July 4th

Wow! Família!! You all sound awesome!!! Sounds like your 4th of July was a blast!! Sounds like all the traditions happened and ate lots of good things and saw everything like normal! I ´m really glad that everything worked out for you all! But I bet it can’t beat my week!

So on Tuesday we ate at a member’s house and come to find out as half of the food was gone, the meat wasn’t cooked...yikes. So we walked to the chapel and Sister Elliott threw up and we basically crashed in the chapel for some time before our next appointment showed up. You can imagine how the rest of our day went... by that night we were out flat on our beds but we were able to stay our all day! Such a blessing, and if we didn’t we couldn’t have talked to this lady named Manuela! She doesn’t understand why the Catholic Church worships the cross and all the sufferings of Christ. She said she’d like to focus on all the good that he did and all that he accomplished! She was super elect! She also has a family! So blessed to have met her.

So we’ve been teaching Ildo in English and may I just say, it’s super hard to teach in English!! We practiced Wednesday morning for 45 minutes. IT WAS SO HARD! We’d throw in some Portuguese and then try and explain in English and it just didn’t work, and what’s best, we taught the law of chastity. Oh my goodness Sister Elliott was so awkward about teaching in English! It was hilarious but during the lesson, it didn’t matter because the Spirit was there! 

The next day was the best and the worst at the same time. So we went and taught Ildo again and taught the Word of Wisdom and he accepted it! He understood completely the importance of the commandment and said he’d stop. Luckily he doesn’t have too much of a problem, just a little bit of coffee and only smokes 1 maybe 2 cigarettes every week. Then after that we went to Liliane´s house. She had a stroke so she can only use half of her body and she can’t talk very well, but the missionaries have taught her for a year now. We marked her for baptism and she never wanted to tell her family but when we stopped by she told us she wanted to talk to Lidia about baptism. So we started to talk to Lidia and she flipped. Also during this time I started to get the biggest headache. So she was yelling at us and I could feel the blood leaving my face. It was awful. I could tell it was getting bad when I just wanted to argue with her about why everything she was saying was wrong and I was losing my patience so basically we left her to think about baptism. I felt so bad for Liliane. But we left and continued on with our day. We climbed the small hill that’s in our area and we both got to the top and collapsed on a bench. We were both dying, it was AWEFUL! I’ve never had that much head pain before. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So we both ended up going home and passing out on our beds. I woke up at midnight and just started crying because I was in so much pain. 

Luckily the next day was weekly planning so we could take it easy during the morning. It was very much needed time. We actually quickly got feeling better after the rest and the morning that we got. I’ve never been so grateful for weekly planning in my life (you will never hear me say that again!!) So we were really careful about how much we did on Friday until that night. Our ward had a ward party and oh my goodness it was so fun!! They had Just Dance there and they had Karaoke and lots of food! It was good to interact with everyone! Carla (our recent convert that is just so amazing!!!) asked us to dance Just Dance with her and guess what songs the ward danced to? Video Killed the Radio Star and The Final Countdown. The whole ward was just having a blast! Everyone was participating. It was so fun! 

The next day was 4th of July!!!! We basically had AMERICAN written across our forehead! We wore red, white and blue, and for our lunch, we invited the elders to eat hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, and fruit salad. Happy Independence Day in Portugal!!! It was so fun! 

Yesterday was a great day as well. Carla got up to the pulpit and bore her testimony. I started to cry. She’s only been a member a week and she bore her testimony about the Book of Mormon. I can’t believe how much she’s changed. You could see the gospel in her life and how much it’s already changed. If I were to end the mission right now, I’d be so happy. Luckily, I still got a whole year!!!! LET`S GO!!!! :D 

Family, I love this gospel so much. I love the mission and I know that God answers our prayers. I’m so blessed to have Him with me during this work. Family, we can do anything In Christ. He is our Savior, and Redeemer. He knows our faults and our weakness but He’s overcome all of that for us. He is my strength and my reason for why I’m here. I am nothing without His help everyday. I love you all sooo very much!!!

Com Muito AMOR,

Sister Hillam