Dec. 29, 2014 Galapagos y Baptism

Dec. 29, 2014 Galapagos y Baptism!

Well, I have noo time at all!!  I just want to tell the whole world HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE BRO JARED MAN!!! He's such a stud and I love him to death!! Really, even though he is smaller than me I will always look up to him as my brother!!  He's amazing and happy birthday Jared!!!

THIS WEEK was amazing to talk to my wonderful family!!! We re soo blessed that we have our health and you guys are doing soo amazing over there!!  This week we had the great opportunity to have another baptism!!

We went to church and he said I want to get baptized!  I was like yeah lets do it!!! haah so he got an interview, I ran and got my baptismal clothes and we baptized him!! He is probably Thu cutest old man a person has ever seen!! He's soo amazing!! I love him so much!!
 I love you guys soo much and I hope you have had an amazing week!! It really was soo fun to see you all!! After I talked to you guys on Thursday I've been pretty good, just keeping busy and not  thinking about home that much! haha but I'm good and healthy and I love you guys sooo much!!!! Have an amazing week!! And HAPPY 2015!! The gospel is true!! This week was awesome teaching the people here en the galapagos!
Love Elder Hammond

Dec, 22, 2014 Galapagos

Dec. 22, 2014 Galapagos

I can't even believe that I have 6 months on the mission! To be quite honest I don't feel very good right now! I ate something bad for lunch ayer and was throwing up all last night. Yeah it wasn't that fun! It was at  3 in the morning! What is hard about missionary work is I have to be able to function... I have to be able to work and walk and teach!   It's hard because you don't want to work when your sick! You just want to lay in bed and have your mother at your side all day! But nope, you wake up at 630 and you exercise and get to work!! haha so that's what we did! Bring it on!! Well I don't have any time to write!!  We went to a place where the biggest Tortuga's in the whole world are today!  We just got on! SO sorry!! But I just want everybody to know that this work is of the Lord!

Monday! Super weird, we met a family that was on their  vacation and they said, elders!  I was like elders that sounds soo weird!  It was a family from Pennsylvania, it's fun to see members from all over the world!!

I really don't remember what happened Tuesday and Wednesday!!

 Thursday- We had our baptism!!!! ESO!!! The lady that's pregnant! We couldn't do it in the beach because she was pregnant! So en the pilla! That's okay!! I love this work soo much!! And I love the Galapagos!! I don't have to  feed families or worry about dogs!!  Or worry about getting robbed!! The 1st time in all of my mission when I've worked around with my camera in my pocket! It's amazing!!  But the baptism was amazing!

We had a  fun activity in the ward!!  We won the race of potato sacks!  It was fun! Then Sunday wasn't the best day! I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting, how about that!!  I was like well I'm going to give this in English  and all the congregation laughed!  I gave an 8 minute talk on the importance of the members in the obra  misionall!  You know at home when everyone says thanks for your talk it was great! Nobody does that here! They were like yeah cool! Got sick from lunch, we had an okay lunch I don't know why I got sick but it was really weird I could barely walk and that night we had the opportunity to give a blessing to a guy that sees devils and bad things happen to him!  I gave it, and then I said I got to go! I just threw all my lunch up! I didn't cry!  So that's good!!  Today I feel better!!

 

Today we went to the place where the biggest Tortuga's are in the WHOLE WORLD THEY ARE SOO BIG!! l'll send the photos!  Afterwards, the taxi wouldn't stop! We walked 13 miles!!!!!! Because the taxi driver wouldn't stop! So, it took about 3 and a half hours to get here! I'm super tired!!

I really cannot wait to talk to all of you guys on Christmas!!  I love you soo much!  This church is true!! Seriously, I love love LOVE being a missionary!! The mission is the best thing ever!!  I really want to extend if I can!! Ecuador is amazing and the people even more!! I just LOVE LOVE LOVE these people here! Even though we get rejected and they don't accept  the message! I just get so happy because this is the true church and I love the Lord and I love being his missionary! I love teaching his people here! Nothing brings more happiness and joy to this world than teaching the restored gospel!!! 
Love Elder Hammond

Dec. 15, 2014 This week in The Galapagos!

Dec. 15, 2014

This week in The Galapagos!

I just LOVE MY MISSION soo much!! Maybe that or it's just the place I am in!! The Galapagos really are soo beautiful and I love it here so much! Okay so I am here on an island that's called Canta Cruz!  It's super awesome! The people here are cool!  There's like 2 parts to the island - a high part and a low part! The high part is seriously like the jungle! The low part is like a port and that's where we live!  It's great!  Really, I could just spend all day on the higher part because seriously it's like Jurassic Park!  It's amazing and I love it!! I love Ecuador! It's so fun!  We are waking up at like 5:45 in the morning to go running everyday! It's soo fun not really but it's good because I'm getting fat, super fat! So it's good for me!  I hope it helps because I'm always so tired!!

