Week 41: I Bought Vanilla Body Wash & Now I Smell Yummy :)

Dearest fellow family mates,

Well, like we always say, another week down! This week seemed to have gone by slower than usual, but when transfers happen, they usually are slower. It was a good week all in all! If you remember, I got a new companion! He's the 2nd companion I've had from Utah, and the 2nd companion that graduated from Alta!. He's way funny and cool and we have a lot of the same interests. Our work ethic is the same and we can tell our time together is going to be enjoyable.

Soooo, on Monday it was about 10 o'clock and we were in a city with some members so that Elder Lowry could say bye to them and our phone rings so I answer it. The lady says hey I have someone who wants to talk to you, so I say okay... "Hey Elder Hammond? It's Elder Llavina, I'm here outside of our piso. I think..?" Hahahaha I was like what the heck. Transfers happen on Wednesdays, never on Monday. So I'm like "oh hey dude... Yeah well uh, we're at a members house right now so I guess just hang out there til we are done?" Hahaha then he was like "okay that sounds good ill see you soon!" His old companion was going to train a new missionary, so he had to come early, but the freaking zone leaders forgot to tell us and so he showed up to Elche all alone and didn't know anything when finally a member walked by and let him use her phone to call us. The member, Aaron, is way nice and told us that we could go pick him up, come back and eat together then that he would take us back home after. So that's what we did haha. We picked him and all his luggage up, threw it in the car then went back home, ate and then later Aaron drove us all 3 back home. It was an interesting experience for sure 😂

On Tuesday we had our last district meeting. I had 2 comps in it so that was cool. Later that day we had a cita with a guy who we teach/talk in English. He's fluent and we just like to help him practice. I may or may not have talked about him before, his name is Carlos! He's so nice hahaha and his English is amazing! He was like "I'm not used to getting something from someone and not giving them something back in return, so I bought you guys these Spain shirts!” Hahahah freakin one of the dopest golf polo shirts I've ever seen in my life. He gave me and Lowry one! We took a pic that I'll attach below.

Wednesday - I can never seem to remember what we do on Wednesday hahaha. That was the day of transfers! We spent the morning in a trio with Elder Weenig, who is one of the greatest missionaries to go down in the history of ever. He's crazy, but solid missionary lol. A really cool thing happened actually... We were passing by some people we found in our area book, and a member named Vanessa called me and was like "hey I have a friend for you guys to teach, are you guys busy right now?" I was like no hahaha so we went and had an awesome lesson with her friend named Julio! He's from Ecuador and he told us he's had family problems and none of his kids talk to him and he just wants to be a better dude. So we talked to him about the Book of Mormon and eternal families. He seems really interested so we are hoping to see some progress with him! That night we had English classes, nothing special happened there :

Thursday - We had a really good weekly planning session, I told Elder Llavina all the secrets I know about the area and we planned out how we are going to meet all of our goals as well as find more people to teach. It was a good start picking up Julio and a new investigator, so we were on a roll already! After we planned, we went over to the Garcia’s house and this time, they poisoned my companions rice!!! They put this freaking wayyyyy spicy sauce in his rice and it was absolutely nuts Hahahah it was so spicy. He started like freaking out and we were all laughing it was funny. They didn't put any drinks on the table so he just suffered. Funny stuff. That night, I played the best goalie I've played since I've been in Spain! 😩 My team stayed on the court the entire time. It was mostly because I had Jacob on my team and we stuck with the game plan were he runs down the court and I drop it like its hot 💯 bottom line is it was  a fun night. :)

Friday - We helped a member in our ward with her daughter’s birthday party that was at the church! Idk how many of you saw it, but the video of the companionship that we found? Jacqueline and Monolito? It was Jackie's birthday and she asked if we could do the angry birds part of her party :) we set up a bunch of cardboard boxes and blew up some green "pig" balloons and then we had the kids throw a soccer ball and try and pop the balloons. It was funny to hear all the little kids ask us if they could kick the ball cuz they all sucked at throwing hahaha. We did that and then later that night we went and had English classes again!

