Hey everyone 8-29-11

This week has been good we got transfer news and I am staying and with Elder Cook. Elder Seabolt is leaving to Masaka and Elder Munkondya is staying to train so he will be having a son soon. Sometimes when it feels like the most good is happening some trials come and you just continue to push through with them. Just like this Sunday it rained so much as we were walking down our normal path it seemed like we were walking through a river my shoes and socks were so wet and muddy. I brought my rain jacket though so not that wet. It was so crazy I wanted to take a picture but I didn't want to wreck my camera. At church we didn't have many people there even one of the young men that was supposed to be baptized didn't come his name is Steven so that was pretty sad.
 Geofrey and Kennedy showed up to be baptized they are so powerful! They even bore powerful Testimonies. Joesph, the Father of this family came and he is a pretty great guy. He came even though he was sick which is pretty good. Lillian didn't come back to church again probably because the rain was so bad. This week we worked really hard and we are still trying to reactivate people and find those that are interested in the gospel. Habib has helped us a ton this week actually he helps us a ton all the time so that really cool of him. I don't really know the lifespan of people over here but most of them look pretty young. The gospel is true and I know that it is only through the trial of our faith that we will become stronger. I am so grateful for the blessings the Lord has given me like such a great companion a great district a great place like Entebbe to be for another six weeks. I love Entebbe and the people the ward is wonderful and I'm so thankful they have accepted me in and have helped me to grow and learn. This week we are planning to work hard and to find more of the honest people who are ready to receive the gospel and once we find those ones we hope to bring others through the honest. We are also planning to go work more in Bita where the Ballyjusas live because we haven't really been there yet and even taking a shortcut to the Ballyjusa house we saw many places that we had no clue that were even there so I guess that is our plan for this transfer. I know we can find those that are ready to accept the gospel as long as its what the Lord wants.

I am so grateful for our Loving Heavenly Father who gave me such a wonderful family to be in and that through his Son Jesus Christ we can be together forever someday and I know no matter what happens we will see each other again. I Know this is the loving plan of our Father in Heaven and He wants every family to know this and know that they can be together forever. Finding families is such a great thing and can be done. I love all of you guys and I am so grateful on how you have helped me. Each day I will continue to grow in the gospel we all learn line upon line precept on precept. It sounds as if all of you guys are doing good so that is great! Keep having fun!
Love Elder Hildreth

Hey Everyone!

The first part of Russell's letter is about Justin Robbe who graduated with Russell, he died in a plane crash last Monday. Nick's Father, Richard Johnson, died in the crash too, Nic Johnson is a friend of Aaron's, he graduated with Aaron. Hey Everyone! 8-22-11 At first I would like to talk about Justin and Nick's families. I know what just happened is super sad and it makes me sad, but I know that right now that family needs the gospel in their lives and this could be just the thing that can bring them closer to Christ. I know that they can see each other again someday and that we have a life after death I only wish now that I would have shared the gospel with Justin but I know that is in the past and all we can do is go forward in the present. We only have a short while to live on this earth and this life is unpredictable. It makes me want to teach everyone the gospel so they can feel of Heavenly Fathers mercy and love for us. I know it is only because of Christ that our families can be together forever and that he loved each and every single one of us to Atone for us I feel so blessed to know this sand feel it is so important to share it? We have such a wonderful message that we should be willing to share to everyone to show the world. This week was another great week and we have been working hard and doing good. Our Zone training went well we did a role play on how the spirit can guide people. We set five stones out and told the missionaries that they were the steps to Christ: 1st rock was faith in Christ 2nd was repentance 3rd was for baptism 4th was for receiving the Holy Ghost and 5th was for enduring to the end. We had two missionaries come up and help us, one was acting as a missionary and the other as an investigator and the investigator was blindfolded. We had him start at the beginning and the first time we just had the missionary bring him to baptism tand was not blessed with the Holy Ghost the missionary came and held his hand . Then we said the missionary that baptized him got transferred testimony wasn't strong enough and he didn't have the spirit to help him stand on his own. The second time we had the missionary bless him with the Holy Ghost and extend commitments and I was acting as the spirit and guiding him until the point when the missionary was transferred he wouldn’t be led away by the devil. So I thought it went well and so did the rest of our training. Hearing what everyone had to say just made me want to go out and work and the message we had was about finding families is so important. So that was the training we had this week and it was great! This week we had one baptism with Moro, Steven wanted to wait for his dad to see him baptized so we decided to postpone his baptism so his dad could see him. Lillian came back to church after 7 years of not going so that was super cool. Now I'll just continue to pray that she keeps coming to church.. We have been teaching two boys Geofry who is 19 and Kennedy who is 20 and both have friends in the church and are super powerful they both want to serve missions and do what their friends are going to do! Those two will be baptized next week man I am excited for Steven, Geofry and Kennedy they are all amazing and are even bringing their friends to church and have started doing missionary work already! After Moros was baptised he bore his testimony and it was super powerful he is only 10 and he talked about how after the baptism he felt so clean and holy and perfect and it was the coolest thing ever and I felt so happy for him and I know that that kid will be amazing. He is Esthers son and he is really funny and really cool. Sunday before church something great happened we were walking and Elder Cook contacted this one guy so I decided I should contact someone as well so I contacted this guy who had a family and gave him the Family a Proclamation to the World pamphlet and told him a little about it. Well on our way to the Ballyjusa family that evening Elder Cook saw him and talked to him and he told him he really liked what the pamphlet said and that our church said this and he has been looking for a church like this and he wants to go to church next Sunday so that was super and it felt so great! I feel that we have been working hard and now the Lord is giving us blessings and guiding us to families that can be blessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that this is the true and everlasting gospel I love this mission and I am so grateful to be among such a great people and to be with such wonderful missionaries such as my companion Elder Cook and My district. We had Mormon Helping Hands this week which was super wonderful and I loved working with these guys we helped clean up Ktoro and it was really messy and it still has a ton of work but we swept shoveled and raked for like 5 hours and we had a pretty big group it was fun too and really tiring I got super tired for the rest of the day mostly I think because I forgot sunscreen that wasn’t a good idea but I'm all good and it was such a good experience. I am glad to hear the family is doing good and having fun I love you guys and am so grateful I was raised in the gospel by such loving parents and my brothers and sisters and grandparents aunts and uncles and friends that have helped me. You guys are all so wonderful and I love you guys very much. Everything is going great here! I am doing wonderful and I am trying to learn more and more about the gospel and how it can help me in my life and how I can bless others. Love Elder Hildreth

