Little Time, Big Blessings

September 14, 2015

This week Elder Hamrick sent us an audio clip of his letter. I am trying to find a way to upload it, but until then, he is doing well and had another busy but great week!! He said he witnessed a lot of miracles and was grateful for them. 

The elders had a party for Elder Austad's birthday this week. The sister missionaries made a cake for him.

Elder Austad's birthday 

Baptism of Tamiris and Matheus

Fly By

4 ASSISTANTS>>>> ONE MISSion FORTALEZA EAST
THE BEST MISSION IN THE WORLD

September 7, 2015

Well now that things have changed quite  abit for me on my mission.. The time is REALLY flying by now.. I just got a second to stop and think about it and I realize I only have like 4 months left of my mission.. i dont even understand that.. But Its true and I am not going to waste any of the time that I have left.. Well there really is no way that I can waste it now that I am here.. Super busy

So what happened this week.

We had a group of missionaries leaving.. So we had to organize everything with them going to the airport and stuff.. This isnt including the huge trasnfer that we also had to organize; And also there was a new group of missionaries coming into the mission. So we were at the airport for quite a while on tuesday. Especially because there were quite a few confusions that happened there..  But it eventually all worked out. The next few days we were giving a training to the new missionaries.. It was super cool. I love seeing the fire of the new missionaries when they get into the field.. it brings back some good memories.. I love the mission.. But ya so we did that until lik thursday night.. 

(AIRPORT CRAZY
I saw Hunter Bishop from home.. .Going home.. And I saw Elder Anderson from Washington.. They are going home. It was cool to see them!)

We started to only get a full day of work on saturday.. 

we were looking for a miracle.. We were looking for someone that could be baptized this week. SO we left on Saturday just searching for them the whole time. And we ended up having a miracle happen. 

We went to the Recent Convert ( who I just happened to know because I was at her baptism a while back) We talked with her cousin asked her if she wanted to be baptized.. She said yes... we taught her the rest of what she needed to know then interviewed her and she ended up getting baptized on sunday.. It was super great.. The Lord really does work miracles with us.. It is crazy. We had the faith.. I dont know if we deserved it, but we recieved the blessings.. I love this work. Its a work of miracles.

(Nicole's baptism)

I love the fact that there are 4 Assistants.. Like I love it. 

There is: 

Elder Molina: An Elder from Honduras.. He has already studied at BYU and speaks fluent english. he was my favorite Zone Leader that Ive had.. I was always hoping that one day we would be companions. Well we are going to be companions.. he is going to be the one that will stay as an assistant with me when the other two go home. 

Elder Austad: He is an Elder who has moved all over the place but currently lives in Montana.. I got here to BRasil with him.. We have always been pretty good friends.. He was a crazy good Football player.. he served for almost a year in a mission in Ohio... He will be going home in about three weeks.. Hes awesome

Elder Hwang: He is an elder I didnt know super well.. We got to know eachother a while back.. He is from Chicago.. He is a cool guy and he is going to BYU as well.. He will be going home with Elder Austad.. Its super cool to be with all of them.

(Elder Hwang, Elder Molina, Elder Austad)

This week was full of adventures and the next week will be as well.. I look forward to the experiences that I am going to have.. Love you all so much.

Èlder Hamrick

The mission office and my home

Saying goodbye to Vaneza Ward

Trip to Juazerio

Service project

The Journey

September 1, 2015

Well Sorry I havent been able to send you guys any emails.... Yesterday got a little crazy and I wasnt able to send any emails.. I am going to be super short with you guys and You all can respond if you want more details. 

What Happened this week

It was Elder Quintanillas birthday and we made a cake and ate pizza

We had A Zone meeting that was pretty interesting

We were teaching this lesson and this man recieved an answer right in front of our faces.. He needed to know if the things we were teaching were true so He was just flipping through the Book of Mormon and he opened up to this verse. Alma 5:12... It was amazing to see. Now it is just up to him to act on his answer that he clearly recieved. 

So we ended up having a crazy trip this last week... We went to a City called Juazeiro. If you look it up on the map it is way far away. All of the Zone Leaders went to a special meeting.. It was a 12 hour bus ride to get there.. Then we had 2 meetings with President Anderson. 

It was super special.. Super awesome.. I feel honored to be a part of the meeting.. Then we went and worked in Juazeiro.. It is super hot there... But we went crazy and talked to everyone that we could.. it was fun.. But it was tiring... 

Then we got back and worked a bit. 

then we had this cool meeting with our Stake Presidency... 

I am starting to love this ward.. .The members are awesome.. but I Have some other news.. 

I GOT TRANSFERRED.... I am now in a ward called Alvorado... And I am now an Assistant to the Mission President.. 

There are 4 assistants now... We are going crazy and things are way different now.. So It will be different when I will be able to respond.. Since we dont have much time I will be able to respond randomly. 

I feel super honored.. I really dont know what to think.. But I will Trust in the Lord and through him my weaknesses will be made strong. 

Love you all ,


Elder Hamrick

Keep Going

The airport

August 24, 2015

So this week was  pretty good. We had some pretty difficult times at the beginning of the week. We kept working but things just didnt seem to be going our way. 

Our Zone is having some difficulties recently and it is starting to take a toll on me. I sometimes really dont know what to do.. But I am going to keep going and praying a lot to help me through it.

We had a couple of divisions this week. We did one witha companionship in our zone which was pretty cool. And then we ended up having one with the APs and that was pretty fun too. I really like the APs that we have here right now. They are truly here to help us out. And I feel that from them. So they helped me when I was feeling alittle bit down this last week.

