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 

Week 19 (Sept. 26, 2016)

Esta semana era muy duro, pero muy chevere también. Martes nosotros no hicimos nada. (This week was very hard, but so cool too. Tuesday we did nothing)

Miércoles fue conferencia de zona con presidente Current. El nos dijo que él nos amó. Yo creo que nos ama. Nuestro presidente es un hombre muy increíble y poderoso! El es como un machete! El Miércoles nos dieron el permiso para mudar. (Wednesday was zone conference with President Current. He told us he loved us. I think he loves us. Our president is a very amazing and powerful man! He is like a machete! On Wednesday they gave us permission to move.)....When asked why he is like a Machete Jayden said it was because he is cutting down all the disobedient elders and sending them home.

Jueves nos mudamos. La actividad se llevó todo la día. Pero nuestro nuevo casa es mucho mas mejor! Fotos seguirá. (Thursday we moved. The activity took all the day. But our new house is much better! Photos will follow.)

Viernes. Yo tenia una infección en mi oreja. Entonces nos fuimos a la ciudad por la doctora. Yo recibí mi medicina y regresamos la casa. Una mal día. (Friday. I had an infection in my ear. Then we went to the city by the doctor. I received my medicine and returned home. A bad day.)

Sábado nos quedó en nuestro casa por toda la día. (Saturday left us in our house throughout the day.)

Domingo teníamos que trabajar duro porque no tuvimos lecciones por la semana. Nosotros enseñábamos un montón de lecciones el domingo. Lo mismo de ambos de los otro elderes tenían por todo de la semana. Muy increíble. Nosotros también hicimos una cita para noche de familia por esta semana. Estoy animado por eso! )Sunday we had to work hard because we had lessons per week. We taught a lot of lessons on Sunday. The same for both of the other elders had all week. Very incredible. We also made an appointment for family night for this week. I am encouraged by it!)

In English I will also add a story. We went and visited an investigator who we hadn't seen in 2 weeks. When we entered her house she began to cry. She missed the spirit that we brought to her house and she missed hearing about the gospel. We told her we would come back more often. Then we set up the family night for her to attend this Thursday. I want her to attend church and start to love the members in our ward. Then she can have that special spirit with her all the time. 

So overall it was a really bad teaching week so we made it up Sunday. This coming week should be incredible! 

Elder Hamblin

Week 18 (Sept. 12, 2016)

Sorry for the delay in posting by a week, I was out of town on business and it took a bit to catch up (Gary)

So we got a call on Sunday instead of on Monday this week. Changes happened today instead of on Wednesday. My comp is currently in Tocumen, a different zone that had major problems with obedience and 5 elders got sent home. Crazy.... My new companion is Elder P. He is from the island of Tonga! He speaks English, Spanish, and Tongan. He is super cool! I've been told that he works super hard which is exactly what I want for a companion. Also they closed down an area next to ours so we might go live in their house from now on. It is a little bit better than our little dump of a house! 

More exciting news! We had 3 baptisms in our last week of the change. Pictures attached. It was a great baptismal service. I had the opportunity to conduct the meeting. The girl is 10 and was baptized by her mom´s boyfriend. The taller boy is the mom´s brother, he is 14 and the other boy is 12.  Both the boys were baptized by my companion, then I had the opportunity to confirm one of them. It was super hard to do in Spanish because it is a lot of words to say as well as giving a blessing in Spanish is much different than just simply talking. It was a good experience though. 

The coming weeks should be fun. We have a few progressing investigators that should be baptized here in a couple weeks. As well as lots of recent converts to teach. Should be a great 6 weeks. I am excited to see what we have in store! I look forward to working hard and being able to talk in English a little to better my Spanish!! Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin!! 

Week 19 (Sept. 19, 2016)

Esta semana fue muy divertido! Mi nuevo compañero es muy genial. El y yo nos divertimos y trabajamos muy duro! Tendremos un servicio bautismal esta Sábado. Tenemos mucho investigadores con quien nosotros necesitamos trabajar, y también nosotros tenemos mucho meno activos en nuestro barrio. Está mucha obra pero es la obra de al señor. Mi español esta mucho mejor y puedo entender mucho mas. El miércoles pasado yo enseñó una lección en todo con solo un poco ayuda de mi compañero. Fue muy difícil pero muy genial también. 

Yo no tengo fotos esta semana, lo siento. Tal vez mañana podré tomar. Lo siento por esta correo todo en español pero yo quiero trabajar en mi español. Esto es solo una manera que yo puedo mejor me español. Ustedes pueden traducir con Google. jajaja! 

Pues les amo!! Tengan una buena semana!! 

Elder Hamblin 

This week was great fun! My new partner is very great. He and I had fun and work hard! We will have a baptismal service this Sunday. We have a lot of investigators with whom we need to work, and we have a lot more active in our neighborhood. Is a lot of work but it is the work of the Lord. My Spanish is much better and I can understand more. Last Wednesday I taught a lesson in all with just a little help from my partner. It was very difficult but very cool too.

I have no photos this week, sorry. Maybe tomorrow I can take. Sorry for this mail all in Spanish but I want to work on my Spanish. This is just a way that I can better my Spanish. You can translate it with Google. Hahaha!

Well, I love you !! Have a great week !!


Elder Hamblin

Week 17 (Sept. 05, 2016)

Hola familia! it was a good week out here in the ghetto. We taught a record high number of lessons between me and my comp. We didn't have any baptisms this week, but we worked hard and will have 4 next week!! Me and my comp call the area "the mine" because there are so many investigators who live on the top of the mountain. Its pretty great. The other night one of them, a 10 year old non member told me that she wants to serve a mission when she gets older. SHE HASN'T EVEN BEEN BAPTIZED YET!!!! It is incredible how the lord will prepare people to be taught! 

Overall this week was pretty boring in terms of crazy things. We for reals just taught a lot of lessons!

I need recipes please. Fudge, meatloaf, poop cookies, German pancakes. thanks!! we can cook at a family that has an oven, its pretty easy and one of them asked for meatloaf.

Love you all!! Talk to you next week!! 

Jayden