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Hip hip hurray!!!! They went down with out a fuss!! This week we welcomed Wendy y Nicole Valencia into the waters of Baptism in Villa Sonia and in Patio Bonito we welcomed Amparo Moralez into the waters here in the land of 2 lies. haha! The people here call patio bonito la tierra de 2 mentiras haha, because it is neither beautiful or a back yard haha!! But none the less we are baptizing here!! I was a bit disappointed in Villa Sonia. I was supposed to baptize Claudia but, she had a relapse of her drug use!! Ahhhh!!! She was clean for 2 1/2 months and the day before here baptism she ran away!!! AAHHH!!! Curse Satan and those ding dongin drugs (As Dad would say) haha!! But this week I had the privilege to baptize Amparo here in Patio Bonito! Elder Rojas was supposed to return here to baptize her on Saturday but he didn’t call the president for permission to come back until the day of the baptism so Pres. didnt give him permission. I am really struggling here with the flakiness here at times. Its like, why are we not planning ahead of time. Elder Vigo thinks I’m crazy that I prepare for a lesson a day or 2 before or that I will schedule appointments a week in advance or leave the people a card to tell them when we will return for our next visit. I just don’t like to wing things in the mission. But the baptisms are going good here. We will have at least 3 more baptisms on 16 de Abril!! We are going to try to put 5 more baptisms for this month too, but not bad for 6 months in the mission and 6 baptisms, but we are going to be baptizing like crazy here soon I feel! We have some excellent investigators here that I believe will be going down in the waters soon. It’s just that we deal al ot with people living together that aren’t married. We are working on getting 2 couples married right now, but its almost impossible to divorce here, and its hard to get the paperwork together for a wedding, but were doing it!
I love the scriptures, holy smokes they have the power. I am trying to incorporate the stories of the scriptures more into the teachings instead of reading of when we read in Alma 32 and 34 we read alot about Fe, lets read this scripture that says fe is a hope in things that are not seen, ok bien well this is Fe. I’m trying to implement the stories of the scriptures so they people can feel the doctrine and see how it has applied in the stories, like when Cristo is walking on the water, and says if you only believe you can do as I do. What at statement about Fe.!! SO this is how I am trying to adjust my teachings a bit better.
As far as the area goes I must say that it ain’t the prettiest place in the world. It’s mostly dirt in this part of the country. It’s very poor so they’ve got alot of dirt roads, and I’m in a big city, so imagine a run down L.A with houses made of timber or bricks, and dirt roads and rickity horse drawn planks. There are some nice little parks but for the most part, its just brick and dirt. The members are excellent here and they pass alot of references to us, so we teach alot by references and we actually are responded to very well in contacts here. We are doing alot better with our stats for the week here. We had a crazy hard core planning session the other week on how we could teach more and we had 27 lessons with investigators and 1 baptism this week, so not bad.
I still have trouble living with a companion 24/7. Oh my gosh its difficult. It’s not that Elder Vigo is bad or anything, its just that when one person has an idea, the other HAS to follow. He has a tendency to enter houses with only girls, I’m like elder how many times to I have to tell you we don’t do that!!! Its hard to build confidence in him when he keeps doing this. It’s just when we have a companion by your side 24/7 that you didn’t know before and are a bit different at times its a bit difficult but we are working so we are working through it! All is well here!!
Oh ya on Thursday we went to the temple and we had a lovely session in Spanish. I understood everything!! hurray!! Anyways afterwards the mission had a big lunch in the Temple cafeteria so I was in line and the guy serving was like hey, Elder Martillo!! I was like hey you speak alittle English, he said no I had a Companion named Elder Hammer and he taught me that. I was like oh where did you serve. He said Calli in 1981-1983. I was like yep, Brad Hammer was your companion than that was my dad!! He was like ahh you looked just like him! yep, your Brad’s son alright!! haha!! How cool was that! So I talked to him for a bit. I forgot his name but its something Baron or Varon!! haha! I loved it. I also saw the Cano family. They were in the session with me. They came to the session just to see me. It was their day off of the temple but came cuz they new I would be there!! How sweet was that!! So all is going well here, working and baptizing my family here in Colombia!!
Thank you VanWags for your card. I got a card from the Vanwags from Christmas, a lovely letter from the Huyetts and my good old friends the Parkers!! hip hip hurray for good ol friends!! Still waiting for the package from home, we’ll see when it gets here!!
