Week 15: Roosters

Hi again :) Another week has come and gone! I seriously can't believe how fast time is going by! I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe, love-felt, thankful, and of course fattening Thanksgiving! 

Tuesday was a good day! I bet you guys will never guess what we did in the morning. Yep, we went to Sevilla! We ate at that Bolivian place again and I got the Machu-Pichu! When we got home, we had a lesson with Lucky like we usually do on Tuesday nights. In Nigeria, there is this food called Foo Foo and it's like the weirdest thing ever. Here's how it works: There's a plate with a giant ball of dough, a container of water, and another plate of the spiciest soup stuff ever.  You get your hands wet so the dough is easier to eat, grab some dough, then dip your finger full of dough in the soup and eat it! It was seriously so spicy oh my goodness. It was so hard to eat cuz it was just dough! It was good, but extremely weird haha. There were pieces of meat in the soup as well, and we didn't know if we were supposed to eat them or what, but Lucky's wife told us to eat it, so I grabbed one and took a little bite out of it, and my comp throws the whole thing in his mouth. Five seconds later I look over at him and he's gagging on the meat because it was nothing but fat! He was trying not to let them notice. Luckily, Lucky turned on the TV right then so they didn't see him reach in his mouth and grab it! It was pretty neat experience!

After that, we went to teach Fernando (the guy with the 92 year old crazy mom). He is such a nice guy! His English is so good and he gets so pumped when he answers the door and sees us! I don't think I told everyone this yet, if I did, sorry :) but when I first called him on the phone, he answers and says "Hola" and so I start telling him that we are the missionaries here and that we wanted to meet him. The first thing he asks me is if we are Americans or Spaniards.. I took the phone away from my ear and asked my comp what the correct answer was and he said,  “good luck”!  So hesitantly, I said Americanos and in English, he says, "Oh goody! Come to my house right now and I'll let you in!" Hahaha it was so funny! He loves talking about America and how he wants to go back over for a while. He's been to NYC and Boston so he's a huge Red Sox fan.  We had a good lesson with him. I think he is really interested, I'm excited to see what happens with him!

On Wednesday we had to go to Sevilla again because Elder Shields had to go to a district leader training. While he was in the meeting, I just went into the gym and played basketball by myself and patiently waited. :)

Thankfully I have the greatest family! They sent me a bunch of Thanksgiving essentials in a package. On Thursday, we started making our Thanksgiving feast! It consisted of mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, Lion House rolls, corn, cranberries, and little adorable looking pumpkin pies!  Ever since I got the package, I was looking forward to the rolls, and we did EVERYTHING possible to make sure they were perfect…except for letting them rise. Hahahahaha whoops! I'm pretty sure the yeast here in Spain is not very good. We let them sit for like 4 hours and they didn't move at all. So when we pulled them out of the oven, they weighed about 5 pounds each. They still tasted pretty good though. I realized that I'm extremely thankful for those in my life who have always prepared my Thanksgiving dinners for me and my family… Cuuuuuuzzz, cooking all that stuff for 2 of us wasn't fun. At all.. Hahahaha. So, Mom, grandmas, aunts, cousins, my future wife, and anyone else who has (and will) cook Thanksgiving meals. THANK YOU & I LOVE YOU! ;)

Friday, we were getting ready to leave our piso after medio dia and our phone to get the door rang. We figured it was just someone who needed to get in to deliver the mail or something like that, and we were on our way out so we didn't answer it. When we left and walked outside, there was a note with my name on it for a package! I was so mad! I kept the paper with me and figured I'd call them the next day. We were walking to the bus and I saw a DHL truck that was stopped in traffic, so I ran up to it and showed him the paper saying that I had a package. I didn't think he was going to stop in the middle of everyone, but he did! He put his hazards on and ran to the back of the truck, grabbed my box, threw it to me and drove off! It was a miracle! One of the nicest Spaniards I’ve met so far!

Saturday morning we went to Sketchville.. Every time I go there, I learn something new. This time, I learned about cock-fights! There's always a bunch of roosters just running around or in cages. We were teaching them about how to pray, while they were all smoking weed. I look over at the roosters and one of them is chasing another one, and one of the guys runs over and catches the one that was getting chased. I was expecting him to help it, or put it in a cage or something, but I was completely wrong. He picked it up and just let the one that was chasing it absolutely demolish it until it was dead! It was the weirdest and saddest thing I've ever seen! I asked them why he was doing it and they told me that they only have them for fighting, and since that one didn't want to fight, they killed it. Apparently they bet on roosters and they can make some decent money on them. 

