Well this week we had the conference with Elder Christofferson. That was a really fun time that we got the whole mission together and we had a great time in the temple for a night with all of the missionaries from tierra caliente!! But oh boy i get so stressed when there are activities!! I am greatful for the trust that President has with me because i amf gettin a bit overwhelmed at times with training, and A.P and all of the responsabilities that come with it. but i wouldnt want to have it anyother way. I want to give an acceptable service to the Lord in the mission field!!! Cual sera su ofrenda hoy? i have that as my quote on my wall to keep my focus. I aint here just paying time, i am here giving an offering to the Lord! I want it to be an accptable offering to the Lord. I feel like this is the time that i need to shine the most as a missionary, prove to the Lord that these 2 years in His service have not been in vain. I dont want to be the Emerson Hammer from before but i am really a missionary, not just because of a nametag, but because it is in my blood! I am by nature a missionary! I have seen the Lords hand so many times in this past week. When i just forget myself and just go to work!! I can see how not just me is affected but those who i teach, whith those whom i work with, to my companion! I love this work!!
Well this week we are workin really hard with activating and bringing to sheep to the fold and this week i was so moved at church this past week by who we had there! We had 7 investigators at church with 17 less active families that we started to visit! Sebastian is the Cousin of Jennifer whom we are teaching and i gave him a tie this week. He came to church in a white shirt tie and slacks!! he is doing so great!! He has a baptismal date for the 22 of September!! Also Anna Maria came to church!! We had an awesome lesson with her this week! She is a 14 year old girl who has the sweetest spirit ever! She pays super great attention to us really wants to know, loves going to YW classes!! The perfect investigator! We taught her the restoration this week and we talked about how Joseph Smith was just like her, he wanted to know the truth, and how she, like him, prayed to know the truth about how to find the truth!! It was such a spiritual lesson! She is soooo prepared!! She and 4 others have baptismal dates for the 22 of September!! I am hoping to finish the mission with 5 more baptismes!! So we are working our tails off to make it happen!!
Saturday the Lord just gave us the biggest blessin EVER!! I always call and remind all of the people that we have taught in the week to make sure that they can come to church and that they all have a way to get there and we assign members to pass by to pick them up too! so i was tryin to call a guy and some how i called the wrong number in my phonebook thinkin it was freddy Pinto, but i really called some guy named Javier Pinto!
So i said, hey there is Hermano Pinto there, he said yes, JAvier Pinto.
E. H-Hello Javier, Elder Hammer here how are ya
Javier- Oh ELder I was just thinkin about you guys, it has been i while since i havent been to church. I would love to go back to church
E.H UMMMM.. yes of course well we are here to help you.
JAvier- Excellent i have been wanting to come back to church just i cant do it alone. Can you visit me this week? I have my 15 year old son who has been telling me that i need to go back to church i have been inactive for almost 10 years and my son keeps reminding me that he needs to be baptized.
E.H- Well we can help you with the brother!!
HAHAHA!! That was the craziest phone call i have ever had, i dont really know who i talked to but how the mysteries of God work!! How God helps us find His lost sheep come home. He told me how he has been praying to come back in contact with the church again and out of no where i just called him by accident, but whoo!! cI felt the spirit through a phone call!! haha! I never that that would happen!! I am ready to fill these next 5 weeks with my best work and the very last of me!! The Lord deserves the best so thats what i will give Him!!
Love Elder Hammer
Sunday, September 2, 2012
August 20, 2012
Well as time goes by the stress comes on even more!! AHH!! only like 6 1/2 more weeks in the field and the work just keeps on coming!! It is a camels work workin and dying and training and trying to do the AP work all at the same time!! AHH! We are putting in practice a thing called Plan Perry so i meet with the District and branch presidents alot in Tierra caliente to make sure the program is workin alot! What i have been trying to do here is make the wards and branches are self sufficient! There is an over dependence on missionaries in these areas so we are helpin the districts learn how to train members to do their home and visiting teaching or how members can teach classes and all of that basic stuff! So we are doing alot of member trainnig right now! I try to be the best example for my companion but i must admit, that the lord is working on making me a patient person i believe haha! I try to help my companion with the spanish and with learnin the lessons but in a timely manner. I try to do all of my AP work but not to interfere with proslyting time or study or anything which is so hard to do when the missionary life is soo structured! But hopefully i am becoming a more patient man! I have learned the great value of time. Time flies by. It seems that at times there isnt time enough to even breath haha!
I got only a little bit left here in Colombia but i want to give it all! When we teach I really try to emphasize the great importance of everything and how it all leads us to know our Savior. It seems that God has become a God on Paper, just a written God. People might know verses or maybe even the story of Christ yet they really dont know him, really people just know the surface.
