March 24, 2014

hi all!!

this week was good. we are preparing for a baptism. his name is Pablo and he is one determined happy man. he absorbs everything and just flies with it. his wife is reactivating. she´s had classes on Sundays for the last few months so she´ll be ready to get back into the swing of things. their family has been so blessed and you can see the difference.his little 5 year old girl, carainy still is crazy at church. she loves to color and only sits with us sisters...not her dad haha.  ...but it will come with time. 

so this week we will be focusing mainly on him. we also need to do a lot of finding, and hopefully get a lot of referncias from the members. the ward here is great and very loving. we also have ward conference coming up and so EVERYONE is stoked. they have planned missionary activities at the church each week to have non members,and less actives come. there will be movies about our beliefs and about the family with games and question answer devotionals. it should be great! 

this week as we were walking to a cita we were in the really rich part of the city. a man was opening one of the big gates and quickly asks as we were walking, what do you guys preach???? 

we stopped and started talking to him. he found out that we were mormons and quickly responded. oh, im really interested in that relgion. ive heard so many good things about it. i asked if he had any friends in the church and he didnt. he knew absolutely no one in the church, but wanted a pamphlet to analyze he said. he was just a worker taking care of the house and lives in the east mission so we took down his info to send it to those missionaries. i hope they find him sooon! it was neat to find someone that the Lord put in our path.

i am starting to understand spanish more. when the latin sisters talk to me i can actually start understanding their conversations. their conversastions are quite different becasue they are about normal life things and not jsut the gospel. AND they are both dominicanas so they talk really fast because its normal...so progression! 

well, i better go! but i love you all and hope you have a WONDERFUL WEEK!!

HERMANA hamblin

March 17, 2014

hi fam! i just deleted my letter on accident. i thoguht it was the save button! this week was good. we had a cita with pablo and he told us that he wasnt married. he thought he waS for some reason but he has started getting the papers and will be getting married in the next two weeks before the 29th of march. we are so excited! we wont be able to go becasue theyre havbing the wedding in the east misison. our other three baptisms dont look like they will happen from the looks of it right now. its hard right now, but i  know the lord is preparing people and that there are people searvching! there are thousands of people that we pass each day, and that is why it is so critical to be lead by the spirit. we can talk to people all day about god and his gospel becasue the people here love talking about god, but there is a difference between listening and appplying. i know that faith is a belief as well as an application, an action. i love the gospel so much and know it is true! i hope you all have a wonderful week!

and for my birthday package, i can get basically anything here so dont worry about sending me much. i have money in my account that i can use to buy whatever i need. well, sorry i have to go but i love you all lots! 

hermana hamblin

March 10, 2014

hello fam!

this week was another great week! we are working with pablo and matos and belkis. pablo is on fire and is studying and going to church and so very excited about all of it. at the end of of our last lesson. we asked if he had any questions. he pauses and asks...what color of tie do i need to wear to church? he was so solemn looking and so earnest in asking. it was cute. he got a tie from his work so he looked great at church!

matos,still is working toward his baptism....very very slowly. he still hasnt talked to his partner but he came to church. he has as cute little scripture journal that he writes what he learns. its so cute. he usually doesnt remember much of what we say,so we will see where he is this week.

the other investigators that we are teaching arent really progressing. its kind of sad,but we will just need to find more people to teach! 

we are working with 9 menos activo families. there are so many less actives,but we visit them quite often. we have some success.

its kind of crazy because blake contacts alll day every day and me and my companion dont do a lot of contacting. we just have apts and lots of people to visit! we just dont have a lot of progress, its going to take a lot of hard work, working by the spirit to help each person individually with the love that they need. 

it amazes me at all of the less actives that we find weekly. some go inactive after a week of being baptized! others have been inactive for 20 years. the gospel is so true. its not convenient to live the gospel but it is not supposed to be. it takes dedication and hard work, faith and endurance to live the gospel because we live in a world that fights against anything good. we have everything good with the gospel and should never let it go. there is no excuse, and no difficulty too heavy that the power of faith and sincere prayer cant overcome. Christ removes our inabilites, disabilites, weaknesses, pain and doubts. we just need to confide in him. i am so very grateful for the restored gospel of jesus christ. and i am so grateful i can be here to share it with those people that are searching for it! i love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!
lots of love, hermana hamblin

March 3, 2014

hello fam!!

