Week 3--Provo Missionary Training Center

Ola!

    Wow this week was crazy! It went by so fast though which is super nice but super scary. In three weeks from today, I'll be on a plane to Portugal! I'm so excited though.
Last Monday we got to teach real people! Most of them were return missionaries who had served in either Brazil or Portugal. It was kinda scary.. But I thought it went well! We definitely learned A LOT about how to better our teaching. 
     So on Tuesdays we have an evening devotional and guess who came! Elder Renlund!! He's one of the twelve apostles of the Lord in our day. Just as Christ called apostles, we too have the blessing of having them. Everyone was freaking out! And the devotional was recorded and sent to all the MTC's in the world! I was in the choir and I think Sister Nance and I might have gotten some air time ;) He talked about how you constantly need to feed your faith so that it can grow. "Faith without works is dead, being alone." I loved his talk. 
Wednesday was pretty exciting too! We had about 300 new missionaries come to the MTC and my district got to host them. That means we stood at the sidewalk, met the new missionaries, and then took them to get all their stuff, find their room, and then drop them off at their classes. It was so much fun! I met a Sister who is coming to Georgia! Her name is Sister Sermon! Look out for her! Then Wednesday night, Sister Nance and I and the two district leaders got to meet our new Brazilian missionaries. We have 10 new ones. They're so awesome and their going to be amazing in Brazil! Some of them are going to Manaus, Natal, Recife, and some weird place I can't pronounce. This Wednesday we get 9 more Brazilians and the next week we get 30 more!! CRAZY!
    We have an Indian elder in our zone named Elder Kartegayen. He's hilarious!! But he's super down to earth and won't deal with anyone who is being a baby. He was hosting someone on Wednesday who was crying as he was walking away from his family. Elder K. turned to him and yelled "Are you serious?!" (read with an Indian accent). The elder quickly stopped crying and they were silent for a while when they walked. Then Elder K. randomly turned to him and said "Don't drink the orange juice." (again, read with an Indian accent). We just about died when he told us that. He's the best. 
Sister Nance and I have realized that knowing Spanish is a curse but also a blessing. It's great to be able to understand what people are saying and to be able to fall back on it if we don't know a word in Portuguese, but it really messes us up. I always say the word "ajudar" as "ayudar" like in Spanish. It's super confusing. 
    I love our teachers! Irmao Read always calls (sisters) us "anjos" which means angels. It's super sweet of him but when he first called us that, we thought he was calling us "anos" which is years.. We were so confused.
    We had a donut eating contest last week. I lot. Big time. I'm just not that fast at eating my donuts I guess. Sister Nance won which was awesome! But now we're going on a diet so we stop eating junk. That's one of our goals this week. 
So we got some pretty big news yesterday. We were at choir practice and were told that we were getting a new song and that we would be working for two weeks on it. That was strange because we usually just work on it for a week and then get a new one. Brother Eggett (choir director) told us that it was a brand new song written by someone super important and that we, the MTC choir, would be debuting it. He also said that this person's grandchildren would be singing with us. I don't remember how he said it but he somehow snuck it out there that ELDER BEDNAR had written the song and that we would be performing it next Tuesday. Then he said since his grandchildren would be singing here, ELDER BEDNAR WILL BE SPEAKING NEXT WEEK! We're all crazy excited!!! (Elder Bednar is another one of the Lord's apostles and one of my favorite speakers). I think I'm going to die and go to heaven! 
    So many great things are happening here at the MTC! I'm kinda sad that we're half way done but I'm super excited to see what Portugal will bring!

Eu amo voces!
Sister Hillam

If anyone want to send me letters, you can just go to DearElder.com! It's free and you don't have to pay for postage!

Elder Renlund--Apostle came to visit the MTC

Elder Comeau fell asllep so Elder Lemmon drew around him.

Portugal's "finest" elders.  But really, they're awesome!

We saw Sister Risk from ou BYU YSA Ward!

We got pranked last night.  Eerything, and I mean everything, was upside down!

Week 2--Provo Missionary Training Center

Dear Friends and Family,

I love the MTC (Missionary Training Center)! There have definitely been some rough times but it's in the hard times when you can really see the Lord's hand in small and tender mercies.

At the MTC, we have a completely full schedule. Here's what it looks like:

6:30am- wake up

7:00am- study

7:30am- breakfast

8-11:35am- class/study

11:35-12:15pm- lunch

12:15-3:35pm- class/study

3:45-4:45pm- exercise

5:15-6:00pm- dinner

6-9:30pm- class/study

10:30pm- sleep

It's definitely super busy but we get so much done. To think that we've learned how to carry on decent conversations in Portuguese in about a week is crazy!! The Lord is definitely helping us!

At the MTC, we learn how to teach others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they let us "practice" teaching people who are already members. Our first investigator (someone who wants to learn about our church) was Marcos. He's awesome!! This upcoming week we have 2 new investigators, Nelson and Campeao (champion in Portuguese). We're so excited to meet and teach them!

