Week 68 Thanksgiving Week

Hello everyone. This week has been an amazing week, full of fun, but not really a lot of success. So let's get to it.

Monday:

We didn't really have a p-day because that was on Thursday, for Thanksgiving. But we did get to go shopping and emailing, so that was great. After doing all of that, we then came home and got changed to go do some service for a less active member. We raked some leaves for her. I've got some pics below to show that. After, we came home and had some lunch and did comp study. Then we went and saw some people before dinner. We really didn't meet anyone cool. We had dinner, and then we went and helped the ward deliver Thanksgiving baskets to ward members that needed them. After, we went home and did some area book work and that ended our night.

Tuesday:

We started the day with seeing some people in the lodge apartments by our house. After, we went home and had lunch and comp study. Then we went to go see Jovan, a new investigator from last week, but he wasn't home so we had to just move on. We went and saw some people. Nothing interesting. Then we went to dinner and went and met with Bishop. And that ended the night.

Wednesday:

We had district meeting, and Elder Hunter instructed on the importance of keeping the area book up to date and how to inform members properly about lessons you are teaching. After, we came home, had lunch, and then had comp study. After, we got changed and went to go paint at one of our member's houses. She had a wall that needed to get painted, so we did that. After painting it for an hour and a half, we went home and got changed to go to a lesson with Melissa. We taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She really liked it. After, we went and saw some more people, had dinner somewhere in there, and then we went back the member's home to finish painting. That took the rest of the night.

Thursday:

Thanksgiving was great! We started the day by playing football at the high school with some ward members. It was really fun. Then we ran down to the 51st building, and all the zone, including Comano Island came. We had a breakfast and a varity show. It was pretty great! We had a lot of fun talents and skits shown. We also had some roast battles too. After having that much fun, we then went to the Seattle outlets and went and looked at all the shops there. After, we went back home, had a late lunch, and then went to the church to email a little before we went to Thanksgiving dinner. We had it with the Lausens. They had a big meal with turkey, mashed potatoes, everything, and to top it off, they had pie too. It was great. After, we went back home and did some weekly planning. Then we played some card games for the rest of the night.

Friday:

We did some service at the food bank. Then we exchanged with Sholtes and went back home to have lunch. Then we went into comp study. Oh, Elder Hatch was with us. After, we then went to a lesson with Orion. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was okay, and the reason why is because we brought a priest with us, and the fellowshipper was already there. So there were 5 people including us, and we got distracted a lot, and I barely spoke because Elder Milner taught the whole lesson. The family was there too. So lots of people. After, we came home, planned and had dinner, and then we went and saw some people close by before we had personal study. Studies ended the day. We also had some fun on our exchange that night. We had always wondered what was in the attic of the house, so we climbed up there and saw that there was nothing. So we took the bike that someone left in the house and stuck it up there because we didn't have anywhere to put it really. That was really fun.

(Note from mom...It's amazing our kids come home in one piece!)

Saturday

We started the day with seeing some people in the lodge, but no one really opened the door. So we went to our lesson with an investigator that's in the Firetrail Ward. The sisters want us to teach him by request of the mom? Wife? I have no clue. So since he knew Elder Lelo from a year ago, we exchanged with Stillaguamish for the lesson and Elder Lelo and I taught this investigator. He's cool. His name is Jeff, and Elder Lelo taught him when he was in Firetrail. We taught the restoration. After, we then went back to Sholtes and exchanged back. Before we left, we had lunch with them at Magic Dragon. Then we went home, did comp study, and went to the church to do some weekly planning. After, we had dinner, and then went to the Villas to go see some people. Weird story, we went to go see the Ramers, some recent converts in the ward that haven't been to church in a while. While we were there, we found out that Patrick's girlfriend is there with her daughter. We talked with all of them for a little bit and found out that Patrick called the cops on Jolanda, his girlfriend, because she ran away with his kid. Reason why I said "his kid" is because he has custody of the kid. But it is their kid because they had her together. Anyway, after a while of talking, Patrick showed up, took the kid out of Brother Ramer's hands and walked out the door with the child. After much astonishment from all of us, we walked with Jolanda back to her apartment to see where he went, and we found out that he wasn't there. So with nothing to do, we left and drove off to Brother Allen's for our meeting. While on the way there, Patrick called us and apologized for us being a part of that. He told us he was going down south to live with his nephew for a while, so that's a change, which is a change we kind of want because now he can repent and be baptized. Our meeting with Brother Allen took the rest of the night.

