Airport- Mission Accomplished

Elder Hammond returned home on June 15th, 2017 at 1:52 p.m. BEST DAY EVER.

I remember this face

Elder Llavina, and Elder Blasi

All together again

The whole fam damily

Brandon, Lisa, Gavin, Parker, and Kinzlee

Jason, Ash, Colter, Kempton, and Beckett

Erric, Heidi, Braden, Gavin, and Cale

My second parents, Craig and Kristin :)

My dad and I met the same family on our missions and they made us both a t-shirt of pictures of both of us while serving.

Waiting....

Grandma and Grandpa Watson

Grandma and Grandpa Hammond

Getting ready for him to come home

Trev and Berks

Amicone :)

Week 94: I'll tell you all about it when I see you again 😇😌 - LAST LETTER

 Ladies & Gentlemen,

I can honestly say that I never thought I would be writing this 
in my entire life, but here we are. My emotions are very mixed. I feel like a high school girl.  Instead of being crossed between choosing which boy to date, I'm stuck here crossed on whether or not I want to come home. Part of me is extremely and overly excited to get home to see you all, but the other part of me wants to stay here in Spain because of these amazing people I've come to know & love these past two years. But, I guess Heavenly Father is helping me out by not giving me a choice. Either way, like I said, I'm beyond excited to come home to open arms waiting at the airport & home in general.

I've learned countless things over these past two years. From 
doctrines, this beautiful Spanish language, learning to love people I had never thought I would even meet to how to get doors slammed in my face. That's something that I'll forever love thanks to the mission; REJECTION. Before my mission, I would throw a fit if I didn't get my way or didn't get what I wanted it when I wanted it. The mission has taught me so much patience. There have been so many times where I've wanted to throw in the towel and give up and go back to my apartment to sleep and even at times want to come home. But something my dad told me at the beginning of my mission has come to mind every single time I thought that. It was about Joseph Smith and how easy it would have been to give into what everyone said and to deny the fact that he saw God the Father and His Son. He would have lived a longer and MUCH easier life, he wouldn't have put his family in as much if not any danger at all. He could have easily said "Ahh alright! You got me. It was all a lie. I was kidding." But he didn't because he KNEW what would come of the restoration of the gospel. He knew the happiness all of us would be able to have because of what he did and would do. I know for a fact that through all of the rejection I've faced, it's nothing compared to what he went through. I know that this church has been restored and thanks to Joseph Smith, every single person can have TRUE HAPPINESS, and can find out for themselves if this really is the true church.

Another thing that has stuck with me is President Monson's talk about decisions. All of our decisions, all the choices we make, have consequences. Good or bad. He said that we should always choose the HARDER RIGHT, rather than the easier wrong. Nowadays, it's so easy to give into temptation, to go with the world and what all the cool kids are doing. But in the long run, if we stick to what we KNOW, we will be blessed more than we can believe. He also said that we should always have a goal in mind of what we want, so that we know HOW to get there. When we don't have goals, it's easy to get lost in whatever else is going on. But with goals, it's a lot easier to stay on track and get to our final destination. :)

Last thing... Self conversion. I found a quote from a talk by Elder Oaks a while ago and it said this... "It is not even enough for us to be convinced of the gospel; we must act and think so that we are converted by it. In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something." Before my mission, I'm gonna be honest, I had no idea what was going on in the gospel. I didn't know what the mission was. I had a testimony but I didn't really know what my testimony consisted of. All of that is completely different now. I've been converted to this gospel, and I know that it's best thing that has happened to me in my life. I will forever be in debt to my Heavenly Father, but I know that coming on a mission at least showed Him that I'm trying to give thanks for what He's done, does, and will do for me. There's a difference between going on a mission, and being a missionary, and I can honestly say that I did my best to BE A MISSIONARY. God knows our true potential that we can reach, but only through Him can we reach it. :)

I love this gospel, and I love all of you. I'll never be able to thank you all enough for everything that you've done for me these past two years, but I just hope you all know that all the prayers, emails, letters, packages, and love you have all sent my way, have been received and I'm so thankful for every single one of them and every one of you. YOU ARE ALL MY HEROS AND I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! ❤️

Can't wait to see you all on Thursday 😎 Keep it real boys and girls.

