Monday, July 7, 2014

4th of July Week!

July 7, 2014

So last p day was the best p day ever! We had a whole mission wide party because the missions 1 year anniversary was on the 1st or something like that. Anyways it was awesome because I got to see all the elders and sisters in the whole mission. This is truly a great mission. I love the people in it. So everyone was out playing sports..
And you can guess what I was doing. Walking around talking to people
and playing guitar with some buddies. I got to hang out with elder Canada. From the MTC. It was such an enjoyable day. Looking back at it it seems like a month ago. Time flies out here when you are so hyped up on the constant work we have to be doing.

All of us are over 6'2. I almost look short in this picture. 


Here is where we had the party

Interviews with president went as smoothly as they possibly could. He
asked me how I was doing and I said great, and ready to work hard. Then we talked about Brazil for a bit. He said that I would be here longer than I thought I would be. You know what? I don't even care! I am here! That is where I am at. It doesn't matter if I want to be somewhere else. Wishing to be there isn't going to help me out any. It's alright I know I need to be here. There is a lot of work to be
done here. I am more than willing to do it. 

So Tuesday was a record hot for Washington. It was at least 90 degrees
or a little more. Which is crazy hot for Washington. It is so weird how your body gets acclimated to the temperatures where you are. In Kansas I would have been fine with it... But now that I am out here it is super hot! That day we actually helped someone move in our shirts
and ties! We finished unloading a whole u haul in 30 minutes! Thanks to an awesome member in our ward who knew what he was doing.

After that we were going to stop by an investigator to ask her a time to meet and the member driving us decided that he needed to go a different way than usual to get to her house. Turns out if he didn't
do that we wouldn't have talked to this one guy. He stopped us and asked us to pray for him. We taught him a bit and should be meeting with him again. Gods hand is there for us all.

We have someone we are teaching who just has the most perfect textbook
lessons. We plan something and the spirit always takes it the way that
we need to go. Super spiritual lessons and she is going to be baptized
in August.

I love teaching people who are smart! It is probably my favorite thing to do. They know so much, and I learn so much. Most of the time I can even answer their questions. We met someone like that last week and will be going back this week. I am pretty dang excited to learn and to
have the spirit there.

I now know how to solve a Rubik's cube! Random fact of the day!



I gave a "training" on knowledge. It basically means that I taught the
whole district at district meeting. Well the whole district and bother
the zone leaders and assistants to the president? It was a pretty stacked room.  But surprisingly I wasn't nervous at all. "The key to knowledge is prayer. One progresses only as fast as he gains
knowledge. That's why it is important that we focus on teaching people
for understanding." That is a little bit of my training, but you get the point. I asked the AP's afterwards if it was good one said I came with questions, and left with answers.

So there is  a Portuguese family from Brazil who aren't members moving
into our ward boundaries... So it will be interesting. I will have to teach in Portuguese, and my Portuguese sucks a lot right now.

This week we have been going through  a lot of "archives" you could say. Basically we are going through the area book to look at any potentials or investigators that maybe fell through the cracks with a
transfer. It is pretty cool. We have set up at least 4 appointments this week because of it. Also we mapped our our area into zones and I think that will really help us out quite a bit.

I Asked someone to be baptized this week? You know how lots of times
people talk about how spiritual and scary it was, but it was worth it? Well that's not how it worked this time. It was definitely spiritual and scary, but she basically slapped me in the face with her response. She started to laugh and say I don't think our ideas of authority line
up. It really bothered me that she totally just denied the spirit... Oh well we aren't going to stop there.

Random funny thing: A girl took a snapchat of me at dinner haha.. So
who knows who she sent that to or where it went. 

