Week 48: My family is in Powell Again 🙃😒... I'm Working Hard in Spain 💯

Dear People,

Good day to you all... I apologize in advance for the lengthy email 😬just too much to say. Another good week tho!

Tuesday - we had district meeting with our new district that morning. It's so weird cuz we have 2 new missionaries who just came from the MTC and they don't speak any Spanish at all hahaha. It's funny to hear them try and talk and then whenever something is said they look at you like, "What the heck did he just say?" I feel like I was in their same shoes just yesterday but at the same time it feels like it was soon long ago. I told them to be patient and the Spanish comes. The gift of tongues is real and it's extremely helpful haha. That night we met with our homeboy Santi and his cousin Ana and we played soccer with them. Ana lives in a different city and she was just here visiting, so we are hoping that when she gets home the missionaries will be able to get in contact with her. Get this - one of the Elders serving where she lives is my MTC comp Elder Hildebrandt (😃😄😃🙌🏻🙌🏻😃👍🏻😀👏🏼😄👍🏻😃😀😄👌🏻😃😃) so I'm hoping he sticks with it and baptizes her! :)

On Wednesday we had our last lesson with Ana before she left the next day. We went to our JAS Center and played foosball and ping pong for a little bit and then we had a way good lesson with them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. These kids are freaking geniuses. They understand the gospel and everything we teach them better than anyone I've taught in my whole mission lol. They're keeping all of their commitments, coming to church, coming to all the activities that the ward has. It's incredible! They ask questions and you can just tell that they really do want to accept Jesus Christ into their lives and follow his example. They both real really good about their baptismal date that's coming up on the 6th of next month! It will be complicated with Ana leaving but Santi will most likely be going for a swim that day. 😉 After that, we went over to the Palominos and I gave our investigator Hernan a blessing because he and Prescila are trying to decide what will be best for them on whether or not he should move out, get baptized and then get married, or wait to get married, then get baptized. We found out yesterday that I guess the blessing worked and they are starting their papers to get married and going to be doing that hopefully within the next month! :)

Thursday we were supposed to do our weekly planning session but it was supposed to be wayyyy hot on Friday so we decided to switch those around. We went and worked during the morning and then during Media Dia we ate with the Garcias. :) They're still cool, genuine, good caring people just in case you were wondering. That night, Ana was leaving back home so we went over to the Palominos again and they were all there. We played a couple games and hung out with them for a while until they had to leave. Once they left we stayed over there and talked with Monica (the mom), Vanessa (the daughter and Amicone’s future wife 😏) and Diana (daughter) about Hernan and Prescila’s situation and just about all sorts of things. (Including me hooking Trev and Vanessa up... I'm a match maker from 6000 miles away 😂) Then after that, we met Aaron and we all went and played soccer again. Our team balled out as usual 💯!

Friday - Fridays are always the days that I can never remember haha. Like I said, we changed our planning session to Friday because it was supposed to be way hot that day so we figured we'd not get way sweaty and so we planned that morning :) then we made some baller burgers. I felt like I was back home eating some In n Out. Haha! WAY kidding! Not even close but they were way good. Then we went out and worked. While we were working, we got a call from our good friend Elder Fillmore who finished his mish like 2 weeks ago and he was like “Hey! I'm in Elche and I'm like dude I wanna see you hahaha so we met up with him and his family and hung out with them for a little bit! He was in my first zone and we got to know each other pretty well haha. Turns out his family knows my home boy Grant Hawkes so that was cool :) I miss Grant.. But seeing Elder Fillmore with his family gave me more hope that one day maybe I'll be able to see mine again! 😂😂 I miss my family. So yeah, that was fun and then after we went to a ward party that was a total bust.. There was like 25 people there hahahah.

Saturday was a pretty good day. We got a call from a less active and that wanted us to help make some cookies for a birthday present. So we went that morning and it turned into me and my comp just making the cookies hahaha. We had to call another member because the oven didn't work so we went over to Jose and Encarni's house to use their oven. I've mentioned them before, but they're converts of like 2 years ago and they're the greatest people ever. So cool, so nice. Just, all around genuine people. Hahahahaha. I make myself laugh sometimes. :) Anyways so we was bakin them cookies and Encarni was like yo you guys dig that pollo asado and I'm like mmmm hecks yeah we does and she's like gnarly wanna eat some and I'm like mmmm checks yeah we does. So we spent medio dia with them eating some decision chicken and it was delicious. And the conversation totally went just like that just FYI. Thennnn that night we went to a town outside of Elche called Crevillente (the place that I hate cause it looks like it's where Osama Bin Laden lived as a child and also where I wrecked my forehead on the invisible bar that was hiding behind the cloth thing that I still don't know how it happened 🙄) to help Hernan move stuff from their old house into Prescilas dad’s house. They're living with Prescila’s mom as of now while they figure all the stuff out. David’s death made them not want to live in their old house anymore cuz of the memories :( so we helped them move. 5 stories, no elevator. It was just not that fun to be honest. I felt like I had just come in from halftime because I was sweating so freaking much! Holy crap it was so hot. It felt good to help them again tho. :)

