Did Somebody Say 6 More Weeks?!

Me at the Lake

June 10, 2013

Ayyyyyyy so as you might have guessed Im staying in Loma Bella (the best area in the mission) for 6 MORE WEEKS!!!! YAYYYY....but what you might not have guessed (cause lemme tell you, nobody here did) ELDER P IS STAYING TOO!!! This is pretty unheard of in the mission, that the trainer stays with their kid for 3 changes, but its happening!! So thats the good news!!....The bad news is that the zone leaders who relayed the news to us about changes said that that means this should be 6 weeks that Elder P uses to get me ready to train 0.0 yahhhh idk about that, but hey its 6 weeks away so i figure enjoy the time now right?! haha

A sick pyramid in the middle of the lake at the park

          Soooo news from this week?....hmmmm not much happpened. Elder B and I went on exchanges but Every. Single. One. of our appointments AND backup plans fell through. So we tried contacting people in a park, but Elder B´s spanish isnt great and a lot of people didnt want to listen to us, and it was my first time too, anddddd it was rough...so we just ended up skipping rocks in the pond for 30 minutes until it was time to go home haha but it was nice to have a little time to relax after a really busy week. But thats seriously it, this week was really slow. We just walked around trying to find people to teach, which right now is extra interesting. 

Soo this is the rainy season here in Mexico, but contrary to popular belief, that doesnt mean that its raining all the time. What it means is it is a milllllion degrees during the day so you wish that you were in a pool of ice and not walking in the streets for hours on end. Buttttt hey, just when you wish you had pnuemonia....BOOM the sky opens up at about 6 oclock every night and just DUMPS on you. Like seriously we were out this week and i got sunburned....and then i almost got sick it was so cold with the rain and wind. So it means we are walking around with umbrellas and jackets in our bags allll day haha Also i would like to throw in for my father, that he would love it here because at almost every other members house, for drinks they serve us cantalope juice haha yummmm :)

           Okay, Im actually really excited for the spiritual thoguht this week because....idk I really enjoyed what I learned. Soooo basically to start some background, earlier this week I was really down becasue Im sick of the racism here in Mexico. I kid you not, it is worse here than in the U.S. Everywhere I go people are yelling swear words at me in English, calling me "Guerro", "Gringo", and other names for white people, and alwayssss yelling at us and Im just sickkk of it. So one day this week it was really bad and on top of that Elder P was telling me that I cant do certain things cause people already hate me cause Im white and I just lost it. I didnt do anything but I was sooo maddd. And while I was full of all this hatred, I just started feeling like i should let it go, but it was sooo hard. And then I started thinking about my savior who came to the Earth as a perfect man, the son of God, and was persecuted and spit on and mocked. But Jesus didnt hate them, instead when all of this was happening, he pleaded with the Father that he would forgive them, for they knew not what they were doing. Then i thought about the scripture that says that blessed are they who are persecuted for my names sake for they shall inherit the kingdom of Heaven. And finally I though about how Im really getting a small glimpse of what things were like for Christ when he was on the Earth and just how hard it is to stand alone in a world full of hate. But if you ever feel hated, or persecuted becasue of the church, I want you to remember the scripture John 15: 17-18 "These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. I´m grateful to stand beside Jesus in the wine vat for just a moment and feel a piece of what he felt. So stay strong, stay faithful, and know that all these things shall be for thy profit and learning. The son of God hath descended below all of them, art thou greater than he?

No time, love you, congrats on graduation!

Love,

Elder Josh Hamm

A Hugeeee rat we found floating in the lake....EWWWWWW
 I threw the paper in for size comparison