August 18, 2014

hi fam!!

this week was wonderful! I am trainig hermana olsen from layton utah. She actually reminds me almost exactly of sadee sanders. shes so sweet. this is her first wek in the mission field. she is definitely adjsuting to the living conditions here in the d.r. i forget that iwent through that process haha. when there is big kokaraoach or lizards in our bedroon,or dominicans doing crazy things, i jsut think its normal now. we put 10 baptism dates this week. actually, i made my copm do it, she did great! she stuied french for 6 years before the mission and then got called here! shes doing incredibly well. i am so impressed. anyways, we have one family ireni, and her daughter that is old enough thtat will be baptized on the 13 of sept, francis nad miguel on the 20th and iridi and her son kelvin on the 20th as well . please pray for all of them! they all accepted their dates, but some jsut chose not to come to church this week. if they dont come to church they cant progress and gao a testimony as strongly as by going to church! also, i am living with hermana hewish, mom remerber her? her family was at the airport the day that you dropped me off. shes so sweet! anyay we are working super hard and its great to have a comp that is really excited and willing to do the work! we also go to the temple in 2 weeks so that should be soo much fun!!! 

DAD, good jobfor volunteering!! i am so proud of you!!! youll do so well!!!

well i´ll be busy this week training and preparing people for baptism! also, as i was in the trainers meeting i met 3 elders from snowflake! a fussleman, a tenney, and travis heaps cousin! i cant remeber his name, but he´s cousins with him with light bloonde hair. we were llaughing, because of course i we would find relatives in the d.r.! well  love you all! have a great week and keep moving forward  with faith! after all, thats what we have to live off of and be happy! i love you all so much and i love the lords work!

hermana hamblin

sorry there arent any pics ...again.  plugge di my chip and my computer turned off and i had to change computers and this one doesnt have anywhere to plug in my chip. next week!

August 10, 2014

hi family!

this week was a good one!, i did get some nasty parasites again..this will be the third time! rememebr that before my mission i was so nervous about getting parasites and then i äccepted that i would get them...well, all i can say is that i didnt know what i was accepting!! haha 

this week, we had 9 investigators come to church! i cant eve remember the last time we had that many since weve been in this area. I know that the lord blessed us so much because we didnt leave for about 4 days to teach. 

malena, one of our haitian investigators told us in church that she wanted to be beaptized in september. she is amazing. she has never wanted to be baptized before with other missionaries because she had been baptized 2 other times in other churhes, but now she has a desire! she is amazing becasue in order to get baptized she has to get married or leave her partner. she said she wouldnt want to get married to him, so she said that she would leave him, that means that she wouldnt have any stable income nor a house and she has 4 kids that she lives with. what faith!!! 

in church on sunday, our branch president invited everyone in the church that wasnt a member to get pabtized and to search for a desire to get baptized. i was sitting next to my investigator named ireni and she just looked at me, smiled, and pointed to herself and said, thats what i want!  oh my goodness. i am so excited. we have so many good people that we are teaching that have desires to be baptized. we have SOOOO much good work, and i am excited becasue, starting tomorrow i will be a mamma! i will train my legitimate first daughter on the mission. i dont know anything about her! but i am so excited!

i invite you all this week to give a prayer of gratitude this week. we have so many blessings in our lives, and of course we express gratitude often in our prayers, but offer at least one this week of JUST GRATITUDE, to express the love for everything that you have in your life. when you do it, i can promise you that your heart will open and your understanding of the important things in life wil become so clear to you! i love you all and pray that you have a WONDERFUL WEEK!

LOVE HERMANA HAMBLIN

July 28, 2014

hello all!

this week my comp and i got to work! we taught about 25 lessons, so thats a change! we received a list of 10 less actives from our branch president to look for and teach. this week we decided to try to find as many as we could. we set out and quickly found out that addresses dont exist here. on one side of the street it´ll say house #23 and the other side of the stree #85.....lets just say we´ve found one, and were meeting lots of new people! we are also teaching lots of haitians. they are more poor than dominicans, but very humble. people wont even give us a time or day to come back becuase they dont know if they´ll be home at that time and have the fear of god that if they lie to us about when we can come back and we find them not home, god will be very displeased. its a little interesting.

we also went to a funeral of our ward mission leaders son. he was killed in a car accident.  it was very sad. we went to the burial and that was verrry interesting. remebers the movei other side of heaven whe someone dies and the mother is wailing to the top of her lungs. yep, thats what the famliy, or the women, do here. we were out at the cemetary and the women were wailing and vrying then someone starts yelling, you cant jump in! the wife of the husband was yelling he´s asleep he´s asleep i promise and then tried to jump in! it was very sad, but the other ehermanas will stop by and share the plan of salvation becasue she is not a memebr and it would be perfect.