 so this week was great, flew by just like the rest! this week we had a lesson with matos. we had planned on teaching him about the law of chastity and were jsut praying that all would go well and that he would understand. he lives with his partner but they have never gotten married. he tells us that her mentality is messed up and that she has to take lots of meds. thats really all we know about estervina. anyway, one of the committments to keep is to be married. we begin teaching and estervina walks in and they both just start fighting about something. matos got really upset and was plugging his ears and it was just sad to see. then they finished and he coudlnt focus on the lesson because he was so upset and angry. we contine to try to invite the spirit it and then she walks in again with sweet potato and onions on plates so that we can eat her food. she tells us that it is a sin if she doesnt feed us and that we need to eat it right now. then my comp begins telling them we cant eat it. then matos gets mad and commands us to eat it or that we will never have the respect and trust from estervina. finally i just told them that we could carry it.  it was a mess. they were yelling and trying to basically force feed us! oh my. finally that ended and we began again. we explained things and went really slow. it seemed like everything was jsut a disaster, but at the end we told him that he would need to get married to be baptized. his response was, of course i am going to get married. i can do that. do i need to talk to her right now?? what??? it was an amazing response! that is the last thing that we were expecting from brother matos! it was a good ending, but i think that we will have to repass the law of chastity again haha. we always have an adventure with matos. 

this week maria, an investigator that has been investigating the church for years, finally accepted a fecha for her baptism! the 5th of april. she wasnt hesitant to accept being baptized, but when we put a date she got really timid. but she accepted, so we are going to work with that! we have 4 people with baptisms coming up so we are working hard with them! 

i will be doing a 40 day fast. i am still deciding what i would like to start with, but what a wonderful opportunity that will be to change something small, but so very significant. i love you all so very much. have a wonderful week and look for ways to share the gospel, and always be confident in it!

 i love you bunches!! 
hermana hamblin

feb. 24, 2014

hi family!!

this week was great! so we had transfers and i stayed. everyone was telling me that i was going to train so i was preparing myself. my comp has been playing the training game with me for 2 weeks! i knew she was going because she has 5 transfers here....7 months!!! she has 13 months and is pretty old. when we got the call it was just as i suspected, i was staying.....and so was hermana stewart!!!! we were both shocked. i am grateful i at least have one more transfer with her. i can and have learned so much in these past 6 weeks>! so every Sunday we go to a bishop meeting to talk about our investigators and their progress it starts at 6:30 in the morning. as i was walking down the stairs and got out to the street i realized i still had my head lamp shining in the dark. i as cracking up! sheesh...wearing my headlamp to ward council!

pablo,an investigator showed up to church again! he is definitely progressing and has a fecha or date for the 29 of february. we are going to work hard with him. shirtless matos also came to church and absolutely loved it!! he looked a little scared and out of his comforet zone, but it was good for them. he showed up in a jean long sleeve button up,kind of like something uncle steve would wear and his booots. he is precious. we have a fhe planned with belkis tonight but sometimes, okay, lots of times she always forgets about things that we tell her so we will see what happens tonight. i think we will have to start doing lots of finding and receiving more referrals from the members because for some reason we are just not finding people that want to put effort into discovering the truth of the restored gospel!

i am so grateful for the gospel in my life. I KNOW WITHOUT ANY DOUBT THAT THIS IS THE ONLY TRUE CHURCH. just going to church i can feel and know how true it is. i absolutely love this gospel and have so much joy in my life from living it. it is true!!! if you dont, then pray. pray earnestly and specifically, read the scripture and ask god. he WILL answer without doubt. he will. just listen and move forward. welp, ive got to go but i love you all so much and am grateful for all of you!!!

feb. 17, 2014

this is judy and her son. she is a recient convert. also, i will need to explain the pic with the pizza and mystery drink...

 hermana moranta decided to give me a messaje...she was digging her elbows into it!!! also we made brownies with one of the young women. rosa is obsessed with brownies!

february 10, 2014

this is what is called fongu. it is mashed platinos, which is a kind of green banana that is not as sweet as regular ones. this week hermana stewart and i decided to make this dish with the bananas we received from the member last week. the only problem was that we only had 1 platino and the rest were regular bananas. so decided to use the regular sweet bananas anyway! they were still mostly green, but it is a different taste and texture than the platinos. so what you do is boil the bananas and then mash them. it looked so gross and they were boiled and slimy. we were really skeptical but we wanted to use what we had! we mashed them and it didnt turn out horribly. we didnt want the latinos, especially the dominican to see it so we made them rice and then we ate all the mongu while they slept. not too bad for the first time!! then we made taco meat and put it on top. maybe you can try that at home!

February 3, 2014

also, here is my robe photo. i was washing my towel and didnt have anything to waer so i pulled out this great lil thing. all the hermanas were very impressed you could say. we just all laughed...why do i have this on my mission?,,,,,well, just because blake has one. anyway, i spilled icecream in my bad about 2 months ago and i tried washingit out and,,,welll.....let me just say it smell RANCID!!! i opened it up0 this morning and my comp could smell it, so i decided to wash it out in our washing tub with some washing detergent and soap.