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