Keep an Eternal Perspective

Mundo Do O Livro de Mormon

November 3, 2014

SO this week was pretty cool. We had a leadership meeting for everyone that is a leader in the mission. I am not in leadership but my companion is. SO we went there and pretty much the whole way of missionary work has changed. We are focusing a lot on everyone now. Keeping EVERYONE strong in the church not just less active members. Everyone. I really like this because it is important to have strength in the church in every part of every country. I will see how much this changes things of how we work. As of now not much has changed, but I know when we apply things it will change for sure. One thing that wasnt good about this meeting was that I had to pay for 3 people to get to Fortaleza and back... I lost quite a bit of money that day. PRetty sad, but we got there and back safely so thats what really matters. thats another thing that I really need to focus on. Not worrying about the little things, but enjoying the little things. Especially thinking in an eternal perspective. Thats why we are trying to get everyone to go to the temple. IT is a not only a beautiful area, but really an important place for us to go. And be strengthened and edified by it. 

So everyone is asking me about my relationship with dogs here in Brazil. Well I finally was bitten by a dog this week. But dont worry it is not as bad as you are probably thinking. I was playing with this dog.. And it decided to bite my pant leg. IT was totally fine, but then it decided to go a little deeper and get my leg. I lifted up my leg and the dog was just hanging on haha. A detail that I left out is that he was about 3 weeks old and stuper cute.. IT didnt hurt whatsoever. 

This week we walked a lot more than I thought we did. We have a reaaaaaallly big area... Like I dont even understand how big this area is. There are parts that I havent even seen because we would have to take a bus 20 minutes just to go there. IT is huge. But anyways we were walking a lot to obscure places in our area this week. My feet hurt haha. I have a bunch of sores on them from walking so much. When I get back I will have feet like rocks haha. Ew... 

So this week I finally realized how hard it is for me to speak english. I can hardly pray in english anymore. I can type only because I get to think in my brain before I type it out. When I speak I speak super slowly and probably incorrectly at times. I hope this is a sign that my portuguese is getting better. I think it is. We are teaching better, and I am sort of starting to be able to talk to people like I would normally.. SOrt of.. But we are teaching better, So I think my portuguese is getting better. There are some things that I say that I know are wrong and I correct myself afterwards and people just seem confused. I need to stop doing this and just speak correctly. SAdly it is a lot harder to do than to say... haha. 

I am trying to veer my thoughts away from me being bad for this area. Every companionship in our district has had some good success this transfer.. With at least one baptism. WE havent had one this whole time. Its hard because before I got here they had a lot of success. I guess I need to find out what I am doing wrong here. 

This is definitely work. It is physical, it is mental, and for sure spiritual. I have never grown so much in these three categories At once in my life before. I know that it is changing me for the better. Something that PResident Fusco said to us in the meaning has really hit me hard. About our hearts. HE told us we have good hearts, and if people realize that and see that they will trust you and listen to what you have to say. But how do we show our hearts to people? that is the hard part. I think that I will continue to study. I care about people a lot, but at times I dont think that I show it well enough. If I dont show it how will they know? and what is the point? think about it. We all have love for people, but at times they dont know it because we dont show it. 

I hope everyone had a great week this week. YOu can all confide in the fact that I am here sweating and being hot and walking a lot and trying to help people every week. You can know this with a certainty. LOve you all, miss you. 

Elder Parker Hamrick

coconut with my mustache straw

this is one day after walking the streets of brazil. THe other clean one is after cleaning... IT is dirty here haha

Elder Guimaraes E Eu

They eat this here... Fish head... Just kidding! Haha

Because Salvation Was Never a Cheap Experience

October 20, 2014

This week. As you can see the subject of the email is about salvation. and how it is not a cheap experience. Missionary work is all about salvation, and it is not easy thats for sure. This week was just kind of interesting. 

SO we started off this week witha  freezer adventure. We had a bunch of ice built up in our freezer so we decided to clean it out. The only way I knew how was to use water, so we basically flooded our house. But Tudo Bem Everything was good. We live on the second floor and just wiped all the water down the stairs and out the door haha. It was funny, but it was a lot of work haha. But worth it. now we have a beautiful fridge... kind of...

