Week 49 (April 24, 2017)

Wow what a week. Finally had some solid results. We put four baptismal dates this week, and all four of them came to church on Sunday and can be baptized on their baptismal date. It was a lot of work and still will be a lot of work to get them to that date but it has been awesome working with them. Two of them are basically members and the other two know absolutely nothing about the church. Its been pretty great! 

Today for p-day we finally cleaned our house. It was a mess. So we took care of that, then we had to go to the store to buy a cake for a member because today is her birthday and so I told her I would make her a cake. Pictures will be sent next week. The family is really poor but I love them more than any other family here in panama. They are so awesome! Two of those who are being baptized live in that family, the ones who know nothing. Its fun to teach them, they are the ones who i sent a picture of last week. 

Also this week we met with a lady who is investigating the church. She is 26 and single with no kids so what did we do? We took her to the church for an institute class and after that there was an activity for the young single adults. So now she has like 10 friends in the church and a good idea of what we teach and loves it. Should be an easy conversion because she was already reading the book of Mormon before she talked to us and that was what caused her to call us. It was pretty great, we should teach her this week sometime and put a baptismal date with her. 

Another thing that my comp and i are working on is teaching English. We have a couple families interested in learning it and it would be a great way to find more investigators. But who knows if we will ever have time to do it. 

Also in the last picture I included a photo of my release date. One year from today. That's so weird that I have covered basically half of the time of my mission! I still feel brand new out here! Its weird to think that I am becoming one of the older elders out here. Its weird. 

Anyways that's it for the week! Love and miss you all!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 48 (April 17, 2017)

This week has been a solid week. I made a goal with my companion that we have to find at least one new investigator each day. We found 11 new people this week and put 4 baptismal dates, they just didn't go to church so the dates don't exactly work anymore. But of those 11 new investigators 6 of them have family who are already members of the church and can help us activate and baptize those who we found. It was great! My companion knows the area really well so we have been talking to all of the part member families to help them prosper along and all be members, then one day they can go to the temple and make more covenants and be sealed to an eternal family! 

Also this week I found a blender in our house. It is the oldest blender ever, but it works! I think I have made like 20 smoothies this week! So great! 

Easter here doesn't mean anything to the members. They look at it like a catholic holiday and so they don't really celebrate it, when really it is just a time to remember the atonement and death of Jesus Christ. So it was weird to ask people what they did for Easter and they looked at me like I was weird for having something to do with that. 

Also just today I got the opportunity to translate for a huge grocery store. It was pretty cool. Some guy was calling and wanted to sell something to them but didn't speak Spanish, and when they saw me walk in they chased me down and asked if I spoke both Spanish and English and when I did I got to translate for them.  It was pretty cool! 

That's about it for the week! It was a good week! Miss you all! Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin 

A recent Convert who was confirmed on Sunday

A sweet family of Kunas who are all crazy! We are going to baptize 2 of them! 

When I fell asleep in church

Walking in the road, my comp is really slow

Week 47 (April 10, 2017)

Hola Hola Hola from out in the slightly ghetto part of panama!! So changes were yesterday and I am glad to be out!! Five changes in that area was plenty for me! I am now in Tocumen, which is like a suburbs of the city. Its pretty cool! I have a lot more houses in my area now and its also a ton smaller, should be a pretty sweet area.

My new companion is Elder B. He is from Guatemala and is 19 years old. He likes soccer and baseball, and so far he seems pretty cool. He is still new in the mission, he has like 3 months, the same time as my last companion who I just finished training. Also I am the district leader here and they gave me the disobedient district! Should be a lot of fun whipping them into shape! My companion laughs when I talk about it because he doesn't like those guys but nobody has ever done anything about them. It will be interesting. 

Also in the last week we did a ton of work. We found like 15 new investigators who were all pretty awesome and hopefully they can accept the gospel and be baptized, we will see what happens out there in my old area. Also, last week we had a ward activity, we played ward SOFTBALL!! It was so much fun! I think I hit 3 home runs and 3 triples. It was so fun to hit a ball and throw and catch and just be athletic! Then after we went to the church and played soccer with a couple investigators. It was so much sports in one day and now I'm super sore. Hopefully it goes away by tomorrow. I had to apologize to my comp for not being able to walk fast today but I told him it would be the last time! (he doesn't like to walk fast) 

Also last P-day I made a pizza. It was purely from scratch. I used white Alfredo sauce and put on the chicken and barbecue sauce. It was so good!!! I made two of them! 

And lastly we did invasions on the other elders in our district. We showed up at 6:30 to see if they were waking up on time, they weren't. So at 6:40am I went and jumped in one of their beds to wake them up! It was great! We had a nice talk about being obedient and then we studied with them a bit and left. It was a fun day! I think the only problem with that was waking up at 4 to get to their house on time!! 

Anyway, that is it for the week!! Tomorrow makes it 11 months!! Can't believe its almost half way done! Feels like I just got here!!! Anyway love and miss you all!! Have a great Easter!!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 46 (April 3, 2017)

Alright so this week was a good one. We did a bit of teaching and found 5 new people to teach, a couple of them are really positive. But the highlight of the week was for sure conference. I remember I always hated conference, and now i cant get enough of it. I listen to old conference talks all the time just waiting to get more each 6 months. But this April really was a treat! 

From Saturday I really enjoyed Jeffrey R. Hollands talk, because all of his talks are incredible. But I liked how he said we all have a part in Gods choir, we just have to keep singing. No matter who we are or what our circumstances, we can always sing praises to god, and even when we cant, god can hear the song we sing only in our hearts. 

Also in Saturday morning I liked the talk from Gary B. Sabin. He talked about standing up inside, and being all in. We have to fully devote ourselves to the gospel if we really want to be something. His talk was also hilarious so that helps. 

From priesthood I loved the words of the prophet. He talked about Charity. Always great to hear from the prophet. 

Elder David E. Bednar talked about missionary work, and missionary labor. We are called to the work, and assigned to labor in a field. I liked this talk when thinking about an area within the mission. It doesn't matter where we serve here, we cant go wrong. 

I also liked Gerald Clausses talk. He talk about the relationship between the people who hold the Melchizedek priesthood, and the Aaronic priesthood. They need to work together and push each other to be better in their aspects of the work. 

From Sunday morning i once again loved the words of the prophet. He bore a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. I was very glad one of our investigators was there listening to the words of him. 

Yoon Hwan Choi talked about looking up to Christ. Just a nice feel good talk. 

Ronald A. Rasband talked about letting the spirit guide, and we use that a lot in the mission field so it was great to hear about that. 

I also loved when Elder Oaks explained the Godhead, that was really good for our investigator to hear as well. 

And of course Elder Uctdorfs talk on fear. I really liked how he included that both love and faith are needed to overcome fear, and that both of them are much more powerful tools to use when teaching. 

Sunday Afternoon was one of my favorites. The talk from Joaquin E. Costa was one of my favorites. He talked directly to the investigators of the church, and told of the steps to gaining a testimony. I really loved it, and I will be printing it out to give to my investigators. 

The talk from S. Mark Palmer was really good too. He taught how to be a better teacher using 4 simple steps. 

And those were my favorite talks from conference. I really enjoy it and invite everyone to listen to it and study the words of the living prophets. I know I will continue to listen to these talks until October!

Anyway love and miss you all!!! 

Elder Hamblin