Count Yo Blessings

Hello everyone! Things are going pretty good here in Indiana! As surprising as it might sound we have been able to get out of our apartments a decent amount these last couple weeks! We have been able to have a fair amount of lessons with the people we are teaching which is awesome! We have been able to have a good amount of lessons with our recent convert Jaydon. Lemme tell you this kid is a stud. All I'll say is when I was his age I sure as heck didn't have anything really all that planned out in my life but this kid knows exactly what he is gonna do with his life for the next 10 years it seems like haha it's pretty crazy. He's got big ambitions which is awesome!

Also this last week we were finally able to get back in contact with our friend Scott Wilson who is the man that is deaf and I think I have talked a little bit about him in the past. But this last week we were able to have a lesson with him at the church but this time he brought an iPad instead of his note pad which I mention because I can type faster and also I don't have great handwriting so now he can actually read what I am typing hahaha. The lesson was super good tho, we were able to go over the plan of Salvation with him again because he recently told us that his mother had past away. So of course this would be the best thing to talk about and sure enough he was very grateful for us and the things we were able to tell him and give him great comfort. It is definitely pretty cool to see how the Lord works and how simple he can make the gospel be understood by anyone. I love that!

As President Nelson recently challenged us to acknowledge all of the things that we are thankful for it really has made me reflect on my life and really thank my Heavenly Father for everything that I have been given! The thing I am most grateful for is the opportunity to be born into the church. Being out here on my mission has really made me realize how impactful the gospel can be on people and how important it is. I am so grateful for this gospel and I don't know where I would be without it. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be out here to be able to give that exact gift that I have to everyone that I can find that will accept it. I love this gospel and couldn't live without it. I'm also grateful for all you wonderful people that have supported me throughout my life and I love you all!

SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Elder Hilburn has been out 15 months!

P-Day District Lazer tag

Pray I Stay!

Yo yo yo what is up everybody?! I know it's been a little while since I have written and I'm sorry. I ain't a perfect person. So here I am writing a letter right now lol. The past couple weeks have been decently busy. We are not as busy as we were when we first got here but things are still moving along nicely. As of October 11th we are now allowed to go to church every week!! Also we are allowed to have up to 100 people at 

church. We went this last Sunday and it was so weird seeing more than 25 people in a church building at one time haha. I literally hadn't seen that in just shy of 8 months. Blows my mind that it’s already been just about that long in quarantine. At least we are not in full lockdown like we were for 6 months. We can actually do stuff. Kinda... We were recently made aware that we will not be able to meet with members in person anymore period. Which totally stinks. We are gonna miss being able to meet with members because it was so nice being able to go over to their back porches or front porches haha and just get to know them and spend sometime with the members in person. But, oh well that is gone and I can't do nothin’ about it. 

On a happier note, we met with Jaydon, who is one of our super solid investigators and he is planning to get baptized here pretty soon. We met with him and he told us that he met with Bishop earlier that day and he set his official baptismal date for October 25th!!! Super stoked for him and can’t wait!!

Transfers are coming up and I will find out my fate on Saturday. I really hope I stay but I don’t call the shots around here unfortunately, God does that part. But if it was my choice I would definitely stay. So we will find out on Saturday what is gonna go down.

I know this a bit shorter of a email but I hope you all are doing well and hanging in there! 

SEND IT FOR THE LORD 

ELDER HILBURN

Daily Service Opportunity 

P-Day Shenanigans 

District meetings outside the Indianapolis Temple

Staying Here In Noblesville!

Well hello everyone! These past two weeks have been a bit slower than usual. When I first got here things were rolling and the work was moving along really fast, but just how missionary work goes, there will be times of up's and down's. Right now a couple of the people we have been teaching have been ghosting us. Meaning they don’t respond to us at all and we cant get in contact with them to set up another lesson. But it's all good because we still got our solid people that respond to us and we still have lessons with them.