Live From Uganda

 So everything here is going great and I am so thankful for the Lord and his blessings and even his tender mercies which sometimes we don’t deserve but he still gives them to us to show us that he Loves us and that he cares for us. What a wonderful Father in Heaven we have I know that he loves all of his children and wants what is best for us all. He really knows all our needs even before we ask him and I know that to be true. I know that is why he sent his son because he loves us each and every single one of us and when we look at people we should see the child of God in every single person because we are all children of God and he love us. 

  So this week has been a good week, full of finding the lost and some we knew about such as Sevier Luma and Lillian but they don’t come to church and I have no idea why not. We are trying to become better friends with them so they want to come back to church and they haven’t been to church in forever so it is kind of sad not knowing why. Both of them even have lots of friends at church that come to visit them but yet they still don’t come and we as missionaries don’t know what to do at least I don’t. So hopefully the Lord will soften their hearts and bring them back to church.

  We also had a Zone District Meeting this week where we talked about sacrament and how we can get people to want to come to sacrament so that was good and I enjoyed listening to what our Zone Leaders had to say. Also this week Me and Elder Cook are giving a Training for Zone Conference on the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. So we will see how that goes and I will be seeking for the spirit so we can edify those that come. I am excited and I hope it all goes well.

  So this Sunday was a really powerful Sunday because when I first got to church there was like 10 people there and there was like 5 minuets left tell it started so I said a little prayer that more people would come and little while later the chapel was pretty filled and there were a few less actives that came and also some people we have been teaching which brought friends and they all seem interested in the gospel which was so great! I am so glad that the Lord hears us and will give us blessings such as that. The Lord really does answer prayers if we ask him with a sincere heart. How wonderful it is to have prayer I love it. That’s not all though we went to the Ballyjusa family for FHE and they are such an incredible family with such powerful testimonies of the gospel and the Assistants want us to record their families testimonies and take a picture of them and they will make that a pass along card and for the movies for everyone to see! I am excited to see what it will look like. This week was just a trial run but this Saturday we will be doing the real thing and it will be powerful! Also Esther our recent convert has been teaching like 15 people our gospel which is amazing and they are for the other Elders but who cares she has asked for their help and says that most of them will most likely be baptized that is so cool!

We have two baptisms planned for next week one Esthers son Morro who is 10 and also Steven who is 19 and he brought two friends to church Derek and Stanley who are also interested so it was just a wonderful day and I feel so blessed.

  Today we wont be doing that much just clean the apartment, email and just hang out until Family Home Evening at the church with the single adults and then back to teaching people which will be good.

   I am loving mission and loving Uganda and the people here more and more. It is such an amazing experience I hope all young men strive to serve mission it is so amazing and I know as long as we do what is right we will grow through the Lord and our Faith will continue to grow stronger and stronger.

Thanks for the Email I am glad everyone is doing good! keep enjoying and having fun. I love you all and to all a good week until I hear from you again.