Love Elder Hammer
Here's Amparo, sorry, I forgot my camera in Villa Sonia and Elder Valdivia has yet to send the pics of the baptism of Nicole and Wendy!! Elder Vigo bought this onesy pijama the other day, its freaking sweet!! They dont have my size!!!
THe other day at Monzarrati there was a group of Chinos so i took a pic. Elder Mcdermott did too, hes the other Gringo in my Zone haha!! Gringos all think alike!! and I added a few more pics of the last pday!and a pic of my favorite foor!! ROSCONES!!!!!! THey are delicioso!!
K at first I liked the frijoles here, they’re nice and big and very flavorful, but your stomach can only hold so much until things start reacting! We went to lunch on Friday and we had a lovely Frijole soup thing, the sister asked me if I would like some more. In reality I was stuffed and did not want any more, but it is impolite to reject 2nds here and rude to accept 3rd, so since it was the 2nd I said well thank you very much sister I would love a little more, but not too much. She said, oh of course, the just a little. When she returned it wasn’t a little she came back with a vat of Frijoles!!!! After abut another 25 min of eating por fin I finished this beautiful serving of these FREAKIN FRIJOLES!! It’s not that they were bad, just an extremendous amount!!! Elder Vigo had the same. Let’s just say our bodies were singing like a choir for the next 3 days!!! Whoo! We still feel the affects of this magnificent trip haha!! So I taught my comp to say after every moment to say FREAKIN FRIJOLES!!! haha!
Here alot of people ask me to help them to learn English. Usually I don’t like it because the people just want to use me for my gringoness and not my spiritualness. But the other day these teens came up to me and asked if I spoke English I was like of course. I helped them with a few words, and then I taught them some religious terms. This joven had a lot of questions about religion so it turned into a lesson and now we picked up 3 more investigators and tomorrow we’re going to me his family of 4 more and he is going to bring some friends from his class to listen to our lesson!!! WHOOO!!
At times I like to teach the people some of my English. English with the Emerson Twist, like tookies, rumplesticksen and words that I like to say. I taught one kid to say DO it for the Children haha! So when ever he has a cup we do a toast and say FOR THE CHILDREN haha! I love these people. I’m having a great time!!
Today was superb!!! We had an awesome time for Pday!! The Zone went to a place called Monserati!! Its an old Catholic Church that is on top of the highest mountain in Bogota!! It was freakin sweet. There’s a church and a small pueblo on top of the mountain with small shops! It was delightful to get some fresh air out of the city! I took a plethora of photos to send to yall!!
I am excited for this week!! I get to go back to Villa Sonia to see 3 of my friends be baptized and we will be having one here in Patio Bonito also!!! Hurray!!! I m stoked!!!!
This week was a working week for sure!! Our investigator list has been growing tremendously!! Holy Shnickies!!! We have planned for this week 30 lessons planned for investigators and 4 with recent converts!!!! Woo, this is what I like!!! In the past week we have picked up 18 new investigators since I’ve been here!! We have put 4 baptismal dates too!! So we are working!!! I’m super stoked for these baptisms. These kids are great! All of these investigators are jovenes!! They are rock solid!! There’s this one guy that we went to the 1 lesson to this week on Wednesday. When we got there, before we even started he asked us how he could be likes us. I was like what do you mean. He said that he wanted to be a missionary!!! So we talked to him about what we do and now he has a baptismal date and is attending the missionary prep class and everything, he will be baptized 2 Abril!! So after the conference session he will be baptized along with 2 other teens!! His name is Diego Apunte and he is 24 almost 25! The rules to serve a mission is that you have to have a year in the church and 26 or younger, so that’s why he is preparing now in mission prep to be ready to go in a year!! He also goes with us to appointments. We don’t do divisions with him but he comes along and everything. He came with us 2 times this week!! What a stud!!