Sunday:

We had ward council and church. They both went well. After, we came home and had lunch. Then we went to have our lesson with the Pauls and Sholon. We taught the Pauls about the widow's mite, and how we need to give our all in this church for our Heavenly Father. For Sholon, we talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ by reading 2 Nephi 31 with her. After, we went home and did personal study. Then we went to dinner, and then quickly went back home to get picked up by Brother Allen to go to the Come See for Yourself fireside in Lake Stevens with Sholon. It went really well, and she liked it a lot. After, we came back home and did our accounting with the zone leaders.

Well, that's it for this week. I just want you all to know I am grateful for all of you, my family, my friends, and anyone else that is reading this. I'm grateful for my chance to serve the Lord and to bring others closer to Christ. I love this work because I've seen the atonement work in so many peoples lives, and it changes them. I am grateful for everything I've done and my parents have done to get me out here. I'm grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who is my best friend... and I will try to do everything for Him to be the best He wants me to be for Him and my brothers and sisters on this earth. My challenge to you all this month is to not only be grateful for things you have, but be grateful for the things you can do for others. This next month we are going to light the world with the Love and healing power of Jesus Christ. Please don't waste this great opportunity to be an amazing person in someone's life. I know we all have the ability to do so. So this Christmas, please don't sit on the couch and say, whoa is me. Get up and be a part of the great gathering of light that is going on this next month. I promise you if you do so, the Lord will open your eyes, and you will see and feel the atonement work in your life. I know that to be true. Lastly, I know that this church is true. I know, that Jesus Christ lives, that we are one of his family, whom He was born for, so He could suffer and die for all of us. I hope you can find that understanding in your life, and I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Hammond

Week 67 Still Working Hard in Lakewood

Hello everyone. It's been another nice week here in Lakewood. Let's get to it.

Monday:

We started the day with emailing. Then we went shopping for food, and I went and returned the fabric that I bought from Joann's because there was too much. So that was good. Then after we went to the mall so that Elder Hunter could buy some protein because we work out every morning except Saturday and Sunday. I've decided that I'm going to start six months 'til sexy early.... but it's more like 9 months 'til sexy.... so ya, good place to start. ;) So ya ladies, if you're reading this, I'll be available when I get home... but you'll have to wait 6 years before I can get married because I'm already convinced that's when it's going to happen. Haha! It just means a lot of patience is coming your way. ;) Haha, jk jk. I'll get married the first or the second, which means the first chance I ask someone, or the second chance I get one, haha jk jk again. Anyway, after that, we went to the 51^st building and played football with half the zone. We played two hand touch. Then it started to down pour, so we went inside and played trash ball. You basically put two trash cans on each side of the court and those are the goals, and you can play with whatever ball you want to. You just have to get it in the can without the goalie blocking you. So that was fun. After, we then came together and had some cookies. Then we went home and got showered and then went to dinner. We had a ward event the ward mission program put on for our investigators to meet more members, and we only had one investigator come, but we had a lot of good members there. That ended our night.

Tuesday

We had a lesson with Ann. We taught about the plan of salvation. It went okay. We had a member that took somethings a little off topic, but that's okay. It kinda all related. Jake Jakins, he's a great old man. Then after we went home and Elder Hunter did progressing, and we also had lunch. After we had comp study. Then we went and saw some people before we had a lesson with Sister Schweigert. It worked out pretty well. We talked about the son of perdition and how that applies to all of us. She liked it. Then we went and had dinner, and later that night we had a lesson with the Sudweeks. It was a great lesson. For the first part, we taught the part of the plan of salvation, and the other half of the lesson was us hearing Chelsie, the mom, go on and on about how they can't be baptized until they know if these things are true, and that we can't push this on them yet because they're not ready. We were only asking if they came to know if these things are true, would they be baptized. So, that's fine. It happens. They told us to wait until they feel they are ready to set a goal. So then after, we had a meeting with Bishop to tell him how our last week went, and then we went home for the night.

