Nov. 24, 2014 Machala

Nov. 24, 2014 Machala
Whoa what a week here!  This week was super fast and super awesome!  This week probably was one of the fastest in the mission!  Thanks for all of your emails this week!! I'll just start out.

Lunes!

Seriously writing the family is by far the fastest hour of the week! It's the best but the worst because I just want to talk to you all and see how everybody is doing!!  but it's okay!!

Martes!

 Worked in the coco with my comp Elder Narro! He's awesome!! We found 2 new investigators!  We were just walking and decided to go and say hi to a another family in this ward! The guy said we should leave because last  night he almost got killed! Well he got robbed but this time with a pistol to his head! Whoa... like the coco is super dangerous, but it's soo cool because here live the most humble and receptive people! I love it!!

Miercoles!

Okay today I don't even remember what happened... I worked my absolute tail off!!  like whoa...we worked with the zone leaders in our zone and in another zone! We literally talked to about 60 people and gave out soo many pamphlets! We worked so hard and found 8 new investigators in another sector in our zone! I was with elder Moran one of our Elders and Elder Narro with the other! We worked our tails off!  Elder Narro got heat exhaustion!  I gave him a blessing, I felt so bad for him!

Jueves! We had the best and greatest opportunity to be interviewed by our Mission president and after had our 4 investigators to be interviewed for baptism this Saturday!! woot woot 4!! Baby that's how we roll!  They are super cool! We had a great lesson with 2 of them, 2 girls! They were listening to "Everything I do I do it for you!" WHAT!! So I started singing and they all wanted me to sing titanic! what a joke but they were all laughing it was funny!! haha

Viernes!  Ive gotten into the habit of ironing my shirts! So that's cool!   Something sad was that one of our inv. got drunk last night and spent all of his money on beer and so we couldn't have a pizza night with him! 

Sabado!  The zone leaders wanted to work again with us because we can work hard we started working but... got a weird call that Elder Narro had cambios and that he needed to be at the terminal in 30 minutes! shoot! and so Elder Narro left..... shoot! So right now I am waiting to have my companion because we're in a trio right now which is cool but its hard to reach everyone! I love it! 

Stats report: I have sung 298 hymns up to this point in my mission kinda cool!

I have 3 spider bites on my legs super cool!

We had 4 baptisms this last sabado! Super super cool! I had the great opportunity to baptize one of them! They are awesome! I LOVE BAPTISMS!!   I'm sorry I had a super cool spiritual thought that I was going to share with you all but I can't remember what it was! As a missionary we always have spiritual experiences! I'll just choose which one to pick next week! I will tell you guys a great experience! I love you guys so much! 

Elder Hammond

Nov. 17, 2014 5th Month in the Mission

Nov. 17, 2014    5th Month in the Mission

This will be my 5th month anniversary!!! Woohoo!! Go me!! ha ha It was awesome this week!!!  I got the PACKAGES FROM MY MOM!! THANKS TO ALL WHO  SUPPORTED ME IN THIS!! So I have a list of people to thank!

Noah DellaSilva!

Rushes!

The Stucki fam. Thank you sooo much for the 10 dollars!! Thank you!

Secret Santa

Drake
Sharon Duque

Bryn

Holly Lyons

Brooke I loved your drawing!!! haha

Lizzy Woodruff

Brielle! Thanks for the Repunzel sun!
Bro. Duque

Amalia Palmer.. dont know you but thanks!

Brooke!! That's super cool about that book your doing!

Dad! Thanks for the insight on 2 Nefi!

Jared!  There's not a word for stuff.. sorry!

Haylee, E.S. is hard but its soo cool!!!
 

This week was really good but really hard too! The Spanish got to me again! I know that the lord will help me in doing all things like it says in nefi 17:50!! I love that scripture so much! It's soo powerful! This week was cool!
 

Lunes!  After we emailed we were walking in our sector. It is very dangerous! We got robbed by 3 guys... they only took our pamphlets because that's all we had!  I learned my lesson in Guayaquil to not have anything!  Also I got my hair cut! I love it so much!  The hair dresser was very weird! She kept saying "wow, I want your hair! Your hair, how did your parents do it!"  Super cool?!
 

Martes! It was a regular day teaching and preaching! But we saw 2 guys get robbed right in front of us!  There was a huge fight, there was blood and yeah not fun!   We said a really quick prayer and just ran away to our apartment!
 

Miercoles! We were working and all of a sudden we saw huge black smoke and it turned out to be 2 houses in the coco went up in flames how sad! So guess what? We are teaching the family whose house burnt down about the plan of salvation! It's awesome! They are super humble right now!   We had some good concha! Mom can trasnlate it's like shell! haha I love you so much!!
 

Jueves! Was a little tough for me! The spanish kind of got to me.. but that's okay! Through the week I can understand pretty much all of it and have a conversation with practically anybody! Also got robbed again,  but nothing happened. This time they wanted to buy cola, how pathetic! If your going to beg for something beg for your kids' food not coca cola!
 

Viernes! Elder Narro got sick because he has absolutely terrible hygiene! And soo I taught him Noelle Hammond 101: Germ class!  We always wash our hands before we eat and after we go to the bathroom! He blows his nose in his hands and its great! But it's been better, he's learning!  We saw a wreck with a motorcrycle it was soo sad! And scary but they are okay thank goodness!! 

Sabado!! I GOT THE PACKAGES!!!!! This day, well, all this week we worked dang hard as usual and I was exhausted!!