WE are workin on a less active family and we talked about our baptismal covenants. I love how in Mosiah 18 it talks about how Alma was preaching repentance and faith and afterward invited everyone to be baptize and asked them what would impide them to take upon themselves the name of Christ and be a witness of him! This scripture just came to life for us! we talked about how we can be witnesses of Christ! Really to be a witness means that you can experimented you have seen or heard or felt something! We are witnesses of Christ not because of what we read but for our own experiences I know what it feels like to have Christ take my load. I know what it feels like to feel is relief because he has relieved me. I know the power of His mighty hands for they have held me, I KNOW the power of the ATONEMENT because i have felt HIS FORGIVENESS! To be a witness of Christ is to know Him to understand and know how to use HIS ATONEMENT! Alot of times we feel like just keepin the commandments is suffecient enough to considerd a christian but have we really witnessed the Power of God can we testify of Him becasue we witness His power! I love the power of the Scriptures for the understanding they give to me! I would have no problem just sitting and reading the scriptures all day long! They are filled with sincerity, with true testimonies not only writen down on paper but sealed upon the hearts of those bearing Testimony of our God! I am very proud to be counted among the few soldiers of Gods army to day actively serving! At the ending point of the mission i am understanding the great part of the atonement. I have figured that these next 6 weeks will probably the hardest of the mission, but i will finish my time here in Colombia serving with my all.
I cant wait to see you all! With all of the work we have going on here in Colombia in the Lords work, the Lord has made more sensitive to feel his guidance to feel His love to be His Servant! THe Truth is worth fighting for, even til the end! I cant wait to come home and hug you all! I am stoked! I am thrilled! I am overjoyed to go back home! Love ya alla ton Elder Hammer
I got only a little bit left here in Colombia but i want to give it all! When we teach I really try to emphasize the great importance of everything and how it all leads us to know our Savior. It seems that God has become a God on Paper, just a written God. People might know verses or maybe even the story of Christ yet they really dont know him, really people just know the surface.
WE are workin on a less active family and we talked about our baptismal covenants. I love how in Mosiah 18 it talks about how Alma was preaching repentance and faith and afterward invited everyone to be baptize and asked them what would impide them to take upon themselves the name of Christ and be a witness of him! This scripture just came to life for us! we talked about how we can be witnesses of Christ! Really to be a witness means that you can experimented you have seen or heard or felt something! We are witnesses of Christ not because of what we read but for our own experiences I know what it feels like to have Christ take my load. I know what it feels like to feel is relief because he has relieved me. I know the power of His mighty hands for they have held me, I KNOW the power of the ATONEMENT because i have felt HIS FORGIVENESS! To be a witness of Christ is to know Him to understand and know how to use HIS ATONEMENT! Alot of times we feel like just keepin the commandments is suffecient enough to considerd a christian but have we really witnessed the Power of God can we testify of Him becasue we witness His power! I love the power of the Scriptures for the understanding they give to me! I would have no problem just sitting and reading the scriptures all day long! They are filled with sincerity, with true testimonies not only writen down on paper but sealed upon the hearts of those bearing Testimony of our God! I am very proud to be counted among the few soldiers of Gods army to day actively serving! At the ending point of the mission i am understanding the great part of the atonement. I have figured that these next 6 weeks will probably the hardest of the mission, but i will finish my time here in Colombia serving with my all.
I cant wait to see you all! With all of the work we have going on here in Colombia in the Lords work, the Lord has made more sensitive to feel his guidance to feel His love to be His Servant! THe Truth is worth fighting for, even til the end! I cant wait to come home and hug you all! I am stoked! I am thrilled! I am overjoyed to go back home! Love ya alla ton Elder Hammer
Monday, August 6, 2012
getting work done
Well it seems to me that my death will not be an easy one after all!! Well this week i had to go to Neiva with President to do some missionary training and help him with a meeting with our good old friend Pres. Pico and organize out new missionary plan, Plan Perry, with the people in tierra caliente. So i left Thursday and got back Sunday morning. I am super wasted. But it was a great trip. I love being with President. He has that inspiring fire that keeps me going and he loves workin me to death. Its pretty funny cuz he usually forgets all of the little logistical things so i always got to pop up with a quick fix to the little things haha!! Its fun. I am glad that we have a lot of trust between us so he just gives me like a quick sec to do my thing and we can get things rolling again! Its always fun and an adventure with president! haha!! But i left my companion in Ibague to work with another missionary for a couple of days. Its not good that a new missionary does all of the errands and all that i have to do. I dont want him to get out of the teaching routine or anything. It's best if he stays in a teaching routine and a constant plan of contact and teaching. I try to limit my Ap stuff to the shortest time possible but still be an effective Ap. It's a challenge at times haha! But i got a bit ticked when i got back. I left my comp with the ZL and they arent waking up on time or studying like they should and the assignment i gave them they didnt really do it to the level that they should have!! So that got me a bit frustrated but we are getting the mission rollin! We are doing some great work here!
