Week 42: As the Temperature Gets Hotter, So Does the Work

What the heck is up my loved ones,

Well... It's been quite the week for us over here in the city of Elche. We saw a ton of miracles and it was amazing to see what can happen when we as a companionship try a little bit harder to be a little bit better. Here's a quick(ish) summary for you guys :)

It all started on Tuesday when we were at the Caballeros house for medio dia. They are the family who is like my second family here in Elche :) Jacob and Aaron are the ones who took us out on P Day last week and also today. Aaron is Jacob’s older brother and right now, he's getting ready to move to Utah. His wife, Rocio, lived there and grew up in the West Valley area for about 7 or 8 years of her life. Both of them speak English and are wanting to make the trip to Utah to give their 2 kids a better experience. They’re living with his parents right now and he is going to leave around the end of August to get to Utah and Rocio and the kids are gonna come later. :) We ate with them and then later we had our weekly correlation meeting with Fernando, the dad who is our ward mission leader. After that, we changed clothes and went and played soccer with everyone. Me, Jacob, Aaron and Llavina were all on the same team and similar to last week, didn't come off the court until we were on a 10 game winning streak. I promise Jacob and I are unstoppable.

Wednesday was a really good day. That morning, we had a lesson set with a girl named Melissa who we contacted in the street a couple weeks ago. We didn't know anything about her but when we got there, she was way interested and so we talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Her friend Reina was there as well so we picked up 2 new investigators in 30 minutes 💯! After, we made our way down to the Garcia’s house to eat. The famous dish here is called Arroz con costra, which means rice with crust hahah. It sounds weird but it's freakin delicious. We shared a scripture with them then headed home for the rest of our medio dia.

Thursday we had another English/Gospel lesson with Carolina. We taught her some English and then we talked about the Book of Mormon. I've said it before, and I'll say it again... That book is so true. But I'll get back to that later :). That night, some members, the Palominos, set up a noche de hogar for us because they had some friends that are interested in the gospel :). Remember last week our new investigator Julio? It was supposed to be with him, his wife and 2 kids. BUT, they way bailed on us :( so we just taught the only non-member in the Palomino family, Persil. Presila was a member, but a while ago she had her name taken out of the church and now is reinvestigating the church with us. She is progressing towards a baptism date and we are excited for her :)!

Friday waaaassss Zone meeting! We made the trip to Alicante and we had our meeting from 11-2:30 and then we went and ate at Dominos as a zone. The Dominos in Spain is, well... Horrible to be brutally honest with you. At least in my opinion haha. Most missionaries die for it, like my old companion... I'm not a huge fan tho. I had a couple slices and then felt sick to my stomach so I stopped eating haha. Our district ditched us, so me and the Llav man (my compy) had to wait in the train station for 2 hours til the next train left haha. It was fun. We kept ourselves entertained by playing eye spy!!! Such an underrated game oh my heavens. We got home, went to English class and then me and my boy Fran, took on Bako and Sega in a game of foosball and MURKED them. Fran is an RM who's 25 and is the other ward’s bishop’s son. He comes and plays soccer and he's a Dallas Cowboys fan so we are best friends too. Everyone says my specialty is being automatically loved by the people I meet. To be honest with you, and in the most humble way of putting this, the longer I've been out, the more I do feel like that is a strength I have developed on the mission. I think it comes from my sense of humor that the old man (and beautiful mom 😇) gave me 😝!

Saturday was the bomb diggity. That morning, we met with a guy named Daniel who speaks English and is from Nigeria. He's the first Nigerian I've ever taught who actually UNDERSTANDS WHAT WE ARE TEACHING HIM. Let me just throw this out there, teaching in English is the biggest blessing you could ever have as a missionary 😩 except it was really awkward cuuuuz I said the opening prayer, well, tried to say the opening prayer in English. I FORGOT HOW TO PRAY. I've said 48297394550938 million prayers in Spanish and literally I don't know how to have a prayer flow when I say it in English! It was so bad guys. If you have any tips, send them my way. Because it was bad. Way bad. But other than my horrible opening prayer, the lesson was solid. We were talking about how if we do the things God commands us to do while we are here on the earth, we will be able to live with him again. While doing this I got a strong prompting to invite him to be baptized and he accepted and is working towards being baptized on July 16th! (Way early bday S|O to the sister) him and his wife just had a baby so he couldn't come to church with us yesterday but he wants to come next week! :) Later that night, we met with another new investigator named Jose! Haha we had never met him before and only talked on the phone a couple times. When we got to his house, we got right to it and he came straight outta the gate and told us he was gay. He's a cool guy and just wants to know what God wants him to do. I had no idea what to say back to him, but luckily my comp had been In this situation before and he just told him that all of us are children of God and that he loves us more than we know and wants us to be happy. Jose was way interested in the restoration so we told him we'd chat about that next time.

Yesterday we were in sacrament meeting and it was fast and testimony meeting and sooo many amazing testimonies were born on the podium. I was sitting there listening to all these people speak Spanish and testify of the power that the Book of Mormon has and it hit me how truly blessed I am to be serving here at this time in my life as a servant of the Lord. Not only that but also how much of a blessing it is to have this gospel in our lives. Knowing that our families can be together forever, knowing that when I get sealed to my BEST FRIEND in the temple, I will be able to be with her, my kids, my parents, my brothers and sister and every single other member of my family for time and all eternity. There's not greater feeling or knowledge than that.

Today, we spent the day with Aaron and Jacob again and we made our way back to Alicante and hit up THE NIKE FACTORY 😍😍😍 then we went to a sick castle that was there. Pictures attached 😊

I'm coming to realize how much of a blessing it is to have the opportunity to serve and how I want to make the most out of my time left :). It was a really good week, and as the temperature gets hotter and hotter, so does the work here. We are seeing the work of the Lord grow every day as well as the number on the temperature app haha. I'll keep ya updated on all the people in Elche and you guys keep me updated on your lives at home ❤️

Much love.

Workin' While Sweatin',
Elder Hammond 💯