 This week was awesome and I love serving His people here in Los Esteros aqui in Ecuador!  I love my Savior! Something that was powerful is that we're teaching an investigator and I thought to bring up nefi 3: 7 and after he said that's exactly what I need!!  I was like the lord is always always aware of us!! I love this work and couldn't be more proud to serve Him! I love this church and I love you all soo very much! Thank you for all your support! It means the world to me!
Elder Hammond

 

Nov. 10, 2014 Machala Hey! This huge week!

Nov. 10. 2014 Machala Hey This huge week!

Wow, this week was a very very big week for me!!  A lot of experiences! A lot of growing for me!!  I LOVE it!!  Well this week!

I'll start off in 

Martes:  We heard that we would have a capacitacion con El President! I was soo excited to finally hear from our President!   He is powerful and I learn from him how we need to improve as missionaries!  There were a ton of missionaries!  I learned so much from him! You can definitely feel his love for us and I love that!! I really  learned so much about obedience!  How important it is for us to learn HOW to be obedient in our missions!!  We can see the fruits of our efforts here segun nuestro obedencia! If we are obedient our kids and our grand kids will be blessed because of our efforts!! I loved it and it made me want to do so much better and more obedient like the 2000 stripling warriors!!

Miercoles!

 In the Coco we heard that 2 people got shot and killed yesterday and they had the funeral there... funerals are very very different here...  that will tell you how dangerous the coco is!  I have another picture of the coco!  The truth is I found out that the coco is the POOREST part in our mission! I just want everybody to know how blessed we are as Americans and as people of the church! We do not realize it until we see the horrors of Satan attacking the family and the lives of others! I am seeing everyday kids starving.. moms beating their kids and kids begging us for money to buy rice or a banana in the store! It just kills me! They're are people well women that are Moms at 15 or 16 years of age!  They take showers in their backyard by taking 2 buckets of water and scooping the water out of the bucket! Wow, it's soo different! A story of the coco was this Sunday we had lunch with a very very humble family and they gave us our food and they were watching us eat and she said that we should hurry so the others could eat.. they only had 4 plates.. and those 4 plates were for us! So I downed my food as fast as I could so the others could eat!  Wow!

Thursday I gave my first blessing, well because I always do the 1st part of the blessing with the oil but not the second part! It was really bad... so bad... my Spanish was terrible and not even I knew what I said but it was for Elder Narro because we are sick... we both have diarrhea... yeah it's AWESOME!! BRING IT ON!!  I love it! 

A miracle this week was that we had another baptism!!  I had the opportunity to baptize her too!  She wanted me to baptize her!! I just LOVE baptisms!! They are just the best ever!! Wow, this email is the longest I've ever written!! ahah but gosh I just want to tell everything about here!!

Something really that I am learning is something Dad wrote me and that is that the only hope for the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the only thing pure enough to save us from sin and from the evils of the world!  We see this truth  at a younger age than ever before! I am so grateful! I am so blessed to have grown up in the gospel to be born like Nephi of goodly parents!!  I love my parents!!  Thanks so much for all your support! I love you soo much!!

Love this week from 
Elder Jacob Hammond            

                                          This is Dayanas Baptism! She is so smart!

A bathroom in the cocos

                                                  The Cocos

I made empanadas! So good!

                                             I always find spiders in my shoes!

Nov. 3, 2014 Machala

Nov. 3, 2014 Machala

WOWOW!!  I HAVE THE COOLEST FAMILY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!!!! If you guys were not in the news I will  be surprised!!! Your costumes!!! WOW!!! Every family should be amazed because wow!!! HOW AMAZING!!!!! I LOVE LOVE IT!!!!! ha ha how fun!!!! I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY EVER!!!!!

 Here in the wonderful land of Ecuador!!....   Mom I got your letter with all the questions! I'll answer all of them!!

Do the girls kiss cheeks? Yes, everyone does! Guys and girls!  It's hard sometimes because girls want to kiss our cheeks and we have to dodge!

Have I played the piano? Yes, twice and the same songs I don't remember anything!

How do I get mail? So you send them to the office and the liders de zona get them and bring them to us! It is the same with the package!

How many elder's in my apartment? There are 4!

Microwave or toaster? We don't have either! haha

Do you have a Mamita?? Who washes the clothes? We do this time but usually there is a person in the ward that washes our clothes!

Close to the beach? Yes, and I have seen the beach but haha yeah can't go!

What do we have for almuerzo? There is a different family every day usually..

Do I like bananas? haha... I LOVE BANANAS!!! They are delicious!!!  I love them fried and everything!! haha 

Have I seen the Riggins? Yes, I have seen them twice!

 Mom, I don't need a jump rope and what do you mean by  weight set?

 This week in Machala!...  Martes was the birthday of Elder Narro so, I made breakfast for him and made his bed, paid for ice cream and everything.  It was his day so I made it as good as I could!

Miercoles! We worked our tails off!  It was a good day, we gave a blessing to a man that looked like he had leprosy but it's not!  I love giving blessings!

Viernes! I am soo glad everybody is having such a fun Halloween!  It was just a normal day here. We didn't do anything because we couldn't! It was a little sad but ehh I love doing the lords work!! Also!!! I GOT LETTERS!!! THANKS SOO MUCH FAMILY!!!! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!

One story that was cool in this week!  We were in an area called the coco and teaching a family  (the coco is a very dangerous place).. I was lucky to send you those pictures! We were teaching and a group of guys are coming and this investigator said... you guys need to leave right now!  So we took off running and so did they and we started running faster, but what happened-- a dog  started attacking these robbers and so we got away! That was cool!  This week has been better, seeing all this hard stuff but I am trusting in the lord and I love love love serving Him! He is my everything!  2 years is not enough to serve my Master and my King! I love my family thanks for all you do!!

Love Elder Hammond                This is the place!

                                              cake in the face!!!