   Love Elder Hildreth

Elder Russell D. Hildreth
Uganda Kampala Mission
Nakawa House, Ground Floor
7 Portbell Road
Nakawa Kampala
Uganda  

Hey everyone! August 8, 2011

  Entebbe is doing good. It is actually raining here now and I had to run through some rain to get here and there was a lot of it too. I was even without the rain jacket. So that was really fun. I really like Entebbe the Ward is wonderful and so are the people. The week went pretty good we were focused on finding the recent converts that are lost and we have no clue who they are and also we are trying to get people to want to come to church it isn't very easy to get people to commit to do anything here. Today for Prep day we don't have much planned but it will be fun maybe we will make a cake or some burritos or something. Speaking of food Mom can you send me your recipe for cookies and for brownies if you could also frosting. That would be wonderful :) I really am loving it out here the people are great and one thing I also got to do was go on exchanges and I got to see what the other side of Entebbe was like with Elder Munkondya so that was pretty fun and interesting they have some pretty good prospects. It was also nice to see how he taught so I could learn from him. He is from Zambia and has almost been on mission for 6 months and the same is for Elder Seabolt so we are a young district. We are doing good though and working hard. I had an experience last week where I lost my wallet so my companion and I prayed so we could find it and I found it a few moments later and I lost it a few days back and had been praying to find it myself and I couldn't find it. So it just adds testimony to the more people you have in the prayer the more effective it can be. I feel so blessed for answered prayers what a blessing.  The Zone Leaders came this Saturday to interview Evelyn who was going to be baptized Sunday and she ended up being ready to be baptized and she wants me to baptize her so this will be my second baptism. Now we need to get her to endure and not become a lost sheep. It makes it hard on other missionaries when tnew members aren't taught to endure to the end because Elder Cook and I have a lot of work trying to find 40 some recent converts who just disappear ed. I know we can find them through prayer and that we will also find those ready for baptism. We also had about 6 investigators at church which is good and most of them seem interested lets hope they stay interested and continue to want to follow the path our Savior set for us. I know that the Lord will bless us for our obedience to him and as long as we are obedient we are more likely to receive the blessing that he will give us.

   I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and that it has been restored back to its original form when Christ was on the Earth and how great is it to have a Prophet like Joesph Smith that was able to endure all those hardships to make sure this work continued to move on. What a great blessing is it to serve a mission? it is way great and even to bring one soul to the eyes of God will bring us much joy! I know that I am here to bring people to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and that we should all strive our best to serve him to what we are capable. I have seen what a great example of what we should be doing at home and to help the missionaries. The people here are usually willing to help the missionaries when they ask which is great so will I. I know that always being a missionary is super important.

  I am so grateful to the family I have and that they have helped me so much to become the person I am and even that you guys continue to encourage me and help me out! I am so thankful and I have much more to thank you guys for. I love you all. Thanks Mom for your Emails they are amazing and I am so grateful that you always write me and help me I love you.

 I love all of you.

Love Elder Hildreth

Hey! Well I hope everyone is going well. Thanks so much for what you said about prayer it seems like you had a wonderful Ed week. I know prayer is the one thing we can always go to in time of need and even when we think we shouldn’t pray that is also when we should for "the evil spirit teacheth a man not to pray and the good spirit teaches a man to pray". I know prayers can be answered and they will be answered by our Heavenly Father in his own due time.

This week was really good. We have been working pretty hard and have been teaching this girl named Evelyn. I don’t know if I told you about her but she was a referral from my brother Elder Bailey who is in Ethiopia now which is really cool. She is really amazing and really wants to be baptized hopefully this next week! Also this Saturday we had one of our Assistants come over to stay with us. His name is Elder Rennie and he is really nice and he is super spiritual and he loves to work and get things done. Also this Sunday we had one of our best Sacrament Meetrings we had nine investigators at church and most of them want to get baptized which is great. We have one guy Rodgers who we taught the Doctrine of Christ to four others, two of them are Esters little kids. Esther if you remember just got baptized and now she has a ten and eight year old that want to be baptized. We also had an older guy in his 40s. He came and they all want to be baptized and want to meet with us more which is absolutely wonderful and I am super excited for all these guys. We will try to see them as much as much as we possibly can. I'll try to keep you updated. The other missionaries also had a baptism which was great. His name is David and I got the chance to talk with him and he is super powerful.

Sorry it took me so long to email you guys today, we were in Kololo for pday for zone activities so I got to see the mission home. We went and played some basketball with our zone. There were also like two other zones there so it was really fun. After we went back to this shop right store and it is kinda like Three Bears. We also went to Mr Tasties and that was a really good restaurant. Also got some ties which was cool. So that is why I am late to email you.

I think it is a wonderful experience to be on mission and I am so grateful to be here and I love it so much. I love the Ward here, it is the strongest Ward in Uganda well that is what my companion Elder Cook says. The members are super nice and they are wonderful. The people are nice, a little to nice I guess, they say yes to every commitment you ask because they don’t want to offend the missionaries. I love it here in Uganda and I am definitely getting more used to how everything here. Like the warmth and I guess just everything when I first got here everything was strange but now I am kinda getting more and more used to everything.

I know this is the true church on earth today and I am so grateful to be here in Africa to serve the Lord for these two years. It really is an amazing experience and I know I have so much to learn and so much more faith to be gained. Another great experience I had this Sunday was there was a really sick little girl at church and Elder Cook and I gave her a blessing and even within an hour she was jumping up and down with excitement. How the Lord loves the children and we must all be like little children submissive meek humble and full of patience I don’t know if I was like that as a child ha but it is how we are to be and I will try to build those and build myself the best way I know how.

 Well that’s about all I have this week. I love you all and Ill talk to you next week.

Love Elder Hildreth