September 23, 2013

Elder McCune...New Companion and New Area...HUAMBO!

(From Sister Merrill) 

Good morning!

Elder Tilley just wanted me to email you and let you know all is well.  He was not able to get his weekly email sent due to connection problems...(not surprising here!!!)  He will try to catch up next week.

He is doing great as he has stepped into his new responsibility.  What a great young man..!!!

 Hope your day and week goes well.

Pennie Merrill

(This is what he got off so far ...

Answers:

Well on the church records (MLS) there is only like 9 people because MLS is kind of a wreck right now in Huambo so we are trying to work with South Africa (where the church headquarters are here in Africa) to fix MLS. But we have about 30-40 members I would say. We only have a few primary kids and no Young Men or Young Women. We have about 30 people come to church every week including little kids and investigators. So there are about 5 that are inactive I would say.

(What do you do?) . . . Well basically everything... I am just a normal branch president that is a missionary as well... well technically I am a missionary first and then the Branch President... but all my responsibilities are the same. We just had our Branch Council Meeting last night and that actually went pretty well.

I am sure there is something you guys could do (for a service project), but I am not exaclty sure at the moment... do you have any ideas?

One thing I just thought of was that we are going to be having a fireside on Marriage here in two weeks. Would you be able to send me some Temple fotos of Josh or Rachel or Braden?

Pops!

Thanks for the advice, I will definitly do my best to apply it!

Any interview with a girl I have, I leave the door cracked open and my companion is right outsider the door  so that we can remain in sight of each other.

Things are going pretty well. I was not too overwhelmed by the calling. Initally I was kind of scarred and worried, but nothing to big. But I had an interview with a Brother last night who explained some of the issues and problems that were happening in the  Branch and I have recognized as well, but that really put a weight on me and I am now trying to figure out and resolve.

I find it interesting that sometimes the Lord, especially since I have been the Branch President, instently gives me the revelation or the guidance that I need and then other times he makes me work for it!

One instance of this was that on Sunday I had just called a new lady to be the 1st counselor in the Primary as I was sitting up in front I felt the Spirit tell me that she needs to speak next week and the topic should be (the blessings of Tithing) right after Sacrement was over this lady came up to me and said "Would I be able to give a talk next Sunday?" In kind of amazment, I said "yes you can" She then said what is my topic? I told her that I would tell her that I would tell her later (I wanted to tell her the experience that just happened with me) So we set her apart after church and then I told her the experience I had and the topic I felt she should speak on, she was also alittle bit surpriesed and amazed at the experience as well. It was a really neat expereine  for me!

I am doing well and I hope that you all is well with you too!!

Love you Pops!!

Elder Tilley 

September 16, 2013

I am just to the left of the brown shoes; I am taking the picture

Trip to Huambo

So new news! I have been transferred to Huambo (Province). I am actually already here in Huambo.... and Mom so you know that dream you had about me just coming home and lying in bed, well I think it might come true! Why? Because not only have I been transferred here to Huambo, but I am the new Branch President of Huambo! Pretty crazy right! I did not see that one coming at all!

Transfers happened a little bit early because Presdient Merrill was coming down for a zone Conference with the Lubango and Huambo Elders this past week end so he decided to do transfers and sustain the new branch president during church on Sunday. But I randomly got a call from President Merrill Thursday night and he said that transfers were going to happen early and that I would be transferred to Huambo and be the new Branch President. I initially took it pretty well, but then afterwards a flood of things came into my mind that I realized I had no idea how to deal with. We called my companion to be my first counselor, I do not have a second counselor yet, but we called a Portuguese man, named ilidio to be the secretary. I was sustained on Sunday and have already given two talks, given two temple recommends, delt with tithing and all of that. So it has been pretty intense the past few days.

Because of the zone conference we have had 13 missionaries here. All the Lubango and Huambo elders as well as the elders who were in huambo and Lubango, but were getting transferred back up to Luanda and the assistants. So all of us have been in one house the past 3-4 days... so that has been fun. So yeah it has been going well.

Answers:

I am not sure how many (missionaries) we have now, we are getting two from the states this Wednesday, but I am not sure who they are I think Elders Rigby and Peterson. We have 13 new missionaries though that are either on their way here to Angola this week, have been reassigned for the time being (waiting for visas) or who are in the MTC! Pretty crazy!! I don’t know where we are going to put all these missionaries because we do not have very many leaving. Elder Montgomery was transferred to Benfica, and Elder Hannay took my place as zone leader. Elder Mccune is my new companion and my first counselor. He is from Utah.

