Week 8: A Better Week in Cordoba!

This week was a little bit better than last week! We didn't get bailed on as much as we did last week but obviously there were still some flakes. 

Highlight of the Week:
On Tuesday, we had our first meeting with our branch mission leader. It was hard to focus because we had the meeting in his house and there's this old guy who's crazy that they take care of. He reminds me of the old grandpa in the show Drake and Josh that still thinks he's in the war and uses his slipper as a Walky-Talky and just yells USA hahahahaha only few people will understand how truly crazy he is! Anyways, he kept just staring at me and about 20 minutes Into our meeting, he was sick of sitting there and waiting so he started to get up and leave. He put his coat on and his hat (took him a solid 5 minutes to get up off the couch and put everything on) and tried saying bye to us. Heberson (Mission leader) told him to sit back down and wait and that we would be done soon. After saying a few words that I understood that I probably shouldn't have, he took off his coat and his hat and sat back down. During the meeting, he told us about a few more people that we hadn't met yet that we should set up meetings with. About 10 minutes later, the old guy was done waiting again. So, he got up off the couch, eventually, and put on his coat and hat and said bye to us. He said thanks for being more handsome than the last elders that he met haha. In the house we were in, it's got about 4 rooms, a kitchen and the door to leave the house. The door to leave the house is in absolute plain sight. I'm laughing so hard right now just thinking about it again. He checked the 3 bedroom doors and the bathroom door, 7 times. He started getting so fed up with looking in the same doors so after he would look in them, he would close them. So I'm sitting there thinking all right, he's got this figured out now. He checked, and closed all the doors and then went back to the first door that he checked and closed and checked it again hahahahah. I was doing everything in my power to not laugh out loud. The meeting was over by this point and we were praying and he comes in the room and screams "DONDE ESTA LA SALIDA"! Hahahaha! Oh my gosh I just about died. It was the funniest thing ever. He's such a funny guy and he says he wants to take lessons from us so we will probably go talk to him this week. I'll send you guys a picture with him :)! That was the highlight of my week for sure.

On Thursday we had a lesson with a member named Maria Carmen and she fed us sardines and this chicken stuff! You know me, I do not like fish but obviously I couldn't say no to free food haha so I had a couple...  They weren't my favorite haha but the chicken was good. 

We had to go to Sevilla on Friday for a zone meeting. We didn't have any time to like go hang out or see anything but from what I saw it looked really pretty! That night we had 2 lessons. One was with a recent convert named Michelle. Towards the end of the lesson the Spirit was so strong and it was seriously one of the coolest feelings ever. She was in tears and she was telling us how she wanted to get her older brother and her dad baptized or at least come to church. Hopefully next time we go over there they will be there so we can teach them too! After that, we went to this part-member families house. The dad isn't a member but he knows all about the church and the mom and her 2 kids are members. The mom reminds me of Mom and Bay haha.. Always looking out for others and putting others before themselves :) and she's a pretty good cook.

On Saturday, we had 4 lessons! We were stoked about it cuz we had about that many last week! I'm definitely becoming a pro at teaching the first lesson haha.. We usually teach the members that so that I can practice and everyone needs a reminder of the basics :) 

Sunday was our first day going to church! We met all the members and we got a better map of where more investigators are so I'm assuming this week will be pretty busy! We had to introduce ourselves in front of everyone haha. It was Fast Sunday here and now I'm really regretting not taking all the chances I had to share my testimony in English! 

Today for P-Day the weather sucked again but we went to the mall and went and looked at some cool Roman bridges. We got a basketball at the mall and played basketball :) it was fun!

After conference last week, Bailee suggested that we should do what Elder Durant said and pick a scripture at the beginning of each week and ponderize it. So we started doing that last Monday! We are just going to pick a scripture each week and read it and try and memorize it! She picked last weeks so I'm gonna pick this weeks! I think is such a good idea and it's a good way to get more familiar with the scriptures!! I picked John 8:12:  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I suggest everyone reading this tries it :)


Shoutout to the Utes for pulling off another win this week and staying strong in the Top 5!!! 