I probably will return loving to clean, or hating it. because here I basically have to clean every single day. I dont know why but everything in our house gets covered with dirt... every single day... I wont have anything clean within a couple weeks haha. HAving things dirty bothers me so I clean a lot haha. 

SO this week I had multiple people call me edward cullen and for the second Time I have had someone tell me that I have beautiful eyes to my face. Haha it is pretty funny how people here will just be honest with you and not hold in their thoughts pretty much haha. Another funny thing is that people here have clothes with english phrases on them. I guaruntee that they dont know what their shirts say. They never really make any sense. They are just happy they have something with english. So there is a picture of John the Baptist Baptizing Jesus in one of the pamphlets. Well we asked one of our investigators what she thought the pictures was. She said ´´A person Holding Jesus and smacking him´´ IT was so funny we were all laughing. Then right after that we were walking to a house and a kid said ´´Para! Ele Vai Moher Voces´´ WHich means stop he will kill you... It was a dog. He immediately ran towards us barking like none other, luckily he was on a leash... wooo... that was scary haha.

So at this point in all my other areas on my mission I have felt a reason for being in that area... Here is a little different. I am not feeling that at all.. I just kind of feel like I am here. I want to help everyone, but I dont feel like anything or anyone is getting better because I am here. I just feel like I am going with the Flow. I am trying to change it, but its just how I have been feeling. Repetative and not helpful. 

This week was pretty good, but it feels like we are pulling teeth with some of the people we are meeting with. We are trying our best to help them and they are just waiting for us to show up and change it for them. they arent really willing to do anything to help out. Although we do have this couple that is super awesome and they are changing their lives. It is cool to see that. 

Some random culture things. Here they have fireworks randomly throughout the day... I have had a lot of fruits and juices that I have never even heard of before like açerola, Tamarino, Caja, and Maracuja. I will have to bring back some juice mixes for people to try. Its pretty legit. And people here say neh at the end of every sentance, its super weird haha. 

All is well in Maracanau. Love you,

Elder Parker Hamrick

You can always tell where Elder Hamrick has been. 

Beautiful!! 

My zone!

The Importance of Gratitude

The streets of braziliaaaaaaa

October 27, 2014

I love the time that we have to study in the morning, because It kind of changed my whole outlook. I will be honest, the begining of this week was really hard for me mentally. I was feeling pointless here, and wanting to return to WAshington to continue my mission (Even though I am pretty sure thats not an option) I felt good there, like I was making a difference in something... Here it is hard for me to feel that way, because I dont exactly feel like me yet. But I was studying one day this week. I read a talk from 2 general conferences ago about Gratitude. This quote stood out to me. ´´It is gratitude that heals the heart and expands the mind´´ This became the theme for me for this week. It really changed my attitude. We have so much to be grateful for, even if I am not making a big difference Here, I still have to be grateful for even being here in the first place. 

We saw a meteor this week. That was pretty sweet it was in the sky for like 15 seconds. Pretty cool because I have never seen that before. 

Alma 26:27 is such a great scriptures. I love the Book of Mormon, it is full of insights that we can apply in our lives daily. I also Just finished reading the New Testament this week. It is awesome to read the scriptures. It is crazy how much I have changed in this aspect. Before my mission I never read anything, and now all I do is read.

Something cool we did this week. We went to a part of our area that literally no missionary has ever been before. We asked people if they have ever seen us. Not one of them knew who we were, or who mormons even were. It was crazy that they have never even heard of us. It was pretty cool at first, ´the people there arent any more accepting. The first time we went there was good, we went there a second time, and all of the people that we talked to befoer kind of just droppped all interest. Sadly this happened, and it was a 20 minute bus ride. IT is an area really far from us. 

I also read about the power of hope. And how I am leaving a heritage of hope for all of my descendents. I am the only hamrick to serve a mission in this generation, so I need to serve it well. The power of prayer is a real thing that we need to use more in our lives. IT really does help us, and the Lord really does hear our prayers. I think that People here dont understand the power of prayer.

WE went to another area this week to help people out with interviews... we stayed there the whole day. We had a couple interesting days of helping other missionaries.