Typically for transfers we find out on Monday and then transferred on Wednesday, but because of the Zone Conference here in Huambo we had transfers a little bit early.

:) yeah i wish I would have practiced more (piano)

If it is not too much of a hassle... maybe a little framed picture of Christ or the family to put on my Branch President desk :)

I dont think (conference) will be live, but we will get DVDs later on and we will watch them, but probably in Portuguese, which obviously I can understand, but it is just different in English, especially hearing the apostles actual voices.

(Dad)

I heard that BYU stomped on Texas that is pretty cool, also with ASU winning that is soo crazy! It sounds like the business is picking up and going well.

So Mom probably told you that I was transferred to Huambo and called to be the new branch president of Huambo. Pretty crazy, if you have any advice for me that would be great!

I talked with President Merrill and he said that he still wants me to focus on missionary work, but keep the branch running and functioning well. He told me that my goal should be to find and train someone to be the next branch president. President told me to try to be looking for someone member or nonmember that could be a future Branch President and then the hope is to call him before I end my mission and then my companion and I would be his counselors to train him... right now I am not sure if there is any one in the branch that could be the branch president, but I feel like there definitely could be... but that is going to be my goal before I leave (President Merrill told me that should be my goal, but if it doesn’t happen then that doesn’t mean I failed or anything it just means that heavenly Father had some different plans for the branch)!

Having said that, until then I am still the Branch President so any advice I would love!

I love you Dad so much and look up to you so much!!

Elder Tilley

FS experience…Wednesday or maybe it was Thursday I can’t remember but we passed by Mi and Chelsia, but we taught the entire family. One little boy when he sees us always comes and gives us a hug :) But we taught the Dad and the Mom as well the plan of Salvation. the mom goes to another church and the dad believes in God but does not go to church or anything like that. So we taught them and the dad who is kind of a smoker and kind of a hard man, at the end of the lesson said "maybe you goes can come over some day and we can make lunch for you guys" then he said "we like you guys coming over becasue we feel blessed when you come over. Also when we went over Chelsia was sick and as we were living the Spirit very quietly said "give her a blessing" I kind of ignored the prompting and thought "she will be fine she doesn’t need one" we left the house and the spirit was working on my pretty hard and I felt really bad that we did not give her a blessing. I thought well maybe we’ll call them tomorrow and if she is still sick we can come back and give her a blessing. The spirit continued to work hard on my and then the thought came that if I went tomorrow then the father would probably not be in the house to see and feel the power of the priesthood. (The dad works a lot and is out of the house a lot) When I thought that I stopped in my tracks and said Elder Hansen we need to go back and give chelsia a blessing, he was willing to go back, but I think I thought it was kind of weird but we went back and I knocked on the door and the mom came out and I said in our church we are able to give blessings of health and we wanted to know if chelsia would like one? The mother not knowing anything about priesthood blessings immediately without hesitation responded "yes she needs one" We went in and explained what would happen. We gave her a simple blessing that said she would recover quickly. When we got done with the blessing Cardosia their boy who is about 6 jumps in the seat waiting for his turn to give him a blessing :) he was doing fine so we did not give him a blessing (thinking about it now we should have just given him one though since he wanted it)

then the mother said I also have a sickness can I receive a blessing too? We gave her a blessing as well and the spirit was very strong in the room!

I have thought several times to myself what a precious gift a Priesthood blessing would be to these people. They have never felt the real power of the Priesthood probably ever in their lives and here for the first time they are able to receive and feel the real power of Christ in the lives! It really is a Miracle!

I love you so much Mom!

Thanks

Elder Tilley 

(Letter from Pennie Merrill to Sister Tilley)

Thank you for that information (about the orphanage)! You are an answer to my prayers. We have wanted to go there and take some of the Elders but no one seemed to remember how to get there or have any info. I guess I didn't ask the right person! Hopefully we can do a service project for Christmas! 

We have felt the love and support from you and all the other Moms. Thank you for your prayers. That is where we gain our strength.

Have I told you how much we absolutely love your son? He is a great strength and such a strong leader. I am glad to hear you are ok with him staying here for a time longer! ;-) we love these young men so much it is going to be very hard to tell them good bye…your son is one of the chosen leaders whose testimony and loving personality touches all he meets. Thank you for teaching him the correct principles of the gospel and the desire to serve! Hope your day is good and thank you for your friendship.

Pennie Merrill

September 9, 2013

 We went to the beach for a little bit. 
The waves were really big... it was alot of fun!

