Meetings & Drinking

Hey everyone!

This week has been awesome! We had zone interviews this week as well as a fireside with Sherry Dew who is a really good speaker and the head of Deseret News. As well as some more hilarious situations my companion was put in.

So interviews always start out with our President talking to us about stuff for a while. It was fantastic. He talked about how there are two missionaries on a mission. The joyful missionary and the miserable missionary and how it's through motivation and perspective that you are one or the other. Sometimes we put a pavilion over ourselves that shields us from the joy and light of Christ because we have a perspective on life from a negative, and burdensome view. Long story
short, he showed how as we understand the atonement more and really learn it, we begin to change and find joy in things. We then look toward Christ rather than at ourselves and begin to do things for motivations outside of yourself. It's a hard process but a very good process that is worth the difficulty. We aren't here to suffer but men are that they might have joy. If you are miserable, learn of the atonement of Jesus Christ and pray for a change in perspective. Things don't all come at once but they will come and as you walk the path of refinement you will see yourself change. It's really quite a beautiful thing.

Dallas Daze

So this week was hilarious. Our neighbors invited us over and we were having a very, very good discussion when the neighbor's friend calls. She got off the phone and said her friend was coming so we thought that was cool. Well when they pull up, we are watching from the balcony and the girl's boyfriend gets out and goes to open the door, well out stumbles a VERY VERY VERY drunk girl that cannot walk straight whatsoever. She gets up to the apartment and begins hugging her friend like they were going to die in mere minutes. It was so funny but kind of ruined the lesson. Well it continued on by the girl slowly bending down and then losing her balance and falling straight on her face with her butt in the air and then just laying there. After she finally gets up we were trying to get out of there and we are shaking hands and when my companion shakes her hand, she won't let go.
He pries her hand off and she begins chasing him around the furniture. So I run over to the door and open it and he runs out and I say, "we'll see y'all later!" And slam the door before the drunk girl comes running after us. We bolted into our apartment across the way and just start laughing. It was hilarious.

Another funny thing was we participated in our wards chili contest. Our chili consisted of everything that was in our cupboard that wasn't expired thrown into a Crockpot. We were prepared for a train wreck but shockingly, it tasted really really good!! Not everyone would try it because granted it didn't look the part but those who did actually loved it! Was way fun. We also were able to give a kid one of our tags because he was a missionary for Halloween so we let him use a tag for
the night. Was very fun.

Well I hope everyone has a great week! Love ya!

Elder Hiatt

Image 1-Crockpot Chili ingredients

Image 2- Halloween Party

Image 3-And this is clear rootbeer because it's cool and really weird but way good. 

Halloween Party!

Clear Rootbeer, because it's cool, really weird, and way good

Dead Rat - just gross

Precious Cargo

Dallas Daze

So this week we saw something awesome. I was on an exchange with my district leader and we had just finished up teaching a lady in the hospital with the senior sisters and gave the woman a blessing. It went very very well and on the way back I saw this. . . . . 

I told him to speed up and upon further inspection. . . . .

That is what you'd call an oversized load. Pretty dang awesome.

Hey everyone!

This week has been very cool. Lots of very spiritual experiences as well as some funny things.

One of the cool things we have been able to do this week was we met a woman who when she was 15 was baptized but now has kind of forgotten everything and lost her way. How we found her was awesome. We were riding out toward an investigators house to just randomly stop by and we got a call from a member that was passing by. They were going to the pizza place right next to where we were and asked if we wanted dinner so we went with them and had dinner. After that we went on to the house once again. We got there and he was unavailable. So we decided to knock on his neighbors door. The neighbor wasn't there and we started walkin back down when just as we were about to leave a woman walks out from the house across the street. She said, "hey are you Latter Day Saints?" We said yeah and she told us all about how she had been baptized and then fell away and didn't mean to, just kinda stopped. She wanted to get back but she didn't know how, well there we were right then. She wasn't even living at the house she walked out of, it was her moms house she was visiting and she said they were Mormon once too. We wouldn't of found them if we hadn't had all that happen like it did. It was really really cool. Sometimes the Lord puts things in our path that may seem to frustrate how we think things
should go, but we can only see the picture from our point of view. You never know why that stumbling block to you might have been placed there, and you may see it soon as a very big blessing. Trust in the Lords timing.