I love you all :) Have a terrific week!! Thank you for all your love and support!

Love,
Elder Hammond

Cordoba Espana

P-Day today

Rainy weather but still a beautiful and historic City.

Week 7: First Week in Cordoba and First General Conference!

Hola from Córdoba!

Week one has come and gone now that I'm out in the real world! Leaving the MTC was really hard because of leaving the people I’d met there.  Mostly Jake and Brady. The goodbye was put off until literally the last second. It was so hard and we cried but seeing Brady’s big smile out the window as we drove away helped me and Beckstrom a lot. I was lucky that I had Beckstrom too so that helped me.  Can’t wait to see Braids again.  That last night was the best when we were together.  But, I was so ready to get out of that place and get to the mission field!

The first couple days in Cordoba were slow and weird because there were 2 elders who were getting transferred the next day but now that they're gone and it's just me and my companion things are going a lot smoother! Elder Shields is from Washington and he went to USU for a year last year before he came! He's 21 next month. He was born in 1994... he's so much older than me. We are the only two missionaries in all of Cordoba!

Wednesday night we tried to find this lady named Josefa who is a recent convert and was baptized in January but we didn't have any luck. After that we tried looking for this guy named Lucky who is from Nigeria.  Once again no luck. We did end up talking to this guy named Antonio who seemed cool and pretty interested. We gave him our number and a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. On Thursday we taught our first lesson to an investigator named Aide. She's a 40 year old lady. We went to the park where we were supposed to meet her and we couldn't find her so we left after waiting for over 30 minutes and then once we left she called and asked if we could come back so we went back and taught her all about baptism, repentance, faith, gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring until the end. She's super interested but she is going to be hard to get baptized because, along with everyone else in Spain, she's Catholic! Later that night we got a call from Josefa and she wanted us to come to her house again so we did. We were there for about an hour and she literally talked for an hour and a half. Old crazy people like her loooove to talk. She's like 76 and has a dog so she says she gets lonely. We had her watch a video and we talked about conference this weekend and invited her to watch it. We also have another investigator named Marcos who is set to be baptized on the 24th of this month. We are going to make sure that happens and we are gonna get as many lessons as possible!

About 95% of the time we are out proselyting. We go to people's addresses and they're either not home or they gave the other missionaries the wrong address. On Friday morning we spent about 3 hours walking around looking for houses. On the bus that day we talked to this guy from Kenya and he wants to meet with us soon so we are going to call him sometime this week! Saturday we got our first lesson at a member’s house! We talked to them about conference and we invited them to have 2 questions on their mind while they watch conference. They fed us too so that's always a good thing!

Conference was great. We went to the church to watch it, just the two of us in the whole church! We watched 10 hours of conference total.  I can’t believe we now have two apostles in our ward!  I really liked in President Uchtdorf’s talk during priesthood session, he said: “Be not afraid.. Choose to believe.” It's true! If we put all our trust in the Lord, he will take care of us and everything will turn out the right way :) Gosh I miss you guys so much and I love you all! I think it was Saturday afternoon during conference, Holland was talking about how the only love that comes close to the love that Christ has for us is a mother’s love for her child. In my life, I know for a fact that that is true and I just wanted to say thank you Mom for never giving up on me and for never not helping me with stuff I needed help with. I wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't have graduated high school without you. ;) And I know we both know I wouldn't have gotten my Eagle without you hahaha :) So thank you for being the best mother a boy like me could ask for. Only 2 more little me's to go! :) I'll help you out with what I can though once I get home.

Our typical schedule is: Wake up at 7:30, work out (pull ups, push ups, anything I can think of using the one dumbbell we have.  Two times a week we do P90X ab ripper hahaha. I hate that thing. Then we shower and get ready. We have personal study til 10 and then comp study til 11:30 then we go proselyte until 2 and have siesta-eat and do language study and just hang out in the piso until like 5 or 5:30 then we usually have a couple of lessons and then we do lessons and proselyte until 10:15 or 10:45, in bed and asleep at 11:30.:)  We have those animated scripture movies that we used to watch all the time here on like a USB so we watch those all the time and I love it! :) (Yes, they are in Spanish haha).