MUCH LOVE.
One Last Time,
ELDER Tanner Brady Hammond™

PS - who gets the first hug? 😏😉

Doin' the Work

Some pics 4 vosostros

Week 92: Eyes Up 💰

My Youth,

Hello one, hello all. It's ya boy comin' 'atcha live from Spain again after another incredible week as a missionary of the one and only TRUE church on the planet. 😇😎 This week was definitely one of the better ones, and you'll be able to find out why if you seguir leyendo. 😏

Well, we obviously had a bomb district meeting in Lorca  on Tuesday. Our district is honestly the funniest district in the mission, maybe even the world haha. Of course, what isn't fun when me and Beckstrom are together? We ended with some ping pong and I'm proud to say I set T Beck down con cariño y con una muñeca bien caliente si sabéis lo que os digo (@braids). Life was good but I gotta admit, he's one of the better pongers I've faced. That was pretty much all I remember that day. We walked around a lot later that night and I took a solid selfie that I'll attach for you all to see. 😏

Wednesday. Wowzers! Wednesday my comp and I had a brilliant idea to go exploring for another pueblo like the one we went to that one day and found mini England. So this time it was the other direction so we get going and it's like 4:20 so we blazed up, literally. It was so hot! 😂😂 We were sweating and we get going on this trail and every step I take I regret more and more and I'm just like, "Oh my goodness! What are we thinking?". So we walked from about 4:20 til 5:20 on this trail and we come to a fork in the road and so we're like hmm.. so our map says to take the left way, so we do... about 15 mins after walking and there's no sign of literally anything, we turn around and go back to the fork and take the other way. 😂 I kid you not people, we literally were walking in Lake Powell but there wasn't any water. It was a huge empty river and rocks and people had made caves to live in on the rocks. It was super dope to be honest. We get going on this other road right? After maybe 10 mins, we end up at a railroad track that was about 40 feet above the ground on a bridge with holes everywhere. It was the sketchiest thing ever! No lie! It was super cool and a way pretty view though so vale la pena for sure, but we came to the conclusion that the pueblo we were looking for didn't exist so we decided to head on
down the line there. (Go back home) fun experience for sure. :)

Friday I had my last intercambios in the mission. 😪 Luckily God is good & so he let me do it with my best friend. :) Early Friday morning, Beckstrom & Casey come here to Huercal & we worked that morning and that afternoon together! Beck actually served here way back in super early 2016 and so he knows the area a decent amount and we ran into this 90 year old guy he used to teach when he was here. We talked to him for a while. Wow! He's old! 😳 Our plans for the afternoon failed us super hard so we just went with it, and then that night we balled out in some mad soccer together. It was a good time and we were both in the goal basically the whole night, and no I don't mean putting balls in the goal, I mean playing goalie cuz we're a lot more coordinated with the hands than the feet. 😂

Saturday something happened to me that hasn't ever happened to me in the past 2 years. It was way cool. :) We were just passing by people and I got this super random impression to go knock this random street of houses haha. So we went and the first 5 people didn't answer but then finally a girl named Ines answered and we started talking to her and we were like "do you think we could share our message with you?" Now, when you ask this question, you either get 1 of 3 things...
1. They say no and shut the door
2. They say yeah sure come by a different day, or, 
3. They don't answer and as they slowly shut the door while saying something that makes no sense and act like they have no control that the door is closing. 

Well, Ines pulled the wildcard and totally was like "yeah sure come right on in!" My compa and I looked at each other and we were like, "Wait! What the heck? What is going on I don't think you heard us right!" 😂 It was way cool though. Ines is a total homie. ☺️ She's 26 and from Columbia and married an older Spanish dude who doesn't care about anything which is super sad. I mean, they're married so she's gotta live with it. (Word of advice to the singles out there, marriage is a pretty big decision so choose wisely 😉) We taught her the restoration and she LOVED IT! We got talking a little about the Plan of Salvation and she was mind blown! She loved the fact that there is something after this life and that she could see her family again!! It was such an awesome experience and hopefully we can meet once or twice more with her because she's so cool! She's super busy though so we will see!!

