Wild Wednesday

Hello everyone, this week has been an intense week. We started off with a hike on Monday afternoon and that was fantastic. Then on Tuesday I went to my first real MLC, the last one was different. It was great to see old companions, like Elder Atkin and Elder Moser there. It was a great meeting and we talked about some of the rules in the mission. One big change that happened is that we are now allowed to play sports with members and non-members. It is a very foreign concept for me since it has been against the rules my whole mission, but it can definitely be a great missionary tool. After that we went on an exchange with the assistants, which was awesome. Elder Jackson stayed in Ventura while I drove back up to SLO with Elder Lee and Elder Wallace. I have never really gotten to serve around Elder Lee, but we were on the PG basketball team together, so it was great to be able to catch up with him on the 2.5hr drive back. He went to work with the district leader up in Paso Robles while I stayed and worked with Elder Wallace. Elder Wallace and I had a great exchange and all of our appointments had fallen on Wednesday, so we taught quite a few lessons. We taught Helen first and she was having a bad morning just frustrated with school and freaking out about her baptism on Saturday, but she said she prayed and felt peace so she was ok. This was all before out lesson with her. That was great to hear, and we reviewed Joseph Smith and his whole story and then watched He is the GIft. We then taught Bella and Jesse who are both recent converts who are doing great in their callings and just everything. We then had a short lesson with Sam (who we met last Sunday) that went really well. After that we taught Harmony who is a returning less active. Usually these lessons are a little more spread out, but with MLC it pushed it all to Wednesday. It was just a great day and I loved serving with and learning from Elder Wallace. Elder Jackson drove up that night and the assistants went off to their next exchange in the next zone down. They slowly made their way down the mission on a series of 4 back to back exchanges. On Thursday we planned for our zone meeting on Friday where we present basically everything from MLC in a condensed 1.5 hrs. We also planned for Helen's baptism on Saturday, and taught her again Thursday night. Friday we had our zone meeting and that went well, we showed everyone He is the Gift and a little powerpoint about it. Everyone is getting very excited about Christmas and this new initiative from the church. Then on Saturday Helen got Baptized! It all went very smoothly except for one thing. We filled up the font before the baptism, and we felt the water to see how warm it was and it was cold. we couldn't figure out why, because the hot water was on full blast there should be some warmth. After getting a mop and bucket to reach the faucet and feel the water coming out we decided the hot water is broken. They didn't have any pots and pans in the kitchen to boil some water for them so she just got baptized in cold water. Afterwards she told us it wasn't that cold, so she still had a good experience which was awesome. I think she was filled with the spirit or something because that water was straight up cold. Also a bunch of her non-member friends came and they enjoyed it. We talked with them a little bit and they definitely felt the spirit, they don't know it yet but they did. Overall it was a great baptismal service and a great way to finish the week with her confirmation the next day. 

Thank you all and Have a merry Christmas. Also share the gift with your friends #share the gift.

Elder Hamson