Week 23 (Oct. 24, 2016)

Changes were yesterday and just as I thought me and my comp are still together which is just fine with me. We get along pretty great and I don't know the area yet. This week we did a ton of teaching, we had 16 lessons with a member present and hopefully can keep it up this week. Me and my comp talked with some members and we are going to make divisions every Sunday after church with some members to go out separate and reach more people. 

Yesterday we had a rescate, this means that most of the missionaries in our zone come and we go out with members to visit all of the less active people. We had 15 missionaries there. We taught something like 55 lessons between all of us. It was super sweet! I went out with the president of our branch and we met with 3 less active families as well as a family of 7 investigators. We invited them to pray and to attend church the next week, as well as to the church activity this Thursday. It should be super sweet if all of them show up! 

This week also we changed a baptismal date from November 5th to October 30th. So we should have that baptism this Saturday! Also the sister missionaries here will have one as well and their baptismal candidate wants me to do the ordinance. She is a 10 year old girl who I have never even met. I don't know why she picked me but it is super cool!! I'm excited to do it! Baptizing is way cool! And it is so much easier than confirming in Spanish!!!  

Anyway that was about my whole week!! I didn't take any pictures this week but I'm hoping to remember to take some this coming week!! Anyway love and miss you all!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 22 (Oct. 17, 2016)

This week went pretty great. We got a call on Tuesday that we need to move, I'm not too mad about that, the only problem is that the owner of our little room we live in is a 75 year old lady that loves having the missionaries and she has done nothing but cry this whole week, its super hard because she lives totally alone. We should be moving sometime this week however. We already have a couple options for houses that are much better than the little room we live in now. 

As for the mission work we have lots of progressing investigators. We have a few baptismal dates coming up that we should baptize soon. We found a new investigator this week named Hna. Digna. She is super cool. shes like 40 years old and we went to dominoes the other day and got pizza. This was before we had even taught her. Then we taught her the restoration and gave her 3 book of Mormons. One in English because she wants to learn in. And two in Spanish because she can give one to her mom. She was raised Catholic but she doesn't believe it because the Catholics worship idols like the Virgin Mary and so she doesn't want to be a part of it. She seemed super open to the gospel of Jesus Christ and hopefully we should put a baptismal date with her sometime this week.

This week we also had a huge service project. The whole branch got together along with all the missionaries in the zone and we went out and just picked up garbage. It was super cool. The members picked up the garbage and the missionaries just talked to all the people who were staring and looking at us. Just me and my companion talked and gave a card to 70 different people. Hopefully some of them will call us or come to church or something sometime too. As for the city it is already a mess again. The people here are so dirty its disgusting. There is garbage everywhere!! 

This week in church I had to give a talk on missionary work and how the members can help us. It was like 10 minutes long, and I was asked to give it the day before. Its all in Spanish so I will try to translate it. 

Good morning brothers and sisters. I am Elder Hamblin, I am from the United States and I am a gringo. I have 3 months here in Panama. Before my mission my dad told me that I need to start every talk with a joke or a lie, so brothers and sisters I am grateful for this opportunity to address you.  Well President Pinzon asked me to talk about the mission work and and the need for member missionary work. I want to share a couple scripture with you the first being D&C 4, verses 3 and 4.  

3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo,he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; This Scripture says, if you want to serve, you are called, and you will receive blessings for your service. The second scripture is in the bible in the book of mark. Chapter 16 verse 15 says  15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.  This verse is very simple. it says we need to preach. I am here in the mission. I am working. I am preaching. What are you doing? Now this is kinda harsh. I am a full time missionary, this is my calling. But all of you have a calling to teach as well. Your calling is a bit different though. 

I then told the story of how Alma had to find Amulek to teach and that the members need to be like Amulek, help the missionaries in their work. Together with missionaries to visit less actives and new members and give references to the missionaries. It was super cool! There were also a bunch of jokes in it but they aren't as funny in English. We got 2 references that same day. It was sweet!! the story of Alma is Alma chapter 8. 

