Back in the Valley

Well I made it back here to Simi valley, and it still has a lot of the same people, which is awesome. It has been awesome running into a bunch of people I knew from before, and The YSA ward is a great ward so I am excited. I met one of our investigators Jessica on Thursday, we had fasted with her the day before about if she needed to get baptized or not. In the lesson she told us that she got an answer to her prayer and felt the spirit so strong. Also she is reading through the Book of Mormon and after she prayed she started reading, and ran into Alma 32:16 where it talks about "blessed is he that. . . is baptized without stubbornness of heart" She has been investigating for a very long time, and I feel very lucky/blessed to come in right when she gets her answer.
On a different note I am having a lot of fun being companions with Elder Hunt. He is 6' 6" but he hasn't measured in a while, so maybe he's taller. But as of right now we are a combined height of 13' 9" and let me know if you hear otherwise, but my theory is that we are the tallest companionship in the world. We play basketball in the mornings with other Elders in the complex and they are actually pretty good, so it has been a lot of fun having some competition. I am still a little sad about leaving SLO, but I couldn't have asked for a better companion or area. I am living the dream being a missionary out here Simi. Thank you all, and keep being awesome.
Elder Hamson

Elder Hunt and Elder Hamson

On the Move

Good morning everyone. this week has been an exciting week full of surprises. I am going back to SImi Valley! I'll be in the YSA ward this time and I am going to live in the same complex as my old apartment. It will be fun to live with 4 Elders again, and have 4 more close by. Rumor has it that we all go play basketball at the park in the mornings! Also my new companion is Elder Hunt, and I'm pretty sure he's the second tallest missionary in the mission. So president Felix has got the two tallest together, I am stoked out of my mind! It is always really hard to leave an area when you have been there for so long. Just imagine me pantomiming ripping my heart out of my chest and smashing it with my fist a couple times then putting it back, that's what it feels like. On a more happy note David Archuleta visited our mission yesterday. President Felix was wise and didn't tell us that he was coming, because he would have had half the Elders not show up. There were a lot of different rumors on which general authority was coming to visit, so nobody believed me when I told them it was David Archuleta. I didn't actually know, but it feels really good when you guess correctly, The meeting was really good, and he is still learning how to speak publicly, but he made up for it with his songs. It was a really spiritual meeting and at the end he took pictures with all the zones. He wanted to stand next to me, and that boy is tiny. He's like the size of one of my legs. He's cool though, and now I can say that I have officially met him and talked for a minute. Everything is going well, and to I have to go pack. . .ugh.
Elder Hamson

Yes, that is David Archuleta standing to Alan's right.

Alan and his companion with Bishop Nelson.

Fun and Exhausting

Good morning everyone, another week has gone by and I still can't believe it's April. Just so you know next week is transfers, and according to my calculations I have approximately a 10% chance of staying here in SLO. I have my guesses on who my next companion will be, and the good news is that all the possibilities are exciting. Just don't send anything that will take a week to get here, because I might leave before then.
Life is great here in SLO, we have been working hard talking to a lot of people trying to find new investigators. and we have a bunch of people who are in the works, but we'll see how many turn out. Madison is still doing fine and has tons of friends in the ward. It will just take some time I think for her to start to recognize the spirit, but she is making steps in the right direction. We also set up a table in front of the institute and we had fun trying to get people to stop and talk to us. The things we said ranged from me saying: "have you ever had any questions about us mormons?" and Elder Toa saying: "can you guess what size of shoe he wears. it was fun and we had some interesting conversations.

We went on 2 exchanges this last week and those are always fun and exhausting. We don't have any this week, but there is always something to do, we never seem to get a break. That's the good part about it though, the reason my mission is the best two years of my life is because is stretches me so much. It's not always fun, but I am learning and growing and preparing myself for the rest of my life. I have thought a lot about how to help missionaries who struggle. And I decided that we need to teach the doctrine of Christ. It's kind of broad but this has been weighing on my mind, and I think that if any of us want to change for the better we need to better understand and apply the Doctrine of Christ or in other words we need to better understand and apply the Atonement.
You are all the best thank you
Elder Hamson

Happy Easter!

This week has been a great week. It started off on Tuesday we had interviews with President Felix and those were good. He is a great man and I really look up to him. On Wednesday I went on Exchanges with Elder Comin, and we stayed in San Luis Obispo. It was a great day with a lot of good work, We met a guy on the street named Cory, he was smoking and we talked for a little bit about easter and our unique message about Jesus Christ. He has never really learned about any religion, so he said we could come back. Elder Toa and I went back later in the week and had a good lesson about Faith and coming to know that God is there and that Jesus is the Christ. He is just wandering through life, and seems willing to learn, so we were excited to find him. If there is anything that I like about cigarettes, it gets people outside, so we can talk to them. We also taught all of our recent converts, and they are all doing great. On Friday Harmony was in SLO and she fed us lunch. (I love it when they do that!) She was a Less-Active that we helped come back to church when I first got here and she is now the Relief Society president in a ward in San Diego, and is also engaged. (GO Harmony!) We also had a good week with dinners 3 of them had invited a non-member friend to dinner that we got to teach, so that was great! Then on Saturday and Sunday we watched General Conference! It was a firehose of spiritual knowledge that I am still trying to swallow. One talk that really stood out to me was Wilford W. Anderson's talk about dancing. Don't get me wrong I'm not the biggest fan of dancing, but I thought it was a great way to illustrate the importance of having the spirit in our lives and not going through the motions. So my question is how do we turn up the "music" in our home? if you want another question, Who told us to read from the Book of Mormon everyday, everyday, everyday? why?
Thank you all for the support, I hope everyone had a happy Easter!
Elder Hamson