Isabel (the 50 ish year old Spanish lady we found a couple weeks ago) came to church yesterday and she loved it. :) During intercambios, Ozzy and Casey went and taught her the Plan de Salvación and she accepted a baptismal date for July 1st!!! She said she's been super happy with the way she's been feeling recently when she's with us or at the
church or whatever and so she wants to keep doing it! We have a noche de hogar with some members in their house tomorrow night with Isabel so we will see how that goes we are really excited. :)

The work here is progressing better than it has in the past year and a half and the members are loving it, as well as us! It's been so cool to see the hand of the Lord every step of the way and I'm so excited to see what happens in these next 2 weeks!!! I love you all so much and hope you're doing phenomenal :) have a GREAT WEEK and you'll be hearing from ME in 7 😊😊😊 BYE 💰💰

Much love.
Doin Work,
T💰

Selfie  (look closely)

🚂🛤🚂🛤🚂🛤

Me & the Ozman in an elevator 😎

Week 91: Livin' like I'm dyin' 🙈

Oh my goodness! I hope everyone is just doing so good this fine day. (I would put Monday, but I know for a fact Keri is about 3 weeks behind on sending out my emails hahahaha so to be honest not very many people are gonna be reading this. But I'll cut her some slack cuz she's trunky for her son to get home 😉)  I had a good week so I'll just get right to it!!

We had intercambios with the ZLs in Murcia and I got to do my LAST ONE with ZLs with Elder Garcia. 😊 It was so fun and so awesome to work with him haha. We were friends before the mish and in the same district in the MTC hace casi 2 años así que it was a good time :) we didn't do a whole lot of interesting stuff, just kinda walked and passed by people! We did get some ice cream which is always a good time ya feel? I also got to play the guitar and learn some new songs. 😏💰💰

We found a ton of new people to teach this week! It was so awesome. We met a kid named Michael who is from the Dominican Republic. He's a homie. He's 16 years old.  We taught him lesson 1 and he ate up the restoration and said he would come to church with us. even tho he didn't :/.

Another one is a lady named Isabel! She's from Spain and is probably 55 ish years old. Usually Spaniard ladies that old want nothing to do with us guapo American Elders, but she loves us! She had a friend who was a member here but she passed away a mi use ago. That is what sparked her interest. She is super interested and we went over the restoration with her on Wednesday and then last night we went over again with a member and taught her a really good full lesson in the restoration and she had read a little in the BOM and said it all makes sense! She really has a strong desire to follow Jesus so hopefully we can help her progress.

We also met with a girl named Katarine! She's from Madrid, but her parents are from Columbia :) she's 14 years old and we found her dad toking doors and we passed by. Her mom said she wanted us to teach her daughters and it turns out they were all pretty interested! We taught Katarine the restoration and right at the end, her dad came home from work and he seemed really interested in what we were saying! It was super cool haha. But they said they wanted us to come back so this Wednesday night we're going back and teaching the whole family. 😊

We had a funny experience to end my email. We we walked out to this tiny tiny tiny pueblo that is like a 45 minute walk. It's so small but it's so cute. We get there thinking we're gonna find like this golden family from like Peru or Ecuador or something like that. Well, boy were we wrong 😂 literally nothing but old English people 😂😂 in the middle of NOWHERE! We were so confused! It was so funny and awesome. After the first 2 people said no they didn't wanna hear about us at all we just decided to go with the "hey we're passing by to do service is there anything we can do for you??" Unfortunately that didn't work either but hey we got a couple solid conversations out of it! We met a couple of nice people so that was cool.  :) Anyways, so we're following our map to get back home as fast as possible yeah? And it says to take this random dirt road.. so I'm looking at it and I'm like  this looks like we're going into the middle of nowhere even though we already were in the middle of nowhere. So we're walking and we get kinda lost.. I'm like dude I have no idea where we're going. So we get to the dirt road and we start going into no-man's-land & then BOOM, God said "let there be Pedro!" Hahaha! Pedro, who is a member, passes us and rolls down his window and goes "Elders... what the heck are you doing here?" I go "Pedro.. my man! To be honest we're a little lost.. the map says we are supposed to take this random valley ravine thing to get back to Huercal but the more I look at the path way the more I doubt the maps ability to get me home without dying.." He gave me the look like "Wow! Had I not been coming home from work right this second you'd be absolutely lost my friend" So Pedro basically saved us because if not I think we'd still be walking 😂😂😂 literally God is just so nice sometimes. 😌

