Howdy. I don't have a lot to talk about since I just talked to all of you 3 days ago. It snowed basically all day Sunday and Monday. We ended up with about 14 inches. It was pretty awesome. I'd call it a blizzard, just because the wind was going about 40 miles an hour along with the dumping snow. It was really cool to watch until we couldn't see out the windows. We weren't allowed to drive our cars from after church on Sunday until Tuesday. That was pretty lame. We didn't do much on Sunday, and then Monday was spent shoveling mostly all day. I felt bad cause I didn't help cause I was sick. I guess it decided to get worse before it got better. I feel alright today, still congested and sore throat, but that's better than it was. But the piles of snow on the sides of the road are huge! I'm really surprised also, because I haven't seen any wrecks. I don't understand that, cause the roads are still a mess, but whatever. I think it'll be really messy in a few days cause the forecast is in the high 40's low 50's for the next couple of days. That won't be pretty. haha.
So besides that, I don't really have much to say. We should be baptizing Aaron this saturday, Dad can tell you about him if you didn't hear his story. I'm pretty excited for that. And really the only other announcement is that my birthday is coming up, so people can start thinking about stuff they'd like to send me... A few suggestions I've thought of: money, more cd's, a few more ties, some thick warm socks, and maybe a sweater or two that I could wear with my suits. Oh yeah, and maybe a new watch.... haha.
Well, I hope that all of you have a wonderful week. Happy New Years! Make some good resolutions. One of the things we're doing as a mission is as we read the Book of Mormon over the next 6 months, we are going to highlight every name, reference to, or words of the Savior. Just a suggestion I wanted to share with you. Cool beans. Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Merry Christmas!
Hello again everybody! How was Saturday getting Justin home? Hope it was exciting. It feels weird now that I'm the lone Hammer missionary. Oh well. So guess what? It still hasn't snowed. I am pretty bummed about that. It was supposed to yesterday, but it didn't, and it's supposed to today and tomorrow, but it hasn't yet today. It looks like it might, but we'll have to wait and see.
Well, this week was pretty good. We did a lot of finding since we don't have any solid investigators anymore. Peter has missed his last 2 appointments, so we don't know what's going on with him. But, we are hoping to meet with him still sometime this upcoming week. We had some good success while tracting this week. We picked up 2 new investigators. One of them is from some country I've never heard of and she speaks Ginka, whatever that is. She also speaks Arabic and English, so if they don't have a Ginka-ese Book of Mormon, we're just going to give her an Arabic one. She let us in after we knocked on her door and we taught her the first lesson. She said that she was baptized into the Catholic church in March, so she doesn't see the need to be baptized again, but we'll work with her on that. The other guy is named Milton. He invited us in lastnight so we could get out of the cold. He said that he's seen missionaries before and has invited them in and given them drinks and stuff, but apparently they've never taught him anything. We taught him a very quick lesson 1 cause we had to get to our dinner appointment, but he was so interested in everything! He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, and we set up a return appointment, and he said that his wife and son would be there next time, and he even said he'd be at church after the holidays! He was awesome. I can't wait to start working with him.
Yesterday was pretty awesome at church too. It was our special Christmas program, and it was awesome. There were a bunch of musical numbers and good spiritual thoughts. My two favorites were this couple who are both amazingly talented at their instruments (violin and piano) He goes to Berkeley and is working in Film Scoring, which is awesome. They played O little town of Bethlehem and it was great. The other one of my favorites was a piano solo of The first Noel. It was awesome too. There were a lot of people at church yesterday too. A bunch of less actives, and the biggest group was the Alta High School basketball team. That was pretty random. There was this big ole' charter bus that pulled up in our parking lot and a bunch of teenagers started getting out of it. I talked to their coaches and a few of them and they were really cool guys. They said that they flew out here from Utah for some tournament, and wanted to come to church. I thought that was pretty awesome. Needless to say, church was really good yesterday.
So, Christmas is this week. Weird. Thanks to everyone who has sent me stuff. I guess that would only be the family, and Rob & Wendi. I was happy to see my package from them. It was pretty funny too. a few weeks ago, we had grabbed this huge bag of random Christmas decorations from a different apartment and we all hung up the stockings that were in there. I chose one and put it up on the wall, and when I opened Rob & Wendi's package, I thought it was pretty cool that they sent me a stocking. I went to hang it up on the wall with our other ones and realized that it was the exact same stocking as the random one I had chosen from the bag! haha. So now I have 2 of the same one. That was pretty funny. And by the way, thanks very much to whoever chose that CD that Mom sent! It is seriously one of the best CD's ever. Did you listen to it anywhere before you bought it, or hear about it, or just randomly pick that one? Cause it's definetly one of my favorite CDs. I love it. It's awesome.
You all know that I get to call home on Christmas too. I still am not 100% sure when I will call, but I'm shooting for around 7:00pm here, so 5:00 there. We have a zone activity in the morning until the afternoon, and then we are eating dinner around 4, so I figured that the evening would probably be easiest. Last time I called, we were told that we had up to 2 hours, but this time, President has decided that too many missionaries assumed that if they could talk for 2, they might as well talk for 4. So, we are sticking with the white handbook, which means 30-40 minutes. It would be nice if you all have something picked out that you want to tell me, and what you want to hear me say in Cambodian, since I'm assuming you'll want me to do that. I can't promise that I'll be able to say it, but I'll try. And no offense to the rest of you, but I'll probably want to talk to Justin the longest.
Well, I don't have too much else to say, so I guess I'll go now. Have a great week, and I will talk to you on Saturday! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. I heard BYU destroyed UTEP. That's good news. I also heard that Austin Collie tore it up yesterday. Glad to hear he's still doing well in the NFL.
Well, this week was pretty good. We did a lot of finding since we don't have any solid investigators anymore. Peter has missed his last 2 appointments, so we don't know what's going on with him. But, we are hoping to meet with him still sometime this upcoming week. We had some good success while tracting this week. We picked up 2 new investigators. One of them is from some country I've never heard of and she speaks Ginka, whatever that is. She also speaks Arabic and English, so if they don't have a Ginka-ese Book of Mormon, we're just going to give her an Arabic one. She let us in after we knocked on her door and we taught her the first lesson. She said that she was baptized into the Catholic church in March, so she doesn't see the need to be baptized again, but we'll work with her on that. The other guy is named Milton. He invited us in lastnight so we could get out of the cold. He said that he's seen missionaries before and has invited them in and given them drinks and stuff, but apparently they've never taught him anything. We taught him a very quick lesson 1 cause we had to get to our dinner appointment, but he was so interested in everything! He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, and we set up a return appointment, and he said that his wife and son would be there next time, and he even said he'd be at church after the holidays! He was awesome. I can't wait to start working with him.
Yesterday was pretty awesome at church too. It was our special Christmas program, and it was awesome. There were a bunch of musical numbers and good spiritual thoughts. My two favorites were this couple who are both amazingly talented at their instruments (violin and piano) He goes to Berkeley and is working in Film Scoring, which is awesome. They played O little town of Bethlehem and it was great. The other one of my favorites was a piano solo of The first Noel. It was awesome too. There were a lot of people at church yesterday too. A bunch of less actives, and the biggest group was the Alta High School basketball team. That was pretty random. There was this big ole' charter bus that pulled up in our parking lot and a bunch of teenagers started getting out of it. I talked to their coaches and a few of them and they were really cool guys. They said that they flew out here from Utah for some tournament, and wanted to come to church. I thought that was pretty awesome. Needless to say, church was really good yesterday.
So, Christmas is this week. Weird. Thanks to everyone who has sent me stuff. I guess that would only be the family, and Rob & Wendi. I was happy to see my package from them. It was pretty funny too. a few weeks ago, we had grabbed this huge bag of random Christmas decorations from a different apartment and we all hung up the stockings that were in there. I chose one and put it up on the wall, and when I opened Rob & Wendi's package, I thought it was pretty cool that they sent me a stocking. I went to hang it up on the wall with our other ones and realized that it was the exact same stocking as the random one I had chosen from the bag! haha. So now I have 2 of the same one. That was pretty funny. And by the way, thanks very much to whoever chose that CD that Mom sent! It is seriously one of the best CD's ever. Did you listen to it anywhere before you bought it, or hear about it, or just randomly pick that one? Cause it's definetly one of my favorite CDs. I love it. It's awesome.
You all know that I get to call home on Christmas too. I still am not 100% sure when I will call, but I'm shooting for around 7:00pm here, so 5:00 there. We have a zone activity in the morning until the afternoon, and then we are eating dinner around 4, so I figured that the evening would probably be easiest. Last time I called, we were told that we had up to 2 hours, but this time, President has decided that too many missionaries assumed that if they could talk for 2, they might as well talk for 4. So, we are sticking with the white handbook, which means 30-40 minutes. It would be nice if you all have something picked out that you want to tell me, and what you want to hear me say in Cambodian, since I'm assuming you'll want me to do that. I can't promise that I'll be able to say it, but I'll try. And no offense to the rest of you, but I'll probably want to talk to Justin the longest.
Well, I don't have too much else to say, so I guess I'll go now. Have a great week, and I will talk to you on Saturday! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. I heard BYU destroyed UTEP. That's good news. I also heard that Austin Collie tore it up yesterday. Glad to hear he's still doing well in the NFL.
Monday, December 13, 2010
.....
I'll be home for Christmas;
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas;
If only in my dreams.
I'll see ya'll on Sat.
love
Elder Hammer
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas;
If only in my dreams.
I'll see ya'll on Sat.
love
Elder Hammer
It's still NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
Ugh. I wish it would snow already. We did get like 2 or 3 inches of rain yesterday, but it was in the mid 50's so there was no chance of snow there. It was a pretty intense storm though. Very windy. The waves at the ocean were pretty big. It was really cool to see them crash against the wall and blow up onto the road. I enjoyed it for the few minutes we saw it.
Well, I guess I'll start with the bad news this week. And no, it's not as bad as when I "broke" my leg. It's worse, actually. Neither Peter or Jose have baptismal dates anymore. This week was pretty rough for the both of them. I'll start with Peter. We've been meeting with him for a while now, and he's been progressing very well. He's kept all his appointments, and has read everything we've asked him to. He was scheduled to be baptized yesterday, but if you remember last weeks email, I mentioned his mother. Yeah, she wouldn't sign the baptismal record, so we can't baptize him yet. Very sad. There's a miniscule chance that she might be thinking about signing it, but she probably won't which means that we'll have to wait until March when he turns 18. Good news is that's not too far away, but we'd rather do it now. Oh well, he's still planning on coming to church and meeting with us so I'm not too worried about it.
Jose's a bit of a different story. He had mentioned to us that he used to drink a lot, but right now his only concern was with smoking. Well, apparently he checked himself into the hospital to try and get some help getting into a program that would help him stop drinking. We didn't know about it until he missed an appointment and we called to see where he was. The people he's staying with said that he was in the hospital and weren't sure when he'd be coming back. If he gets in the program, he'd be there for 28 days, so that's a long time without us meeting him. But, we are pretty sure that for whatever reasons, he didn't make it into the program, but he's still not back, so we aren't sure what's going on with him, I think he's in Dorchester, which is where he's originally from, which is not good news cause that's what he was trying to get away from. But, we still have ways to contact him, we just haven't been able to yet. He still wants to learn, it's just a matter of us finding out where he's staying so we can teach him. So that's the sad news on this week. We were so excited for both of them, but now we are just down to 0 investigators (not counting Peter) and are trying to find some more.
We also got to go to the temple again this last week. With the new missionary curriculum, we only have Zone Conferences every 3 months, but for our Christmas present from Pres. and Sis. Evans, we all got to go to the temple with them and our zone. It was so nice to be in there again. I know I got to go like a month ago for a sealing, but I haven't been there for endowments for a while and it was great. After our session, they had lunch provided for us downstairs. It was all decorated Christmassy and looked really nice, and the food, as temple food always is, was great! Then we went to the chapel right next to the temple for a zone testimony meeting. It was such a great meeting. I felt the presence of the Spirit very strongly. I loved it. And we also all got our presents from home. Thanks for that. I wasn't sure if I should open it or not, so I did a little bit and just felt inside to see if it was wrapped or not. So I ended up opening it and putting the wrapped stuff under our tree. Our tree is pretty great too. It says on the box that it's 6'0'', but in that case, I'm 6'7''. haha. It was pretty skimpy looking when we got it out of the box, but with the lights and ornaments, it doesn't look too bad.
Well, I'm about out of stuff to say again, but I thought I'd tell you about this crazy guy we met on the street the other day. We just approached him as we do with anyone on the street and offered him a card for the Joy to the World DVD. He told us that he knows everything there is to know about the birth of Jesus. He seemed like he wanted to bash, but as soon as he started talking more, we realized that he was just a very crazy man. He started talking about how he goes to church, and then told us that we need to ask people the questions that they want to answer, and he asked us a bunch of questions that didn't make any sense. He went from talking about church and religion to telling us that he'd been taken by aliens and saw all of their weapons that are going to destroy us someday. He also informed us that we could all be shot by someone walking down the street (don't worry, there was no danger. I still don't know exactly what he was talking about though) He was just a crazy, crazy man. He gave us his address, though, but we don't have plans of stopping back, but if we do, I'm sure I'll have more to tell you about him. It was a very funny experience. haha.
Ok, a couple more random things. Mom, I am almost positive I gave my mouthpiece back to Mr. Summers, but if you could get all of my mouthpieces and send me a picture of them, I can tell you what one it is if I do still have it. Also, I was wondering if I could get the recipe for the breakfast you make for Christmas morning. We are doing a Zone activity on Christmas and I thought it'd be cool if I made that for us. Or attempted to, at least. haha. Thanks.
Alrighty, then I guess the last thing to say is good luck to Justin. I can't believe it's already time for you to go. I'll be looking forward to hearing about family reactions and feelings. Okey dokey then. Bye. Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Well, I guess I'll start with the bad news this week. And no, it's not as bad as when I "broke" my leg. It's worse, actually. Neither Peter or Jose have baptismal dates anymore. This week was pretty rough for the both of them. I'll start with Peter. We've been meeting with him for a while now, and he's been progressing very well. He's kept all his appointments, and has read everything we've asked him to. He was scheduled to be baptized yesterday, but if you remember last weeks email, I mentioned his mother. Yeah, she wouldn't sign the baptismal record, so we can't baptize him yet. Very sad. There's a miniscule chance that she might be thinking about signing it, but she probably won't which means that we'll have to wait until March when he turns 18. Good news is that's not too far away, but we'd rather do it now. Oh well, he's still planning on coming to church and meeting with us so I'm not too worried about it.
Jose's a bit of a different story. He had mentioned to us that he used to drink a lot, but right now his only concern was with smoking. Well, apparently he checked himself into the hospital to try and get some help getting into a program that would help him stop drinking. We didn't know about it until he missed an appointment and we called to see where he was. The people he's staying with said that he was in the hospital and weren't sure when he'd be coming back. If he gets in the program, he'd be there for 28 days, so that's a long time without us meeting him. But, we are pretty sure that for whatever reasons, he didn't make it into the program, but he's still not back, so we aren't sure what's going on with him, I think he's in Dorchester, which is where he's originally from, which is not good news cause that's what he was trying to get away from. But, we still have ways to contact him, we just haven't been able to yet. He still wants to learn, it's just a matter of us finding out where he's staying so we can teach him. So that's the sad news on this week. We were so excited for both of them, but now we are just down to 0 investigators (not counting Peter) and are trying to find some more.
We also got to go to the temple again this last week. With the new missionary curriculum, we only have Zone Conferences every 3 months, but for our Christmas present from Pres. and Sis. Evans, we all got to go to the temple with them and our zone. It was so nice to be in there again. I know I got to go like a month ago for a sealing, but I haven't been there for endowments for a while and it was great. After our session, they had lunch provided for us downstairs. It was all decorated Christmassy and looked really nice, and the food, as temple food always is, was great! Then we went to the chapel right next to the temple for a zone testimony meeting. It was such a great meeting. I felt the presence of the Spirit very strongly. I loved it. And we also all got our presents from home. Thanks for that. I wasn't sure if I should open it or not, so I did a little bit and just felt inside to see if it was wrapped or not. So I ended up opening it and putting the wrapped stuff under our tree. Our tree is pretty great too. It says on the box that it's 6'0'', but in that case, I'm 6'7''. haha. It was pretty skimpy looking when we got it out of the box, but with the lights and ornaments, it doesn't look too bad.
Well, I'm about out of stuff to say again, but I thought I'd tell you about this crazy guy we met on the street the other day. We just approached him as we do with anyone on the street and offered him a card for the Joy to the World DVD. He told us that he knows everything there is to know about the birth of Jesus. He seemed like he wanted to bash, but as soon as he started talking more, we realized that he was just a very crazy man. He started talking about how he goes to church, and then told us that we need to ask people the questions that they want to answer, and he asked us a bunch of questions that didn't make any sense. He went from talking about church and religion to telling us that he'd been taken by aliens and saw all of their weapons that are going to destroy us someday. He also informed us that we could all be shot by someone walking down the street (don't worry, there was no danger. I still don't know exactly what he was talking about though) He was just a crazy, crazy man. He gave us his address, though, but we don't have plans of stopping back, but if we do, I'm sure I'll have more to tell you about him. It was a very funny experience. haha.
