Alright so a basic run down of this week before I get into any crazy
details or anything. So we had zone conference on Tuesday so the first
couple days of the week were pretty relaxed with no work. The next few
days after that we went hard. We tried to work as hard as we could all day and every day to make up for the days we missed. We went out and talked to as many people as we could. I found a new tactic that makes tracting for me much easier. You go out onto a busy road and simply wave to the people driving by. When I do that I just get happier, I
get more and more excited about the work, it just makes it better. I
have found since I have been out that knocking doors really does not
do much for me. We have little to no success. But when we go out walk
around the sidewalk where people will be we find way more people who
are open to hearing our message more (generally). So you know how we
worked our butts off this week? Every single appointment of ours got
canceled except for 1 or 2. It was absolutely ridiculous. No one would
even tell us, we would just show up, and no one would be there. So I felt good about this week until I realized our numbers... We haven't had anyone to church in 3 weeks... We have no progressing investigators. But I know that numbers don't matter, but they do. When
you try your hardest, work the best you can and you don't get the numbers you had set for goals, or had planned for for that day, there
is nothing that you can do to change that. We have to do our part, but
the people we are teaching have to do their own part too. So this week
was pretty good. I felt good about it at least.
Last p day we went to a place called multnomah falls. It's an awesome
waterfall that you can hike up to the top of. Sadly the bridge to get
to the hike was broken... So we went there and took pictures and fun
stuff around the area. I loved it. That is what p day should be like.
Not sitting in the middle of a gym at a stake center. I will be
sending quite a few pictures this week so don't be alarmed by how many
emails you get haha.
Zone conference was great. It's like a mini general conference just
meant for you and a couple other zones. It was really good for me. The
main focus of it was faith. Faith is what brings results in the majority of missionary work. Sometimes faith isn't the Easiest thing to have though. I know for me it has been a reoccurring challenge. It's a challenge because there is always that little sliver of doubt.
Whether it just be oh they never answer so they won't answer this
time, or no one in this neighborhood wants to listen to us so why would this door be different. I think we all do that with everything in our day, we receive failure, and we expect failure once again.
Basically we all need to expect success always in everything that we
do to be honest.
While we were doing all this talking one day we walked about 8-10 miles in a day. That is kind of crazy to think about. At least for me. Up to that point the most we had walked was probably 2-3 miles.. It felt really good to be honest. Oh ya and on that day it was about 93 degrees. So compared to 60 and raining, ya it was hot haha. I like to look at that day as a mini Brazil experience. In Brazil I should be walking quite a bit in about the same temperature or hotter. All these
little things are preparing me for Brazil. Now we will just have to see when I actually get there haha.
Another day we were walking we ran into a Jehovah's Witness. It was actually a great experience for me. At first I think he was way intimidated. He just kept on rattling off verses and random poems to
make himself sound educated. Once he realized we weren't there or bash
or argue or tell him that we were right he opened up. Invited us to his house and gave us some of their literature. To be honest most of their beliefs are pretty similar to ours. It's important when teaching people that you always look for the similarities first. Otherwise
you're basically going to be telling them what to believe. If you find those similarities first then you can build their belief and faith from there. Hopefully we will be meeting with him again sometime soon.
So something pretty cool about this area is that we found a gas station that no matter when we get in there to go and get slurpees we get them for free :) it is really cool that we get them for free. Just
one of those little blessings that make a day better. We only go there at night after a long day though. It is pretty nice.
On Friday we did this huge service project for a potential investigator that took our whole zone! We did a whole lot of yard work, and we had to take out a lot of blackberry bushes. Those things
are not nice, they are quite sharp too. I love service, it is possibly one of my favorite things that happens on a mission. So as some of you
may know it was my birthday on Friday. To be honest birthdays on a
mission kind of stink... A lot Hha. I guess it is just because I'm so used to how birthdays were back home. The whole day I was waiting for letters from people just because I has been expecting them previously and I never got them. Needless to say it was frustrating. I did
receive a postcard from my mom which made my day a little better, basically the whole day I was walking around thinking of what I could be doing on my birthday if I had friends with me or if I was back
home. I got a little homesick that day. It was just a bummer of a day.
To make it worse we got back to the apartment and we didn't have a key
and I had to go to the bathroom! I was so mad! Haha we had to wait 30
minutes for the other elders to come and they weren't even picking up
their phone. Once I found out why I kind of felt bad for being angry.
They had gone and bought me some cake mix and had a member of our ward
(sister palomo) make me a cake. They then surprised me at the end of
the night with a cake, candles, singing, and everything. Thank you to
elder burk and elder archibald for making my birthday.