Well ladies & señores, I hope all of you are doing excellent. I'm running out of time out here in Spain. I can't believe I have 3 weeks left out here. Life is so weird! 😭 I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Much love.
Tanner B. Hammond

Week 90: Happy Mother's Day 😍

DUDES & DUDETTES,

What a pleasure it is to be here once again writing you all an email. :) It feels like just yesterday that I was back in Córdoba writing emails with Elder Shields in a tiny bajo church, and now here I am nearly 21 months later writing you all an email from a tiny bajo church in Huercal-Overa 😭 I can't believe that.. I also can't believe I had MY LAST call back home yesterday!! What a sight it was to see my beautiful family and friends. 😍💰 Before I forget, I have to wish all the mamas out there, especially my mama, a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY YESTERDAY! Moms are the best! You're the best mom, and I can't wait to hug the crap out of you in that airport next month. :) Also, HUGE SHOUT OUT to the one and only LHAM cuz his birthday is TODAY! This stud turns 14 and I can't believe that... Happy Birthday home boy! I hope it was a good one. 😎 & last but not least, G HAM's birthday is this Friday as well!! I hope it's a good one. I have a siiick present for you but the shipping said it doesn't get to SLC til June 15th. 😉 Thanks for being my best friend and teaching me everything I know. :) Now here's my extremely long but fast week. 😛

SO MUCH TRAVELING!!! On Tuesday, we went to Lorca for District Meeting. It was a solid meeting. Our district is a 4 man district. Me, Beckstrom, Osguthorpe and Casey. Hands down the best district in the mission! Not really anyone talks during our meetings so it all just goes super smooth and it's just a good time. After that, we hit up 50's which is a sick American restaurant that looks like it's from the 50's. So much food and all so so good. Then after that T Beck and I  finally got to go on a mini split for the night cuz we were staying over because I had to catch a bus the next morning from Lorca. Sooo we hung out, talked to some muslims then we got ice cream later.

Wednesday morning, I caught my bus and hit up Fuengirola again because there was a meeting at the mission home for all of the district leaders in the mission 😊 I was a little salty about it at first but it was actually really good. I got to see Elder Erickson, Goates, Bodily, Ngatai, CHADDY wagon was there, and a few others. :) It was all good stuff. Then after we were all going to bed it was a solid pillow talk and we were all just laughing together and it was so much fun :) the meeting was awesome though and it really helped us! I wish I couldh have had a training like that when I got to the mission because I don't have much time to apply what I learned in the mish. 

Thursday was the worst! We got up extra early AGAIN. (3rd day in a row) went upstairs in the mission home and had some breakfast. Then we went down to the office where I was nicely greeted by a package from B Smitty - Gyad I love thyat! He sent me a GIANT MEGA DIAPER. So typical of him. And a very sexy tie, so thanks a lot Braidz and Boo of course too. 😘 Thennn I got on my bus to Granada and I got there at 1:45 and my next bus didn't leave til 6:45! 😭😭😭 So the ZLs there came and I went and hung out with them for a while and yeah it was boring but good times. Then I caught my bus back to Lorca and my boys came and picked me back up. :) We went home, made some cookies that sucked. They were way good thanks to Beckstrom and I and our baking skills #husbandus 😌 and that was that.

Then Friday we got a bus back to Huercal, came home, and then went out and worked. :) We had a lesson with Rocio, a girl from Ecuador. She's very nice, super shy and we don't think she's too interested pero vamos a ver. She's too nice to say no to us is what we're thinking haha. We also contacted this homie from Peru, Salvador. When I contacted him I asked him if he had talked with missionaries before? He said no so I explained that we teach people how to get closer to Jesus and get saved. He then said to come and visit him, I wanna get baptized (didn't really say that but just go with it). He was really great.