i have a mini missioanry that will serve with me for 3 weeks. she is from the d.r. and doesnt speak a lick of english. shes great though! she is always singing dominican songs, loves to cook us dominican food and just great! we´re getting along jsut fine. its weird to be training basically. she hasnt expereinced the misionary life at all! because she already knows the culture and speaks spanish i autimatically think she´s been serving for a long time, but then i have to remind myslef that she doesnt know that much about the mission life. shes cute. shes barely 18 and when we´re in the lessons share a brief, but beautiful testimony. her name is hermana mercedes.

i lvoe you all so much and pray for you all! i got emails from so many family and its great to hear that dustin got her call. tell her ocngrats for me!! chile will be awesome . ive heard that they have their own chilean vocabulary. sprry  didnt send pics. the other hermanas have my pic sender. hopefully next week! i love you!

hermana hamblin

July 21, 2014

hi fam!

well, another crazy week! my comp was flown home early friday morning. she left worthy, but had some major health problems. i was only able to find a member to come out with me for 2 days for a ew hours, so i tagged temed it with the other hermanas. im not teaching a whole lot of my investigators which is sooo sad!!! but, i am patiently waiting for the mission to send me a mini missionary sometime, i just hope soon! 

today we ar ein barahona, the small capital. we went to eat pìzza and do a little but of shopping. foreigners are stoarting to come visit, and there are so many white people! honeastly, i am not ready to come home to white poeple. the white people in the grocery store today were just so awkward to talk to and they are so formal-eating cleanly with a knife and fork??? matching clothes, real brand cloethes, asking where to find lemons??? we dont have lemons here in the d.r.!!! oh my white foreighners, you gotta love them.

this week someone in the neighborhood died. as me and my comp ( memebr forom the ward) were passing there was an ambulance, and ablout 150 outside of the house. they were all sitting in plastic chairs facing the house. there was a women screaming and crying. people would come up one by one and hug and console here and she didnt break from screaming or crying. i felt like that movie off of the other side of heaven where the kid dies and shes just wailing! my comp wanted to go stand in the line and give her a hug so i just stood there in a mass of 150 black people awkwardky waiting, boy did i stick out!!

well, i am currently waiting for a companion, sometime, somewhere, somene will come and help me haha patience is the key. patience it the key! i need a dominican so i can lear nto cook some good dominican rice!

i love you all and hope you have a great week! 

hermana hamlbin

June 30, 2014

hi fam!

a few q´s to answer, my comp has 15 months. i live with 2 other americans. one of them is my comp from the mtc. kind of cool! we have a few fans in our house so that is GREAT. the 2 hermanas are from idaho. meridan and boise. just for you mom!!!

this week was interesting!

we didnt leave the house much becasue my comp was sick. i also had a weird thing happen. i woke up tuesday morning with a horrible wretched pain in my neck and head. i couldnt move from off of my bed! for 2 days!! ha...very painful. i guess i just slept on it wrong___...who knows. it took me hours to get up the courage to go to the bathroom and endure the paralyzing pain. it sounds like i am exagerrating, but im not!! haha 

the elders came over and gave my comp and i a priesthood blessing. that was a perfect perfect thing to do. the lord not only heals spiritually but physically. in my prayer he told me i would be healed according to my faith. i stood up and immediatly there was a lift of the pressure from my neck. i couldnt go out to teach for the rest of the day, but the folowing day i was healed!!! 

because we stayed in four days this week, i dont have very many teaching updated or experiences. all i can say is that i missed going out to work and share my testimony and help the people here. when we finally left, i felt so free! i love teaching and sharing the gospel. i havent been able to get to know many people here so far, buti love  the people i have taught and just desire so much for them to keep their committments and to come to christ, and  to feel the liberating joy of knowing the lord and his gospel. that is a huge blessing we have as active members. i love you all so much! have a grat week!

sorry there are no pics, i let one of the hermanas that i am living with use my picture stick. hopefully next week we have good connection with the internet!

love you much! 