Saturday - we had a really good lesson with Nancy, Christian, Rosa and Valentina!! As of right now, they are our number one investigators..They've been reading in the Book of Mormon daily and we have been praying as well as they have that they can find the truth in it! We talked a little bit about that on Saturday and also the 5 steps to live with our Father in Heaven again. The Spirit filled the room the minute we started talking and we did the best we could to leave it there as we left. Then they invited us to go get some pizza! Freakin almost as good as DAVANZAS or Litzas 😍😍 it was an awesome night all around and I'm glad we got to spend it with them.

Yesterday, the hermanas in Crevillente had a baptism in our church so we went to that. It was also stake conference, so we watched a conference of a couple general authorities. We received some good instruction from them and it was all in all a pretty good day! We also ate with the other wards bishop. His house is so American I was sooo trunky the whole time we were there haha. The first Sunday of every month he invites all the missionaries over to his house for a big BBQ. It was fun getting to know all of our new district a little better. Every single person has a new companion, so there are a lot of changes.

And today, we went to some beach lookout point with our Elders Quorum President, Aaron and Jacob (my boi) who is his younger brother and we hung out with them most of the day!!! It was awesome and there are pictures below :) Shoutout to all the homies who graduated last Thursday... Also a quick shoutout to the homie Brock for getting his call last weekend to every Americans dream mission. Scotland/Ireland!!! You'll kill it there and I'm proud of you bro :) idk if you even get my emails but hey, here's a shoutout 😂

Thank you all for reading my emails weekly, and I hope you all know how much I love you and miss you. Before we know it well be reunited, but for now, the Lord needs me here in Spain!  I'm loving being a missionary so I will enjoy the short time that I have left!

Love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,
T

PDay!!! 

The beach.

Homies

I almost died today! ;)

Ok... maybe we thought we were funny.

Spain Selfie

Old District

Spain shirts

New District

Week 40: GOODBYE CANADA :/

Que pasa familia mio :)

Well... Pretty sure I mentioned transfer calls were this week. CHANGES IN ELCHE! I'm getting another new companion hahaha. Elder Llavina! From what I've heard he's way cool. His dad is Argentinian, but he’s from Utah. That's pretty much all I know about him for now. I guess more details to come in next weeks letter! He gets in on Wednesday. My current companion is going to Málaga to be a zone leader!! I’m stoked for him and he's way ready to be a ZL. He's a great missionary and even tho our time was short, he's taught me a ton and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to work with him. We travelled a ton this weekend, but I'll get to that later :)

Tuesday - Leg day... we helped a member family move because their kitchen caught on fire a while ago. They lived on the 5th floor, which is actually the 6th. But there wasn't an elevator. 😩 Up, then down. Up, then down. Up, then down. Up... Then down. Then we would go back up and then when we got up, we'd turn around and go back down. Holy my legs felt like they wanted to fall off after hahaha. Elder Lowry’s legs literally just gave out while we were walking out. It was kinda funny.

Wednesday - We met with a new investigator that we found on the street!! Her name is Carolina. She's 20 years old and is from Columbia (like everyone else in Elche) and my comp is 100% convinced he's going to marry her hahahaha!. He said all I have to do is baptize her so they can temple. 😂 She wants to learn English, so the first hour consisted of us teaching her that then the last little while we just talked about the Book of Mormon and why we are here in Spain. She said she believes in God and everything and is looking for the truth so we told her to read the BOM and she'll find it. We were supposed to have a return cita this Wednesday but that's the day of transfers so we have to reschedule. After that, we went and taught Mercedez again. We had another pretty solid lesson on the BOM with her as well. It's so incredible how much truth that book has. I really wish I wouldn't have taken It for granted like I did before my mission. I wish I had the knowledge that I do now and would have read it like I do now. My days are always better when I read even a little bit in the mornings for personal study! I'm workin my way through Alma right now but in Spanish and it’s so weird that I understand a different language! 😳 Alma was a freakin dope missionary 💯. Then we ate with the Garcia fam como siempre!