We had a pretty funny experience with one of the members last week. So last Monday just out of the blue we get a text from a random number and it said something like "no???? I wasn’t aware of this..." and me and my comp were like what the heck who is this. So we looked up the number in member tools and found that it was an old guy from our ward. So we decided to give him a call to clear up some of the confusion. He answers the phone and we ask him if he meant to send that text to us and he said yes and he thought that we had scheduled dinner with him for that evening but we didn’t. He was like "oh interesting it must have been the Democrats messing with my phone and sending that to me" Me and my comp were dying laughing it was so funny. Since we were on the phone with him he invites us to have dinner with them for the following day. But he told us that we needed to answer one question to see if we were worthy to come over and so we were like haha sure what's the question. He continues on and asks us "are either of you Democrats??? Because if you are you ain't invited over here." I was laughing so hard and I told him that I am a proud supporter of my president and he said, good good well we will see you tomorrow. So it's the next day and we show up to their house,’ we knock on the front door and Bro Merrill (that's the old man's name) comes out. I couldn’t believe it but I swear I was talking to my Grandpa Keith! He looked almost identical to him it was so funny haha! (ps. Grandpa he even had the same sunglasses as you!) It was a fun time hanging out with them and having dinner with them. I thought it was a pretty funny experience.

We are still teaching Jon and he is progressing and doing really well! We had to push his date back to October 17th due to some scheduling difficulties with this stupid virus. I think it is for the best because that will give us a little more time to really nail everything down and teach him everything he needs to be taught and also resolve any concerns that he might have. It's been really cool seeing someone just completely change their life even when it isn’t easy at all. It really builds my testimony knowing that this is the only true church on the earth today. Having this knowledge from the time I was born has been such a blessing in my life. 

It is now the second week into my second transfer here in Noblesville which I'm super stoked about staying here. This area is awesome! So many great people we get to interact with on a daily basis in this wonderful place. 

Well that's about all I got for now, but until next week, SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Top Golf on P-day!

Getting Some Chick Fila

The Lord Prepares His Children

This past week was crazy! It was crazy good! We had lots of lessons which kept us out of our apartment for a lot of the days which is always nice. Since we have this place that we do service at it's been so nice that even if we don't have anything really on a particular day we will always have service so no matter what we are getting out. 

Lemme tell yuh this area is bumpin for Indiana. It is low key almost like my first area which is unheard of but it's almost on that level which is so dope. Speaking of my first area... if yall can remember way back when I was teaching the man named Scott, the one who had serious word of wisdom problems and he was drunk everytime we would go over there, yeah, so I heard this past week that he passed away:( it's so sad, he was only 25. I kinda knew he would die young just because he was on such a bad path in life but I didn't think it would be this soon. I was pretty sad about it cause even though he was kinda tough to deal with and teach, it's what everyone says about being a missionary, once you meet that one person you instantly have love for them and want to do everything you can to help them. So it's hard to hear but hopefully because of his interactions with missionaries on earth maybe he will accept it up there. 

Anyway, on a happier note, we received a referral this past week! Now this isn't just any referral...now lemme just tell you the whole story and lemme also say this has never happened in the entirety that I've been on my mission so far. It's crazy. SO, anyway we got a text from a priest in the fishers 2nd ward (which is just down the street from us) and he let us know that he has a friend that he works with at Cabella's that he thinks would be interested to learn more about our church and meet with us! So we were already stoked by that. We met with him this last Friday and both the priest(Griffin) and the referral (Jon D.) were both there. We sat down and got to know Jon a little bit, and turns out he is originally from Colordado and he loves MTB(for all you chumps that dont know what that is, Mountainbiking) so we instantly hit it off. We planned on teaching him the restoration as we usually do for first lessons, but turns out Griffin had literally and kid you not taught him everything about our church already. So he knew everything so the lesson just turned into a discussion on what he already knew and we added a few things on to it as well. But seriously this kid had already been taught everything. If only I was a courageous as Griffen in highschool all my non member friends would have been converted haha. Anyway, what happened next was the shocker, after the end of our discussion he leans over to us and pops the golden question every missionary dreams about and he said "so boys how do y'all get me baptized and when can it happen?" We were like WHAAAATTTTTTTT THE FREAK!!! I was tempted to just say "yo there's a river right behind us I can dunk you right now" haha. But in all seriousness, this kid is what you call a Golden Investigator. Heavenly Father has prepared Jon to become a member and was brought to us through the member that followed promptings to teach him about our church. It's truly a miracle sent straight down from the Lord and I knew it was no coincidence. It reminds me of a scripture in Alma 16 that talks about how the Lord will prepare his people to receive the gospel in their lives and it says  "And there was no inequality among them; the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming." I know for a fact that Heavenly Father prepares his children that are ready to hear the gospel so that us missionaries can come in contact with them and share the good news with them!