We walk. A lot. We have bus passes but we still have to walk to get to and from people's houses and to bus stops and everything. I've learned to appreciate everything more though. Like everyone back home. I miss you guys so much. When you're on a mission you gain a love stronger than anything for your family and obviously for me, my girlfriend haha. You gain a love for your Savior as well. I want to be able to let other people feel this love and I know the gospel can do that. It just sucks because the people don't know that. If they gave it a chance they would be SO MUCH HAPPIER!! I'm always staying strong though.

My cooking skills are ok.  We’ve made eggs, rice, chicken, cereal, hamburgers, tacos, there's this stuff called Kebab and they're super good they're cheap too like 1.50 so we get those sometimes. :) Wash is good. Easy. Nothing special but we don't have a dryer so we just have to hang them up to dry on a little rack we have here. 

In our piso we each have a bedroom but I don’t sleep in mine.  The beds here are too risky for me and I hang off the end. So I sleep on the couch.  And yes, mom, I will wash the sheets every week :) I'm pretty sure I had bed bugs in the MTC but I used the bug spray and all the bites went away :).

We are hoping to get to know more of the members here.  So far none of them have invited us to come over. The only one we have met is branch mission leader so we were at their house on Saturday and they fed us us this good soup.

I attached pictures of the Cathedral from a couple nights ago! We went back to the Cathedral today but the weather sucked today. It was all rainy and Shields didn't bring his own money and it was like 20 Euros to get in so we walked around the outside for a little then came back and went to lunch and stuff! We are going to try and go back a little more prepared than we were this week.  

That's all I got for this week! I will talk to you guys soon I love you all so much!  I love you all have a great week!

Elder Hammond

Last Day at the MTC!  We were going crazy to get out in the real world of missionary life!  

Saying goodbye to Elder Wahlster.  

I'll miss our Sunday Selfies!  See the little note on Brady's notepad in his pocket from Tanner.  ;(

Keeping with the Watson tradition of Sunday Selfies from the bathroom at the CCM. 

Last temple session with this "this guy right here!"  

Out and about with my new companion, Elder Shields, from Washington. 

Our piso.  "Mom, I'm doing my wash and washing my sheets!"

Kitchen:  I think Tanner's kitchen is nicer than ours at home.  Pretty lucky!

Kitchen

Living room and Tanner's sleeping quarters.  

Most important room in the house!  He never mentioned a bidet, but this sure looks like one.  Garet said that was the best part of Spain was the use of a bidet after a long day of missionary work! 

Tanner's bedroom that he doesn't really sleep in apparently.

Pictures of the Cathedral at night.

Mosque-Cathedral in Cordoba.

Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba.

At the park.  That's all I can say! ;)

No caption needed.  No idea where this is or what is doing, but he sure is goofy!

Week 6: First day in...

HELLO!!! Today was freaking crazy! It started out when we woke up at 5:30 in order to catch a train to Màlaga at 8:25. We got on the train and I pretty much slept the whole ride. We got to the train station and then we walked a short distance to get to some church they had pretty close by.  Once we were there we met all the people who would be training the new missionaries! We had pizza and watched some weird safety driving video. 

After lunch we had our interviews with President Anderson and then it was time for the moment of truth. After way too much anticipation and so much nervousness, I got assigned with Elder Shields! He is pretty cool he is from Washington! He's 21 and has been out for about 14 months. He's nice and he has a guitar so we can relate through music. We got assigned to Córdoba!!! This place is new for both of us so we got kinda lost trying to find the piso but some older lady finally helped us haha. There are two other elders in our apartment that will be leaving tomorrow.  I have my own bed and an iPad.