Thursday - Planning... Another sweet and short one!! It's so awesome having good, powerful & short planning sessions. It's so hard to have long ones cuz as you all probably know, I cannot focus for more than like maybe 45 minutes hahaha and even that is an improvement from before I came on the mish. 😂 We have a new investigator who showed up to church a week ago named Benjamin... (Not Benji. Totally different people haha). He's from Columbia as well and there's a member named Jose Gonzalez who is his friend and Jose is awesome! He gave Benjamin a Book of Mormon and invited him to church, now he's taking the lessons from us and is so awesome! He's got a lot of potential so I’m excited for him and to see where that goes. We are going to focus on him a lot this week which will be helpful for our area! After planning - we ate with the Rivera Family, a really nice Argentinean family. They've been gone for like a month cuz they were in England, so it was my first time meeting them, but he is the branch president in Benidorm, which is a city a little bit more north east of Elche (I think...) but that was really good. Then that night we went to the church and played soccer with our amigos!!! Freakin there's a group of people that come that smoke weed there and the other members just yell at them to get out of here it's funny, but it smells like freakin the worst. I'm almost used to the smell of it by now tho. I smell it so much just walking in the streets. 😷

Friday -We went to Murcia for trizone!! It was awesome and I got to see a couple people who I hadn't seen in a while. My homie Elder Garcia!! It was the first time since the MTC!!!! We knew each other in like 5th grade hahaha and then he moved up north so we stopped hanging
out but got called to the same mission and everything. We sat by each other on the flight to London and then we're in the same district in the MTC so it was really good to see him. Also saw elder Goates who went to Olympus high school and is a cool guy. Kinda knew each other before the mission as well but not too much tho. Now we are way good friends tho :) The meeting was... well, long. Hahahaha holy crap it was ridiculous! 😩 We have these new things called the "APShes” which are like President’s Assistants, but sister missionaries. So the APShes and both the APs gave like 30 minute workshops. Good heck. So long people. Helpful. But just so freakin long. Usually they go from like 11-2 then we eat at 2:30 or 3 and are out by 4. Well on Friday it went from 11-4, we ate at 5, and left by like 7. 😂

Saturday - We had splits with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Adcock! He's a really good missionary and taught me a ton. He's from California, but his fam just moved to Alpine and he is gonna go to BYU when he gets home. Elder Lowry and I went to Alicante that morning and worked for a little in the morning. We ate black paella for lunch and it was so gross wow. Like black rice, squid, octopus, shrimp and it was black cuz of the octopus ink. It looked like I was eating a plate of gravel hahahaha. I ate a whole plate of it tho so I was proud if myself! That evening, Adcock and I had a lesson with one of their investigators named Yonka. Kinda like Willie Wonka but minus the chocolate factory. :/ He's from Cuba. Way cool guy. But we had probably the most spiritual lesson I've ever taught on my mission so far. It was incredible. It was so evident that he felt the spirit that was in the room. The thing that brings the Spirit the most is when we say the first vision. When we said it, Yonka started tearing up and it was so powerful! Towards the end of the lesson, I got a strong feeling that I should invite him to be baptized, so I asked him if that when he receives an answer to his questions about Joseph Smith if he will be baptized and he said yes!! Then we set a date with him and he will be working towards that date! Even tho it wasn't in my area, I was still way happy to have been able to be part of that lesson with Adcock! It was so awesome. :)

Sunday - Nothing much happened. There is a husband and wife in a city outside of Elche who are getting baptized next Sunday so Elder Lowry had to interview them, so we were at the church for a while he did that and then we went and he said his last goodbyes to the Garcia family. It was a really good Sunday night and there were some really good conversations that went on! 

Today... Well nothing special... Lowry said bye to the love of his life this morning 😂and I set a return cita later this week with her, and then we just kinda hung out after that! He wanted to print off some pics and we did that, went to the store and tonight will just be filled with more goodbyes. 

I'm really excited for Lowry to be going Zone Leader... He's going to be awesome! I have only been here for 5 weeks so I feel like I still don't know the area very well at all, but from what I hear about Elder Llavina, we should get along perfectly and work well together. I’m excited to see what happens and I'll be sure to let you guys know next  Monday!! Hope you all have a great week and know I love you all :)

Love,
Elder Hammond

Elders Ngatai and Garcia

Elder Goates!