I am so greatful for this past year that I have been able to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and share the gospel with everyone that I can. Even though we still can't openly find people outside of our apartment that in no way has stopped us from being able to further His work. If there was no work to be done even during quarantine then I know I wouldn't be here, but I am still here, so there is so much work that can be done! I love this Gospel with all my heart and look forward to another year that I have left out here!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and make sure you are always SENDING IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Spiritual Giants

Well Hello everyone! You’re all probably surprised that I'm writing an email two weeks in a row!! I know, I know, I am surprised myself! But.., when you have things to talk about it seems to be easier to write! This past week has been busy(ish)! Let's just say it has been busy for still being mostly in quarantine. We have taken advantage of some of the restrictions that have been lifted. We have met or at least tried to meet everyone in person that we are "currently teaching" so that is awesome. 

Sooo let me just tell you a little bit about the people that we have met so far. The first person we met with in person was a man named Scott W. He is a deaf man so going into the lesson we were not sure how we were going to get anything across to him. We figured he would bring a translator with him. But as it turns out he didn’t... We both were like uhhhh?, well let's just go with it and see what happens. I mean c’mon what's the worst that could happen lol. So when we met him the way he planned on communicating with us was through pen and paper. Which is what we did. It was pretty cool how we taught this man the restoration the most simple way I have ever taught it. Just by simply writing a couple phrases down then pointing to pictures from the restoration pamphlet. It truly was a cool experience seeing this deaf man understand what we were teaching him with no talking what so ever. He accepted everything we said and committed to read from the BofM and also come to church when we open back up again!

On Wednesday evening we had a lesson with a woman named Nanette and a man named Josh. They are both in their mid 60's and are roommates. We just got to know them for a bit and then my comp and I had the plan to just read from the BofM with them. But.. they didn't have there BofM's with them and we didn’t just want to read to them  cause that would have been boring I'm sure. So me and my comp turn to each other and are like "uhhh well what the heck do we do know" haha. But I got a strong feeling that I needed to share my favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon which is Alma 32:21 which states "And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." After I shared that, that just kickstarted an awesome discussion we all had about faith. My companion then shared some of his favorite scriptures as well. At the end of the lesson, after we bore our testimonies and everything, Nanette turns to us and tell us that she has been praying for something like this and this was exactly what she needed to hear that evening. That hit me hard, I was overwhelmed by the spirit and it was such a cool experience. It made me so happy and I got to feel of that everlasting joy that the gospel brings. We are meeting with them this upcoming Wednesday and I can’t wait! They both are “spiritual giants"!

The week has gone by fairly fast but still decently slow haha. I'm super grateful to be in the area that I am now, and so grateful to be on a mission. I have learned so much this past year and can’t wait for what the next year has in store for me!

Hope you all had a great week and don’t forget to SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

15768 Exploration Blvd, Noblesville IN

Elwood 2 Huntington 2 Nobelsville

Hey errrrbodddyyyyyy it's been quite a long time since I have talked to all y’all. So lots has happened since I wrote an email last haha. I think I'm going on five months without sending out an email and I'm sorry about that, ‘cause I know all of you really missed my letters... I could just tell. My famous lines are being used by other missionaries... acheemm acheeem... 

Anyway, so last time you heard I was in the small town of Elwood. Well to make a long story short, that is when quarantine hit. I was in that area for one more transfer through quarantine then I got transferred to a place up north called Huntington. It's just south of Fort Wayne. I was there for the past three months all during quarantine. It was rough to say the least. So not much to talk about for that area haha, Because... as of this last week I have been transferred to my new area which is called the Noblesville area. I'm now back down in Indy woo woo. I've missed being in Indianapolis. I thrive in the city. I didn’t really like the country haha but the people there were great. BUT, I gotta say this area is freaking dope. It's right by Fishers and Carmel, Indiana if any of you know where that is lol. Fishers is where our mission office is and Carmel is where our Mission President lives, so were super close to everyone. Also, its soooo nice to have like every store you could think of. I guess I took that for granted living back home because the last two areas I served in I didn't have like anything. They were just little po dunk towns. Now I'm back to a place where like everybody lives!! Haha its great. 