Saturday we caught a two hour bus to Murcia because we had another DL meeting. It was good though because I got to see Elder Garcia and Van Moos so I wasn't mad at all. We talked about goals for the zone and things we can do to help us all do better in our contacting.  Then we caught our bus back, got home, and got right to work. We passed by this lady who had actually contacted us early that week, and her name is Nieves, she's a suuuuuper nice Spanish lady who is like 60+ years old legit nicest lady ever haha. We talked to her in her doorway and we invited her to church and she was so excited and she said she would come. :) We also contacted this way cool girl named Cintia, she's from the Dominican Republic, and we're gonna meet with her this week so hopefully she starts to gain more interest. :) We mostly just passed by some people and that was that. We taught a dude naked Ramon as well, he's a good guy. He can't walk because he's got ulcers all over his legs and stuff so he has to wrap up his legs and it was just like aunt Jenny but not as bad and Jenny was better than him 😉😊 but he's a good guy and he promised us he was gonna read the Book of Mormon!!

Sunday rolled around and we were hoping to have a decent turnout of people we had invited. We weren't really expecting one but we just wanted someone to come. Right before the meetings were about to start we went out to see if anyone was out there and Nieves got out of her car!! Oh my! My comp and I were so happy! She loved the meetings, she was singing all the hymns and she said she loved it. She even cried at one point because the spirit was so strong! She's so awesome and I'm so excited to see what happens with her :) I'll for sure keep ya updated. 😉 Then of course my  FaceTime home was freakin' the bomb diggidy! 😍 I love you all so much and can't wait to see you all when I'm home 😊😊😊 seriously I was so blessed with all the people I have in my life and I'm so happy and excited to see you all. :)

That was the week! Usually after a call home I just write something short but I decided to mix it up. ;) I hope you all have a great week, I hope you're all doing fantastic and I hope to see you all real soon! 💰😉 I love you guys!

Much love.
Si te vas, yo también me voy,
E. T. B. Hammond 💃🏻

🍦+ t beck = 😋 

District leader training. My boys Erickson, Goates and Ngatai and me lookin like Harry Potter 🤓

Week 89: I'm HOLY 😇😍💰

HEY FREAKIN EVERYONE 😊💰😊

Maaaaan! I don't even know where to start. This past week has been nuts, and it went by so slow but so fast at the same time. My new area is TINY. We walk a TON. But it's all been pretty dope so far. Seriously this is the most I've walked my entire mission and of course it comes right at the end. It's been fun to see the progress of the area just these past 5 days since we got here! Now here's what's been goin down...

So we got here on Wednesday night. I left Huelva @ 6 AM. Got to Sevilla @ 8. Caught a bus from there to Granada @ 8:15 got there @ 11. Caught another bus @ 12 and got to Murcia around 3:30. Waited in Murcia until 7 with my boys Elder Garcia and Casey, then at 7, my comp Elder Osguthorpe and I caught another hour and a half bus to Huercal-Overa, for a grand total of 14 1/2 hours of travel.. 🙃 we got here, unpacked for a second and then went out and started talking to people immediately. The first guy we contacted was a dude named Jon, he moved here from Columbia about a month ago and seems pretty interested in what we've got to say. :)

Thursday we went to the store in the morning so we had some food, and then normally we would plan, but since both of us are new to the area, we didn't have anything to plan for hahaha. We talked about our goals for the week, for the transfer and what we wanted to do, and 7 minutes later, we were back out contacting and passing by the list of people
the past missionaries left us.

Friday was... well.. wow 😳🙃😂 crazy but way good. We went out to one of our pueblos called Vera. It's a super small town but every single person there is from Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, or some other South American country. There are only four Spanish people. It was like we left Spain for the afternoon. Anyways, on our way there we were on a bus and then we finally got to our pueblo and we didn't have any lessons, but luckily we did find a ton of
potential investigators!!! It was way cool and the cool thing is, is that most of the people we passed by said they can meet on Sundays, which means once we start meeting more, they can come to church, AND we can have our Branch Pres drive us out there on Sunday afternoons 😌 so it should be good. :)

Friday night we played soccer with our mission leader, it was sooo fun. We played with a huge group of random old dudes and it was on turf and everything! There were 3 different teams of 7 and it was way fun. It had been a minute since I've played soccer like that, so I was a little rusty, but, I had a goal.. so you know I was content with myself ;) then after that I retired and went to my home... meaning played goalie.. cuz you all know my goalie skills are just about equal to, if not greater than Tim Howard. On the bright side, our mission leader said that after we left, the people who we were playing soccer with on the really good team, said that they wanted me to play goalie for them SO yeah I'm basically getting recruited. 😎