The ocean 👀

Goodbye Canada. :'(

Week 39: Video of Tanner's New Companionship

Week 39: Intercombios & 9 MONTHS 😳

HELLO ALL :)

This week was filled with quite a bit of things if I remember correctly. We did splits twice and they were both pretty fun and successful.. Also like I mention last week, the old man turned 45 on Friday! Me and my comp celebrated from 5000 miles away... It was a party. Couple other quick shout outs to my cousin Alex for getting his call to Brazil!!! So stoked for you! And to little (not so little anymore) Markey B for his birthday and package I received :) Thank you all for that and hope Marcus enjoyed his B Day! Nowwwww time to hear about my week! 😱

Tuesday - that morning, we had district meeting, and then after we did our first set of splits. For lunch, we went to this buffet place in the mall that we live by. Biggest waste of money I've ever wasted. It was so gross. I was very disappointed cuz my comp talked it up all week and then we got there and it was horrible. That night, I was with my old companion Elder Rex! It was awesome to be able to work with him again. Elder Rex and Elder Lowry are in the same group, and they just barely hit their 6 month left mark, so we celebrated that night with all four of us. We spent most of our time contacting in the streets, and it was kinda funny to be together doing it again but in a totally different place! We decided it's more productive here in Elche than it is in Almería where we served together. We are hoping to get a couple new investigators out of the people we contacted :)

Wednesday - in the morning, we had a meeting with our investigator Benji that ended in some basketball. Haha it was a lot better with more people. A little bit more competition which is always helpful. :) After that, me and my comp went to the Garcia's house like we do every Wednesday to eat lunch. She made this way good like mashed potato and meat lasagna from Argentina. Then that night we had English classes! We have like one regular student named Arthur who is from Armenia. He's a good guy. We played this board game that helps people with English, so that was good. I won, just in case you were wondering 😈

Thursday - we had a really quick, good weekly planning session! It only took about an hour which is really good. Some planning sessions take like 3-4 hours which is absolutely insane and will never happen to me. The shorter, the better. I can't remember what we did during the afternoon time. But I remember we played soccer that night for our ward activity! You guys remember Alejandro from a week or two ago? He came again, and this time he brought his little brother and his girlfriend, so we got two more futures out of that which is always good. :) He keeps asking me when we are going to play football but we called him on Saturday and he didn't answer! Anyway, we played soccer for a while. The highlight of the night had to have been when a guy on the other team had a free/penalty kick, which is where it's just one on one the goalie and the dude who's shooting and he's only like 10 feet away from you so the odds are defs in the person who is kicking it's favor. The guy who was kicking it is a member and he's a pretty strong dude. Isma, is his name. So he freaking kicks it as hard as he can and I was like oh wait no sorry you can't score and so I hit it up in the air and then jumped up and caught it and another member who was on my team ran a GO ROUTE AND I TOOK A 3 STEP DROP AND DROPPED A DIME TO HIM AND HE SCORED AND WE WON THE GAME. It was pretty cool if you ask me. The member who I threw it to is legit a professional soccer player. Jacob, he's 18 and the soccer team in Murcia asked him to come play but they play on Sundays and he is about to get his call so he had to turn it down. He's a homie and way good at soccer. We make a good team cuz he just sprints to the other side of the court and I huck the ball down and he scores. He’s basically the Malone to my Stockton 💯

Friday - that morning we had a lesson with an investigator named Mercedez! We had a really awesome lesson about the restoration and she even had her friend over so we picked up a new investigator. :) They were really intrigued by Joseph Smith and wanted to know more, so we are going back on Tuesday. That night was our second day of splits! That night I was with Elder Smith… (not Brady tho 😐) He's in my group, but he came from the Provo MTC so we didn't really know each other before I got here. He's a cool kid. His family consists of 14 people total 🤔. I  We had a lesson about Hope with Benji! Honestly hope is a way cool thing and I really wish I would have known more about it before I gave my farewell on it. We, of course, shared the Mormon message about Todd Sylvester like I did in my talk. That video and story is so awesome and it brings the spirit so fast. We are slowly but surely working our way closer to the soft part of Benji's cold, Romanian heart lol. Then we w taught English to our new friend Alex and his son Ryan. Alex is part Muslim but is also American. He lived in Florida and so he speaks perfect English and his kid’s English is pretty good as well. I showed them all my football vids and pics that I have and they were freaking out. It was kinda funny. They kept saying that I better remember them when I'm playing for the Miami Dolphins. He says I'm the next Dan Marino. After seeing Ace Ventura, I hope not.

