Elder Alexander L. Shill

  Well good morning, afternoon, and evening to my wonderful family and friends. I have in fact survived yet another week in the mission field, however this week we took some casualties: not necessarily a bad thing, however, difficult non the less. What was the casualty? Any amount of confidence or pride I had in my ability to teach the gospel, and teach it in another language. Before I get into that however, there were some other things that happened this week. We started off with a District Blitz where all 10 Elders go to one area and do finding for that area. This was brutal. We knocked every single house that we passed and I don't think I have ever been in a less interested or welcoming part of this country. However, we did find this weird statue place that freaked me out kinda-- I'll add photos to the album. I also hear someone playing Space Song by Beach House, in the same statue garden, weirdly enough.  Wednesday and Thursday were just a grind, contacting all the people ...

Hello Friends and family,  This week was nothing too special. It was really just the mission grind:That being said, there were some cool things that happened this week that I would like to mention.  The first one is that we had what we call a district bullets on Tuesday in our area. This is where the entire district comes to our area and just finds new people to teach for 1 whole day. This was a really cool experience, because Elder Gallagher and I had a weird amount of success. Including one nanay (grandma) that we were definitely supposed to find. We walked up to a house that had a sari-sari store in the front of it and we noticed that it was completely empty. So we knocked and asked and she was struggling financially because she was paying for her daughter's schooling. We were then able to share about the plan of salvation and bear testimony that Heavenly Father loves her. Simple words that left everyone in tears, it was lit.  The next day we did finding again, just ...

Hey there friends and family, I hope you have had a good past couple weeks, sorry that I haven't written in a couple weeks. Emails are tiring man. However there has been a lot that has happened over this past couple weeks, including 3 Baptisms. Dexter, Summer and Raine. This was super awesome, they are all 3 cousins: Dexter is 17, Raine 15, and Summer 12. Raine is super solid and Dexter is pretty awesome too. Summer will follow them and will more just grow up in the Gospel and be strong in it. Another thing that's really crazy that happened one day this week: Elder Borejon and I extended a Baptismal invite to this Nanay (older lady) that we hadn't really taught a ton. Basically, we both thought we were going to teach the restoration then he looked at me said what should we teach and I said baptism. He just looked at me and said sge (OK). So we taught it and I extended to her and her response after a short pause was just "sge saan tayo" or "ok where are we?...

Hey there guys, it has in fact been a minute since I have written an email and you all deserve to know what's happening. Rosario was an awesome experience and I learned a lot there, but I have now been transferred up to Baguio city. Sitting at about the same elevation as home, things are way different here. All the sudden I went to teaching people that only know Tagalog and sometimes only Ilocano to now here, where almost everyone knows English and some don’t even speak Tagalog. Tis a crazy crazy thing. Being in a city is wild, Baguio's different though. My area is like if they took a maze and then just slapped it on a mountain. My comp and I are basically a white wash, he was emergency transferred here less than 2 weeks before I got here so we get lost all the time. Which would be fine, however, everywhere you walk is either up hill or down hill, especially in my area.  Aside from that its good though, we have no other house mates so it's way easier to lock in on things li...

Well hello there my fellow people, I hope that you are well and the sun has been shining in your life. If not, I hope that I can help provide a little sunshine or smile for you. These past two weeks have been interesting, that's for sure-- I've learned a lot about what I want to become, and what I want my mission to look like.  I had the opportunity to do exchanges with Elder Jessop, he was our formal AP for 10 months and he's in his last few transfers.  This experience was amazing, I have found it hard to explain the things that I learned to Elder Baker and Blaser. The largest thing though that really changed for me is numbers. I think I was just kinda like the rest of everyone around me, I didn’t like them but I "understood" why we have them. Then I had this exchange and I really learned why numbers are there. We had our first DCM since that exchange and this time when I saw the board and our stats I felt motivated, it just made me want to go and work. It's ...

Well this was a pretty normal week, we taught our lessons and that was really it. This week was really just pushing forward, we have many people that are so close but just feeling hesitant to accept baptism. So things there are about the same. The one really interesting thing that happened this week is that I got to play tennis for the first time in almost 6 months which was crazy. So very fun, I am now so very bad, but it fs made my day. Ya honestly this week was really just a grind and there's not much else to be said. We're really just trying to work as hard as possible to give opportunities to our friends to feel the spirit. I did have the opportunity to give sister Mary Ann a priesthood blessing, and I will say this was a very unique experience. We went to her house on Saturday to find out that she would not be attending church because she had an operation the next day. A surgeon that comes to the Philippines and does free work as charity was going to remove a gallbladder ...