It's been a crazy day and I'm excited to see what's next! Thanks for all the support :) if you want to send letters my address is: 

Calle Historiador Manuel Salcines #2 1° 2 
Córdoba 14004 
Spain

I will email you the next chance I get! My P day is on Mondays now :) I love you guys!!! Keep me in your prayers!! Have a great week :):)

Love, 
Elder Hammond

Malaga is the mission home.  Cordoba is just north about 2 hours by car.

According to Google Earth... this is his apartment.  Not confirmed, just his Mom stalking him with technology!  

Week 5: I MADE IT!!!! LAST WEEK IN THE CCM!!

Hola Familia y Amigos! 

CHAAAHOOO! I made it through the MTC! (Almost!) I have about 3 more days here and I head out like a baby on Tuesday morning at 6:30! We don't have our travel plans but that is just what President Lovell (MTC Pres) told us! We get time to email this Monday before we leave so expect another email from me on Monday! 

This week was easily the best. I want to share what happened last Saturday at the park. I was with Elder Porter again, and we set our goals pretty high. We set goals on:

• How many contacts we want to have
• How many pamphlets we want to give
• How many Books of Mormon we want to give
• How many reference sheets (Peoples information for the missionaries in the field to contact) 

Our goals were higher than usual, but we said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help us out a bit. It started off on the metro ride over to the park and we talked to this guy and told him all about the BOM and how it can change his life if he reads it. He accepted it and told us he was going to read it! Once we got to the park, it was nothing but uphill from then on! We talked to this guy from England named Alex. He didn't speak Spanish, but I had a BOM in English so we hooked him up :). We basically just testified the whole 10 minutes we talked to him. It was cool to see how interested he was in the book and how Christ came to the Americas and he was mind blown about how young Joseph Smith was when he saw God and Jesus Christ! He couldn't stop talking about that. Anyways, he thanked us for stopping him and talking with him and he promised us that he would read it and get in contact with the missionaries in England when he goes home! 

After that, we were walking around the park and we saw these 3 kids so we went up to them and started talking about school and soccer and we started playing with them for a little bit haha it was super fun! It reminded be of playing with Luke and Reece on the side of the house :) All three of them were 12 and only one spoke English so we talked in Spanish. We told all of them about how the BOM can help them in their lives and it was so cool to see how 3 young boys could get so excited about the Gospel :). We gave all three of them a book and they all pulled out their wallets and asked "Cuanto?" (How much?) We laughed and said "Es un regalo para usted" and they got even happier!! It was super cool. 

The best part was the last people we talked to. We were walking back to the fountain to sing and we went through this maze part in the park and we saw this family. A husband, wife, and and little baby in the stroller. We walked up and said "Hola como esta!" and they immediatley said "SHHHH!" haha we giggled and said sorry. In a very small whisper the dad in perfect English said "Tell me" Elder Porter and I looked at each other and then i looked back at the guy and said "Tell you?" he said "Tell me" So we literally gave him the whole first lesson. He asked us if what were doing was like an internship and we were like its kinda like an internship for the real world! It was so cool to see how they felt the Spirit and how much easier it was to teach them when we taugh with the Spirit! It was seriously the coolest experience and it made ALL THE STRUGGLE I HAVE HAD these past weeks in the CCM worth it!! I love going to the park and I am glad we will proselyte more in the field :) I would have given him a Book of Mormon but we gave away all the ones that we brought so we gave him everything else we had haha! It was awesome! 

I love this Gospel and I am so greatful I got called to Spain. I can't wait to see the changes it can make in people's lives and I know that if ANY of you reading this need help or want change in your life, THIS GOSPEL CAN HELP!! 

I love you all and and thankful for each and every one of you! I miss you all :) HAVE A GREAT WEEK AND WEEKEND! 

Love,

Elder Hammond :)

Elder Hammond with President and Sister Lovell (Spain MTC President).

Final time at the temple for 22 months.  BFFs take on Spain!

Elder Hammond's MTC District and President and Sister Lovell

Singing in the park!