There’s this other girl that lives in Tintal. This is the branch that I’m in too. She lives far away and she has been coming to the branch for almost 6 months now. She has one of the most strongest testimonies I have ever seen!! She has been coming to church this whole time and the missionaries never visited her because she can only meet on Saturdays and Sundays. Well I told Elder Vigo we are going to Tintal to visit her, and there’s another girl that’s been attending church for about 4 months and the same scenario is with her so we went to visit both of these girls this week and they both accepted to be baptized 2 Abril also!! Woo!! What a great week it was and we are going to put atleast 2 more baptismal dates with people this week for 9 of Abril!! So we are definitely working here! Elder Vigo had the goal of 40 baptisms in his mission. When we put the baptismal date with one of them he was like good, I’ve made my goal, now I can rest. I was like no Elder, your goal just got bigger, your new goal is 50 in the mission. We analyzed our investigators and he agreed that it would be possible if we worked our tails off for him to baptize another 10 people so with in the next 2 months we are planning to drop atleast another 10-15 people in the water. We had a crazy good weekly planning session this week. We could plan to meet this goal! I’m stoked!!!!
So that was this week working hard and loving it!! Elder Vigo and I say that we are in a trio!! We got each other and the spirit, its crazy what the lord does here!! We are simply the instruments of his plan. The spirit is different in the mission then I thought it would be! I was thinking that I would be having the tingles the whole time, feeling like Tinker bell or something. But this isn’t so. It’s a lot of impressions and thoughts, and alot of just doing! Alot of obeying, when we obey the rules of the mission and meet the goals of the mission, we receive the rewards of the mission which is more work, kind of a weird blessing huh. We ask the lord to bless us with more things to do haha! But it’s a joyous work indeed!
We get the rain here everyday!! Im surprised I havent drowned in the rain!!! But all is well here I am safe. So heres some pics of me and my zone from today. We have Elders Hernandez, Micanquer, Mcdermont, Campos, and Elder Vigo, Hermanas Jara y pareda too!! and 2 hermanas that didnt come today with us but all was well!! My fav pic is me preaching to all of Bogota of the restoration!! haha. There's these guys in the street that bring llamas with them and you can take a picture with this llamas for like 50 cents. So of course it was a no brainer. So I mounted that sucker haha!! Priceless!! This is what people do for a living here haha!! Well I dont have time to send all of the pics from this week but i will send some more next week of this lovely adventure it was freaking sweet!! In this Zone Elder Micanquer is my homie here! Hes from Colombia and we have alot of same interests and all so we get along good. He has this girly umbrella that a member gave him and he refuses to buy another i dont know why, so i makefun of hime for it and we had a photo shoot of him and his girly umbrella haha!
Love ya all and miss ya all also, but have no fear im doing all right here spreading the good TRUE word of the Restored gosple!! A little thing i learned this week before go.As it says in PMG. The message the missionaries bring is not a message of happiness and joy or of a better quality of life. Yes these are the blessings of the Gospel. But the message the missionaries bring is a message the there is a living prophet on the Earth, 12 apostles that have the same purpose as in times of old and that The Church of Christ has been restored to the Earth. THis is the message we share, that through Christ we are saved, and we have the pillars of his church on the Earth Today!! Well this is a little thing i was studying this week and brought alot of joy to my soul and thought id pass it on to ya'll.
Well the 1st pday of the mission, what do we do!! We played soccer!! Oh my gosh I stink super bad!! It was terrible. Of course when you’re living amongst the latinos of course your going to play soccer, but I was like oh no jose!! But I played none the less with my zone! Elder McDermont and I are the Gringos in the zone so all the latinos had a good laugh at us trying to play!! Our pdays are pretty cool and relaxed! We have a day of actually regular living! The President even lets us watch Disney movies for pday, so that’s pretty cool I thought! I believe next week we are going to watch toy story 3!!! Disney is basically religion I guess!!
Well this area definitely different. My 1st 3 days or so here were a rough change but I’m loving it here now. I think I am the happiest that I’ve been in the mission here because I really have to lose myself in the work! When you come to a dead area you have to just dive into it a go for it and be courageous! The Lord has blessed us this week tremendously with the work and is blessing us for our diligence. When I got here there were only 3 investigators, or families that we are teaching. Last week we picked up 2 more and this week we picked up 5 more! It was excellent! 2 people this week stopped us the street and we like, hey I was talking with the missionaries for a while and for some reason they stopped visiting me! We were like, well we will visit you then haha! Also there are 2 girls that are attending the branch that we cover. Apparently these 2 girls have been attending the church for almost 6 months and missionaries never visited them. I asked my comp, why wont you visit them, he said that they live in Tintal, it a ward that is very far and she can only in the weekends! I was like perfect, we will visit these young daughters of God this week. So we did and this upcoming weekend we will put baptismal dates with both of them!! Also we put another date with another joven in the ward and we are going to try to put another date with a couple that we are teaching! So the goal for this transfer is 5 baptisms!!! So this will be a month of Baptisms!! We will have 5 baptisms here in Patio Bonito and I get to go to the 4 baptisms of my converts in Villa Sonia this month too!!! So this will be excellent!!! I am stoked!!