Later that night, we did a service project with our branch mission leader and his son Samuel! We went to a store called Lidl and we gathered food that people would donate. So many people donated stuff and we had like 5 GINORMOUS boxes full of food and milk! It's all going to a charity fund that's here. It was fun and a really good way to practice my Spanish.

In the 2nd hour of church yesterday, the lady who taught our class shared a scripture with us and I really liked it. It was 1 Nephi 7:12: "Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.” I like how it says "according to his will" it reminds me of something that my great grandma Grits would always say, "if it's to be it will be”. No, I don't think I ever heard her say that, but my Grandma told me that she said it in one of her emails to me recently. Heavenly Father knows us all personally and He knows what is going to make us happy. He knows how everything in all of our lives is going to turn out. It's all according to His will, but He wants us to exercise our faith in Him. 

Our baptism for Jorge is scheduled for this coming Saturday. He wasn’t able to meet with us this past week so we will have to meet with him a lot this week and conduct his interview. He asked me to baptize him. He loves me and always asked me what I think of him.

Thank you all for your constant prayers and love you send my way. I feel them every single day and I'm so blessed to have people like you in my life. I'm grateful for each and everyone one of you and the examples you have been and continue to be in my life! Have a good week!!

Love,
Elder Hammond :)

Enjoying our Thanksgiving Dinner!

Lots of hard work paid off!

They are so ADORABLE!!!

I was so excited for the rolls!  

Made them all by myself!

Jobi and Javi "enjoying" the jelly bean game with yucky flavors!

Week 14: Mountains to Climb!

Hello!

This week was much better than my week I had last! We had a busy week,so that's always good :) Not too much happened. But here it is:

Monday night, we had a lesson with the Romanian family.  (Who, by the way, haven't gone back to Romania yet. I'm not sure they ever will. They've been telling us they were gonna be leaving for the past 2 weeks but then last week they said would be the week they for sure left.. I'll keep you posted!) So anyways, we tried to get all of them to join in on the lesson, but it was only the two boys, Jesus and Jobi. In the package I got last week, there were some of the Jelly Bellys that are either good or absolutely disgusting so we decided to bring those along with us for fun! :) They love when we bring candy from America cuz they're always so good. When they tasted the first bad jelly bean they were SO mad! They started like gagging and spitting but then after I told them that it was like a game to see if you got a good one or a bad one, they thought it was the coolest game ever hahaha! :) After our lesson with them, we were on our way to another lesson, and guess who we saw?? JOSE!! (The drunk iPad thief) It was like the 4th time we've seen him since our tussle and every single time we see him he always asks us for money or tries to take my watch off my wrist! I don't think he remembers the night when he tried to take my iPad. After about 10 minutes of him trying to get some money from us, he left. Maybe eventually he will learn that we aren't gonna give him anything so he'll leave us alone. :) Every time we see him, he's so freaking drunk he can't even stand up haha!

Tuesday night we had another lesson with our Nigerian friend Lucky! He's so funny and just wants to talk about the Book of Mormon and baptism forever. He says that maybe eventually he will want to become a Mormon and do the whole "baptism thing" as he calls it. After that, we went to Josefa's house for a lesson. She's the crazy lady that is great at talking. She's a convert to the church of about a year or so now and rarely comes to church.  We got talking about the Book of Mormon and if she had a testimony of it or not. She said she didn't so we got into a long conversation of why she was baptized and why she wanted to be baptized. She told us that she thought it was true earlier, but now she has doubts about it. But then like half way through our conversation, she changed her mind and she said that she knew it was true and that she had a testimony. It was super confusing. Finally we came to the conclusion that she didn't have a testimony of it, but only because she never prayed about it and asked if it was true or not. We have been reading it with her a lot more this week and she's been praying and asking if it is true, so hopefully she'll get her answer soon :) and she came to church with us yesterday so that's good!

