Email 7/28/14

Hola hola familia!!!

It sounds like you all had a great/busy week! :) There is a lot that
happened! Estoy muy añejada  por Dustin!  Felicidades!! I totally
understand the waiting. It's the worst but just tell her to enjoy her
time with her family and work hard! By the time December rolls around
you will be prepared to leave everyone behind and excited to get to
work! Uh! Missions are the best!!!! I love them so much!

Mandy! I met a Sister Powell who served in your mission and she said
you were serving around her your last transfer and she said you were
not trunky at all and that you were focused on serving others and that
you always made them cookies! I was so proud to call you my sister! I
was freaking out! Haha I'm pretty sure you asked me about her before.
When you asked about the area I was just confused! I was a greenie! So
give me a break :) but ya! She was at zone conference on Tuesday
helping out and she introduced herself and said she just returned from
the New York New York South mission! I was determined to talk to her!
Haha. Small world!

Ok I love serving in Santa Rosa! We get to help in the mission office
and it's so cool to see all that goes on behind the scene. It's
amazing. I love being apart of this work. We were helping the Seelys
who are an older couple who work in the office and they just went off
on how much they appreciate us and all the work we do. Seriously! That
motivates me to work work work! It's refreshing to have people
actually thank you for the work you do rather than reject you on the
streets or cuss you out. Haha it's funny but sometimes when they do it
over and over and over and over...it's nice to have people just love
us. Haha!

This week my companion was reading a talk by Elder Holland to me. I
can't remember what it is called but it was talking about how
missionaries are prayed for the most in this world. He said that we
are before the prophet. He said that even the prophet and the 12 take
special time to say prayers for us. I tried my best not to cry. I am
turning into a baby. Seriously it's ridiculous haha. The gospel is
true!

Ok family I am getting fat! We eat Mexican food every night and if the
members don't want to cook for us we go out to eat at really nice
Mexican restaurants and you know me! I love Mexican food. So I was
like ok I am going to get fat so I will do my best to exercise hard
and when I found out that we were biking I was so excited but then
guess what happened this week. We got robbed! Yep. We were eating
lunch and we came out and my bike tires were gone! Just mine too! Haha
so...no more biking for us. We were laughing so hard. I kept thinking
of that one line in Dennis the Mennis that little girl that's like,
"I've been robbed!". Haha only me. So there is no hope for me!

Oh my goodness. We had such a good lesson on Saturday night. The
spirit was so incredibly strong. We were teaching the Plan of
Salvation and we were talking about how God new us before this lifep
and that he prepared us to come down here and work hard and that he
would love us and be there for us if we just open up to him. Our sweet
investigator just started crying. It was so sweet. We testified that
we knew that she was a daughter of God and she said that she had never
heard that before. The church is true. He loves us so much it's
insane. I love my mission.

Family! Have a great week! I pray for you all the time. You are the
best. Thanks for everything!!

Hermana Hamblin

Email 7/21/14

Hello Family!

  Every day throughout the week there are things that happen that are either hilarious, spiritual or hard and throughout each week I keep telling myself--ok I have to tell my family this! Or, if you only heard the stories that I have :) haha but then Mondays roll around and I sit here at the computer and just stare! My mind goes blank! It is so annoying! So I guess I will just start from Monday and work my way through the week :)

Monday! P-day. You know, I think that I would rather have just three hours of free time on P-days. They are always so stressful. I would rather be out contacting than stressing out about laundry, having a little amount of time to write families about the week and cleaning and shopping...ah, But I guess its all good. These things need to get done! 

Tuesday! We had our district meeting and during that meeting they filmed us. It was so fun! The camera lady was so nice! She wanted to get me and my companions riding our bikes- did I tell you that we have the opportunity to ride bikes this transfer!? It is SO fun!!! I love riding bikes! It might be a little inappropriate at times because lets be real..my skirt catches the wind and sometimes flips up and..oh man. So embarrassing! But that is just another story that I will have to tell my kids one day :) We are able to contact like CRAZY on bikes! One day we were able to contact 90 people. Anyways, biking is great!

