Week 23: Goodness is A'comin' If It's Not Already Here :)

This week was a good and busy week.! Always nice to have busy weeks. :)

Soooo Tuesday, I bet you weekly readers can probably guess what I did.  Yep, meeting day! Started off with a nice meeting as a district and then later we had correlation and ward council. We got introduced to the Area Plan. Not sure if the whole world is doing it or what, but it's the "invite a friend to church initiative" and it ties in with the family history and all that fun stuff. Hopefully you guys know what I'm talking about..

Wednesday night, we had a Worldwide Broadcast for all the missionaries!! It was so awesome. It was titled "Teach Repentance, Baptize Converts”. A couple of things that stuck out to me that Elder Andersen said was that true conversion takes time and the best way to convert is through the scriptures. The scriptures have brought so much happiness to my life and I know that if people give them a chance and come to know that the Book of Mormon is true. It will make them so much more happy than they can even imagine! READ THE SCRIPTURES!!! Later that night, we had our English class. One of the guys who comes has a pet sugar glider and he brought it to the class to show everyone what it was. For those of you that don't know, it's basically a really creepy looking tiny flying squirrel that just crawls all over you and will jump from person to person to anything with soft clothing/landing. It was pretty cool but like I said, pretty creepy lookin.

Thursday was a really busy day which was nice. :) That morning, we went to a pueblo outside of Almería called Aguadulce. It's right on the coastline and there are some members that invited us over for chili! The whole week the other three elders were talking about it nonstop because of how good it is, so I was pretty stoked to try it. They weren't kidding! It was really good! She said she didn't put spicy stuff in it, but I was still so spicy! I can't imagine what it’s like with spice! On our way back to the bus station, we walked past the beach and took some pictures. When we got back, we stopped by Danny's tea store to see if he was working. He's so funny. His tea shop looks like a 70's diner all western style and it honestly reminds me of Utah so I love it. I'll try and take some pictures of it and with him for next week. No promises tho :) so we taught him a lesson because nobody else was in the store and he gave us some tea type stuff obviously without tea. It was weird, I'm not a huge fan of hot drinks like that. But he let me try this thing that he invented and it's brownie cheesecake. Brownie on top, and cheesecake on bottom. IT WAS SO FREAKING GOOD YOU GUYS YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I'm definitely getting some every time we go back. Next time, I'll take a picture (to make Mommy happy :) ) so then after we were there for a while, we had a cita scheduled with Jesus Del Pino (less active member) at his casa. He's a cool guy. Really nice, but I guess doesn't have time to come to church. The lesson we had went really well though. We told him about the Plan de Area and he was stoked about it and wanted to help. He said he gave a Book of Mormon to one of his friends but doesn’t know if he's been reading it. He also said he was gonna bring a friend to church on Sunday, but he didn't even show up himself! He's a painter, so his house is FULL of paintings that he's done. He’s got some talent! There's this one picture of a larger lady in a bikini and she's riding away on her bike so I said "I like this one" and he said "mi suegra" hahahahaha which means "mother-in-law" hahahaha so I got a good laugh outta that! :)

Friday was a very cool experience. :) That night, Juan (the hermanas' investigator) got baptized! His wife has been a member for a long time and when they moved from Peru, they didn't think there was a church here in Almería. When they found out there was, Juan started taking the lessons. He's probably 60-65 and has cancer. He knew he was going to die soon so he wanted to be baptized. The whole family is so nice and it was SO AWESOME to see how happy his whole family was when he went under the water and came back up. His wife started crying so hard and it was such a cool thing to see and made me really happy. :)