I love you all, this week was good, and I look forward to talking to you all again next week. 

Elder Parker Pratt Hamrick

Joseph Smith

Pequinia (small thing) she is my buddy

A pretty cool bird

I got to play guitar today! I miss it, but I realized I don't need it to survive.

Zone P Day

The Zone 

We bobbed for apples... More like dunked for apples

Made mummies

The companionship

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.

Foi Uma Semana Interessante (IT was an interesting week)

September 29, 2014

This week in Maracanau! 
So this week started off pretty well. It is crazy how different things are here. All the work and how many new investigators you can find just in one day. Well anyways we found quite a bit on tuesday ( Tercafeira ) IT was pretty cool. There are so many fruits here so many that we dont have in the US at all. I had one called a Guaba. IT didnt like me... 

ANyways that night I was feeling pretty sick. Well the next day I was feeling even worse and I could barely sleep. TUrns out I needed to go to the hospital. So thats what we did the next day. We took like a 2 hour bus ride to Fortaleza to go to the hospital. My stomach has never heart so bad in my life haha. It literally felt like my stomach was eating my intestines or somethng like that. IT was not fun haha. SO for those few days that I was sick I basically fasted. I could literally tell you how many meals I had this week with one hand. Turns out I had an intestinal infection. SO i got on antibiotics, but the next day was not any better. I ate nothing, slept(tried) and layed down in bed. I felt like such a waste of a missionary. Dont worry I am all ok now and finally after like 5 days of basically nothing I am eating normal again. WOOOHOOO. you have no idea how happy i am about that. haha

The next day after I stayed in all day I decided it was a good idea to go out and do normal things again. SO my companion is a district leader so he has to do all the baptismal interviews. ITs not like it is in The US here. WE had to walk to each of their houses to do those. While I had not eaten or drank anything that day. I was walking myself dry haha. So when you make those jokes about not eating food and think of the starving children in africa. Well now you can make it much more personal. Think of a starving elder Hamrick. It was all good though (At least in theory) because we had a baptism that night! Well the punk never showed up! he was supposed to get baptized last week. Oh well as my companion says Isso Aconteceu (this happens)

SO I had a really bad morning on sunday. all I could think about was going back to washington and finishing my two years there. I thought it would be better use of my healt a nd a better use of my time. But then I realized its not MY health or MY time, but the Lords. Yes I am not as comfortable or used to the culture here, but that doesnt mean that I need to be somewhere where I am perfectly comfortable. I changed my outlook completely. 

I think that portuguese is starting to come along a lot better... maybe haha. I was basically talking to no one all week, but I am starting to think a lot more in portuguese.

So I will go into a couple weird but kind of cool cultural things here.
-for time they have military time... But dont use it. all the clocks and everything say like 18:20 but everyone calls it 6:20.
-BRazilian english is pretty awesome. THey dontreally know how to say much.
-MY companion always says this in english ´´WHy is this so hard... BEacause salvation was never cheap, salvation is never easy´´ IT is so funny
-THey always have juice here. 
-BEANS AND RICE FOR DAYS.

IF any of you have any questions about what it is like here just ask me. 

I am starting to love it here already. I am sorry about last week and how frustrated I was. I always seem to forget the lesson I learned that an attitude really makes all the difference. I know that we have a good Brother to lean on. Jesus Christ Suffered through everything we did or will suffer through. IT doenst matter if we have trials that are large or small, hard or easy, AS long as we learn the lesson we need to learn. 

EU sei que isso e da evangelho de jesus cristo porque Eu sei que todas as qoizas que foi pregava na biblia e livro de mormon aconteceu hoje. JEsus Cristo E nosso Salvador. Se nos temos Fe nos podemos fazer todas as qoizes monstra para nos.

LOVE 

ELDER HAMRICK

My View 

Lovely hospital Pic! I DIDNT FEEL GOOD,  OKAY? 

Me and my comp!! 
 

