Hermana Hilton 2015-2016: Week 67: Mija is going to TEXAS!!!!

We have transfers this coming week and there is going to be a lot of changes happening here in OKC. Hermana Medeiros is getting sent to the most southern area in the mission. Wichata Falls Texas!!!! My baby is going to Texas. I am really excited for her. Elder Barry and I both get our greenies tomorrow. We are both really excited. It has been a crazy crazy week as always. Missionary work will never leave you bored.

Monday: Monday night I got my trainers call. Elder Van Halder called me and told me that I would be training. woohoo! I am so excited. It will be good. I am really sad that I have to say goodbye to Hermana Medeiros, but I am excited for the adventures that are about to come.

Tuesday: Ok. biggest miracle of my life. I don't know if yall remember Genoveva. She is the little 9 year old girl that got baptized about a year ago. Well I love this girl with all my heart. So after she was baptized craziness in her family went down and she ended up getting taken from her mom and sent to live with her dad in Texas. We had lost all contact with her. I haven't heard anything about her for about 10 months. So now flash forward to Tuesday. I am sitting in the car with the Ochoa family and the elders when a Utah number calls. A little confused I answered. All the voice on the other end said was, "I did a bad thing." I knew instantly that it was Hermana Snowden!!!!!!! I got soo excited. She then told me that she had found information on Genoveva. I instantly started crying. Snowden told me that she had Hope's (the mom) number, Carlitos' (the brother) number, the dads name and the address where she is living!!! I couldn't hold back the tears. (at this point everyone in the car is dead silent as I cry my eyes out. I'm pretty sure they thought someone had died for the first little bit because all I could say was, "are you serious?") I have never been so happy. I wanted to drop everything right then and go to Texas and find her. We are going to find her. I am going to get to see my little Genoveva again. thank you Snowden for calling :) It pretty much made my whole mission! I know we will see her again :)

Wednesday: I had trainers meeting on Wednesday. That is a meeting with President Walkenhorst to help us prepare to train a new missionary. It was SO good. Everything that was said was perfect for me. He stated how each of us has "our bag of bricks". The bag of bricks is our troubles, doubts, pains, sicknesses, weaknesses, worries, and everything else. He said as a trainer we forget about our bag of bricks and pick up our companions and help them carry it. As we help others carry their bricks we can trust that the Savior will carry our bag of bricks. I loved it. The Savior is there every step of the way to help us with our load. He wants us to. As missionaries we forget about ourselves and get to work. that is our life. I was able to reflect a little bit and I have seen that what President Walkenhorst said is true. The Savior really helps us.

Thursday: A good good day that was very very windy!!! We biked about 2 miles to an apt ant 11 and then biked 2 miles home. On the way home some members stopped us and took us to lunch. I had my first Gyro. Then we planned for next week. Dinner with Rosa and Miguel. We had flautas, Elder Barry's favorite! then we biked to the Deleon's house. We taught little Adriana and Gabby the 10 commandments. So much fun. then we biked south about a mile and a half in the strongest wind I have ever seen in my life!!! We were biking into the wind too. It was super hard. We biked to a lesson. The lesson was good. It was with the Luiz family. They are from Provo Utah!! so they already new a lot about Mormons and had been to church over there before, they aren't baptized though... they were little angles and at the end of our lesson they threw our bikes in the back of their Yukon xl (yes they really drive a Yukon xl) and drove us home.

Friday: Exchanges! It was my fifth day in English land. It was quite interesting. no one we tried was home, but we sure tried a lot of people! I went with Sister Jensen who goes home tomorrow. And guess what. She is from Weiser Idaho!!! yup! we figured out that her grandma used to give my mom piano lessons when she was little. It's such a small world. It was fun. so shout out to all our Weiser Idaho folks!! Love yall!

Saturday: I was back with Hermana Medeiros. it was so good to be with her again. So I want to tell yall about an awesome lesson we had with a lady named Iris Garcia. Oh man. Golden. We walked in and sat down. We chit chatted for a little bit. we laughed, I spilt my water all over her carpet, then we started the lesson. She was so open and so prepared to hear our message. She told us that she was abandoned with her brothers as a kid in El Salvador and that her and her brothers went to a shelter where they met missionaires for the first time. She said she remembers them helping her and her brothers and having fun with them. Then she grew up and moved to Maryland where she worked cleaning a Marriott hotel. She said that every room she cleaned she had to make sure that there was a Book of Mormon in one of the drawers. She said that she always wanted to read one, but that they were always in English. She told us that she believed everything that we told her and that she would read the book of Mormon. It was a really cool miracle.

Sunday: Sunday I received major answers to prayers. Earlier in the week I was reading
the consecrated missionary talk. There part where it talks about our "old Goliaths" and it really hit me hard. We all have our "goliaths" that we battled with before we came out on our missions. I do NOT want to go home and be conquered by the same Goliaths that haunted me when I was home. I want them to go away and I know that now is the perfect time to gain the tools to conquer them. To be able to do that I must change my nature. Like we talked about in Trainers meeting I must change my thoughts to be the thoughts of the Lord. That's not easy. I found Proverbs 16:3. It says: "Commit‍ thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts‍ shall be established." As we work and think of others our thoughts become more like His. A perfect time to align our will and thoughts with the Fathers is in the sacrament. I don't feel like I fully understand and use the sacrament for all it's worth. That is something that I really want to learn to understand better, the sacrament. On Sunday I went into sacrament meeting looking for help to know what to do with all of this that I have said. Since the Lord is perfect, he answered my prayers. The talks that sunday were about the sacrament. I learned so much from the faithful women that spoke. I think my favorite thing that was said was that we committed when we were baptized to take upon us the name of Christ. So durning the sacrament we renew that commitment. Hermana Martinez said "It's as if Christ were asking you, what have you done with my name this week?" That is a question I can always ask myself. I am going to do more good with Christ's name this week.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll talk to you next week!

Hermana Hilton

Hermana Medeiros te quiero tan mucho. I love you so much! It's sad to say goodbye, but you are going to love your new area so much. These have been some of my most favorite transfers ever. you have a special spot in my heart. I honestly will never be able to fully express my love for you!!!! Work hard and have fun! #onwardandupward

Dinner with Reymundo! This kid is pretty awesome. he leaves for BYU Hawaii next week. It will be sad to see him go. shout out to Uncle Red! see ya on the flip side

Ribs at the Guerreros!!! halla!

This is another lady we are teaching. We were teaching her son Erik, but she keeps answering the door. One day she asked us to sit down and we talked about the gospel for about an hour. It was really good!

This is Rosa! yup we are still teaching her. We had an amazing lesson with her. The only problem was she was kinda drunk. so We are praying that what we talked about she will be able to remember. and for the record, I hate the smell of Corona.