Well I'm leaving Gresham

Turns out that I am getting transferred! When I opened my transfer

letter I was not expecting to leave at all. I was just expecting to get a new companion in the same area... Well turns our I was wrong. The crazy thing is though. We are getting tripled out of the ward. Me elder olschewski and elder archibald are all leaving the ward. So
three new guys will be coming in on Wednesday. I got transferred to
the Vancouver west stake in the Vancouver 7th ward. I have no clue
what that area will be like, but I am kind of excited. I leave Wednesday morning for there. I'm actually really sad I have to leave this ward though. I have grown to love each and every person in this
ward just like it was my home ward. Now I have to get used to a whole
new set of people once again. But welcome to missionary work I guess
right? My new companion will be elder Martin. I don't know much about
him at all, but I'm hoping he's a pretty cool guy. He's only been out
for about 6 months so we are both pretty young to this mission thing. This new area I'm going to is a biking area, so I am pretty excited to ride some bike out here haha.

The timing for this transfer could not have been worse to be honest. We just started teaching one of our investigators, and she will for sure be getting baptized sometime soon in the near future. The only reason she's not yet is because her old church is giving her chairs,
and she doesn't like singing hymns. She goes to a black church. Anyways all our investigators are goin to have to Learn two brand new faces that are going to be teaching them, I cannot imagine that being the most comfortable thing for them. Oh well hopefully when she gets
baptized I can go to her baptism. I guess I was just here to plant a few seeds.

There wasn't much exciting stuff going on early in the week. We had no
lessons planned so it was meant out to be a little bit of a rough week. It's hard to not let numbers effect how you feel as a
missionary. You do all this work, and you literally see no fruit of your Labors. But then me and elder burk went on exchanges. We had planned to make it a killer day. A whole lot of tracting and trying to teach lessons on the street. Our original plan was to go to a park and
draw out the doctrine of Christ in chalk and talk to people about it... Well there were literally no people at the park. So we decided not to do that. When you go out as a missionary you get to find. I
mean that in multiple ways too. You find people to teach, and you also find a lot of cool treasures. That day we found: a love letter in Spanish, a drill bit, a magic card, a fish line with hook and 3 weights, a coconut, 3 arrows, and some pennies. We found so much awesome stuff that day haha. We also killed it with our stats. We got 3 other lessons on the street and 26 OYM's. Which means open your
mouth and talking to people about the church and leaving them with something to do.

All the stuff we found 

Awesome analogy that deals with music:

"If you put sheet music in front of someone who doesn't play much
music and you play that music for them a couple of times, they are bound to get a little bit of the point of what it is supposed to be like. That is how the world is without the Book of Mormon and prophets. We all know a little bit and understand somewhat how the gospel works, but we need that conductor to help us along the way. He can show us how to read the music and play it in harmony with the rest of the band or whatever. The prophet and Book of Mormon are crucial, without them we would not know where to go with our lives, or how to live the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I had guarana for the first time ever today! It was super good, it is a drink from Brazil. They have it in all world markets right now because of the World Cup. Try it out. It is unexplainable and delicious. Speaking of Brazil my Portuguese is starting to fall off.
It's hard to keep it up when you aren't around it at all... It's kind of frustrating, but I keep trying to study it daily for at least a little bit.

Me and elder archibald got something awesome this week! We got Luchadore masks! They are so awesome and I will definitely send you a picture. We got them from this huge Mexican flea market with a lot of awesome stuff there.

Anyways, then we went over to Cynthia's to tell her we were both leaving. She is super bummed. She is awesome. She gave us a huge stack of CDs that were all gospel music. I cannot wait to listen to them. They seem way awesome. There is so much soul involved with that type
of music. I love music in general though so there's that.

Something was brought to my attention yesterday that I think will help me out a lot in my mission. I may not be making a direct huge effect on the people I'm interacting with now, but you never know if that little seed you planted is going to grow into a huge family tree. My
actions could really change someone else's life down the line, I think
that will give me more strength down the line.

The palomos are definitely a family I will have to come back and see once I get off my mission. They have literally been my family while I've been here, I am so sad to leave them behind. But I know that I
will see them again. Another family I will for sure have to see when I come back is the parsons. They are out of town! And we probably won't see them before transfers... So that really stinks ... Hopefully we will be able to, but who knows. I don't know if leaving is ever going to get easier... We will see.

Me and brother palomo (Ulbe) I will miss my guitar buddy.

Love you all a lot, and I really do miss you. Hope you're doing well.

Elder Hamrick

My district!
Sister Taylor, sister Gomez, elder olschewski, me, elder archibald,
and elder burk!