Well I am in Fortaleza

The view from my window now

September 22, 2014

So I don`t really know where to start. I got to fortaleza on tuesday around noon. I love President Fusco, he is a great man and I am going to enjoy being with him for the next year and a half. So I got here and we had a 3 day training from the AP's and stayed in a little hotel every night. EVERYTHING is so different here. THe work is like multiplied by 10. It is like that much faster. Anyways the CTM was awesome, but it was my time to leave haha. Everyone at the mtc kept on checking on us and telling us how to plan and stuff. It was funny and really annoying at the same time haha. MY district there was super awesome so I was pretty sad about that actually.

So to be honest I am kind of in culture shock. I cant stop thinking about it. There is literally nothing that is the same here. Actually the only thing that is the same is that God loves the people here. I dont know what to do with myself. We live a completely different lifestyle here in Brazil. IT was like a big slap to the face from reality. I am probably going to sound like a baby in this email, but it is how I am feeling so here it goes.

We live in a house with two other missionaries. The place is just gross. Dirty and not really anything we can do about it. But I am starting to get used to it because every house that we go into looks the same. We go in and its basically just a ceramic floor walls and a sink at times. THey have tables and chairs and stuff too, but its just completely different. I need to get used to it fast haha. WE also dont have warm water at all, and cant drink the water. YOu wouldnt want to drink the water even if we could haha. The streets all smell like crap haha and have water running through them. IT is a WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD. I guess just writing this will help get things off my mind maybe.. hopefully. 

My companion is awesome. Elder Guimaraes. Basically just say Gimme rice. He is so different from all the other companions I have had though. Like I said earlier the work is completely different here. I just dont feel the conversions in the baptisms, but what do I know... pretty much nothing. THe standard of excellence here for baptisms is like 5 a week.... HOLY COW. We were supposed to have one this week but something got a little complicated.

I feel like when I got here my portuguese was pretty good. People were even telling me that my portuguese was better than the last elder who was there for 5 months. Well now I can honestly say that I think it is getting worse and worse every day. I just sit there and dont understand a thing they are saying. AT first I could almost understand it all.. .now its basically nothing, so it makes me feel even more lost.

SOmething else thats different is that we have lunch with members here.... Thats about all I eat all day too... haha no breakfast or dinner usually. Also my pedometer has almost doubled since the last time I checked which was the day Before I got here. NOw it is up to more than 60 miles haha... we walk a lot and I think we have a pretty big area.

I wont ever have a guitar here. Maybe thats also something that is eating me up on the inside. It was killing me to go 6 weeks without it... Now I have to go a year and 4 months without it.... holy cowww haha. 

Basically I need your guys prayers. I honestly at times wish I could be back in Washington loving the work again, but I know that I am supposed to be here and will learn to love it here as well. I love you, and miss you a lot especially right now, but I know that I will be ok. I am trying to work my hardest to really just lose myself in the work, Life is going to go on, but I need to be more patient and humble. 

I love you,

Elder Hamrick

My view from the window at the CTM in São Paulo 

almost all our district in the CTM at the SAo paulo temple

So I am in Brazil

September 10, 2014

So I really dont have much time at all. I love it here in the MTC I love the people, I love the food, I love everything. I dont feel like I am in a different country but I do know I am in one. Life is about to get crazy up in here. We have meat for like every meal. Ok not like every meal. EVERY MEAL. They gave us hot dogs for breakfast. And rice and beans.  Portuguese is going really dang well too. So much is happening I can basically understand it and talk back to them quite a bit in portuguese. I love being able to speak a different language. I honestly dont know what to say. 

 We had the opportunity to hand out 22 Book of Mormons in 45 minutes on the streets of Sao Paulo. Holy cow. The scripture the field is white already to harvest really applies here. Except the field is a little more white in Brazil. I love it here to be honest and I cant wait to get out into the real field in Brazil. I am sorry this is so short but I really dont know what to write about. 

I love my district here. I know a lot of them from the Provo MTC. IT is super awesome that I have the chance to see them again and spend time with them. We are just all loving and are way more experienced with this work and loving people. AND WE ARE LOVING PEOPLE. 

We got to go to the temple today it was super legit. I loved it. The temples are beautiful no matter where you are at. 

Love you all.

IM IN BRAZIL!!

