yep, we're puttin em down in the water

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!!