I hope everyone has had a great week and pray all is going well! I'm thankful for all the prayers, I really can feel them and they help a lot. I love you all!

Elder Hiatt

Small and Simple Things

Hey everyone!

I hope everyone's week has been good! Mine has been fantastic and miracles are happening!

This week has been really sacred to me. I have had the blessing of recognizing answers to prayers through the spirit unfold before my eyes. I have been able to experience the Lord showing that he truly does care about our desires and that he loves each of us. This last conference I was really seeking an answer to something I've been praying and fasting about for months now and I hadn't gotten any answer on it. I was beginning to worry, but this conference the impression I got without fail in every talk was to have patience and trust in the Lord's time, that things will happen and so long as I'm patient, the Lord will answer. Well this week the Lord worked through people who didn't even know they were speaking by the spirit to give such a definitive answer that I cannot deny that prayers are answered and the Lord really does care about us and our desires. As we seek to follow him in the little things, great things become evident and truly miraculous blessings come because we are his children and he loves us. Sometimes we are afraid to ask God for things because we think he will say no or that he won't care but I invite you to try it! You will come to know just how loving Heavenly Father is when you are blessed with the very thing you ask (as it is righteous). He will answer you and does love you.

Something I really liked that I heard this week and pondered on was how little things make the biggest difference. When we do the little things of the gospel, in a marriage, in a friendship, in a job, those relationships strengthen and it's so much stronger and more fruitful as you do the little things each day, rather than one huge thing and then drop off. "It is by small and simple things that great things are brought to pass." No matter how small, as you strive to do good, you make the biggest difference.

Dallas Daze

So this week was an anti-bike week. I swear there are people that their sole purpose is to throw thumb tacks on the ground so I will run them over and pop my tires. So, needless to say, I have popped my tire on my bike 2 times now in a week thanks to those. We have had very generous people and I have tubes now, but also, we now have 4 bikes sitting in the apartment as back ups when something happens.....we have no room! I know this week's isn't the funniest but anything that has to do with a road here in Dallas is a Daze, rivers, the roads themselves, the things on the roads, the way roads are organized, everything. Roads in Dallas are a trip.

Hope everyone has a great week!
Love ya!
Elder Hiatt

Book of Mormon

Hey y'all!

This week went by way way fast and I was having a hard time on what to write to everyone. But here was some awesome stuff that happened so I will get into it.

I will start with the Dallas Daze because it was hilarious.

This week we had dinner at that home where the Down syndrome girl lives that is such a sweetheart. We had a great dinner of roast and potatoes and it really was awesome, but having had the experience, I let my companion experience sitting next to the girl. When we started the message to share, as expected she goes over and starts cuddling with my companion and he just starts dying with the "is this really happening laugh." This goes on the whole time and is hilarious because it's super awkward and finally she stops. Well we get up to go after the closing prayer and she stands up and gives my companion a big hug and tells him she loves him, after which she grabs his face and goes in for a big kiss! He luckily dodged that and it was all good but boy were his eyes huge with surprise. We get out and he's like,"...........that was interesting." So that was fantastic to experience.

As for this week obviously I'm going to talk about General conference. My favorite thing of it was the testimony of how reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and obeying are things that you will never be led away if you are doing. Such small things really do keep you in the faith, and if you find yourself dwindling, which of those three are you not doing? I can testify that fixing the lack thereof will change your life. I'm witnessing each day the words of a blue book that take people who are broken and hard-hearted and bring them joy peace and love. Let it change you! 

Something I really loved was the talk about angel mothers. I am so thankful for my mom and her teachings. It may seem like sometimes your kids aren't listening, but they are. I could've done more for my mother but I wouldn't be at all able to handle what I can without the teachings of my mother. As you teach your children the gospel and have seemingly inattentive lessons for family night and such, wondering if it's working, there will be a day where we will all reflect on the words we have been taught by our parents and see the way out of trial. It happened for Enos, it happened for Alma, and it can happen for each of us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is everything and will change your life to the sunny side of things if you'll let it.

Study general conference continually and take each talk seriously, there were things we must pay heed to and as we do, our joy will be full. I know the general authorities are men of God and are true. Heed their council and be saved, be happy, love life, and endure to the end in joy.

Love y'all!
Elder Hiatt.