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
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| 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. |
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