Providence

Man, this place is cool. My first few days have been great. Providence is one of the dirtiest places I've ever been. Check that, it's definitely the dirtiest place I've ever been. There's trash everywhere, lots of hobos, super old buildings all graffitti-d up. It's awesome. I told my comp the other day that I don't feel like I'm in America anymore. haha. There are lots of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. There's supposedly a good chunk of Cambodians, although we haven't found many yet. Lots of Italians too. There are whole chunks of town that are run by the mafia. Apparently like 2 weeks ago one of the restaraunts got shut down for being mafia-operated. Sweet, huh? So far I'm likin this place.

My companion is awesome. His name's Elder Pierson. He's from Denver. He's been out 16 months. He played lots of video games, and played percussion in high school so we've got a good bit of similarities. He loves Muse so that's a plus too. haha. He's really funny too. He always tells jokes and just does lots of funny things. I think we're going to have a great transfer together. I'm excited. We serve in two wards here like I did in Lowell. Well, I guess one of them is a branch, but same thing. There is a family ward, and then a YSA branch that is mainly made up of Brown University students. Apparently Brown is this super nice, really rich ivy league school. And apparently all the non-members that go there hate us. haha. The wards are really cool though. I got to meet a bunch of the members yesterday and I'm really excited to see how they can help us. I had heard that this ward doesn't help us out very much, but I didn't get that feeling at all yesterday. I bore my testimony and told them all that I was excited to serve in their ward, and mentioned that I speak Cambodian. Afterwards, I had tons of comments from members telling me that they'd love to help out. It was great. There's this one guy in the ward that is super awesome too. His name is Greg. He was in a cambodian gang back in the day, but then he converted and then all his cambodian friends converted too. And now, they are all inactive except for Greg and his family (he has a Cambodian wife, and 3 daughters). So I talked to him, and he was SUPER excited that I can speak the language. He wants me to convert his mother in law, and his brothers in law, and he was telling me about all his friends that he's gonna introduce us to. He was so excited, it was ridiculous. haha. And there is another Cambodian guy in the ward that talked to me a little bit after church. So yeah, I'm excited. It's crazy to see how similar the stories are between here, Lynn and Lowell. Hopefully next week I'll have some more news on it.

There is another guy in the ward named Don. He is a convert of 8 years, and is one of the coolest people I've ever met in my life. He has a crazy awesome conversion story that I'll have to tell later cause I'm running out of time on the computer. But basically, he is one of the legends of the church out here. At least for the missionaries. He is on disability so he doesn't work, and he comes out with us all the time cause he loves the missionaries so much. We share our car with the other Elders in our area, so we have it Sun-Wed, and on the days that we don't have the car, Don drives us everywhere, and he drives the other Elders when we have the car. He's a super good cook and he feeds us whenever we don't have a dinner appointment, and he is just awesome. I've only known him for 4 days, but I feel like we are best friends already. To prove how much of a mission legend he is, the previous Connecticut mission president, before he went home, bought Don a car (the mission president is the CEO of Intermountain Health Care - he's loaded). And he also bought him roundtrip airfare to Utah this next week so he can go to Conference and to the mission reunion so he can see all the Elders. He's such a cool guy! Maybe I'll give him our address cause he's gonna be in orem for awhile. I'm sure he could make a stop and meet you. Maybe. haha.

Our apartment is one of the coolest in the mission too. It's the one that everyone else in the mission wishes they could live in. It's pretty sweet. It's a renovated mill. It's pretty spacious, and is surprisingly really nice considering the part of town it's in. haha. We are surrounded by government housing projects where all the bums live, but we live in this really nice place. It's funny. The address is 304 Pearl St. #209 Providence, RI 02907.

Well, I gotta close up cause I'm about to get kicked off the computer cause times up. That was a bad sentence. haha. Ok well, I love you all, and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Hammer

P.S. No update on the BYU game this week? :(

Oh yeah, and I'm super excited for Conference this week! Can't wait!