A little bit a bout the area here. Its poor, its dirt poor, literally! I’m going into huts and all! My comp doesn’t like when we go to the poorer parts of the town, but I find them very humbling and they listen to us, but we have to be careful in this area, but don’t worry, the Lord protects his missionaries. So its all good, but I believe that I wont be sending too many pics from this area. I don’t like to carry my camera with me here! There’s a part in my area where the houses are made of tin, or tarps, it ridiculous! But they people are very humble. A Lot of the people here don’t have the best hygiene in the world, we teach alot of people that don’t have teach, or have metal teeth. There’s one guy that shoved a metal thingy in his mouth to make himself a tooth, it was like, ok, if that’s what you need to do to make a tooth, ok then! I gave 2 talks this week in sacrament meeting!! One talk in the Ward and the other in Branch! So that was a great thing!!! I had a wonderful impression this week about the missionary work here! The Branch here really wants to become a ward. When we visit the members of the branch we do a lesson on sharing the gospel and how every member is a missionary. Then this thought came to me - what if every year every family in the church would bring one friend to church and let the missionaries teach this investigator in there homes, think of how fast this branch could become a ward. This has motivated the members of this branch tremendously and yesterday we had 4 referencias at church yesterday of people we’ve never met before but members brought them to church oh how great!!!!
My comp and I are working hard, but my comp has a strong desire to teach that at times he doesn’t like to follow the rules of entering houses with only girls! It is so frustrating when he enters and is sitting down and all and I’m sitting outside the door, telling him to come!! But we are doing better in this aspect. But we definitely are working hard. We walk a lot more in this area!!!
Last night I got a call from Elder V and his new Gringo comp. Elder Fifield!! Elder Fifield is going through the same thing that I went through my 1st 2 weeks in the field. You have a testimony and you want to share it with the world, but you don’t speak Spanish!! and when you have a comp that’s a bit down, that just got dear Johnned and is Argentinan, its a bit rough. So he called me and we had a wonderful chat. I’m glad that I’m not the only person that went through this trauma, its apparently a gringo thing haha!!
And now for the bad news!! Elder Fugua, my comp from the MTC, we both have been struggling since they have taken the JIF out of the stores here!! We cant find it anywhere!! We are thinking of picketing or something! haha!! But this week we have a mulitzona conferencia, and Pres Casablanca told me that he is expecting a shipment of peanut butter that he ordered for all of the Gringos!! Oh what a blessing that will be!! hurray!!!
I’m stoked to here that finally Jess Farley is Getting married!! What a relief!! She is getting really old and I was thinking that she would never get married!! haha!!!! Ah what great news this is!!! My comp and I love talking about our friends that have lovers in their lives!! haha! Congrats to the good ol Jess Farley!!!!!!!!!!! Ya I heard about the Earthquake, but not much and what’s with this rioting in Wisconisn. I haven’t heard about this yet. They don’t have the good ol Glenn Beck here to give me the load down on all of the worldly news!! haha!!
But all is well here in Patio Bonito! We are working hard and being creative to find new people to teach! The Lord blesses his servants and I am super excited and happy that I am an instrument in the Lord hands!!
Elder Hammer!!!