Ok, a couple more random things. Mom, I am almost positive I gave my mouthpiece back to Mr. Summers, but if you could get all of my mouthpieces and send me a picture of them, I can tell you what one it is if I do still have it. Also, I was wondering if I could get the recipe for the breakfast you make for Christmas morning. We are doing a Zone activity on Christmas and I thought it'd be cool if I made that for us. Or attempted to, at least. haha. Thanks.
Alrighty, then I guess the last thing to say is good luck to Justin. I can't believe it's already time for you to go. I'll be looking forward to hearing about family reactions and feelings. Okey dokey then. Bye. Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Monday, December 6, 2010
STILL No Snow!
Hello again. Wow, I still can't believe it's December! It's so weird to think that I'm already almost halfway done. I think it's even weirder, though, to think that Justin will be home in less than 2 weeks. That just blows my mind! Pretty cool that he'll be able to watch BYU in their bowl game, even though it's not too much of an exciting game to watch. And yes, I can't wait to hear how badly Boise destroys utah. And I'm assuming that Auburn and Oregon are in the National Championship, so where did TCU end up? Just curious. But yeah, it's so weird to think of how fast time flies. I was happy that Pres. Monson agrees with me too :) That was a pretty good devotional lastnight, huh? I enjoyed it so much. We were planning on watching it at one of our roommates' member's homes, but then we realized that it would be in spanish, so we just went to the chapel and hooked everything up for ourselves to watch it there. It was just me and E. Winslow. I especially liked Pres. Eyring's talk. I am so priveleged to be able to have seen exactly what he was talking about when he told the story about his granddaughters on missions. I love so much to be able to see the Atonement work in people's lives and see how much they can turn themselves around and start to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ in their own life.
I got to witness that very clearly yesterday. Jose was at church again (unfortunately Peter was on some school trip so he couldn't make it) and it was obviously testimony meeting. Things can go somewhat interestingly in our ward on fast Sunday, and yesterday was one of them. It wasn't too bad, but one of our members got up and did some Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Mohammed Ali impersonations...very awkward. Other than that, it was a good meeting though. In Priesthood, the guy teaching the lesson decided that we would just extend the testimony meeting from sacrament meeting to priesthood. It was great. Everyone was sharing their testimonies, and I was feeling the Spirit, and it was awesome. Then Jose stood up and bore his testimony about how he has attended so many different churches throughout his life, and he knows that this is the right one because of how he feels when he comes. He also told us that he knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and he can't wait to get baptized. He sounded like he'd been a member for like 15 years already. He also told us that he is so happy that he found our church because his life was pretty messed up. He'd been involved with drugs, alcohol, and was seriously contemplating suicide, but that's right when he decided to change his life and get away from the people he's been hanging around with, and then he moved out here to Lynn. He hadn't told us any of that since we'd been teaching him but it really testified to me the power of the Atonement. He is trying so hard to do the right things. He is still struggling and tells us it's hard, but he is really trying. I love the opportunity Heavenly Father has given me to be able to experience all of the great things that happen as missionaries. We had to push Jose's date to the 19th due to WoW issues, but I really think he'll be able to do it then. Peter is still good for this next Sunday as long as he gets his mom to sign the baptismal record, which apparently might be an issue. Oh well, things will work out with him too.
So besides the update with Jose and Peter, there's not much else to say for this week. We haven't found any new investigators that are solid yet, but I'm sure they will come along soon. Oh, one thing that I've started doing that is pretty cool is every night when I write in my journal, I think of one miracle that happened that day. It's a great way to really recognize the hand of the Lord in our daily life. I would encourage everyone to if not write it down, think about one miracle that happens in every day of your life. It's pretty amazing to see how much of an influence He really is in every single day.
Well, like my subject says, there still hasn't been any snow. Except for this morning, there was a tiny bit blowing around, but I have no idea where it came from cause there was only like 2 dinky little clouds in the sky and they weren't anywhere near our house. I was pretty confused about that. haha. Hopefully we'll be getting some soon though. I really am looking forward to the snow. Other than that, the weather has just been COLD. They say it's in the mid 30's, but with the wind, I'd say it stays in the teens basically all day. Thank goodness for cars and people to teach! haha.
By the way, I'm expecting lots of mail sometime soon cause I haven't gotten anything since Grandma's package 2 weeks ago. Just saying... Okay then, I guess I'm off. I think we're decorating our house today. We're going to get a tree and some decorations and stuff. Pretty cool. haha. Well, have a great week! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. Could you by chance get me Sis. LeBaron's address (Brendan's Mom) Thanks.
I got to witness that very clearly yesterday. Jose was at church again (unfortunately Peter was on some school trip so he couldn't make it) and it was obviously testimony meeting. Things can go somewhat interestingly in our ward on fast Sunday, and yesterday was one of them. It wasn't too bad, but one of our members got up and did some Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Mohammed Ali impersonations...very awkward. Other than that, it was a good meeting though. In Priesthood, the guy teaching the lesson decided that we would just extend the testimony meeting from sacrament meeting to priesthood. It was great. Everyone was sharing their testimonies, and I was feeling the Spirit, and it was awesome. Then Jose stood up and bore his testimony about how he has attended so many different churches throughout his life, and he knows that this is the right one because of how he feels when he comes. He also told us that he knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and he can't wait to get baptized. He sounded like he'd been a member for like 15 years already. He also told us that he is so happy that he found our church because his life was pretty messed up. He'd been involved with drugs, alcohol, and was seriously contemplating suicide, but that's right when he decided to change his life and get away from the people he's been hanging around with, and then he moved out here to Lynn. He hadn't told us any of that since we'd been teaching him but it really testified to me the power of the Atonement. He is trying so hard to do the right things. He is still struggling and tells us it's hard, but he is really trying. I love the opportunity Heavenly Father has given me to be able to experience all of the great things that happen as missionaries. We had to push Jose's date to the 19th due to WoW issues, but I really think he'll be able to do it then. Peter is still good for this next Sunday as long as he gets his mom to sign the baptismal record, which apparently might be an issue. Oh well, things will work out with him too.
So besides the update with Jose and Peter, there's not much else to say for this week. We haven't found any new investigators that are solid yet, but I'm sure they will come along soon. Oh, one thing that I've started doing that is pretty cool is every night when I write in my journal, I think of one miracle that happened that day. It's a great way to really recognize the hand of the Lord in our daily life. I would encourage everyone to if not write it down, think about one miracle that happens in every day of your life. It's pretty amazing to see how much of an influence He really is in every single day.
Well, like my subject says, there still hasn't been any snow. Except for this morning, there was a tiny bit blowing around, but I have no idea where it came from cause there was only like 2 dinky little clouds in the sky and they weren't anywhere near our house. I was pretty confused about that. haha. Hopefully we'll be getting some soon though. I really am looking forward to the snow. Other than that, the weather has just been COLD. They say it's in the mid 30's, but with the wind, I'd say it stays in the teens basically all day. Thank goodness for cars and people to teach! haha.
By the way, I'm expecting lots of mail sometime soon cause I haven't gotten anything since Grandma's package 2 weeks ago. Just saying... Okay then, I guess I'm off. I think we're decorating our house today. We're going to get a tree and some decorations and stuff. Pretty cool. haha. Well, have a great week! Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. Could you by chance get me Sis. LeBaron's address (Brendan's Mom) Thanks.
Pineapple Pizza and Goosebumps
Week 4 of transfer number 17 is over. Week 5 begins today. This past week has been pretty eventful. I'll start with the not-so-important information.
Down the street from us is the only pizza joint in town. They have an eating challenge there known as the "Alaskan Pizza Challenge." (Why Alaska is involved in this I have no idea) Well, my companion and I and the two Hmong missionaries decided to attempt the challenge on Saturday. The goal is to eat a two foot diameter pizza with one topping of your choice, between the two of you, in 45 minutes. As some of you know, previous to my mission I wasn't a big fan of pineapple pizza. Since I've been out I've realized that beggars can't be choosers and I've been able to develop a liking for it. All that changed with this challenge. Elder Osborn and I ordered our pizza choosing pineapple as our topping thinking that it would be easier to digest than pepperoni or some other substance. When they placed the coffee-table sized pizza in front of us we were still optimistic about our chances for completing it. The timer was set and we began. After the 4th piece I started to slow down a bit, but I was still keeping pace. Piece 5 went down a little slower and I started to realize again how pineapple is really not a good ingredient for pizza. Piece 6 tasted like sweetened cardboard and Piece 7 might as well have been made out of it. By this time we both realized that there was no way we were going to be able to force ourselves to down the entire thing. I basically gave up then. The time was quickly running down and I still had 4 pieces to eat. The smell of the pizza was nauseating by now and I determined that unless I wanted to embarrassingly ralf a partially digested pizza onto the floor, I'd better stop. Needless to say, we were bested by the challenge and I never want to eat another piece of pineapple pizza again. It wasn't the amount of pizza that got to us - I could've eaten more, it was the taste. Horrible.
Alright, now for some more spiritual information.
There are miracles happening in our zone this Christmas season. Our zone has a goal of reaching 94 baptisms during 2010. Two months ago that looked like it was only going to be a dream. Lately however, things have changed and we are now hoping to surpass that and reach the century mark. Our missionaries have stepped things up and I am way excited with the way things are happening. We will be having a baptism this Sunday. Kathy Black will be baptized then. She is still doing great. We will be finishing everything up this week and getting her baptismal interview taken care of. (I almost cried with joy when she answered no to every part of question number 4 of the interview questions!) We have also been teaching another part member family named the Foulks. They are so awesome! Zach has been a member for about 10 years and his wife, Trish, has been coming to church with him consistently for the past year. She just recently opened up to having us over right after they had their first baby. We have been teaching her, and yesterday she asked us what needs to happen to get baptized. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her and she answered all of them perfectly. When we asked her the last question, "When you are baptized you covenant with God that you are willing to take upon yourself the name of Christ and keep His commandments throughout your life. Are you ready to make this covenant and strive to be faithful to it?" she answered yes. Zach started crying, Trish started crying, and I was just grinning from ear to ear. Trish is ready to be baptized and she has realized that she is ready. There are a couple things that need to happen before we can schedule a date, but that's all going to be worked out. The steps are being made to get them to the Temple and be sealed as a family. I couldn't be happier for them.
Last night while I was watching the Christmas devotional I really felt the Spirit. I love our leaders. President Monson is such a wonderful man and I felt the Spirit witness to me again that he really is the prophet. The music from Motab and the Orchestra brought tears to my eyes (also, dang! who's that super skinny guy playing trumpet in there! wow!). One day I hope to be able to participate in something like that. The goosebumps on my skin reminded me of why I love music. I can feel the Spirit so much through it.
Mom, I've started going to therapy for my shoulder. From the way my shoulder is, it looks like I did dislocate my shoulder back at the beginning of my mission and I tore my labrum. My therapy is focusing on strengthening my rotator-cuff to compensate for the looseness in the joint. I'm not currently a surgery candidate although it is a possibility that I'll need it in the future. I haven't experienced any pain from the therapy and my shoulder is feeling better than it has in a long time. My therapist is pleased with how things are going.
I think that is everything for the week. I hope everything is going well back home. By the way, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Spencer for the package a few weeks ago. I appreciated it. Kasey, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been feeling too well lately. It sounds like Thanksgiving was rather eventful. You are in my prayers and I hope things get better.
I love you all! Be Mighty!
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. It sounds to me like my parents might be getting a little anxious??? I don't know what the deal is, it's only been 2 years since I've seen you. : ) Also, will I be getting released right after I get home? That would play an important part in whether or not I'm going to be watching a football game with you... ; )
Down the street from us is the only pizza joint in town. They have an eating challenge there known as the "Alaskan Pizza Challenge." (Why Alaska is involved in this I have no idea) Well, my companion and I and the two Hmong missionaries decided to attempt the challenge on Saturday. The goal is to eat a two foot diameter pizza with one topping of your choice, between the two of you, in 45 minutes. As some of you know, previous to my mission I wasn't a big fan of pineapple pizza. Since I've been out I've realized that beggars can't be choosers and I've been able to develop a liking for it. All that changed with this challenge. Elder Osborn and I ordered our pizza choosing pineapple as our topping thinking that it would be easier to digest than pepperoni or some other substance. When they placed the coffee-table sized pizza in front of us we were still optimistic about our chances for completing it. The timer was set and we began. After the 4th piece I started to slow down a bit, but I was still keeping pace. Piece 5 went down a little slower and I started to realize again how pineapple is really not a good ingredient for pizza. Piece 6 tasted like sweetened cardboard and Piece 7 might as well have been made out of it. By this time we both realized that there was no way we were going to be able to force ourselves to down the entire thing. I basically gave up then. The time was quickly running down and I still had 4 pieces to eat. The smell of the pizza was nauseating by now and I determined that unless I wanted to embarrassingly ralf a partially digested pizza onto the floor, I'd better stop. Needless to say, we were bested by the challenge and I never want to eat another piece of pineapple pizza again. It wasn't the amount of pizza that got to us - I could've eaten more, it was the taste. Horrible.
Alright, now for some more spiritual information.
There are miracles happening in our zone this Christmas season. Our zone has a goal of reaching 94 baptisms during 2010. Two months ago that looked like it was only going to be a dream. Lately however, things have changed and we are now hoping to surpass that and reach the century mark. Our missionaries have stepped things up and I am way excited with the way things are happening. We will be having a baptism this Sunday. Kathy Black will be baptized then. She is still doing great. We will be finishing everything up this week and getting her baptismal interview taken care of. (I almost cried with joy when she answered no to every part of question number 4 of the interview questions!) We have also been teaching another part member family named the Foulks. They are so awesome! Zach has been a member for about 10 years and his wife, Trish, has been coming to church with him consistently for the past year. She just recently opened up to having us over right after they had their first baby. We have been teaching her, and yesterday she asked us what needs to happen to get baptized. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her and she answered all of them perfectly. When we asked her the last question, "When you are baptized you covenant with God that you are willing to take upon yourself the name of Christ and keep His commandments throughout your life. Are you ready to make this covenant and strive to be faithful to it?" she answered yes. Zach started crying, Trish started crying, and I was just grinning from ear to ear. Trish is ready to be baptized and she has realized that she is ready. There are a couple things that need to happen before we can schedule a date, but that's all going to be worked out. The steps are being made to get them to the Temple and be sealed as a family. I couldn't be happier for them.
Last night while I was watching the Christmas devotional I really felt the Spirit. I love our leaders. President Monson is such a wonderful man and I felt the Spirit witness to me again that he really is the prophet. The music from Motab and the Orchestra brought tears to my eyes (also, dang! who's that super skinny guy playing trumpet in there! wow!). One day I hope to be able to participate in something like that. The goosebumps on my skin reminded me of why I love music. I can feel the Spirit so much through it.
Mom, I've started going to therapy for my shoulder. From the way my shoulder is, it looks like I did dislocate my shoulder back at the beginning of my mission and I tore my labrum. My therapy is focusing on strengthening my rotator-cuff to compensate for the looseness in the joint. I'm not currently a surgery candidate although it is a possibility that I'll need it in the future. I haven't experienced any pain from the therapy and my shoulder is feeling better than it has in a long time. My therapist is pleased with how things are going.
I think that is everything for the week. I hope everything is going well back home. By the way, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Spencer for the package a few weeks ago. I appreciated it. Kasey, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been feeling too well lately. It sounds like Thanksgiving was rather eventful. You are in my prayers and I hope things get better.
I love you all! Be Mighty!
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. It sounds to me like my parents might be getting a little anxious??? I don't know what the deal is, it's only been 2 years since I've seen you. : ) Also, will I be getting released right after I get home? That would play an important part in whether or not I'm going to be watching a football game with you... ; )
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Transfer Time!
Okey dokey then. Sorry I forgot to mention last week that this week's email would be late due to transfers. The news of transfers was very surprising to a lot of us. E. Winslow and myself are staying together again. We both thought for sure that he would be leaving and I would be training a new Elder from Cambodia. I guess something came up that we don't know about. We've known for about 3 months that there would be a new Elder from Cambodia coming, and we assumed that I would be training him cause all the other Cambodian Elder's have trained already. But, I guess assumptions aren't the way to go. haha. But yeah, this will be 5 transfers with E. Winslow. Crazy stuff.
Well, this week was not as eventful as the last one was, but it was still a good one. Peter and Jose are doing great. They are both very excited to be baptized and are both still shooting for December 12th as the date. I'm so excited to see both of them get baptized. It's going to be awesome. Our ward has done an amazing job at fellowshipping them too. I don't know why it is, but our ward is super great at that, and I love it! Peter has been involved with the YM a lot already, and both he and Jose have been invited to dinners with families in the ward. Peter was at our ward Turkey Bowl too and had a lot of fun. (I was the QB for my team, and I tore it up! 7 TD's and 2 ints. Pretty good game. haha) We are done with the first 3 lessons and have some of the commandments left to teach them. It's really cool to see how well both of them are progressing.