Our atheist guy is great!!! We were talking about the creation this week with him and he loved it about Adam and Eve and the creation and we actually read the Pearl of Great Price alot with him. It's an awesome book about the creation! Really Atheists just want answers and for lack of not knowing the truth they still feel the effects of the apostasy and try to make there own answers from the lack of knowledge from the lack of the plenitud del evangelio. So we teach in a little like salon in our Apartment complex and we teach the security gaurds and our atheist friend loved our talks this past week and invited more friends to listen to us! So we have christians and atheists there that we teach. It is the coolest experiences ever!! We make sure that we are not fighting our contectious ir nothing just we speak pure doctrine!! Its funny with my comp! I am working really hard with him in his spanish he got 2 weeeks in the mission field and well we are in the fight!! He has a hard time with numbers and colors and common phrases but i try to get him to do a bit more that just a testimony at the end of lessons! But when he jumps into the lesson with these guys its hilarious! He brings up a topic from like 20 minutes ago haha!! Poor guy i remember those days haha!! But the athesist guy wants to come to church so he promised to come this coming sunday withus YAAA!!!! Its gonna be awesome! I am stoked! An athesist at church haha!! But my comp and i were fasting last week to find some new investigators and this week we got 16 new investigaros that are killerly awesome like people who will progress who listen to us and they are great!! The lord is truely answerin our prayers and we are working with the Lord in His work!1 I am loving it!! Well all is well here in Colombia. Love ya all a ton! Elder Hammer
Our atheist guy is great!!! We were talking about the creation this week with him and he loved it about Adam and Eve and the creation and we actually read the Pearl of Great Price alot with him. It's an awesome book about the creation! Really Atheists just want answers and for lack of not knowing the truth they still feel the effects of the apostasy and try to make there own answers from the lack of knowledge from the lack of the plenitud del evangelio. So we teach in a little like salon in our Apartment complex and we teach the security gaurds and our atheist friend loved our talks this past week and invited more friends to listen to us! So we have christians and atheists there that we teach. It is the coolest experiences ever!! We make sure that we are not fighting our contectious ir nothing just we speak pure doctrine!! Its funny with my comp! I am working really hard with him in his spanish he got 2 weeeks in the mission field and well we are in the fight!! He has a hard time with numbers and colors and common phrases but i try to get him to do a bit more that just a testimony at the end of lessons! But when he jumps into the lesson with these guys its hilarious! He brings up a topic from like 20 minutes ago haha!! Poor guy i remember those days haha!! But the athesist guy wants to come to church so he promised to come this coming sunday withus YAAA!!!! Its gonna be awesome! I am stoked! An athesist at church haha!! But my comp and i were fasting last week to find some new investigators and this week we got 16 new investigaros that are killerly awesome like people who will progress who listen to us and they are great!! The lord is truely answerin our prayers and we are working with the Lord in His work!1 I am loving it!! Well all is well here in Colombia. Love ya all a ton! Elder Hammer
atheist or not here we come 7/30/2012
Well this was a week of joy, of triumph and sadness!!!
Starting the week off we went to Bogota to prepare the meeting for training the new missionaries and receive the new missionaries and all but when we get there the way we planned was changed completely and nobody told us anything so we had to change our training. We were gonna do all the work that we had done in the training that we were gonna do. Well it was in vain and we had to wing it last minute!! AHH Thats what gets me so stressed in the mission when we have to wing things. I am the AP in the hot lands so i coordinated everything for all of the missionaries in the hotlands to go stay in an area in bogota, how to go to the chapel, how the training was gonna be and everything, but in bogota everythin changed and it was like i was a chicken with my head cut off!! AHH!! It gets me stressed!!
President is new and his new Aps in bogota are new. I'm not mad but they are just learning and ahh it was a lot of strings we had to connect at last minute!! But it was great, its part of the culture here!! haha!! Change everything last minute and pray that it works out haha!! Then president did a change in the transfers and he changed my comp, who i was gonna train and then changed his mind back to before haha!! It was hialrious!! Stuff like that gets me stressed!! But the day finally came to an end. Bogota forgot about the finacial stuff so i was with Elder Steed workin our tails off trying to orgainze all fo the payments for transport and food and stay for all of the missionaries haha!! But we got that all settled out! But i was grateful to get home on Wednesday night with my child Elder Huckbody from Wisconsin!! haha!! He is gonna be fun!! We are enjoying our time together!! I love the train it is the best, but it is hard training and being AP. We run around alot organizing trainings, meetings, and multi zone conferences solving problems and all and trying to give you good a good experience in the mission field. Well its a bit stressful but its been fun. He keeps me on my toes!! Right now we gringos come not knowing spanish so we have fun studying in the bus and walking an all we have fun!!