Saturday we played soccer with our members and investigators.  It was an abnormally hot day so I got some color to my missionary body. The church court had volleyball nets up, so we had to play at a court that was down the street a ways. It was a lot bigger and apparently I play better on bigger field. Guys... I had NINE goals. NINE. That's unheard of from an American who never played soccer before his mission. Get this tho… 2 of them were headers that were easily ESPN TOP 10 SportCenter worthy. I think I played so good because I was chosen to say the prayer before we played.  I guess I'll say it every time from now on if I'm gonna play that good. After I balled out, we had our eating cita with Silvia! It's always fun to go over hungry and then just stuff our face with food she feeds us and leave wishing we didn't eat so much. Her son "the rapper" was there so he spit a few verses for us. There's a guy in our ward named Barbosa. He's from Africa and he served in this mission, learned English to the point where he's fluent now, lives in Almería with his family and is literally such a stud. It was his birthday, so he invited the missionaries and some of his friends to come to dominos to celebrate. :) His cousin came too and was cracking jokes making everyone laugh all night. He taught me some of the language he speaks and I taught him some English. He's one of those guys who enjoys life, so we got along great.

Sunday we got invited to go to the Bishop’s house for lunch afterwards.His wife made the same chicken stuff she did last time and of course it was just as good. This time it wasn't as eventful, but it was funny cuz there's a guy in our ward named Antonio, and his wife (can't remember her name) but she reminds me exactly of Lisa Adamson (one of my good friend's mom practically my other mom) and Antonio reminds me exactly of Shawn Adamson!! (the same friend's dad minus the beard). So obviously I like them a lot. While we were eating, Antonio and the Bishop were trying to speak English and the Pepsi was all gone so Antonio said "Houston have problem" and he waved the bottle around and the Bishop picks up the Coke and says “you drink....(didn't know how to say bottle so I told him) bottle” and Antonio says "okay yes yes okay" but the whole time it was like it was a conversation between cavemen. They're all so funny and I love going with them to eat! :)

To end, I just wanted to share a quote that my grandma sent to me last week cuz I love it so much: “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together”. This gives me hope that when things don't go the way we anticipated it to or the way we wanted them to, it's because better things are going to come. Elder Holland said.. “Don’t give up … Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. … It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.” I meshed 2 things together here, but honestly I love these two things so much and it makes me so happy knowing that no matter how hard times may be, goodness is acomin’. When good is with you but you lose it, better will find its way to you. :)

Well folks, there ya have my week. :) Thanks for all the love and continual support... I love you all and am so grateful for all that you guys do for me. Have a good week for me alright? Love you guys :)

Love,
Elder T Ham

All of us in Aguadulce! 

Elder Rex and I being ourselves.

The whole gang on Saturday night. Barbosa is the one you can't see and his cousin is the one you REALLY can't see.

This is Barbosa :)

Tryin' out the local SWAG!

Week 22: Lucha or Ducha?

Dear loved people,

Well, like I say every week to open these bad boys up... another week down! We had a really good week and saw some miracles this last weekend!! Here's my week. :)

Tuesday, the usual meetings all day. We had district meeting. My comp Elder Rex gave a really good taller on what our purpose is as missionaries. I've mentioned this a couple times before, but it’s really important that as a missionary we understand that our purpose is to INVITE. If we do that and trust that the Lord will do His part, good things will happen. Later that night we had our weekly meeting with our ward mission leader and then after that our ward counsel meeting.

A funny thing happened on Wednesday. So we have this member named Antonio del Barrio, and he lives in a town about 45 minutes (on bus) outside of Almería called Alhama. He's the owner of a pizza place up there and so last week he told us to come and visit him and he’d give us some pizza! The bus ride was through a canyon sort or thing. I don’t know how to describe it, but the lady who was driving the bus was going so fast the whole way and I thought we were going to flip. The road was so windy and with her driving I thought I was gonna puke. Finally we got there and walked up to his pizzeria. It was only us and the two hermanas in our district that went up together cuz the other Elders missed the bus. They waited an hour and caught the next bus up and met us there. We got there and he gave us some fries and we just talked while we waited for them. He was telling us a story about when he was a kid how he didn't have very many things going for him and he needed to do something about it. He wasn't a member of the church at this time either. So he's telling us this story about how he was super ripped and worked out a ton and then he said something like for the first time ever he started to "lucha" which means fight. BUT this guy is pretty old and hard for me to understand, so I thought he said "ducha" which is shower. So he's telling us all this stuff about how he was about to fight (I thought it was shower) and his mom comes screaming at him telling him to not do it and she doesn't want him to do it... The ENTIRE time I'm sitting here thinking that this 21 year old ripped guy is about to shower for the first time, and then his mom came to him telling him she didn't want him to shower. Needless to say, the story made a lot more sense when I figured out that he said lucha and not ducha. 