Thanksgiving was awesome too. We had our Turkey Bowl at 8:00 am, so it was FREEZING, but it was so much fun. Peter came out and played with us along with about 30 other people, lots of whom I don't know, but are friends of ward members. It was a blast. We had 2 eating appointments, and luckily they were 4 1/2 hours apart, so it wasn't too bad. The first one was actually with Jose and his mom and sister, who are in the ward. He is Liz' brother (the one you asked about on FB, Mom) Dinner there was great. There was lots of food, and we had a great time, plus it was an unplanned lesson to Jose, so it was great. Our other dinner was with the family we live above, and the other family we live behind. It was great too. They are Guatemalan, so the food was a bit on the spanish side, but it was SO good. The stuffing in the turkey had like cornbread, and TONS of bacon, and all sorts of amazing-ness. I enjoyed that thoroughly. And they had some good old pumpkin pie too. mmmmmmmm. It was a good day.
By the way Mom, I talked to Danielle about you talking to her on FB. She said she thinks you are funny like me. haha. That's about all she said, except for "I can't remember" haha. Also, thanks very much for the package, Grandma & Grandpa Spencer! It was so great to open that up and see all that jerky and pinenuts. Thanks a lot!
I think I'm out of stuff to say now. I look forward to getting letters from lots of people for Christmas..... Oh yeah, and I was pretty bummed when I heard the BYU score. ugh. oh well. Alright. We're going to hang out in Boston today, so that'll be cool. I'm excited. Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Well, this week was not as eventful as the last one was, but it was still a good one. Peter and Jose are doing great. They are both very excited to be baptized and are both still shooting for December 12th as the date. I'm so excited to see both of them get baptized. It's going to be awesome. Our ward has done an amazing job at fellowshipping them too. I don't know why it is, but our ward is super great at that, and I love it! Peter has been involved with the YM a lot already, and both he and Jose have been invited to dinners with families in the ward. Peter was at our ward Turkey Bowl too and had a lot of fun. (I was the QB for my team, and I tore it up! 7 TD's and 2 ints. Pretty good game. haha) We are done with the first 3 lessons and have some of the commandments left to teach them. It's really cool to see how well both of them are progressing.
Thanksgiving was awesome too. We had our Turkey Bowl at 8:00 am, so it was FREEZING, but it was so much fun. Peter came out and played with us along with about 30 other people, lots of whom I don't know, but are friends of ward members. It was a blast. We had 2 eating appointments, and luckily they were 4 1/2 hours apart, so it wasn't too bad. The first one was actually with Jose and his mom and sister, who are in the ward. He is Liz' brother (the one you asked about on FB, Mom) Dinner there was great. There was lots of food, and we had a great time, plus it was an unplanned lesson to Jose, so it was great. Our other dinner was with the family we live above, and the other family we live behind. It was great too. They are Guatemalan, so the food was a bit on the spanish side, but it was SO good. The stuffing in the turkey had like cornbread, and TONS of bacon, and all sorts of amazing-ness. I enjoyed that thoroughly. And they had some good old pumpkin pie too. mmmmmmmm. It was a good day.
By the way Mom, I talked to Danielle about you talking to her on FB. She said she thinks you are funny like me. haha. That's about all she said, except for "I can't remember" haha. Also, thanks very much for the package, Grandma & Grandpa Spencer! It was so great to open that up and see all that jerky and pinenuts. Thanks a lot!
I think I'm out of stuff to say now. I look forward to getting letters from lots of people for Christmas..... Oh yeah, and I was pretty bummed when I heard the BYU score. ugh. oh well. Alright. We're going to hang out in Boston today, so that'll be cool. I'm excited. Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Thanksgiving Over Already?
Our Thanksgiving this past week was great. We ate at Shane and Dusty's house. They are recent converts who were baptized about a month before I came to this area. I don't know how much I've told you about them, so here's a quick description. First off, I love them a ton. Dusty is Shane's mom and she is so awesome! She is one of the most giving people I have ever met. She will take care of the needs of others before she takes care of her own. Shane is about 25 years old, weighs about 500 lbs, has a bunch of disorders, and is hilarious. He's pretty loud and he likes attention, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone eat so much in my life. Apparently Shane has this disorder that makes it so his body doesn't tell him when he is full and he doesn't actually need to eat as much as everyone else either. Bad combination. I think it's called Praeder-Willy (sp??) Syndrome. Needless to say, he's a big dude with a big heart. Every time we bring a new missionary over to their home he grabs them in a bear hug and picks them up off of the floor. Shane and Dusty have a friend living with them right now as well. Her name is Tammy. She has been a less-active member for a little while, but she's been coming to church with Dusty. All three of them have health challenges, and then when you throw in the other people that came to dinner, our investigators the Burtons (Debbie has been in the hospital for the past 3 weeks and her husband Walter is basically waiting to die because he has a bad heart), you get a house full of people who might be a little more appreciative of the resurrection when it happens. The food was really good and their was a lot of it. I was grateful that the Hmong missionaries went to Shane and Dusty's the day before and scrubbed the carpets - which are saturated with 9 dogs and 2 cats worth of animal stench... I could actually smell the food instead of the animals. We all had a good time and I felt gratitude at being counted a part of "the family." I am going to miss them.
The miracle of the past week involves a part member family we are teaching. I'll give you the rundown. Last Sunday we met with the Blacks. Bro. Black is a member, but just recently started coming back to church after 30 years of inactivity. His wife is not a member and we have been meeting with the two of them teaching them about the Gospel. Sis. Black has told us in the past that she is interested in the church, but that she wants to take things really slow to make sure that she is doing things for the right reasons. She has said that she planned on getting baptized, but she didn't know when it would be. On Sunday we had a typical visit. They hadn't read from the Book of Mormon in a while, so we decided to read with them. We chose Mosiah 18. As we started to read, I had the thought that I needed to commit Sis. Black to be baptized. Generally I am not nervous to commit someone, but for whatever reason, I was dieing that night. I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to ask her even though there were a million rationalizations running through my mind as to why it would be better to wait. After we finished the chapter and discussed a few things, I asked Sis. Black a couple questions to judge better what her feelings were about everything. After explaining about the Spirit and telling her that sometimes the Spirit prompts us to do things we aren't comfortable doing, I said that I felt that I needed to ask her something. I gave her the commitment then and she answered with a maybe. We talked about that for a bit, and then I asked her to prepare herself to be baptized on January 1st. She was saying no before the words were out of my mouth. "That is way too soon. There is no way that I could do that." My heart sank a little bit at that and we came away from our lesson wondering what in the world we were going to do to help her realize that she is ready. Well, we didn't have to do anything.
Two days later we got a phone call from Brother Black. He said he had some good news. He told us that he would be advancing in the Aaronic Priesthood to the office of Priest in two Sundays. He also said that his wife had decided that she needed to be baptized and that he would be able to do it!!!!!!!! Holy Cow!! I couldn't believe it when I heard it! Somehow, something changed in those two days. The Spirit worked on Sis. Black and helped her come to the understanding that she was ready. We met with them the next day and scheduled her baptism for Dec. 12th. : D!! I really didn't think that I was going to see any of my current investigators get baptized before I left, but that's not going to be the case now. Sis. Black is on her way to the waters and I couldn't be happier for her!
Good things are happening every day. I'm trying so hard to do my best. I do feel that I'm starting to understand my purpose as a missionary better and I can see the things that need to be done to have success. Consequently, my flaws and imperfections have never been so glaring. The Atonement is such a wonderful blessing. I'd go crazy if I didn't know how to change.
Well, that's it for now. We'll have plenty of time to get caught up in the near future. By the way, is there any way that we could get to the temple first thing when I come home? I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it again before I come home and I would greatly appreciate some time to think before I jump back into life. Let me know what works.
Have another great week! As always, I love you all. Be Mighty!
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. I heard about the BYU Utah game... my comps a Utah fan... thankfully he's not totally crazy... Also, I heard the Jazz beat the Lakers. Sweet! And, TCU's leaving the Mtn. West? Could've seen that one coming. I wonder what Boise St. thinks of that one? Go TCU! (Where's BYU going for a bowl game??)
The miracle of the past week involves a part member family we are teaching. I'll give you the rundown. Last Sunday we met with the Blacks. Bro. Black is a member, but just recently started coming back to church after 30 years of inactivity. His wife is not a member and we have been meeting with the two of them teaching them about the Gospel. Sis. Black has told us in the past that she is interested in the church, but that she wants to take things really slow to make sure that she is doing things for the right reasons. She has said that she planned on getting baptized, but she didn't know when it would be. On Sunday we had a typical visit. They hadn't read from the Book of Mormon in a while, so we decided to read with them. We chose Mosiah 18. As we started to read, I had the thought that I needed to commit Sis. Black to be baptized. Generally I am not nervous to commit someone, but for whatever reason, I was dieing that night. I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to ask her even though there were a million rationalizations running through my mind as to why it would be better to wait. After we finished the chapter and discussed a few things, I asked Sis. Black a couple questions to judge better what her feelings were about everything. After explaining about the Spirit and telling her that sometimes the Spirit prompts us to do things we aren't comfortable doing, I said that I felt that I needed to ask her something. I gave her the commitment then and she answered with a maybe. We talked about that for a bit, and then I asked her to prepare herself to be baptized on January 1st. She was saying no before the words were out of my mouth. "That is way too soon. There is no way that I could do that." My heart sank a little bit at that and we came away from our lesson wondering what in the world we were going to do to help her realize that she is ready. Well, we didn't have to do anything.
Two days later we got a phone call from Brother Black. He said he had some good news. He told us that he would be advancing in the Aaronic Priesthood to the office of Priest in two Sundays. He also said that his wife had decided that she needed to be baptized and that he would be able to do it!!!!!!!! Holy Cow!! I couldn't believe it when I heard it! Somehow, something changed in those two days. The Spirit worked on Sis. Black and helped her come to the understanding that she was ready. We met with them the next day and scheduled her baptism for Dec. 12th. : D!! I really didn't think that I was going to see any of my current investigators get baptized before I left, but that's not going to be the case now. Sis. Black is on her way to the waters and I couldn't be happier for her!
Good things are happening every day. I'm trying so hard to do my best. I do feel that I'm starting to understand my purpose as a missionary better and I can see the things that need to be done to have success. Consequently, my flaws and imperfections have never been so glaring. The Atonement is such a wonderful blessing. I'd go crazy if I didn't know how to change.
Well, that's it for now. We'll have plenty of time to get caught up in the near future. By the way, is there any way that we could get to the temple first thing when I come home? I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it again before I come home and I would greatly appreciate some time to think before I jump back into life. Let me know what works.
Have another great week! As always, I love you all. Be Mighty!
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. I heard about the BYU Utah game... my comps a Utah fan... thankfully he's not totally crazy... Also, I heard the Jazz beat the Lakers. Sweet! And, TCU's leaving the Mtn. West? Could've seen that one coming. I wonder what Boise St. thinks of that one? Go TCU! (Where's BYU going for a bowl game??)
Friday, November 26, 2010
Weekly Email
Once again it's time for another weekly email.
We experienced a miracle in our zone this past week. One of the companionships serving here found 6 new investigators and set 6 new baptismal dates! 5 of those people are a part of the same family. We got a phone call a couple of nights ago from Elder Heath. He said that he'd just had one of the best experiences of his mission. Apparently, he and his companion had met a man on the street and spoke with him for about 45 minutes. This man told them that recently he and his wife had come to the conclusion that they had a hole in their lives (sound familiar my fellow PMG study-ers?) and that it was because they weren't attending a church. The missionaries were able to set a return appointment to meet with the whole family. They taught them about the Book of Mormon and invited Kelly Roberts, the father in the family, to offer a kneeling prayer at the end of the lesson to ask if it was true. Elder Heath said that during the prayer, Kelly told Heavenly Father that he felt "that the Mormon religion is the way to go." The Spirit was there and everyone felt it. Elder Heath said it was very powerful. Following the prayer, the missionaries committed the family members to be baptized on December 11th and each one of them said yes! This all took place in the first teaching appointment. How awesome is that?! I admit, I'm a little jealous of the missionaries being able to have such a sweet experience, but in a good way. I'm thrilled that this has happened right in our own zone. The family made it to church yesterday and things are going well!
We had a miracle in our ward as well. For the past couple of months we have been planning a finding activity that would involve the entire ward. Until just now, this has been a never-ending source of headaches and stress as we've tried to push and pull our ward members to step up and do something beneficial. We presented the idea of having a sort of cultural night to our Ward Mission Leader back in August or September. He basically laughed at us and told us it would never work in our ward. (Great support, huh?) To make a long story short, the person who took our idea and made it happen was the Bishop's wife. She loved it, and if it wasn't for her, there would have been no way this would have ever taken place. So, on Saturday night we had what we called the Pacific Rim Festival. Our ward has a good representation from island countries and Asian countries, so that was our theme. We had all kinds of different foods and Polynesian, Hmong, and Japanese entertainment. Our bishop even did a karate presentation and broke a bunch of boards. It was SWEET! Bishop is a stud. Following the food and entertainment we had a chapel tour. Each of the leaders in the ward shared briefly about their organization and how it helps us come closer to Christ. We ended the chapel tour in the chapel where you could really feel the Spirit. Out of the 300+ people who came for the food and entertainment only about 60 of them stayed for the chapel tour. I wasn't happy with our members for ditching out on us. Thankfully though there were a few who have a better sense of what is right and wrong and decided to stay. We also had a decent number of non-members and less-actives who came to the event and stayed for the tour. The miracle is that it actually happened and that the ward leaders worked together to make it happen. Even if we had no non-members show up, the fact that there was teamwork involved and that it took place is a miracle in this ward. If my ward can do something like this, any ward can. We have had great feedback on the activity and I really feel that it boosted morale amongst the members. For those that invited their friends and were able to do some missionary work, they are being blessed tremendously. We just might begin teaching some of those friends here shortly as well. We shall see.
I think that is it for this week. We are going to have Thanksgiving with some recent converts in our ward this week. It should be a party. Hope everybody has a good week! Be mighty!
Love you!
Elder J. Hammer
We experienced a miracle in our zone this past week. One of the companionships serving here found 6 new investigators and set 6 new baptismal dates! 5 of those people are a part of the same family. We got a phone call a couple of nights ago from Elder Heath. He said that he'd just had one of the best experiences of his mission. Apparently, he and his companion had met a man on the street and spoke with him for about 45 minutes. This man told them that recently he and his wife had come to the conclusion that they had a hole in their lives (sound familiar my fellow PMG study-ers?) and that it was because they weren't attending a church. The missionaries were able to set a return appointment to meet with the whole family. They taught them about the Book of Mormon and invited Kelly Roberts, the father in the family, to offer a kneeling prayer at the end of the lesson to ask if it was true. Elder Heath said that during the prayer, Kelly told Heavenly Father that he felt "that the Mormon religion is the way to go." The Spirit was there and everyone felt it. Elder Heath said it was very powerful. Following the prayer, the missionaries committed the family members to be baptized on December 11th and each one of them said yes! This all took place in the first teaching appointment. How awesome is that?! I admit, I'm a little jealous of the missionaries being able to have such a sweet experience, but in a good way. I'm thrilled that this has happened right in our own zone. The family made it to church yesterday and things are going well!
We had a miracle in our ward as well. For the past couple of months we have been planning a finding activity that would involve the entire ward. Until just now, this has been a never-ending source of headaches and stress as we've tried to push and pull our ward members to step up and do something beneficial. We presented the idea of having a sort of cultural night to our Ward Mission Leader back in August or September. He basically laughed at us and told us it would never work in our ward. (Great support, huh?) To make a long story short, the person who took our idea and made it happen was the Bishop's wife. She loved it, and if it wasn't for her, there would have been no way this would have ever taken place. So, on Saturday night we had what we called the Pacific Rim Festival. Our ward has a good representation from island countries and Asian countries, so that was our theme. We had all kinds of different foods and Polynesian, Hmong, and Japanese entertainment. Our bishop even did a karate presentation and broke a bunch of boards. It was SWEET! Bishop is a stud. Following the food and entertainment we had a chapel tour. Each of the leaders in the ward shared briefly about their organization and how it helps us come closer to Christ. We ended the chapel tour in the chapel where you could really feel the Spirit. Out of the 300+ people who came for the food and entertainment only about 60 of them stayed for the chapel tour. I wasn't happy with our members for ditching out on us. Thankfully though there were a few who have a better sense of what is right and wrong and decided to stay. We also had a decent number of non-members and less-actives who came to the event and stayed for the tour. The miracle is that it actually happened and that the ward leaders worked together to make it happen. Even if we had no non-members show up, the fact that there was teamwork involved and that it took place is a miracle in this ward. If my ward can do something like this, any ward can. We have had great feedback on the activity and I really feel that it boosted morale amongst the members. For those that invited their friends and were able to do some missionary work, they are being blessed tremendously. We just might begin teaching some of those friends here shortly as well. We shall see.