Elder Pesado left yesterday, i am sad to see him go! He was a great companion. I learned alot from him. He was the best comp that i have killed!! But before he left we had a baptism saturday night!! Jenifer Pinto got baptized!! YA!! She is woooow!! Super hardcore great testimony I love teachin her. We are now teaching her parents and her brother and we are activating three of her brothers right now!! It is super!! WE have such grerat times with them!!
Well yesterday we were coming home and in the lobby to our apartment complex the guards were having some fight with some dude who was athiest. We are good friends with the guards of our complex so they called us over to talk to the dude so we were like tight! I went over just talked to the dude normally and just conversed nothin more. Then he started telling us that he once was catholic and that he was then lutheran and has been with all the churchs and made the conclusion that all churches are liars and that god doesnt exist! I just kept talking to him and read in 2 nefi 2 about how there is opisicion in all things and that yes there is a God. I love tlaking to athesist because it is straight up testimony time!! I love it! And this guy knows the scriptures so we could cite scriptures and he knew what i was talkin about and all! I loved it!! so we had to get going and before i could even ask he was like hey come to my house i like your sermon haha! I was like well thanks. and so we have and discussion today with the gaurds of our apartment complex and the athesist dude today!! haha! It was such a spiritaul experience!! I loved it!! How the lord can use his servants!! I can really feel his guiding hand in my life as we do our best to serve him adn we sacrifice as missionaries we come t omeet the people God wants us to meet!! IT was a great week in the work of the Lord i am more excited now that ever to be a missionary, i have seen the miracles i have felt His love and guidance and its a love that never runs out it the Holy Ghost that motivates us to keep going!! With my new comp Elder huckbody i am ready to go!! He may not speak much spanish but he speaks from his heart and is an exceellent comp!! I am glad that he will be my last comp. It will be challenge training right now, of course it will but with sacrifce brings forth the blessing of Heaven. I know that cuz i have lived and experimented it for myself!! I love this gospel and being a servant of the most high God. Elder Hammer
Elder Pesado left yesterday, i am sad to see him go! He was a great companion. I learned alot from him. He was the best comp that i have killed!! But before he left we had a baptism saturday night!! Jenifer Pinto got baptized!! YA!! She is woooow!! Super hardcore great testimony I love teachin her. We are now teaching her parents and her brother and we are activating three of her brothers right now!! It is super!! WE have such grerat times with them!!
Well yesterday we were coming home and in the lobby to our apartment complex the guards were having some fight with some dude who was athiest. We are good friends with the guards of our complex so they called us over to talk to the dude so we were like tight! I went over just talked to the dude normally and just conversed nothin more. Then he started telling us that he once was catholic and that he was then lutheran and has been with all the churchs and made the conclusion that all churches are liars and that god doesnt exist! I just kept talking to him and read in 2 nefi 2 about how there is opisicion in all things and that yes there is a God. I love tlaking to athesist because it is straight up testimony time!! I love it! And this guy knows the scriptures so we could cite scriptures and he knew what i was talkin about and all! I loved it!! so we had to get going and before i could even ask he was like hey come to my house i like your sermon haha! I was like well thanks. and so we have and discussion today with the gaurds of our apartment complex and the athesist dude today!! haha! It was such a spiritaul experience!! I loved it!! How the lord can use his servants!! I can really feel his guiding hand in my life as we do our best to serve him adn we sacrifice as missionaries we come t omeet the people God wants us to meet!! IT was a great week in the work of the Lord i am more excited now that ever to be a missionary, i have seen the miracles i have felt His love and guidance and its a love that never runs out it the Holy Ghost that motivates us to keep going!! With my new comp Elder huckbody i am ready to go!! He may not speak much spanish but he speaks from his heart and is an exceellent comp!! I am glad that he will be my last comp. It will be challenge training right now, of course it will but with sacrifce brings forth the blessing of Heaven. I know that cuz i have lived and experimented it for myself!! I love this gospel and being a servant of the most high God. Elder Hammer
Thursday, July 26, 2012
training again! 7/23/2012
Well I dont know how it happened but I am going to be having another baby boy!!! YAA!! I AM GONNA TRAIN AGAIN!!! YES!!!!! I am super stoked. I have become the mission assassin! I have sent 6 of my 9 companions home!! I am tired of having companions at the end of the mission when they are all tired and dont have the guts to work til the last day of the mission!! I am stoked to have the opportunity to have a companion that is new and fresh. I am also training a GRINGO!!! HAHAHA!! Oh what a relief it will be in some aspects. This means that I gotta be the one talking all the time. Gringos need about 3 months to be able to get into the flow of things, butt i am excited to have a new companion who is fresh from the MTC! I am ready to work! My comp will be Elder Huckbody!! Oh ya!!! Super gringo!! Im diggin it!!