Well, you are all probably wondering what happened with the whole transfer situation thing and all. Well I got transferred!!!! What in the world, I was not expecting this at all. I only had 3 months in Villa Sonia and Elder Valdivia has 6 months there but I left first! Apparently gringos get transferred alot in this mission so I was like ok, here I go. The Zone leaders called us Monday night and advised me that I would be leaving for Patio Bonito Wednesday. I thought that it was a joke at first, I was like ok Elder Ramirez, where’s Elder Valdivia going. But it was no joke, I am now in Patio Bonito. Its only 45 minutes or so from Villa Sonia but its a whole different world here. I thought that the houses in Villa Sonia were a bit run down but nothing like here. Everyday I enter houses made of sheet metal and dirt floors. I’m still in the city, so its chaotic and all but its just that the streets are lined with tin houses and there are very few paved roads. We walk in the mud everyday, so my shoes are beautiful and brown haha. It was a very difficult change for me. I was just getting into the flow of Villa Sonia and boom I left. I left 5 investigators with baptismal dates and 22 investigators!! I left my work behind in Villa Sonia! I was super bummed. When I got to Villa Sonia we only had 2 investigators. So yes I was working hard, but I left the fruits for another I feel like! but I did my job well I know in Villa Sonia. Just like PMG says, leave your area better than you found that. I can say that iIdid that! Right now Elder V is training another new missionary in Villa Sonia another Gringo haha! So he has at least another 3 months in Villa Sonia. He’s gonna have atleast 9 months total in Villa Sonia. He’ trainig Elder Fifield from Idaho Falls Idaho. He’s a nice sweet kid. We were in a trio for 1 day for Tuesday before I left he came to the area and I went on splits with him. It was cool to see what a new gringo looked like in the mission and to see how much I have grown since I’ve arrived here in Colombia. Like Elder Fifield is doing now, I was also only able to say a few words bear a testimony and say gracias when I got here, but now I’m teaching and doing it all. Elder Valdivia was a very interesting Companion. We have had a lot of special experiences together. Tt was very difficult for about 2 months with him because he got dear Johned and didn’t have much energy throughout the days, so it was hard companionship, but I feel like another new Gringo will keep his mind occupied and focused in the work a bit more.
Patio Bonito is very interesting. My new Companion Elder Vigo is from Peru! He has about 2 1/2 months left in the mission so he’s wrapping it all up! He’s a good kid, we get along fine and were doing good, but he is finishing the mission so at times I need to give him a little kick but its all good. But I came into another dry area. I came into another area with 2 investigators! I wish I could come into an area that had people to teach! Its the hardest thing to find new people, and it was really difficult to leave my investigators and friends in Villa Sonia to come to an area that’s not progressing to well, but we re going to change that! This week though while contacting we picked up another3 investigators!! So we now have a total of 5! With the 2 investigators that were here when I got here we are going to put a baptismal date for one of them this week!! And on Wednesday we are going to try a new way to try to contact new people! We are going to have a free shoe shine booth in the street!! So we are going to bring our shoe shining kits and for the morning we are going to shine peoples shoes and while we are shining there shoes give the a Liahona and a pass along card and setup appointments. The person has to sit there and cant go running anywhere so we can have a good solid 5 minute contact with the persons, its less people to contact but I feel like we will have a more quality contact this way! I am glad for my companion though. He wakes up on time, he goes to bed on time he studies and we have companionship study everyday. So thats a relief, it was hard to motivate Elder Validivia to do these things.
To come to a new area though it’s a fresh new start though. The members of Villa Sonia trusted me and we had a great time together, but since I came there not knowing much Spanish, they didn’t trust my Spanish, so i didn’t have the opportunity to really have there complete trust. But here the people are great, and I am talking to them and they know that I am ready to teach and I speak well enough that people understand me, sure I make a lot of mistakes in the language but I understand practically everything and I am learning everyday and expressing and teaching a whole lot better with the guidance of the spirit! I am in the Patio Bonito Ward and our area also covers Tintal Branch. Patio Bonito ward has about 125 members and the Tintal Branch has about 35, so I get a good experience of the two!
Sure I was bummed about leaving Villa Sonia but Claudia called me the other day. She’s the drug addict that just got out of rehab and has a baptismal date 26 de Marzo and she got the number for Patio Bonito and asked me if I could comeback to Villa Sonia for here Baptism and baptize her! Usually I wouldn’t want to do the baptism, its better for a member to perform the baptism, but for her I can make an exception haha! So we have an area training next week and I’m gonna ask the president for permission to go to Villa Sonia for the baptism! I’m pretty sure he will let me! And they are going to try to have the other 4 baptisms the same day so I can see all of my wonderful friends be baptized!! Ahh, I love my investigators of Villa Sonia!!! I really had a good close relationship with them!!
