Mini Missionary

Hello!!  Hope you are all enjoying the end of November!  I can´t
believe I am already starting to think about what we will be doing to
celebrate Christmas here in Santa Elena.  I am excited!

I am now serving with a ¨mini¨ missionary, Hermana Franco.  A mini
missionary is a youth who is from the mission limits who serves with a
fulltime missionary to fill in a hole in the mission for a time being.
We are short a few hermanas, so we are constantly looking for a few
girls 18 and up who can help out the mission for six weeks.  Hermana
Franco is so great!!  I wish I could load up photos for you all but
our connection is way slow today.  She is from Santa Fe, the capital,
about 4 hours in bus from Santa Elena.  She is 18 and is the oldest of
8!

I have quickly realized that serving with a mini missionary is a very
grand opportunity for them to see if they really want to serve full
time for 18 months.  I admire these youth who come out without ANY MTC
experience and are thrown right into the work! I would be devastated!
So I am trying to do my best to give her a great impression of the
mission... and she seems to be doing great so far!!! Hermana Franco is
so relaxed and always laughing... so I think we make a good match : )
Our first day out was very rainy... she slipped and fell in the mud, I
was so worried she had bruised her leg badly and thought she was going
to think this was going to be the longest six weeks of her life, but
just as those thoughts flashed through my mind I saw her laughing the
biggest laugh, and she ended up using it as a metaphor in our lesson!
I am so grateful for her cheery attitude.. she has been helping me
think of creative things to do here before I end my mission.  She also
likes Boys II Men and Stevie Wonder. woot!

Things are coming along with new people we are teaching... we are
praying and hoping and praying that our new investigators will
progress.  In the last few weeks I have been blessed to see the Lord´s
hand guiding us to people who needed us in the moment, and we knew it
was right because the contacts told us ¨Ï was just praying in my room
and feeling horrible and then you came.¨  Wow.  Gives me the chills,
in a really good way!!

I want you all to know that coming closer to our Lord Jesus Christ is
the only real way we can receive the happiness and strength we need in
this life.  As a zone we have been focusing more on the Atonement in
our studies and are talking more and more about the Savior in our
teaching, and it is incredible.  I may be planting a lot of seeds
right now, but I can´t imagine doing anything else right now in my
life.  It truly is the best decision I have made in my life (yet) and
I hope the people we are teaching will be able to say that when they
begin to accept and live the gospel.

Love you all so much!

xoxo hermana hill mill