So to give y’all a little update on missionary restrictions at least in my mission. We are now allowed to go visit with people we are teaching/ less Actives, and members in person!! But.. it has to be a scheduled time that they know we are coming so we can’t just stop by like we used to do as normal missionaries. Also, we are not allowed to go into anyone's homes, so what that means is we can meet with them on their front porch or in their back yard or even just meet at a park! Also, we have to maintain the six feet rule and wear masks...which I think is stupid, I hate masks.. never mind about that I don’t need to go all political on y’all. 

So since that has happened, my new companion, Elder Kynaston, and I have been just trying to set up as many appointments as we can throughout our days so we can be out of our apartments as much as possible. Oh side note, we are white washing this area so neither of us know like anyone so that has been kind of difficult but we’re figuring it out! My companion came out three transfers ago right when quarantine hit so he doesn’t know what normal missionary work is even like. So it’s been hard for sure. In a way I am basically training him on everything so there has been a lot of stress on myself recently but I'm perseverving! 

There has been a lot going on this past week, we have a pretty dang solid teaching pool in this area. We have this one young guy who is a 17 year old who is on date to get baptized on his birthday because his parents won’t let him get baptized. But seriously he is awesome. His name is Jaydon and we had a mini book of mormon Study with him at a members back patio this last Saturday. We read Alma 11 with him and wow, I'm a missionary so like I should kinda know my stuff right, well this kid is so smart, I learned so much from that chapter that I probably would never have gotten out of it if I were just studying it alone. He brought up the greatest insights and I could just tell he is one of the elect. He will be a great member of the church! He is trying to invite his friends to join us to do a bible study with us! Who would have thought, our investigator is already giving us referrals!!! He’s so awesome!

Overall the week has been good and we kept decently busy! 

Hope y’all have a good week and don’t forget to SEND IT FOR THE LORD!

ps ^^^this is what I meant that other missionaries are stealing my line....

Elder Hilburn

COVID-19 TRYNA TAKE US MISSIONARIES OUT!

This week hasn't been the most exciting week but it is still a great time to be a missionary! This whole Cornavirus stuff is freaking everyone out and it is for sure making it hard on us missionaries to do our work! We are still allowed to do our normal everyday proselytizing but everyone else is panicking so no one really wants to talk to us lol. Which isn't much different as our normal day proselytize...haha. People act like we are the cornavirus when we try to come up to them and talk to them lol. It's all good tho, every time someone doesn’t want to talk to us or straight up insults us I just think to myself, "sucks for your dawg, it's your salvation that your dissing on" Anyyywaayyy, enough about that lol. I would say the highlight of my week was going on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their area and currently they are serving on Ball State University.

It's a pretty big campus, Comparable to BYU or UVU. Most of what they do there on campus and what we did was walk around outside and talk to everyone and anyone. It is pretty fun because you have to just start random conversations with people and it can be challenging sometimes but that is what makes it the most fun. The atmosphere was just super cool. I felt like a college student all day walking around campus. It was pretty dang dope. I haven't seen so many people in one place in sooo long. Well about three months to be exact hahah. It was a sensory overload! We were super busy though all day. We had about five appointments. All with college students of course, it was pretty cool having lessons with people on campus. Just not what I am used to but I thought it was pretty dope. It was a bit of a good break because it brought me back to my last area of being super busy and staying busy all day. Which is what I need and love as a missionary. So it rejuvenated me to go back to my area and grind even though there ain't as much going on. Oh, also I forgot to mention that I was in a trio for that day. That was also hecka fun. Being with two 

other dudes makes it double the fun hahaha. 