Wednesday

we had a district meeting and elder Hunter instructed on having faith in our teaching and teaching our investigators how to have faith, but as well how that all applies for the need of a savior. After we had lunch, did planning, and comp study. Then we went and tried to see some people. We had a lesson later that day with melissa, one of our investigators, and we talked about the book of mormon, and what it is. She really enjoyed it and told us she would read it insted of watching tv during work. She works nights at the hotel so she really doesn't have much to do at night. After our lesson we had dinner and then we went and saw people for the rest of the night.

Thursday

We did some service for Jack Jakins. He had a grape vine that got sick and died, so we had to go cut it down for him. That took longer then we thought. It was wraped around a pole so we did lots of cutting. After, we then had lunch with Jack. He made us some crepes, and they were pretty good. After, we went back to the house, got changed, and had comp study. Then we drove around town and saw some people before our lesson with the Millers. Our lesson with the Millers went pretty well. We shared the video the music of the gospel and talked about how that relates to going to the temple as often. It was great. After, we had dinner and then finished the night with seeing people for the rest of the day.

Friday

We went to the food bank and helped there. They had lots of people there this week. After, we had lunch and then went to a lesson with an new investigator named Jovan. He's in his twenties and was learning from the missionaries before, so we taught him the restoration and picked him up as a new investigator. After, we came home and did some weekly planning before our lesson with Orion. In our lesson, we talked about the plan of salvation. We had the Mathis's granddaughter there as well, so we're teaching her too now because that's what they wanted us to do. She's 9, and the members almost have full custody of her. So that will be great. After the lesson, we came home and weekly planned some more, had personal study, and comp study, and then we went to dinner. After we came home and Elder Hunter got packed for the exchange that night.

Saturday

We exchanged with the zone leaders, and Elder Babcock came with us. We had a very weird day. In the morning, we went to go see Jan, an investigator the last missionaries had been working with for a long time. She just has been sick recently, so we went to go check up on her, and she got really mad at us. She said she felt like she was being pushed into all of this and that she didn't want to do it anymore. Which was really sad because she seemed really solid. So we walked away from that. Then we went and saw some more people around town. After we came home, had lunch, did comp study, and then went to a funeral down in Marysville for Gabriela and Orion because Gabriela's father passed away. So to support our investigators, we went and watched it all happen. After, we came home, got changed, and went to dinner with Sholon, our recent convert. After, we ran to try and have a lesson with a new investigator, but he was not home, so we walked around and street contacted for a little bit before we exchanged back. After we exchanged back, we went to Brother Allen's to meet with him, and that ended the night.

Sunday

We had ward council in the morning, then church. During church we had a lesson with Orion about repentance. That went really well. He seems to understand it. After, we had our ward mission meetings, and then we went home and had lunch. Then we were supposed to have lessons with Sholon and the Paul's, but they both fell through. So we just went home and had personal study and finished weekly planning. Then we had dinner. After, we went to the Sudweeks home and gave Brother Sudweeks a blessing. After, we went home and accounted the rest of the night.

Well, that's it for me, I hope everyone had a great week, and I'll see you soon. Sorry no pics this week, but maybe next week. Love ya, bye!!

Elder Hammond

Week 66 Time Flies--Half Way Through the Transfer

Hello everyone. This has been an interesting week, and the transfer is already half way done. So here it is:

Monday

We started the day with a little emailing, and then Todd Aggard took us down to Everett to go bowling, which was great! We had a fun time with him. He paid for 3 games and breakfast. After, we went to the pool table they had, and all of us got to play Todd one on one. I was really close to beating him, but I lost by accidentally hitting the 8 ball in right before my last ball. I shot the ball the wrong way off the wall, and it hit the 8 ball instead. It was really sad. It's like a big deal to beat Todd at something, and I blew it. Next time, right?! Haha, that's okay. I love Todd, and he will give me an opportunity to do it again some time on my mission. After, we then came home and did some shopping and then finished our emailing. Then we had dinner and got changed at the church for basketball and played with some members and non-members for the rest of the night. 

