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)