Concord, California

I KNOW I have Austin's blog to post his letter's on, but since this is the first letter from California I just had to post it!!! If you didn't see the other post I did today about Maylin's teeth pulling, check out the post after this one too!

Hey family! It was so nice to be able to talk you all at the airport! It was nice to hear your voices and talk to you all! I love you so much! I miss you all a lot! 

The trip was fantastic. Airplane ride was like an hour and a half. Tried to sleep, but couldn't so just read my Spanish scriptures. When we arrived, it was so awesome! We were met at the gate by all the missionaries that were leaving, that we were replacing. They were going home that day. We then walked down to get our bags and met President and Sister Wade there. Yup! They looked exactly like the pictures I saw. He saw me and shook my hand asked me how I was and said he was really excited and grateful that he could get me as a missionary. (*My father was this man's mission president when he was a young man in the California Anaheim Mission. What a small world!) We got our bags and headed to the cars. President Wade wanted me in his car because he rode with Grandpa when he was picked up from the airport.  He wanted to get to know me and talk. It was nice, the ride to the mission home was awesome. 

Oakland is amazing! The city is huge here. We arrived at the mission home and got everything unloaded! It was awesome. The temple is so amazing and it and the mission home sit on a hill and overlook everything. It is one of the most amazing views I have ever seen in my life! We got everything unloaded and went into the house and had to get some paperwork and things done. Pres. Wade sat us all down (14 of us) in his living room and went over what was going to happen that day. Then we were put into different companionship's, I was with Elder Hatch for the day which was great! We had to go meet certain people in the mission office to get some paperwork filled out. We got an introduction on our credit cards and mission cars. They got all of our health insurance information and stuff like that. Signed some health paperwork and then met with President Wade in his office. It was nice we talked about grandpa and then some rules and so forth. I gave him that picture (*my mom gave Austin a picture of his President when he was 19 with my parents the first day in his mission) and he just laughed then put it in a picture frame with some of his other mission pictures. He was so happy to get that. 

We then went to lunch, it was super good! After lunch we went over to the temple for some orientation, cars, phones etc. We then went on a walk around the temple. That is the most beautiful temple I have ever seen! The view from it is amazing! I have some pictures I'll send some time, I don't know when. Oh, and I went with one of the temple workers to his apartment so I could send a defibrillator report, so I got that done. They kept the machine in their safe. So no worries there. After that we had dinner at the mission home. After dinner we had our meeting where we met our companions.

 But before we got our companions President Wade did some instruction and introduced himself some more. While doing this he brought up Grandpa and then me. He talked a lot about what Grandma and Grandpa had taught him on his mission. It was cool to hear! When he said that I was the grandson of his mission president all the missionaries looked at me. It was funny. Also he said grandpa always told the missionaries that they should sing in lessons. So he said," Elder Hill since your Grandpa was so amazing and instructed us to do this I want you to come up here and sing a hymn with me." I was like, what? I went up and we sang "The Prophets First Prayer." It was awesome! He explained how even though it may not sound amazing :P the spirit will be there and that investigator will feel it. It was cool, unexpected but nice! We then met our companion. My companion's name is Elder Bradford. He is from Bountiful, Utah. He is 21 (Found this out yesterday). He is great! We do really good together. He has been out for about 9 months, 6 in the field. He is pretty fluent in Spanish so that helps a ton. I am learning so much from him. That night we packed up got our Car, yes we have a car, and headed to our area. 

We are serving in the Concord 4th branch (Rama). It was a good drive to our apartment. Also unpronounced to me, we were shotgunning (opening) up a new area. He was new to the area too, so its been interesting. Our apartment is great! Its nice. Since its a new area we are starting from bottom up. I'm seeing everything and how it all works. We have no lessons, no investigators, so that's kind of a bummer, but were getting there. 

We have been really trying to find people. We have been also trying to get to know that ward. We spent a lot of time finding and with the ward. We started with Detroit and Sunshine Street. We just did some street contacting. We talked to the first lady we saw and she wasn't interested and wanted to leave so that was normal. We walked down the road and found two ladies talking in the driveway. We talked to them and they started to talk about what they knew about our church. The one lady I guess had visited our church before, but nothing ever happened with that. We asked them questions talked to them and then left them with a restoration pamphlet. That was cool. I just listened and said some things here and there. I could understand actually quite a bit of what they were saying. It was really different from the MTC, but I could understand it. 

We kept walking down the street and found a man named Zach. He spoke English, so that was nice. We asked him about God and things. He said he met with the missionaries before a while ago and was offended so doesn't really want to hear from us. We just talked and then gave him a commitment to visit Mormon.org. We left. We then found a 16 year old boy English speaking from Pakistan. He was very knowledgeable about religion. We talked to him about the restoration and about his relationship with God. He was super interested and actually wanted us to talk to him in his house right there about our message. We weren't able to because we had a ward mission leader class to teach. We also can't do anything with English people so we gave him a pamphlet and got his direction and his number. We then sent his information to the English missionaries. 

The lesson with the ward mission leaders was great. We taught a lesson on teaching simply. The members were amazing! I'm still getting to know them, but they are super friendly and of course they brought some treats at the end of it. That next day it was weekly planning. So we spent three hours in the morning planning our week. Not much to plan because we have nothing, but it was a good learning experience. I am doing the twelve week program with my trainer so I've been learning a lot. We then went to "Babylon!" Okay, Its the mall... haha. We had to visit the sprint store with the district leader to get all of the phone contacts synced. It was so weird! Then we spent the rest of the day doing contacting and driving around getting to know the area. 

The next day was super rainy. We went to go meet with a less active member on Pine Street, but she wasn't there. But while we were there we met a black brother who was really interested in our religion. He said he has been struggling and wondering about God and if there is more than the Bible. It was awesome! He spoke, English of course, so we answered questions got his information and sent it to the English missionaries. While we were there also we met a lady who asked us to come back. We set the cita( appointment) for later that day at 6. She wasn't there, sadly. 

We then went and gave a lesson to a member family in order to obtain referrals. We taught the restoration and about prophets because of conference. I gave the part about God is our father and how the gospel blesses  families. I could really tell that the Lord was blessing me with the gift of tongues. I was able to speak what I wanted. It was a great experience. We then made cookies that night so we could bring them to missionary coordination on Sunday, but they didn't turn out so good.

 Sunday was great! It was a flash back to the Mexico trips. Lets just say latinos cannot sing. I am going to come home and sound horrible.. ha. I have been able to play the piano in the ward and classes which is nice! The ward was great! We are taking over one of the recent converts this week so he will be having lessons with us! He is awesome. His name is Mario. That night we went to a thing at the Temple with all the new converts in the mission to a thing called "porque Yo Creo" (Why I belive) It was great! All the new converts bore their testimonies. It was really cool to see them and hear their testimonies. So that has been it so far!

A little tough but good! I am doing great, a little home sick just becuase its such a big change from the MTC. I like being comfortable and change is weird. I'm slowly getting used to it. We went to Wendy's today (Tell Ryan I thought about him as I ate a chicken sandwich) that was soooooo nice and made me feel better. I'm getting used to everything here. Its so different. Our area is great, but I'll spare you on the details.... haha. Love everyone! Got to go to write the President reports! Love you so much! Doing great! Talk to you next monday:) I am happy and we have a lesson with a potential investigator tonight so I will let you know how it goes.! Love yoU! Bye Adios! Te Quiero!

Your Son,
Elder Austin Hill