Saturday morning we were helped with a service project  and help some members move.  Then went to an eating cita with the Palominos! They’re members and have 4 little kids and the two oldest speak perfect English, cuz their dad served in Oregon and they lived in Hawaii for awhile. We talked about American stuff and the little 5 year old kid Manolo wanted to come live with us for the weekend and be a missionary. It was awesome. We were on our way out the door and he's like "ELDER HAMMOND WAIT!" So I stopped at the door and he goes into his room and gets a strap on tie and just throws it around his neck and comes out and says "Okay, I'm ready to go!" Hahaha it was so cute 😂! He got his little pack back and was just imitating everything I was doing, it made me happy. (see video on the blog… so cute!) :) That night we had a cita with some other members that I've talked about before, Jose and Encarni. My comp promised them he'd make some chili, so he did and we brought it over and ate it there! Not bad for a Canadian! 😳

Sunday was your usual dia de reposo... Nothing happened except we went to church and then tried to pass by some people but no one was home. IT WAS SO HOT YESTERDAY HOLY FREAKIN HECK. Like 91 degrees. It was hot. My comp got off the bus and just starts screaming and yells "whyyyy do I feel like I'm walking in an oven I want to be back in Canada" hahaha I got a kick out of that. 

Well guys, another week down here in Spain. Time is going by so fast, I can't believe I've been here for over 9 months now. It seems like I left just a couple months ago, but at the same time i feel like I’ve been here for an eternity 😂 it's well worth it tho.  🤗🤗🤗 I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,
T $$$

District soccer and basketball today :) 

Elder Rex and me :) - How many missionaries does it take to work the camera?

Week 38: Apparently I'm getting taller 🤗🤕

Good Morning/Afternoon/Night to you wherever you are in the world during the time that you read this. 

Before I start, gotta give a quick shoutout to LOU HAM for turning 13 yesterday!!! Can't believe he's a teenager now. Also the old man turns like 45 or something like that THIS FRIDAY! So glad to have them in my life. Hope Luke enjoyed his and Pops enjoys his. :) ALSO my good friend Elder Beckstrom owes me €50 euros (dollars) because the Thunder did everyone a favor and knocked the Spurs out of the race. We made the bet in the MTC 9 months ago and he said Spurs would take it, I said The Warriors. So now I win 50 big ones :) 

It's been a pretty good week if I do say so myself. There were a couple highlights, first off meeting our new homie Alejandro, and second of all having a really fun and good lesson with our investigator Benji and his less active wife Ana.. Here's the list: :)

Tuesday - not a very productive Tuesday as far as I can remember. Nothing happened other than that morning we had our district meeting! It's weird cuz ever since I've been here, that was the first one we’ve had! It's not usually that long of a wait from when you first get to a new area like this, but due to it being the very beginning of the month, we had zone meeting 2 weeks ago and finally we had our first district meeting. That night we had a very brief lesson with Benji and Ana. I might as well give you their background right now cuz we were with them a lot this past week haha. SO, Benji is from Romania. He's 23 years old, married to Ana who is 29 and from Paraguay. They have a little 20 month year old kid who is one of the scariest kids I've ever met. If I could describe to you why I would use this emoji 😶... Idk how to describe him. Every time we go in his house, he straight up just stares at me and his face says "Why the heck are you in my house? His name is Kevin.  But anyways, Benji has a whole plan about how he's going to get to the states, get to Utah, and be my best friend for life. I've known him for about 3 weeks ish and he already wants to live within 20 minutes from me when I get home. He’s great! I will talk about that a little bit later tho. But that's the majority of what you need to know about Ana and Benji.

Wednesday - every Wednesday, we have an eating appointment (cita) with that Garcia family. They're the people that thought it would be HILARIOUS to poison the crap out of my rice. 🙄  I love them. :) Also, they are the family who's house I was at when I FaceTimed home! We had rice again, kinda like fried rice, but nothing compared to Panda. 😫 We also met with a young single adult in our ward who has a friend that can get us real soccer jerseys for way cheap, with any name and number on them! I'm getting 3 🙈, They're sweet, when I get them I'll send pictures of them home so y'all can see 💯. Later, we played basketball with Benji! But yeah Benji just kinda hucks up 3s and hopes they go in. Dad, just imagine being at the stake center again and watching C TO THE B out there playing and you'll know what Benji looks like 😂😂😂. That night we had English classes. :)