We have been focusing on Jorge so much this week, trying to get him even more prepared than he already is! He's been reading the scriptures on his baptism calendar every day! We usually only meet with him on weekends, but he didn't have work on Thursday, so he called us and asked if we could stop by, so we did! He told me that if I help him with his English, he'll help me with my Spanish. We taught him English for the first little bit like we always do, and then we got started with our lesson. We read Alma 32 with him.. I’ve learned a lot of things since I've been out here, but one thing that has helped so much is how fast the scriptures can bring the spirit!! It's nearly impossible to not feel the spirit while reading the scriptures. Jorge told us that he loves feeling the spirit. He said he likes to lay in his bed at night after a long day at work with his scriptures in his hands and feel the spirit. He said he was upset cuz he wished he would have done it his whole life!! He's such a cool guy!! We couldn't do his baptism last Saturday, and we can't do it this Saturday, but it will for sure be the next! The 6th will be the day! :) Our branch president wasn't able to come to it this week, and he isn't able to come until then! I'm so stoked for him!! He made us dinner after our lesson, which consisted of fried bananas, rice, chicken and....... COW LIVER!!! Mm mm good. Obviously I've tasted better things in my life, but it wasn't as bad as it looks! 

We looked through our area book during our planning session and found a bunch of less actives and old investigators. We found a guy named Fernando who used to take lessons like 2 years ago, so we called him! He answered and told us to come by on Saturday night. When we got to his house, he answered the door and said "Oh good, Americans!”.  We laughed because we didn't see it coming at all! He taught himself English, and he speaks really good! He lives with his mom, (or maybe she lives with him) Rosario Sanchez Sanchez who is 92 years old! I told her, very loudly, that my great Grandma is 98 years old and she said "Yay! That means there's still hope for me!” Hahaha! I told her my name and she can't hear basically anything, so according to her, I said "Raymon" and Elder Shields name is “Sisi”. We started our lesson with Fernando and just started asking him about what he remembers about the Book of Mormon and everything and he said he was
intrigued by Joseph Smith and his story. It was hard to focus because in the room next to us, Rosario was laughing and screaming to herself saying the most bizarre things like "I need to get myself a cat” and "Why didn't I ever learn to play the guitar" hahahaha I was laughing so hard. I thought that her and Amarillo (Drake and Josh grandpa) would be a perfect match for each other! 

This gospel is true and I'm so grateful that I have it in my life! I feel Heavenly Fathers love for me every single day and I know he loves each and every one of us. Something that has been helpful this past week that I found in my personal study on Wednesday morning was President Eyring's talk "Mountains to Climb”. I'm pretty sure there is a Mormon message video about it, but what stuck out to me was this... "If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest of times in life can be a blessing. In all conditions we can choose the right with the guidance of the spirit. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ to shape and guide our lives if we choose it." "We never need to feel that we are alone or unloved in the Lords service because we never are.” 

Thank you all for your love and support. I feel your prayers every single day. I'm so thankful for all of you and I love guys! Especially with this week being Thanksgiving!!! Happy Thanksgiving and have a great week! :)

Love,
Elder Hammond :)

This is a photo of the people of Manzana 16 (Sketchville) after we played soccer with them a couple weeks ago!! 

Every Sunday night, we have to give the Sacrament to a lady who isn't healthy enough to come to church! This is her dog that she just got.. It's name is Chispa :)

This is me on some old ruin that we found on Friday night :) 

Hígado de vaca 🐄 (Cow liver is on the plate my comp is holding) 

Week 13: Don't Forget To Pray

Hello all!

Well, this week was definitely on the top of my "Toughest Weeks of My Life" list... It's been so hard. I shed more tears and said more prayers than I ever have in my entire life.

As you can probably guess, Tuesday we took our weekly trip to Sevilla for district meeting. It was our last one with the district we had! This week we get a couple new people.. not sure who, but I think they're two different hermanas. Tuesday was the day that this week started going down hill for me. It was nice knowing that I have a Savior that knows exactly what I'm going through because he's going through it with me, and feels the exact same pains that I feel. He works in mysterious ways, but he works. I don't know why we have trials in our lives, but I do know that he will never give us something that we can't make it through.

On Wednesday, we found out that our Romanian family is going back to Romania!! It's good for them because they've been wanting to go back for a while now, but it's sad because we have gotten so close with them. They're leaving on Wednesday, I think Juan is leaving on Tuesday. We have been hanging out with the two boys a lot and they’ve actually been wanting to learn more. We are hoping that that can continue even after they leave and that they can find missionaries over there! We went and played basketball with them for the last time. :)

