Sveiki Gyvi!

Couple of funny things from this week.

Ran into some Jehovah's Witnesses, again in a park trying to start a convo with a guy. They came up, two older women, and like asked who we were. Confused, about it, but eventually got that we were Mormons. Machine gunned us with questions like not even allowing us time to answer. Asked if we believed in the Bible, I pulled out this small New Testament I had bought, she just said it didn't matter because it was small or something, but then she wanted to whip out some verse for us, but neither she nor her 'companion' even had any sort of scripture, a bit ironic. She was telling us that we had chosen the incorrect path, so I just asked her if she knew why I was here. She said no, so I told her that I had prayed about the Book of Mormon and the Church and that God, himself had told me it was true. Wasn't much she could say to that. She berated us with some more questions and then eventually told us to go home, pray and repent for leading people to Hell, asking us to forgive her. I said we would. It was just funny to me, like she was flipping out and we were just calmly trying to explain why we were here.

In English class we ended up talking about superstitions- it started since a class member made a comment about someone's bag on the ground, saying that all their money would leave, a superstition here- they don't set anything on the ground, always on a chair or table or something. So we eventually wandered our way to good luck charms, i mentioned a four-leaf clover, they didn't know those words in English, or by my poorly drawn clover, it wasn't in the dictionary we had, so I asked if they knew what a leprechaun was, still no. So then I drew a rainbow and a pot of Gold to explain a leprechaun so they would know about a four leaf clover. No luck- haha, probably because I didn't have one myself. Funny stuff. They just got more and more confused the harder I tried to explain it.

Studied patience a bit this week. Decided the greatest example of patience based in faith and hope, can be found in The Karate Kid. We are all the Karate Kid, God is represented by Mr Mijagi. He knows what will mold us into the greatest karate masters the world has ever known. He asks us to do some things, sometimes without explaining why. Examples include, waxing on and off, painting a fence, catching flies with chop sticks, and caring for bonsai trees. All seemingly insignificant and unrelated to his development as a Karate master but ultimately the steps of success. We too must blindly, patiently follow our personal master like Mr Mijagi, The Master- Jesus Christ, to become a gospel master, disciple of Christ.

Algimantas. A few weeks ago, Elder Sherman and I taught him, he lives outside Kaunas and wouldn't pray, but said he would read the Book of Mormon and call us when he had read some. This week Elder Leishman and I saw him on a bench and sat down and talked to him. He had read and we were able to talk about the Plan of Salvation. We invited him to be baptized. He said he had been, so we reviewed authority and that he would need to be baptized again. He agreed to think about it. At the end of the lesson, whereas before he was very against praying with us, this time he readily agreed.

Algirdas. We found him harvesting, he is pretty Catholic, but wanted to learn what we believed. We taught some about our beliefs, then he said he didn't have much time, so we left a Restoration pamphlet, committed him to read it and then set up a return appointment. He was willing, said he would definitely read the pamphlet. We meet with him again this Tuesday.

We couldn't meet with Tadas, but he came to Church and enjoyed it more than the previous week. We'll meet and teach him again this Saturday or Sunday.

We met with Du Wei, he's working hard and was very excited about learning about the Christlike attributes in Preach My Gospel.

Elder Leishman is awesome. It's great working with him. I love Lithuania, I know I say that over and over, but I can't say it enough. I appreciate your prayers and pray for you. Good luck as you push the last bit through the school year.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas


PS I still write in my journal and also have a study journal for my more Gospel oriented thoughts.

Labas Visiems!

On Elder Leishman. He's from Springville, UT. Went to BYU for a year, where his dad is a professor of Acoustics. He was born and lived the early years of his life in Pennsylvania while his dad went to school. He plays the drums and loves music, so we've talked a lot about music. That's a bit about him.

This weekend there was a International Festival in Kaunas, with 100 European cities represented. Included in this festival was a medieval tournament. Unfortunately the festival was from Thursday through Sunday, but Elder Leishman and I obtained a schedule and found out when things were happening and took our break hours at strategically chosen times to witness some of the excitement. Including........JOUSTING!! Like A knight's Tale, a little less intense, but still pretty sweet. There was also a little sword fighting between the knights as well. It was super epic and awesome to be able to see.

