. So that's what I did. I'm actually pretty sure I closed my eyes, started talking and the words were flowing and he listened and I know he felt the spirit.

Man I LOVE THE SPIRIT. It's the one thing I've learned while being here is how important it is to have the spirit with me always. We need to do everything we can to be worthy of it because it is the main way our Father in Heaven is able to talk to us.

I'm so grateful for this amazing thing I have in my life and I am so grateful to know the goodness of the gospel.

It's just so dang good!

So live it

love it

and I promise you'll be able to find happiness. Because through our Savior.... it's how we find it!!!

The mission rocks everyone. I love this gospel and I know with all my soul it's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have an amazing week all!! and kneel down and pray and read your scriptures:)

okay... that's all I got folks.

stay tuned.

Hermana Hilburn

Chilean's love their grillin!

It's already starting to get cold

One Happy Camper

WELL I HOPE YOU ARE ALL FEELING AS SPIRITUALLY HIGH AFTER THAT AMAZING CONFERENCE WE JUST HAD AND IF YOU ARENT. GO PARTAKE OF THOSE WORDS THAT OUR LOVELY PROPHET AND APOSTLES SPOKE BECAUSE YES, THEY ARE JUST THAT AWESOME.

Well I literally could spend my whole letter talking about conference because it was just so awesome but I won't and I'll leave it up to you all to listen to the good words for yourselves and enjoy the good words of the gospel. 

Holy cow I love this church, the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our prophet and BEING A MISIONARYYYYY HALLLLAAAA!

ahhhhhhh but really it's been a goody!! I'M JUST ONE HAPPY CAMPER!!

So this week was just great. No crazy things happened but it's just been good. One thing I learn every single day on the mission is the church is true and we have everything the Savior wants for us in this gospel. Yeah the people aren't perfect, but the wonderful teachings are!!! Especially the plan of salvation. This week was the week of the plan for me. We taught this lesson 4 different times and each time was just awesome sauce. Each time we taught this lesson it went so completely different than the last because the spirit was leading and guiding us the whole time!!I It was just so good.

So we taught our cute friend Yolli(who has down syndrome and cancer) and her mom a little more about the plan of salvation and how much our Father in Heaven loves each one of us. And let me just tell you all right now our Father in Heaven loves all of us, but holy cow does he love Yoli. This sweet girl is sent straight from Heaven and was put into a imperfect body. But we talked about how awesome it's going to be when we are all resurrected and chilling up in the Celestial Kingdom and how we are going to party it up. Actually it was mostly my comp saying this stuff because Yoli sometimes doesn't like me that much quote ¨"because I'm white" but it's okay because every time we visit her she always forgets this by the end of the visit and gives me a big hug and a kiss and tells me she loves me. So another reason the church is true: Yoli learns to love white people! GUUY'S I'M TELLING YOU ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WHEN WE GOT THE LORD ON OUR SIDE.

Our other lesson with the plan of salvation was with Yolanda and she's awesome but just has a crapy daughter who doesn't like happiness (the gospel). Yolanda is aweosme and is searching for the truth but her dang daughter is getting in the way and getting her down. It's sad but we are praying real hard she'll come to church and see how awesome the gospel is. The other 2 other times we taught this beautiful lesson were just as awesome. I just love teaching the plan of salvation because we are just so blessed to have it. 

It terrifies me that people don't know they are able to live with their families forever. Like actuallly scares me people don't have that comfort of that knowledge. I am just so blessed and lucky and I love sharing it with all who willl listen. 

I especially love the perfect person in this plan, Jesus Christ. He is just the greatest part of the whole thing. He suffered for all of us to live and to be happy and we are able to do that through Him, who is perfect and who has made a perfect sacrfice. 

This week we had 2 noche de hogars con nuestras menos activas and we did this awesome activity where we talked about the hands of the Savior. He chose to have those permanent reminders in His hands, of the sacrifice he made for us, always and forever becaus he wants to remember us and he does!!!!

I love the quote from Garret G. Gong, "He knows all of the things we want no one else to know about us, and still loves us" THIS ROCKS HOLY COW. Our Savior and our Father in Heaven know everything about us and still call us back to them. We are welcomed at all times with open arms to receive the greatness of love they has for us. How lucky are we!

I am so grateful to be serving as a servant to my Savior who has done everything for me. Yeah it's hard but why wouldnt it be??? The atonement wasn't easy for the Savior. So I'm grateful for how hard the mission is and all that I'm learning. 