Friday, we went to Sketchville, and we were  talking to a lady that we had talked to last week. Her name is Pilar and she has like 10 kids and a lot of grandkids. They all live in the same apartment complex. We were looking for her door, and there were 3 kids that asked us who we were looking for. We told them Pilar and they all said that she was their grandma. So after they ran inside, she invited us in. We were in there for maybe 30 seconds, and in that time, 4 more kids appeared from the upstairs. Her husband’s name is Angel and he was upstairs just screaming SO loud telling the kids to chill and get out. We were trying to talk to her but it was so chaotic she couldn't hear us and we couldn't hear her haha. After Angel stopped yelling, we started asking her if she had read the pamphlet that we gave her, when out of NOWHERE, I get pelted by a 90 mile an hour chocolate Spanish pastry with a bite taken out of it! It hit me right in my left collarbone and exploded all over the house! Luckily my bag strap was there so only a little bit of chocolate got on my shirt haha. Pilar couldn't stop laughing.. I was still trying to figure out what the heck just happened haha. Probably not even 10 seconds after I got hit, the same little girl hucked another one and it hit my companion right in the face ;)! I was laughing so hard! Oh my gosh it was absolutely insane! Pilar told them to stop, but as you can probably guess, they didn't. We tried to keep talking to her and get her answer while the kids went and got more ammunition. I bet you'll never guess what they threw next. First, was an onion, thankfully they missed. At this point Pilar was getting a little mad and started yelling at them to stop, while I hid behind my bag, curled up on the chair! After the onion missed, her brother threw a pan and it hit the wall and totally destroyed the wall and the pan! While Pilar was chasing them around trying to hit them, the girl who hit us with the muffins somehow found a way to throw a giant bolt/screw at us!! She missed luckily. Pilar told us that today wasn't a good day and to come back some other time. It was seriously the most chaotic, mad house I've ever seen. I'm glad we made it out alive!

Later that night I received some news from Dad that killed me. Simon is reunited with Foo man, and he's not longer in any pain. When I look at it that way, it doesn't hurt as much. 11 years of hide and seek and of holes in the bottom of our pajamas. I didn't realize how much I would miss yelling "READY!!!" from the front to the back yard :) I’m sure gonna miss our Snow Dog, but I know he's happy again.

We are still trying to get the date for the baptism.  We are hoping it’s this week on Wednesday or on Saturday.  I will let you know.

The love I've felt from everyone this week has helped so much. It’s been hard, but I know there are people with worse circumstances than me. Prayer is one of the greatest gifts, and I'm so grateful for it. Before my mission, I wasn't the best at praying. I've learned to love it these past 3 months and I wish I could have started earlier. Heavenly Father will always answer your prayers. It might take time, but you'll get an answer. He has a plan for each and every one of us, he knows us personally and loves us all so much. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to serve as a representative of Jesus Christ and give up 2 years of my life, so that I can spend eternity with my family :) I love you all so much and am so thankful for all of you and the support you've shown me :) hope you all have an incredible week.

Don't forget to be happy :)

Love,
Elder Hammond

Gracias a todos who helped put this care package together! It helped me more than you know!! ;)

2 Pac still lives here in España tambien!

Week 12: Your Episode of Dude Perfect!

Hello all!
This week was eventful and busy!! We are progressing more and more with Jorge. He's growing spiritually more and more every day!

Tuesday, was a very humbling experience for me. We taught a lesson with a lady named Soli. She has 6 kids, one on the way, husband is in jail, and doesn't have a job. She told us that she has to steal almost everything for her 5 year old son. Clothes mostly, but sometimes other things. Three of her kids live with her. A 23 year old, 18, and the 5 year old. We showed up to her house and there was no light in the room. She invited us in and she grabbed a flashlight and put the light up and let it be. She told us they only had one lightbulb and her son was using it in the shower at that time. When he got out, he brought it out and when he twisted it in, about 500 bugs started crawling out and into the hole where the light comes from the ceiling.  We started teaching her the Plan of Salvation and obedience and how she shouldn't steal. She seemed interested, so we set up another cita with her this week!

Wednesday was a pretty eventful day. We went back to "Sketchville”, which is what we call the place where we were talking to those kids and then the guy tried to steal my iPad. We went there in the day time this time so it wasn't so creepy. We started talking to the kids that we met that night. There's a kid who's name is Coli. He's 17 and he reminds me exactly of my cousin Gavin, except brown. His hair is so long and he grows like the same facial hair and he talks the same way. He's super funny and never serious haha. I think that's what reminds me of Gav. Anyways, we met a bunch of their other friends and we taught all of them the first lesson in the middle of their apartment complex. 

