The Lord Has a Plan

October 13, 2014

This week was literally ten times better than all the other weeks combined basically haha. So much happened, and possibly the most inspiring thing happened to me this week. SO lets get started. 

SO we worked a lot harder this week. At the end of the email last week I said that I needed to find a lot more people. Well this week we ended up finding about 26 people new to teach. Some of them are awesome and really interested, and others are kind of just willing to listen to us talk. We taught a lot of people this week. I was so much happier when we were working hard. I dont think that I have ever sweat or walked so much in my life. Like literally about 10-15 miles every single day, and I am definitely hot and sweating that whole time, but it kind of feels good to know that I am working that hard. 

We came in contact with this man who will probably forever change my mission. So we knock on his door. We had passed by this house before and not stopped there. Well this time we felt like we should knock. So he welcomed us in and then we started talking a bit. He started saying I dont know why but today I knew something good and inspiring was going to happen to me today. Even my dog was acting different as if I missed something about an hour ago (when we walked by previously) Well we then started talking with him about why we were there. Then he said why Would God send you two to me? How did this happen? How did you know to stop here and talk with me? We told him it wasnt us but his Heavenly Father. HE then started crying when we started sharing our message. He wasnt feeling close to the Lord because he was having a problem in his life. Well we told him that is why we are here. He was so grateful and said this is a really strong feeling right now. I dont know how to explain it. Then we expressed to him that it was the Love of HIs Savior for him and that this was just the start if we continued to visit him. HE then said the most beautiful prayer I think I have ever heard. He said the date. ´´October 9 2014 A day that I will NEVER forget, A day when you sent 2 angels my way to help me change my life. Thank you so much for this´´ HE said a lot more, but that was inspiring to me. It was great and I look forward to meeting with him more to change his world. 

I am starting to love Brazil. At first it was really hard, but now I am really loving almost everything about it. even the portuguese. At times it is really difficult for me, but other times I can almost say all that I want to say. Some people still have a really hard time understanding me, but it is mostly teenagers surprisingly. 

I am starting to try to help my companion learn english. It is pretty awesome. Elder Guimaraes and I are starting to get pretty close, and that just makes it so much better. He is trying hard because I gave him an English planner that he is only writing in english. HE doesnt know much, but he will learn :)

I finally did service here. IT was only for about 10 minutes moving some bricks, but I LOVE SERVICE. So it was good for me. 

I have a lot of time to think here, becasue when we are walking and not talking I think about a lot haha. One thing I think about is that this world is a world full of so many distractions, so many things keeping us from what is truly important. And especially with people we meet with, because they never remember what we ask them todo. But I also do realize that they have their lives, and we only take up 15 minutes of their day. It is hard for us to understand because our whole day consists of this. But I think it makes me have more patience with people.

Something intersting here is that they have a kids day. Just like mothers day or Fathers day. All the kids get presents and have parties and everything. It is different, but kind of cool.

I love how much light is referred to in the Scriptures. We are the light of the world, but we cant just let all our light shine full force or people will be dissinterested, or scared of it. It is crazy how much I think abiut light hah. 

anyways this week was great, I am so thankful to be a missionary here. I love you all and miss you all,

ELder Hamrick

our area is very diverse, we have city ish places, then we turn around and teach where moses taught haha

Our mirror in our house 

Super cute cats at a members house

 Bonito (beautiful) 

Gustavo

They just have coconuts everywhere here 

A Missionary In the Making

October 6, 2014

So this week kind of flew by! but it was also quite the busy one.

On monday we always have a family night with some members of the ward. It is always awesome and good to get a family together and talk about thigs that will bring us closer to God. 

Then the next day we had a Mission Conference! It was super awesome. The whole mission was there. We all got to listen to a lot of talks and recieve a lot of revelations for our areas. I love having inspired leaders. There was something that stood out to me that I need to be an Elder Strong. No matter where I am at or if I am a new missionary here. I need to be strong and not act like I am new. If I act like I am new I will recieve treatment as if I was new. I want to get out there and just work. A nother thing that I realized that day is that I dont really have any friends here. but I will make them eventually. things like that come with time. 

Then the next day was the only normal day of the whole week where we had the whole day to work. So we worked hard and didnt teach as much as we could have. This week was full of a lot of finding people to teach... who were not living in our area. It seriously must have been like 15 people in one day that we could not come bacck to again. IT was alright though. Our area is really suffering. We basically have no investigators. THe little number of people we had dropped us this week. but its all good that just means we need to find more :)

Then we had to go to Fortaleza again for me to verify my VISA. So that took a big chunk of time. it is about a 2 hour bus ride to fortaleza from MAracanau. So that was fun because I got to speak english with one of the secrataries that is from the US and another missionary that arrived with me. It feels good to speak english for a bit. I am getting better at portuguese, but honestly I am not trying to stress out about it. 

It is hard for me to be myself here. A lot of the things that make me me are the things that I say. Well In portuguese I Dont really know how to say them haha. So taht makes it difficult. SO I cant be funny here. AS Elder Brase said in the US it doesnt amtter because you arent funny in english anyways. Good times haha. 

SO since we dont have any investigators we are both pretty bummed, but it made me realize that I just need to enjoy the little things, because most of the time thats what ends up truly being what matters. So I will continue to try to enjoy the little things.a

General conference is an amazing opportunity to hear the inspired apostles and prophets of the church... if you understand it.. Turns out we didnt have english so I had to watch it in portuguese. IT is jsut not the same. half of what makes conference so good is hearing the voices and their emotion. In portuguese there is none of that... saadly.

So something random happened. I baptized a kid I had met 20 minutes prior.. the sisters needed someone to baptize him... So I did it. My first baptism where I did the baptism and I didnt even know him at all.. It was still a cool feeling. I dont think that he really understood what he was doing though. 

Conference was still good... what I understood of it.

This week was pretty good. THe week before I ate like nothing; NOw I am eating Like EVERYTHING. I am super hungry all the time here. And people are giving us more food. I love it haha. Cake here is so much better than in america. less sugar and just more awesome I guess haha.

While we were walking one day I almost died from a bus It literally hit the back of my hair on my head. if I would have been like 2 inches clsoer to the bus I probably would be dead. IT was going fast and it scared me a lot haha. 

PEople found out I can sing. I told one youth who always comes out with us and he told everyone about my youtube page. Now like all the youth think I am amazing and always say when you get famous dont forget that we are here in brazil. It was a good week.

I miss and love you all daily. I aam sorry if I dont respond to emails sometimes. It is hard. Also sometimes they dont show up. So If you really want me to respond write me an email seperatley. 

LOVE,

ELDER HAMRICK

Our church building

A big statue of Jesus

I think these sandals are done 

 chocolate pizza! super good. Cheese and chocolate. who would have thought. 

lunch at a fast food place called habbibs.