Week 67: Oral Surgeon in Training

What's Gucci Players? :)

Another week has come and gone.. can't believe we're in December! I hope you all are enjoying all the snow back home. Thinking about snowboarding makes me extremely trunky so I do my best to not think about it. 🤔 But hey! I hope you all that go enjoy it! I guess It's a good idea to tell you people about my week! It was a good one that's for sure.

So Leonor is still progressing! We had a lesson like we always do on Friday, and we talked about the Law of Chastity. Luckily not as awkward as normal. She accepted everything and was very open with us. We always bring a member (which is so helpful for me because my companion doesn't speak Spanish very well yet so we usually teach the entire lesson), who is our ward mission leader named Becarlo. We were talking about how it's a requirement to live the Law of Chastity in order to be baptized. She said she really wants to be baptized, but she was scared to talk to her boyfriend about it because he's not religious at all. Becarlo told her that she needs to put her trust in the Lord that He will help her and that since she has the desire to follow Jesus Christ, He will bless her. Then I told her that she also needs to trust her boyfriend and that if he truly loves her, he will support her! It's hard because in Spain nobody gets married. They just live together and say they're a couple but not married so it's always hard in situations like this. But I know the Lord does what is necessary for his children so that they are happy and can follow him. :) We changed Leonor's baptismal date to the 14th of January as well. It was super cute when we were ending the lesson with a prayer, Becarlo was saying the prayer and he was blessing that Leonor would be blessed for her efforts and all this stuff, and her little 9 year old daughter Sara who was baptized about a year ago, goes "and that she will be baptized on January 14th!" Hahaha! It was so funny and cute. :)

The other Elders gave us a reference of a lady who is a begger. That is was they are called here. Her name is Aurora, and she's from Romania. On Friday morning we had a lesson with her and she doesn't speak very much Spanish, it's all broken and hard to understand. She told us how she wanted us to talk to God and tell him to help her and how she wanted money for her daughter who is in Germany to come to Spain with her family. Her life is a mess and I'm honestly unsure what else she said because it was in Romanian. I gave her a Book of Mormon in Romanian and she's told me she can't read. I told her that maybe her husband could read it to you because you'll be able to find help in this book! So shed asked us if we have a church. I told her yes and so she said she was going to come to church. We were a little skeptical because she's a begger. However she has a house and family and all that stuff and she doesn't speak Spanish but we figured it'd be good for her to come. :)

Now Sunday rolls around.. we met with Aurora and walked 30 mins in the pouring rain to the church with her. We get there and she enters and it's really quiet because none of the other members were there yet, so it was cool to see her recognize the Spirit that was there. Then she sits down and she moves to the ground and gets on her knees and says like a 10 minute prayer just in the middle of the foyer.. not gonna lie, preeettty weird. But hey, a prayer is a prayer 🙏🏻😊. She sat with a member who is from Brazil or Portugal, but she doesn't speak any Spanish lol so it was funny because these two people were sitting next to each other in Spain, neither of them speak Spanish, one speaks Portuguese and the other speaks Romanian hahaha! Also, Leonor came and stayed for all three hours! Usually she leaves after sacrament meeting but she stayed again so that was good. The ward loves her and all the relief society is so nice to her so that's helpful. After church, some of the other sisters in the ward were talking to Aurora and they were telling her if she needed help she should talk to the Bishop. So she asked to talk to the Bishop. I'm not exactly sure what they talked about but Aurora was crying. I asked her why she was crying and she said, "I don't know what anybody is saying!" I told her we would talk to the Bishop and see if we can figure something out. She thanked us and then we walked her to the bus stop. We will have to figure out how we can help her.

Two funny stories to end the email... my companion isn't a super coordinated lad, so we've been working on that together. There are orange trees all over the place here and so we always pick one or two and I throw it behind me in the air and he tries to catch it. Saturday we were on our way to a cita and I grabbed one and threw it to him, he caught it, then he always throws it back over my head and I catch it then throw it back. On the throw back to him, I threw it up and he went to catch it but completely whiffed and it hit him right in the eye and orange juice splattered all over his face and in his eye. Hahaha! Oh my gosh! I laughed so hard because of how it looked, and then I remembered to see if he was ok. Man! I love him so much! He's hilarious! 😂😂

My second story is that Saturday, my companion got something stuck like in that back of his throat, we aren't sure what it was. We think it's like an oat but really we don't know for sure. He kept trying to get it out ALL day and he was making gross noises and I was about to flip out. So we get back home after working and I'm like, "OK! I can't take this anymore. Open your mouth!" I spent the next hour and a half trying to fish out an oat that was like stuck up in his tonsils using a dried noodle(s) (had to use multiple. We almost
went through a full bag! LOL) and a flashlight so I could see. It was gross but I couldn't stand him making that awful sound any longer. Best part of the story is that I only got half of it! But... it was enough to get him to stop making that noise! :)

Well! There ya have it! Another week of for Elder T Ham for y'all. I think this week is like week 67 or something. THAT'S SO INSANE! Gotta live it up out here that's for sure. I miss you all, you're all amazing and I wish you a fantastic week!!

Much Love.
Wildest Dreams,
Elder T. Brady Hammond 🍑💸