That next morning Elder Ravsten (the zone leader) asked if we wanted to go on a run and a I was like "ehhh I'm super out of shape" but then I didn’t want to seem like a pansy so I was like "aight let's send it for the boys" So we did. Didn’t’ necessarily like the run itself but we ran all through campus so that was pretty cool. I was kinda dying towards the end because I was doing everything in my power to keep up so I looked sorta in shape, it was rough but I needed it. Turns out it was four miles which isn't really much but that was a lot for me for not running for so long lol. Overall the exchange on Ball State was pretty dang lit. Due to the cornavirus though, literally that next day after I left they shut down campus all together. Also they shut down every other major campus in Indiana. Everybody is freaking out its nuts. Also there ain't nothing in the stores anymore so don’t know how we gonna survive lol. The lord will figure it out for us missionaries so not worried at all.

Yesterday felt pretty slow because we had no church which throws everything off. Usually our Sundays are pretty full and busy but without church that threw everything off haha. It's all good though we had a unique Sunday!

We got to go do service for our good ole fellow Kim G. The guy we've been teaching. We helped him around his yard again and moved some things for him. He is super into metal detecting so after we finished the stuff in the yard he pulled out his detectors and showed us the ropes. It was kinda funny to see him all into it lol. But now I can say I am a first class detector and I'll find anything you throw my way yooooo.

We have been receiving emails from our president like multiple times a day for the past couple of days updating us on the situation with Covid-19. We are supposed to have zone Conference this next week but we have been told by the missionary department we are not allowed to meet together as big groups. They are working on doing zone Conference over video chat somehow so that will be interesting. Even though they cancelled church we are still allowed to do everything that we normally do. Might be hard though because no one will want to talk to us haha.  

Other than the pandemic that is going on currently, missionary life is pretty dope! I know that everything is happening for a reason and it is inspired by God! I know that President Russell M. Nelson is a prophet of God and he is leading and guiding us through this time! I love this gospel with all my heart and love proclaiming it to everyone I come in contact with. Nowhere else I'd rather be!

Love you all, stay inside, and SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Elder's Being Elders, A Little frisky golf and then retrieving the frisby

Some good wall art

Best slide in the city

Its cold but still a happy Missionary

For Floor Installation: Call 1-800-Elder Hilburn

As the title says, if y'all need someone to put in your flooring, IM YOUR MAN. This past week we were able to help out a less active family (The Baugh Family) in our branch that is remodeling their house and they were putting in wood floors. We stopped by to see if they needed any help and sure enough they invited us back to help them put in their floors! This will be my third floor installation project on my mission.,haha. I don’t know what Heavenly Father is trying to tell me but I sure hope he's not trying to tell me what my future career is. I like doing this as service on my mission but sure don’t want to be doing this for my livelihood... It has been a fun project though on the mish for sure. I have learned a lot of skills that I definitely would have never learned if I wasn't out here on my mission being put in these circumstances so in that way I know for a fact that I am here for a reason. And, because I love it! I know that Heavenly Father guided us to stop by this families home to see how they were doing and see if they needed any help. They have been going through a hard time with this remodeling project and they are also crunched for time and money. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Heavenly Father placed us there at that exact moment so that we could help them as much as we could. The husband even told us he took his only week of vacation this past week so he could do as much as he could at the house and he won’t have anymore vacation time for the rest of the year! My comp and I felt so blessed to have this cool experience!

The week of my birthday I had the flu so I wasn't able to accomplish much. I read a lot from the scriptures that week! Haha. When you’re stuck in an apartment with nothing to do you seem to just want to read the scriptures or listen to Conference talks! I learned a whole lot that week! Also never thought I'd see myself doing that but that's how I know I've changed! And changed for the better! Part of the sick week we were on exchanges and I was with Elder Hughes in his area. I wasn't planning on being sick the entire week but my body thought otherwise. So I ended up staying in that area till Thursday afternoon being sick haha. It was okay Elder Hughes took great care of me. 