4th of July for a missionary in Vancouver is totally different. Vancouver has the biggest fireworks and shows west of the
Mississippi... It was a crazy day! We started by going to a ward pancake breakfast that was pretty fun. We spent time with the kids of the group, one little girl kept grabbing my hand and leading me places. I love kids. I miss my nieces and nephews so much. After that it was time to do our weekly planning. That usually takes a long time because we have a lot we need to plan for. Then we had like an hour left until dinner. We went on a bike ride. Everyone was already lighting off fireworks and stuff so we couldn't talk to anyone. We went up into a mountain and did like 15 minutes of mountain bike riding to get to a sweet view. Turns out the sweet view wasn't
much at all.. But the ride was pretty fun. Then it was time for dinner! We got invited to go to a Fourth of July BBQ with a family from our ward to one of their friends. So we loaded up into their big
car because they have 7 kids. It was such a fun night though. We played lots of games talked for hours and all that. It was funny those little kids were obsessed with me and elder Martin. They would always want to be partners with us for all of the games. One kid who is about
to be a deacon was really looking up to me. Anything I said he would listen to and do it. He was a good kid, it's kind of a bummer that he isn't In our ward though. Then time for the fireworks! Holy cow it is crazy here! Maybe I can try to send some videos of what it looked
like. We were just in a neighborhood and it looked like we were right by a professional show. We got permission to stay out late that night, so we stayed out until like 11:30! It was a great night full of fun.




The next day we went and did some garage sale talking. That is a super
effective way to talk to people in my opinion. They will usually talk to you about whatever you have to say. Except for this day. The first one basically just said. Nope if you gave me a card I would just leave it with all the books I'm selling. Then the other one actually bothered me. We bought something from the sale for more than it was going for. We were talking to this older guy and he was super awesome. I wanted to talk to him again so I gave him our number. Then the guy at the garage sale doing the sale. Came up to us and said "what do you
think you're doing? You can't come up here into someone else's garage sale and preach your crap" I was like I wasn't preaching. We bought something and I'm simply talking to this man. He said well ya but just leave. Anyways we didn't really leave because we were still talking to
that guy. You know what's funny? Even guys call me handsome. The old guy we were talking to said "dang (not really dang) they make em handsome now, gosh are you an actor? I'm gonna be your manager you're gonna be an actor!" It was super funny, I hope he calls us back.

That night was super interesting for talking to people. As we were
walking downtown talking to people we stopped in ash store to get some
water... And I saw a 1980's fender acoustic... So I just had to play I t. Old guitars play so dang well! It was beautiful and only $150. If I wasn't on my mission I would probably have Bought that thing. Then there was a banjolele that looked like my grandpas that I was considering buying, but that was like $400. It looked just like it though.


The most interesting "OYM" happened that night. It looked like Sheldon
from the Big Bang theory. Like almost identical and he talked like himand he shared with us the most interesting and intriguing theories about Jesus. He said that he was a time traveler. That basically sums it up and how time travel will be something that messes up history and
we can change it. And how everyone believes the bible because everyone
believes it... Haha he then said he wouldn't read the rest of the Book
of Mormon because he doesn't know what things would be brought to
pass. As we were leaving we talked to a group of homeless people and he was in there with them. He asked for a copy. He said you may never know the consequence, but I will read it, I will read it. He was crazy haha.

Then on the way home the same day some guy yelled "lucifer says hello"
it is really funny how people yell so many random things at us as if we are going to be offended and go and cry about it. So this happens all the time. The special thing about this time was that he stopped his car about a half of a mile up. Got out and apologized to us saying
that he thought it was funny, but in reality it was really wrong. He was a nice guy, he was touched by something that day.

Since giving people my address didn't work, tell people to send me their address on Facebook or email! I will just have to write them! :)

I'm going to end on a spiritual note about fasting. As some know it was fast Sunday yesterday. I have never really experienced much from fasting. So it was kind of just another day, but I put all my faith Into this time that something great would happen. As we are waiting
for our missionary coordination meeting to start our ward mission leader is in a meeting with the bishop. Come to find out that while he was in there one of the members we helped into reactivity called and said something super interesting. My whole family wants to be baptized. What do they have to do. I knew at that exact moment that fasting really does work. It is an amazing blessing that we have the
opportunity to do that. He lives with his girlfriend and his girlfriends parents. They are all going to be taught this week. It is
amazing. I don't know what made them switch to that. All I know is that my testimony of fasting has been increased 10 fold. It is amazing how aware our Heavenly Father is to each one of us. I know that this gospel is true, I am trying my hardest to be the best instrument in
Gods hands to do this work. I have opened up my faith completely to
this, and I cannot wait where it takes me. This is true.

Love you all, tell everyone hello for me,

Elder Hamrick



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