Well I love you all so much and I love my Savior. Ask me questions of things you want to know because I never know what to write about and then I just throw-up my testimony every week. But I'm sorry, that's what I love doing, because I love my Savior and I want to share with everyone.

So have a great week and go watch conference(lds.org) if you haven't because I'm telling you it's that good. 

Peace and blessings to all my beautiful people!

Hermana Hilburn

 

Hermana Hilburn with Yoli

Walking home from conference

Hermana Hilburn with her companion Hermana Peralta

Angels With Us

WELLL HOOOWWWDDYY EVERYONE!

I can't believe how fast the weeks are just flying by!!! It feels like I was emailing you all yesterday and here I am! I'm in a little Internet cafe with all people who speak Spanish and I'm just smiling and nodding my head!! 

Well this week was... interesting! Mostly good don't worry just a lil slow. It was Easter week so not a lot of people were in their homes and weren't there for there appointments but ITS ALLLL GOOOD. WE JUST KEEP ON TRUCKING RIGHT ALONG!

We did a ton of tracting and searching for new investigators, because our investigators don't feel the need to be baptized or go to church or keep the commandments... but they still want to meet with us.. yeah it's kind of confusing to me as well. haha but it's all good. So amongst all the tracting we've made a lot of new friends and met a lot of interesting people, some missionaries from other religions and some animal friends as well! We literally have 2 dogs that follow us around every single day. They wait outside the houses we are teaching, walk and tract with us and even follow us around when we are on our bikes. It is quite a funny thing, I like to think they are just some angels that are protecting us even though they are stupid disgusting dogs with flees. But it's all good. 

I had splits this week again with the Hermana's from Florida and it was a good ole time. Hermana Batty is awesome! We were tracting a ton and not having a ton of luck. Literally all day we walked and tried to find people to teach but no one was home or wanted to hear from us! So I said a little prayer for some help and it didn't come till late but it was awesome sauce. It was around 8:30 and we literally hadn't taught a single person that day when we walked by this house and saw a lady watering her plants. We started talking to her and she invited us in and it comes to be that her daughter was a convert a couple years ago. She was trying to remember what religion it was when we walked by and started talking to her. We got to share the video the church sent out about pascua and the spirit was so strong you could literally cut it with a knife. I have seen this video probably 38 times but this time was so different. The lady was full of tears and we were just so lucky to share our testimonies of Christ with her. She told us that she felt something different in her house the second that we walked in and she wanted to learn more.  I'm not sure what will happen with her but I'm so grateful for that experience.

I'm also grateful for the other sisters here who push me and are just dang awesome. Hermana Batty was so excited and ready to work even though we literally weren't able to teach until 8:30 at night. The gals here are AWESOME.

I JUST AM SO GRATEFUL FOR MY SAVIOR.

I can just feel his love so strong through me for other people here. Especially for this one gal Yoli. Yoli is an angel sent straight from heaven. She is a member who is less active with her family because she has Down Syndrome and has Leukemia.I don't really think I can correctly put into words how much our Savior loves this sweet girl. My comp and I have been visiting her about 3 times a week since I've been here and singing hymns to her and it is the most interesting experience. My heart is so full of love and pain every time I see her because I love her so much and I don't want to think about anything happening to her. Her family isn't active but her mom really understands how the plan of salvation works and we've just been helping them by singing to her because she told us that what makes her really happy. 

But yeah, being a missionary is being on a good emotional roller coaster every single day. but I love it. I love learning about the love the Savior has for all his children everyday. I love being guided by the spirit to find the people who need the gospel. And yeah a lot of people think they don't need it or look out there window and just say no go away, BUT ITS OKAY because we are searching for the ones who haven been prepared by the Lord. 

I love this gospel friends and family. I have really come to know of its truthfulness in my short 2 months that I've been here. I know that this gospel is true and I don't doubt it for a single second. 

So yeah I have officially become a preachy missionary but please forgive me because this is what I do all day. 

Well love you all and more importantly, Heavenly Father loves you

So keep the commandments

and serve others

Okay I've really done it now..

ok goodbye

Hermana Hilburn

Great Second week in the Combo!

HEYYYY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!!! ITS YOUR MISSIONARY SPEAKING AND SINGING GLAD TIDINGS OF JOY!!  haha Hope you guys had a great week!! Let me tell you about mine!!

So first of this week was a lot of meetings! We had a zone conference, ward conference and a special conference with president but all were super awesome!!

My fave was our conference with president because he and the rest of our adult missionaries are straight studs! So awesome and I love them all so much!! I got to hang out with the other sisters in the surrounding zones who I love so so much!! So yeah the conference was super great and I understood a lot of it (you know with that whole language barrier thing...) but it was ssoooooo good!! We talked a lot about bringing Christ into more of our teadching and inviting all to be baptized and to repent and it was just a conference for the books!!

This was on Thursday btw and after I did splits with a hermana in Conti which is a 2 hour bus ride away!! But man was I nervous for the split becuase,,,, the hermana has only 6 more weeks than I do in the mission and we both do not speak the language all that well.. but don't worry.. BECAUSE IT WAS SOOOO AWESOME!!!!

Conti is the prettiest place like ever!! It's this cute little beach town with hills and the ocean and great people!!! I wish I brought my camera!! It was beautiful!!! but man was I nervous!!! 2 greengas who do not know a lick of Spanish trying to convert people we don't know in a foreign country!! So as we left the house we said a prayer and Hermana Steenblick said an amazing prayer that we would just be able to communicate with people enough so they knew our purpose and they could feel the love Christ has for them. 

AND LET ME TELL YOU ALL!  PRAYER WORKS!! yeah I wasn't fluent by any means but with the Spanish we both knew we were able to communicate and it was just beautiful!! We contacted into a woman's house who was baptized into the church and was inactive and they didn't have her records!! It was just so cool!!! and there were many other awesome stories, but not time to tell them all!!

I'm just so dang grateful for that prayer!! It helped us in ways we didn't even know!! Heavenly Father sure does love his missionaries!!! 

In other news!! i got called to talk in sacrament meeting this past Sunday.. which was rough.. but I already feel super tight with my ward so I think they understood and I just smiled like crazy so I think that helped!! 

So yeah great week!! I love this gospel. 

Whenever I'm scared, or nervous, or just feeling down I just open my Book of Mormon and instantly feel better!! 

Hope you all have a great week!!!

Hermana Hilburn

Life as a Real Missionary!

HEYYYYOOOO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!

I'M HERE SAFE AND SOUND AND HAPPY AS A CLAM!!!!!!!

wow what a week!!!! 

Sad to say goodbye to the MTC but so happy to be here in Talca as a real life missionary!!! 

Okay let me just tell you a little about my first area!!! The city is called Talca but I'm in the Independencia ward and it's awesome!!! The whole place is like major suburbia!!!! Like just for miles and miles houses everywhere so you know what that means,,, SO MANY PEOPLE JUST WAITING TO RECIEVE THE BLESSED GOSPEL AND HALLLAAA I'M HERE TO SHARE!!! No but really the city looks straight out of the Cat In The Hat movie where everything is the same, because that's exactly how it is!!! So weird but the people are awesome. My house is amongst the factory and it's so cute!! It's little but new and very nice!!! There are 4 sisters that live in the house. Me and my companion and another trainer and trainee. They both speak English so it's SUPER NICE because my companion doesn't speak a lick. Not a single word. So you know... lots of sherades.

But my companion is from Peru and she is AWESOME. Her name is Hermana Peralta and she's pretty old in the missionary world!! She's got 3 months left so it looks like she's dying with me!! But I love her! She's hilarious and fun and a crazy hard worker!! 

She's a sister training leader so this week went a lil different than it was supposed to .

She had to go back to Rancagua for a meeting with the President and the other leaders, so me and the other newbie had to stay in the other sector with the hermanas there! and it was a blast!! They are so much fun and we worked all day and man it was just a blast. We mostly contacted but we got into and taught 2 houses!! So it was so great!!

Then my companion got  back at around 6 on Thursday and from then on it was work work work!! We visited some of the investigators that we have and contacted and all the missionary stuff!! It was great!!

So yeah it is awesome being here and guess what... I HAVE A BIKE AND LET ME TELL YOU IT'S A CONSTANT LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! hahah but mostly love because our sector is huge and so I am very grateful for it. But holy cow, I thought physical science was the most difficult thing I was going to do in my life but let me tell you how wrong I was.... riding a bike with a skirt is! haha but I'm already almost a  pro at it so really don't worry!!

Well being here is crazy!!! I know a lot more Spanish than I thought I did so I'm happy. I really don't know what the people are saying half the time but I know with the help of the lord I'll get there;)

I am just so grateful to be here and to be having this experience. It has really been the greatest and hardest thing I have ever done so far, but I can't wait for what's in store. I love it so much and I love my Savior and the gospel and everything!!

This Sunday we had a stake conference with all the members and Elder Russell Ballard did a broadcast and it was for everyone in Chile. I prayed so hard I would understand and I did!!!!! for the most part!!!

Well I love you all and I'm just one happy gal out here in Talca!! Have a great week and I send my love all the way from Chile!!

Hermana Hilburn

Last week In the Santiago MTC

HELLLLOOOOO EARTHLINGS. IT IS YOUR FAVORITE MISSIONARY IN THE HIZZLE COMING AT YOU HOT FROM SANTIAGO!!! AND GUESS WHAT, LAST EMAIL FROM SANTIAGO AHHHHHHHHHH

Well I can't believe another week has gone by!! The days here are long and I'm always dead by the end, but the weeks go by so fast!! Feels like I emailed y'all yesterday! That is life!!

This week was just ggrrreeeaaattt!!! We have really shifted into only Spanish days and man let me tell you, it sure is scary!! But all is well because I got the big man on my side!! This week we got 4 new teachers and they are ALLLL so awesome. The teachers here are just angels. They are so knowledgeable and awesome and I'm going to miss them so much. So they challenged us to speak only Spanish this Saturday and we all did it! Let me tell you.. it was ruff but I was able to speak all broken, terrible grammer Spanish all day Saturday without cheating! It was so cool and I proved to myself I could do it but not gonna lie it was crazy hard, but after I was like lets go. I got this. So the reason they had us do it was because we are so close to leaving!! This is my last email in the MTC because next Tuesday we will be riding buses to RANCAGUA. YEAH I KNOW CRAZY. It's so close and I'm so excited/terrified, but mostly excited. In preparation for leaving net week we are going contacting with REAL PEOPLE and going on splits with REAL MISSIONARIES THIS WEEK. I'm so excited I could just die. So we will be doing that Thursday and Friday and it's just crazy!!!!! 

Other news! My comp and I were made the sister training leaders this week!!!!! It's so cool to be in a leadership position here, even though it's really small, it's just awesome. Also it feels so good to be noticed for hard work and yeah. It's pretty cool and I'm kind of a big deal... (shout out to my Fam)haha

I am just seriously so sad I'm leaving the MTC next week. This place has been the greatest place to learn about my Savior and about how I can serve Him and His children.

We listened to this amazing talk by Elder Rasband and he said a line in his talk that hit me so hard. He said he asked all the mission presidents he interviewed, "if the testimony of Jesus Christ is burning in your blossom as much as it was when you were a missionary". Man let me just tell you that hit me. I was like, is the testimony of my Savior burning in my bosom? I know He lives, I know He loves me, but is the desire to be like him in everything I do burning within me?

Every day here I realize things I can do each day to better follow the Savior and sometimes it feels like I am so far behind and that there is no way I can live up to the man He is. But I know I can and it's through him. Man I love my savior. This morning for personal devotional I was just reading the stories of Christ in the bible and reading about all of his amazing miracles and I love it!. I love my Savior. I love His atonement. I love how through Him and only through Him I can be converted to the character of Christ.  I just love it here!!

I am so excited and happy to be here and I can feel Christ's love here with me. He is the person that lifts me up when I'm down, pushes me to be better. and through Him I can be with my family forever!!! AND I AM JUST SO EXCITED TO SHARE THAT. AHHHHHHHHHHHH I JUST GOTTA LEARN THIS LANGUAGE FIRST!!! But I know I can do it. our teachers always tell us the norte americanos always bring such a strong spirit into the lessons. They always tell us that because we don't know the language perfectly, is why we do so. Because we need all the help we can get to say what we feel and know we are always teaching with the spirit. It's AWESOME.

Well, I feel like I've completely turned into one of those preachy missionaries and I'm sorry for that but I don't really care. God is so good I just wanna talk about Him all the time, the atonement is literally the awesomest thing in the world and I want to share it's healing powers with everyone. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it's teachings has changed my life. Okay, well I love you all to the moon and back and I won't hear from you for 2 weeks because no p-day next week:( but send your prayers because I can always feel them! I love you all and I love my Savior!!!

Peace and blessings.

Hermana Hilburn

District 7

Amazing week! Meeting A Prophet of God.