I think that is it for this week. We are going to have Thanksgiving with some recent converts in our ward this week. It should be a party. Hope everybody has a good week! Be mighty!
Love you!
Elder J. Hammer
Amazing Week
Well, what can I say? This week was awesome. Probably one of the best I've had so far in the mission. I guess I'll start by wishing everybody a happy Thanksgiving this week, that way I don't forget to do it later. haha. Alrighty then; so last week I told you about Peter. He is one of many parts of why this week was so great. We met with him last Sunday, and taught him the Restoration. That was when he told us he'd need to think about getting baptized. Well, we met with him again on Wednesday, and it was a great lesson again. We had given him 3 Nephi 11 to read about baptism, and he told us that after he had read the chapter, he felt that it was something he needs to do, so he prayed and felt the same way! We told him that was the Holy Ghost confirming that these things are true to him. We also set a date for his baptism on the 12th of December. We then taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved that. He told us that he had no idea about where we came from or what happens after life, so he fully accepts the Plan of Salvation now. He committed to come to church with us on sunday too, which he did. He had a great time there too. I sat with him during Sacrament meeting, and he was asking me questions about things. It was a really good meeting too. The speakers were great. We took him to the Gospel Principles class for the second hour. The lesson there was on the Gathering of the House of Israel. I'm not sure if he got too much out of it, but that's ok. haha. Then we took him to Priesthood. He had chosen to go to the adult sunday school class, but we wanted him to go with the YM for Priesthood. It was a great lesson there too. I feel like church was just perfect for him. haha. They talked about the duties of teachers in the priesthood, and then they said that they were going to go fulfill their duties, and visit the YM who weren't there. So, Peter went with them! I can't say that I would do the same if it was my first time ever at church. But, he had a good time, and said that he will definitely be back next week. He also told us that Harry Potter 7 is amazing too :)
Next up would be a man named Jose Monteiro. He is a member referral, who is also the son of one of our members in the ward. I was a bit nervous about getting a referral from this particular family because we just found out that the last referral they gave us is dead now... But that's a different story. Jose is great. He is in his thirties (at least I'm assuming he is - he has a 17 year old son) and he is looking for more in his life. He is divorced, and his kids live in Florida. He wants to be a better father to them, and he says that he's seen the blessings that have come to his mom and sister, who are the members in our ward. He is staying with a few of the other members in our ward, rather than with his mom, and that's where we taught him. We went over the Restoration and he had no problems with it. He said he'd be at church, and he also accepted a baptismal date for December 12! He had a good time at church too. In Elder's quorum when he introduced himself, he said "Hi I'm Jose, and hopefully I'll join and be here for a long time"!!! Wow, that was cool, everybody in priesthood liked that too.
You might remember me talking about Leandro a while back. Well, we talked to him again, and he wants to continue learning. He is in some pretty deep depression right now, and oddly enough, the cause of his depression is that he has tried and failed twice at being baptized. He is sincerely interested, but his commitment level is pretty low. We met with him last friday and he basically told us that he wants to try again. We taught him the Restoration again, and talked alot about faith, and shared with him from Alma 36 about not focusing on the past, but focusing on right now. He seemed like our discussion helped, and he said that he'd be at church, and he also accepted a baptismal date for the 12th! Too bad he actually didn't come to church. That was a bummer. He was so sincere when we were talking to him, but I guess we'll see what happened. At least he texted us and told us that he wasn't in Boston, but would call us when he gets back... Hopefully that is soon. But, I think as long as he is willing to put in the effort that is needed, he will be able to make it this time. He just needs to realize that himself.
Also, just yesterday, we met a man named Nicholas. He has apparently met with the missionaries before. He invited us in and we started teaching him about the Restoration as well. He is a very religious man, and is really interested in our church. The only problem is when we got into his house, I had a Book of Mormon in my hand, and he's like "That book right there is my only problem. If it wasn't for that book, I would have been a Mormon 15 years ago." Ummm, yeah that's a problem. haha. He doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon, or Joseph Smith, and it completely blew his mind when I showed him a picture of President Monson and told him that he is the Prophet on the earth today. That was the most animated reaction to that I've ever had. He was honestly speechless, and basically ended the lesson after that happened. But, he said he would be more serious about it this time, and he committed to read from the Book of Mormon, and we set up a return appointment for next Wednesday, which is when we are meeting with both Peter and Jose again too. Oh, and we extended a baptismal date to him, but he didn't accept it yet.
Well, that was 4 things that really made this week amazing. You might think that's everything I've got, but I have one more thing. On Saturday, we got to go to the temple to watch one of the families in our ward get sealed. It's been just over a year since the wife got baptized, and they have been working ever since then to get to the temple. It was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. I was so excited when they invited us to go with them. I've never seen a live sealing before, so that was cool to see. Another cool part about it was that the sealer is in our ward too. There were about 25 people there, all from our ward, and it was easily one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I've ever had. It was amazing. Especially cause they have a 4 year old daughter, who is one of the coolest little girls I've ever met. It was actually her birthday. Cool present, huh? But it was a very special experience and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to be part of it.
So I think this email is long enough now, so I'll wrap it up. Mom, yes I would like a conference ensign. We get one to share, but having my own would be nice. Question: In the back of the ensign, it has some comments from families about things they do to keep conference with them, One of them under FHE suggestions says Vern and Jennifer from Utah. I thought that was cool, if its who I'm thinking it is. Alrighty then, I'd best be going now. Hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. GO BYU!!!!!!!! If BYU beats utah, and tcu goes to a BCS game, would BYU go to the Vegas bowl again? just wondering. bye
Next up would be a man named Jose Monteiro. He is a member referral, who is also the son of one of our members in the ward. I was a bit nervous about getting a referral from this particular family because we just found out that the last referral they gave us is dead now... But that's a different story. Jose is great. He is in his thirties (at least I'm assuming he is - he has a 17 year old son) and he is looking for more in his life. He is divorced, and his kids live in Florida. He wants to be a better father to them, and he says that he's seen the blessings that have come to his mom and sister, who are the members in our ward. He is staying with a few of the other members in our ward, rather than with his mom, and that's where we taught him. We went over the Restoration and he had no problems with it. He said he'd be at church, and he also accepted a baptismal date for December 12! He had a good time at church too. In Elder's quorum when he introduced himself, he said "Hi I'm Jose, and hopefully I'll join and be here for a long time"!!! Wow, that was cool, everybody in priesthood liked that too.
You might remember me talking about Leandro a while back. Well, we talked to him again, and he wants to continue learning. He is in some pretty deep depression right now, and oddly enough, the cause of his depression is that he has tried and failed twice at being baptized. He is sincerely interested, but his commitment level is pretty low. We met with him last friday and he basically told us that he wants to try again. We taught him the Restoration again, and talked alot about faith, and shared with him from Alma 36 about not focusing on the past, but focusing on right now. He seemed like our discussion helped, and he said that he'd be at church, and he also accepted a baptismal date for the 12th! Too bad he actually didn't come to church. That was a bummer. He was so sincere when we were talking to him, but I guess we'll see what happened. At least he texted us and told us that he wasn't in Boston, but would call us when he gets back... Hopefully that is soon. But, I think as long as he is willing to put in the effort that is needed, he will be able to make it this time. He just needs to realize that himself.
Also, just yesterday, we met a man named Nicholas. He has apparently met with the missionaries before. He invited us in and we started teaching him about the Restoration as well. He is a very religious man, and is really interested in our church. The only problem is when we got into his house, I had a Book of Mormon in my hand, and he's like "That book right there is my only problem. If it wasn't for that book, I would have been a Mormon 15 years ago." Ummm, yeah that's a problem. haha. He doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon, or Joseph Smith, and it completely blew his mind when I showed him a picture of President Monson and told him that he is the Prophet on the earth today. That was the most animated reaction to that I've ever had. He was honestly speechless, and basically ended the lesson after that happened. But, he said he would be more serious about it this time, and he committed to read from the Book of Mormon, and we set up a return appointment for next Wednesday, which is when we are meeting with both Peter and Jose again too. Oh, and we extended a baptismal date to him, but he didn't accept it yet.
Well, that was 4 things that really made this week amazing. You might think that's everything I've got, but I have one more thing. On Saturday, we got to go to the temple to watch one of the families in our ward get sealed. It's been just over a year since the wife got baptized, and they have been working ever since then to get to the temple. It was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. I was so excited when they invited us to go with them. I've never seen a live sealing before, so that was cool to see. Another cool part about it was that the sealer is in our ward too. There were about 25 people there, all from our ward, and it was easily one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I've ever had. It was amazing. Especially cause they have a 4 year old daughter, who is one of the coolest little girls I've ever met. It was actually her birthday. Cool present, huh? But it was a very special experience and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to be part of it.
So I think this email is long enough now, so I'll wrap it up. Mom, yes I would like a conference ensign. We get one to share, but having my own would be nice. Question: In the back of the ensign, it has some comments from families about things they do to keep conference with them, One of them under FHE suggestions says Vern and Jennifer from Utah. I thought that was cool, if its who I'm thinking it is. Alrighty then, I'd best be going now. Hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. GO BYU!!!!!!!! If BYU beats utah, and tcu goes to a BCS game, would BYU go to the Vegas bowl again? just wondering. bye
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Half Mission Tour
Sorry about not getting an email off to you yesterday, our P-Day was moved to today because of Half Mission Conference. It was incredible! Elder Malm from the Seventy came (he spoke in GC in October). There was so much that we talked about and my brain was basically fried by the end of the day. Elder and Sister Malm are wonderful people. Their testiomonies are powerful. Sister Malm spoke about how we may never really know the outcome of the things we are doing now as missionaries. She is the kind of person that you just instantly love. You could really tell that she is humble and has a sincere concern for the welfare of the people that are around her.
Elder Malm is an incredible teacher. He is also a really funny guy. He kept cracking jokes about him being a Swede, and he'd joke around with the Elders and Sisters that commented on different things. I learned so much. He started the meeting by telling us that in his associations with Elder Bednar, he has heard Elder Bednar say that one of the desires he has for us as members of the church is to stop referring to our meetings as meetings. They are instead revelatory experiences where we have the opportunity to be taught by the teacher, the Spirit. Throughout our conference, Elder Malm frequently would remind us that we were there to be taught by the Holy Ghost, and he would ask us to share the promptings and impressions we were receiving. On a side note - I find it interesting that the exact same people are the ones who comment on just about everything whenever we get together in a group setting. Anyways, I had many thoughts come to my mind, and I could feel the Spirit communicating to me in regards to the specific circumstances I am in.
One thing in particular that really stuck out to me was when we discussed the importance of positive thinking. (I find it funny that there are business executives throughout the world who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training their employees on topics almost exactly similar to many of the ones we discuss in our conferences) Elder Malm asked us a rhetorical question: "We are taught in the scriptures that all things that are good come from our Heavenly Father. Whose errand are we on then if we entertain negative thoughts towards others, or participate in speaking and acting negatively to those we serve?" I've been thinking a lot about that. I can definitely improve in this area.
Overall, yesterday was an experience that I won't forget. It's tradition in our mission that at the end of lunch the missionaries sing our mission song to the relief society sisters that provided our meal. With this being a Half Mission Conference, half of the missionaries in the mission were there - about 100. Sister Pendleton has been asking me to play the mission song at our meetings for the past year or so, and I really love doing it. This time was pretty neat being able to accompany so many missionaries. The piano was sliding away from me a little bit during the song on the hardwood floor in the cultural hall, though. I'll play the mission song for you when I get home. I've got my own arrangement of it that I sometimes play that has a keychange in it. I didn't dare throw that in yesterday in fear that the missionaries wouldn't be able to follow it and it would just sound bad. : )
My bike is going to be coming to Provo this week. There is a member in my ward that has volunteered to take it back there with his family when they leave on Wednesday (haleluja!). He's going to drop it off at his relative's home somewhere in Provo and then I'll get you their phone number so you can coordinate a time to pick it up. Thanks for being so kind to do that for me! Ha! ; ) This is going to save me about a 100 bucks. Also, I was wondering if Brother Henrie ever dropped off my box that I sent with him back in September. I remember you mentioned that he had tried to contact you, but I never heard if you actually got my stuff. Let me know please. There wasn't much, just a box and my overcoat I think.
That's about it for this week. Things are going well. The weather jumped back up to the mid to upper 70's recently and it was even in the mid 80's a couple days ago. The rains still haven't started. I'm not complaining about it either! We picked up a new investigator last week as well. It's about time.
Thanks for everything. Mom, you said that I only had like 80 dollars in my account? Is that all the money I have left over total? And, I did get the pics with the letters last week. Looks like you had a bunch of fun! I hope everyone has a good week! Be Mighty!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Go Jazz! Milsap is a beast! Also, tomorrow is month 23, just in case you'd forgotten... : )
Elder Malm is an incredible teacher. He is also a really funny guy. He kept cracking jokes about him being a Swede, and he'd joke around with the Elders and Sisters that commented on different things. I learned so much. He started the meeting by telling us that in his associations with Elder Bednar, he has heard Elder Bednar say that one of the desires he has for us as members of the church is to stop referring to our meetings as meetings. They are instead revelatory experiences where we have the opportunity to be taught by the teacher, the Spirit. Throughout our conference, Elder Malm frequently would remind us that we were there to be taught by the Holy Ghost, and he would ask us to share the promptings and impressions we were receiving. On a side note - I find it interesting that the exact same people are the ones who comment on just about everything whenever we get together in a group setting. Anyways, I had many thoughts come to my mind, and I could feel the Spirit communicating to me in regards to the specific circumstances I am in.
One thing in particular that really stuck out to me was when we discussed the importance of positive thinking. (I find it funny that there are business executives throughout the world who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training their employees on topics almost exactly similar to many of the ones we discuss in our conferences) Elder Malm asked us a rhetorical question: "We are taught in the scriptures that all things that are good come from our Heavenly Father. Whose errand are we on then if we entertain negative thoughts towards others, or participate in speaking and acting negatively to those we serve?" I've been thinking a lot about that. I can definitely improve in this area.
Overall, yesterday was an experience that I won't forget. It's tradition in our mission that at the end of lunch the missionaries sing our mission song to the relief society sisters that provided our meal. With this being a Half Mission Conference, half of the missionaries in the mission were there - about 100. Sister Pendleton has been asking me to play the mission song at our meetings for the past year or so, and I really love doing it. This time was pretty neat being able to accompany so many missionaries. The piano was sliding away from me a little bit during the song on the hardwood floor in the cultural hall, though. I'll play the mission song for you when I get home. I've got my own arrangement of it that I sometimes play that has a keychange in it. I didn't dare throw that in yesterday in fear that the missionaries wouldn't be able to follow it and it would just sound bad. : )
My bike is going to be coming to Provo this week. There is a member in my ward that has volunteered to take it back there with his family when they leave on Wednesday (haleluja!). He's going to drop it off at his relative's home somewhere in Provo and then I'll get you their phone number so you can coordinate a time to pick it up. Thanks for being so kind to do that for me! Ha! ; ) This is going to save me about a 100 bucks. Also, I was wondering if Brother Henrie ever dropped off my box that I sent with him back in September. I remember you mentioned that he had tried to contact you, but I never heard if you actually got my stuff. Let me know please. There wasn't much, just a box and my overcoat I think.
That's about it for this week. Things are going well. The weather jumped back up to the mid to upper 70's recently and it was even in the mid 80's a couple days ago. The rains still haven't started. I'm not complaining about it either! We picked up a new investigator last week as well. It's about time.
Thanks for everything. Mom, you said that I only had like 80 dollars in my account? Is that all the money I have left over total? And, I did get the pics with the letters last week. Looks like you had a bunch of fun! I hope everyone has a good week! Be Mighty!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Go Jazz! Milsap is a beast! Also, tomorrow is month 23, just in case you'd forgotten... : )
Still No Snow
Hi everybody! How are you? I'm doing pretty well myself. This week was pretty cool. I have to agree with the most recent email from E. Gluch and say that the weeks are becoming blurs and it's tough to remember everything that goes on. It never ceases to amaze me how time can keep going faster and faster every week, but it definitely seems like it does.
Well, first things first. Yesterday was Bryan's confirmation. It went very well. I got to stand in the circle with him, which was very cool. His mom, who was at church for the first time in years last week, was there again. Hopefully she was able to feel a special spirit and want to come back every week. I really feel that Bryan is going to be a big help with getting his family back to church. Sacrament meeting was so good yesterday too, because it was also the Primary Program. Bryan's mom had bought him a new suit last week for his baptism, and yesterday, his two little brothers were in new suits as well. That was pretty cool. THe program was awesome. It had all of the typical shy kids, loud scream-in-the-mic kids, and the one kid that is like 4 and knows all of the Articles of Faith, and basically gave a 5 minute talk about faith. That was pretty funny. He was also the one that sang the loudest. It was a great meeting. The last song they sang was such a cool song. I don't know what it's called, and I don't think I've ever heard it before, but it was amazing. The Spirit was so strong. Made me kinda miss being in primary. haha.
