Week 36: Pickin' on the NOOB & I love my MOM

What's up from ELCHE 💯

Here I am again. :) First time reporting from the new area. This week was loooong... Transfers are always like that tho, kinda sucks but hopefully things start to pick up and go a little bit faster and more smooth. Also, Happy Mother's Day this Sunday!!! To all the mothers, grandmas, future moms, anyone really reading this, thanks for what you do... Not too many dudes can do it. 😉

Here's my week -

Monday and Tuesday were filled with citas with members and people who I wanted to say bye to. Monday night we went and I said bye go my boy Barbosa. He has plans to come to the states and find a better life there, so he said we will definitely be hanging out when I get home from the mish if he is there. Tuesday we had an eating cita with our ward mission leader and his wife, Franci and Lucia. I love them. They're a perfect couple and they're family is so awesome. After that I said bye to Antonio and his family, they're less active and only came to church once during my 20 weeks there. But we visited them a lot so I said bye to them. That night I said bye to JESUS DEL PINO!!!!
That man I love him. Such a good dude. He cried when he said bye to me and he wrote in my journal that I totally gave him a new perspective on life and changed his for the better. It was sad to say bye to so many people.

Wednesday was my day of traveling. It wasn't too bad honestly. I caught a bus from Almería to Murcia which was about 3 hours and then waited an hour and then took another hour long bus ride to Elche! I met Elder Lowry, Elder Smith, and Elder Ngatai at the train station and then straight from there Elder Lowry and I went to a member’s house to eat! Freakin losers... They thought it'd be funny to pick on the new guy so they contaminated my rice with.... I don't even know what haha. I took a bite of it and after many different tastes going through my mouth, and thoughts of suicide, I finally managed to swallowed it. They all saw the look on my face and started busting up laughing. They gave me good rice and then started asking me questions about life. That night we had to go to a city that's about an hour ride outside of Elche called Elda, which is where Elder Ngatai is serving with his new comp (my old comp) ELDER REX!!!! We spent the night at their piso which was fun cuz I haven't seen Rex since February and Ngatai since like the MTC.

Thursday we had our weekly planning session. The work here is slow right now, but we know that if we are obedient and do the things we know to do, that our area has so much potential!!! Our area is the biggest out of anyone in our district, and also our district is the biggest one in the mission! We combined 2 districts and made it 1 this transfer so we have about 12 people together as one. We are excited for this transfer to see what we can do! There is a chance I could only be with Elder Lowry for 5 weeks, which would make me sad. But if not, we will be together for 11 so we will see what happens. :) Thank goodness every Thursday night we play soccer here with our ward 😍. I’d probably go insane without it. You guys ever seen the movie kicking and screaming? "They just score and score and score, and score and score and score and score!" That's me. JUST KIDDING! I've learned I can't freakin use my feet for anything good so I strictly stick to goalie and I'm a machine! They can't stop me, they can only hope to contain me. So yeah that's fun :)

Friday... What did I do Friday? Ahh that's right. Friday we had a way solid lesson with our number one investigators, Nancy, Christian and Rosa. Nancy is Christian’s mom. Christian and Rosa are married. They are from Columbia, way funny, very cool people. Nancy is leaving this week to go to France for some reason, so it was a nice “Hello! Nice to meet you! See ya later if you ever come back" type of thing. We are hoping next time we meet with Christian to commit him to be baptized which would be sweet! We also met with some other investigators named Gabi and Maria on Friday. There wasn't a man in the house, so we couldn't go in, but we talked to them for a little bit in the doorway. They're friends who live together and are both from Ecuador, we have a cita with them tonight and so we are planning on committing them to be baptized as well!! Friday night we taught some English. In Elche, we do English classes every Wednesday and Friday. So, if it seems to some of you that you feel like I'm always teaching English, that's why! 😏

Saturday morning we went with the other ward and contacted in the streets all morning! We were with our home boy Claudio. He's so funny. He’s from the Dominican Republic and just loves this gospel. We were taking turns contacting and we walked past this like 14 year old kid and Claudio goes to shake his hand and says hi to the kid and the kid literally jumped out of his shoes cuz he was so scared hahahaha. He like put his hands in the air as if he had a gun held to him and awkwardly walked past us and Claudio just started busting up laughing and as we walked away he yelled "fine if you don't wanna be happy I won't help you!" I was laughing so hard. That night we had a lesson with some members named Jose and Encarne. They were baptized about 2 years ago, so funny. They love the missionaries, and love to feed the missionaries. So they fed us Saturday night and then as we were leaving, they invited us to come over Sunday after church and eat with them again hahaha so that was cool!:)

Sunday was a great Sunday. :) it was Mother's Day here, so it was cool to have fast Sunday and Mother's Day on the same day. I got up to share the good ol Spanish testimony and to introduce myself. I introduce myself to people as Elder Jamón which is a very very very popular food here in Spain. (It's a pig leg that you cut up and eat I don't know it's weird but Spaniards can't say Hammond so I tell them it's Jamón) When I told my new ward my name they all just started busting up laughing. Good way to break the ice if you ask me! :) Then I started talking about moms and Mother's Day and I started uncontrollably crying in front of everyone. Good heck my mom >>>>> (that means like greater than anything for those of you who are confused) not even just my mom! Any woman who is in my life and who has helped make me the person I am! I wish I could just make a list and give you all all the love I have! 😫😫 Mother's Day makes me appreciate everything my Mommy has done for me and my family and I will never be able to thank her enough for everything she has done for me. ❤️ I love you Mama Bear :)

Well folks, I hope you enjoy YOUR Mother's Day, and enjoy your week in general. Hopefully I'll be able to not cry while Facetiming the fam and loved ones this next Sunday. I'll probs cry. I'm a softy 🤗 but hey, thanks for being the people I love and for reading my emails weekly. I love you all and you'll hear from me next week :)

Love,
T Ham