Lunes! Was great we had an amazing noche de hogar with a lot of members here and it was super fun to share our testimonies! What was even better was that it was in the high part and soo super green!  It's just like a dream! Super dark and the people are so humble and they want to learn more and we teach them and I love it soo much!! We shared our testimonies about Christ and his birth and importance why he came here!

Martes! We had the great opportunity to teach our family that are going to be baptized soon! Well at least I hope!  We also had the great opportunity to give 3 priesthood blessings! It was the fist time I've given a priesthood blessing on a home! It was different, but I loved doing it! Then after that I gave 2 blessings of comfort to 2 widows! They have such hard lives, but that's why I love the gospel, we can reach them and teach them how to have BETTER amazing lives!! I love it!!

Jueves we had the great opportunity to do service for a family!  Let me tell you, it was service! We had to move lava rocks like half a block away and it took us like 2 to 3 hours to do!  I was okay with it because we were sweating like hogs in the Galapagos and it was in the high part so it was super beautiful!!  After that, this family wanted us to gather their chickens and oh my gosh!! They are sooo fast!!!!!  There were like 20 of them! No wonder why the old people lived longer, they chased and gathered chickens! They hurt too, just saying!!

 Something I loved this week was, we were teaching a family about the restoration of the gospel and about Jose Smith!  We watched the movie!  It is SOO POWERFUL!! It was just awesome and powerful! After I bore a strong testimony about His divine work that the prophet had to do here on the earth!  The great life that Jose lived! It was soo cool and everybody felt the spirit super strong!

I love this week and all that it did for the lost and sick!

 Today lunes!! WE WENT TO SEE THE HUGE TURTLES!!! THEY ARE HUMONGOUS!!! THEY ARE COOL! I love you all!!  Can't write more! Thanks for all of your prayers for me!! Have an amazing week!! 
Another week closer to Christmas!!
Love, Elder Hammond

Dec. 8, 2014 Galapagos! Wow!!!

Dec. 8, 2014 WOW!!! GALAPAGOS!!!

What a week this has been for me holy smokes!!! I really can't even remember what happened!!  I'm going to try and remember what happened!!! 

Lunes! lunes in the noche I got a call saying that I had cambios! Meaning I had to leave! Terrible because I spent all my money on a Christmas tree and all this food and everything!  I had to be in Guayaquil at 7! I had to leave Machala at 3!!  It was 10! haha So, I packed and got about 45 minutes of sleep!!  Got to the terminal and found out that I was going THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS!!!!! AHHH!!!!!!!!!! What the heck!! The Galapagos Islands!! How crazy is that!! I was like oh my gosh I'm soo excited but I'm EXHAUSTED!! haha

Martes! I was an assistant to the president today!!  Super cool! We heard that we were going to be able to go and do a session in the Temple!!  That was the most important part of my entire week! Forget Galapagos and everything I WAS GOING TO THE TEMPLE!! I haven't been in forever!!! I just love love LOVE the temple!! It is the house of God here upon the world!! I love the temple soo much!! There's just an amazing spirit in the room and everything!! I just love the temple! It was cool to hear everything in Spanish!  Super different and everything but super cool! 

 Like I said, I was an assistant to the president because they were going to send us off on miercoles! and wow.... I really don't want to be the assistant! It's a tough job!! Holy smokes!  But it was good! I worked with soo many missionaries and bore testimony and everything, it was cool!!

Miercoles!! I CAME to the GALAPAGOS!!!! WOW CRAZY!!! The Galapagos it really is like Jurassic Park!! haha I'm not even kidding its like people live here!! It's super sweet!! I love it soo much! The people and members here are awesome! The work here though is a little tough because everyone works in the airport or on Sundays!! OR!! they are tourists! Which is actually something really funny!! Has everybody heard of this movie Meet the Mormons?  Tourists are taking pictures of us because of this movie so like random people take pictures of us! It's funny!! ha ha but I love it!! Tourists are hilarious! They always smell like sunscreen!  You can always tell whose a tourist by their sunscreen smell!!  It's awesome!! But really wow... were teaching families here!  It's super different! I had to teach a family who spoke English and I couldn't even speak! My English is terrible! haha It was funny!! Really I'm going to miss Machala! I already do! The work here is a lot harder than  Machala but that doesn't stop me! I love this work soo much! I have a new companion his name is Elder Flamenco! He is from El Salvador! He is awesome! We have such a good time! We laugh and we make jokes and we beat box to the members and everything! 