So I also got your letters about Disneyworld. Sounds like that was pretty fun, huh? That's cool. I am glad to hear that you all had a great time and want to go back, but I am in very strong opposition for the idea of going next Thanksgiving. That is definitely a bad idea. I don't think you could stand to go there twice without me. I think you would have more fun if you waited til like St. Patricks day or something, that way I could come along. But anyway, I'm happy you had fun. Good to hear that Coby's nursing skills are paying off too ;)
Now that Bryan is a member and everything, we are short on investigators. We met with Mike yesterday after church, but that was uneventful, except that we dropped him. That stinks. He had a pack of cigarettes on his table when we walked in, and he tried covering them up, and then told us that he had had some company over, and the cigarettes weren't his. yeah... But, we had to drop him cause he said he is an unbeliever, and won't find a way to get to church by himself rather than making us set up a ride for him every week. He needs to be independent. So we dropped him, but we also picked up a new investigator lastnight as well. His name is Peter and he is a pretty cool guy. He is a senior in High School, and his best friend of like 15 years named Brittany, is a Mormon, and apparently just moved to Lindon, UT. That's cool. But, he told us that he is curious to find out what she believes in. We talked to him on the phone about a week and a half ago, and he said that he was super busy, but that he could call us back this weekend. He actually did call us back, so that was the first of many good signs. We took one of our members with us to the lesson and taught him about the restoration. It was a really good lesson. I feel like Peter understood all of it, and was very willing to accept the commitments we extended to him. He said he needed some time to think about baptism, so he didn't accept a date yet, but I feel that he will very soon. I'm excited to work with him and help him to progress in the Gospel.
And, that's about all's I got for this week. The weather again decided to go back up near 60 last week, but today is colder and looks like we might get some rain. Probably not snow yet, but it'll be here soon enough. Mom, in answer to your questions about the girls on facebook, Danielle is Bro. Buckley's daughter. She's 12 and is pretty cool. I bet she was pretty weirded out that it was you, not me. I'll have to ask her about it. And Liz is another of our member's daughters. She is currently on break from BYU-Idaho, and is staying with her mom out here. She's pretty cool too. I didn't even know she had added me on there, but I guess she did.
I was also very happy to hear that BYU crushed CSU. But I think I was even more happy to hear that Utah got beat up again. haha. That's so great. Good stuff. By the way, if you're wondering how I know all this stuff, it's from members in our ward. I don't know if I've told you about our ward or not, but it is mostly made up of BYU grads that are going to Tufts University for Dental School. I'd say about 60% of our ward falls into that category. They keep us updated on those types of things.
Alrighty then. I think we're headed to play some ball today, so I'd best be going now. Always good to hear from you. Kurtis, I still haven't heard from you about how your season ended up or about your perspective of Disneyworld. Same to you Kasey. I'd like to hear from you both again sometime before I come home. That would be nice. haha. Ok. Hope you all have a wonderful week. Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Well, first things first. Yesterday was Bryan's confirmation. It went very well. I got to stand in the circle with him, which was very cool. His mom, who was at church for the first time in years last week, was there again. Hopefully she was able to feel a special spirit and want to come back every week. I really feel that Bryan is going to be a big help with getting his family back to church. Sacrament meeting was so good yesterday too, because it was also the Primary Program. Bryan's mom had bought him a new suit last week for his baptism, and yesterday, his two little brothers were in new suits as well. That was pretty cool. THe program was awesome. It had all of the typical shy kids, loud scream-in-the-mic kids, and the one kid that is like 4 and knows all of the Articles of Faith, and basically gave a 5 minute talk about faith. That was pretty funny. He was also the one that sang the loudest. It was a great meeting. The last song they sang was such a cool song. I don't know what it's called, and I don't think I've ever heard it before, but it was amazing. The Spirit was so strong. Made me kinda miss being in primary. haha.
So I also got your letters about Disneyworld. Sounds like that was pretty fun, huh? That's cool. I am glad to hear that you all had a great time and want to go back, but I am in very strong opposition for the idea of going next Thanksgiving. That is definitely a bad idea. I don't think you could stand to go there twice without me. I think you would have more fun if you waited til like St. Patricks day or something, that way I could come along. But anyway, I'm happy you had fun. Good to hear that Coby's nursing skills are paying off too ;)
Now that Bryan is a member and everything, we are short on investigators. We met with Mike yesterday after church, but that was uneventful, except that we dropped him. That stinks. He had a pack of cigarettes on his table when we walked in, and he tried covering them up, and then told us that he had had some company over, and the cigarettes weren't his. yeah... But, we had to drop him cause he said he is an unbeliever, and won't find a way to get to church by himself rather than making us set up a ride for him every week. He needs to be independent. So we dropped him, but we also picked up a new investigator lastnight as well. His name is Peter and he is a pretty cool guy. He is a senior in High School, and his best friend of like 15 years named Brittany, is a Mormon, and apparently just moved to Lindon, UT. That's cool. But, he told us that he is curious to find out what she believes in. We talked to him on the phone about a week and a half ago, and he said that he was super busy, but that he could call us back this weekend. He actually did call us back, so that was the first of many good signs. We took one of our members with us to the lesson and taught him about the restoration. It was a really good lesson. I feel like Peter understood all of it, and was very willing to accept the commitments we extended to him. He said he needed some time to think about baptism, so he didn't accept a date yet, but I feel that he will very soon. I'm excited to work with him and help him to progress in the Gospel.
And, that's about all's I got for this week. The weather again decided to go back up near 60 last week, but today is colder and looks like we might get some rain. Probably not snow yet, but it'll be here soon enough. Mom, in answer to your questions about the girls on facebook, Danielle is Bro. Buckley's daughter. She's 12 and is pretty cool. I bet she was pretty weirded out that it was you, not me. I'll have to ask her about it. And Liz is another of our member's daughters. She is currently on break from BYU-Idaho, and is staying with her mom out here. She's pretty cool too. I didn't even know she had added me on there, but I guess she did.
I was also very happy to hear that BYU crushed CSU. But I think I was even more happy to hear that Utah got beat up again. haha. That's so great. Good stuff. By the way, if you're wondering how I know all this stuff, it's from members in our ward. I don't know if I've told you about our ward or not, but it is mostly made up of BYU grads that are going to Tufts University for Dental School. I'd say about 60% of our ward falls into that category. They keep us updated on those types of things.
Alrighty then. I think we're headed to play some ball today, so I'd best be going now. Always good to hear from you. Kurtis, I still haven't heard from you about how your season ended up or about your perspective of Disneyworld. Same to you Kasey. I'd like to hear from you both again sometime before I come home. That would be nice. haha. Ok. Hope you all have a wonderful week. Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Monday, November 8, 2010
It's finally getting cold!
How's everyone doing? Good. So this week was pretty good again. I'll start with yesterday at church. It was a good meeting, jsut as good as a testimony meeting can be in our ward. Bryan was there in his new suit that his mom bought for him. We sat with him through the first hour, and I think he enjoyed it. We let him go to his 2nd and 3rd hour classes and met up with him after church for his baptism. I could tell that even though he said he wasn't excited, he was. We got him changed into his white, and took a few pictures. The baptismal service was awesome. We asked one of the Young Men who was baptized last november to give a talk, and he sounded like a missionary. It was an awesome talk. Then Bryan's little brother, who was also baptized last year, gave a talk about the Holy Ghost, which was about 45 seconds long. haha. Bryan wanted Bishop to do the baptism, so that was cool. I guess the water was a little too hot, though. That is what they both said when they went in the water. haha. But, it was so cool to see him get baptized. He's so cool. The only bad thing is that only part of his family was there. His parents are inactive, so it was great that his mom was there, but his dad wasn't, and neither were his grandpa, or aunt and cousin. But, it was cool nontheless.
Mike, unfortunately, was not at church this week. He gave us a call Saturday night and told us to cancel his ride to church. He said that he has been trying to make himself believe everything, but it's just not working. I don't understand what's happening to him, cause he was doing so awesome. He had gone 23 days without a cigarette, then he had one, and then went another 4 days without one, and now he's just giving up on us. He was really upset when we told him he had to wait a week to get baptized after he had smoked again, and I don't think he understood why that needed to happen. He kept saying that it didn't make sense to him cause in the Bible, John the Baptist baptized everybody that lived, and they didn't have to repent before they were baptized, so he didn't see why he had to. I have a feeling that he is just upset about waiting, and that he will calm down and change his mind in a few weeks, but that might be worse, cause we'll make him wait even longer so he can prepare better. We are meeting with him tomorrow, so we'll see what's up with him.
We are also meeting with Nick and Midge tomorrow night, with our Mission President so we can discuss options for her situation and how we can get her baptized. I'm pretty excited for that so we can get something figured out with them, and so we can see President in action. haha. It's going to be pretty awesome. If you forgot who they are, she is a quadreplegic, and he is her best friend. We are almost done teaching them, so we just wanted to invite our President so we can figure something out with her.
So another pretty awesome thing that we did this week was Zone Conference. The conference itself was awesome. All of the Zone Leaders gave trainings on different topics, and they were all so good. I learned so much about each topic, I feel like I have a lot more I could be doing to be a better missionary. It was such a good day. Cool story - at lunch during the conference, we were going down the tables getting our food (which was like thanksgiving dinner - so good!) and I guess it was some of the local Relief Society members that provided the meal for us, but one of them asked me if I had a brother in the California Roseville Mission. I was pretty surprised and said yes. She said that her name was Sis. Dowling, and that her son was my brother's companion. What?! That was a mind-blower. Definitely wasn't expecting that. Pretty cool though, eh? She told me that she had heard that I had played a mean joke on my family....haha. I guess I'm getting pretty famous for that, huh? That's pretty funny. But yeah, Zone Conference was the best one yet. We got some good insights and had lots of goals that we set from that.
I heard that Utah got spanked pretty hard last week. HAHA. that's good news for sure. I also heard that BYU had a pretty good game too. Also good news. Has college basketball started yet? Just wondering.
Well, I think it's finally starting to change to fall/winter. It's been pretty cold since last week when it was in the 70's. Now we're lucky if we get above 50. But, I'm enjoying it. The only bad thing is with Daylight Savings ending yesterday, it now gets dark about 4:00. That's pretty tough to work in. We just have to make all of our appointments for when it's dark that way we can still do some finding when there's light out. It hasn't snowed yet, but I think we'll see some of that pretty soon. It's been raining for about 2 days, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get some this week. That'll be cool.
Cool, well I think that's it for this week. Mom, yes I actually need my Garnett shoes. The tennis shoes I took with me are getting pretty thrashed, and now I don't have any shoes to play basketball or other sports in on pdays. I would appreciate those greatly. I haven't received your letter from last week either. We haven't been home today, so I don't know if it came today or not. But, it'll come somtime hopefully. I was also wondering if you could send me a tub of Stephen's Citrus Wassail. I've looked in lots of stores out here, and can't seem to find any of that stuff. The closest thing I've found is apple cider, but that just isn't the same.
Alrighty then, I'd best be going now. I didn't get any mail last week, which was super lame, so I really hope I get some this week... Well, we'll hear from you soon. Hope you all have a great week. Love you all!!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Mike, unfortunately, was not at church this week. He gave us a call Saturday night and told us to cancel his ride to church. He said that he has been trying to make himself believe everything, but it's just not working. I don't understand what's happening to him, cause he was doing so awesome. He had gone 23 days without a cigarette, then he had one, and then went another 4 days without one, and now he's just giving up on us. He was really upset when we told him he had to wait a week to get baptized after he had smoked again, and I don't think he understood why that needed to happen. He kept saying that it didn't make sense to him cause in the Bible, John the Baptist baptized everybody that lived, and they didn't have to repent before they were baptized, so he didn't see why he had to. I have a feeling that he is just upset about waiting, and that he will calm down and change his mind in a few weeks, but that might be worse, cause we'll make him wait even longer so he can prepare better. We are meeting with him tomorrow, so we'll see what's up with him.
We are also meeting with Nick and Midge tomorrow night, with our Mission President so we can discuss options for her situation and how we can get her baptized. I'm pretty excited for that so we can get something figured out with them, and so we can see President in action. haha. It's going to be pretty awesome. If you forgot who they are, she is a quadreplegic, and he is her best friend. We are almost done teaching them, so we just wanted to invite our President so we can figure something out with her.
So another pretty awesome thing that we did this week was Zone Conference. The conference itself was awesome. All of the Zone Leaders gave trainings on different topics, and they were all so good. I learned so much about each topic, I feel like I have a lot more I could be doing to be a better missionary. It was such a good day. Cool story - at lunch during the conference, we were going down the tables getting our food (which was like thanksgiving dinner - so good!) and I guess it was some of the local Relief Society members that provided the meal for us, but one of them asked me if I had a brother in the California Roseville Mission. I was pretty surprised and said yes. She said that her name was Sis. Dowling, and that her son was my brother's companion. What?! That was a mind-blower. Definitely wasn't expecting that. Pretty cool though, eh? She told me that she had heard that I had played a mean joke on my family....haha. I guess I'm getting pretty famous for that, huh? That's pretty funny. But yeah, Zone Conference was the best one yet. We got some good insights and had lots of goals that we set from that.
I heard that Utah got spanked pretty hard last week. HAHA. that's good news for sure. I also heard that BYU had a pretty good game too. Also good news. Has college basketball started yet? Just wondering.
Well, I think it's finally starting to change to fall/winter. It's been pretty cold since last week when it was in the 70's. Now we're lucky if we get above 50. But, I'm enjoying it. The only bad thing is with Daylight Savings ending yesterday, it now gets dark about 4:00. That's pretty tough to work in. We just have to make all of our appointments for when it's dark that way we can still do some finding when there's light out. It hasn't snowed yet, but I think we'll see some of that pretty soon. It's been raining for about 2 days, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get some this week. That'll be cool.
Cool, well I think that's it for this week. Mom, yes I actually need my Garnett shoes. The tennis shoes I took with me are getting pretty thrashed, and now I don't have any shoes to play basketball or other sports in on pdays. I would appreciate those greatly. I haven't received your letter from last week either. We haven't been home today, so I don't know if it came today or not. But, it'll come somtime hopefully. I was also wondering if you could send me a tub of Stephen's Citrus Wassail. I've looked in lots of stores out here, and can't seem to find any of that stuff. The closest thing I've found is apple cider, but that just isn't the same.
Alrighty then, I'd best be going now. I didn't get any mail last week, which was super lame, so I really hope I get some this week... Well, we'll hear from you soon. Hope you all have a great week. Love you all!!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Transfer Number 17
Transfers came in today and here's the news. I will be staying in good ole' Olivehurst for the remainder of my mission. Elder Dowling is being transferred to Auburn and I will be training a new Zone Leader, Elder Osborne. I have served around E. Osborne in the past and he's a pretty decent guy. I'm a little bummed to not have E. Dowling as my companion any more, but oh well, that's the way it is. We have a ton of stuff coming up in the next 6 weeks so we are going to be super busy. Hopefully E. Osborne can keep up because he's going to have to know the ropes for when he takes the area at the end of the transfer. He'll do fine, I am sure.
So, to answer your questions, Mom: As of right now, I haven't received your letter from this past week. The mail hasn't come yet today, so maybe it will be there when I go back to our house to check. I will be shipping my bike home now that I know I will be staying in this area and won't be using it. I don't think the mission helps with that, but I'll check. If they don't, I have no idea how much it is going to cost, but I'm guessing it's going to be pretty expensive. How much money to I have available in my account? (I see my emails frequently throughout the week, so you can reply when you get a chance)
I did get my shoulder looked at once recently, I think it might have been two weeks ago. They put me on some sort of pill that I have to take daily, (I'm not sure if it's an anti-inflammatory, a steroid, or what), and I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow at 4:30. On Thursday, I will be meeting with Dr. Vogel who is an orthopedic specialist to review the x-ray that I had recently and the MRI that I will be having. Hopefully he'll be able to tell me what's wrong and I'll probably know what needs to be done to fix it. I'll let you know how all of that goes in my email next week.
Alright, now for the past week. We had a pretty good week actually. We met or exceeded all of the goals we set except for the number of new investigators we wanted to find. We have a few people that we are teaching right now, all of which I feel are so close to being ready for baptism. One of our investigators just hasn't quite caught on to everything yet, but she's coming along. Basically the rest of our teaching pool consists of people who could get baptized tomorrow except that they have legal issues to handle first. For some reason, throughout our zone, it seems like the majority of the investigators being taught by the missionaries are on probation. Church policy is that those on probation can't get baptized until they are off, or unless they come to church and are basically active in every way for a period of a few months, at which time they can petition the First Presidency for approval to be baptized. It's hard sometimes to work with that, especially if someone is really excited about getting baptized soon, but it's all about repentance. Restitution is required for true repentance, that includes making everything right with the government. We'll keep working with these people and provide support as they continue to progress.