And we now have DIA DE DESCANSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope that you can feel my excitement! We now have p-day!! Oh what a blessing this will be!! Today is my first pday in the mission field!! 3 and a half months with out pday is hard! Sure i love the work and love spreading the gospel, but a nap would be delightful, to shoot a basketball, or run around would be delightful! So today we are getting together as a zone and were gonna play some games and all! I like my zone leader hear Elder Hernandez! He’s a cool kid and Elder Mcderment, they both are actually Colombian! And there also is another Gringo in the Zone!! I’m not alone!!! haha! Elder Dainesis in my zone, so it will be fun to talk to another gringo. I dont mind the latinos but when it come to chistes and all, i dont understand the humor here. I don’t know there TV or cultura well enough to think the jokes are funny, but I will learn soon enough! So all is well up in here! Love ya all and miss ya tons!! Sorry i didn’t have time to take pics this week but for sure next week I will send some!!
Love Elder Hammer
This week we welcomed Duvan Felip Ospina Ortiz into the waters of baptism and what a joyful sight it was. Duvan is one of my favorite investigators! He’s 15. He reminds me a lot of Frank, its like a bitter sweet feeling when we teach him because I’m excited to see this kid and talk to him and all cuz hes like a Colombian Mace. He’s tall, skinny, likes the beany look and all. He’s the only funny kid here haha! So I enjoy teaching him but then I’m like, but this isn’t my brother. Franky is white, speaks English and we listen to music, take pics and tell the best jokes in the world! But I do enjoy the Lords investigators just the same!
This week was full of wonderful growing experiences here in Villa Sonia. Duvan was confirmed a member of the church yesterday and received the Holy Ghost. Also he was set apart as a Teacher!! It was the most touching thing ever to see a young man that was baptized Saturday and is passing the Sacrament on Sunday and to see him fulfilling his priestly duties! Oh what joy it was to see him! He passed me the sacrament and he gave me the thumbs up and a little wink! I was like, oh what a swell Child of God! Friday night we went to Duvan’s house to make sure everything was all good for his baptism for Saturday. When we got there he was sick and had a bad flu and headache and all, so we gave him a blessing. After the blessing we were telling him about what a blessing is and the holy sacred power of the priesthood. In the middle of the lesson he looked a bit confused so asked him how he was feeling or do you have a question or something. He was like, you don’t need to explain anymore, I understand the power of the priesthood, I feel all better now, and he stood up and gave us a hug. WOW! What an experience that was, and a beautiful thing for Duvan to experience a day before his baptism. It really is true, that we have afflicciones in our live for us to witness the power of Gods hand.
Also this week we went to teach Claudia, one of our investigators that was in rehab for a little over a month, and she has been coming to church for the past 2 weeks. What a change we have seen in her! It is marvelous. Yesterday she came to church in a modest dress and blouse and all, everyone was stunned to see her, she has been completing her reading assignments and everything and is progressing like nothing else. Its a completely 180 turn around! What a blessing it is to see the gospel work in the lives of the people. So she now has a baptismal date for April!!! What a joy it will be to see her enter the waters of baptism!! I’m stoked to see her be baptized!!
Right now we are waiting to be advised about the transfers for this week. Transfers are Wednesday. We were supposed to get them last night, but we didn’t get them, so we should get them today. We believe that I will be staying here and Elder Valdivia leaves but we will see. He’s been here for 6 months and he’s ready to get out of here. This area is very good for missionary work, but its very peaceful and calm here, not much action or anything happening in this part of the area. But I like it, it has a nice view of the mountains and I wish that iIcould go climb them, but we will have to wait until we have pday!
This week we have exchanges and I went to Cuidad Jardin for a day. I love exchanges! I get to learn from other missionaries and see how they work and their style and I can adapt it into my way of teaching and contacting! I was with Elder Ramirez! He’s the Zone leader and he’s a fun kid. We had a good time working together. He has 6 weeks left in the mission! What a weird feeling that must be. I feel a lot more comfortable in the work, in the language and with the people. I’m enjoy the work here! We have a goal for 5 baptisms in the Month of March here so I’m stoked!!
So all is going well here in the field! Working hard, learning a ton, and preaching the Word to my family here in Villa Sonia!! The Church is true and the work goes forward! Love ya and miss ya all! Enjoy the life you live, especially the showers you take everyday! I wish I had a shower with some water pressure!!
Love elder Hammer