Starting from the left. Elders Stewart, Montegomery, Tingey, Money, Me, Garn, Chandler, Elder Hansen is on the groud with S. Merrill

Merkley, Montgomery, Chandler, Tingey, Garn in front of Money, Tilley,
Sister Merrill and Presidant Merrill laying Elder Hansen

Answers:

We were in the house when we found out. We were planning and our branch mission leader called us and asked who the missionaries were that got assaulted. I asked what missionaries? He then said that a missionary got assaulted in Filda (Filda is where we live). At this point I realized that it was Elder Chandler and Elder Garn that got assaulted and I am about ready to bust out the door to go find them or something. But the branch mission leader said that they were already on the way to the hospital. So then I decided to call Elder Chandler´s phone, and some random Angolan answered the phone and I realized that the person I was talking to was the person who stabbed Elder Chandler, so then I had a few words to say to the man :) but he ended up hanging up on me. So I called President who was already at the hospital waiting for Elder Chandler and Elder Garn (they got a ride from a members husband that is our next door neighbor). President said he talked to Elder Chandler and he seemed all right. He got stabbed a couple of times, but there was only two marks on him. One was a puncture whole on his spine, the other was a pretty wide cut between his shoulder and back (he got three stitches on that cut). They would have been fine if they would have just given up their stuff (Elder Garn gave up his stuff freely) but Elder Chandler put up a little fight and so it ended up in him getting stabbed. He has already been transferred to Cassequel. We are doing fine, Elder Garn his still trying to recover because he basically almost watch Elder Chandler get stabbed to death, but he is doing well. Initially I was pretty upset, we are all working on forgiveness though:) I am not too scarred because if E C would not have resisted nothing would have happened so we are just a lot more aware of where we are at and things like that.

We went on a Safari today with our zone!

I do not think (I need anything). If (the belt) is a big hassle i think I can do without it till the end.

People who have baptismal dates for the 28th of September 

Lopes: He is Garcia and Fina´s Son

Anacleto: He is Beatrizes son. her "husband" is a member, but they are working on getting married, but the son will be baptized before beatrize is.

Slow: He has had (some) problems in the past, but he is doing really well... his mind is a little bit slow if you could tell from the nick name his family gave him (Slow they called him that because he was a little slow and it just stuck... really sad, but we are working on helping him see that he is a son of God!)

Avo: A reference from a member... he is soooo Awesome! Really strong testimony already... we taught him on Sunday and it was one of those lessons where the investigator goes from being an investigator to basically a member who is not baptized yet.

Wilson: He is denilons cousin... also really awesome kid... he is 19 years old

Mi and Chelsia: Mi is 13 and chelsia is 11, they are also references from members. We are teaching their entire family, but their family will not be ready for baptism for a while, but they are champs and have really strong testimonies...

Baptismal dates for the 12 of October

Helder: Another reference from a member that we are teaching... but still in the beginning stages with him.

Ivandro: reference from a member... Elder mariquele and I taught him once when we were together, but then we dropped him because lack of desire... but two weeks ago he came to church and wants help to change his life... we taught him the Word of Wisdom and he really like it..

The Lord is really blessing us alot... I think this is the best area I have had, but it has been a long road to get here as well. Our area has been none for the kind of crappy area that is really hard and the branch is very dysfunctional that just wears missionaries out, but we have had a few new members move into our branch and were put into leadership positions and our branch is one of the better functioning branches now our area is really exploding! It is a lot of fun.

Saturday there were baptisms for the other zone, but there was a baptism from our branch so we went to it. We got there and like usual people were running late.. so president said that we should just all sit down and listen to prelude. Howerever there was no one playing prelude and I noticed no one else really knew how to play... so I went and played the few hymns that I know and it was really good because when I started there was a lot of noise, but after a few minutes everyone stopped talking and just listened... (I thought it would have been really nerve racking, but it wasn’t and I was pretty calm) I played basically all the hymns I knew and repeated a couple as well while we were waiting, but it was a real blessing because I messed up maybe two times during the entire thing and the Spirit was present in the meeting.

Elder Garn and I have also been playing for the branch and last week I found a hymns made simple book, so right before the meeting started I looked at the hymns and they looked pretty easy (right hand only :)  So I played the first one, the opening hymn, and basically butchered it... so then basically during the entire meeting I practiced the closing hymn over and over (with the keyboard sound off) and the closing him was a lot better.