We are still struggling to get in with our investigator hoodini the blind man. He always seems to disappear from us when we set up a lesson. Who knows what the deal is, but we have had to set his baptism date back twice now since he hasn't been to church for 2 weeks. We
will have to see what happens there.
When you are walking around everywhere you find some treasures haha. I found a broken knife and many other things, the knife is way broken,
but me and elder burk are trying to make it a fixed Blade with a cool paricord handle. We will then be making a leather sheathe for it as well. Dad you would be proud of me, but I still need a knife because to be honest this one isn't the best haha.
So something that is the motto or slogan for this mission is that GOD
DOESNT DO RANDOM. We were tracting and my companion really needed some pants for some reason and it was the middle of the week. I told him no
we shouldn't do that, but he wouldn't give up so of course I had to go
with him. Anyways we go and so that, then I realize there is wifi so I
stop for a second, then I had a feeling that I should not stop to get
on Facebook or whatever to take the time to set up the wifi. So we
left. Turns out if we would not have done all those things we would
not have ran into a super solid potential investigator. I love taking a look to see heavenly fathers hands in all of our lives. It's kind of funny when we are walking along the road and we get called names. It's funny that we get called out for doing the work of The Lord and trying
to help everyone, haha makes me laugh.
During Sacrament meeting on Sunday, the main topic was the priesthood.
There were quite a few of the young men that spoke and bore there testimonies off the Priesthood. One of them had just spoken about Elder Holland's talk/mormon message called sanctify yourselves. It's a really powerful one that brings into perspective the power of the
Priesthood and being ready to use it at any time. An older member of the ward came up to us shortly after and asked if she could borrow a couple of us Elders to give a blessing to her daughter out in the foyer. I went with Elder Burk. We found her laying down in pain and
holding her side. We went into a small room to gave the blessing. They
didn't tell us too much about what was going on, but I went ahead and
anointed her, then Elder Burk sealed it with a blessing. Right at the end of the blessing the lady started to throw up. We haven't heard what happened after that except that she was taken to a hospital.
After the experience we both were like, what just happened? It was a
pretty crazy and a neat experience to have happened, especially at the
time that it did. Hopefully she is alright.
Anyways I will be sending some fun and cool pictures to you so enjoy
those hopefully.
I love and miss you all so much,
Elder Hamrick
King of the day with my princess tiara
details or anything. So we had zone conference on Tuesday so the first
couple days of the week were pretty relaxed with no work. The next few
days after that we went hard. We tried to work as hard as we could all day and every day to make up for the days we missed. We went out and talked to as many people as we could. I found a new tactic that makes tracting for me much easier. You go out onto a busy road and simply wave to the people driving by. When I do that I just get happier, I
get more and more excited about the work, it just makes it better. I
have found since I have been out that knocking doors really does not
do much for me. We have little to no success. But when we go out walk
around the sidewalk where people will be we find way more people who
are open to hearing our message more (generally). So you know how we
worked our butts off this week? Every single appointment of ours got
canceled except for 1 or 2. It was absolutely ridiculous. No one would
even tell us, we would just show up, and no one would be there. So I felt good about this week until I realized our numbers... We haven't had anyone to church in 3 weeks... We have no progressing investigators. But I know that numbers don't matter, but they do. When
you try your hardest, work the best you can and you don't get the numbers you had set for goals, or had planned for for that day, there
is nothing that you can do to change that. We have to do our part, but
the people we are teaching have to do their own part too. So this week
was pretty good. I felt good about it at least.
Last p day we went to a place called multnomah falls. It's an awesome
waterfall that you can hike up to the top of. Sadly the bridge to get
to the hike was broken... So we went there and took pictures and fun
stuff around the area. I loved it. That is what p day should be like.
Not sitting in the middle of a gym at a stake center. I will be
sending quite a few pictures this week so don't be alarmed by how many
emails you get haha.
Zone conference was great. It's like a mini general conference just
meant for you and a couple other zones. It was really good for me. The
main focus of it was faith. Faith is what brings results in the majority of missionary work. Sometimes faith isn't the Easiest thing to have though. I know for me it has been a reoccurring challenge. It's a challenge because there is always that little sliver of doubt.
Whether it just be oh they never answer so they won't answer this
time, or no one in this neighborhood wants to listen to us so why would this door be different. I think we all do that with everything in our day, we receive failure, and we expect failure once again.
Basically we all need to expect success always in everything that we
do to be honest.