Week 4: One Month!

Hello all!! I hope all is going wonderful at home! Thank you all for the love and support coming from home :) There is no better feeling than knowing how much support and love I have coming all the way from the other side of the world. 

Geez where do I start? I will start off with what I remember most. Today for P Day, we took a tour of the Real Madrid Stadium! It was the sweetest thing ever! I can honestly say that I have gained a lot of respect for soccer and soccer players. I have a man crush on Ronaldo. Holy crap he is a soccer God. I miss FIFA a lot now hahahah. 

Tanner and Elder Wahlster at the REAL Madrid Stadium Tour. 

Close up!

Tanner and Elder Romney.  This is like the Dallas Cowboys Stadium of Spain!  

The place to be!

Funny story of the week:  I can't remember if I told about this last week or not but I was shopping at the mall and there were these guys who were selling stuff off the streets and it was all nice stuff and super duper cheap so I bought a 95 Euro jersey for 20 Euros hahaha! Then when I bought it they saw the cops from a distance and so they picked up their bags and ran away haha I couldnt help but laugh! 

Spiritual story of the week: Anyways, today in the temple, I had just finished my temple session and I was sitting in the Celestial Room and I looked up and immediately started thinking of Jenny (My special needs aunt that passed away eight years ago) and I got the biggest smile on my face and I started crying but it was tears of joy. It is so good knowing that where she is now, is the best place for her. I know for a fact that she is happier than she has ever been and I know that I am making up for all the times I would bug her while she was doing her business on the toilet and making her say "Shut the fweekin doe Tanno!" Hahah I miss her so much but I know she is watching over me and making sure I am doing what is right and I love knowing that she is happy :) 

I have learned so much since I have been here. Thinking more about others and less about myself is one of the things that I wasn't really used to but now I don't really have a choice haha! I have learned that if I focus on my investigator's needs and what they need to know and what they need to learn about, the spirit is always there in the lessons. Having the spirit as my constant companion is the best. 

The language continues to press forward. We learn about 2 new things per day and it can be frustrating at times, but it'll all come to me if I continue to work hard. Like Dad said, the language and words are easy to get. But it's the conjugating that is the hard part. He wasn't kidding haha. I am just glad that I don´t have to learn a language that I have never heard of haha :) 

Both of my "investigators" are coming along really well! One other thing I learned this week is that the law of chastity is an awkward subject to teach! I won't go in to detail! 

That pretty much sums up my week! I promise when I get out of here my emails will be more interesting! We do the same stuff here everyday but I love it! 

Thank you all for everything! Keep sending the love my way and I will send it back! Dont forget to read the BOM and pray daily :) I love you all!

Elder THam

Week 3: Halfway Done with the MTC!

Hola amigos!! 

So good to write and hear from you guys again. I miss and love you all so much! This week has been full of pretty much the same things, but different opportunities and different lessons learned and taught!

On Sunday, we watched a devotional of President Nelson, (of course I told everyone he is in my ward) and he said something that really stuck out to me. He said, "Be the missionary your mom thinks you are"!  When I heard that it hit me so hard. If I do that, I would baptize all of Spain! I told myself I will do the best I can to fulfill that responsibility but I doubt I could be that good ;) 

We went to the park and taught again and I was paired up with Elder Allen again and also Elder Porter. We told ourselves that we were going to try and talk to every person. We did just about that. At the end of the day we counted how many people we contacted and it added up to 35! We gave away about 30 pamphlets and 2 Book of Mormons. Saturdays are so fun for me to get out of the MTC and walk around and try and help others come unto Christ. I was so scared to go the first week, but now that's all i look forward to! 

We have been teaching a couple of "investigators" and we commited one of them to get baptized! Its super cool seeing their progress. I have learned something really important during teaching these lessons and it's that if you teach by the Spirit, nothing can go wrong. I have learned to be confident in what I want to say and to just say it. My Spanish is coming along well. I hate conjugating but I will eventually get it!! 