That is way cool what they did at the seminary building... I guess you can only get that kind of stuff in old hick towns:) really cool old hick towns that is:)

Sounds good to me with Braden and Chelsy (getting a house).

Agreed the Book of Mormon has really helped me so much on my mission as well! That is an interesting dream you had... I am not sure if I have any comments on it, but thank you so much for sharing that with me!

Love you Mom!!!

Love 

Your Son!

Elder Tilley

Love you so much Pops!

Thank you for reminding me of that story!

Love you 

Elder Tilley

 (Preston)

I am so going to school you when I get back... just so you know!! 

I love you tons bro!

Love 

Elder Tilley

September 1, 2013

Sorry I did not get your email last week, but sister Merrill got (garments) for me. It was only like $5.50 so I just paid her. Oh and I tried to use my debit card this week and it did not work again it said the same thing (my bank will not allow me to do this transaction).

Yeah I know (my time is almost up). It kind of scares me a little bit honestly, but everything will be ok :) I liked your FS experiences this week! I had a similar one about helping others. Elder Garn is a missionary living with us he is from Burley Idaho he said he is for sure that his relatives and my dads relatives probably know each other. Anyways he had a note that said something like "don’t keep your warm and fuzzies" I kind of laughed and said what does that mean!? :) He then grabbed a book, gave me a few pages to read and so I read them and it was a story that says there were these two towns one was a happy city where all these people had these warm and fuzzies that they gave freely to other people and when you gave it to someone one it made the other person feel so good inside. The other city was a sad city where people only gave each other hard pricklies and this city was angry that this other city was so happy. So one day the sad city sent spies out to the happy city with a plan to make the happy city sad. They went to a teenager and told him to not give his warm and fuzzies because he will run out and then gave him hard pricklies to give to people and they told him that he would never run out of hard pricklies. The teenager did what the spies said and soon the happy city was giving out these hard pricklies and everyone was miserable! At that point the two cities became one city where everyone gave out hard pricklies and everyone was sad. One day there was a big up roaring in the city and a fire broke out and burned down a family’s house. Out side of the house there was a large crowed and a little girl crying because her house was burned down a little bit about 5-6 years old pulled and almost dead warm and fuzzy out of his pocket and went and was going to give it to the girl, a few people saw what the boy was about to do and tried to stop him, but they were too late and the boy gave the little girl a warm and fuzzy. The Girl revived this warm and fuzzy and felt so good inside. Soon everyone started to give each other warm and fuzzies again and the city became a happy city once again. That may seem like a funny story, but it really touched me, and so the note that I started out kind of laughing about (the one that said dont keep your warm and fuzzies) turned around and become a FS experience or a warm and fuzzy for me :)

Another FS I had

President,

This week was really good. Our area is really starting to grow and we have alot of people to teach and several people on baptismal date and hopefully a few more this week as well.  I went on a Division with Elder Montgomery and it was a really good division. I think I LEARNED more from him then he learned from me! We started to talk a little bit about our missions and something he said was "one day I just decided that I was going to really enjoy my mission" He said that he just decided one day that he was going to love being a missionary and love teaching and things like that and now he does! When he said that it really touched my heart and I felt like that was something that I needed to do! Since the Division I have been really trying to decide to really enjoy my mission and it has really helped me alot!

FS. Elder Garn and I studied the scriptures last night and it was a really spiritual enlightening experience!

(Preston) Wow that is crazy man! I guess I will not even be able to see you with braces on! bummer! Soo how is life going for you? Careful with those girls I know they are out there probably just falling over themselves for PT Cruzer, but be careful yeah?! :)

What else are you doing besides partiyng at that sweet cabin? Just school and stuff? or what!

I hope you have a great week! :) Love you Man!

Did you watch the video last week? Is that cabin the one we went to for the Stake Youth council? 

I am doing really well. It is not that I am not liking my mission it is just that I haven’t been enjoying every bit of it, if that makes sense. Obviously I love and enjoy it when things go well and we have a family baptized or a special spiritual experience, but I am trying to love and enjoy my mission even when the days are just the normal average day or even a bad day.  Also Angola is just a really hard place to live in. A lot of poverty and a lot of crime and things like that weigh you down, also missionary life can be hard sometimes, but I am doing good and all is well. Just trying to start sprinting :) Just pray for me because our area is pretty dangerous. Elder Hansen and I are fine, and haven’t had any real problems, but we are just in a dangerous part, so don’t worry but just keep us in your prayers for that :)

Love you Mom have a great week!

Tell dad I loved his letter and sorry for not writing back! I love you all!!

Elder Tilley