Funny story, so every transfer we are allowed to have what is called a "District P-Day" which means we can get together as an entire District on P-Day and do a fun adventure together. What this basically just means for us was we could hang out with the Sister missionaries lol. Since we already are usually together with the Marion Elders every Monday. So we were just allowed to get together, just the six of us haha. Yeah it is a small district lol. Anyway, we grouped up down in the city of Anderson which is the Sisters area and also the biggest "city" there is in our district so there was more stuff to do there. We heard about the national park that people said was pretty cool so we all decided to go to the national park and go on a little hike.(not really a hike because there is no such thing as elevation in Indiana) It was a good time but as we were walking back to the car we just decided to walk on the road back to the car and we see this man get out of his truck and start taking pictures of us as a group. We all were like what the heck and who is the creepy old dude doing taking pictures of us. We just decided to let it go. The old man hops back in his car and drives a little farther down the road but then stops again. And sure enough gets out of his car and starts to take pictures of us again. We were finally close enough to be able to go over to him and ask him what he was doing. Well sure enough, he told us he was from "The Hearald Bulletin" which is the local newspaper. He went on to tell us that he was trying to take a cool picture of us walking in the park so that he could put us in the paper for the next day. All of us were like, oh dang that's dope haha. We told him who we were and what we were doing in Indiana for two years. He was pretty impressed and told us to look for tomorrow’s newspaper! Sure enough WE MADE IT. So thought that was pretty dope. Kinda funny but cool lol.

A couple weeks ago we were walking around our little town of Alexandria trying to just find someone to talk to and we ran into this guy Chad W. We stopped to talk to him for a little bit and had just a brief but nice conversation with the man. We tried to ask him if he would be interested in hearing a message about Christ but he avoided it and basically said he wasn't interested. So we didn’t try to push it on him anymore. I just asked him if I could leave him a card with our names and phone number on it and we told him if there was anything we could help with we told him to give us a call. He said okay and thanked us and we went our separate ways. I didn’t think too much about that encounter really the rest of the day because ever since I have been on my mission I've have never had someone call or text us back when we just gave them our number without getting theirs. Well that all changed that day! He actually texted us!! He texted us basically to thank us for talking to him and he told us that he was "grateful to talk to two young men who have their heads on straight, that's what this world needs more of" He went on and said a couple of other nice things. After that we just texted him back and reassured him if there was really anything we could do, to please let us know. About two days later, he texts us AGAIN!! This time he wanted to let us know that he had moved to the neighboring town of Marion and he wanted to let us know that if we would be interested in meeting(which no duh of course haha)  that he would like to meet up with us again and just have a discussion!!! Now this is a bittersweet moment because obviously its awesome that he wants to meet with us again, BUT, that ain't our area so we had to refer him to the Elders serving in Marion but all in all it is pretty cool and I hope he progresses!

Yesterday on Sunday we were able to have a lesson with someone new! That was pretty exciting because we hadn't had a lesson with someone new in a while so this was a blessing. It was cool that we were able to meet with someone new but this guy wasn't super receptive. We basically just had a discussion about religion as a whole for about the first hour. We asked him if it would be okay if we just shared with him a unique message about Jesus Christ and he gladly let us. So we pulled out the Resto of course haha. After we taught him he basically told us that he would be willing to read from the Book of Mormon but he claims "the bible is the only word of God" and how he doesn’t think the Book of Mormon is really a true testament of Jesus Christ. But, we did our part of inviting him to read from it and pray about it. We got a return appointment with him for next Sunday so hopefully he has read it and prayed about it. We will see!

Sorry everyone that it had been so long since I have written an email! But that is why I wrote this extra long email! So I could make up for the past couple of weeks lol

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, it was an okay birthday haha. As you know I was sick so that was a bummer 

Well I hope y'all have a good week and make sure y'all are preparing for General Conference that is coming up in less than a month!!! CRAZY STUFF BOUTA HAPPEN!!

love y'all and don’t forget to SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Elder Hilburn's district makes the news!

Elder Hilburn and Elder Usch putting in some wood floors

Elder Hilburn, Elder Hughes and district

Cheers to another transfer in ELWWOOD

So we got the transfer call last Saturday and got the news that we will both be staying in Elwood. I didn’t think too much of it because that's what I figured would happen. I have only been here for one transfer so I thought for sure I would stay. Sure enough I did! This past week hasn't been too eventful but the work must go on!

