Week 45 (March 27, 2017)

So this week was a good one. I wasn't able to work a ton in my area but the work still happened here. I went on divisions for 3 days with the zone leaders because they wanted to see if my comp knew how to work. Actually I wanted to know if he could actually work without me as well. 

While on divisions they went out and found a ton of new people to teach who are pretty awesome and are reading the Book of Mormon now. 

Also this week I had my interview with President, everything was great. We talked a lot about how I can help my comp and how I can help the area here as well. He told me he will more than likely be changing me out of here, I've been here since October. 

So the interviews were originally scheduled to be about 2 hours from where we live in the stake center. But the President changed them to be in our church. What ended up happening was 2 gringos from the states showed up at the exact time and told us they would love to do some divisions with us and makes some visits and that they had already been sharing the gospel with people and were going to have us help them teach them.  These guys didn't speak any Spanish so I translated and we taught a family a lesson and it was way awesome. I didn't have my camera so I don't have any pictures now, but I told them to email me all of the pictures they took with their phones, so I should be hearing from them soon, as well as having lots of pictures.  

Overall it was an incredible experience to work alongside a couple of old return missionaries, they were like 65 years old each. They tried to talk to everyone and it really just showed me that anyone could and talk to who we need to talk to. In this mission we teach not to, but maybe I will start just a little bit, and maybe I can find someone who is ready to be baptized!! 

Anyway love and miss you all!!! 

Cant wait for General Conference!!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 44 (March 20, 2017)

Okay so this week was pretty boring. Had divisions and did some other stuff, but nothing really interesting. Until Sunday. Its a great story, and my companion tells it better than I do. So here it is. 

El Puño Loco Hamblin, El Terror de los Perros

So it was a Sunday afternoon, we had been without water for 3 days, and were out looking for the yellow house. (My comp had an obsession with a yellow house that we knocked on the door once and told us to come back later because they were all drunk.) So we get to the yellow house, and the junior comp, being more brave, steps up a little closer to the porch and yells "buenas." That was when we saw the huge pit-bull laying down on the porch. We didn't think anything of it because it hadn't even stood up. So we continued yelling. Then another pit-bull came out from behind the wall. So now we have two huge pit-bulls and two terrified missionaries. The second pit-bull that came out was really brave and really angry. The first one went for my comp and the more brave one came at me. So we are just pooping our pants and walking backwards and these dogs just keep getting closer. The one coming at me is like 5 feet away and just angry as could be. Then he came at me. He lunged at me, trying to bite around my waist area. So I did what came natural and punched that dog as hard as I could right in its face. It was probably the craziest thing I have done in my life. The dog didn't take it very well, because it whimpered twice and then backed off. As well as the dog coming after my comp took a few steps back. I just looked at my comp and was like"WE NEED TO FREAKING GET OUT OF HERE!!" So we start to back away a lot faster now, then a Rottweiler comes out, and he wasn't happy either, but he didn't know that I was packing a nice knuckle sandwich so that dog is freaking out at us, and my comp and I start basically running backwards until we got far enough away to start laughing and saying thanks to god that neither of us just died!! It was a crazy story!! I PUNCHED A PIT-BULL IN THE FACE!!!! 

So yeah that was the highlight of the week. Me and my comp haven't stopped talking about it haha!!! He tells everyone about it and we both laugh so hard!! 

SO that's the story of El Puño Loco Hamblin, El Terror de los Perros. 

Or crazy fist Hamblin, the terror of dogs. 

Love you all. Miss you all. 

-El Puño Loco Hamblin 

Week 43 (March 13, 2017)

This week was a long one. 

On Saturday of last week I woke up with a rash on my wrists but I thought it was just an irritation from my shirt, I was wrong, It spread to the rest of my body. So I finally gave in and went to the doctors and got medicine to take care of it and it is going away. The doctor said it was some sort of allergy, but I don't know what I was allergic to. 

We also spent a ton of time in our house this week for my comp, he wont stop crying. He spends all his time on the phone either talking to the mission president, the assistants, the mission nurse, or the mission psychologist, its a mess. He wakes up every morning crying and the doesn't want to work for the whole day. I had to teach a few lessons by myself because he just refuses to speak or cries the whole time. So that was fun. Although teaching by myself is fine because I can control where the lesson goes and I ask lots of questions that really make the investigators think. Its pretty fun. 

This week as well I found a new talk that I really like, its from James E. Faust in a conference from April 1978. Its called, The Refiners Fire. I love it, and I explained it to my comp and made him read all of the scriptures and he likes it to. He said it gives him hope that things will get better.

Also this week we got the luck to listen to Elder Gay of the quorum of the 70. He talked about the need to go where investigators are spiritually, and when we really understand their lives, we will become ready to teach them and help them progress in the gospel. It was really good. He told lots of crazy stories from his time as a mission president in Ghana. It was way awesome!! 

Also on Thursday my comp and I walked past a baseball field and there were a few little kids messing around on the field. So I asked if I could play and they gave me the bat to hit. First pitch, boom, I hit the fence. All the little kids were so amazed. I hit the ball 3 more times, and then the cover of the ball came off. I felt like I was on the Sandlot haha! It was nice to play a little ball. I miss it. 

And that's it for the week. Not a ton of teaching but I did get in lots of studying and learned a lot about the gospel. Well miss you all!! Have a great week!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 42 (March 06, 2017)

Alright, what a week we had. More time in the house with all of the parties, But in the end we got lots of time to teach.

None of the people we were previously teaching were available to teach this week so we had to find some new ones. 

On Wednesday we were playing soccer with a bunch of little neighbor kids and we found out where they lived and kind of who they were so we went and contacted their parents on Saturday. 

We ended up getting in one house, but the mom doesn't speak Spanish, she speaks Kuna, a local dialect here from the Indians. So we taught the kid, he's 9, and he translated as best he could for the mom. Then we asked them to go to church, she said no but the kid could. So we took the kid to church, and gave the mom a copy of the book of Mormon in Kuna. Its only like 100 pages long and missing lots of stuff but still talks about Jesus so we went for it. The kid went to church and really enjoyed it! 

Then we found another family. They are catholic but had a bad experience with the catholic church when the son didn't kneel down for the worshiping of a saint. He told us he wouldn't kneel because he doesn't believe in saints, that was fine with us. We explained to him the church and the restoration and he liked it so we invited him to church and showed up Sunday morning to take him. We picked him up and our little Kuna friend and went to church. 

At church we had a special visitor, the mission president. He showed up to observe the ward and see how we all were. It was a great week, we had a ton of people there, 150, it was insane.  We had to put people out in the hall because we didn't fit in the chapel, it was so cool!  I had a special interview after with the president and we talked about the vision for the ward and how we could improve it as missionaries and it was just way cool. 

Oh yeah the surgery,  It wasn't me that got surgery, but I got to perform it. My shoes are starting to give out. So I bought some nice glue and went to work. Pictures attached. I wore them the same day and they are doing great!! I think I will keep them haha!!! 

That's it for the week really. Next week we should be able to put some baptismal dates and start working toward that!! I'm excited!! Love you all!!

Elder Hamblin