While we were doing all this talking one day we walked about 8-10 miles in a day. That is kind of crazy to think about. At least for me. Up to that point the most we had walked was probably 2-3 miles.. It felt really good to be honest. Oh ya and on that day it was about 93 degrees. So compared to 60 and raining, ya it was hot haha. I like to look at that day as a mini Brazil experience. In Brazil I should be walking quite a bit in about the same temperature or hotter. All these
little things are preparing me for Brazil. Now we will just have to see when I actually get there haha.
Another day we were walking we ran into a Jehovah's Witness. It was actually a great experience for me. At first I think he was way intimidated. He just kept on rattling off verses and random poems to
make himself sound educated. Once he realized we weren't there or bash
or argue or tell him that we were right he opened up. Invited us to his house and gave us some of their literature. To be honest most of their beliefs are pretty similar to ours. It's important when teaching people that you always look for the similarities first. Otherwise
you're basically going to be telling them what to believe. If you find those similarities first then you can build their belief and faith from there. Hopefully we will be meeting with him again sometime soon.
So something pretty cool about this area is that we found a gas station that no matter when we get in there to go and get slurpees we get them for free :) it is really cool that we get them for free. Just
one of those little blessings that make a day better. We only go there at night after a long day though. It is pretty nice.
On Friday we did this huge service project for a potential investigator that took our whole zone! We did a whole lot of yard work, and we had to take out a lot of blackberry bushes. Those things
are not nice, they are quite sharp too. I love service, it is possibly one of my favorite things that happens on a mission. So as some of you
may know it was my birthday on Friday. To be honest birthdays on a
mission kind of stink... A lot Hha. I guess it is just because I'm so used to how birthdays were back home. The whole day I was waiting for letters from people just because I has been expecting them previously and I never got them. Needless to say it was frustrating. I did
receive a postcard from my mom which made my day a little better, basically the whole day I was walking around thinking of what I could be doing on my birthday if I had friends with me or if I was back
home. I got a little homesick that day. It was just a bummer of a day.
To make it worse we got back to the apartment and we didn't have a key
and I had to go to the bathroom! I was so mad! Haha we had to wait 30
minutes for the other elders to come and they weren't even picking up
their phone. Once I found out why I kind of felt bad for being angry.
They had gone and bought me some cake mix and had a member of our ward
(sister palomo) make me a cake. They then surprised me at the end of
the night with a cake, candles, singing, and everything. Thank you to
elder burk and elder archibald for making my birthday.
We are still struggling to get in with our investigator hoodini the blind man. He always seems to disappear from us when we set up a lesson. Who knows what the deal is, but we have had to set his baptism date back twice now since he hasn't been to church for 2 weeks. We
will have to see what happens there.
When you are walking around everywhere you find some treasures haha. I found a broken knife and many other things, the knife is way broken,
but me and elder burk are trying to make it a fixed Blade with a cool paricord handle. We will then be making a leather sheathe for it as well. Dad you would be proud of me, but I still need a knife because to be honest this one isn't the best haha.
So something that is the motto or slogan for this mission is that GOD
DOESNT DO RANDOM. We were tracting and my companion really needed some pants for some reason and it was the middle of the week. I told him no
we shouldn't do that, but he wouldn't give up so of course I had to go
with him. Anyways we go and so that, then I realize there is wifi so I
stop for a second, then I had a feeling that I should not stop to get
on Facebook or whatever to take the time to set up the wifi. So we
left. Turns out if we would not have done all those things we would
not have ran into a super solid potential investigator. I love taking a look to see heavenly fathers hands in all of our lives. It's kind of funny when we are walking along the road and we get called names. It's funny that we get called out for doing the work of The Lord and trying
to help everyone, haha makes me laugh.
During Sacrament meeting on Sunday, the main topic was the priesthood.
There were quite a few of the young men that spoke and bore there testimonies off the Priesthood. One of them had just spoken about Elder Holland's talk/mormon message called sanctify yourselves. It's a really powerful one that brings into perspective the power of the
Priesthood and being ready to use it at any time. An older member of the ward came up to us shortly after and asked if she could borrow a couple of us Elders to give a blessing to her daughter out in the foyer. I went with Elder Burk. We found her laying down in pain and
holding her side. We went into a small room to gave the blessing. They
didn't tell us too much about what was going on, but I went ahead and
anointed her, then Elder Burk sealed it with a blessing. Right at the end of the blessing the lady started to throw up. We haven't heard what happened after that except that she was taken to a hospital.
After the experience we both were like, what just happened? It was a
pretty crazy and a neat experience to have happened, especially at the
time that it did. Hopefully she is alright.
Anyways I will be sending some fun and cool pictures to you so enjoy
those hopefully.
I love and miss you all so much,
Elder Hamrick
Sent from my iPad
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