We experienced a bit of a miracle the other day. We had just come back from grabbing some food for lunch to continue weekly planning at our church building. Before we went inside we wanted to check the institute building next door for some info we could give to our investigator, Lindsey. Well, we rarely park on that side of the church, and it didn't even cross our minds that the institute would be closed. So, as we were walking back to the church to go inside, a man pulled into the parking lot. He got out of his car and told us he was just there to smoke a cigarette. We started talking to him and found out that he's actually been wanting to learn more about God and church, but he just doesn't know where to start. He's been in and out of prison more times than he can count, and he's tired of it. He knows that his way of doing things is failing and he's ready to try something different. He said, "where do I start? Who do I talk to?" Well...he came to the right place! We of course offered him help and testified to him of how our message could help him and his family (his significant other was in the car attentively listening to everything we were saying). They both accepted to have the missionaries in there area come and teach them. He took a Book of Mormon and said he would start from the beginning. The fact that we were exactly where we needed to be just when he randomly decided to pull into a church parking lot to have a smoke break is testimony in itself that the Lord is leading this work. Hopefully he recognizes the Spirit enough to act on it and bring his life into harmony with the Gospel.
Well this email is pretty long already, so I'll wrap things up. I just remembered that like 3 or 4 weeks ago my flight itinerary came in the mail. I think you have probably already received a copy of it, but just in case, here are my flight plans. I'll be flying out of Sac at 6:20am and arriving in SLC at 9:04 on December 18th.
Okay, I hope everything is going well. I love you all! Be mighty!
love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS: Devin, what did you think about meeting Elder Dowling's mom at your zone conference or whatever it was recently? Kinda crazy eh?
So, to answer your questions, Mom: As of right now, I haven't received your letter from this past week. The mail hasn't come yet today, so maybe it will be there when I go back to our house to check. I will be shipping my bike home now that I know I will be staying in this area and won't be using it. I don't think the mission helps with that, but I'll check. If they don't, I have no idea how much it is going to cost, but I'm guessing it's going to be pretty expensive. How much money to I have available in my account? (I see my emails frequently throughout the week, so you can reply when you get a chance)
I did get my shoulder looked at once recently, I think it might have been two weeks ago. They put me on some sort of pill that I have to take daily, (I'm not sure if it's an anti-inflammatory, a steroid, or what), and I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow at 4:30. On Thursday, I will be meeting with Dr. Vogel who is an orthopedic specialist to review the x-ray that I had recently and the MRI that I will be having. Hopefully he'll be able to tell me what's wrong and I'll probably know what needs to be done to fix it. I'll let you know how all of that goes in my email next week.
Alright, now for the past week. We had a pretty good week actually. We met or exceeded all of the goals we set except for the number of new investigators we wanted to find. We have a few people that we are teaching right now, all of which I feel are so close to being ready for baptism. One of our investigators just hasn't quite caught on to everything yet, but she's coming along. Basically the rest of our teaching pool consists of people who could get baptized tomorrow except that they have legal issues to handle first. For some reason, throughout our zone, it seems like the majority of the investigators being taught by the missionaries are on probation. Church policy is that those on probation can't get baptized until they are off, or unless they come to church and are basically active in every way for a period of a few months, at which time they can petition the First Presidency for approval to be baptized. It's hard sometimes to work with that, especially if someone is really excited about getting baptized soon, but it's all about repentance. Restitution is required for true repentance, that includes making everything right with the government. We'll keep working with these people and provide support as they continue to progress.
We experienced a bit of a miracle the other day. We had just come back from grabbing some food for lunch to continue weekly planning at our church building. Before we went inside we wanted to check the institute building next door for some info we could give to our investigator, Lindsey. Well, we rarely park on that side of the church, and it didn't even cross our minds that the institute would be closed. So, as we were walking back to the church to go inside, a man pulled into the parking lot. He got out of his car and told us he was just there to smoke a cigarette. We started talking to him and found out that he's actually been wanting to learn more about God and church, but he just doesn't know where to start. He's been in and out of prison more times than he can count, and he's tired of it. He knows that his way of doing things is failing and he's ready to try something different. He said, "where do I start? Who do I talk to?" Well...he came to the right place! We of course offered him help and testified to him of how our message could help him and his family (his significant other was in the car attentively listening to everything we were saying). They both accepted to have the missionaries in there area come and teach them. He took a Book of Mormon and said he would start from the beginning. The fact that we were exactly where we needed to be just when he randomly decided to pull into a church parking lot to have a smoke break is testimony in itself that the Lord is leading this work. Hopefully he recognizes the Spirit enough to act on it and bring his life into harmony with the Gospel.
Well this email is pretty long already, so I'll wrap things up. I just remembered that like 3 or 4 weeks ago my flight itinerary came in the mail. I think you have probably already received a copy of it, but just in case, here are my flight plans. I'll be flying out of Sac at 6:20am and arriving in SLC at 9:04 on December 18th.
Okay, I hope everything is going well. I love you all! Be mighty!
love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS: Devin, what did you think about meeting Elder Dowling's mom at your zone conference or whatever it was recently? Kinda crazy eh?
Monday, November 1, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Boo! Alright, now it's time for Thanksgiving! Halloween was good here. That's pretty crazy that you didn't put makeup on anyone this year, Mom. That seems like something that just has to happen. I put some on 2 of the kids that live by us. haha. They wanted to have their faces white, so I did that for them, and then as soon as I was done with both of them, they decided that they didn't want it anymore, so they washed it all off. haha. Then they had their mom paint something else instead. We took a couple pictures with them all in their costumes before they all went trick or treating too. When they got home, they gave me all of their Reese's! That was pretty awesome.
So besides Halloween, this week was pretty uneventful. kindof. We also had Stake Conference yesterday, which was awesome. Bishop McMullen from the Presiding Bishopric was there, and he told us that if we left the conference and something in our life didn't change from it, we should be ashamed! wow. He's pretty cool. It was such a great stake conference. We had both of our investigators there too. Bad news is that one of them, Mike, slept through the whole thing. ugh. I tried several times to wake him up, but he just kep dozing off. Speaking of investigators, we have interviews scheduled this Friday for both Mike and Bryan, and as long as they both pass, they will both be getting baptized next Sunday! I'm pretty excited for that. Mike is now going on 20 days not smoking. Wow. We had an appointment with Mike this last week on Wednesday, with which, we were in a pretty bad situation. We get 900 miles a month on our car. We were at 890 on Wednesday, and Mike lives in East Boston, which is approximately 11 miles from our house. So, rather than going over on our miles, we decided to walk there. It took us about 3 and a half hours which includes time talking to people and handing out passalongs. It was a pretty miserable walk though, cause for some unknown reason, the weather decided to go back up to the 70's with extremely high humidity. Plus, I was wearing my rain coat because it had been raining all morning, but stopped while we were walking. Let's just say my clothes were basically wet when we got to his house. haha. So, total, we walked about 17 miles that day, cause rather than walking home, we walked to a member's house and he gave us dinner, and a ride home. And this is also after we had walked about 12 miles on Tuesday for the same reason, except we had to go to Revere, not East Boston. So we walked a lot this week. My legs were pretty dang sore. haha. But, we talked to lots of people on the streets and have a bunch of new potential investigators.
Well, I think that's about it for this week. Thanks to Justin and Brittnie for the packages. I got them both the same day, so the other 3 Elders in the apartment were jealous of my awesome mail. Those ties are awesome, by the way Justin. I've been complimented on all of them that I've worn so far. And Brittnie, I can't put in words how much I love those delicious oreo thingys. Thanks. And I guess that I should say thanks to Mason for his picture that he sent me a while ago that I never thanked him for. Thanks buddy! And the last thing I can think of right now is that the name of that dude I told you about last week who's cd's I want - his name is Lex de Azevedo, not whatever I said last week. Thanks for everything! Love you all! Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. GO TCU!!!
So besides Halloween, this week was pretty uneventful. kindof. We also had Stake Conference yesterday, which was awesome. Bishop McMullen from the Presiding Bishopric was there, and he told us that if we left the conference and something in our life didn't change from it, we should be ashamed! wow. He's pretty cool. It was such a great stake conference. We had both of our investigators there too. Bad news is that one of them, Mike, slept through the whole thing. ugh. I tried several times to wake him up, but he just kep dozing off. Speaking of investigators, we have interviews scheduled this Friday for both Mike and Bryan, and as long as they both pass, they will both be getting baptized next Sunday! I'm pretty excited for that. Mike is now going on 20 days not smoking. Wow. We had an appointment with Mike this last week on Wednesday, with which, we were in a pretty bad situation. We get 900 miles a month on our car. We were at 890 on Wednesday, and Mike lives in East Boston, which is approximately 11 miles from our house. So, rather than going over on our miles, we decided to walk there. It took us about 3 and a half hours which includes time talking to people and handing out passalongs. It was a pretty miserable walk though, cause for some unknown reason, the weather decided to go back up to the 70's with extremely high humidity. Plus, I was wearing my rain coat because it had been raining all morning, but stopped while we were walking. Let's just say my clothes were basically wet when we got to his house. haha. So, total, we walked about 17 miles that day, cause rather than walking home, we walked to a member's house and he gave us dinner, and a ride home. And this is also after we had walked about 12 miles on Tuesday for the same reason, except we had to go to Revere, not East Boston. So we walked a lot this week. My legs were pretty dang sore. haha. But, we talked to lots of people on the streets and have a bunch of new potential investigators.
Well, I think that's about it for this week. Thanks to Justin and Brittnie for the packages. I got them both the same day, so the other 3 Elders in the apartment were jealous of my awesome mail. Those ties are awesome, by the way Justin. I've been complimented on all of them that I've worn so far. And Brittnie, I can't put in words how much I love those delicious oreo thingys. Thanks. And I guess that I should say thanks to Mason for his picture that he sent me a while ago that I never thanked him for. Thanks buddy! And the last thing I can think of right now is that the name of that dude I told you about last week who's cd's I want - his name is Lex de Azevedo, not whatever I said last week. Thanks for everything! Love you all! Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. GO TCU!!!
November???
Hmmmm....what can I say this week that would interest everybody who reads these emails? How about, I'm starting to feel sick, I have no confidence in the majority of our ward members, our WML hates us and is causing an endless supply of stress because of countless ridiculous reasons that I really have no time to list off, transfers can't come soon enough, and I'm going to be getting an MRI done for my shoulder this week sometime. On second thought, maybe that would be too negative and I would give everyone the impression that I am miserable right now (which is totally not true, by the way) and that I'm really struggling with everything (also, not true at all). Yeah, I think that might be a bad idea to say all those things. How about I take a different approach?
First off, we have a new investigator. Her name is Lindsey and she is progressing very well. I personally feel that her fellowshipper, Aunt Barber, is holding her back from getting baptized. Sis. Barber has made Lindsey think that she needs to know everything before she commits to a specific date and time for when she would get baptized. Well, knowledge is wonderful and everyone knows that you definitely can't be saved in ignorance. However, there is this amazing thing called a spiritual confirmation that tells you something is true and that everything the missionaries are teaching is true as well. You can know that getting baptized is the right thing to do and that setting a date provides spiritual power to fight off the temptations Satan is going to send your way telling you to procrastinate the day of your repentance. Plus, we would never allow someone to be baptized if they weren't prepared according to the specifications we have been given for those entering the waters. Our plan of attack: teach her the remaining lessons this week and tell her that she knows everything she needs to in order to be baptized. As long as she keeps the commitments and knows that what we are teaching is true, she is ready. And I know she is ready. (Check out Acts 2 for an example of the qualifications someone needs for baptism)
I believe I told you about the Jenkins family recently in one of my emails. They are doing well. Brother Jenkins is living the Word of Wisdom and his family members are awesome. We have been seeing them more frequently lately to keep encouraging them and provide any support that we can. Their names were brought up in PEC yesterday, but the track record for how effectively our ward gets things done would predict that nothing is going to happen to help them out. We are probably going to have to ask our Bishop directly to see if he could meet with them so that the proper steps are taken to help them get to the Temple. The only problem with that is our WML will probably complain about us going behind his back and skipping through the chain of authority in order to do anything (hopefully you can feel my sarcasm).
There are many good things that are coming up in the near future that I am looking forward to. The first would be transfers which take place next Tuesday (November 9th). This Friday we will be having a Zone Leader Council meeting up in Gridley that I am excited for. The time that I have to spend with President Pendleton is one of my favorite uses of time on my mission. On November 15th, we will be having Half-Mission Conference with Elder Per G. Malm. I am super stoked for that. Last year, Elder Paul V. Johnson came and it was incredible. I am sure that this year will be just as good. Then it will be Thanksgiving, and then Santa Run will be happening in the first part of December. Finally, the end will be here... I am expecting the next month and a half to be the fastest of my mission and I don't know if that is a good thing. Come what may and love it, right?
It always feels like there are things that I forget to say every time I email. I'll probably remember something later today and then I'll forget it all again completely next week. Mom, to answer your question: yes the weather has cooled down. We've had a little bit of rain in the past couple weeks, but the rain season really hasn't started quite yet. It's been in the 70's lately (with basically no humidity, Devin. Hah!) I'm sure more rain is coming soon though. I am so grateful I am in a car area. I'm looking forward to the letters from the family this week. Nobody has told me anything about the Disneyworld trip other than that you were eating at Winnie the Pooh's when you heard Devin was joking around about his busted leg. And, Kasey has/had a date soon/recently? I haven't heard from her for a while... Finally, Brittnie, I got your package and your letter. The Elders in our house wanted to write to you and ask for more of those chocolate-oreo-awesome-ball things. I will be writing to you soon. Thanks for the package.
Once again, I hope everything is well at home (and around the world for those reading this elsewhere). You are all in my prayers. Be mighty!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
First off, we have a new investigator. Her name is Lindsey and she is progressing very well. I personally feel that her fellowshipper, Aunt Barber, is holding her back from getting baptized. Sis. Barber has made Lindsey think that she needs to know everything before she commits to a specific date and time for when she would get baptized. Well, knowledge is wonderful and everyone knows that you definitely can't be saved in ignorance. However, there is this amazing thing called a spiritual confirmation that tells you something is true and that everything the missionaries are teaching is true as well. You can know that getting baptized is the right thing to do and that setting a date provides spiritual power to fight off the temptations Satan is going to send your way telling you to procrastinate the day of your repentance. Plus, we would never allow someone to be baptized if they weren't prepared according to the specifications we have been given for those entering the waters. Our plan of attack: teach her the remaining lessons this week and tell her that she knows everything she needs to in order to be baptized. As long as she keeps the commitments and knows that what we are teaching is true, she is ready. And I know she is ready. (Check out Acts 2 for an example of the qualifications someone needs for baptism)
I believe I told you about the Jenkins family recently in one of my emails. They are doing well. Brother Jenkins is living the Word of Wisdom and his family members are awesome. We have been seeing them more frequently lately to keep encouraging them and provide any support that we can. Their names were brought up in PEC yesterday, but the track record for how effectively our ward gets things done would predict that nothing is going to happen to help them out. We are probably going to have to ask our Bishop directly to see if he could meet with them so that the proper steps are taken to help them get to the Temple. The only problem with that is our WML will probably complain about us going behind his back and skipping through the chain of authority in order to do anything (hopefully you can feel my sarcasm).
There are many good things that are coming up in the near future that I am looking forward to. The first would be transfers which take place next Tuesday (November 9th). This Friday we will be having a Zone Leader Council meeting up in Gridley that I am excited for. The time that I have to spend with President Pendleton is one of my favorite uses of time on my mission. On November 15th, we will be having Half-Mission Conference with Elder Per G. Malm. I am super stoked for that. Last year, Elder Paul V. Johnson came and it was incredible. I am sure that this year will be just as good. Then it will be Thanksgiving, and then Santa Run will be happening in the first part of December. Finally, the end will be here... I am expecting the next month and a half to be the fastest of my mission and I don't know if that is a good thing. Come what may and love it, right?
It always feels like there are things that I forget to say every time I email. I'll probably remember something later today and then I'll forget it all again completely next week. Mom, to answer your question: yes the weather has cooled down. We've had a little bit of rain in the past couple weeks, but the rain season really hasn't started quite yet. It's been in the 70's lately (with basically no humidity, Devin. Hah!) I'm sure more rain is coming soon though. I am so grateful I am in a car area. I'm looking forward to the letters from the family this week. Nobody has told me anything about the Disneyworld trip other than that you were eating at Winnie the Pooh's when you heard Devin was joking around about his busted leg. And, Kasey has/had a date soon/recently? I haven't heard from her for a while... Finally, Brittnie, I got your package and your letter. The Elders in our house wanted to write to you and ask for more of those chocolate-oreo-awesome-ball things. I will be writing to you soon. Thanks for the package.
Once again, I hope everything is well at home (and around the world for those reading this elsewhere). You are all in my prayers. Be mighty!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
Monday, October 25, 2010
Frustrated
I had the chance to visit with Justin for a bit as we were trying to get classes situated so I can get him registered for school. Can't believe he'll be home soon. The time flies too fast!