  

Okay as for the photos. I officially have 5 months in the mission so my comp bought me a candle to put on my dinner. Also I got your letter like 2 weeks ago and I totally forgot to let you know. but I have it and I loved it!! And yeah that was my week. pretty good if you ask me, and this next week should be even better!! I'm excited for what this area has to bring! Love and miss you all! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 21 (Oct. 10, 2016)

Okay so I got a call Monday while I was emailing that i was being transferred to a different zone. Something happened in their zone and a missionary had to be taken out of there and they decided to put me in. So I went to the office on Tuesday and talked with the secretaries and assistants and the president and all was good. Then I sat in the office for 3 days just waiting to be told to go to my new area. I had to take a bus for 4 hours all by myself, that was pretty fun. I got to see the canal, sort of, it was really dark and there were no boats or anything but I saw some water. After my 4 hour travel I met my new comp. He is super cool, his name is Elder Franco and he is from El Salvador and has only 2 months in the mission. He speaks basically no English but he wants to work on it and get better. So every day we have been practicing out of his little English textbook. Its pretty fun to see him progress and see what he knows. He knows a lot of English but is really shy to say any of it. 

So as for my area I am in Zona Chitre in the area of Penonome 1. We split a branch with the sisters out here. The branch is huge! We have like 120 people at church every week and at first i didnt believe it but then yesterday at church it was true! There are so many people there we dont even all fit in the chapel!! 

The sisters that we split the ward with are super cool! Both of them are from Utah (. One of them has 10 months in the mission and speaks really good Spanish and the other one has 2 months in the mission and speaks practically no Spanish. As for me we were having dinner with a member last night and the member told me "wow your Spanish is really good! Are you fluent?" I was so surprised. I never realized how good my Spanish actually was. But i guess it is really good because me and my comp can communicate without any problems. 

I also really love the people here and I think they already like me. So while i was in the office for 3 days me and the secretaries learned a bunch of stupid little magic tricks. So i showed all the people in our little branch and they were freaking out about it!! all of the little kids love it!! When one of the ladies in the ward found out how I made the coin disappear she called me a liar and kept telling me I lied and it was so funny! Also in  the ward someone came to the conclusion that I look like Ken Barbie so they call me Ken now. It is not amusing!! 

As for the mission work here it should be progressing a lot soon. We had 2 investigators attend church yesterday as well as we have been visiting some less actives. We just need a couple of investigators to get married and then we can baptize them. they come to church a lot and have testimonies, just need to be married. I think that should happen sometime in the next month! Anyways I'm super excited for my future time in this area as well as in this branch. We will hopefully become a stake and then we can be a full on ward soon!!! Everyone in the branch is working hard to get everyone to come to church so that we can get the numbers for it all to happen!! Im super excited!! 

Anyway thats my very exciting week!! Finally had some stuff happen!! 

Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin

Week 20 (Oct 03, 2016)

What a week. Or at least what a weekend. I loved conference. I was able to listen to most of it in English actually. I absolutely loved it. The whole thing was an answer to my prayers. We as missionaries all went to the stake center here and watched all 5 sessions. I loved the Sunday sessions the  most though. We did have an investigator come to conference on Sunday with us. She has a baptismal date for next Saturday.

Friday I went to the doctor for my ear again. She said that everything looks good and I shouldn't have to go back.

Actually I do have a pretty good story that happened this week. We were in our house and it was raining. So we thought we would wait out the rain. We waited an hour and then just figured it was light enough rain to use umbrellas. We got tho the bus station and it was a downpour. We got on the bus and then when we got to our stop it was absolutely pouring. So we put our umbrellas down and just sprinted for the house. When we got to the road to turn the road had about 3 inches of running water coming down it. It was crazy! It was also the only way to get to their house. So my comp went running through it first, then i went. When i was about halfway up our cell phone fell out of my shirt pocket and into the river/road. Luckily my comp saw and it we ran back and grabbed it. It was soaked. Then when we got to our lunch appointment they weren't even home!! So we went to our back up lunch and had to eat on the porch because we were both absolutely soaking wet!! It was actually pretty fun!! 

Other than that it was a pretty boring week. Our family home evening fell through. Not surprised by that though, she didn't want to come to conference with us either.

And yeah. that's it. Really boring. And I don't have my camera with me so no pictures. Lo siento.

Elder Hamblin