June 23, 2014

hi fam!

so ...i WAS finally transferred!! I actually really love and miss San Geronimo. but....i am in VINCENTE NOBLE now. That is as far south west as Hermanas serve. It´s also as campo as it gets! there are more donkeys here and well, this lttle town reminds me of eagar, but more ghost town. i kept asking myslef over and over again where are the people!!!!! there is a little branch here. they have some pretty good, active emembers, but it is nothing like where i came from so we will have to teach them lots how to work with us. my comp is hna gutierrez, she is from guatemala and doesnt speak english. she is very nice and so far, speaking spanish with her is good. i live with 2 other americans, so i can imagine how different it is for my comp to cope with all of us. there is a mango tree right outside of our window. whenever the mangos drop onto our steps, i get up and run to go get them before the chickens go peck at them.

there are abnout 70 people mas or menos that attend our branch, but techinally more than 700 less actives!! how sad. sooo we have lots of reactivating to do here! me and my comp are in charge of helping the young women here. we attened the yw class yesterday and there were 3. one was an investigator, one was almost 19 and hates relief society, and the other was just a regualr yw member. haha oh sweet nelly. its different!

some things ive noticed wince i was sent to vincente noble....

old people just dont have teeth

they pack their mules to sell coal in the mornings.

a lot more naked children

everyone is less active

i forgot pigs and horses existed!

well, i will keep you updated, i love you all lots!

love hermana hamblin

June 16, 2014

a pic of gladys and her family. they will be baptized on the 28 of june!

the second pic is of hermana mieses. she is absolutely one of my most favorite missionaries. shes dominican

June 8, 2014

June 8, 2014

hi fam!
i´m glad you got my birthday email for you!

it´s so weird that miranda had a baby! i bet she´s a cute lil thing.

today we had a fun sport activity with three zones and president nuckols and his wife came to hang out with us and play. It was a lots of fun. we also saw where they have the dedicatory plaque. it was really neat.
this week was good. we are finding more people to teach. we receive references and we just have so many people to visit and teach! honestly. it is quite dificil to visit everyone because we just don't have enough time! one thing my companion and will have to do is figure out how to manage our time more wisely in order to fit everyone in! we are also having a baptism this sat. his name is wilker. he is 12 yrs old and just the most precious thing in the world! every Sunday morning he gets up and is out the door with his white shirt and dress pants, ready for church. no one in his family goes, but he is so faithful in going. i really have learned a lot from him. he´s been to church every Sunday for 6 months, by himself. he has lots of good friends and family friends in the ward so it should be great. it will be this sat at 1 pm. hopefully everyone isn't eating instead of at his baptism!

we also have put dates for baptism with a few other people, but they are all part families. i just know that the full family would be the best thing. we are trying to teach all of these families as families but it is some hard work. hard work but great work! i love you all and hope you have a great week!

love hermana hamblin

sorry i don't have pics. we got home from the activity and went straight to email without grabbing anything to pull pics. next week i will send some!

May 26, 2014

hi fam!

this week was a good one! we got a new domincan that is living with us this transfer. her name is sister guzman. she will be serving a mini mission for 4 weeks. she is from the d.r. out in the boonies. she is sucha  sweet girl. we have had ltos of fun cokking together this week. hna safeer and i are trying to learn how to cook rice the dominican way. they jsut have a skill at cooking rice to a perfection! they have lots of technique including puting a plastic bag over it and melting it to the pot. very interesting..but in the end, it always tastes delish!

we were also all having a splits contest. the dominicans werent so flezxible...but they can sure cook! 

this week was mothers day here in the d.r. they had a big celecration at the church. there was lots of dancing and eating and music. apparently they had a dancing competition and our bishop and his wife won. i heard it turned out real well. we had an investigator attend and so we were very excited. its very hard to get our investigators attend the church for any reason, so when someone comes its a success! our investigator that attended is names grisleda. she is the wife of a family that we just started teaching. they are a more wealthy family but seem to have interest, especially the father. its rare to find wealthier people that are really interested. anyway, we have taught this family a few times and there have been a few times where the father has kissed us on the cheek to greet us. (that's how they greet each other) i don't think i ever told you that. but as missionaries here, you make sure to avoid awkward situations like that. well....mr. Marcus, the husband of  Griselda, has done that twice. let me tell you, its the most awkward thing as missionaries. we go in for the handshake but it doesn't end like that!!! ha...we need to break it to him next.
sorry, a little bit of topic that was, but anyway, we are excited to see the progress with this family. 

also, this week we did a fast for our companionship and for our investigators. we haven't seen much progress at all with any of our investigators. we have put baptism dates with families and individuals but have not seen the progress or desire from our investigators. really, its been super tough, but we have decided that we will fast every Wednesday for our investigators because we really need the lord to help us this transfer. 

well we are already on week numero 2! i love you all and hope that you have a great week!

mucho amor, hermana Hamblin

May 19, 2014

Hi fam!!