(Division with Elder Austad... AP)

My studies always end up helping me out quite a bit also.. I love the Scriptures. I am Studying a lot in the book of John recently. so I can learn how to be more like Christ.. Theres a super important  phrase in Preach My Gospel that I am yearning to apply into my life. 

"You need to be a Christ-like Missionary, and not just Do missionary things.. " That can also apply in being a Christ-like member of the church. This phrase will always stick with me. 

Theres an elder that lives with us in the same apartment complex who is going home. ELder Chester.. IT is kind of hard because it is making me think a lot about home. But I still dont know when I am going home so it makes me want to use all of the time that I have to do the best that I can.

Sometimes I forget how much we walk here on the mission. Until I get home and see the blisters on my feet and feel the sore legs that I have.. All of this work is for Our Savior.. I also KNOW for a fact that I wouldnt be able to do this by myself.. Just like everyone told me before I left.. ITS NOT EASY>>> BUT ITS WORTH IT.. 

Sometimes its just hard to see the results.. But things will work out.. I have faith.. And hope. And I trust God. 

Love you all so much.

Thank you for all that you do :)

My first donut in a year!! 

Sunset

Selfie

We made tacos. They never have them here! 

A little snack after cleaning our apartment! 

Our apartment before and after broke in...

Great Week in the Work of the Lord

August 17, 2015

So this week really was a great week.. We had quite a few pretty cool experiences.. One of them just being a lot of good hard work and getting some good stuff done in our area... I am still getting to know the area, but things are going better and better it seems like. Thank you for all of your prayers for me. it makes a difference.. 

This week I focused a lot on prayer in my studies.. I have realized that My prayers havent been as good as they could have been. We always need to make our prayers go in line with the desires of the Lord. If we pray sincerely for what we want, and it isnt what God wants for us.. Of course we will be discouraged.. that seemed to be my problem... So i am working a lot on this recently... It has made me realize that there truly are always little miracles every single day.. And if we dont take the initiative to make them happen.... they wont happen.. So thats what we need to do. 

We had a great day this week.. Usually when I am fasting here in Brazil it is hard for me.. but this time when i fasted I fasted to have a focus on the work and not even think about myself in any situation... It worked out a lot better.. I felt so happy and I felt the spirit the whole day even going into the next day.. Going about doing good :)

I dont really have a whole lot more to say about this week. We finally got some of our investigators to make it to church to see the blessings that God has for them.. They all loved it! Any of you if you have not made a visit to see the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.. I would highly suggest it... 

So today we went around to somewhere we usually dont go... And when we got back our house was a mess... Someone broke into our house.. So that was a fun surprise to a long day haha... 

Love you all.. Keep it real for me in the US.

Elder Parker Hamrick





JUST KIDDING IT WAS THE OTHER ELDERS THAT BROKE IN... 

Forget yourself and get to work

You could say that we are getting along! My comp. elder padilla

August 10, 2015

So to start off last week we had one of the best p days I have had... We cleaned the house and got everything done that we needed to. We got to go shopping and get a bunch of groceries for cheap. And relax... I dont know I just felt great by the end of the day. 

The next day was even better. We got called because I was having an interview with President Fusco.. because its been like 5-6 months since my last one.. He said some things that I really was needing to hear. It was super awesome. He talked a lot about Service... The scripture in Mat 16: 24-25. Which talks about Forgetting yourself taking up your cross and serving others... It is such an awesome scripture for a missionary and really makes the whole essence of being a missionary. We can serve all we want but if we dont really forget ourselves in the work we are just working a lot and the results wont be how we like and we will not feel accomplished. 

Another thing that president was talking about was walking with faith.. He talked about how we should always be walking in the dark and waiting for the light to help us guide the way.. If we are just walking where we are comfortable and where we can always see whats happening we arent really showing a whole lot of our faith... YOu all know how much I love analogies about light... So I found this in a talk by David A. Bednar. 

"And Assurance and hope make it possible for us to walk to the edge of the light and take a few steps into the darkness- EXPECTING and TRUSTING the light to move and illuminate the way"

I like this other scripture in 1 Nephi 4:6-7 He totally took a step into the dark... 

I love this quote.... We need to have so much trust in the Lord for things to truly work out... So I put that to the test this week. 

I also learned that meaningful study is super important to meaningfully study :) dont ever forget to study!

We have really had some good luck in finding some super awesome families recently... They look so promising and willing to change.. I love it... They are literally ready.. We just need to help them understand why tehy need to be ready, and what they need to do... (none of them went to church last week) But things will work out with them... 

So as we were in one of the sketchy-ish parts in our area we found this guy whos from england! Everyone calls him gringo! But its super sad.. He moved here from england because he got in trouble with the police.. Now he is hardly making a living.. its super sad and he didnt want anything to do with us, but I still have faith that we wil be able to teach him sometime.. 

I had a cool experience like 2 weeks ago where I literally heard the spirit tell me something.. We had lost our keys and we were wasting a lot of time looking for them... So I said a prayer so that we could get out and get something done... As soon as I did... I heard get up and look on the desk... We were in another missionaries house... But I did it.. .And they were there.. WE NEED TO BE OBEDIENT to the spirit as well. 

I love being a missionary.. Sometimes its hard and I lose energy.. But thinking back to everything I hjave learned makes me just want to keep going.. ANyone who has the chance to serve.. Do it.. .

Love you all <

Elder Hamrick