Sunday - pretty good Sabbath day. Santi, Prescila and Hernan were all in church with us. Santi is so funny. He was like talking to us in between classes and he's like, “Oh crap guys! Gotta get to class! I’ll talk to you guys after!”.  Then he ran to his class! Ahh, I love it. He asked to see the baptismal font and he's like I hope I can get in there soon. It was so cool! He's such a stud!! After church we went and ate with Jose and Encarni again. We had spaghetti and
meatballs and it was way good. Then everyone else who was there left and we stayed and she wanted us to try and see if we could start teaching her 18 year old daughter. So we are hopefully gonna have a family night sometime this week with her. :) She's the only one in their family that isn't a member so it could either be really hard, or really easy. I'll keep ya filled in on that! 👍🏻 Thennnn, that night, we went over to the Palominos again and had a lesson with Hernan
and Prescila about following the prophet. :)

Today, I FINALLY got my jerseys that I ordered from a guy here! I ordered them like end of May and they're just barely getting here. They were worth the wait tho. 😍 I'll send you guys pics next week 💯

I hope you all have a great week! You'll hear from me next. :) Hope you all had a grand Pioneer Day!! Shout out to my fam for going to Powell again and not inviting me! With all of MY friends!!!!!! 🙃🙃 Hahahahahahaha ahh Powell... I miss Powell.. Ohh and shout out to the TIO Beedub for his cumpleaños today!! Have a good one, old guy 😉

I love you all!

Representin'
Elder Tanner Brady Hammond lll

Me... confessing my sins at the Cathedral

Had to take a selfie of course

Homies

Week 47: What a Wonderful Week 'Twas

Hey my persons :)

I don't really know what to say right here to be honest... We had a way good week, so I guess here it is hahaha :)

Tuesday - On Tuesdays we met with some new investigators that we picked up recently. A 12 year old kid named Santi, and his 15 year old cousin named Ana. We taught them a lesson about the Restoration and how the church works. :) They were really interested and they both accepted a baptismal date for August 6th! Then after that we went and
they played soccer with us. :)

Wednesday was transfers, so we had Elder Brown (who is from Bountiful as well) with us because his companion was coming from afar! He's a cool guy, considering he graduated as a Brave. 🙂😷 For Mediodia, we went and ate with the Caballeros. 😊 We got invited to go to the mutual activity which was playing basketball at the church, so we went to that and Ana and Santi were there as well! We played basketball with all the young men and young women and then after that we shared a s'cute lesson about prayer. :)

Thursday - We started off the day with a gnarly planning session. We decided once again that we were gonna focus a lot on Hernan and Prescila (the people whose son just died) and we thought of what we could teach them. A few things came to mind and I'm sure it was straight from God after what happened the day after. 😏 We dropped Elder Brown off at the bus station and then we made our way to the doctor’s office one last time! My comp got his results and he's gonna live 😊 😂 so now we don't have to go to the freakin' hospital anymore hahaha. Then after than we went to the church and guess who we taught? Yep, Santi & Ana! :) We had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation, but when we got there and started talking, we both thought it'd be better to watch the Restoration video. And it was a really good thing we did cuz after we got done, they both understood it a lot more. :) We challenged both of them to pray and ask Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith really was a prophet and they said they would. They're both progressing really well right now and we are way stoked for them!

