Week 32 (December 26, 2016)

(It was really exciting to talk with Jayden Christmas day.  He seemed very happy and looks to be doing well.  Thanks all for your continual prayers in his behalf.  his Spanish is doing very well too.  Gary)

Okay so it was so great to talk to my family for the week!! I miss and love you all! Sorry my $8 web cam wasn't the best but it was better than nothing! 

This week was just a lot of Christmas stuff and service. My comp and I went and cleaned the church on Christmas eve so the guy that normally does it wouldn't have to. It was good. 

Also on Sunday we had 2 baptisms. it was way good! Lots of pictures! Probably not a better way to spend Christmas than in the baptismal font! For them and for me!!! 

I also included a photo of the owners son and the food we got for Christmas eve from them. They are super cool and act like we are family here in our apartment building. 

I put on here also the photo of the Christmas tree I drew. that is what we used for Christmas. It has the 4 presents under it for the Hermana's and my comp and I. 

There are a lot of photos from the baptism, Ramiro is 12 and Sophia is 16. Their older siblings are members and they didn't even show up to their baptism. The sister had two friends who came and I think they will be investigators later, it will be sweet!! 

Also there is a photo of my room. My bed is soaking wet because I left the window open when we left and it rained. The same goes for my desk. Which is a mess as of like yesterday. 

Anyways that's about it for the week. Lots of fun, and baptisms are always great!!

Anyways love you and miss you!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 31 (Dec. 21, 2016)

Hey sorry, Monday was absolutely insane and we got a lot done but computer time was not included in that. Sorry!! Anyway this week and last have been great. We are going to have our baptism this Sunday after church, which will push the Skype time back a bit which is fine. 

Anyway today we had our Christmas activity in the city, it was good. I got a new key chain as a present. We sang a lot of songs and that was about it. It was good to have a little Christmas tho. 

I have to keep this short, but I got your Christmas package, I am waiting for Christmas to open it!! Also I cant wait to Skype!!!!! 

Attached are photos! Got to go!!

Love you all!!

Elder Hamblin

Week 30 (Dec. 12, 2016)

Well I have officially hit the 7 month mark. It feels like it has gone really fast, yet at the same time it is taking forever!!! Also last Tuesday was mothers day in Panama so happy mothers day. My comp and I both gave a gift to our mother in the mission. Her name is Hermana Alicia. She is from Peru, and was inactive until we started visiting her. Now she goes to church every week, and gives us dinner on Tuesdays! We also helped her put up her Christmas lights!! We hung one strand on her window, and one in front of her front door, and that was it. We cant hang anything from the room because here we have rain not snow and that will ruin the lights. Her house looks pretty cool tho now. 

This week we had 3 investigators come to church!! Finally!! One of them has a baptismal date for December 29th. and her two younger siblings want to be baptized on Christmas!!!! The siblings are probably the smartest and best investigators we have had yet. They ask so many good questions and make sure that they really understand the principles we teach which is so great! It is so hard to teach someone who doesn't ask questions. I really do want them to be baptized on Christmas!! That would be so awesome! Best Christmas present ever, for everybody!!! 

This week I learned something about Panama. If the expiration date says the 12th, it really means two days before whatever it says. Most of the food that I bought, my milk, bread, and even a box of cereal went bad. I couldn't believe it. My milk went bad, actually it tasted bad the whole time that I had it. But still, milk. 

This week I will have divisions with my district leader. It will be the first time in my mission I will be with another elder who is from the united states. 😀it will be weird to see if we can both understand everything in Spanish, because even now, I still get a little lost. Latinos talk a ton, so when they talk for like 5 minutes straight I kind of just zone out and don't listen or understand anything. Its hard, so we will see how things go with another gringo. 

Also I finally got your Thanksgiving package, as well as your Christmas package. I love them both! I have enough of the Christmas ones left to open one a day until Christmas Eve, then for Christmas we can just talk in person. Also I don't know where that will be, or how, I am still working out the details, but I'm pretty sure the church will be available as well as I have the computer in the apartment building if everything falls through. The problem is that I don't know if I can Skype on the apartment computer, it is really old. But that isn't a big deal, we have the church to use. 

I think that's about it for my week. I got sick again. Actually I am still sick. I have like a cold or something but my nose is constantly runny and my throat has so much mucus in it I have a hard time breathing! Its crazy! I never got sick like this at home. Something about always being hot, and somehow I caught a cold!!!! 

Anyway love and miss you all!! Enjoy the cold, and I will soak up some heat for all of you!! Les quiero mucho!!!!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 29 (Dec. 5, 2016)

So this week was a bit interesting. 

Monday my comp got sick. Chills and fever and just not doing good. So i gave him a blessing and we just stayed home all night. 

Tuesday he was still sick but we went to district meeting. Big mistake. Comp was still sick and got another elder there sick. So we went home and he slept the whole day. 

Wednesday my comp woke up feeling great but i was sick. So we stayed home the entire day. 

Thursday i thought i was feeling better so we left the house and we got to the corner and i threw up and so we went back home again. I took some medicine and slept a lot and didn't eat and felt better by the night. 

Friday we went out to our usual trip to Anton. Lots of investigators out there, but its a toss up if they are home or not. We ended up just teaching 3 lessons that day but they were all really good. 

Saturday we had some problems with people being busy so it was hard to get in. We went to a family that wasn't really progressing and i thought to myself, if they are home and don't accept the lesson I will not come back to this house. So we went, they were home, we asked if we could teach, and the lady told us that she is attending 2 churches every Sunday, and she has a preacher she likes, and she doesn't want to have us come over anymore. Nothing more we can do about that. As we walked away i told my comp, she is attending 2 different churches. Yet there are only 2 churches in the world. The church of god and the church of the devil. She had a 50/50 chance to get it right and she messed it up with both of her options. So she is now an inside joke with me and my comp. 

Sunday was changes. Well for everybody else. My comp is going to be staying here for one more change and I think that it will be good to have him here one more. 

Also, last night I called Elder Romero, who is one of my best friends here in the mission to see if he got changed. He answered the phone and didn't know who I was. He kept guessing people and all of them were Latinos. He was so surprised that I spoke such good Spanish. He had no idea that I could even speak Spanish because every time I am with him we just speak in English. Also I learned that his comp, who was in the MTC with me, is coming to my district and will be our district leader. So that is way sweet! 

Other things that happened this week. Lately we have been getting cancelled on for dinner a lot so me and my comp have to fend for ourselves. He likes going to KFC across the street but I hate eating fast food here. So what I did

 
is I make Arepas. They are a food from Venezuela that is like a corn tortilla, and you fill it with tuna and some spices. Well Tuna here for the good stuff is like $2, so I bought the cheapest that I could, and I bought some sardines and I mix it all together with mayonnaise and my comp thinks I'm crazy but it is delicious. I will put the directions at the end of this letter and some photo's.

And yeah that pretty much sums up the week. Not a whole lot because of being sick, but the next week should be good because we get to make up for all of the missed lessons for this week!! 

Also huge shout out to anyone that emailed me this week! I love getting emails and this week was a real pick me up on the email side of things so thanks for that!!!

Anyways, love and miss you all!!! Have fun in the snow!! It isn't even Christmas here except for the Christmas music in the grocery store. And also I found eggnog once in the store so that was pretty sweet!!! Its just gross that in Spanish they call it ponche de jeuvos, which is just like egg punch, like a fruit punch of eggs. Kind of grossed me out but it tasted delicious. They only had it once because we went to the store today and I couldn't find it. Sad day. 

Once again love and miss you!!

Elder Hamblin