The hermanas have an investigator who is getting baptized this Friday, so on Thursday since my comp is the district leader, we got to go to his house and he had to do the interview for him. He lives in a pueblo thats like 25 minutes away from Almería, so we got on another bus and went to his house that night. The hermanas were already there, so when we got there they showed us where he lives. Since it was an interview, I couldn't stay in the same room so I had to go in the other room.  We were talking and then the granddaughter (3 years old) just randomly screams "VAMOS A ORAR" which means "Let's pray”! So we start laughing and she tells us to cross our arms and bow our heads and she sits there for a sec and then runs out of the room. She came back in and tells her grandma to pray but her grandma says she wants to hear her pray. So she says she will and she does the typical little kid prayer where they open up, and then really quick says "Jesus Christ Amen”. Then she started clapping and laughing. It was so funny.

Friday was a good day! We had a lesson with some of our investigators Angel and Maira. It went really well! We've been trying to meet with them more because of all of our investigators, they are closest to baptism. We taught them a lesson about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. When we brought up baptism, they had a lot of questions. They've been investigators for a while, not sure exactly how long, but I wanna say at least 5 years. They really like Elder Rex and I and are constantly saying how they're gonna come to the States when we get older and hang out with us and that when they go back home to Ecuador, we are gonna come visit them! They had only been taught about baptism 2 times before but it wasn't in depth which is why they had a lot of questions. We showed them pictures of how it's done and they were intrigued. :) And then the night got even better.  After our lesson, we had to go to the store cuz we didn't have any food, so we were walking there and we passed an investigator who we haven't talked to in like a month! We noticed him and he yelled "Jamón!" So we went over and talked to him for a little bit. His name is Enofre, he's 19 years old and lives poorly. His mom and brother are members, but less active. We talked to him and he told us his phone broke and he's been working a ton. He walked to the store with us and then walked us home. That was cool! We set up another cita with him next week. :)

Saturday was fun. We played our weekly soccer games with the investigators and members that usually come. We had a cita planned with Silvia, but at like 12:30 she called us and bailed which was sad :/ So we played til 2 and then it was medio dia and we didn't have any plans. When all the guys left we brought out the basketball and us 4 elders played basketball for all of medio dia until 4:30! I was so out of energy but It felt so good to just run around for a whole day again. It was fun and I’ll admit, we kept score and it got a little physical but, we did keep it half court!  That night we had an cita with our eternigator Emme. She always makes us food and it's always so good!   She comes to church every week, calls us to have lessons and has been an investigator for like 2 years now, and knows all of it is true, but just doesn't want to change some habits and be baptized. At the beginning it was frustrating, but I've learned to live with it and I just hope one day something will click and she will not be able to deny it any longer!

Sunday was a regular Sunday. Nothing special happened. Since I've been on my mission I've learned to actually enjoy going to church. It's fun to be with all the ward members and have them try and guess my name when I cover up my name tag.  They only remember my name cuz it's the most popular food here and Rex cuz they say he looks like a dinosaur!  It's also fun to feel the Spirit for 3 hours straight. 