Thursday - so, rewind a day, to Wednesday... That night we were on our way home when some kid says in English "hello my friends!" So we look back thinking okay well this kid is just some hoodlum who thinks he’s funny so we look back and say hi but keep walking. After a 2nd look, my comp was like wait I know that kid, so we went back and talked to him. His name is Alejandro, he's 20 and from Columbia. He was wearing a shirt that says,  "THE RAAIIDERS" (in that weird voice) so I told him I play football and he's like oh no way me too and I'm like oh well dude lets play sometime and he's like okay sweet I'll bring all my friends and while we are at it, you can teach me about your church! Hahah so I’m like wow okay hey look if we go to the church we can just baptize you real quick if you'd like???! No just kidding I didn't say that, but hopefully I'll be able to. :) He's a stud. ANYWAY, Thursday night rolls around and I call Alejandro and I'm like tio we are playing soccer tonight, do you wanna come? He's like of course dude let’s meet so I can get there without getting lost so we met a little early and went to the church to play. We gave him a tour of the church and we found out he has a troubled time believing in God, because "he believes in the people, and in the music”. He loooooves music, and we have the same taste, so we talked about that all night as well. He said he could see himself believing in God, but he just needs to know where to find him. We told him we could help 🙌🏻 then we balled out on the same team in soccer and I was of course, goalie! 💁🏽#turNup

Friday - hahahahaha way funny thing happened that day... It might be way confusing, but bare with me. And know that I'm not the idiot in this situation haha. We went to a place called Creviente, it's a place where there are 2 sister missionaries in our district. We had to go cuz my comp is the district leader and he had to dedicate their piso. After we did that, we were walking to go get something to eat. Here in Spain, people like to put little canopies in the middle of the sidewalk so that when people eat outside the restaurant, they have shade. Soooo, we're walkin along, we're walkin along, and I see this canopy thing, but there is a curtain type thing covering it. Usually when there are the curtain things, they hang about 6 inches below a metal bar that holds it. BUT NOPE NOT FREAKIN THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!! Smacked my forehead right into a metal bar. Frickin hurt. I couldn't help but laugh tho hahaha. Ahhh man it was pretty funny. Pictures of the outcome attached.

Saturday - Saturday was a good day. We spent all of Saturday night with Benji and Ana. We had a way spiritual lesson with them about the Restoration, and how we have all these things back on the earth today. Prophets, the Priesthood, the church, everything. We showed them the little 20 minute Restoration movie, but the only problem is that Benji has trouble believing Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. So, we invited him to pray about it. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, and he believes everything and agrees with everything our church does, but just doesn't know why God would show himself to a 14 year old kid. After the video, it was pretty funny actually hahaha. He was like “Are you sure this Joseph kid wasn’t just trippin on some major acid or shrooms or something..?” Hahahahaha it was so funny we couldn't help but laugh. We explained to him that he could know for himself through prayer and that God will give him his own answer and testimony about this stuff. We also told him to pray to see if he should be baptized so he can get sealed with Ana and they can get sealed as a family :) It was a way good lesson and the Spirit was way strong.

Sunday - not much happened other than we went to church and then after we went over and ate with Jose and Encarni. They were both baptized about 2 years ago, and now are some of the strongest members I've ever met in my life. They're about 47-50 years old and have two daughters. The older one is a member but LA and the younger isn't a member. We are working on that tho. :) Their scriptures are freakin nuts.. Markings on every page and it's just insane. Like I've been a member for like my whole life and it doesn't even come close to comparing to theirs... Cra Cra 🤗

Monday - today we didn't do much. We met that guy this morning and gave him our money for the jerseys, and then after that we went to the YSA (JAS) (young single adults) center that's here and played ping pong, then we went to the church and played basketball and soccer with the other missionaries here in Elche haha.

As you can see, it was a pretty busy and good week. Way sorry for the way long email, but I had a lot to write about. Shout out to you if you actually read the whole thing. You the real MVP for sure 💯! I love you all, and I hope you all feel my prayers daily, because I feel yours :) have a great week and you'll hear from me next :)

Love,
T Ham

Service = Ice cream

Bball with Benji and Baby Kevin

Arm wrestling with Benji... I held my own ground pretty well for not going to a gym for 9 months.

Doesn't look like much, but this was the outcome after I wrecked my head hahaha 

Reflections

Week 37: Bowled a 165 today and took first 💯

HEY GUYS!!!!