We got transfer calls last  night, and Im staying! And I am staying with Hermana Safeer. i am really glad and excited to have 4 more weeks here. It will be a shorter transfer but lots of work is needed her in good ole san geronimo! We found a few families this week. It was a miracle. One young man had been asking his mom ( a member) for a long time when he could take the lessons. the other day she saw us and gave us the reference of her son. We showed up to his door and he got super excited. HE told us, that he had been waiting a really long time for this. it was a little shocking but in such a great way!
Also, my birthday was AMAZING!!

MOM.....THANK YOU. the clothes were the best gift that you could have given to me. really. i was just thinking the other day about how i was in need of new clothes. a lot of mine have bleach spots becasue we bleach everything (water, fruits, veggies) so it tends to get on all clothes. As i continued to pull out skirts and dresses and shirts i just couldnt help but say woooowww. woooow woooow wow wwow it was perfect! 

to celebrate my birthday me and hna safeer bought brautworst and a cheesecake danish dessert. we waited almost to weeks to eat it. the brauts were delish! the cheesecake...it was american, but as the domincan hermanas started to eat it their eyes got really big and they kept asking if there was mayonaise in it...lets just say it wasnt the freshest cheesecake

also, titi, reina,. and pablo all had planned a surprise birthday party. it was the cutest thing. we showed up that night and they were all waiting for us. they had balloon decorations,food, presents,games planned, and even a cake that said felizcumpleanos rachel!! ( yes, rachel) it was a little weird and awkward as they sang to me and used rachel instead of sister hamblin...haha but reina had printeed out a photo card of me and her and hna safeer and also gave me a nice necklace. there are two parts of the neckalace (one for me and one for my future boyfriend) how thoughtful.

we had a great night with all of them celebrating and everything. they are all so sweet!

we also had our stake split. elder anderson the quorum of the seventy came to talk. it was good. lots of people were there and there was so much excitement. there was also a random american family there with their 6 little kids. all the people kind of jsut watched them with a fascination of this white fam. i have to admit that i was one of those people!! it was so different to see and observe this strange white american family. haha i cant imagine how it will be when i get back! 

also, we are teaching a 12 year old boy named wilkur . he is the cutest little guy. a few weeks ago he found us in the street and jsut said, i want to be baptized. ive talked to my parents and theyve given me permission. now i jsut need the lessons from you hermanas. he suer is a smart little guy. hes already read til alma 2 . hes going to progress super fast.

anway, i want to give you all my love and hope you have a wonderful wonderful week! 

lots of love, hermana hamblin

May 12, 2014

hello all!

it was so great to hear all of your voices and talk! wow, i just want to say thank you thank you thank you for all being such  great examples to me and for being strong in the church. there really aren't that many families that get to experience the joy that we have in ours. 

it was so great to talk about just everything with you! and little hud´s voice and laugh was soo dang cute!!

well, i have been renewed by talking to you and will get to talk to you again in 7 months!!! we have an fhe planned tonight with a member and an investigator and her daughter, we want to watch the joseph smith movie so we are excited to show it to her. 

well i will get to see if i get transferred or not in a week and i will let you know!

hermana safeer and i are doing great and just finding finding finding and teaching! we are working with a lot of less actives right now and trying to help them reactivate. The lords work is everywhere and so wonderful! i love you all and hope that you have a great week!

love hermana hamblin

May 5, 2014

hi fam!

sorry i didnt have a lot of time to write this week becasue i was talking to mom about calling for mothers day!  this week was great. we had success in having our investigators come to church. usually that is a big struggle here, but this week we had 5! we called them and passed by their houses. some of them only showed up to sacrament but they was a great start. they loved church and the feeling they had when in the church. we are working more with the memebrs here which is such a blessing. the leaders are so great amd willing to support us and love our investigators. we are teaching a family that is awesome. i love them so much. they have 5 little kids that are just the cutest things in the world! 

its warking up more and more here. you can tell becasue almost every house that we go to the people coment on how sweaty and hot we are.....yeo! that just about summs it up! i love you all and have a wonderful week!

hermana hamblin

April 28, 2014

hi all!!

this week was good! it was a bit crazy. we had a conference with president and lots of missionaries. find out, that he and his family will be leaving this tueaday becasue if they leave at their assigned time to finish the mission they wont be able to go back to canada. so...his 1st councelor will cover for him for a month before our next mission president from california gets here. it will be so weird to have a new one...and one that speaks english!