Our PDay today consisted of us going to the mall for a little bit and looking around, and then we had to come back because the owner of our piso was coming over cuz I guess the water somewhere in our piso is leaking into the people who live below us. So we spent an hour in our piso today while we waited for her and some dude to try and fix it. I think all is fixed now though so that's good. We're sick of the neighbors below coming up once a week and telling us to do something about it. Hopefully that stops. :)

Well, like I say, I love you all and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary serving here in Spain. It's been fun not thinking about myself and always thinking about how I can help everyone here. That includes any of you that need me. :) Tell me what I can do for you! I hope you all of you have a great week and you’ll hear from me the next!! :)

Love,
Elder Hammond

This was a couple of weeks ago at the Christmas conference... I found it on the mission blog haha :)
LOS NIÑOS/ELDERES DE ALMERÍA 😎 Note from Mother: Look on the left hand side of the photo. Garet says this store they are in front of was his favorite store when he was on his mission. Tanner says it's still the best place to shop.

Week 21: Another Spanish Holiday!

Hey howdy hey :)

Another week in the books here and obviously wherever you are in the world. Also another week with a holiday here in Spain. This makes the 3rd week in a row with a holiday sometime during the week.

SO let's see... Tuesday (meeting day) we were supposed to have district meeting, but since it was the first full week of the month, we didn't have it because of zone conference. We had a cita planned with some of our investigators named Nancy and Cesar, but right before we were about the leave they called us and said they had too much stuff to do to get ready for the holiday. The festivos here are literally a 3 day event. You have the day before where everyone sets up and gets ready, the day of where everyone drinks and parties forever, and then the day after where everyone is hung over. It’s really quite sad actually, but maybe by the time I get home I'll be understand it. So they bailed on us. That night we had our weekly correlation with our ward mission leader. He told us he wants us to work a ton this week with less active members, so we can do that. After that we had our ward counsel meeting with all the leaders of our ward. As a missionary there’s not a lot for us to do in that meeting.

Wednesday was the holiday so it was mostly filled with contacting In the street and getting shut down by people asking us why we weren't in our piso for the holiday. When there's a holiday here, the streets are literally empty. We probably saw 10 people outside that morning. Elder Layton had to go to Màlaga to get his residency card that night and his bus left around 5:30. His comp Elder Harvey was with us while he was gone so that was fun to be in a trio. We have a member who owns a pizzeria in a city just out of Almería in our area that said we could come by sometime and he'd give us free pizza, and since it was a holiday and nobody would answer their phones, we figured going to his place was the only thing we could do. BUT, of course since it was a holiday, the buses weren't coming back and forth from the pueblo. So, once again, we were contacting the few people we saw in the streets. We met this guy named Daniel, he's a nice guy and he is like a Kung Foo master. He's freakin' ripped and he owns this tea store and he gave us his number and told us to come by his tea store sometime soon. So we will see where that goes!

Thursday we had a cita planned with a recent convert named Nadie, who is the family that Sam Curtis is staying here with while he's here. That's the guy who I found out is my 3rd cousin that I took a picture with a couple weeks ago. Since Sam wasn't in the house, we couldn't go in, so yet another cita fell through. :/ We tried calling all of our investigators but like I said, the day after the holidays, not very many people answer their phones. Around 4, we made our way down the the bus stop and waited for Elder Layton. He got in at about 4:30 then they went to their piso and we came to ours and it was a wreck so we cleaned it. It looks brand new. Again, we'll see how long that lasts. Hahaha. Then after that, we went down to see if Daniel was at 'Tea Time' (the name of his tea place) but the lady who was working there (his girlfriend) said he was at a friend’s house. Since Wednesday was a holiday, we figured none of the guys would come to English class, so we moved it to Thursday. Aaaannndd still nobody came haha.

Friday was a productive day finally! We had to sleepover at the other Elder’s piso cuz we had to catch a bus to Granada at 9:30 in the morning for zone meeting! The bus ride was 2 hours, so we got there around 11:30 and walked another 15 minutes to the church. I got to see Elder Baumgart who is a good friend from the MTC so that was fun.