Wow. Let me just say how freakin happy I am right now. I am so happy. Mother's Day was a 224% major success. So good to see my wonderful, gorgeous family and friends! 😍 Seriously, can't even tell you guys how #blessed I am to know the people I know and have the people I have in my life. Every single one of you has made an impact in my life somehow, someway. Thank you all for what you've done for me. :)

Alright so here's DAWEEK...

Tuesday - can't remember anything about Tuesday other than that night we had correlation with our ward mission leader Hermano Caballero! Their family is awesome. He has a son who's finishing his papers who is way sick.  Hopefully I'll be here when he gets his call!

Wednesday - don't remember much about Wednesday other than we had English classes that night and it was our grand opening! We printed out information sheets and gave all the people who came a quiz to determine for themselves what class they should be in. (Advanced, intermediate or beginner) at the end of the info sheet, we asked if they wanted to take the lessons from the missionaries and the only people that put yes were the members that are in the class! 😂 It was sad but gave all of us a good laugh.

Thursday - I can cook. I made the GNARLIEST Paella which is basically a really complicated dish of chicken and rice. The next time I make it I’ll for sure have to take a picture. It was just so intriguing, I couldn’t resist! But yeah that was dank. That night we went and helped a lady in our ward named Abdulia move some stuff from her old piso to her new piso. We are going back tonight to help her. After that, the best part of the week... SOCCER. Honestly like it would probably be even more fun if I was actually good and could kick the ball, but like I told you guys last week, I moved to strictly goalie and I'm working my way up the ladder. By the time I'm done here in Spain, I'll for sure be able to say what my boy Drake said "started from the bottom now we here". Good song. It's kinda fun to be an American, playing soccer in Spain with a bunch of Spaniards. Only cuz when they don't score on me they get so mad and are just like "HOW AM I NOT SCORING ON THIS FREAKIN GRINGO?!?" It's the best man. 

Friday - Friday consisted of us going to Alicante for zone meeting! It was my first time meeting my new zone! It's a really big zone, but full of not a whole lot of people that I know haha. They announced that we were going to do a mission-wide fast, and they asked me to give a personal experience on fasting, so I shared the experience of the one time when we fasted to know if I should go on a mission or not and how obvious it was that I got my answer. I've realized something about fasting tho, and it's the worst friend, but it will bring the most blessings. It sure is worth it. After that we went to Dominos with the whole zone.  It was pretty fun and very packed. When we got home later that day, we had English classes. We had to teach the beginners class. Yippy! 🙃😐 I taught the homies the alphabet which was pretty lit.

Saturday - We had to go to a place called Elda, it's where Elder Ngatai and Rex live because we had to dedicate their piso. We got there a little early and so we did splits. I went with Ngatai and Lowry and Rex were together. We were contacting and having no luck at all so we decided to go to a different part of town but on our way we ran in to a real surprise. We don't really know what but it was way dope it was like a giant concert looking like Oscar awards
ceremony thing. There were playing short little films and playing music while people danced and stuff. It was really cool so we tried talk to some more people in the streets that were there.

Sunday - Sunday we went to church and after that we got to break our fast at our Bishop’s house! Fun fact about the Bish here... He served in the Salt Lake City North Mission about 30-35 years ago. They fed us chili and rice and it was way good. After that, we played a game called like Rummi or something like that. It was so fun hahah I love it. Very addicting. Then after that, we went to the Garcia’s house to FACETIME 😍 Oh my gosh! It was so awesome. I loved hearing that everyone is doing so good and I miss you guys all so much :) Also, I wrote in the last page of my first journal that night as well so I will be startin a new one today!!! I never thought in a million years I would ever be done with that thing hahahahaha so I'm proud of myself! 🙌🏻

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, grandmothers, future moms, and all other types of moms out there. Shouts to all of you .. You have the most important job in the world and there's a reason the male species wasn't chosen to play the role of a mother. Keep doing what you do and know you're doing a better job than you think. Hope you all have a great week, and you bet your bottom dollar you'll be hearing from me again next week 💯!

Love,
Elder T Brady Hammond

District Bowling!  

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

Elche - Palms on Palms on Palms 🏝

I was WAY bored yesterday

My boy Barbosa

Franci and Lucia