a week of learning 6/13/11

Here in Patio Bonito we have a lot of good problems!!! We have too many investigators!!!! We are working with over 86 investigators!! which makes up 38 families or 38 appointments to visit them all in the week!! It’s freakin hard but it’s a blessing to learn from the hands of the Lord!! We have 12 with baptismal dates!! We were going to have a nice size baptismal party in 2 weeks but we are going to wait a bit longer because freaking marriage papers here haven’t come yet!!!! Why people just don’t keep the Law of Castidad I still dont know!!!! So we will have 3 baptismal coming up in 2 weeks and we will have a big party the 9 of July of what we hope for another 7 but we shall see. The Lord is helping me grow. The Lord surely shows us our weaknesses. This week I learned about alot of them I have! The Lord has blessed me with 2 comps who have been finishing the mission, and this week the words came out of the mouth of my companion. I am off and trunky. I’m going home soon!!!!! I freakin hate this words!!! So I have been trying to get my comp pumped up more about the work!! Mostly he just tags along it seems like!! Its a little bit weird to be the younger man but being the senior comp and DL, but I love my responsibilities!! It’s so much fun, but my comp doesn’t really like it I think.

I’m sure you all know that I of course miss home, my testimony and Love for the family has grown super strong here as I see many torn apart families and lives and look at my happy beautiful family and count my blessings!! When ever I talk about the family the people say that they can feel my love for ya’ll. This week I got the impressions to share this power of love and relate the lessons to the power of my testimony of the family!! So I have been doing that!! Most of our investigators that we have are going through something tough in their lives. A lot of people have had someone in the family killed, or an abortion or are without work or something tragic. It’s very sad to see this but great to share with them the hope that the Lord gives us!! As we read in 3 Nephi 27 30-31 it talks about how we, the children of God are the joy of God!! When we are happy so is God. Then the memory of an experience that Mom and I had about a year came to mind! It was about Christmas time last year and I was a bit down and confused when Mom called me into her room she knew something was bothering me. She called me in and sat me town and I poured my heart to her about what was going on in my life. Mom didn’t lecture me or anything like that. When I was done telling her about what was going on she just gave me a hug. I don’t really remember what she told me I just remember the power of her embrace and that’s all that I needed to keep pushing through in those times! I like to use this as an example with the investigators here. Its an example of the power of opening our hearts to talk to God. If you want to feel the healing power of the hands of God you have to tell him where the pain is and expose it to him!! Like how it was with Mom I remember Mom noticed that something was wrong for about a week and kept asking me what was wrong, but I wanted to solve the problem alone. How could mom understand what a 18 year old teen boy was going through? But she did exactly what I needed. She called me until I came into her powerful arms! To feel the comfort in the skinny mom that I have but the power of her love in those arms are what comforted me. How many times is God calling us to come to him but we want to do it alone, or we pray but we don’t open our heart to tell him where the pain is! At times we know what we have to do but we just need to feel the power in the Hands of God to comfort and Cradle us!! So thank you Mom for this experience. These few minutes that we shared together are making great moments in the mission!! I thank my God for all of the experiences that I had before the mission to be able to bear testimony of my Savior and change the hearts of the people here in Colombia! Thank you for all the people that have helped me change my heart to God and to bring this good news of Christ our redeemer here in Colombia!! Remember when I called home for Mothers day and I was in the home of Marleny, well we put a baptismal date with her son now!! He is freakin awesome he reminds me alot of Franky! But I always tell Marleny about how cool my family is she loves these stories she asks me every week about you all and I am happy to tell her she wants to meet you all, so that means you all have to come and pick me up after this wonderful journey that I am having here in Colombia!!

This week I almost got arrested! Well not really but kind of!! The city here is very busy!! Anyways we were walking and we saw a car hit a motorcycle and the people went flying!!! There were 2 people on the motorcycle and there was one guy walking on the street and one of the people on the motorcycle flew off and knocked the guy walking over!! It was a bit funny to see how it all developed but tragic. So we were on the other side of a canal but we darted over them to help them all. I went over and started to help them. There wasn’t too much blood but a little bit but for some reason they wouldn’t stop screaming!! The screaming is what pains me the most. I don’t like to hear the sounds of pain! So all three of them had broken legs one a broken arm and probably a broken back. I started to use my Boy Scout training I told my comp to call an ambulance. I told the people to back up and if anyone had medical training no one did. I left the guy with a broken back alone. I knew not to touch him. I helped the people with broken legs get out of the road and help a bit with the legs, after 10 minutes my comp asked, Whats the number for an ambulance? Then I remembered that we were in Colombia. He’s from Chile. I’m a gringo. It’s not 911 here! haha!! So then I told someone else to call an ambulance but I was like why didn’t you tell me early homie!! He said it looked like you were busy!! COME ON!!!! haha!! Thats the mission for you! haha! Then the bishop walked by and told me what I was doing was illegal. I was like why!! He said you cant disturb a crime scene. I was like this ain’t a crime scene. There are 3 people lying in the road that cant move, so he told us we better move along before the ambulance comes, so we did. haha!! That was an interesting experience that we had, saving people can get you arrested. This week I also ate rat!! But learning and growing a tons in the hands of the Lord!!

Elder Hammer