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... ; )