  I love you guys so much! I miss you and I hope you guys had such a good week!  This fast Sunday I fasted for 30 hours, how about that!!  I was starving but that's okay because after we went to this family and oh my gosh!!! We saw Teri in the devo!! We only got to watch 5 minutes of it because the Internet is super bad!!! But I was like that's my aunt!!!!! haha super super cool!! Well, I'm here in the islands!!  I love it tons!! We're working super hard, and being obedient and I know the lord will bless us!!  I'll try and send some pics but this computer isn't letting me and its super slow... I love you my family and your always in my prayers!!! Chow from the Galapagos!!!! The land of the turtles!!

Elder Hammond                                   Guayaquil Temple

                                                   Galapagos Airport

                                           This is the jungle! We are teaching a family 2 minutes from here!

Dec. 1, 2014 Machala

Dec. 1, 2014 Machala

To tell you guys the truth I don't even remember what happened this week!  I seriously am just working my absolute tail off here in Machala!  I love it!! Gosh this week sooo many CRAZY, scary and awesome spiritual experiences happened!! I am learning soo much as a missionary that's going to make me a better person when I come back!!  What happened this week, okay I'll try to remember!!

Lunes I still had the trio!  Un poco dificil! Pero esta bien! (A little difficult but it's ok!)  We had the trio!  Then nothing much happened that day!!

Martes! I GOT ALL 4 OF MY  PACKAGES!!!!  I was like screaming my head off!! All of my zone said  "open that up right now and give it all to me" I said, " in your dreams buttercup!!)  They were all jealous that I have the greatest Mom in this whole entire world!! so eat it!! but not really I'm going to eat it all!! haha it was funny!! This day I got my new companion!! He is from Sandy UT!!  How cool! but he doesn't know Teri or Denny!! He went to Brighton!  His name is Elder Lignell!  He's cool he has about 14 months in the mission! He's very humble and awesome! We get along just great!  With every companion you are going to learn something new! I love that God chooses and picks for us exactly who we need to be with!!  Were going to work hard and be exactly obedient and the Lord will give us success!! 

MIercoles! Today we talked with all of our investigators, we have 11 right now! So we have a pretty good program!! We are teaching sooo many people!!  Aww its great!! I love teaching it's one of my favorite parts in the mission!!

 
Also!!! Martes and Miercoles I got woken up to cockroaches running over my feet, how cool is that!! haha I love it!!  And my 3 spider bites are cool! haha but yeah its Ecuador! Martes and Miercoles only woke up like 3 or 4 times during the night. You can hear them and everything when they try running up your mosquito net!  yeah it's just amazing! You wake up and you toss them off your bed and go back to bed!!

Jueves! We always work in the coco but today was special. We went to a house!!  Today in general was special! g absolutely terrible, but just something that changed my life! I am just grateful for amazing parents!! Really these parents are soo mean.... for the first time in my life I saw somebody get whipped.. it was very very sad! I was about 2 seconds from just balling it was this little 12 year old kid! Who was running away! I don't know what happened but his dad had this whip and I've seen them before, but it was the saddest thing I've ever seen! It made me realize the whipping of Jesus Christ .... and his sacrifice for every one of us!  We are soo blessed to have an amazing brother and example and he is our Savior and I will praise his name forever!! Wow we are soo blessed to be born as members of the church! I love love it!!! 

I also saw a kid got bit by a dog... eww..... it was terrible!!!

Viernes! Today was awesome! We were in a lesson with Katherine one of our investigators!  She doesn't feel ready to be baptized! I said mira...(look) do you think I was ready to serve a mission!? Other country! Other language! Other food! Other people! It was awesome! I loved it! She was like "wow it's the truth, I can be baptized!!" ESO!!! Elder Hammond!

Domingo! Well, it was SUPER SUPER COOL!!! A person from the setenta (seventy) came and spoke to all of us!!! His name is ELDER Waddell! He spoke Spanish!! AND I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING HE SAID!!!! AHHH!!!!!!! EVERY SINGLE WORD!!!! It gave me new strength that I could handle new things and finally be able to speak from my heart! 

I love you all soo much! I am soo glad that everybody had an amazing week of thanksgiving! I am sad I wasn't with you guys! I love you all soo much!! I really do love my mission so much!  I love my family and I can't wait to talk to all of you guys!!!
Love 

Elder Hammond                     At the puerto!

                                          My new comp Elder Lignell

                                          Love the Stockings with my name on it Mom!!!

                                          Thanksgiving in a box!!!!