JUNE 8: SANDY BROTHERS

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've never forgotten that lesson! Fear doesn't invite the Spirit. You can't have faith, and fear in your heart at the same time - they're opposites. So that's been something we've really been trying to focus on, having faith in every moment, despite what the situation may be.
Shoutout paizão. Can't believe blud is already engaged 🤧 We had a great opportunity to test that out! Vinicius, a friend of ours, had his baptism marked for this Sunday. His mom got bent out of shape over some technical things, and we were afraid the baptism would be canceled. But we strived to have confidence and faith that all would work out. And it did! The moment passed, and she gave him the okay to be baptized. She was even there present to watch! Vinicius is incredible - he's understood so well all of the lessons and wants to serve a mission! You'll be hearing more of him in the futu
And on top of all that, I got to do a division with the legendary Elder Wimmer this week! Gallll this guy's great, if you want a lesson in how to teach with boldness and gentleness simultaneously, Wimmer's your guy. We went to Alta High together! Ain't that crazy? Apparently we had the same seminary teacher, who knew! Him and I got to catching up a bit and cooking on some stuff we'll hit after the mission. Sandy brothers 4 life 🦾🥶
Love you all so much and I'm grateful for you all! The church is true - live it and you'll come to that same testimony! ELDER HILLSTEAD

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"If you want me to, I will"

Image
WHAT A WEEK       Holy cow you guys, I feel like I just got done running a marathon and here I'm finally catching my breath. This week was straight up nutso, so much stuff went down but it all ended well. You guys remember that whole "miracle marriage" thing that went down at the beginning of month? So this week was the follow up appointment, legal signing of the marriage document, and the agended baptism of both Pedro and Amanda. We knew this week was gonna have a tonna stuff, so we started Tuesday running, and didn't stop til yesterday night. Let's toss the introduction into the fire already and get to the REAL story.       Alright alright so first part of the week is that we decided to meet with Pedro and Amanda EVERY day this week, to chat about how they were feeling, and generally accompany the two of them. Wednesday night we pull up, start chatting, and out of nowhere Amanda drops a dreaded combination of words. She explained to us that she wanted to ...
Read more

GET BACK!!

Image
Whaaaats up everybody how's it going?? Happy to see all your smiling faces here again, same time same place reading another piece of Hillstead mail... I hope you're smiling anyway. But guys this last week was a real whooper, tons o' stuff happened and I've got pictures in case anyone wants proof. But enough of the appetizer let's get to the main freakin dish already        We had a Mission Tour this last week! This gentlemen named Elder Eddy (member of the 70) rolled up to the mission to talk with all of us and it was great. He spoke about the importance of us staying focused on our purpose, and doing the right stuff for the right reason, and my oh my was it a message for the ages. One of those messages you hear and you're ready to hit the streets and work hard as tar. So yeah super cool to meet him and his wife, they bought ice cream for the whole Macapá Zone and I'm totally not salty about it it's whatever   but ya that was for sure a highlight of the ...
Read more

Hey Bulldog

Image
Yo yo yo peeps how goes it. This week was a good one! Majority was just a-workin and a-learnin, so lemme think. I'll start off the email with all the outline other stuff that this week contained and then get into the actual content. Outlining Information ️     - Saw a beetle the other day that was rather large   maybe it was John      - Tried Belém's Sushi and was mad questionable   tasted fire but my stomach hated me after      - How are the clouds here always so beautiful every single day   they're always crying though      - The fam's traveling in Australia people, pray for them        Really tried to use as many emojis as I could for maximum entertainment there. But now that that's out of the way, this week was a bunch of just the good ol grind, and the works coming along really well! We have a ton of super faithful folks progressing, the ward is strengthening and getting more an...
Read more