September 3, 2014

Holy cow after a REALLLY long flight I made it to Brazil! I have probably gotten about 6 hours of sleep in the past two days. Im running on low haha. It is beautiful here in the MTC and in Sao Paulo. I am definitely not in Washington anymore. It is crazy to even think about. I am companions with Elder Yarrington who was in the MTC with me while I was in Provo. I didnt know him at all but now I am going to get to know him haha. I just saw Sister Horn and I have been talking with Elder Hofstetter as well. I am doing well. I love you all. I will be interested to see what happens here. People arent speaking english here! I love you.

Elder Hamrick

 

TCHAU

Last week in the U.S. For a time

September 1, 2014

Holy cow it is crazy to think that I will not be in the United States I n about 2 days. I honestly don't know what to think haha. I'm nervous, but also extremely excited! It's a huge mix of emotions... This week was a great week to end on. I am happy with what I have done here and hopefully I made a difference, because it has made a difference in me.

I've been trying to play as much guitar as I can before I leave... I won't be bringing it to Brazil, and I'm hopeful that I will be able to get on when I am in Brazil. I could barely last 6 weeks when I was originally without a guitar. So it will be interesting to see haha. I'm going to miss being able to just post a video of me singing on
Facebook when I can. So you won't be able to see those anymore.

I think I was missing my missionary fire/drive for a bit. Well I picked a good day to get it back! Tuesday was a great day for me. We were just talking to everyone we could. We had the spirit with us with every person we talked to, and it was just a great feeling. We have
recently been told to focus on less active members of the church to get them to come back and enjoy the blessings it brigs them. It's hard for me to know how to go at it. They are all different and a lot don't want to come back. But I know it's important and the work we have done
has been great.

We did some service this week. We moved this lady and unloaded everything from her truck. We got it done within an hour which was perfect for our schedule.

I feel like everything good happened and is going to start going crazy well... Right when I'm leaving! What is this? Haha I'm just kidding, but I'm also serious in some ways. I'm excited for the things that are
going to happen in this area.

I think it's great when people don't like us. We are so scary looking. They literally avoid us and basically run. It just kind of makes my day better. I know a lot of missionaries have a hard tome with that. I
just kind of embrace it. This week a guy told us that he loves what we do, but we are wolves like it talks about in the bible. And he said I really want to say something. But I don't want to scare you. We told him to just say it. Well he called us a cult... Haha he like backed up
when he said it. I don't think people understand what a cult does... Oh well we tried to be nice with him. You never know what's going to happen out on the streets of Vancouver.

I got to go to the Portland Temple this week finally! I feel so blessed that we have the Temples in our lives. They bring so much peace! I loved it. Not to mention it is a beautiful building to look
at as well for people who aren't members of the church. It was kind of weird being there with all the departing missionaries... I felt like I was going home with them too... Nope I'm just going to Brazil haha.

I really don't have much to write this week. I am going to be missing a lot of things... Lots of people... I'm just so thankful that I had the opportunity to even come here. And meet these people and have an impact left on me. I will miss elder Brase for sure. Luckily we just
happen to live in the same state. So I will see him again I know it. But it's weird saying goodbye to everyone. Doesn't feel real. It will feel real when I get off that ten hour flight and I'm in a totally different country haha.

I will just end with my testimony. I know this work that I am doing is so important. And I have come to learn that it is impossible for us to do it by ourselves. We need the help of the members. Without them we have no connections and no true way of finding the truly elect. I am so grateful for all that our Savior did for us. We have him to rely on in any minute and every minute. The pain, suffering and sorrow he went through us is completely unexplainable and we will probably never understand how extensive that is in this life. All we need to know is that he did that for us. So we could change. Change who we are, how we act, and what we do. This life is such a blessing and I am ready to live it. To most full potential I can. I love this work.

I love you all,

Elder Hamrick

The view in Portland! 

Elder Brase and I with the Bishop's family. They are awesome. 

One of the people we met says I look like him when he was in the marines. I don't see it, but what do you think??

It's always a party with the Hardys. Here's his family and us. Oaklee
is holding my tie. Ainzlee is the blonde one, and Rae is the one in BYU Idaho stuff.  We were missing one. Bailee was asleep. Love this family. I'm going to miss them a lot. :'(

I'm such a model. Hahahahaha, just kidding.