We met with Du Wei and had been unsure of what to teach, but decided on Charity. We taught the lesson and at the end he said that it was exactly what he had needed to hear. It was great to see God's guidance and to have Du Wei recognize that importance and application to his life and tell us.

Some sad news about Tadas, but there's still a silver lining to our cloud. We met with him, he dropped his baptismal date because he wants to be clean before God and knows to do that he needs to get married. He said that that was impossible for about a year. His desire to follow Christ is still strong and he wants to continue meeting with us and attending Church, which he did this Sunday. He also invited his girlfriend, Ieva to meet with us and she said that she would come to Church next week. Our hope is that if they can work together to desire baptism, they can push each other to make the necessary changes sooner rather than later to be baptised. It was rough having him make that decision, but we expressed our thoughts that we are concerned that his drive might falter some while waiting and the blessings that come from obedience now.

This week was good. Elder Leishman and I discussed goals and talked a lot about Lithuanian and how to improve. We have been SYL'ing a lot and discussing a lot about the language. I've found out things about the language that I never ever knew existed, it's just blowing my brain apart.

Mom, it's funny that you wanted to study light. That's one of my favorite topics. Especially the relationship between light and truth. A goofy, or perhaps not so goofy, study I did during our breaks this week involved the scriptural evidence for lightsabers. I was inspired by the cherubim and flaming sword. If you look through the old and new testament, light and fire are very intricately connected, since fire was the main source of light. Therefore perhaps the flaming sword was a lightsaber, they just had no words to describe something like that. Also, in Ephesians in mentions the Sword of the Spirit, or the word of God. In Doctrine and Convenants section 84, if I am not mistaken, it states that the word of God is truth, which is light, which is Spirit. THerefore the Sword of the Spirit is the Sword of Light, lightsaber. I then came to the conclusion that lightsabers must have been the weapons in the War in Heaven, where Satan was overcome by Michael's and his Follower's testimony, or statements of Truth, or Light. Lightsabers can cut through any material and since Spirit is matter just finer than our mortal eyes can see, a lightsaber would be the only physical weapon capable of harming a spirit. Just a few fun Gospel thoughts, haha. Wouldn't a painting of the war in Heaven with Lightsabers be super awesome? Alistair maybe you can work on that and give it to me when I get home, that would be sweet.

On a more serious not of study, I studied Charity quite a bit this week. I was interested in the connection between Charity and Fear, since in 1 Peter 4:8, I think that's the right reference, it ways that perfect love casts out fear and that in love there is no fear. I was trying to figure out why that was and came up with three reasons. First, that fear is based on misunderstanding. Charity focuses on understanding all people and seeing things from their perspective, eliminating misunderstanding and therefore fear. Second, Charity comes from a trust in God, which allows us to believe that all things will work out for our benefit, and because of that we wouldn't fear anything. Third, fear is selfish. Coming from thoughts of our own welfare and not caring about other people. Charity is the opposite, completely focused on others away from oneself, thereby eliminating fear. I realized that more and more everything depends on Charity and flows easily if there is that love or Charity in you for all mankind.

Well, there's this week, happenings, serious, and much less serious reflections on the Gospel. Alistair good luck in your speech writing. The rest of you good luck in school. I can't believe you're almost done, that's crazy. I love you and pray for you. I appreciate your prayers as well.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas

Labas Visiems!!

Tadas has a baptismal date!!!!! June 11th. I'm so excited to be able to help him come closer to Christ through baptism.

We had transfers, I'm still in Kaunas in the same area with Elder Leishman. He was in my district in Vilnius, my second transfer. He came in the same time as Elder Wicker, so the group right before me. Elder Sherman and Elder Nelson, who were in the MTC together, are in the center area. The sisters stayed the same. It'll be a fun transfer.

Great to hear about all the people going on missions. So good. How's Chad doing? Know anything about him?