HELLLLLOOOOOO FRIENDS AND FAMILY BACK IN AMERICA!!!!! ITS YOUR FAVE MISSIONARY COMING AT YOU HOT FROM CHILLLLEEEE THE GREATEST PLACE ON EARTH. Wow I have absolutely no idea where to start because this week was by far the greatest one since I've been here. Keep reading cuz this letter is about to be hot fire. 

Let me begin with giving you a little insight on how my mornings go every single day. So those of you who know me know I hate all dogs in the world except my own. (shout out Coop, I love you). But in Chile, there are nasty dogs everywhere you walk. So we go to a park every morning to excersize and I swear the dogs there have an underground club and they all talk about me and plot their next attack. So my comp and I decided we wanted to be fit humans and run in the mornings. Bad idea! We started running and this group of terrifying dogs straight up started chasing me and I just couldn't handle myself. I swear something in my body went crazy and I just sprinting so fast to find shelter. But it was probably not missionary approved shelter because I grabbed an elder and threw him in front of me. I swear the whole park went silent, because I touched an arm of an elder. It's okay because I repented and the atonement is real. But it's all good!! I didn't die and the dogs I think are now afraid of me. I also prayed so hard that they would break up there little gang and leave me alone and let me tell you prayers are answered!!! Even though it's a dumb small thing I know my Heavenly Father watches out for me and the other missionaries. There has already been so many instances where I've really seen that.

So I also had this amazing experience this week. 

Friday was kind of a rough day. I just felt so discouraged and down and for those who really know me, whenever I am down about even 1 thing, my world is falling apart. But I decided I was just gonna push through and everything was going to be okay. So around 7:30 some elders came in and told us Elder Bednar... yeah ELDER BEDNAR AND APOSTLE OF GOD! was in the chapel next door. So of course me being the nosy person I am had to go find out for myself the truth. So we walked out and saw body guards outside and nice cars all lined up around the CCM.

So I FREAKED OUT because I wanted to meet him so bad but I knew we weren't really supposed to be thinking about it because we had to teach an investigator. So I just suggested we all say a prayer and study for our investigators and whatever happened would be Gods will.. So my comp and I did just that. We studied and planned for our investigator and we taught him and the spirit was so strong and the lesson went so well. He was so receptive and it was so awesome to teach a lesson like that. Then after we were done we went back to our classroom and started to plan for the next day. As we were planning I heard our cute mission president's wife yell, "who wants to meet Elder Bednar?"

I JUMPED out of my chair so fast and ran over to her and she told us we needed to be quite reverent and that we might not get to meet him because he had so much to do. But I was soooooo okay with that, cause there was still a small chance we would. We were all waiting on the ledge just getting ready to watch him drive away and his car pulled up to us and he got out and started shaking alllllll of the missionaries hands. YES ALL OF OUR HANDS.

I literally can't even describe how cool it was becasue the second he got out of the car, I was hit with the spirit. You could just feel his goodness and it was so undeniable. He started shaking all of the Latinos hands and he wasn't really saying much but when he got to me. He stopped(probably because he was like, why is this girl crying so hysterically) and then he said ¨"Hermana Hilburn" (I'm like basically struck dumb at this point), "where's home for you?" and I literally threw up, "California" and then he was like "oh, what part?" and then I was like "Granite Bay, Roseville, Rocklin, Loomis" every area around us trying to relate with him and he said "no way!!! I'm going there next month!!" and I just was smiling so hard. The whole time we were talking I was shaking his hand, so I was a little nervous I was violating the don't touch the elders rule, but President was watching and it was an apostle so I assumed it was good: Man I just can't even describe to you how incredible it was!

I just know my Heavenly Father loves me and knows me. This man of God was so in tune with spirit he could just tell by just looking at me that I needed his love. I know that he is a prophet of God and ahhhh it was so amazing meeting him.

I know this gospel is true and I am so grateful for the opportunity to share it with others. It has blessed my life so much I cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am. I know Christ suffered in the garden for all the sins, afflictions and pains of the world. I find so much comfort in knowing my Savior knows exactly how I feel. He knows me and I love him.

Well I just want to leave with you my motto of the week:

"Be the kind of missionary that when you wake up in the morning, Satan goes, "oh crap she's up"

So excited to be here and I love you all so much. Have a great week everyone and remember how much I love you!!!

Hermana Hilburn

All of Hermana Hilburn's Roomies