Well this week was a busy one. We were in Girardot Monday til Tuesday and we were in Bogota til friday got back to Ibague friday night. We leave again today for bogota in like 1 1/2 to go help with the new missionaries!! Its gonna be awesome!1 I love President Lozano!! Hes a funny guy!! I like how he is new and has that spark for the gospel. He still has his colombian culture and acts like a colombian which i love!! haha!! He was actually born in Ibague where are now serving so his sister is in our branch. She's pretty cool!!! But he is learnin alot and is open to new ideas. Like me training! I aint sure how this is gonna work out. I am still AP here in Tierra caliente, so i still do all of my AP stuff and on top of that i am gonna be training! I always love a good challenge!! The lord really does love to push us to our limits!! I am realizing how the mission is fastly coming to an end and i am excited to keep working strong. I'm gonna have to muster up the strength to train but i am grateful to have the energy of a new missionary helping me along!!
We are not in our area much of the time but the lord has blessed us with some golden investigators!! Wow! They are great! We are teaching a family of 4 who came to church this past week!! They loved it!! We had Jennifer and Natalia come too! IT was a great week in the chapel! Jennifer is from a family of 8 kids! 5 of them have been baptized but all of them are now inactive!! She has the fear that when she gets baptized she will go inactive afterwards!! We had an awesome lesson with her last week and her brother shared his testimony of the church and how bad he felt for his example and how he know the only path is through the church of Christ. Then this past week we had 3 of the brothers and their families in church with us and Jennifer felt great and she wants to get baptized this Saturday!! WOOOO!! We will see what we can do, she wants to get baptized before my comp goes home!! We need to teach her about tithing and she will be good for the water!! She has been doing awesome!! About 3 weeks ago we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she hasnt drank a cup of coffee since!! It is great to see how you can see the faith of the people grow! I love it!! Natalia has been doing great she has been to church 5 weeks in a row now! She is doing awesome!!! she had a baptismal date for this weekend but we are gonna have to wait a couple more weeks for her to be a bit stronger i nthe word of wisdom she has gone 3 weeks with out drinkin alcohol!! She is doin awesome!! We just want to strengthen her faith a bit more before she gets baptized, so hopefully in another 2 weeks she will be getttin wet!! Life is going great!!
It seems like everyone is countin down my time in the mission haha!! I only got 10 weeks left, yes that is true, time is flying by!! But i am workin strong til the last day. It's weird in 3 weeks, my group will be the oldest in the mission ahh!! Love and miss ya all a ton Elder Hammer
Well this week was a busy one. We were in Girardot Monday til Tuesday and we were in Bogota til friday got back to Ibague friday night. We leave again today for bogota in like 1 1/2 to go help with the new missionaries!! Its gonna be awesome!1 I love President Lozano!! Hes a funny guy!! I like how he is new and has that spark for the gospel. He still has his colombian culture and acts like a colombian which i love!! haha!! He was actually born in Ibague where are now serving so his sister is in our branch. She's pretty cool!!! But he is learnin alot and is open to new ideas. Like me training! I aint sure how this is gonna work out. I am still AP here in Tierra caliente, so i still do all of my AP stuff and on top of that i am gonna be training! I always love a good challenge!! The lord really does love to push us to our limits!! I am realizing how the mission is fastly coming to an end and i am excited to keep working strong. I'm gonna have to muster up the strength to train but i am grateful to have the energy of a new missionary helping me along!!
We are not in our area much of the time but the lord has blessed us with some golden investigators!! Wow! They are great! We are teaching a family of 4 who came to church this past week!! They loved it!! We had Jennifer and Natalia come too! IT was a great week in the chapel! Jennifer is from a family of 8 kids! 5 of them have been baptized but all of them are now inactive!! She has the fear that when she gets baptized she will go inactive afterwards!! We had an awesome lesson with her last week and her brother shared his testimony of the church and how bad he felt for his example and how he know the only path is through the church of Christ. Then this past week we had 3 of the brothers and their families in church with us and Jennifer felt great and she wants to get baptized this Saturday!! WOOOO!! We will see what we can do, she wants to get baptized before my comp goes home!! We need to teach her about tithing and she will be good for the water!! She has been doing awesome!! About 3 weeks ago we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she hasnt drank a cup of coffee since!! It is great to see how you can see the faith of the people grow! I love it!! Natalia has been doing great she has been to church 5 weeks in a row now! She is doing awesome!!! she had a baptismal date for this weekend but we are gonna have to wait a couple more weeks for her to be a bit stronger i nthe word of wisdom she has gone 3 weeks with out drinkin alcohol!! She is doin awesome!! We just want to strengthen her faith a bit more before she gets baptized, so hopefully in another 2 weeks she will be getttin wet!! Life is going great!!