At the MTC, we are organized into zones and districts. A zone is usually a group of missionaries that are all speaking the same language. Our zone is called Zone 20 and we're all Portuguese speakers. Then districts are smaller groups of missionaries who are a part of that zone. It's usually the missionaries you have class with. We're District 20B. Our district is AWESOME! It's just me, Sister Nance, and then four Elders. They're all such great missionaries. One of the Elders, Elder Comeau, is a competitive food eater which is kinda ironic because "comeu" (if you take out the "a") means "he ate" in Portuguese. We about died when we heard about that!

This Wednesday, we gain 10 new missionaries in our zone and 8 of them are sisters. That's going to make it crazy for Sister Nance and I because we're the Sister Training Leaders. That means we're in charge of all the sisters in our zone, all 17 of them! We're so excited to meet all the new missionaries!

I just wanted to share this scripture with ya'll. It's from the Book of Mormon. It's Alma 29:9-

"9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy."

I really love this scripture because this is exactly the kind of person that I would want to become. I want to glory in the Lord and not in myself. I know why I'm going to serve the people of Portugal and I'm so excited to help them come closer to Christ and find happiness.

This week, I really learned that it's important to turn outward and help others when you're sad or struggling. I know that doing that has help me a lot.

Have a great week everyone! So grateful for all of you and the wonderful people you are!

Amor,

Sister Hillam

"Hillam" in Hindi!  We have an Elder from India who speaks almost 10 languages

                                 

Distric 20B

                                   

Sister Nance and Sister Hillam

                                   

District 20B: Elder Robinson, Elder Leatham, Sister Hillam, Sister Nance, Elder Comeau, Elder Lemmon

                                   

Sister Nance and Sister Hillam

I was feeling artsy, Provo Temple in the background

Beautiful picture after we had worked out--my Tdap immunization!

Week 1--Provo Missionary Training Center

Ola familia e amigos!

Sorry, I can't do any accents on this computer.. It takes too long.

Thanks for all the letters and emails! We're actually getting a new mailing box but I'll let you know about the number when my district leader tells us.

So I'm loving the MTC!! I've never worked so hard in my life but it's great!! My companion, Sister Nance, is awesome! We work really well together and we're learning Portuguese super fast! Portuguese is such a beautiful language! Especially the continental Portuguese. Also, I don't think I've prayed in English since Thursday.. Kinda cool how fast they teach us stuff here.

So we have an awesome zone and district! Our zone is all the Portuguese speaking missionaries. That's about 24 of us I think. 13 of us are the "continentals" and the other 11 are the "brasileiros" or at least that's what we call each other. So all the continentals used to be one district but there were so many of us that they split us into two districts. Now we have four elders and Sister Nance and I together. It's awesome! We also got a new teacher. He served his mission in Cabo Verde but he's been teaching so many brasileiros that he has a Brazilian accent now. He's been trying to switch back to continental for us which is super awesome of him. He's a great teacher. So out of the 13 continentals, only four of us are going to Porto, me, Sister Nance, Elder Leatham, and Elder Kartegean (sp?). Elder K. is from India!! He's awesome! His family is Mormon and one day, he was taking a test and had a strong prompting that he should serve a mission. So he walked out of his test, called his dad, and started his papers. He was supposed to leave in January but because of visa problems, he had to wait about six months!! Crazy!! He knows like eight languages so Portuguese is coming pretty easy to him. He's not in our district but he'll be with us in Porto! What a blessing!

Yesterday, we went to the MTC Choir rehearsal with Brother Eggett. He's awesome!! There was one time when he was trying to say "I love you" in as many different tones as he can and some Elder shouted "I love you" back so Brother Eggett said "And I love you too random citizen! We died!!

Last night at devotional we heard from the President Ostergard from the Provo City Center Temple. He told us to focus on the light in our lives and to really understand our purpose which is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." It was great!

Then we got to watch the "Character of Christ" devotional by Elder Bednar. Oh how that humbled me... I realized that there are so many ways I can improve myself to become more like Christ. He turned outward when he was in pain when we would have turned inward. I'm trying to work on that this week.

We taught our first lesson on Friday!! Our investigator's name is Marcos and he's amazing! (He's not a real person, he's and actor but he's portrayed as an investigator our actor had on his mission. Our first lesson was sooooo bad. Our Portuguese was pretty good but we kinda just dumped information on him about the restoration. No spirit there. Then we taught our second lesson on Saturday and ohhh it went soo much better. We really prayed about what we thought would help him the best. We taught him about how God loves him and how he can become closer through the Atonement and prayer. We meet with him again tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

I really learned that you have got to LOVE the people you teach. LOVE THEM with all your coracao!! It really helps you know how to teach them better.

Ya'll can send me letters through the Dear Elder website! I get them the same day and it's super fun to see them :)

Anyways.. I love the mission and the MTC! It's amazing and I feel like I've grown so much in just a few days!

Send me pictures of your wonderful lives!! I hope I got everything I needed to in here!

Com amor,

Sister Hillam

Our District

The Continental Sisters

Sister Hillam and Sister Nance

"The Continentals"

The Zone