Stuff

Wow this week has had a lot of stuff happen. First and foremost, our mission is now about twice as big as it was before thanks to the consolidation with the Connecticut Hartford Mission. We all met in the Boston Stake Center to hear from President and Sister Evans and to get to know each other a little bit. It is so cool seeing that many missionaries and knowing that they are all part of our mission now. Plus we were all wearing purple ties (or purple shirts for the sisters) to show our unity. That looked pretty awesome. I know I expressed this a bit in last week's email, but I am still so excited for this wonderful opportunity. Already, there is just a good feeling of positive energy in the mission and it just adds to my excitement. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Since I am training again, I got to go to the new missionary/trainer meeting too. They are introducing a new training curriculum for new missionaries that is super intense, and I get to be a part of it. It isn't set to come out for real until August, but President Evans said he saw no reason to wait until then so he implemented it. I got a packet that is about 40 pages long talking about how training a new missionary is a sacred trust from the Lord and how it needs to be a good experience for both missionaries. As part of the new program, we were issued portable DVD players and copies of the Preach My Gospel DVDs so we can watch them during our companionship study, which is now 2 hours long which also means that with language study, we are studying for 4 hours every day. Yeah, it's intense. We can also use our DVD players for proselyting purposes. It's pretty nice to have one, I'm not gonna lie. There is a 12 week program of what we are supposed to cover during companion study, and what I'm supposed to help him learn. the purpose of the new program is to prepare new missionaries to be ready to train other new missionaries after 12 weeks. Crazy! But after reading through my packet, I am so stoked to do it cause I know it's going to help me alot to become a better missionary. So that's pretty cool. the copy I have is in draft form, so it's all just stapled together, but I think it is going to be another pamphlet/booklet similarly formatted like PMG.

One of the other coolest things that happened this week was that we went to the store to buy food. cool, huh? haha. After we had all the stuff we needed and were heading to the checkout line, I had the impression come to me that I needed some snacking foods since we don't have any at our apartment. So I went to the chips aisle, and lo and behold, there was a familiar green bag that caught my eye. Salsa Verde Doritos! None of the stores I've been to in my mission have had that flavor, so I was so happy when I saw them. I almost cried. haha. Just kidding. But seriously, When I got home, I opened it up and ate about half the bag. I've missed those chips so it was good to find them again. Good story, eh?

We were going to try and visit Johny this one night this last week, and as we were walking to his house, we saw a man standing on his front steps, so we sarted talking to him. We definitely had the Spirit with us as we talked to this guy, and he was definitely feeling it. We talked to him (his name is Joaquin) for about 35 minutes and taught him basically the first lesson. He was loving it, and he committed to be baptized on July 31st! He said that he would definitely be at church the next day so we were very excited. He didn't come to church, but that doesn't mean that he isn't still interested. We have an appointment with him on Thursday so hopefully things will go well when we meet with him again. But it was a way cool experience despite the fact that he didn't come to church. And there's no update on Johny cause he was drunk again when we met with him and we were just bold and told him that he needs to stop drinking and smoking and he got all offended and told us not to come back but then like 5 minutes later after we didn't leave he said he was sorry and said we could still come back, but nothing much is happening with him so that stinks.

And finally, the last coolest thing that happened this week was obviously yesterday. The 4th of July in Boston was one of the coolest things ever! President Evans gave us permission to go watch the fireworks so that was super exciting. We were just in downtown Boston with some other missionaries throughout the day looking at different things until about 6 when we went to secure ourselves a spot to watch the fireworks along the Charles River. We stood in the same place from 6pm to 11pm. My legs were hurting really bad by the end of the night. The fireworks didn't even start until 10:30. But it was amazing once they did. I don't know if you watched it on tv, but you should have if you didn't. It was so cool. They had some that blew up in cube shapes! And they had these other ones that burned for a really long time and just kinda hovered in the air and were like firecrackers (really bad explanation) But yeah, it was awesome. Martina Mcbride was there too. She was the "special guest" with the Boston Pops. So that was neat. I enjoyed it a lot. And I recorded almost the whole show on my camera. The finale looks funny when you watch it on my camera cause there were so many fireworks going off that it's just a huge white light on the screen. haha. But it was really really awesome. How was your 4th? Did you go to the Stadium of Fire? I don't remember how cool the Stadium of Fire is, but I can compare this one to that one when I see it next year. haha. Oh yeah, and they had a pretty sweet flyover before the show started too. Apparently like 5 years ago they had a stealth bomber fly over so that's what I was hoping for, but it was just 3 F-16's ( I think- I'm not sure what they were now that I think of it) But it was cool.

So yeah, that was this week. Pretty awesome. Very memorable in lots of different ways. Cool beans. Well we gotta get going to do some stuff now so I hope to hear from you all soon. Have a good week. By the way, happy birthday last week, Dad, and happy birthday Kurtis this week. I was also wondering if you could send me a conference ensign sometime cause I still don't have one. That'd be nice. Ok well I love you all. Have a great week. Bye.


Love,

Elder Hammer