It seems like everyone is countin down my time in the mission haha!! I only got 10 weeks left, yes that is true, time is flying by!! But i am workin strong til the last day. It's weird in 3 weeks, my group will be the oldest in the mission ahh!! Love and miss ya all a ton Elder Hammer
Sunday, July 22, 2012
busy little mission 7/16/2012
Well with the new president in town we have been workin our little booties off over here!! Wow, what a lot of work!! Its pretty funny working with President cuz he is just like a greeny missionary, fresh in the field a bit innocent in some areas and other areas is fresh with great ideas!! But this past week we were in girardot, neiva, ibague and passing through the other little peublos helping president get to know the local leaders and missionaries in Tierra caliente!! It was pretty fun but a lot of traveling and getting to know president!! President Lozano is very different from President Casablanca, so we were getting a bit adapted to his styel to be able to caprutre his vision of the mission and being able to put it into practice!! I am loving it!! I really feel like i am of great importance to President!! The hard thing is that they are having some problems in Bogota right now in the office and the A.Ps in bogota are really new up there they got there like 1 week before president Lozano got there so they are just learnin the stuff i nthe office so they always call and here in Ibague i dont have an office to help them with the administration part, but we are settling things out!!
We are in Girardot right now tommorow we go to Bogota to help with a multi zone conference there and then we get to help Pres. with making transfers decision. I get to help him the board of changes and show him the programs and all that stuff and then we go back to ibague and then we will go back to bogota next week again to help recieve the 22 new missionaries get into their areas!! So we have alot going on!! The A.P work is going just great right now but i am gettin concerned about our area!! We are only there like 2-3 days in the week so its hard to help the investigators progress at the rate that they should!! But we have 3 people that are ready for baptism they just lack some of the lessons, which is our fault that we cant teach them in a convenient pace!! But we are doing our best!!
We found this killer family this week! I am super stoked!! Its a family of 4 that like in a little pueblo right outside of Ibague!! Its called rincon de las Americas, The corner of the americas, its super cool!! Anyways they are a reference family that we meet teach a f.h.e at an investigators house and we met the 15 year old daughter and she loved the FHE and invited us to meet her family so this week we went and did a FHE at her house with some members that live by her and it was awesome. We met her mom and sister and they invited us back to meet the dad this week!! So we are stoked to teach them. It's a little 15 year old girl but so sweet and spiritualy and polite and well mannered and what an awesome family she has!! I am excited to teach them!! Jennifer is a girl that we are teachin and we are also activating her family. THE FAMILY CAME TO CHURCH sunday!! It was great!! Jennifer has the fear of being baptized but then going inactive just like her family did! She has 5 brothers that are baptized but are now inactive and she doesnt want to do that! She is so sincere so we are helping her recieve a strong testimony of the book of mormon. We are teaching her the PLan of Salvation using the BOM. This lesson is awesome to teach when the people start to understand it they get sooo happy and excited and motivated! The plan of redemption is the BOMB!! Eliana came to church this past week , we meet her my first day in the area contacting and for the past month we have been working on getting her to come to church but its been a workin progress and yesterday she came with her little son!! YESS!!! WE are seeing thr fruits a bit now!! THe Lord blesses us with excellent investigators. He know we aint in the area much but when we are here we work our tails off and we focus on the people!! I love my area!! I love being a missionary! Iam greatful to be in colombia. I am proud to be an American!! I am so grateful for my heritage and for my roots!! I love the Savior and His work! Elder Hammer
We are in Girardot right now tommorow we go to Bogota to help with a multi zone conference there and then we get to help Pres. with making transfers decision. I get to help him the board of changes and show him the programs and all that stuff and then we go back to ibague and then we will go back to bogota next week again to help recieve the 22 new missionaries get into their areas!! So we have alot going on!! The A.P work is going just great right now but i am gettin concerned about our area!! We are only there like 2-3 days in the week so its hard to help the investigators progress at the rate that they should!! But we have 3 people that are ready for baptism they just lack some of the lessons, which is our fault that we cant teach them in a convenient pace!! But we are doing our best!!