This past week has been slow. My feelings lately have been ones of frustration. Seriously though, things are good and I'm happy, just struggling trying to figure out how to get things rolling more. I feel like I am working harder than I ever have and I am being more obedient than I ever have before as well, but it's kind of like I am just treading water. Our main frustration is with our ward. I can't even begin to list off all the things that are driving us crazy. For example:
There is a family in our ward, the Jenkins. Their entire family has been baptized over the past year or so and they are awesome. The problem is, they are struggling. They have told missionaries in the past that all they really want in the ward is a friend. Sis. Jenkins wants so badly to go to the temple to be sealed. Her husband wants to go as well, but he needs some help kicking some Word of Wisdom problems. When they come to church they tend to only stay for the first hour before they take off. As far as I can tell, nobody really reaches out to them. Sure, they get the occasional hi from somebody, but that isn't enough. One of the three things that Pres. Hinckley said every recent convert needs in the church is a friend - somebody to stand by their side to help them through the struggles they face and to answer questions that they will have. Well, that isn't happening. We as the missionaries can do what we can, but we can't do what the members can do. There are a select few in our ward that are solid when it comes to fellowshipping those that are in need, but it just isn't enough. I am just praying that people like the Jenkins get the help that they need before they decide to throw in the towel.
Well, now that I've been on the phone with Mom for the past 45 minutes I've run out of things to say. Things are going well, other than the typical missionary frustrations. Hopefully everyone has a great week. Be mighty!
love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Thanks for helping me out, Mom. I really appreciate it.
This past week has been slow. My feelings lately have been ones of frustration. Seriously though, things are good and I'm happy, just struggling trying to figure out how to get things rolling more. I feel like I am working harder than I ever have and I am being more obedient than I ever have before as well, but it's kind of like I am just treading water. Our main frustration is with our ward. I can't even begin to list off all the things that are driving us crazy. For example:
There is a family in our ward, the Jenkins. Their entire family has been baptized over the past year or so and they are awesome. The problem is, they are struggling. They have told missionaries in the past that all they really want in the ward is a friend. Sis. Jenkins wants so badly to go to the temple to be sealed. Her husband wants to go as well, but he needs some help kicking some Word of Wisdom problems. When they come to church they tend to only stay for the first hour before they take off. As far as I can tell, nobody really reaches out to them. Sure, they get the occasional hi from somebody, but that isn't enough. One of the three things that Pres. Hinckley said every recent convert needs in the church is a friend - somebody to stand by their side to help them through the struggles they face and to answer questions that they will have. Well, that isn't happening. We as the missionaries can do what we can, but we can't do what the members can do. There are a select few in our ward that are solid when it comes to fellowshipping those that are in need, but it just isn't enough. I am just praying that people like the Jenkins get the help that they need before they decide to throw in the towel.
Well, now that I've been on the phone with Mom for the past 45 minutes I've run out of things to say. Things are going well, other than the typical missionary frustrations. Hopefully everyone has a great week. Be mighty!
love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Thanks for helping me out, Mom. I really appreciate it.
Hello Again
Well, I can't believe that Halloween is this week. October has gone by so ridiculously fast. I'm excited though, cause that means that winter will be here soon and then it will be snowing too, which I am way excited for. I can't wait for the winter.
So anyways, this week was pretty good. E. Rith got transferred clear out to the middle of nowhere in Western Mass. That's pretty funny. Guess who my companion is? E. Winslow again. haha. I'm pretty excited about that. It's pretty funny cause E. Winslow started his mission in Lowell for 7 months, came to Lynn for 9 months, went back to Lowell for 1 transfer, and now he's back in Lynn. haha. He'll probably only be here for one transfer too, cause E. Rith's replacement is coming from Cambodia at the end of this transfer, and I will most likely be training him here. But, that's not for sure, just what we think will happen. We'll see what happens though. That's still a couple months away.
This last week has been a pretty good one. We were able to teach Mike again, and he was at church yesterday too, which is awesome. He still wants to be baptized on the 7th, but I'm thinking we may have to push that back a little bit, just so he can be more comfortable at church. But, if he's ready by then, that's when we'll do it. We taught Bryan a few more times too. He is still working on being able to recognize the Spirit. He is still progressing very well, and keeping all of his commitments. We are shooting for the 7th with him as well. We went to teach him last night, which was a good lesson. We taught him a few of the commandments, and he committed to follow them. After we taught him, Sis. Sen came out of her room with 2 shopping bags from Macy's, which she handed to both me and E. Winslow. She told us that they were our early Christmas presents. We each got a new pair of Bostonian shoes (which are SO comfortable!) and 4 pairs of dress socks. It was so cool. I love Sis. Sen.
We also went on splits with the ward yesterday after church, which is the first time that's happened since I got here. We are working with the ward to visit all of the inactive Priesthood holders in our ward and get them back to church. I went out with a man named Matt Allen, who is one of the coolest guys ever. We had a list of about 7 names that we were supposed to try and contact. We only met one of them, but he knew exactly why we were there, and let us in to talk to him. He poured us both a glass of whole milk (which I decided is really good, by the way) and we proceeded to teach him about the restoration, with an emphasis on the Atonement and repentance. I asked him to tell us the Joseph Smith story. He told us the whole thing, without missing a beat. It was pretty powerful the way he told it. I definitely felt the Spirit. While he was telling us the story, he started talking about why he isn't going to church. It was pretty awesome how he just opened up to us and told us his concerns. He is 60 years old, and he feels like there is no place for him in our ward because it is basically young dental students with their families. There are only 4 High Priests, so I can definitely see where he's coming from. But it was a great visit, and we were able to let him know that we wanted to see him at church again. He is probably going to take a while to get him back, but Matt said that he'd fellowship him and help him out in any way possible. It was a really cool experience.
So that's all the stories for this week that I can think of right now. Just a few more things I thought you'd like to know: I am no longer the youngest Cambodian Elder. E. Winegar got here about 3 weeks ago, and I have forgotten to tell you about that. He is a way cool guy. He's from California, where he went to UC Berkeley for some crazy Biochemist major, or something super smart like that. haha. He's pretty funny. I like him a lot. His Cambodian is pretty good too, so that's good news.
I have also been thinking about what I want for Christmas. the only things I can think of right now would be some CD's. The ones I want are by a guy named Alex Azevedo, I think. I can't remember exactly what his name is. But he has 3 CD's that I know of that are just symphonic arrangements of hymns. I think the CD's are green, black, and red, if that helps you find them at all. They are really good CD's. The other thing I have decided I want, and that would probably be the easiest for everyone would be to just send me money, and I can buy things that I need/want. I'd say about $200 from everyone in the family should be enough :) But really, I think that would be the easiest thing to do, that way you don't have to worry about getting the right size and spending more money shipping stuff to me. But, if you don't want to do that, what I am thinking I need/want right now would be: lots of Grandma's jerky, sweat pants, a hoodie or two, some jeans, some more ties, a couple Boston hats, a football, and maybe a new watch.....I was also wondering if you could send me my Kevin Garnett shoes that are in one of my boxes. That'd be cool.
]
Well, I think that's it for this week. I am still waiting for some letters/pictures/gifts from your vacation. Well, cool beans. Hope you all have a great week. Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
So anyways, this week was pretty good. E. Rith got transferred clear out to the middle of nowhere in Western Mass. That's pretty funny. Guess who my companion is? E. Winslow again. haha. I'm pretty excited about that. It's pretty funny cause E. Winslow started his mission in Lowell for 7 months, came to Lynn for 9 months, went back to Lowell for 1 transfer, and now he's back in Lynn. haha. He'll probably only be here for one transfer too, cause E. Rith's replacement is coming from Cambodia at the end of this transfer, and I will most likely be training him here. But, that's not for sure, just what we think will happen. We'll see what happens though. That's still a couple months away.
This last week has been a pretty good one. We were able to teach Mike again, and he was at church yesterday too, which is awesome. He still wants to be baptized on the 7th, but I'm thinking we may have to push that back a little bit, just so he can be more comfortable at church. But, if he's ready by then, that's when we'll do it. We taught Bryan a few more times too. He is still working on being able to recognize the Spirit. He is still progressing very well, and keeping all of his commitments. We are shooting for the 7th with him as well. We went to teach him last night, which was a good lesson. We taught him a few of the commandments, and he committed to follow them. After we taught him, Sis. Sen came out of her room with 2 shopping bags from Macy's, which she handed to both me and E. Winslow. She told us that they were our early Christmas presents. We each got a new pair of Bostonian shoes (which are SO comfortable!) and 4 pairs of dress socks. It was so cool. I love Sis. Sen.
We also went on splits with the ward yesterday after church, which is the first time that's happened since I got here. We are working with the ward to visit all of the inactive Priesthood holders in our ward and get them back to church. I went out with a man named Matt Allen, who is one of the coolest guys ever. We had a list of about 7 names that we were supposed to try and contact. We only met one of them, but he knew exactly why we were there, and let us in to talk to him. He poured us both a glass of whole milk (which I decided is really good, by the way) and we proceeded to teach him about the restoration, with an emphasis on the Atonement and repentance. I asked him to tell us the Joseph Smith story. He told us the whole thing, without missing a beat. It was pretty powerful the way he told it. I definitely felt the Spirit. While he was telling us the story, he started talking about why he isn't going to church. It was pretty awesome how he just opened up to us and told us his concerns. He is 60 years old, and he feels like there is no place for him in our ward because it is basically young dental students with their families. There are only 4 High Priests, so I can definitely see where he's coming from. But it was a great visit, and we were able to let him know that we wanted to see him at church again. He is probably going to take a while to get him back, but Matt said that he'd fellowship him and help him out in any way possible. It was a really cool experience.
So that's all the stories for this week that I can think of right now. Just a few more things I thought you'd like to know: I am no longer the youngest Cambodian Elder. E. Winegar got here about 3 weeks ago, and I have forgotten to tell you about that. He is a way cool guy. He's from California, where he went to UC Berkeley for some crazy Biochemist major, or something super smart like that. haha. He's pretty funny. I like him a lot. His Cambodian is pretty good too, so that's good news.
I have also been thinking about what I want for Christmas. the only things I can think of right now would be some CD's. The ones I want are by a guy named Alex Azevedo, I think. I can't remember exactly what his name is. But he has 3 CD's that I know of that are just symphonic arrangements of hymns. I think the CD's are green, black, and red, if that helps you find them at all. They are really good CD's. The other thing I have decided I want, and that would probably be the easiest for everyone would be to just send me money, and I can buy things that I need/want. I'd say about $200 from everyone in the family should be enough :) But really, I think that would be the easiest thing to do, that way you don't have to worry about getting the right size and spending more money shipping stuff to me. But, if you don't want to do that, what I am thinking I need/want right now would be: lots of Grandma's jerky, sweat pants, a hoodie or two, some jeans, some more ties, a couple Boston hats, a football, and maybe a new watch.....I was also wondering if you could send me my Kevin Garnett shoes that are in one of my boxes. That'd be cool.
]
Well, I think that's it for this week. I am still waiting for some letters/pictures/gifts from your vacation. Well, cool beans. Hope you all have a great week. Love you all!
Love,
Elder Hammer
Friday, October 22, 2010
HAHAHAHAHA!
Oh boy, I have to be honest, that was a good one, eh? haha. I was kinda worried about the idea of sending an email like that home last week because I had a feeling that something bad might happen, but I sent it anyway. So after I sent it, I was thinking about it all day, and how there was nothing that could go wrong because I put the PS in there. Well, 2 days after I sent it, I got a call from Sister Evans. haha. She told me that my father had called, and all I could think was "oh boy" She said that you had talked to her and that I had said I had an accident. I told her the whole story about how my family was at Disneyworld, and I just thought it would be funny to shake up the weekly blurb. I'm not kidding when I say that she actually laughed about it! haha. I love Sister Evans. She said that was pretty funny, but that she would call you and let you know it was just a joke. haha. I was even thinking that it wasn't going to work cause when Justin hurt his shoulder awhile ago, the mission called home. I thought you might catch that, and realize I was kidding, but I guess you were too worried. Sorry. I am pretty proud of how real I made it sound though. I was laughing before I was even done writing it last week. Wow. haha.
So I also realized this week that I was so busy making my story sound believable that I forgot to mention some of the cool stuff that happened last week. First up is the weather. Aaahh, it is SO nice right now. It's been up in the low 60's for a few weeks now, and it is wonderful. It is even getting pretty chilly here at night. We are coming close to suit coat weather. I'm so excited for it to get cold. In addition to the weather, the trees are all looking great too. They have really been changing colors a lot lately. Oh - last week (on the day Sis. Evans called me, actually) we were driving home from an appointment we had, and we were driving right by the ocean, when my comp was like "is that a funnel cloud?" We pulled over, and sure enough, there were 2 funnel clouds out above the ocean. They were getting pretty big, and then they just disappeared. Pretty anti-climactic, but it was cool, and I got some cool pictures of them. Another cool thing was that last week we had a Nor'easter. That's basically just a really strong storm that comes from the northeast direction. The winds are pretty strong, and there is lots of rain, and the wind is freezing cold, since it's coming from up north. That was pretty cool. It rained a lot, and it lasted for about 3 days.
Next up are our investigators. First is Mike Pucci. He is doing so awesome. He's been smoking for 40 years, 2 packs a day, and we were teaching him about baptism, and we told him he has to stop smoking to get baptized. I am happy to say that he is going on 7 days no smoking, cold turkey! He said that he doesn't want to go to any addiction recovery sessions, cause they don't work. He says that if you're going to quit, you just have to quit. Awesome! Plus, we taught him the Word of Wisdom the other day, and he doesn't have any other problems with that. He is one of probably 2%of the New England population that doesn't drink coffee. It's crazy how many people drink that stuff out here. But, we set a baptismal date for November 7th with him, and he is progressing towards that very well.
Bryan is also doing really good. He won't be getting baptized this sunday, as we were hoping because he doesn't feel ready yet. His main concern is that he "doesn't feel the Spirit" We talked about how to recognize the Spirit, and then we had him say the closing prayer. In his prayer, he asked to feel the Spirit, and boy, did it come. After the prayer, I asked him how he felt. He said that he felt like an awkward moment just happened. I was like "It feels different doesn't it?" Then he started smiling, and he said "yeah, it does" Cool story! We are hoping that we'll be able to rechedule his baptism for the 7th of Nov. as well, cause we have Stake conference on Halloween. So he's doing great.
Midge is doing good. I don't have an update on her, cause we are meeting with her tomorrow, so next week we'll have some news.
So, now I will tell you about transfers. This week was transfers, hence the reason for the Wednesday email. Good news - I'm staying again. yay! And that's about it for transfers. haha. E. Rith is being transferred though. That's weird. I was only with him for 1 transfer. And he only has 1 left so I won't serve with him again. But, it was fun while it lasted, I guess. I'm excited to see who my new comp will be. I'll let you know next week.
I suppose I'll tell you what we did for pday today too, cause that was pretty fun. We woke up at the normal time to go watch the sunrise again, so that was cool. While we were there, we played catch with a football for awhile, which was SO fun. I haven't even seen a football in like 8 months, so that was awesome. Then we went and played basketball for another while. After that, we went and cruised around Salem for a few hours. That was fun too. We went to a museum and checked out some of the stuff there. It was a pretty cool museum. They had some cool stuff from Korea, China, Japan, and some Pacific Islands too. They also had an optical illusion exhibit that was pretty awesome. I had a headache after being in there for like 30 minutes, cause some of that stuff messed with my head. haha. It was really cool though. Salem is an interesting place right now. There are TONS of people there, and lots of them are dressed up in crazy costumes already. I got like 3 flyers handed to my by "vampires" about some of the nighttime stuff they have going on. It's pretty cool to see. They sure are some die-hard Halloween-ers. So that's what we did today. I got some good pictures from the museum.
So I think that's about all I got for this week. At least that's all I can remember, I wrote down a whole lot of stuff to tell you, but I left my planner in the car, so I don't know if I'm remembering everything. haha. Well, hope you all have a great week. Love you all!
P.S. Kurtis, I'm disappointed. I guess you don't want to play guitar hero very bad, huh? I haven't heard from you for a while. LAME!!
So I also realized this week that I was so busy making my story sound believable that I forgot to mention some of the cool stuff that happened last week. First up is the weather. Aaahh, it is SO nice right now. It's been up in the low 60's for a few weeks now, and it is wonderful. It is even getting pretty chilly here at night. We are coming close to suit coat weather. I'm so excited for it to get cold. In addition to the weather, the trees are all looking great too. They have really been changing colors a lot lately. Oh - last week (on the day Sis. Evans called me, actually) we were driving home from an appointment we had, and we were driving right by the ocean, when my comp was like "is that a funnel cloud?" We pulled over, and sure enough, there were 2 funnel clouds out above the ocean. They were getting pretty big, and then they just disappeared. Pretty anti-climactic, but it was cool, and I got some cool pictures of them. Another cool thing was that last week we had a Nor'easter. That's basically just a really strong storm that comes from the northeast direction. The winds are pretty strong, and there is lots of rain, and the wind is freezing cold, since it's coming from up north. That was pretty cool. It rained a lot, and it lasted for about 3 days.