Friday - FRIDAY I DONT REMEMBER ANYTHING OTHER THAN WE HAD A FREAKING AMAZING LESSON WITH PRESCILA AND HERNAN ABOUT BAPTISM AND BEFORE WE STARTED WE WERE TALKING TO HERNAN AND HE SAID "Elders, do you think next week we could meet every day? I want to get baptized soon!” Oh. That's cool I guess? While I wanted to burst out in tears and say “Yes! of course!” I pulled the HARD GUY and said “We'll have to check our schedule”. Hahahahahah guys I'm totally kidding I said freakin heck yes we can dude. I never ever thought I would ever hear those words in my entire mission. But now I have and it was music to my ears! :) They're not married, but he knows what he has to do, so he is going to move to a different piso while they wait to get married which should be really soon! Hernan has been taught everything and could be baptized whenever he wanted to, and he said he wants to do it soon so that he can get the priesthood and baptize Prescila. :) Ahh gosh! Then the lesson was so freaking awesome! I started talking about when I baptized Reece and how happy he looked when he came out of the water and then he hugged me and I just felt like I was being hugged by a little angel. 😊😊😊 As you can imagine, I was bawling my eyes out cuz anytime I talk about a family member I lose it cuz I miss them so bad haha! So to stop crying I then told them the story of when we were driving away from his (Reece’s) baptism and he goes, “Dad! Wait! Stop! I forgot something at the church!!” And we were all like ahh dude seriously?? What did you leave? And he goes "My sins!" hahaha ahh that was so freaking adorable. All in all, a really good day!

Saturday was a way fun day. The morning sucked however. We walked for like three hours straight and nobody wanted to talk to us haha. Then that night, we went to our Bishop’s son, Dani's wedding! They did it at like this way catholic lookin place so it was kinda different. But it was a cool wedding. They just seemed so happy! Then everyone went to his house and we ate there and hung out. There was probably like 200 people total. And of all 200 people, GUESS WHO HAD TO SAY THE PRAYER?! Holy shnikes, I was so scared! 😂 I was making a joke to a member that he was gonna get asked to say the prayer and then Karma came in hard as ever lol. I killed it tho, blessed that food like there was no tomorrow.

Sunday - We had a pretty good day at church! Ana and Santi came and so did Hernan and Prescila. :) Things are looking up for all four of them and like I said earlier, we are excited to see where things go with them. :) Last night, we went to Jackie’s baptism. :) She's a little girl in our ward who just turned 8. Remember the video of the 2 little kids that was the other companionship with us? The little girl in that video is Jackie.  Reece,  she speaks Spanish, English & Chinese bro! I told her and her mom that next year when I get home that we are gonna set you two up! 😏 I'll send a pic so you can see her. 😂😉 She's seriously one of the sweetest little girls ever and she's so smart haha. It was cool to be there!

Monday - We went and got our eyebrows waxed!  Hahaha! It hurt so bad but was pretty fun! 😂

Well dudes and dudettes, there's my week. A really good one. I’m looking forward to my next/last 5 weeks here. Hopefully something(s) good comes of it! :) I'll keep you guys updated on everything! Hope you all have a great week and I love you all!!!

Soul Savin’,
Elder T Ham

The Man of the Hour, Dani.

All the people I prayed for 💯

Our Elche District Playing Soccer

We Take This Seriously!

Stuck in an elevator! #dreamteam

P-Day Activities

Gettin' our Zen On!

Week 46: I'm Grateful for My Knowledge of The Plan of Salvation

Hello ladies and gents,

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th. 😆 It’s my fav holiday.  HERE’S MY WEEK!

To start things off, here's a sad story and a big part of our week. :( We have these investigators named Prescila and her husband/boyfriend/fiancé and they have 2 little kids, a little girl who's 4 and a little boy who is like 2. On Tuesday we were at dinner with her dad and he got a call saying that the 2 year old boy fell from their balcony that was a story high and that they called the ambulance and they were waiting. The dad freaking just snarfs down his food and pounds the heck out of his drink (literally I just sat there amazed by how fast his food went and leaves to go to their house. We called him later than night and asked if David (the kid) was okay and he was like yeah he's alive and hopefully will recover. So we went to bed. At like 5:30 the next morning we got a call from Prescila’s sister Vanessa who is a member and she asked us if we could come give Prescila a blessing. We got up and got ready and we saw a text from another guy who was with us at dinner the night before and it said that during the night little David passed away. It was so sad.  We went and I gave Prescila a blessing and when we got there she was holding one of David's stuffed animals and crying. It wasn’t a pretty sight /:

Friday, we went to David's funeral. We got there early and we were with the Palominos (Monica (mom), Vanessa (daughter), Prescila (investigator & daughter), one other daughter, and Diana (daughter) all are members except Prescila) they were all way sad and it was making me so sad to see all of them like that. During his funeral, a member in our ward got up to talk, his name is Monolo Parreño. He just got home from being a mission president. He was talking about the Plan of Salvation, and how they would all be able to see David again. He was talking about how little kids don't need to be baptized because they're all innocent and just babies and pretty much perfect. He keep saying that Heavenly Father embraces all of the people the come up to live with Him and He loves each and every single one of us. While he was talking about all this, I couldn't help but think about Brady (my uncle who died at birth) and Jennie (aunt who died a while ago) and I was overcome with a feeling that is almost indescribable. I got the chills throughout my whole body and just thought how amazing and cool that it is going to be to actually meet my uncle and be like “DUDE! I’M NAMED AFTER YOU AND I’VE WAITED ALL MY LIFE TO MEET YOU!!!” Ahh! I got so happy and knowing I'll get to see my aunt again and she will be perfect and have a perfect mind (even tho she was already basically the most perfect human ever) and not have all the problems and disabilities she had when she was alive. The only thing I'm scared of is her being able to beat me up for all the times I teased her when I was a little kid! 😂😬 Basically all I'm trying to say is that I’m soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo so so so so freaking grateful for The Plan of Salvation and that I will be able to see them again. :)

On Saturday, we went over to the Palominos again and had a really, much needed (for everyone) noche de hogar. We taught a little lesson about praying. We told them that during this time it might be hard to pray and feel that He is listening because of what happened to David, but that He's always here for us and wants to hear from us. We didn’t want to focus a whole lot on all the stuff that had happened during the week, so we were brief on the lesson part and then we spent the rest of the night playing a bunch of games and laughing and having a good time. It was so awesome to see all of them happy again. :) They're such an awesome family and we are hoping that this unfortunate event will push Hernan and Prescila closer to God and they will be able to realize that we are here to help them get back to see their son again. :)

Other events this week:

Wednesday morning like I said we went over and gave her a blessing. After that we came back home and then we went out and worked for a while. After that we went over to the Garcias and had some delicious Colombian food. We talked to 2 of their kids who are less actives about how important the sacrament is and she said she was gonna come to church with us on Sunday but she didn’t. 🙄 That night my companion had a dentist apt and that literally took up all of the night haha. The dentists here in Spain are so dumb. We were there for 2 and a half hours and we waited, he went back, came back, waited some more, then this lady calls him back after like 25 mins and she's like “K, show this to this other lady and she'll tell ya how much it'll cost and everything so then 20 mins later he gets called back again and she looks at his mouth and is like yep okay so if you want to get worked on it'll cost $100 and he's like okay thanks or nothin so we left. Cool story I know :) I've learned its way funny when my comp gets upset and talks crap on Spaniards hahahaha.

Thursday we planned in the morning and then we had a cita with our home boy Alvaro. He's a member. Was baptized about 2 years ago and he fell away for a little while but now is going strong. Then we went to the Caballero’s house for our weekly correlation session. I literally love the Caballeros, if I haven't said that before. They're like a second family to me :) even tho I have like 4 different second families in my life. They're my family in Elche. They're the best, I promise. So that was good, and then after that we were going to go have a lesson with a future investigator that we have, but he didn’t show up.

Sunday, well we showed up to church and our bishop was like “Elder Hammond, one of the kids who was supposed to give a talk didn't do his. Can you give one???" I was like well thanks for the 5 minute advance warning! So I winged it and gave a talk on missionary work :)! Then that night, we went over to the Palomino’s again and played some games and we talked about the temple. It was a good time :) 

Well..... There's my week :) I hope you all have a way good week and you'll be hearing from me next week :) ALSO SHOUTS TO BERKLEE CUZ 17 ON SATURDAY ❤️❤️❤️ bye all :)

Love,
T Swam (I wish I could swim 🙂)

My piso was 100 deg. at night this week. Only a fan. I'm a little sweaty. Sorry, I didn’t take photos again this week! 

Week 45: Happy America Day! 🇺🇸

Hey everyone!!

Hello again to all, and a very Happy 4th of July to everyone as well! This week was a good one. We didn't have a whole lot of time to work in our area due to some complications, but all in all it was a solid week!