We found this killer family this week! I am super stoked!! Its a family of 4 that like in a little pueblo right outside of Ibague!! Its called rincon de las Americas, The corner of the americas, its super cool!! Anyways they are a reference family that we meet teach a f.h.e at an investigators house and we met the 15 year old daughter and she loved the FHE and invited us to meet her family so this week we went and did a FHE at her house with some members that live by her and it was awesome. We met her mom and sister and they invited us back to meet the dad this week!! So we are stoked to teach them. It's a little 15 year old girl but so sweet and spiritualy and polite and well mannered and what an awesome family she has!! I am excited to teach them!! Jennifer is a girl that we are teachin and we are also activating her family. THE FAMILY CAME TO CHURCH sunday!! It was great!! Jennifer has the fear of being baptized but then going inactive just like her family did! She has 5 brothers that are baptized but are now inactive and she doesnt want to do that! She is so sincere so we are helping her recieve a strong testimony of the book of mormon. We are teaching her the PLan of Salvation using the BOM. This lesson is awesome to teach when the people start to understand it they get sooo happy and excited and motivated! The plan of redemption is the BOMB!! Eliana came to church this past week , we meet her my first day in the area contacting and for the past month we have been working on getting her to come to church but its been a workin progress and yesterday she came with her little son!! YESS!!! WE are seeing thr fruits a bit now!! THe Lord blesses us with excellent investigators. He know we aint in the area much but when we are here we work our tails off and we focus on the people!! I love my area!! I love being a missionary! Iam greatful to be in colombia. I am proud to be an American!! I am so grateful for my heritage and for my roots!! I love the Savior and His work! Elder Hammer
new mission president 7/9/2012
Well we got our new Mission President! President Lozano and he is an awesome man! I am very excited to work with him. He has a great vision of what our potential as a mission can be and how we can do it! We are working alot together which i like! This week we are trveling with him to show him the Hotlands so tommorow we are in Girardot, then at night time we go to Neiva to interview Pitalito and Florencia and we come back to Ibage on Thursday to have a conference! So we have been with him since Saturday planning and in meetings and stuff! He came out to teach with us this weekend and it i great to have someone new and fresh with new energy!! It was good teaching with the President!! IT was pretty funny cuz we took him to a lesson on Saturday and on Sunday he talked in our branch and the branch was all excited to meet him as if he was a superstar and then she felt like all honored that THE PRESIDENT was in her house and was all like bragging to all of the other youth that the president was in her house and all haha!! We died laughing!!
President really trust us what i love!! He doesnt really know all of the rules or administration or nothing so we talk alot we get to help make decisions with him so its fun!! I like it!! When he was with us he asked me if the mission manual has rules about drinkin pop haha! I was like no, drink it if you want to haha!! so we have a lot to teach him but I am glad that he is willing to learn! This week we werent in our area alot only 2 days really for all of the work with pres. and intercambios but it was a very spiritual week! We are being blessed so much!
I have learned alot in this time in the mission! I have seen the difference in the way i teach and act and testify. Its completely differnt! I am learning hwo to adapt the lessons to the people alot better!! I wish we could have mroe time with the people to teach them, there is so much to teach. I am learning the power and value of everyword we use!! WE dont get much time really to teach for a long time to the people a lesson in 45 min. or less. And the Colombian poeple LOVE TO TALK!! I bet you could put a dumby in front of some of our investigators adn they would keep tlaking and not know the difference haha!! But when we teach it has to be short, prcise and powerful! THe imoprtance of Clarity and power ar key in missionary work! WE have had some killer lesson where there have been a strong presence of the lord spirit there!! Where we have the enviroment to be able to testfy og the Truthfullnes of GOd and of his blessings of his plan! I have learned the great importance of the Plan of Salvation! It changes lives!
WE have 2 baptism planned for this month and we will have anoth 4 in August!! We are workin on growing our area and have been working hard to get refences from members!! But yesterday while my comp and i were out walkin a person on a motorcycle started following us!! I was like o man not another robbery, so we were just getting ready run. A motorcycle with 2 people on it means danger, its the easiest way to rob you! then they started yelling at us and all and then we realized they wanted to just talk to us. And they took of their helments and it was Angela haha!! She was an lady that i contacted in Roma in Bogota! haha like almost a year ago I was teaching her and she went on vacation and while she was on vacation her family moved but we didnt know where and we just met up yesterday here in Ibague! haha She lives in the apartment complex in front of ours haha!! What a great joy i felt!! We talked for a while and she is anxious to listen and go to church with us and everythin!! She was so cool!! I remember very well contacting her. We were waking in the street and me and Elder Suruguay were going to an appointment and we lacked people to contact for the day and she was on the 3rd floor of the house hanging clothes on the line and i just yelled to contact her i just testified in a simple way about the eternal family and she came down and listened to us and it was like a 40 min contact at the door!! She was so interested and we strted teaching her and her family!! I am stoked to teach her again!! What an answer to our prayers!! Sweet mercy of God!!