We met with Tadas and he accepted a baptismal date. Actually he brought up a baptismal date before we even asked about it. It was fantastic. We then discussed what he needs to do before baptism and we reviewed the baptismal questions. He responded affirmatively to everything we had taught. He said he believed the Book of Mormon was true, but didn't know one hundred percent, so we committed him to pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Sunday he came to District Conference and afterward we taught the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity, since he needs to keep those to be baptized, we felt he needed to hear them as soon as possible. It was probably the heaviest most intense lesson I've ever been a part of it. It went very well, we just covered a lot of hard things. As Marty would say, "That's heavy, Doc." The word of Wisdom, he was already more or less keeping, besides coffee and tea, but recognized that if it was from God that those would need to be given up. We then asked if he wanted to hear about the Law of Chastity or wait for another day, since we had already talked for a fair bit and it was pretty intense. He said since today was Sunday he had laid aside his worldly cares and was prepared to accept and hear as much as we wanted to teach, so we went ahead. He agreed to live according to it, saying that it will be hard, but he'll do it. We then said he would need to move out from living with his girlfriend or get married. He understood the reasoning, but said that it would be impossible. He is basically supporting the young woman and is the only person she has to trun to, he looked crushed when we asked that because he knew that he couldn't be baptized until he did that. He then said that first, he would pray and ask God what it was he needed to do to be baptised and live the Law of Chastity, and second, he would meet with missionaries and come to church and learn until they could get married. His desire is so strong to follow Christ. We are praying that he will know what he needs to do. Please pray that he will be able to work something out to be baptized.

We also met with Vygantas, a less active. We brought Agne with us and they were very happy to see each other and were laughing and joking before we started teaching. We talked about faith and hope. We asked what he could do to better show his faith. He said probably come to Church, we agreed and then asked how we could help him come. Without us saying anything, Agne offered to drive him to CHurch with her. Vygantas agreed and so next week, Vygantas with Agne, will be at Church.

Last night, the elders from Siauliai stayed with us because we were having a combined district meeting with President Dance today. So I was with Elder Lindell and Elder Erickson, who just got here on Thursday, and Elder Leishman and Elder Sanford were together. Just for the night to work a little bit after Church.

We ran into a woman that Elder nelson and Elder Sherman had taught on Friday and given a Book of Mormon. We had an interesting wandering discussion about what the lamanites looked like, the varying beauty of Jesus in our pamphlets, why our pamphlets look like something from the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. Needless to say it was rather interesting. Hopefully she'll feel the Spirit as she continues to read and recognizes the importance of it.

I love all of you and pray for you. I appreciate your prayers. I love serving in Lithuania, it's fantastic. Enjoy your week.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas

Sveiki Visiems!

It was great to talk to you all yesterday. Hope everything is fantastic- look for the good.

Mom, I was also thinking about faith the other day. Trying to think what the difference between belief and faith was, since often they are used almost interchangeably. I came to the conclusion that Faith comes from Belief, but Faith has actions that correlate with the Belief, whereas Belief does not necessarily require action. I decided that there was a process starting from Desire which under the right care and guidance can bloom into Belief. Belief when properly nourished with actions will blossom into Faith. Faith when pruned and cared for will grow into a tree of Knowledge. Or you could think of it like Pokemon, one evolving into the other. Whichever makes more sense and sticks in your head.

Dad, it's not necessarily common. Some people feel like their child should be fully conscious of the decision and know lots of doctrine. So they feel like it should be an older age than eight. The baptism was great.
We were able to meet with Vygantas. We thought we had discovered the reason he doesn't come to Church, a past conflict with another member, so we were prepared to help him overcome that. He said that wasn't a problem, so we twisted our planned lesson a little to just focus in general on the healing power of Church attendance. He said he would definitely come to Church this coming Sunday, we tried to get him to come this past Sunday, but he said he couldn't. Elder Sherman then said that it might be the last time we would be in Kaunas, so he should come. He then showed us his connection and trust in us by saying he was going to fast that we didn't leave, so we could see him at Church. We also talked to some of the members about him and everyone seemed excited that he was planning on coming to Church, said we could tell him that the Branch remembers him and wants him to come back.

We harvested into a nice older couple. They were interested and there was a change in them throughout the lesson. The wife said we couldn't say a prayer at first, but at the end was very agreeable to closing in prayer. We set up a return appointment and it was a great lesson.

We met with Giedrius as well. The lesson went fairly well. He hadn't read from the Book of Mormon, so we read with him, parts of it I think touched him.

Tadas was out of town this week, so we couldn't meet in person, but contacted him a couple of times on the phone. He's still reading and praying, and thinking of a baptismal date, which is wonderful.

We met with Vitalijus and Edita and talked about forgiveness. Edita was very humble and seemed like she learned a lot from our lesson and the Spirit, which is great.