We had the opportunity to go down to Fishers, IN for Zone Conference and that was pretty lit. It’s always a good time being able to meet with a bunch of other missionaries and being together. It's a great time to also learn so much more on how to be a good missionary. We were trained on how to most effectively plan our days and weeks out and I gleaned a lot of good information. It was an amazing conference! One of the Senior Elders, Elder Hillman, who was baring his testimony before he and his wife were leaving to go home really affected me. He told an awesome story about when he was a young missionary. He talked about how he had a pretty tough mission and hadn’t had any successful baptisms and how it had always made him doubt if he had been a good missionary or not. He told of an experience he had one year before he and his wife came out on their mission to Indiana and how he had been contacted by someone he met briefly on his mission. Elder Hillman was able to re-connect with this guy and hear how his life had been changed for the better because of his influence. This story hit me hard and I found myself feeling a little emotional! But I looked around and didn’t see any of the other elders tearing up so I fought back the tears. haha I later realized that was the spirit talking to me and telling me to keep working hard Elder Hilburn, even though this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, it’s all going to be worth it. It was a great experience and one I won’t forget.

Earlier in the week we got to go down to Marion with the other Elders and participate in some service with them. Out here that's what you call a Blitz Service haha. Anyway we helped this lady move some wood. And this wasn't just some small little thing of wood. This was legit a huge tree that had been chopped down and then cut into like twenty huge logs. These things were stinkin’ heavy! It would take two of us to just load one on the trailer. It was pretty nuts. But it was a fun time. Not to mention it was pouring down rain as we were doing it but honestly I didn’t care; it was pretty fun. 

We got to meet with our good friend Bryan Z. again this last week and that was a good time. We were able to watch the full Restoration movie with him. He actually didn’t seem too distracted this time and seemed to really enjoy it. He is pretty solid and we are working with him to try to get him on date. Hopefully we can get him to progress a little faster. Maybe keep Bryan Z in your prayers this weekJ

Other than that not much else has happened this week. I love the mission life, even though it can be hard at times I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! I know that I am supposed to be here and I was called to serve here in Indiana for a reason. I know that this gospel is true and I love it with all my heart! 

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

 

On a Blitz with Elder Hughes

One Cool Spot in downtown Eldwood

Teaching is Slowly Amping Up in Alexandria!

Hello everybody how is it all goin. It's been pretty solid out here in the field. This area is slowly ramping up. We are teaching more people so that is good. Still a lot of finding most of the days but we have a lot more teaching appointments now compared to the beginning of the transfer. 

I think I have talked a little bit about one of the guys we’re teaching named Jesse. He is a super cool guy and we have been teaching him and he is continuing to progress and it's awesome. He kinda looks like Post Malone without all of the tattoos haha. We started meeting with him twice a week so we can keep him on track and keep him solid. He struggles a little bit with smoking but he expressed to us that he wants to give it up. He says he only smokes two cigarettes a day so I figured that is not very much and that he should be able to break that habit. Overall though he is a solid guy and I love meeting with him!

So, funny story. On P-day this week we got rear ended so that was pretty lit. We were just sitting at a stop light and it was the four of us elders in the car then all of the sudden we just got nailed and all of our heads jerked forward and all of us were like "did we just get rear ended?" Sure enough we totally did. So we just pulled into a parking lot and a of course a teenager pops out of the car. Since it is a mission vehicle we had to call the police out and have them file a whole police report on it and get it all filed. Both cars were lucky because there is really no physical damage showing but the church still wants us to go through all the red tape just to make sure everyone is good and covered so it was a lil bit of a hassle. Good times, good times.

This week we had the opportunity to go and do some service for a man that we have found and kind of began teaching. He is such a cool guy too! He is in his mid 60's and works at a GM plant and works as a technician there. He is a devout Christian which is awesome. But yeah today we helped him move some wood in his yard because he has a cool project where his is just cutting up wood stumps and stacking it around is property and making it look like a fence. It's a pretty cool idea and it looks super cool. But it's a lot of work... But it was fun getting out of a white shirt and tie and getting down and getting to work. The coolest part though is, as we were moving the wood we were no joke able to teach him the entire restoration in the most casual way. It was so natural and real. It was more of a conversation because he was asking us great questions. It was super awesome and he seemed really interested and tuned in. He also already had a Book of Mormon and had been reading and he was asking us about that too! Over all it was super cool and I can’t wait to go back there and haul some more wood!