On thursday I was in the Chapel working on an activity with the zone and this guy comes around the corner and says oh my gosh ELDER HAMMER and he gave me this big hug. I was like oh my friend who are you. I never have met this dude in my life and he was hugging the heck out of me haha!! and he told me that he was a friend of Pops that he would go out with dad on splits and that Dad worked alot with him and that he went to the baptism at like 2 in mornin with Dad and Pres Pico! haha! It was fun talking to him! Then on Saturday i went to a meeting with Pres. Lozano and as i turned the corner PRes. Pico jumps out and just gives me the biggest hug in the world haha!! He is a great guy! I love PRes. Pico haha! He is hilarious!! I tihnk at times he forgets i am a missionary cuz he starts joking with with me and he treats me like a life long friends which i love! I am glad that i have the same friends as Pops!! Good kids haha!! So all is well here in Ibague! Lovin every second of the mission! I am workin alot on trying to receive more personal revelation through scripture study and more strict obedience and listening more! I need to be better at that!! But i am loving the work of the Lord. Love ya all a ton Elder Hammer
President really trust us what i love!! He doesnt really know all of the rules or administration or nothing so we talk alot we get to help make decisions with him so its fun!! I like it!! When he was with us he asked me if the mission manual has rules about drinkin pop haha! I was like no, drink it if you want to haha!! so we have a lot to teach him but I am glad that he is willing to learn! This week we werent in our area alot only 2 days really for all of the work with pres. and intercambios but it was a very spiritual week! We are being blessed so much!
I have learned alot in this time in the mission! I have seen the difference in the way i teach and act and testify. Its completely differnt! I am learning hwo to adapt the lessons to the people alot better!! I wish we could have mroe time with the people to teach them, there is so much to teach. I am learning the power and value of everyword we use!! WE dont get much time really to teach for a long time to the people a lesson in 45 min. or less. And the Colombian poeple LOVE TO TALK!! I bet you could put a dumby in front of some of our investigators adn they would keep tlaking and not know the difference haha!! But when we teach it has to be short, prcise and powerful! THe imoprtance of Clarity and power ar key in missionary work! WE have had some killer lesson where there have been a strong presence of the lord spirit there!! Where we have the enviroment to be able to testfy og the Truthfullnes of GOd and of his blessings of his plan! I have learned the great importance of the Plan of Salvation! It changes lives!
WE have 2 baptism planned for this month and we will have anoth 4 in August!! We are workin on growing our area and have been working hard to get refences from members!! But yesterday while my comp and i were out walkin a person on a motorcycle started following us!! I was like o man not another robbery, so we were just getting ready run. A motorcycle with 2 people on it means danger, its the easiest way to rob you! then they started yelling at us and all and then we realized they wanted to just talk to us. And they took of their helments and it was Angela haha!! She was an lady that i contacted in Roma in Bogota! haha like almost a year ago I was teaching her and she went on vacation and while she was on vacation her family moved but we didnt know where and we just met up yesterday here in Ibague! haha She lives in the apartment complex in front of ours haha!! What a great joy i felt!! We talked for a while and she is anxious to listen and go to church with us and everythin!! She was so cool!! I remember very well contacting her. We were waking in the street and me and Elder Suruguay were going to an appointment and we lacked people to contact for the day and she was on the 3rd floor of the house hanging clothes on the line and i just yelled to contact her i just testified in a simple way about the eternal family and she came down and listened to us and it was like a 40 min contact at the door!! She was so interested and we strted teaching her and her family!! I am stoked to teach her again!! What an answer to our prayers!! Sweet mercy of God!!
On thursday I was in the Chapel working on an activity with the zone and this guy comes around the corner and says oh my gosh ELDER HAMMER and he gave me this big hug. I was like oh my friend who are you. I never have met this dude in my life and he was hugging the heck out of me haha!! and he told me that he was a friend of Pops that he would go out with dad on splits and that Dad worked alot with him and that he went to the baptism at like 2 in mornin with Dad and Pres Pico! haha! It was fun talking to him! Then on Saturday i went to a meeting with Pres. Lozano and as i turned the corner PRes. Pico jumps out and just gives me the biggest hug in the world haha!! He is a great guy! I love PRes. Pico haha! He is hilarious!! I tihnk at times he forgets i am a missionary cuz he starts joking with with me and he treats me like a life long friends which i love! I am glad that i have the same friends as Pops!! Good kids haha!! So all is well here in Ibague! Lovin every second of the mission! I am workin alot on trying to receive more personal revelation through scripture study and more strict obedience and listening more! I need to be better at that!! But i am loving the work of the Lord. Love ya all a ton Elder Hammer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)