this week we found more peopple to teach. its hard to remember everythings thats happened. we had a lesson with josefina this week. she is 22 and has a little 5 yr old boy. we had a word of wisdom talk with her. she is strating to end her smoking and drinking and coffee. this will be so tough for her, but she said she wants to jsut stop it all at once. she cant walk because a motor hit her and she had a major operation so we showed up with some members sunday morning to get her for church. she said that of course she wanted to go but when we showed up she had been sleeping and said she didnt want to go. that was a little rough, but we pray that she comes next week.

i hope all of you are doing well and i love you tons!

have a wonderful week

oh and mom, ! how is jeffrey whiting, the one that jsut got off of his mission from hawaii??? its so fun to hear!

lots of love! hermana hamblin

April 20, 2014

hi mom!

so this week was great. i am not the senior comp actually haha. i dont know if i accidentally said that in my last email??? but one day im sure that that day will come haha

This week was good. we received 10 references from qa member. what a blessing for us! we will ahev lots of good work to do this week! we are teaching a family. glady abranham and their 4 little kids. the wife has come to church 3 times with her 5 little kids and they all behave so well. they are so adorable.
this week was stake conference. it was...interesting. we went to our church to watch the broadcasted stake conference and the interent went out so we just sat there for over an hour hearing glitches of it. no one could understand anything. ha....interent here just isnt great. even if it is the highest quality. so...i didnt understand hardly anything, BUT my mission presidnet talked and he talked abuot missionary work. he stated as members we help invite others to come unto christ. but is that all we do??? no, we take them by the hand and we help them. we invited them to activites,we visit them and answer their questions, we serve and and do so much more than merely inviting someone to take missionary discussions or invting them to come to church. it was  such a powerful talk!

we do get to talk on mothers day but i havent heard when. i think we can probably just talk on the phone?? i think that saounds good. 

i love you all so very much and pray all is well with you all no matter where you are or what youre doing!!
lots of love, hermana hamblin

we had a pizza night with the sisters in our house. we ordered pizza at 8 thirty and got it at almost 11.....what a night!

April 15, 2014

..dan dan dan dan! this is my new mish comp. hermana safeer. almost 6 ft 2" super funny and goofy and loves to have fun. she reminds me of nat. she´s super cute! she got transfered from the south so shes dying of the heat here and having to pay for fruit. in the south they all have fruit trees so theres no need for paying. we´ve had ltos of fun this week getting to know each other and asking lots of questions.  she has one year in the mission field. she came from the same group as hermana jorgenson, my mom. EVERY DAY as we walk down the street people gawk and have to tell us things like, grandote! she´s so tall. you have a very tall comp! everyone knows theres a new missionary in town!

April 7, 2014

Ahh mom,

I just love you so much! It sounds like you are absolutely loving life. Your health is going great and you just sound so dang happy! I hope you are of course! This weekend was such a great one. I was so exciteed about general conference that i didnt mind much attention to transfers. we had 4 of our investigators come. each one of them loved it. I didnt see any of you sadly. but i was watchin! 

The first session we showed up and for the first 40 mins they couldnt get it to work, they were showing it off of their ipad. finally it worked with a computer and all was well.

This week we had transfers. Hermana stewart is leaving. I still havent found out who my comp is but i will recieve that call tonight. I am a little nervous because i have never been in a position that has been to be the leader and know the area and people so it should be a great growing opportunity. 

my spanish is coming along. I am understanding more and more and it makes me so happy. I am finally gaining the confidence that i really need as a missioanry. its taken 8 months! dang it! but im realising more and more how i am gods missionary and i have the truth and the authority to teach it to the point that others receive an opportunity to gain their salvation and happiness the way the lord has commanded us to. there is nother way that we gain salvation. it is through the atonement of jesus chrsit and the organization of his church and our obedience to god.

hermana stewart has been such a bold example to me. so confident and conscious in all she does as a missionary. as time has gone on with us two being together she has rubbed off. i am much more bold and confident. i had written down a question before conference that i wanted answered and it was how to work better and mroe confidently with the members. then someone talked on the importance of members and missionaries learning together through preach my goespel. what an answer to a prayer for me! it wasnt a surprise, but i know the lord knows his children and asnwers their questions and prayers through the prophets and apostles.

 i love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful, safe week! 

hermana hamblin

p.s. this is a pic of shirtless matos and his wife......oh boy i love this man.he sure is his own man 

the other pic is of a guayabana. a fruit that is green and prickly.its mainly used in juices.

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