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were normal missionary days :) Nothing out of the usual. On Saturday we had a finding activity as a zone and our district was assigned to go to Howarth Park. Ok this park is awesome!!! It is SO fun! Its like a little amusement park. It has a lake and horses that you can ride around the park! Its so cute! Anyways we had a fere lemonade stand and we had signs and some of us walked around advertising free lemonade and contacting while the other half gave out the lemonade and talked more about our purpose. It was a success. And so fun :) That day our trio contacted 107! We love contacting!

I am so grateful to be here in Santa Rosa! I have the best companions, best zone, best district and I love the other spanish missionaries that I serve around. :)  I hope that you all have a great week!!!

Email 7/14/14

Hola Hola!!

  Mom, oh man are you right! I have SOOOOO much to tell you all! OK. Where to start? Woodland! I left Woodland :( I love Woodland with all my heart! It was a great place to be born! I am happy that I left though because it was time to change things up a bit :) So we had transfer meeting on Wednesday and President Alba gets up and tells us that Salt Lake wants our mission to take part in a little show that will be going on during the sessions of general conference in October. So like you know how between sessions of conference they have little movies and clippings? Ok we are doing a little section in between sessions of conference that will take place in October! Cool right? So the purpose of it is they want to interview the 18 and 19 yr. old missionaries to check up on them and see how the mission helped them better and prepare for life. So the crew is actually coming today and they are going to film a few people in my district doing service, they are going to film a companionship in a lesson (thank goodness that wont be me!) and then they are going to film a district meeting and they choose to film our district meeting! So we had to like practice our meeting last night and make sure everything will be perfect! Gosh it makes me nervous! Obviously they arent going to show the whole meeting but a few clippings here and there. Then they are interviewing about 4 sisters and 4 elders and they are interviewing one of my companions! Its all so exciting! :) So we havent even been a district for a week yet and by tomorrow we will have already had 3 district meetings! Haha we are already pretty close. So watch conference in October and stayed tuned during sessions you might just see someone you know :)

  Ok now I am going to completely change subjects but I need to talk to you all about it just because lately I have been seeing a lot of heart ache because of this very subject. Pornography. If you are participating in this addiction in any way knock it off. You know better. You all know that it will ruin your life and family and future families. If you need help pray for the spirit and pray for the courage to seek help immediately. There are people who love and care for you and want nothing but the best for you. Cling to those who love you and seek their guidance. I know you all will make fun of me for saying this in my email but I cant tell you how many times I have said that this week and I have seen a family fall apart because of a dad who was caught looking at those images online. So..seriously. Use the advice from president Ucthdorf STOP IT. I love you all so much and I dont want to hear about this stupid addiction tearing up our family. We are all better than that. Everyone has been exposed to it and so Im not pointing anyone out. I love you all. SO much!

  I hope you all have a great week. Make the most of the rest of your summer. Remember that you have a missionary in Cali that loves you SO SO SO much!  -Hermana Hamblin

   

 

7/07/14

Hola familia!

  Happy happy happy (late) 4th of July!! Sounds like you all had a
great 4th of July :) As I was celebrating the 4th here in California I
learned a lot about sacrifices that were being made  and my heart was
seriously overflowing with gratitude. Being away from family and
friends this year gave me just a glimpse of what other families are
sacrificing for MY rights and freedoms. How grateful I am to live in
this country and enjoy the freedoms that I have including freedom of
religion. It couldn't have been better!