Next up are our investigators. First is Mike Pucci. He is doing so awesome. He's been smoking for 40 years, 2 packs a day, and we were teaching him about baptism, and we told him he has to stop smoking to get baptized. I am happy to say that he is going on 7 days no smoking, cold turkey! He said that he doesn't want to go to any addiction recovery sessions, cause they don't work. He says that if you're going to quit, you just have to quit. Awesome! Plus, we taught him the Word of Wisdom the other day, and he doesn't have any other problems with that. He is one of probably 2%of the New England population that doesn't drink coffee. It's crazy how many people drink that stuff out here. But, we set a baptismal date for November 7th with him, and he is progressing towards that very well.
Bryan is also doing really good. He won't be getting baptized this sunday, as we were hoping because he doesn't feel ready yet. His main concern is that he "doesn't feel the Spirit" We talked about how to recognize the Spirit, and then we had him say the closing prayer. In his prayer, he asked to feel the Spirit, and boy, did it come. After the prayer, I asked him how he felt. He said that he felt like an awkward moment just happened. I was like "It feels different doesn't it?" Then he started smiling, and he said "yeah, it does" Cool story! We are hoping that we'll be able to rechedule his baptism for the 7th of Nov. as well, cause we have Stake conference on Halloween. So he's doing great.
Midge is doing good. I don't have an update on her, cause we are meeting with her tomorrow, so next week we'll have some news.
So, now I will tell you about transfers. This week was transfers, hence the reason for the Wednesday email. Good news - I'm staying again. yay! And that's about it for transfers. haha. E. Rith is being transferred though. That's weird. I was only with him for 1 transfer. And he only has 1 left so I won't serve with him again. But, it was fun while it lasted, I guess. I'm excited to see who my new comp will be. I'll let you know next week.
I suppose I'll tell you what we did for pday today too, cause that was pretty fun. We woke up at the normal time to go watch the sunrise again, so that was cool. While we were there, we played catch with a football for awhile, which was SO fun. I haven't even seen a football in like 8 months, so that was awesome. Then we went and played basketball for another while. After that, we went and cruised around Salem for a few hours. That was fun too. We went to a museum and checked out some of the stuff there. It was a pretty cool museum. They had some cool stuff from Korea, China, Japan, and some Pacific Islands too. They also had an optical illusion exhibit that was pretty awesome. I had a headache after being in there for like 30 minutes, cause some of that stuff messed with my head. haha. It was really cool though. Salem is an interesting place right now. There are TONS of people there, and lots of them are dressed up in crazy costumes already. I got like 3 flyers handed to my by "vampires" about some of the nighttime stuff they have going on. It's pretty cool to see. They sure are some die-hard Halloween-ers. So that's what we did today. I got some good pictures from the museum.
So I think that's about all I got for this week. At least that's all I can remember, I wrote down a whole lot of stuff to tell you, but I left my planner in the car, so I don't know if I'm remembering everything. haha. Well, hope you all have a great week. Love you all!
P.S. Kurtis, I'm disappointed. I guess you don't want to play guitar hero very bad, huh? I haven't heard from you for a while. LAME!!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Oh Man!
First off, as mean of a joke as it was, I laughed my guts out when I read my emails today. I hope all is well and that everyone has forgiven Devin. We'll be talking about that one for years!
Zone Conference was this past week in Auburn. It was good to be back in the area since I left that Zone back in April. Each Zone Conference, the missionaries who will be going home before the next Zone Conference stand and give their Departing Testimony. Well, the next Zone Conference won't be happening again until sometime in January, so that means that I will be home before it takes place. Ever since my first Zone Conference when I heard the missionaries who were leaving stand and talk a little about their mission and what they had learned, and as my mission has gone by and I've heard all of the missionaries who have gone home each stand and bear testimony of what they know to be true, I have wondered what it would be like to be in their shoes. Although I still have a few weeks remaining, the end is quickly coming; and thinking about that while I was standing at the pulpit doing the exact same thing that every other departing missionary has done in our mission in the past was a bit overwhelming. The setting wasn't much different from the last time I stood in my home ward and spoke. Then, there were many people who had come to support me and wish me the best. Those that were there were people whom I love very much, and I remember thinking to myself, "Leaving this behind is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done." Now, although there weren't many people in the chapel, I still felt an incredible love for them. President and Sister Pendleton were on the stand, and some of my missionary heroes were sitting in the congregation. These are people I love very much. My thoughts have been, "Leaving this behind is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done." Thankfully, my time is not yet finished as a full time missionary. I still have lots to do, there are still people that need to hear my voice, and I still need to learn how to not be so prideful. The remaining weeks of my mission are going to be the best. The words to our mission song have taken a new meaning to me. I will share some of them with you:
Master, thou hast called
In answer I have come
To mountains high and redwoods tall.
Master, thou hast made me
A messenger of light
Bringing joy to one and all.
My commision
In California
The Roseville Mission
To do thy will.
Master, I will strive to do it well.
All I want to do is to do "it" well.
I love you all, and I wish you the best this week. The holidays are coming up and they are the perfect time of the year to share the Gospel with someone. Hopefully my family isn't one of those families that drive missionaries crazy - you know, the ones that don't really take the time to share what they have. Hopefully you are all participating in the greatest work we have to do, and I am sure you are. Thank you again for your love and your support. Be Mighty!!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Mom, I am leaning towards Music Education as my major. I don't know for sure yet, mainly because I don't really know what kind of options there are for a major. If I had to choose now, Music Education would be it. I may change my mind when school actually starts up and I get going in things again. Thank you for helping me out. I really appreciate it.
Zone Conference was this past week in Auburn. It was good to be back in the area since I left that Zone back in April. Each Zone Conference, the missionaries who will be going home before the next Zone Conference stand and give their Departing Testimony. Well, the next Zone Conference won't be happening again until sometime in January, so that means that I will be home before it takes place. Ever since my first Zone Conference when I heard the missionaries who were leaving stand and talk a little about their mission and what they had learned, and as my mission has gone by and I've heard all of the missionaries who have gone home each stand and bear testimony of what they know to be true, I have wondered what it would be like to be in their shoes. Although I still have a few weeks remaining, the end is quickly coming; and thinking about that while I was standing at the pulpit doing the exact same thing that every other departing missionary has done in our mission in the past was a bit overwhelming. The setting wasn't much different from the last time I stood in my home ward and spoke. Then, there were many people who had come to support me and wish me the best. Those that were there were people whom I love very much, and I remember thinking to myself, "Leaving this behind is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done." Now, although there weren't many people in the chapel, I still felt an incredible love for them. President and Sister Pendleton were on the stand, and some of my missionary heroes were sitting in the congregation. These are people I love very much. My thoughts have been, "Leaving this behind is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done." Thankfully, my time is not yet finished as a full time missionary. I still have lots to do, there are still people that need to hear my voice, and I still need to learn how to not be so prideful. The remaining weeks of my mission are going to be the best. The words to our mission song have taken a new meaning to me. I will share some of them with you:
Master, thou hast called
In answer I have come
To mountains high and redwoods tall.
Master, thou hast made me
A messenger of light
Bringing joy to one and all.
My commision
In California
The Roseville Mission
To do thy will.
Master, I will strive to do it well.
All I want to do is to do "it" well.
I love you all, and I wish you the best this week. The holidays are coming up and they are the perfect time of the year to share the Gospel with someone. Hopefully my family isn't one of those families that drive missionaries crazy - you know, the ones that don't really take the time to share what they have. Hopefully you are all participating in the greatest work we have to do, and I am sure you are. Thank you again for your love and your support. Be Mighty!!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
PS. Mom, I am leaning towards Music Education as my major. I don't know for sure yet, mainly because I don't really know what kind of options there are for a major. If I had to choose now, Music Education would be it. I may change my mind when school actually starts up and I get going in things again. Thank you for helping me out. I really appreciate it.
Good News, Bad News
Dear Family,
Well, I hope you are all having a good time in Florida. I'm not going to lie and tell you I'm not jealous, but I am happy that you are having a good time. I must say that when I got Dad's letter telling me, it was definitely not what I was expecting. I wouldn't say it "blew my world" as Dad said it would, but I was definitely surprised. I totally agree with Justin in that I will be expecting a whole lot of cool stuff for Christmas (extended family included there). I won't be needing a phone, car, or girlfriend right now (although you will be able to give them to me sooner than you think...), but I would like some ties, maybe a new suit (grey colored) some shoes, and a whole lot of junk food. And some souvenirs too. But yeah, I hope you are enjoying yourselves without your two favorite people.
So my subject says I have good news and bad news. I'll start with the bad news that way I can try to cheer you up with the good news. So as you know, the kids we live above got baptized awhile ago. We have a thing where we teach them a lesson every saturday morning then we go play soccer with them. Well, this last week while we were playing, I was running down the field with the ball. E. Carrillo was coming up on me, so I juked him. But, as I tried to juke him, he swung his leg to hit the ball, but ended up hitting me right in the shin. It hurt pretty darn bad, and when I looked down at my leg, it looked kinda funny. "This doesn't look good" I thought. I couldn't walk, so the other elder's carried me back to the car, and we went to the hospital. Turns out, I fractured my tibia down near my ankle. I won't be able to walk for about 2 months, cause I have a huge cast on. I talked to Pres. Evans about it, and he said that after prayerful consideration, I will be coming home for 4 months to let it heal before I will be able to come back out here. I told him that my family is in Florida right now, so he put me in the office until next week when I will be flying home. I told President that I would do whatever he wants me to do except go home, cause I don't want to come home. But, he said that he feels it would be best for me to go home and make sure it's 100% healed before I return. I'm pretty upset right now, and I don't really know what to do. I know that President knows best, but this is definitely a tough one to obey. I guess there's not a whole lot I can do about it though.
Now, for the good news - I guess it's not so much good news as it is just a normal report on my week. So right now, we have 6 investigators. I am pretty excited about that, but like I said, it's pretty hard to focus right now, but I'll try my best. Our first one is Bryan Sang. He is still doing awesome. He is on schedule to be baptized on the 24th. He is keeping all of his commitments, and is progressing really well. Next is Mike Pucci. He is doing great too. We are getting him a large print BoM so he can actually read, and we set a date with him for Nov. 7th. Angeline is also scheduled for the 7th of Nov, although I think that will probably get pushed back to later, cause we aren't able to meet with her very often. Aesha is ok. We haven't met with her for awhile, but they are hopefully meeting with her today. Then finally we have Nick and Midge. She is the quadreplegic I told you about awhile ago. They are being taught later tonight. Hopefully I hear that that goes well. So that's about all the updates I have right now. No cool stories, but maybe I'll get one here in the office. We'll see. I guess I have a few more days to see what I can do... Sorry for the short one this week, but I don't really know what else to say. I think President's going to let me call after the 16th so I can let you know my flight plans and everything. Ok, well. See you all soon, I guess. Have a good time in Florida. Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. haha. I bet you're freaking out about now, huh? I am totally kidding about my leg, I just wanted to see if I could give you a heart attack. That's just my way of saying have fun in Florida without me. haha. Love you all!!
Well, I hope you are all having a good time in Florida. I'm not going to lie and tell you I'm not jealous, but I am happy that you are having a good time. I must say that when I got Dad's letter telling me, it was definitely not what I was expecting. I wouldn't say it "blew my world" as Dad said it would, but I was definitely surprised. I totally agree with Justin in that I will be expecting a whole lot of cool stuff for Christmas (extended family included there). I won't be needing a phone, car, or girlfriend right now (although you will be able to give them to me sooner than you think...), but I would like some ties, maybe a new suit (grey colored) some shoes, and a whole lot of junk food. And some souvenirs too. But yeah, I hope you are enjoying yourselves without your two favorite people.
So my subject says I have good news and bad news. I'll start with the bad news that way I can try to cheer you up with the good news. So as you know, the kids we live above got baptized awhile ago. We have a thing where we teach them a lesson every saturday morning then we go play soccer with them. Well, this last week while we were playing, I was running down the field with the ball. E. Carrillo was coming up on me, so I juked him. But, as I tried to juke him, he swung his leg to hit the ball, but ended up hitting me right in the shin. It hurt pretty darn bad, and when I looked down at my leg, it looked kinda funny. "This doesn't look good" I thought. I couldn't walk, so the other elder's carried me back to the car, and we went to the hospital. Turns out, I fractured my tibia down near my ankle. I won't be able to walk for about 2 months, cause I have a huge cast on. I talked to Pres. Evans about it, and he said that after prayerful consideration, I will be coming home for 4 months to let it heal before I will be able to come back out here. I told him that my family is in Florida right now, so he put me in the office until next week when I will be flying home. I told President that I would do whatever he wants me to do except go home, cause I don't want to come home. But, he said that he feels it would be best for me to go home and make sure it's 100% healed before I return. I'm pretty upset right now, and I don't really know what to do. I know that President knows best, but this is definitely a tough one to obey. I guess there's not a whole lot I can do about it though.
Now, for the good news - I guess it's not so much good news as it is just a normal report on my week. So right now, we have 6 investigators. I am pretty excited about that, but like I said, it's pretty hard to focus right now, but I'll try my best. Our first one is Bryan Sang. He is still doing awesome. He is on schedule to be baptized on the 24th. He is keeping all of his commitments, and is progressing really well. Next is Mike Pucci. He is doing great too. We are getting him a large print BoM so he can actually read, and we set a date with him for Nov. 7th. Angeline is also scheduled for the 7th of Nov, although I think that will probably get pushed back to later, cause we aren't able to meet with her very often. Aesha is ok. We haven't met with her for awhile, but they are hopefully meeting with her today. Then finally we have Nick and Midge. She is the quadreplegic I told you about awhile ago. They are being taught later tonight. Hopefully I hear that that goes well. So that's about all the updates I have right now. No cool stories, but maybe I'll get one here in the office. We'll see. I guess I have a few more days to see what I can do... Sorry for the short one this week, but I don't really know what else to say. I think President's going to let me call after the 16th so I can let you know my flight plans and everything. Ok, well. See you all soon, I guess. Have a good time in Florida. Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Hammer
P.S. haha. I bet you're freaking out about now, huh? I am totally kidding about my leg, I just wanted to see if I could give you a heart attack. That's just my way of saying have fun in Florida without me. haha. Love you all!!
Have Fun
I hope Florida is treating everyone well right now. I guess this means that I'm going to be getting totally hooked up by everyone for Christmas to make up for totally shafting me with the biggest trip my family has ever taken together. I'm going to be needing a computer, a phone, a car, a girlfriend... : ) Seriously though, I better get loads of letters and pictures telling me all about it. And, that can't wait until Christmas!
Well, once again I'm sitting here trying to think of what I can report on from the previous week. The best and hardest part about this week was the leadership meetings I had with President Pendleton. We had a Zone Leader Council meeting where we had to report on a few things that are taking place in our areas. Elder Dowling and I were put through the ringer. President grilled us about why so many baptismal dates have been missed in our Zone over the last month. It was not fun. We weren't the only ones that got punched in the gut, but I think we took it the hardest. The point of this was to show us what we can be doing better. The entire focus of the meeting was on improving ourselves in every area of missionary work. We discussed a ton of different things, and for Zone Conference this week President is going to be sharing some of those things with the rest of the mission. My thoughts lately have been, "Wow, I have so far to go to become a good missionary." Elder Dowling and I have been thinking a lot about the meetings we have had and we've set some goals to improve ourselves. President Pendleton is one of my heroes, and I am so grateful for the things I have learned from him. These most recent meetings were exactly what I needed. After Stake Correlation yesterday, President asked us if he'd gone too hard on us and I told him no way. It was perfect.
So, things are going well right now. I am more determined than ever to be better than ever. The next transfer and a half of my mission are going to be the best yet. Sorry to keep it short, but I'm running out of time. Be Mighty, everyone!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
Well, once again I'm sitting here trying to think of what I can report on from the previous week. The best and hardest part about this week was the leadership meetings I had with President Pendleton. We had a Zone Leader Council meeting where we had to report on a few things that are taking place in our areas. Elder Dowling and I were put through the ringer. President grilled us about why so many baptismal dates have been missed in our Zone over the last month. It was not fun. We weren't the only ones that got punched in the gut, but I think we took it the hardest. The point of this was to show us what we can be doing better. The entire focus of the meeting was on improving ourselves in every area of missionary work. We discussed a ton of different things, and for Zone Conference this week President is going to be sharing some of those things with the rest of the mission. My thoughts lately have been, "Wow, I have so far to go to become a good missionary." Elder Dowling and I have been thinking a lot about the meetings we have had and we've set some goals to improve ourselves. President Pendleton is one of my heroes, and I am so grateful for the things I have learned from him. These most recent meetings were exactly what I needed. After Stake Correlation yesterday, President asked us if he'd gone too hard on us and I told him no way. It was perfect.
So, things are going well right now. I am more determined than ever to be better than ever. The next transfer and a half of my mission are going to be the best yet. Sorry to keep it short, but I'm running out of time. Be Mighty, everyone!
Love,
Elder Justin Hammer
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