A Solid Week.

Greetings from Elder Hamson, 

This week has been a solid week full of miracles. First off on Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder McKinley who came out the same time I did. It was great to work with him and learn from him. It was cool to talk about how our missions have gone and how we can make the most of what time we have left. We worked in the YSA ward, so their area is huge. They also don't get very many dinners, so naturally the one time I come into their ward they have a dinner. It was with one of their recent converts and we had a lesson afterward that went well. Overall I learned a lot. Then on Wednesday we took Robbie out with us to teach Leila. Robbie is going to the mexico city chalco mission in a week so he likes to work with us. Leila is doing great, she is interested and likes what we teach and she is reading from the Book of Mormon regularly and she prays to know if it's true. She hasn't gotten an answer yet, but we spent a good portion of the lesson talking about how the spirit works and it's role. Elder Hull as a part of the training program was supposed to lead out in all of the lessons and planning situations this last week. He did a great job and it was a challenge for both of us. Then on Thursday we met with Karen who is now a new investigator. a few weeks ago she was talking with her Mormon friends and they told her to check out LDS.org and Mormon.org she did and it was in the middle of general conference so she ended up watching a good portion of it. Fast forward two weeks we had an appointment with her and she has pretty much decided this is the church for her. We brought to members to our lesson and they connected really well. So now she has a couple of friends in the ward, but it was more chit chat than I would have liked. It was a good lesson, and she came to last two hours of church on Sunday. It was just a really cool miracle and she just found her way over here by herself. This week we are having the lesson at her neighbors house and they are a more timid family, so that will be nice. On Saturday we had the Fall Festival in our ward and Dylan who we have been working with came with his fiance Lisa. It was great to see them there, we had invited them but I didn't actually expect them both to come. ( I know I need to have more faith) They got to know the ward better and I think that will open opportunities in the future to teach Lisa even though she isn't interested now. We got to see Marcia this week as well at the Fall Festival and she is doing great, we have an actual lesson with her next week and that should be great. Jennifer and Alyssa are caught up in the storms of life and have asked us to take a step back for a week or so until things settle down. It is an insanely tough situation, and we wish we could help more. I am confident that they will both come out stronger. Overall though it has been a great week and transfers are coming up so we will see what happens, but I guess you will just have to wait until next Monday. Thank you all, and have a happy Halloween!

Everything is Great

Hello everyone this week was a great week. There are a couple different people who were investigators in other wards who moved here and we are still working to get an appointment and see where they are. Then there was a lady, Karen, who referred herself on Mormon.org who we talked to a couple of weeks ago, she said she would be back in town this week. I think those will all be great opportunities once their life settles down a little bit. We are still working with our recent converts Alyssa, her mother Jennifer and Marcia. They have all been busy on the weekends and haven't attended our ward, which worries me, but they tell us they go to church where ever they are. Then we just found out that Dylan who is a returning Less-Active (21) is planning on getting married to hi s girlfriend in a couple of weeks. She isn't a member, but we have been teaching him every week and helping him get back on track and they decided to get married. Fantastic. Lisa his future wife has been listening in on our lessons and asks a question every once in a while. She is getting more and more comfortable with us and Dylan told us they are starting to read the scriptures together. So there are a lot of great things going on here, and were are working hard to find new investigators as well. I went on an exchange with Elder Slaugh on Saturday. It's really cool to get to know all of the missionaries better and their investigator who I have been hearing about over the phone in reports for the last 3 months. It was nice to officially meet a couple of them. One of them Jonathan will be baptized this Saturday. Which is great for Elder Slaugh and Elder Bartholomew. Everything is going great here in Camarillo, thank you for the support and prayers. Transfers are in 2 weeks so any letters to the apartment need to be sent this week. :) Or just any letters need to get sent.
Elder Hamson

Trying out each others bikes:

Soaking It In

Another week gone by, and we are already half way through this transfer. On Wednesday Elder Hull and I went tracting in an area that we don't spend very much time in and it went really well. People were generally nice to us and we were getting close to the end of the street and Elder Hull wanted to just be done and eat lunch. I managed to convince him to do just a couple more houses. The next two people were very receptive to our message and we gave them both a copy of the Book of Mormon. The first one's name was Carol and she doesn't have a church she goes to, but believes in God. We taught her a simple lesson going over the restoration and we have an appointment for next week. The next house was Celeste and after we taught her for a little while she said "sure you can come back, just whenever you are in the area next" I told her we would be back next week, so we have two back to back appointments with the last two houses this week. Then later on in the day we helped Jennifer and her daughter Alyssa move some furniture in their house. They are both doing well, and still learning a lot as they are both very new to the gospel. Marcia is doing great too, she was out of town so our next appointment is tomorrow. We talked with her on the phone and she and her husband are gaining a better relationship. That was great news, because her husband is an atheist, but it sounds like he doesn't hate us which is good. We met with Dylan who is a returning LA member. We brought Brother Skelton with us who hit it off with Dylan and we had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Dylan is 21, but doesn't want to go to the singles ward, because he is planning on getting married soon. So we are teaching him and he lives in the same apartment complex as us which makes things easier. He came to church on Sunday and he going to meet with the bishop to get to know him soon, so it's really cool to see him coming back. The last lesson we had his girlfriend Lisa sat in on the lesson too, she didn't say anything, but she sat on the couch with Dylan and simply listened. She is slowly opening up more and more, and I think she will eventually give the Book of Mormon a chance and try it out. We had a zone meeting on Thursday instead of a district meeting so I haven't planned a district meeting for a couple of weeks now, so I am excited for this week because I have got a killer meeting planned. The zone meeting was great there were a couple of changes to the mission policy, we are now allowed to go to any baptism in the zone, if we have a recent convert, less active or investigator there. It used to have to be in our district and we could only come with an investigator. I like the idea of being able to go and see more baptisms. On Saturday we went and blitzed Elder Slaugh and Elder Bartholomew's area for an hour. It was good to get to work with Elder Bartholomew and we were able to talk to quite a few people. I am having a blast being a district leader, mostly because my districts have been awesome so far. Anyways everything is going well here I am living the dream, so I have to soak it in while I still can. Thank you all for being great and you will hear from me next week.
Elder Hamson

A Pop Quiz

This week started off great when I went on an exchange with Elder Osborne. He is a visa waiter and is going to eventually end up in Taiwan on his mission. So I got to help him learn Chinese during language study which was fun. We had a good exchange, he came and joined me in my area while Elder Hull went over to 6th ward for the day. It was good to get to know him better and he is going to be a great missionary both here and in Taiwan. Marcia is still doing great, she was in San Diego over the weekend, but we got to meet with her on Wednesday which was a great lesson going in-depth about the plan of Salvation and the Atonement. She is doing great and I am excited to see which calling she receives in the ward. Alyssa and her mom are hanging in there, the divorce is taking a toll on everyone and they are in and out of court regularly. Through it all though they both say they are happier than they have ever been. That is one of the greatest blessings we can receive from the gospel is joy in the middle of our trials. We got to watch Meet the Mormons and I would highly recommend it to anyone and be sure to invite a friend. We also did our interviews with President Felix and that was just fine. I was one of the last ones and it was short and sweet. I was fine with that, because I'm not much of a talker anyway except when it comes to missionary work then I will talk your ear off. It's a new skill I have developed. I absolutely loved general conference even though we watched it in ASL due to technical difficulties. I have a couple questions
Who quoted Mosiah 16:2 in their talk and why? And who talked about a boat and life jackets and why?
Thank you all and have a great week.
Elder Hamson