Elder Jacob Hillstead

MEEERRY   CHRIIISTMAS  everybody! I hope everyone's been full of holliness and jolliness and other -inesses that brings joy to all. There's something so happy about this time of year, and I don't think it's any sort of coincidence that it's the season we commemorate the Birth of Jesus Christ. This email is going to be pretty brief because I've got other top secret Christmas duties I've got to attend to, but I wanted to take this opportunity to share my thoughts and testimony about the Birth of Jesus Christ, and my gratitude for his life.       This week especially I've been more proud than ever to wear the name of Jesus Christ everywhere that I go. The time that we celebrate the birth of the only begotten, the son of God who gave all that he had for us with his time here on Earth, that we may be happy for eternity. So what does the Birth of Jesus Christ mean to me?       To me, the story of the nativity is a summary of his life here on Earth. Jesu...

Twas the week before Christmas and all through Brazil, not a creature was grinding, 'cept for The Hill. Welcome back yet again folks! The poetic prelude is no lie, the grind continues here in Brazil. This week especially was incredible, I saw tons of miracles and there were a lot of high points. I'll keep the introduction short and get into the meat of this Christmas turkey, or in other words, what all went on this week! Try to count how many times this email I say the word Christmas .  The Christmas Conference '24       This week, we had our Mission Christmas party, which was a time and a half. We hit the temple first thing in the morning, and when asked about who would be baptized and who would be baptizing, President Ribolla informed us that he was going to be the only one doing the baptizing. He was in the font for like 2 and a half hours, and baptized each and every one of the missionaries by name. It was legendary. Afterwards we went to the institute center, ha...

Greetings everybody! You mean to tell me another weeks already passed? Yeesh man time flies when you're on the Lord's time it seems. But I was going to say this week was another one of lots of highs and lows, but I think that's just going to be a consistent theme with every week here. The Portuguese words of this week are "unha encravada" which... if you wanna know the meaning you can translate it. But basically I've got this darn unha encravada that's been dealing me and my dear toe all sorts of pain. Luckily I think we got it solved this week! Twas not the funnest process, but I'm grateful for any character growing opportunity I get handed, and that's no lie. Speaking of characters, this week was full of amazing people! I think the highlight was just how many great new people we met this week, completely by random. Having the mission-unique experience of meeting people the way that I get to is an incredible experience. I've gotten to meet so ...

  What is going on everyone, yet another week has passed down here in the 'Zil (sorry Elder Jarvis), and all around it was a pretty dang good week! Thanksgiving was a great day, and now it's December and there's that sweet Christmas charm in the air. I spent the last couple of days shoveling snow from the front of our house and- JUST kidding, you guys I'm just playing it doesn't get cold here. I think some people don't even know how to spell the word cold. I'm pretty confident the only thing that'll be white about my Christmas this year is my skin color in relation to everyone else's. Anyways though, festivities aside, let's get into the highlights of the week!      Portuguese is coming the heck along. I've started leading some discussions which is spicy awesome, even though they're not the most complex. I gotta give a shoutout to Elder McLane for being a beast Spiritual Wingman. To my knowledge, regular wingmen are supposed to hype you u...

  Fala a gente! How are the friends and family doing this November 18th? At the moment, me and that old orange cat Garfield have some beef because he hates Mondays and I love them, because I get to talk to all of you! But this week was a real solid one, lotsa highs and lotsa lows. I've been having a lot of talks with people in Portuguese each day, and I've also been having a lot of talks with the man in the mirror. As my good friend Michael put it, "If you wanna make the World a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change," which segways into my theme for this email. The Portuguese word of this week is "Mudar," which means ' To Change .' I feel like I'm changing a lot these days, but this week especially I read something that I think very likely will change the future of my Mission, and my behavior each day.     This week I stumbled across the talk/essay,  "The Fourth Missionary,"  by Lawrence Cobridge, which I'd he...