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