Saturday we had soccer scheduled with investigators and some members, but Elder Harvey called us and said he wasn't feeling good so he canceled it. So we just went to Hermana Silvia's house for our weekly eating cita we have with her! She has 2 sons one of them is 18 and he wants to be a rapper. Every other weekend he travels to Madrid to do rap-offs. He showed me one of his videos and it's to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air words in Spanish but to like his own beat that he made. Let me tell you that stuff was straight fuego! Apparently he won some money because of that song, I'm not really sure how it all works though. Anyway the other son is 15 or 16 and he plays baseball so we always talk about baseball whenever I go over. :)

Sunday was a good Sunday. In our Sunday school class we talked about La Santa Cena y que significa para nosotros. And then in priesthood we talked a little bit about Howard W Hunter. He was pretty interesting and only served as a prophet for a year. We tried to set up some citas for this week but nobody likes us and is too busy.. Elder Rex and I are considering moving to the other Elder’s area cuz all the members in our area never have time for us two cuties. ;)

Well folks, there ya have it. My week. Some ups and downs. Seriously times going by so fast and I'm still trying to comprehend how. Enjoy your lives while you can and don't let a single moment slip away from you. Trust me, I would know. I'm almost 19!  I LOVE YOU ALL SO FREAKING MUCH AND I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT SEMANA!!!! Feel free to let me know if I can do anything for any of you. You have my email if you need me :)

Love,
Elder Hammond

My new Spanish suit.

This was a beautiful cathedral we went to for PDay this week.

Week 20: Two Thousand and Sixteen 😎

Hello all!

I hope all of you had a fantastic end to 2015 and a great start to 2016!! It's crazy to me that 2015 is already over.

Well, my week was the normal holiday week. Which means not a lot of people answered their doors. On Tuesday we had district meeting. Elder Rex gave Elder Layton and me the tallers (workshops) and I did mine on prayer and Layton gave his on faith. It's weird being the one who can speak Spanish for once! I feel his pain though!  After our meeting we came home and did language study for a little bit and then around 5:30 we went to the church and had correlation with our ward mission leader. I'm still at the point where all I do is smile and nod my head. (Smile and wave boys, smile and wave!) Especially in a new area because I still don't know everyone yet! Then after that we had consejo with all the leaders of our ward. :) 

Wednesday, President Anderson was on his way home from Alicante and he called us and asked if we could have our "every 3 month" interviews. So around 1:00 we met him at the church. I was the first one to do the interview. It's cool cuz when we do the interviews, they're basically just a conversation. I don't know too much about him or anything and the only thing he knows about me is that my dad served in this mission, and that I have scholarships to play football so we usually talk about that most of the time. He said to tell my family hi. Hermana Anderson brought around a Book of Mormon and is having all 196 missionaries in our mission sign their name and mark their favorite scripture. I was the first one in the book, I felt pretty cool. That night we had a noche de hogar at the church. It was kind of a fail though cuz the whole point of those are to get investigators to come to the church and get a tour of it and feel welcome, but none of our investigators showed up. We invited Angel and Miara and their child but he didn't come, kinda sad. The other elders didn't have anyone show up either. The hermanas didn’t even have anyone show up, so we didn't feel too bad.  It was still fun though because a bunch of members showed up and we just played mafia the whole time. So it was more of a mutual activity.

