June 15, 2015

Hello Family!

  Oh my goodness. This has been a crazy week. So I get to my new area
only to find out that it is an English area. I am serving in an
English ward. I kind of knew that it was an English area once I heard
transfer doctrine but people just said that President Alba wants it to
be a zebra area, but that makes no sense because any time I get to
speak in Spanish that's called poaching in another area so I have to
hand them off as referrals right away. They have Spanish missionaries
here in San Rafael, so it is all just so confusing to me. I don't get
it.
 Yesterday at church I saw all of the people who go to the Spanish
branch and they kept asking me if I came back to serve in Novato, but
I had to tell them I am now in the English ward, so it's been a little
rough :( and my Spanish is so bad now. Uh. Oh well. We had interviews
with President Alba and I asked him if I still need to do language
study, because as of right now I don't even want to bother with the
language, I would just rather be outside working instead of studying
for the language that I don't use. He said that I need to keep up with
it because even though I haven't used it for the last half of my
mission I need to learn how to speak Spanish and that I was called as
a Spanish missionary not just for my mission.
 This area is crazy. We have zero progressing investigators, more than
half the ward is less active and we have to work with a new convert
(whose baptism I went to six months ago with Hermana Hancock) who was
baptized less active :( Yesterday one of the members said, "Welcome to
the hardest area in your mission." I was like haha...thanks? I am
actually so so so grateful that President Alba sent me to an area that
needs a lot of work done. I would rather come into an area that needs
all of the energy that we have plus more, than to walk into an area
with 5 baptisms coming up. It keeps us focused and it gives us a job
to do. Plus it is in the hard areas that we learn the most. This area
is pretty rough though. Last transfer they never had a member present.
And yesterday we had no investigators at church! Zero! And the only
two investigators that we do have have been investigators for over a
year. It's ridiculous.
 It is so funny to see the difference between my Spanish mission and
my English mission. In the beginning of my mission I was in trailer
parks eating rice and beans every night. Now I am in the richest
county in the country (they remind me every day) going into homes that
are bigger than I have ever seen. It is so sad though because it just
confirms to me that money doesn't buy you happiness. You can't buy
happiness. These people just reject us at every opportunity they can
get. We are lucky if we get "We are servants of Jesus Christ" out, and
that's only the first one of the 5 Key Phrases! Haha oh my goodness.
It's interesting to say the least. So pray for us. And please feed the
missionaries and just love them and support them. I know it's a lot
different in AZ, but all the love they can get is much appreciated :)
 It will be fun. I will have A LOT of stories to tell that's for sure
:) anyways I love you all! Have a great week!
Love, Hermana (or sister. It's whatever) Hamblin

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