On Tuesday we had district meeting as usual. After we did that, we went and ate with the Caballeros :) and enjoyed some nice arroz con costra, (the famous Elche dish). Hermana Caballero is one of the best cooks I've seen since my childhood crush Rachael Ray. 😍 

Wednesday was filled with a lot of nothing haha. My companion had another doctor’s appointment and so we were there the whole day. Aaron Caballero took us and so he and I waited together. Then after that we went and got some Chinese food. I wish I could report more on Wednesday buuuut, I can’t. 😬

Thursday we planned in the morning, and we had a really good planning session. We picked a couple of people who we are going to focus on more than we usually do during this week, and we have already seen some miracles so far! That night, we did splits with the other Elders here in Elche, and I was with Elder Pesce (pronounced Pechay). We started off by passing by a couple of people and we had a good lesson with a lady who has some sort of disease where she can barely talk. Her sister had to translate. We just talked about Jesus and his sacrifice for us and how even though we may not understand it, He has a plan for us as well. After that, we met with Magi again. We thought it would be a good idea to talk about the "Famous Five" things we have to do to get back to our Heavenly Father. We brought our ward mission leader Fernando Caballero. When we were talking about repentance, I asked him to share his conversion story with us and it was exactly what I was hoping for .:) He told us how before he met the missionaries, that he was deep into alcohol and very deep into drugs. He believed in God but he didn't act on it. He said he did heroin, crack, weed, you name it. Then one day his boss gave him a Book of Mormon and said it would answer any question he had. So, he read it. A couple of days later his boss asked him if he had gotten any answers and he said no but that he was halfway done with it and still nothing. After a couple more days, he finally got his answer and he stopped smoking. Slowly he stopped everything and finally got baptized. We decided it would be a good idea to change her baptismal date to July 30th because she's had to work the past couple of Sundays and so it works out better like this! We want her to be prepared.

Friday morning I worked with Elder Weenig. I've talked about him before cuz of all the splits I've gone on in my mission, I've done them with him the most. I'm pretty sure we've been on like 4 splits together. 😂 He's a really good missionary and I always learn stuff from him. He goes home next Wednesday so that's kinda cool. For Mediodia, we went to the Garcias and ate. They made some of the world famous empanadas from Columbia. Oh my gosh! 😍 They were so good. They were so freaking hot though. I wrecked the shiz outta my mouth. My tongue, and top of my mouth still hurt. But they were good. :) That night we went and tried to pass by a couple of people and then after we went to the JAS Center and we had our English classes. And then after that, we babysat. 😂 The hermanas had one of their investigators come to have a lesson and she brought her 3 kids so we decided it would be easier for them if they weren't there. So, we took the kids into the other room and played with them while they had their lesson. We played foosball for like 45 minutes straight. 🙄

Saturday... Well, the other Elders got unlucky and they have to move out of their piso so they asked us and the hermanas if we would come help them clean up the piso and whatnot. So we did that in the morning and later we went to Carolinas to help her with her English. Her friend was there and she's like a professional nail person girl thingy idk what they're called. Nail stylist?? I think that's it...? We'll go with that. 😊 My comp and I helped them with their English.  Thennnn that night we met with Nancy and Christian. We had a really good lesson with them about the Sabbath Day and keeping it one hunnit 💯 I mean holy.. Holy. Nancy and Christian have been doing everything they can to get answers to their questions. The only thing they're lacking is the action part, so we talked to them a lot about how if we do our part, God will do his part and help us out. :) I'm hoping they can start acting on their faith and hopefully they'll realize that if they want answers they will have to try different things (like coming to church).

Yesterday, we had a really good lesson with our investigator Prescila. During weekly planning, like I said, we put a couple people who we wanted to focus on and she was one of them. All of her family are members, and she's the one who used to be but took her name out of the church. Anyway, we met with her last night and her sister Diana who is about ready to get her call and we read 2 Nephi 31 which talks about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, once again, the 5 things. I can honestly say in all of my mission, I've never felt the spirit as much as I did last night, maybe in all of my life. While we were reading and talking, Prescila and Diana were both crying. She knows it’s true and she knows she wants to get baptized. She said she's just scared. Which is reasonable because I mean it's natural to be scared of change. I'm terrified of it. I told her that and the thing that helps me the most is trusting the Lord and praying when I need His help. It was an awesome lesson and we are excited to see if she can change. :)

Today for our PDay, we went to where we played football last week and we rented out a beach volleyball court and played volleyball with a ton of people and it was way fun! It was a good way to feel like I was back home in Powell playing... 😳 I'm totally kidding it felt nothing like that. I just lied. I'm sorry, it's just.. Frankly, I miss Lake Powell. But hey, HAPPY FOURTH! :)

Thanks for everything you guys do for me, and I hope you guys all have another good week. Count on hearing from me soon! 💯

Much love.
Free Livin'
Elder T Ham 🔱

PS - Sorry no pics :/