We met lots of the members yesterday, and we ate with a familia from Honduras. :) They're so funny and so nice it was awesome. I felt right at home. :) The mom said she's gonna take good care of me for you mom. 😘 So that when I get home I'm okay. :) They're the best! We eat with them every Sunday. :)

That's all I got! This week is going to be crazy. Literally nuts!  We leave Tuesday, have District meeting in Lorca, we're staying the night in Lorca with my boy T Beck and then I leave Wednesday morning @ 8:45 to go to Fuengirola again for a district leader training and then I come home Thursday and get back to Lorca at like 9 then we stay the night, come home Friday morning and then back to Murcia on Saturday morning for ANOTHER district leader training. We got this people! 😂😊

I love you all and hope you have a great week!!! 😊😊

Much love.
Chillin out waxin relaxin all cool 😎 ,
Brotha teeehammm 💰💰💰

From a distance we thought this guy was taking a selfie so we said we'd cop one with him

HUERCAL-OVERA

Dopest slide in history of ever

Week 88: Just Rollin' With It... 😏💰

Oh my goodness well I just start off by saying that President threw me THEE BIGGEST curveball I've ever been thrown last week... 😅 We got transfer calls yesterday morning, and both me and Van Moos are leaving! I'm going to the smallest area in my mission. 😂 My new companion's name is Elder Osguthorpe. He's from Heber City area I'm pretty sure. He is my current zone leader right now, but we're both leaving to go and whitewash which is where 2 new missionaries take over an area haha. I started my mission whitewashing and it looks like my last 6 weeks will be spent the same way! So yeah, I guess I gotta pack all my crap up one more time and then once more in another month for the long voyage home.
🙄😭🙃 But it's all good.. now let's get into the week. :)

So every Wednesday and Friday morning, we meet with some recent converts, Maria and her son Leo. I might have mentioned them before, but they're from Romanian and well, to say the least... they're literally nuts hahahaha. But then again every single Romanian is special 😂 Literally every time we go over there, the first 30 mins are spent talking about random stuff and without fail, EVERY TIME
all they do is talk crap on someone or everyone from the ward. 😂😂😂 It's honestly the funniest thing ever because they repeat the same stuff over and over.  For example, every Friday night we have a noche de hogar with the whole ward especially the YSAs of the ward and we always share a message and then later we play a game and eat food of some sort. Leo is 150% against that. He thinks there should be a message and ya esta. Just a message and call it good. He HATES the games. It is just the funniest thing ever listening to them talking crap on whoever it is. I just thought I'd share a little about Leo & Maria lol.

We were walking around in the streets on Thursday night around 8 o'clock and we found this group of chavales playin' a little basketball. We stood on the outside of the court and were watching them and when they noticed us they were like "Holy! Are those Americans??" Haha they got so excited and so they didn't say much they just kept playing and then these 2 older kids came and they were making teams and asked us to join in and play for a little? They're like heck yeah let's ball. So we went in and played and this kid named Hyrum... good heck he's a little 14 year old kid who is so good. It was funny though because when we got done and they're like "So, who are you guys?" and we told them we were missionaries from America and they said the two older kids were Jehova's Witnesses. It was hilarious! They were cool kids. After they left, Hyrum comes up to me and he's like so what's the difference between you and them? We talked to him a little bit about the restoration and it was actually way cool to see how much interest he had and he was like okay well come back and play again because you guys ball out and we're like best friends. And then we were walking away and he's like wait and runs up to us he's like if you ever wanna come to my house I live right there and he just showed us his house. So, we're gonna visit him. It was a good experience.

Amalia is still doing really well. We had a lesson with her on
Saturday about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how if she really wants to know her answer, she has to do her part. We showed her the Mormon message about the bishop from London who was from Jamaica and how he explains it super well and she liked the video a lot! So we just invited her to keep reading and praying and hopefully she will get all the answers she wants. :)

Much love.
Para que te pierdas si no estás conmigo,
Tanner B. Hammond 💰😌

Me and Sergio.. he's a guy who woulda been baptized forever ago, but his wife is "Satan" as he says ;) I'm wearing his his hat he always wears. 

Sayin bye to Trowls

The 6'2 and the 7'1 formed a super human and we didn't get a pic til I was getting off hahahah

Last meal with the Huelva Bros.