There's a kid that started talking to me when we got there and his name is Bautista. He's such a homie. He's 17 years old and he was super interested in my life and wanted to learn more about the Gospel. He told me that once I go back home that I better invite him to come to America for a week so he can hang out with me. About 15 people listened while we taught the lesson. The range of age was from 6 to 30. The 6 year old’s name is Diego and he came up to me after and asked if I wanted to see something cool and I said “yes”! He lifted up his shirt. He had 2 tattoos!!! My mind was so far blown it wasn’t even funny. At the end, they told us to come back and play soccer with them on Saturday morning. Needless to say we're basically their best friends now and they won't rob us anymore. :) Well, hopefully.

Later that night, we had a lesson with a guy named Lucky. He's from Nigeria. His wife's name is Joy. He has two kids. One is 5ish named Gift and the other one is like 2 and named Esse. When I heard the first 3 names of the their family I was willing the put $20 on the line that the other kid’s name was Happy or Smiley. Maybe in Nigeria Esse means something like that!  It was kinda late so the kids were going to bed so we only got to talk to Lucky. He spoke English so I FINALLY got to teach a lesson in English!!! It was weird, but much needed. He really likes the Bible, but I showed him this video of a Jamaican who lives in London that is a convert and now is a Bishop of a ward there. The video is called, "A Book of Mormon Story”. He tells about his love for the Book and how it can change lives and helps you gain a testimony of it through prayer and reading it. Lucky LOVED the video!! It was so awesome. It was nice to finally be able to express myself fully and bare testimony about how the Book of Mormon has changed my life and how it makes my day so much better when I read it. The Spirit was so strong. I was crying and he started to get choked up a little bit too. It was seriously such a cool experience. He told us that he wanted us to confuse him so that he would stay interested and want to know more about our church. So we told him that in our next lesson we would make him super confused hahaha :)!

Saturday morning, we went back and played soccer with our homies in Sketchville. It was way fun. I'm one of those soccer players that needs time to get started before I heat up. I start cold, but when I heat up, there's no stopping me ;)!  I had a goal towards the end, it was dope. During the game, there were a couple people who didn't play so they sat and watched... and rolled up some doobies. We brought 10 more Books of Mormon and told them to read the introduction before we come back. 

Saturday night, we had a lesson with Jorge! We taught him a little bit of English before we started our lesson. Now he knows how I feel. We taught him lesson 1. It went well!! He had so many questions about everything. He's so prepared to get baptized. Every time he bares testimony when we are there, the Spirit is so strong. He told us that he loves coming to church! On Sunday, he brought his whole family! (His wife and daughter are members. They have a 5 year old son as well). 

I'm so grateful for everything that has happened while I've been here in Córdoba. I know that Heavenly Father puts people who need this Gospel in our path so that we can help them. The way He works is incredible to me and He never ceases to amaze me. I love you guys so much and I'm grateful for the sacrifices you have made for me. Thank you for everything you've done. I'll be praying for you all this week. I hope you all have a great week!! Love you guys :)Love,Elder Hammond :)

You asked for a picture of Almarío.  I tried to get one for you, but this was the only time I’ve seen him this week. So, this is me and my boy Almarío (Drake and Josh grandpa) postin' up at church! He was out cold all 3 hours. He's not a member but the people who take care of him are members. I’m not sure he’s getting the full message of the Gospel, but at least he’s coming.

This is, as you can see, me being me :). I've been trying to do this since October 10th and I finally got it on Friday!! That's why my subject is what it is!   Dude Perfect! 

Week 11: Adrenaline Rush #1

Hola familia y seres quieridos,

Well, another week in the books aqui in Córdoba! I hope everyone had a fun, healthy Halloween! Only 1 Halloween left on the mish!  Here in Spain they don't really consider Halloween as a holiday. Today is a holiday for them but to be totally honest I'm not really sure why. People still dressed up and went trick or treating on Saturday but other than that it isn't too big here! 

As you can tell by the subject of this email, I had my first adrenaline rush this week!! First time since I left! It's a pretty funny story but my emotions weren't exactly funny during the time it was happening. 