Transfers are this week, should be exciting. I pray for you and appreciate your prayers. I love serving and absolutely adore Lithuania. I wish all of you a great week and just remember to look for the good.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas

Labas Visiems!

Oh, I just got a letter from Sis Larsen. They're working on missionary plaques and wanted my favorite scripture. The scripture I' feeling at the moment is 2 Timothy 4:7- Paul talking in prison in what he thinks will be one of his last letters. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Always just pumps me up. She asked that you convey my scripture choice to the bishopric. Thanks!

Had a few run ins with Jehovah Witnesses this week. Once we were harvesting and two ladies in dresses came to one of the doors, after whispering mysteriously to themselves after seeing us, which isn't really an uncommon occurrence. They informed us that they were visiting this house, so we just kept on walking. As they left they made note of the building, probably to record that we had been there. The second happened while we were contacting. We were teaching a man and another guy just pulls up on his bike and greets us saying: Brothers Mormons, doesn't quite translate. He then asks what we're doing I say preaching the word of God. He asks questioningly, Really? I said yeah. Then we talked a little about what that meant. Talked about repentance, Jesus being the Son of God and then what God's name is. He said Jehovah, which I knew he was going to say, so I said that We believe that Jehovah is Christ and God's name is Elohim. He then preached to me a bit about how it couldn't be Christ, I listened and then testified. He rode off and wished us good luck.

Again, Tadas is a miracle. We called him Wednesday night to just see how he was doing and he hadn't read or prayed since our meeting on Saturday, but he then called us on Friday to say that he had prayed before an exam and felt like it helped. At our meeting Saturday, he had actually read through 2 nephi 9 or so, again apologizing for not reading that much. We talked about the Plan of Salvation, referring to 2 Nephi 2 multiple times, he remembered the verses and as we later talked about what we need to do here on Earth, sharing from Christ's teachings in 3 Nephi, he responded saying that Nephi earlier had taught something similar, showing that he really is reading and thinking about what he reads. He really enjoyed the baptism and subsequent giving of the Holy Ghost last week. He thought it was very powerful and said he enjoyed the strong symbolism of total immersion and cleansing of the fire, which he said he felt a strong power as that gift was given. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized, for the second time. He said that he wants his baptism to have a spiritual significance, so he wouldn't do it then, but wants to have it as a goal. We said that that was why we wanted to have a date to work towards. He said he would think about it and the next time we met, he would tell us the date. He also wanted to know the requirements for baptism and we explained basics and that we would go over them in more detail with a calender when he had a date. We also heard via a series of people that he was discussing getting baptized with Ugne, who came to church again on Sunday.

We found a man, Algimantas, we were able to teach contacting. He was interested in what happens after death. We used that to teach the Restoration saying that the Book of Mormon is the key to that knowledge. It was a great lesson and later that day we found him on a bench already beginning to read the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately he lives outside Kaunas, but he said he would call us when he had read the chapter we had assigned him. At the least he will be touched by the Spirit and gain knowledge to help him in the Spirit world.

We worked with Du Wei, talking about keeping the Sabbath day Holy. We committed him to pray and ask God what he should do about working on Sunday. He said he would, and knows that God will Help him.

Met with Giedrius as well. Talked about the healing power of the Atonement, especially through our change in returning to Church and scripture study. He seemed more relaxed and comfortable than normal, which is great.

Met with Vygantas, another less active. Valdemaras came with us and really befriended Vygantas. On Sunday Valdemaras was asking other members that were baptized about the same time if they knew Vygantas and trying to find him a friend at church.

On Saturday we went with the other elders to help Orestas, one of their investigators. He has a baptismal date, but is working to overcome some problems with most forms of temptation. He lived a rough life for a long time and is trying to turn it around. He's building a house, so we went to help clean up stuff and then eat shish kabobs. It was pretty fun. He's a great guy and really wants to be better. THe kabobs were absolutely delicious. Tried a little raw onion with black bread as well, wasn't bad.

Elder Sherman and I taught the training this Saturday. It was on the Doctrine of Christ. The lesson plan had the idea of teaching the doctrine of Christ and then talking about love being the center of missionary work. We were thinking about that and then just combined the two, connecting each individual part of the Doctrine of Christ, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End, to Love. It was a very enlightening discussion.

Thanks for your prayers and love. I pray for you and love serving. Hopefully you all have an excellent week. Look forward to talking to you on Sunday.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas