Elder Jacob Hillstead

MINHA SEMANA - This week was another good one! Elder drink Coke & I set out on the mission to find some sweet folks this week and the Lord blessed us to find some hecka neat people. One of these folks was Wesley and his brother Max! This super sick returned missionary recommended us to their family, and they ended up being super interested and wanna go to church a ton. Sadly they couldn't make it this week cause they stayed up boogying (literally, they had a dance comp until 2am) so they were too pooped Sunday morning. Still though, so grateful to meet such great humans every day! For the rest o' the semana, we unfortunately had to have a viking funeral for an Elder named Elder Comito 😔✊️. Y'all this kids a trooper, since I met him he's had some crazy health problems, but he's never ever complained about em. They were making it so that he was having a really hard time concentrating and working though, so President made the decision for him to go home to get be...

What a great week! I got to do a division with Elder Lee. Automatically great week. Him and I met way back in his kindergarten days of Macapá. The guy arrived on the mission speaking fluent Portuguese, 10/10 on his charisma points, 3 nobel peace prizes under his belt due to his unmatched knowledge in physics, and knows every scripture out there like the back of his hand. He'll never tell you that though - he's way too humble. We'd already done 2 divisions in Macapa, and it was so cool to see his progress during this 3rd! He's a stud. Gonna be a great Mission President here in 4 months. You guys the world cup has arrived! For Brasil's first game, President let us cheer for them live! First time watching sports in almost 2 years, and definitively first time watching soccer in 20 years. The game was a nail-biter and Elder Babcock and I were hooting and hollering here and there, cheering for Brasil to win! They ended up 1-1. We'll fast for things to go better t...

There are at times weeks in a mans life where the flicks to news ratio is uneven. This is one of those weeks, I have lots of photos but little updates hahaha. I'll still give what I can though! NEWS: - The Pismel family are like a family to me, anybody who serves here in Castanhal has gotta meet them. Such good people - Elder Babcock & I are making a super good team! He's an amazing dude, great example of how excitement changes the work. Very outward-focused, very funny, very big heart and a genuine worry for others' well-being. One of the strongest dawgs I've met here on the mish - We did some sweet service this week! Brick moving and plastic panel shredding, shoutout e. Babcock for seeing an opportunity to serve & going for it - Ran a division in Bragança w/ Elder Sandquist (Sandwich) and Elder Jones! These guys are hilarious. Super good to see the city of Baguda again and run it with these guys, such studs in this Zone - We had our Thursday activity again!...

Hello again everybody! This week we had another Zone Leader Conference, a division with some Salinas studs, and had the baptism of our good pal Vinicius! At this month's conference, we talked allll about having the guts to declare the Lord's Gospel without any fear! Not being embarrassed or afraid when being bold in talking about the truthfulness of the Gospel. As we talked about this topic during the conference, I remembered back to my very first day in Brasil, when I met my trainer Elder McLane. This guy is incredible, but he loved to take advantage of the fact I was new to Brasil and freak me out! He would say stuff like: Elder. Be careful. This is the more dangerous area in the whole entire mission. Or Elder. Watch your back. This here food is called Maniçoba, and it kills a bunch of Americans. But anytime he would say something like that to get me started, he would always finish with, "but Elder, don't be afraid. Fear does not invite the Spirit." I...

You guys this last week was INCREDIBLE! The Lord has blessed us with the opportunity to meet and to warm so many amazing people. Let me introduce you to some of them The Woman with the greyish hair and pink pants is named Rosa! We found her by contacting, and she ended up being very interested in our message! She's already been to church, an activity, and has pals in the church! She makes us food each time we visit her and is very observational (she saw that I had a whole in my sock when we visited her and bought me a new pair of socks hahaha) This gentlemen here is Vinicius! The legend in the red shirt, and a recent-convert's boyfriend. He's been to church twice, goes to seminary almost nightly, and has a genuine desire to be apart of the church! There's a high chance he'll be baptized either next week or the week after, which will be an incredible event! Next up we have Neto, who's the young man on the right. He's amazing, and so genuine! He has a lot o...

Well folks! I don't have time to write out a real great email today, but you'll be pleased to hear that Elder Babcock and I are staying together for another Hall of Famer! Sure to be a legendary next 6 weeks. But I love you all a ton, I'll drop more info next week! Enjoy the flicks 😎 Elder Hillstead

Hey everybody and good morning! Another week passed and went and we had some real good times, let's get right into it! On Tuesday, this real sweet couple took us out to lunch! We knocked on their door, and they said "oh we were just leaving to get lunch, come with us!" Apparently the mom's an inactive member of the church, and she whipped up lunch for the missionaries all the time back in the day. Super sweet people! We went to Belém for a Multi-Zone conference this week! We got there early, so we asked the man upstairs if we could grab a bite to eat at the Ver-o-Peso and he said we could! Super fun to be there with the boys, felt like it was a miniature guys trip hahaha The Multi-Zone conference was so good! Me and Elder Babcock both commented afterward about how the Spirit was present there, and how good all the trainings were. The guys from the staff are unmatched, love all of them. We also had our FIRST in-person Zone Conference! We decided to make it Chr...