 The whole day was just beautiful! We got up for our morning run and
guess what! There was a hot air balloon! I had never seen a hot air
balloon before so I knew that that was a sign for a great day ahead!
We had our studies and then the Sisters that we live with wanted to go
to lunch  so we had a roommate lunch at Denny's! An hour later we had
another lunch with a member at Carls Jr. (Talk about missionary
15lbs)! Oh my gosh. It was good. We had so much fun! After that we had
weekly planning. Hermana Palmer and I were exhausted! But we got
through it! FINALLY after a lonnnng day of waiting we got a call from
Sister Alba!!! She told us that Hermana Palmer was going to train
which means that I was being transferred out!!! She told me that I was
getting transferred to...Santa Rosa!! I was so excited because it is
rare for a Spanish Hermana to serve in Santa Rosa. I got so lucky! Oh
and..oh my gosh. I am so nervous for this one but guess what! I will
be serving in a TRIO this next transfer! A trio! I am really excited
for that don't get me wrong :) it's going to be nice because one of
the Hermanas that I am serving with is from Spain and so she is a
native speaker! I am beyond excited for that! Plus I know her already.
It will be great!

 Yesterday was kind of sad though because every Sunday since I have
been here I have had investigators at church..until yesterday. I was
so sad :( So we went by and I started saying my goodbyes! I am sad to
leave Woodland, but I am ready! I am so excited for the transfer ahead
of me :) Its going to be so good!

 Oh and p.s. Oh my gosh! Guess what happened to us last Monday. We
were stranded at the car wash for 2 1/2 hours. I am being for real. It
was ridiculous! We were vacuuming our car and Hermana Palmer put her
purse and the keys in the trunk and I had no idea that she put the
keys in the trunk! So after we were done vacuuming I went around and
shut the trunk. We got in the car and Hermana Palmer just sits there
and then she looks at me and goes...wait a second..did you shut the
trunk. Haha we tried everything to get that stupid trunk open. We
tried putting the back seats down and realized that the lever that we
have to pull to let down the seats was in the front of the trunk. And
our lever that is by the from seat where you can just pull the lever
and the trunk will pop right open WE THOUGHT didn't work actually has
a little trick to it. All you do is first push down on the trunk and
then pull the lever by the front seat and the trunk will pop right
open. Well 2 1/2 hours later with calls that were made to our fleet
department and multiple car shops in town we simply pushed down on the
trunk, pulled the lever and the trunk opened. We felt soooooooo dumb!
Oh my gosh. And the whole time we were there not one person asked what
was wrong or if we needed help. Heck! They didn't even say hi! Oh wait
there was one guy that said hi. I was like, Hermana Palmer, we must
not be in Round Valley anymore  :)

 I hope that you all have a fun week! Love you!

- Hermana Hamblin

Email 6/30/14

"!Hola hola soy Mormona¡"

So one of our recent converts, Estela comes to church in really nice
dress suits, she never wears dresses or skirts or anything like that.
So we were out in the foyer waiting for our investigators to show up
to sacrament meeting and in walks Juan and Estela and Estela was
wearing the cutest dress ever! We were so happy and telling her that
she looked so good and she just looks at us and poses and says "Me
nombre es Estela Fuentes y soy mormona!" And ever since then she just
smiles and says "!hola hola soy Mormona¡" I LOVE IT!!! :) Makes me so
happy!

Ok so holy cow! Before my mission I seriously didn't know a thing
about the World Cup..like let's be real..it's me! So we go over to a
members house (this was a couple of weeks ago) and their house was
decorated in  Mexican colors and I was just like what is going on!?
And they were like it's the World Cup!! Duh! I'm like--oh how fun! I
bet you guys are going to have a fun weekend! Haha they told me that
it wasn't just a weekend thing and that it lasted for like a month! I
told them a month of FOOTBALL would kill me and then they said that it
wasn't the Super Bowl it was the World Cup! Like SOCCER! Hahahah oh my
gosh! Who raised me anyways?? :) Thats ok though because guess who
knows everything now about the World Cup!! They said the Super Bowl is
like a Sunday school party compared to the World Cup! I thought that
was pretty funny. And BTW Mexico is out :) But the US is still in! So
that's good!

Yesterday we were lucky enough to get our investigator to church
because the game with Mexico in the World Cup ended just in time for
church! She was really upset though because Mexico had lost. It was a
sad day for our branch yesterday!