Bowling with Todd Aggard

Tuesday

We went and talked with a guy named Rivers in the morning. He's interesting. He doesn't believe in the Bible, but he believes in the dead sea scrolls. So ya, we gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said he would read it. So we'll see where that goes. He kinda seemed like he wanted to be "bashy," so we are kinda worried about what may happen. Anyway, after talking with a couple more people, Elder Hunter talked with the district over the phone about progressing things. Then we had lunch and comp study. Then we went back out and saw some more people. We had a lesson with Sister Schweigart, a less active in our ward, and we talked about the purpose of coming to church. She came to church this week, so that was nice. After, we had mormon.org time. Then we went to dinner. After dinner, we had a lesson with our investigator, Patrick, and we talked about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon because it wasn't happening. Now he's listening to it before he goes to bed. After our lesson, we had a meeting with Bishop, and that ended the night.

Wednesday

We had district meeting, and Elder Hunter talked about having good studies so that our investigators can understand what we teach. After, we had lunch and comp study. Then we did some service for Sister Schweigert. After, we then did some service for our investigator, Melissa, and helped her move some furniture around her home. After, we had a lesson with her on the restoration. Then we had dinner, had a lesson with the Sudweeks about the Book of Mormon, and then we went and got some beds for Patrick, our investigator, from Melissa's work. She works at a Holiday Inn Express hotel, and they are redoing all the rooms in the hotel, so they are getting rid of a lot of beds. We got some and strapped them on Brother Noe's car, a member in our ward, and drove them all the way back to Patrick's home to be put in his apartment. It was pretty funny. There's a pic of what we had to do down below. That took up the rest of the night.

Thursday

So throughout the week I was making ties for me and my comps. We picked out the fabric for the ties to make. It was pretty nice. I got them all done by Thursday by just taking 3 lunch breaks and 3 hours after nine to finish it. So we wore them to zone conference. It was really cool to have everyone there comment on how great I did on them. Now one of the zone leaders in Arlington wants me to make him the same tie. It's pretty funny. Zone conference was amazing! We had many instructions about the need for a Savior and how that applies to us and our investigators. After a long meeting of feeling the spirit dramatically (good dramatic), we went back home to get ready to go to the temple with two of our recent converts. MISSION UPDATE! Now missionaries all over the world can go and do baptisms with their recent converts if they are going for the first time to the temple. They can baptize and confirm male recent converts, but can't baptize female converts. We can only confirm them. For the sister missionaries,  they can go and watch them do all of that but can't do them because they don't have the priesthood. So we went with Debra and Sholon and watched them do baptisms and did confirmations with them. We got there later than we were supposed to be there because of traffic, but that's fine. The member that took us payed for us to have dinner in the cafeteria, and then we went in to watch them do baptisms. It was way cool and funny. Debra only got to do 2 baptisms because she gave up after the two, so sholon had to do the rest of hers. It was kinda funny! After, we went around and took pics of us and the temple. Then we went home and went to bed because it was late.

Temple trip with Debra and Sholon

 Friday

We had to exchange with Stillaguamish because Elder Hunter and Lelo had to go to the mission office for some district leader training. So we took Elder Priess with us to the food bank and did some service there. After, we came home and had lunch, and we waited for the other elders to come back. Once they got back, we exchanged back and went into comp study for the day. After, we went and had a lesson with Ann, a recent convert in the ward. We talked about the restoration and how that understanding helped her in her life. After, we went to try and have a lesson with Orion, but he had to leave right as we got there. So we went back home and started weekly planning. Then we went and had dinner. After, we went and saw some more people before we came back home and ended with personal study.

Saturday

We started the day with seeing a couple of people. We went to go see one of our investigators named Jan, and found out she's still sick, so we didn't talk about anything with her. After, we went and saw some more people. Then we had lunch and comp study. Then we went into weekly planning more. After, we had dinner and then a lesson with Patrick. We showed him two videos and talked about them. We showed the conference talk from Todd R Callister about the Book of Mormon, and the Mormon message "The Hope of God's Light." He really liked both of them. Then we had a meeting with Brother Allen, and that ended our night.

Sunday

We started with ward council and then went to church. After, we came home, had lunch, then comp study, and then we went into finishing weekly planning. After, we had a lesson with Sholon, and then we came back to the house to finish weekly planning. Then we had dinner. After we came home, we did personal study and then had family night with the Hays. We talked about the Atonement  and had a spiritual discussion. After, we came home and did our accounting with the zone leaders, and that ended the night.

Well that's it for this week. I hope everything is going well at home. Don't freeze to death. Love you all, and I'll see you soon.

