Week 84 (Dec. 25th, 2017)

Alright so this week was incredible! Its our first week in the area and it is going so much better than all of the other first weeks in any other area. We have been working like crazy every day just trying to find and teach and invite to baptism. This week we found 48 new people to teach and I´m sure we invited at least 40 of them to attend church and be baptized. Its been so great that we have been working hard and are really seeing the results of the work. 

On Saturday night we had 23 people who said they were going to come to church. It was great that they all wanted to come and feel the spirit of the gospel. We had a special Sunday this week with a Christmas party and then we had lunch after the meeting. We had a lot of members there, although it was our first week all of the members tell us that we have a ton of members attending right now and that all is going well. 

Also with Christmas it was super hard to sleep. The tradition here is that they stay up until midnight waiting for Christmas and get super drunk and listen to a lot of loud music. The neighbors that live right in front of us were listening to music until about 5 in the morning. My companion and I stayed awake talking until something like 2 in the morning because there was just no way to sleep with all of the music. Definitely a Navidad I will never forget. 

I attached some pictures, mostly just us preparing for Christmas. 

Any way love you all!! Merry Christmas!!!!  

Week 83 (December 18, 2017)

Alright so this week was incredible!! To start off we had 2 baptisms this week! They were solid!! Both were just mango bajitos waiting to get baptized so it was great to help them take that huge step. Their families were able to attend, one of them has non members and the other has less active family. 

Also this week we had our branch activity. Not a whole lot of people showed up so there was lots of food for us to eat. We played a little soccer with some little kids and I shot a basketball for few minutes, I spent most of the time just cleaning the baptismal font and getting things ready for the baptism. In the activity we did have a lot of less actives though. And not a whole lot of active members. It was weird to see so many people that I didn't know showing up to a church event. 

And finally we did have changes and I am out of colon and back in San Miguelito. I got put back in the same house where I lived before, but with a different area. My companion is Elder V., he is from Peru, I was his zone leader when he got here and we went on divisions once, although we never left the house because we were both sick haha. 

The house we live in was super dirty when we got here, but my comp and I spent 2 hours deep cleaning and it looks good now. The pics I will send are from over year ago though because I didn't take any today. It looks the same though. 

The little girl is Valeri, she is just a little ball of energy, and makes is super hard to teach lessons but I wanted to include a picture of her.It was her cousin that got baptized. 

Ill send pictures! I'm super excited for Christmas, even if there's no snow here. Actually I feel like it is getting hotter and hotter every day haha! I think that's it for the week. Hope all is well! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 82 (Dec. 11, 2017)

This week was a bit better. We finally got some people to show up to sacrament as well as we had some less actives there. We will have 2 baptisms this week, the mango bajito and another mango bajito. We finally got permission from the girls mother to have her baptized so we will go though with that on Saturday or Sunday. Other than those 2 the area has been pretty dull. Not a whole lot moving. We are hoping to get something moving this week with the members as well as we have a large ward activity on the 16th in the church so hopefully we get a good turnout and can have some investigators there. 

This week we also had interviews with the mission president. Due to a miscommunication we showed up way early and I was the first one to be interviewed in the zone. President called me in to the office, I sat down, president looked at me and said,"Elder Hamblin you looked really stressed right now, why are you so stressed?" So apparently the stress I am under is able to be seen in how I look. So that's fun haha. I told him that I was stressed because we have just been struggling and that I knew we could be doing better, he told me to not worry and that things would get better as we continued working. Then my companion had his interview and the mission president asked him if it would be okay if I left the area this change. So as far as I know it looks like I will be leaving this change. Which is at the end of the week. 

Also this week I was cutting my hair and all was going well, then I went to take a little more of part of my left temple and instead of taking off a little I took of all of it. so I'm rocking a small bald spot on the side of my head, but the rest of it looks great! This is the 5th time I've cut my hair and the first time I've messed up so that makes me 4 for 5 which is a pretty solid batting average.

As far as it goes thats about it for the week. Pretty lame. But this one should be a lot better! 

Also the picture I took this week is of me at the house of the mango bajito.  They have 3 little puppies so I took a picture of me with the puppies. This photo does not include the bald spot. 

Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 81 (Dec. 04, 2017)

This week we started to really figure things out. We met our goals for the week of finding and teaching, we are now just missing the part where we have baptisms. The good news is we found what we call a mango bajito. Its when a kid isn't baptized but his whole family is already members. We found him and are helping to reactivate his family and baptize him. That was a good find. 

Also this week we had a few less actives and some recent converts come to church, it feels good when some hard work pays of and people are showing up. And although we did get some less actives and recent converts, we didn't get any investigators to show up, which makes it impossible to progress. 

We do however have plans in place to have what we call a Week of Excellence. Its a way to find, teach, and prepare people for baptism really quickly. We are hoping to have a lot of success this week and find over 50 new people to teach in just one week! Should be solid. 

Also today we had a zone P day. We played soccer, but I don't have tennis shoes, so I ended up just playing bare foot. It hurt, I got stepped on, but I did score a few goals haha! Also i was able to take my plastic baseball glove and a ball and take grounders off of the wall for a few minutes. It felt good to run and throw. It rained the entire time, absolutely pouring!! It was really refreshing though. Hopefully we don't get sick. 

Also sorry I didn't take any pictures this week, it was raining a lot and I didn't want my camera to get wet so I didn't bring it with. So once again no pictures. But I did find a plastic bag to put my camera in so hopefully I will be able to bring it with me during the week!

Anyways, love you all!! Hope all is well!

Elder Hamblin