It was funny because on Saturday we had a branch activity at the park
and one of the branch members drives his car up as close to the curb
as he could get and blares the radio news for the World Cup! We were
just laughing. It was great.

Saturday was so fun! We had the activity with the branch and had
hotdogs and played a couple of games and then later that night we had
a surprise birthday dinner for Juan. It was a late birthday surprise.
His birthday was this past Tuesday and so Estela had planned a huge
birthday surprise party for him on Saturday. We were all able to go to
that and we actually had an investigator there! (Remember Josè?) I
love Juan and Estela! They are so great! On Tuesday we wanted to sing
to Juan but we weren't able to go over until later that night and he
wasn't home then so Hermana Palmer and I heart attacked his car! He
loved it and said that that made his whole night and that he was going
to keep our notes forever! How fun is that?!

This week is going to be so busy! We get transfer doctrine this
weekend! I might be
leaving Woodland!!! We shall see! It's defiantly mixed feelings for sure.

I hope you enjoy this week and have a happy happy happy Fourth of July!!!

Love, Hermana Hamblin

Email 6/23/14

This is a girl from one of the families that we are teaching right now. She wanted to make me a bracelet and she asked me what colors I wanted and she was all excited to make it for me and I got it the other day while we were over there teaching them. She was all excited to give it to me. It was the cutest thing!

Hola Hola!! 

 I just love summer! It is probably my favorite time of the year :) The fourth of July is coming up and I can hardly believe it! As we were shopping today we saw all of the 4th of July decorations and I just got so excited! 4th of July is the best! :) 

 

We had exchanges on Tuesday and it was my turn to lead out our area with my STL. She was so great! We literally contacted everyone that was in sight! We had 20 contacts within a matter of an hour! It was beautiful. She is such a hard worker! I love contacting people. They are so fun to talk to and it is fun to hear about their mini life stories. You wouldn't believe how many people open up to us. We just have to be there to ask the right questions and try to not scare them away and if we are successful people will talk. It is so fun! She taught me to be fearless! I love exchanges!!

 Friday we had a funeral to attend. This lady was so sweet. The first time I met her I was on my very first splits with the ward and I had one of the YW with me and we were assigned to go see this sweet lady. She was really sick but she let us in and she talked with us and was so sweet to us. She had us laughing like that whole visit with her. She was so cute! I would say she was in her late 40s/ early 50s and her youngest daughter is 13 years old. I feel so bad for her daughter! I can't imagine what she must be going through. Me and a couple other Hermans were asked to sing at her funeral. We sang, "Abide With Me Tis Eventide" with Hermana Palmer playing a beautiful accompaniment on the piano. I just love that song! The first counselor in our branch presidency asked if we could sing that song in sacrament meeting as well! So I guess we did alright :) Except for we messed up a little in Sacrament Meeting! Haha oh my goodness. At the funeral we had 8 hermanas singing and yesterday we only had 3 so..haha it was interesting! But that is the good thing about our little branch, if you mess up its ok because they never get a special musical number so they are just grateful for the song :) 

 On Saturday night Hermana Palmer and I went on a double date! Literally! So what had happened is a couple of weeks back when I was in Winters and Hermana Palmer was leading out the area she and Hermana Vance were out doing our normal route for exercising and they ran into this Mexican guy and so of course Hermana Vance goes up and talk to him and sets up an appointment for us. So the other day this guy texts us and asks if we could meet at Dennys because he was just getting off of work and was hungry. We decided that that was a great idea because we wouldn't be able to meet with him at his house anyways because there isnt a girl living with him or anything. So we plan to meet at Dennys. Hermana Palmer and I got there and we were just waiting on him to get there--thinking that he would be all by himself. Well, he pulls up in his friends car and they both get out and they are dressed all nice and even smell pretty good! Hermana Palmer and I just kinda look at each other and we were like ok..well lets head on into Dennys! 