Overall a pretty solid week! Hope everyone is doing good! Love you all

This week goes out to Kobe, SEND IT FOR THE LORD

#MAMBA

-ELDER HILBURN

First accident in the mission

Hot Boxed As A Missionary?

What is up YALL, I'm coming to you all from the great town of ELWOOD Indiana!!! Its pretty lit out here I gotta say. Might not be that many people and might be the smallest town I have ever been to in my life BUT it is still sick and I love it. The church is true everywhere you go! The little branch I am serving in is small, but it has some great members in it. This past week had been fairly busy which is good. We have been able to have a decent amount of teaching appointments which is solid. 

We have been meeting with this lady named Peggy. She is probably in her 60's and she is the nicest lady. She was open to hear what we had to say so we just jumped on that opportunity. This last Thursday we had the opportunity to sit down with her and teach her the Resto. Now before I go any further I have to explain that this lady does not speak that much, she is super quiet. When ever we ask her a question she mainly just replies with a simple "yes" and that is it. It is hard to get her to talk more than a couple words but I think that she is getting it and she believes what we are saying to be true. I was able to talk to her a little bit about baptism and the importance of it and vaguely asked if that was something that she would be interested in and of course she replied with the simple answer of "yes" But that's good! Next time we meet with her we plan to get her on date. She's a super nice lady though and we like meeting with her!

Alright Alright Alright...., your probably wondering what the heck the title of email is all about. I can explain...dont worry I'm not that JACK of a missionary. Lolz. So there is this guy that the previous missionaries have been teaching for over a year now. His name is Bryan Z. but he goes by BZ. He is a super cool guy and he reminds me of Dale C.(a guy I taught in my last area). For starters I hadn't even met this guy yet. My companion had but he wasn't with me... I was with another Elder that was fresh from the MTC and I was taking him under my wing in the area. So obviously neither of us knew what we were going into haha. But anyway back to the story, we are welcomed in by BZ and we just talk for a little bit and get to know him. He's a super chill guy and has lived a pretty dope life. Now I feel like everyone out here in Indiana freaking is obsessed with there cigs. Everyone loves there cigs. It's really annoying. But yeah that's an addiction that we will help him get over. But we just talk with him for a little bit and then he asks us if we want to go into his garage and chill out there. So we were like sure, why not. By the way he's got a pretty sick garage. It's a dope man cave. But we sit down in the garage in some lawn chairs and just get to know him and talk to him. Of course the whole time he is smoking so it begins to get a little smokey in there. No fan, no nothin. It was gettin' rough. But that's not all... he then pulls out this little baggy from his pocket and of course what is it?? Yep you guessed it, some good ol mary jane. I was just thinking in my head, he's not gonna light that up in front of us? Right? Nahh fam I was mistaken. He sure did. He just began to smoke it and blow some fat clouds and the smoke was gettin heavy. It was a lot of weed haha. I just got up and said to BZ, you mind if I use your restroom? And he just said yeah go right ahead, I needed some air or I was about to die haha. I forgot about the greenie though, poor guy I just left him in there to fend for himself haha. But I just left the room to get some air then I came back and told BZ that we needed to get going. So yeah, then we just left and told him we'll be back next week and that we would read from the book of mormon with him and he was okay with that and is excited for us to come back. So yeah we'll being going back there this wednesday haha. Hopefully not to get hot boxed again. 

But yeah that was about the highlight of the week I gotta say. Pretty funny. Oh besides me bowling 145 today, hahahaha I was pretty proud of myself for that. Anyway I'll see yall next week with maybe another wild adventure.

Love you all, and dont forget to SEND IT FOR THE LORD

ELDER HILBURN

Bowling on P-Day with the district-Elder Ustch, Elder Hughes and Elder Hilburn

District Bowling day. Two old guys who wanted to chat with the Elders and Sisters.