So, on Tuesday we went to Sevilla for our weekly visit. Our train was late so we had time to go to Costco. Unfortunately, they didn't have regular Mountain Dew so I settled for some Reese's and muffins. When we got home we changed our clothes and went right to work. We had a lesson with Marcos, the Ecuadorian who was supposed to be baptized last week but never came to church. He lives in a pretty sketchy area but we go over there all the time and nothing bad has ever happened. We got done teaching him and we were going to a place where we had been once or twice to try and find some people. We were walking and there was this group of 7-8 kids who were maybe 16 or 17 years old.  They asked us who we were and we said missionaries and 2 of the girls screamed and ran away. It was really weird haha. But there were like 3 kids who were actually interested in our message. Once the girls that ran away realized we were normal and saw these guys talking to us, they came back and started listening. We showed them the restoration pamphlets and gave all of them one. Then this car pulls us and tells all of us to come over to it. My companion didn't even hesitate to go over. As we were walking over, I said had this feeling that "Something's gonna happen”.  Sure enough, both of the guys in the car were drunk and smoking weed. I pulled out a restoration pamphlet from my iPad case and gave it to him but he insisted I give him my iPad. I tried telling him it was a Book of Mormon but he didn’t buy it. So after telling me a million times that he wouldn't take it and me saying no it's mine, he tells one of the kids I'm standing next to to grab it from me. "Sneakily" the kid walked behind me but I brought it in front of me where he couldn't get it. The drunk dude wasn't gonna give up though. He gets out of his car, and starts trying to tell me to give it to him. After like 40 times of him saying he wouldn't take it and he just wanted to hold it, I  figured the only way he's gonna give up is if he gets what he wants. For the record..I had about 30 pounds and 3 inches on him and he would have had to try walk around me to get to his car. So, I let him have it. He started like bringing it closer to his body and wrapped it up tight and he told me to get in the trunk of his car! I told him no and asked if I could have it back. He said no and started trying to get back to his car! I had to grab my iPad out of his hands and forcefully rip it out of his hands. I had to sort of throw my shoulder into him to get it out of his hands. He got really angry when I got it away from him and so he threw his cigarette/doobie at me and threw his hands up like he wanted to fight! I waited to see if he was gonna do something to me and he tried to grab my tie and my tie clip but I wasn't gonna let that happen so I moved out of the way and told him to get in his car. When they were leaving he blew me a kiss so it's okay! :) Tt was kinda scary while it was happening but looking back it's hard not to laugh hahaha! Other than that, our week was pretty normal!

This weekend was a fun one! On Friday we tried to get with Jose Javier again but he's always so busy with his family. He found a job so that was a blessing! He doesn't work weekends so those are the times we will have to meet with him. There's a recent covert in our ward that was baptized in March. We had a lesson with her a couple of weeks ago and she told us how bad she wanted her dad to accept our message. We told her we would talk to him if we got the chance. Her mom is a member as well so he knows all about the church and everything but I guess he's never had anyone reach out to him! The opportunity came last week. We had a solid lesson with him and he had a lot of questions about why he's here and everything. This Saturday we set up another lesson with him and we had all his answers. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it was SUCH A GOOD LESSON!! The Spirit was so strong! He started crying and so did his daughter! It was so cool to see the difference between him before our first lesson with him and after the second. We committed him to baptism too!! His daughter, Michelle was so happy when he said that he would!! He's

getting baptized the 21st of November!! He came to church with us yesterday as well and he payed attention and was so interested the whole 3 hours!! After church, everyone stayed after and we had a little Fast Sunday medio dia lunch thing with everyone who wanted to stay! They made this paella (rice and chicken) and it was so good. Jorge stayed and loved it as well!! 

Today we went to the Mezquita and FINALLY got in!! We had tried 4 different times before this and they were closed all 4 times. I guess the 5th times the charm. It was so cool! There were so many arches everywhere haha. The best part was that it was so empty and it was free! We had to go early in the morning to get in for free and that's when no one is there so it was cool! :) I took lots of pictures  

Teaching by the Spirit is key. It's impossible for the investigators to feel the Spirit and accept it if it's not taught by the Spirit. Having the Spirit as my constant companion has been my favorite part of my mission. I love all the people here in Spain and I'm so excited for Jorge and to watch his experience and go through it with him. I’ll do my best to give as much detail so that you guys at home can do your best to experience it with him as well! 

Thank you guys for the love and support you've sent me. I feel your prayers and I'm so lucky to be blessed with the best!! I love you all and hope you have a great week! :)

Love,
Elder Hammond

These are the people in our ward yesterday! Jorge is the dude standing behind me and his daughter is next to him! 

Just me, Costco and my muffins!

Me, Jobi (left) and Jesus (Right) on Halloween. ;)

Mosque of Cordoba.