 The whole time we were there Edgar (the guy that we were originally supposed to meet) was only looking and talking to Hermana Palmer. Jose (classic right?) was only talking to me. We were able to start lesson one with them and give away a BOM which they said they were going to read #flirttoconvert #idontthinkthatisallowed. We invited them to come to Sacrament meeting afterwards and Hermana Palmer told them that we were doing a musical number so guess who showed up yesterday for Sacrament meeting. Our friends! Oh my goodness! It was so awkward! Jose wouldnt stop touching my arm and I was just like...! Jose! I am a missionary! Quit touching me! Haha. BTW he is 28 and Edgar is 25. We decided that every time we meet with them we are going to have a member present and it will be held in the church. Also they are our neighbors! Oh man. #missionarylife Gotta love it!

I hope you all had a great week! I love you so much and am grateful for all you do! 

Love, Hermana Hamblin

Email 6/09/14

Dear Family-

 I am back in the game! This week has whipped me back into the missionary life. Hermana Palmer and I worked so hard this past week. We were able to teach 15 lessons this week and that is the most I have ever taught in a week! Then on Saturday (our miracle day) we had dinner with Estela Fuentes! Every night wherever we eat we have a "power hour". Power hour is where we leave a message at the end of dinner (like normal) and then we tie that message into faith and ask the members to pray for us to have success that night. So from 6-7 is the hour that we work under the members faithful prayer and we call and report our miracles that we had during that hour of faith :) So Estela offered the prayer Saturday night and in one hour Hermana Palmer and I picked up two new investigators! It was beautiful! 

 Yesterday was kind of a different story. We found out that one of the members in the branch passed away. She had been in the hospital for about a week and a half. We went to visit her I think twice..she was not doing to good :( anyways so she passed away. The branch was pretty sad about that. Then one of the members kind of snapped at Hermana Palmer and I. We didn't really know what to do. It was so awkward! We had asked just a simple question about the dinner calender and she just let us have it! It was so crazy! Then at dinner I hardly was able to speak because for some reason I didn't know any spanish at all. It seriously went away for like the night! I could not remember anything! It was so hard. During contacting I felt so embarrassed. The only thing I knew was "Hola'. Oh my gosh. It was bad. I went home and just cried. But then I read this talk given by Elder Holland. Sweet Hermana Thompson gave me this talk in my first transfer. I was having a night kind of like last night only it was the people that we contacted were all so rude! I came home and cried to her. Anyways she pulled this talk out. Elder Holland gave this talk to the new mission presidents. It is perfect. It is exactly what every missionary needs to hear. He is talking about how missionaries will come to their mission presidents and they will ask these questions, "Why isn't it easier, President? Why do they reject us, President? Why do the people not understand, President? Can't they see?". He goes on to say that someone a long time ago asked those very same questions. The perfect missionary asked these very questions. Elder Holland explains that if it was hard for Jesus Christ, if the perfect missionary was rejected, spit upon and crucified why in the world would we think that it would be easier for us? He then hopes for all missionaries to realize that we are not alone. That there is someone who experienced the difficulties that I am facing right now. So why not go to him for comfort and peace? I am experiencing only but a tiny bit of what he went through, and I have the knowledge that my redeemer lives. Why not stand tall? Why not use the atonement and let the savior in my life to help me get thru these hard times. Elder Holland closes by saying, "The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane. The only victory is the victory at the summit of Calvary. Welcome to the journey of the Disciples of Christ." 

  Family, I just want you to know that I am all in. I am 100% into my missionary work. It is only a short 18 months and I cannot waste any of my time feeling sorry for myself. I am ready to get up and preach to all of those who need the gospel. I am sorry for the way I have been acting. I am ready to keep fighting the good fight. I am so thankful for you all and your prayers on my behalf. It means the world to me! I am grateful for your words of encouragement :) I am blessed beyond belief! 

  I am so sad to hear about the Sorensons! That is not right! They can't move! That is just heart breaking :( But at least they are not moving to the valley! When are they moving? 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all so much!!    Love, Hermana Hamblin