Thursday was New Year's Eve and we had a couple of families invite us over to the church for a big party get together dinner. We got there around 7:00 and the party was supposed to go til 3:00! We had to go home at 10:30 ish so we couldn't stay for the whole thing. There were games and stuff to play but more people didn't show up until the dinner which was at 9:00. They set up a TV and everything in the chapel. So we ate and it was basically just a bunch of chicken, rice and bread just like any other Spanish meal. We left the party at 10:30 and all four of us went to our piso and the other two elders slept here with us. When we got here, we just hung out. All of a sudden my comp comes out in a full body monkey suit and starts hopping around like a monkey and making monkey noises so I'm like "Rex for the next 10 minutes, you have to act like a monkey”. I was expecting him to do some weird things and like eat a banana or something. When I told him that, he got this crazy look in his eye and just started screaming like a monkey and started attacking Elder Layton and me!  Oh my heck it's like that monkey suit gave him more strength or something cuz he just started throwing everything at us and he pinned Layton in between the bed and the wall and while this was happening I went and got my iPad to record the whole thing. Then when Elder Rex (monkey boy) saw I was filming he came and started hitting me with a pillow and then he ran into the bathroom and I opened the door and he charged at it and started hitting his head on the door. I went to the kitchen and got a banana and tried to give it to him but he hucked it and it hit Elder Harvey (who wasn't doing anything at all) right in the face.  It was so funny. The things we do for fun! Here in Spain they do this really weird thing. The last 12 seconds of the year, they eat a grape every second and make a wish with every grape. They don't have seedless grapes though, so it was really uncomfortable and rather gross. However, it was all about the experience! When 12 o'clock hit, we all freaked out for a couple seconds then looked around and started dancing. Pretty crazy New Year's Eve party in the Elders’ piso! 

Friday we got to sleep in which was nice. Only til 8:30 but I mean it's better than 7:00. We got up and we're doing our studies and then our phone rings and it was President. Never a good thing unless it's close to transfer time, which it isn't right now. So Elder Rex answers it and he said that he needed to find a member to go to the hermanas' piso to give Hermana Smith a blessing because she wasn’t feeling well. We called everyone and nobody answered their phone. So after two hours of trying to find someone, we called President and told him there wasn't anyone and so he gave us permission to go with all four of us to give the blessing. She asked the "noobs" do the anointing and blessing, thank goodness in English. That night, we were walking home and we saw this guy on the street that looked familiar. We couldn't see him very well because he had his face in his hands. We went over and talked to him and he was so beyond drunk. It was a guy who we play soccer with on Saturday mornings. We tried to see if he was okay, but he just kept saying "futból mañana" over and over haha. We told him yeah and asked if we could help, but he just said "futból mañana” so we left.

The next day, we were very surprised to see him at soccer. He showed up a little later than everyone else, but it was good to see him. I don't think he remembers talking to us, but that's alright. We played for a while and then we had a cita with an investigator named Emme. I'm not sure if I've told you guys about her or not, but she's what we like to call an "Eternigator" which is an investigator who knows its true, but doesn't want to change their life and be baptized. She has two kids, an 18 year old daughter named Lina and a 12 year old son named Joseba. Joseba is my homie cuz he reminds me of my 'cousin' Christian, always making me laugh. We ate with her and I read them my ponderize scripture for this week (Moroni 8:3)  and then shared a little bit about what it meant to me.

I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.

That night, we went to a baptism of a girl who just turned 8 in our ward! It was so much different than baptisms in the states. They're so much shorter! The ordinance took like three seconds and then they had the girl share her testimony and then her dad gave her el don del espiritu santo and then it was over. I had a question as to why they did the baptisms so late, but now I know why. Ask and ye shall receive.

Well ladies and gents, another week has come and gone, and so has a year. I just want to let all of you know how grateful I am for the opportunity I have to give these 2 years of my life to help others feel the happiness this gospel brings me and my family in our lives. Being a missionary has always been so weird for me to think about as a kid, and even as a kid with his mission call. All of my friends who are a year younger than me are starting to fill out their papers and soon will be getting their calls. Time goes by so fast and I can’t believe I'm already almost 5 months out. It's been so fun to be a missionary in the same places my dad was 25 years ago, especially during Christmas :) I love this gospel and I'm so grateful that I have it in my life. I'm grateful that my family will be able to be together forever even when this life is over. I'm grateful for all of you and the positive impact each and every one of you have made in my life. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Happy 2016!!

Love,
Elder Hammond

This is what I got to do this week for PDay! 

Mira

The Statue of Jesus

In the ruins

Watching the waves hit the shore

New Year's Eve