Sept. 8, 2014

hi fam!

I am finally sending a few pics! 

Here is a pic of my comp that I am training, Hermana Olsen. She is  a great gal! She´s always ready to work hard and participate in the work! We are teaching lots of people and it is honestly quite hard to see everyone. Right now we have people booked till saturday. We´re trying to space it out a bit! We havent been focusing so much this week in the less actives, but in our investiagtos that will be baptized. this week we had a lesson with miguel and francis, the ones that are so great! and francis told us that he was losing his desire to be baptized and that he didnt feel he had much faith. he hadnt prayed for 2 days and said that he felt erally bad. It was geartbreaking to hear! but we had a good leson on the importance on being firm in the gospel and alwasy doing the small things to prepare us and help us in time of trial, because that time will ALWAYS come. then we talked about pray and fasting. we challenged him to bare his testimony at church. the next morning he bore it! he walked up and jsut gripped the podium. he had to take breaks during his testimony and really keep his emotions under control. it was awesome! after he jsut kept saying, hermanas, i have a lot of faith, i do! that was a good experince for him. HE should be good. 

we had to move the baptism dates back for ireni and her daughter becasue they still dont have a testomony of the book of mormon. We´re focusing a lot on heloping them understand the scrpitures and develope a love and appreciation for what it really is. Ireni cant read and so she has to rely on her 12 year old, so we are working with them,  but they really are a great family!

okay, so the 2nd pic i sent to you of the 2 haitians is a pic of one of the most pspecial baptisms that i have heard of. the hermanas have written a story aboout it and are giving me acopy and i will be able to send it to you or eread it when i get back...but a little background is...

he is named angelo and the girl is loveyou...yes LOVEYOU. 

angelo was raised by one of the most famous witches in haiti, his grandfather. Witchcraft and voodooism is very popular and coom on haiti. he was raised by his grandfather and 49 other kids. his grandfather tried to teach him how to take peoples souls and raise people from the dead, but one day we woke up and had the most gut urging feeling to LEAVE THAT MORNING. he had 50 pesos, the equivalence of about 1 dollar and 25 cents and he left. he walked for 18 hours, walked and walked becasue he jsut knew he had to get out of there and never go back. 18 hours later he was stopped by some border patrol. he told them he was taking a long walk and so they didnt ask any moer questions and let him paasss. Little did angelo know he had croseed the border in between haiti and the D.r.. HE caught a guauga to a nearby town and it stopped in vicente noble, and he has been here for 3 years. the missionaries found him, and he was baptized! this is jsut a smmmmmaaaallll part of his life. he is incredible and his faith and story is amazing. Angel was raised by a wicked wicked man, a witch. for 12 years, he was taught to do evil things, only evil things and nothing else. but angelo said there was something in him that always told him, ¨that´s not you.¨  he had no idea who god was or what he was like, but it intrigued him, he followed a prompting one day to ask the sister missioanry for a pamphlet, or anything to read, and from there he was led by god to find a life of god, a life of joy, a change. I love the gospel and cannot begin to describe the security and joy we have promised to us for following god. Do not stray from his path, because nothing good comes doing only what YOU want to do. the holy ghost is real and really helps us make correct decisions that help us gain eternal life. i love each of you and pray that you all try to recognize promptings. although you may not have evr had a life quite like angelos, we can all have the same change, not as quite dramatic, but a change and conversion that saves. have a great week!

love hermana hamblin