Elder Hammond 

Week 65 Week 2 in the Promised Land, Lakewood

Hello family and friends. This week has been really busy, so let's get right to it.

Monday

We had p-day, and we went to the outlet mall in Marrysville and looked at stuff at a place called Vitamin World. It's a vitamin shop. Elder Hunter wanted to buy some protein. We did some emailing as well, and then we went to the church and played some basketball with the Stillaguamish elders, (that's so weird to say because I was one of those elders once upon a time) Sholtes elders, and the zone leaders. After we had dinner delivered to us and ate it while we emailed a little more. Then we got changed and made a mistake by leaving the keys in the family history center. It's always locked, so we closed the door and locked the keys in. So we waited for a half hour for the Firetrail sisters to unlock the room. Right as we needed help into the room, they texted us and told us that Sister Hoch needed a blessing, so we were like "sure why not. Can you open the family history center too?" So ya, that was funny. We gave her a blessing, and then we got our keys, waited for people to come to basketball, but none of the people we invited came. It was sad. So we visited people for the rest of the night.

Elder Hunter, Elder Milner, and Elder Hammond

Tuesday

We went and tried to see some people in the morning, but no one opened their doors, so we just went back home and had lunch and comp. study. After, we had 3 lessons throughout the rest of the day. We had one with a recent convert named Anne Marie, and we talked about temples and why they are important. After, we had a lesson with a woman named Sister Schweigart, and we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon, and we showed her the talk from general conference from President Nelson. It was kinda sad. She had this sit up chair, and the whole time we were over there sharing this lesson, Elders Hunter and Milner are doing sit ups in this chair. It distracted her from the lesson, as well as she was on her phone, and the son was also being distracting, so it was kinda all over the place, but we looked back at that experience and understood that that was bad... after visiting more people though we then had a lesson with a new investigator named Melissa. We were going to teach the restoration, but Elder Milner switched it up on us while we were there, and we actually taught about the plan of salvation. The lesson went well, and we put her on date for the the 9th of December. After, we had dinner and then went to a party for Halloween, and I got to see Brother Dutson from the Stillaguamish Ward!! It was awesome! He's one of my favorite members from that ward. After, we went home for the night because it was Halloween.

Wednesday

We had district meeting, and Elder Hunter instructed on helping our investigators teach repentance to their understanding. After, we had lunch at a Mexican grill. Then we came home, had comp. study, and planned out the rest of the day. Then we went and saw some people, like recent converts and some potentials, around where we live. We had a lesson with one of our investigator's mom. She is less active in our ward. After, we then had dinner, had a lesson with the Sedweeks, and picked up Chelsea (the mom) and their son as new investigators. They seem really solid. Then we went and had a meeting with Bishop to end the night.

Thursday

We had a lot of lessons set up but almost all of them got canceled. We had a lesson with the Millers, and we shared the conference talk from Elder Uchdorf, from the priesthood session. It was great. They liked it. That morning, though, we just went around and visited a lot of people, nothing too serious. After our lesson, we had dinner and then went to see more people for the rest of the night.

Friday

We  did some service at the food bank. Then we came home and had lunch, personal study, then comp study, and then we went and had a lesson with Orion. It was great! We taught the plan of salvation and put him on date for the 2 of December, which he will make because he's super solid too. After, we came home, had dinner, and then did weekly planning for the rest of the night.

Saturday

We weekly planned in the morning, then we had lunch, did comp study, and then went and saw some people close by around our home. We didn't have any lessons, but we did meet a lot of new people, and picked up some potential investigators. We had a lesson with recent converts named the Paul's. We taught the plan of salvation. That was it for Saturday though.

Sunday

We had church in the morning, and then after we had our correlation meeting with Brother Allen. After, we came home and took a nap since it was fast Sunday, and we couldn't eat for lunch. Then we had a lesson with the Paul's, and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. After, we went and had a lesson with Debra and Sholon, some more recent converts. We had a discussion about the restoration of the gospel. Then we had dinner with the Hammond family, and then ended the night with comp study and comp inventory.

Elders with Debra and Sholon

Well, today has been a great day. I got to see Todd Aggard, go bowling with him, and play some pool with him as well. I'll send those pics next week, but this week I've got pics of our companionship and Debra and Sholon, so I hope you enjoy them.

Elder Hammond