To answer questions: 

Questions:

1. How was McDonalds? Was it expensive or did it seem normal?  Do they have the same menu? McDonalds is weird, they don't have sweet n sour sauce haha 
2. What have you been doing on PDays? Temple every week.  We went to a Palace, and shopping
3. What was a funny thing that happened to you this week? I have been learning to play the guitar from Elder Garcia haha 
4. What was the most spiritual thing that happened to you this week? Our district sunday school meetings are always spiritual. I bawl everytime I talk about how i got my call to the same place on the exact same day as Dad.
5. How’s the food at the MTC? Food is decent, dont like the fish very much. I always try it with a bunch of different sauces but I still don't like it.  
6. How’s Brady doing?  He mentioned that you guys were talking every night! Me and Braids see each other when we can.. I love him haha we are doing good!
7. What are your responsibilities as a Zone Leader? I actually just got released from being Zone Leader! Everyone switched out halfway through so that everyone got a chance to do something! It was easy we just led the devotionals!
8. How do you like your MTC Mission President and Mission Mom?  What are they like? Do you see them often? The MTC Pres is awesome. His wife is mean to me but it's only cuz she knows I can take it! She's really nice haha!
9. What do you do on Sundays? Sundays we go to sacrament.. Sunday school, study and then we sing every sunday night and watch a devotional! 
10. Are you writing in your journal? Marie sent you five beautiful journals that have your name and mission engraved on them. I can send to you when you get to Malaga.  I haven't missed a single day of writing in my journal! and yes I am going to need more journals haha please send them!

I love you all! Thanks for all the love and support!! I will talk to you guys in a week :)

Love, Elder Hammond

​This was me and my district today after the temple. The kid with his mouth open reminds me exactly of Jason Ward! The  kid on the far right is the one that lives next to the Players (Tanner's Aunt). 

This is where we went today for PDay. That whole area is where everyone goes to celebrate after Real Madrid wins! Scooters and motocycles EVERYWHERE!

THam and his "homies"... I mean roomies!

Spain MTC Facebook photo of the group singing on the Temple grounds.  "There is sunshine in my soul today" in Spanish.  Tanner is second row, far left.

Week 2: Settling In

Hello all! 

TIme is starting to fly by and I am loving it. 

My district is getting along super well and we haven't had any problems! :) We bought a little basketball hoop and have been dunking on each other haha. :) 

Well, last P-Dday we went to this really old ancient palace! It was super cool but I only got pictures out front because they don't let you take pics inside! The picture outside the palace is with Elder Reese (WR at Lone Peak) and Elder Gearig (QB at Bingham). They are super cool and we always have a good time. The other one is of my companions at the park from the first week. 

Elder Allen (my week 2 companion at the park) and I taught this lady who was Budist and we gave her a Book of Mormon. She has lived in Spain her whole life. She didn't want the Book at first but I bore my testimony about it and she totally changed her mind! The spirit was undeniable. We both had tears in our eyes by the end of it as we were walking away. I am so happy to be here. 

The homesickness is gone, but that doesn't mean I dont miss and love all of you. I hope all is well. My companion and I are
teaching 2 new investigators and we have already taught both of them the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lesson! We are getting so much better at speaking Spanish. The improvement that I have seen in myself is incredible! Not only language wise but also spiritually! 

Time is short on the computers so i have to go now. Please stay safe and don't forget to read the Book of Mormon and pray often! Feel free to keep me in your prayers too ;) haha I love you all! 

Hasta la proxima mañana! 

With a lot of love, 
Elder Hammond.

Elder Beckstrom, Elder Smith and Elder Hammond on PDay.  

Elder Hammond, Elder Smith and Elder Wahlster (all from Woods Cross High School) at the airport getting to travel together to Spain.

At the park teaching and serving the people of Spain.  

God's Team at a Spanish palace:  Elder Reese (WR at Lone Peak), Elder Hammond (QB at Woods Cross) and Elder Gearing (QB at Bingham).