Week 18: Merry Christmas

Dear Loved Ones,

MERRY FREAKIN CHRISTMAS!!!! I can't even believe it's already the week of Christmas. I hope everyone had an excellent week and has a wonderful and safe upcoming week! :)

SO, let's see. My week: Tuesday is our meeting day. We had our district meeting, then after that we went and got tapas! Tapa restaurants are basically just a bunch of appetizer plates. You pay for the drink, and an appetizer is included with it. :) I had a hamburger and a steak for really cheap! I got this drink that was seriously one of the most sour things I've ever tasted. It was so good though! It was probably the best drink I've had since I've been here, and I've tried all sorts of things. It's called Mosto. Quality stuff my friends. After all that we went home and then after medio dia we went to the church and had correlation and after that we had a meeting with all the leaders of our ward.

Wednesday we had a cita in a pueblo just outside of Almería with the Soleres family! They're members and so nice. They have a daughter who's probably 23ish and is married and they have a cute little daughter. They fed us this weird bean meat vegetable soup stuff. It was weird, but good! Don't ask for more details, cuz I have no idea what I was eating. Our mission president has asked that we show the "Life without a Savior" video to as many people as possible before Christmas. So every night this week when we would plan for the next day.  We would set goals of people to contact in the street and how many people we wanted to show the video to each day. We've started trying to kill two birds with one stone and show the video to the people we contact every day and it's been working out really well! We've gotten more future investigators and people want to know more because of the video.  

Wednesday night we had our English class. The guys that come every week are starting to get really good at English. It's cool to see them progress!

Thursday morning we had our weekly planning session. We need more investigators so we are going to be contacting a TON this week! It’ll be hard because of Christmas and we have to go to Murcia on Wednesday for a Christmas conference. Half of the mission is going to be there, so I'm excited to see a ton of people again! That night, the zone leaders came from Granada and we did splits with them. Elder Black went with the other elders, and Elder Weenig came with Elder Rex and me. Being in a trio companionship would be a weird experience. It was weird teaching with three of us, but it was a good time. He gave us a lot of helpful tips and things we could do to help us find more people and everything, so that was helpful!

Friday morning we taught four lessons in like an hour and a half! We were moving from house to house and the lessons were so short, but sweet! We picked up three new investigators and while we were on our way back to meet the other elders so that the zone leaders could go back home, we contacted and got 4 of 5 future investigators! Street contacting is so fun for some reason. When Elder Rex and I do it, we make games out of it. We would tell each other a word to use and have to use it during our conversation. It was pretty fun! After our lessons we went and dropped off the ZL's so they could go back to Granada. That night we had an activity at the the church with the young men to play basketball! It was nice for once to be able to be good and mess around with the people like they do to me when we play soccer! I got to know a bunch of the people in the ward, it was a good time. :)

Saturday morning we played soccer like we do every Saturday. I’m getting pretty good guys. I might think about taking up an indoor soccer league if nothing goes my way when I get home. Just kidding! I still suck so bad. It’s coming slowly but surely.  That night, there was a ward Christmas party. When we got there, I saw this guy that looked American. I went up and asked him where he was from and he said he went to East High School. He served here and left about 10 months ago. His last area was here in Almería so he came back to visit. His name is Sam Curtis, and after talking for a while, we realized we were somehow related between my dad’s cousin or something. It was so cool! He told me all about his mission, gave me a few tips and gave us all a little bit of advice. It was really cool when we figured out we knew a lot of the same people.

I flipped open to a random page during personal study this week and it was Mosiah 7:33: But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in Him, and serve Him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, He will, according to His own will and pleasure, deliver you out bondage.  I've learned how important it is to turn to the Lord. I'm sure I’ve said this before, but being out here and being able to have success would be absolutely impossible without Heavenly Father. Life itself would be impossible. There's nothing I can do here without Him. I love being able to tell people here that God loves them and wants to hear them pray and ask for his help. I love telling them that He sent his only son to die for them personally, so that we could become clean from our mistakes and sins in life and that we can return to live with Him again. 

I hope everyone has an excellent and safe Christmas. Eat lots of food for me and open all the presents that Santa brings me just in case he forgets I'm here in Spain!  I LOVE YOU ALL! MERRY CHRISTMAS YA FILTHY ANIMALS!!!!

Love,
Elder Tanner Brady Hammond :)

Our District at the Ward Christmas party!

Sam and me. He's my 4th(ish) cousin somehow!  

Today at "The Wok" with a couple of members and a bunch of investigators! The family and the girl holding the orange are the investigators. The girls that look like twins are members.  

This was my lunch.  Fish, shrimp, squid and crawdads.  Not the "Wok Lin" of Bountiful, that's for sure!