Wow 5 months already!

This is my family on the mish. third from the left is elder GS hes my grandpa and the Elder inbetween me and him is my trainer who GS trained and the rest are people who GS trained and their kids or people they trained. hah its kinda cool to think about

Did you have a special Christmas tie you wore today?  umm I bought a few ties the other day cause we needed a red and green tie for the mission christmas confrence so the red one is pretty sick and the green one is a zip up tie so thats cool. haha

What is the sacrament meeting before Christmas like?  Dead. we had 20 people show up -__- and my comp had to give a talk cause there was no one there.

How was your mission Christmas gathering?  Awesome. literally so cool to see the whole mission, people from the MTC, old companions, other missionaries. man it was awesome!

these are my boys from the CTM. Original crew (minus G -RIP)

 

What have you most enjoyed about Christmas on your mission? I really like getting away from all he traditions, like we have about 20,000 traditions for christmas in our house, so its actually really good to just get away from it all and focus on the real meaning of christmas. Serving others and trying to bring people to the knownledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ is aweosme and there is a special feeling here during christmas. Its nice.

So yeah this week was good pretty normal, working hard handing out cards with the christmas video ``Ele e o Presente.´´ The mission is really pushing for the missionaries to use these cards with the link to this video on them. The video is really powerful and really special, so if you havent seen it you should definitely watch that video.

The confrence with all the missionaries in my mission was CRAZY! It was crazy awesome. This was pretty much our christmas cause there was food, friends, and the mission president and his wife gave us all a few little gifts. As for Christmas day itself, it will be work as usual with a little special twist.

Elder W!!! hes from my stake in virginia! small mission world

but yeah nothing really new to talk about sorry. next week will hopefully be a bigger email. LOVE YOU GUYS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS

Elder Hamm

WOOHOO BATISMO

The sister who we baptized and her daughter

So for my dads Q´s

I also got a bag of this fruit from a member which
is DANK but I forget the name of it

Do they have candy canes there? 

They have sugar cane, does that count? you can buy a stalk for 2 reals or a cup of the juice for the same price. its sweet they stick this stalk of sugar cane into this little moter that squishes it and the juice comes out into a bowl. Its like the color of your shoes after you mow the lawn, a kinda foggie green. I like it, its really sweet. You can also just chew on the stalk and spit out the wood after you suck all the sugar out of it.

What is your morning routine? I wake up at 6:30 every. single. day. Say a prayer with everyone in our house, (this is mainly a rule made by the president to make sure everyone is up and awake) then say a personal prayer, excersize for 30 minutes (and try not to sleep inbetween my pushups) then shower and eat till 8. Thats when personal study starts, then at 9 I normally make popcorn to eat during companion study, and at 10 I start language study for 30 mintutes and at 10:30 we´re out the door...... in theory. 

Do you recite D&C 4 every day? What about reciting anything else? No I dont read that every day, but I do have verces 3 and 4 memorized which we recite at all of our meetings, we also memorize our purpose as missonaries to recite in our meetings.
This week we went on splits with our zone leaders! I was with Elder S.L. who has 2 weeks left on his mission. (splits are where we switch companions for a day) I learned so much from him its crazy. Theres a huge difference between missionaries with a few months and a missionary about to go home. 

One of the main differences is, the missionary about to go home doesnt really put up with a lot of crap from an investigator. Haha this one guy we contacted was saying how his pastor doesnt like him to read pamphlets or hand outs from other religions. So S.L. says ``what, does your pastor not like Jesus?´´ Then after a little bit he's like, ``looks you guys are nice and all but obedience is pretty important right? so i cant accept your book.´´ S.L. responds ``ohhh no thats fine we understand, senhor lost his agency when he joined this church created by man. Thats fine´´ It was all I could do to not bust out laughing. 

Members

I also learned how to trade things, this week I traded 3 pamphlets for 3 boxes of cigarettes! Haha this is my favorite thing to do now. I have the pamphlet of the Word of Wisdom and go up to someone I see smoking and start talking about smoking and his health and if he has a desire to stop smoking, if he saids yes I talk about Joseph Smith and the Word Of Wisdom and the power of god. Then I say,
``This pamphlet talks a little bit more about our message, and its a present for you, but I do want to ask something of you, a kind of trade. I will give you this pamphlet if you give me the rest of your cigarettes. You dont want them and lets call this your first step to improve your health and show God you really want to change. hell help you if you really show you want to change.´´

Haha and normally they give me their cigarettes which I throw away at the end of the night.

Sooo good news! WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!! She is honestly just an angel. She pretty much asked to be baptised too haha. So I got to perform the ordanace in all white and I think I was as nervous as she was... It was definitely an expierence I will not forget. Her name is T.M.F.L. I'll send the pics too

So next monday I have to go to Juiz De Fora again for a confrence of all the missionaries in our mission. Im not really sure this plan was thought out too well. Haha, we have 120+ missionaries in this mission and we all know someone so everyone will want to converse with everyone else and it will be so hard to get anything done but im excited. But im not sure how christmas will work so ill try and call you or email you this next week to set up our skype of phone call.

but I love you guys! miss you all lots and lots!!

Elder Hamm

Santa also speaks Portuguese!!!

Brazil countryside after the rain

DAds questions first, What principal of the gospel do you enjoy teaching most?

the plan of salvation hands down. it is about questions everyone has and our gospel answers! What principal of the gospel seems to be most difficult for investigators? 
You know here in brazil it is rare to see a cute 17-18 year old girl without a child. its really sad but thats the truth, i know a girl here who is 32 and she is already a grandmother. its sad so i would have to say the law of chastity.   No one really has a problem with joseph smith because we have the Book of Mormon, which is the word of God, so if they feel the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith must have been a prophet called of God. 

What is your favorite beverage in Brazil? oh this one is easy, Guaraná!!! but the real question is what brand. the main brand that they have in every state of brazil is Antartica. that is the most well known but every state kinda has their own brand. my favorite here in northern rio is It. It, Guaraná. its just good. we have it with almost every meal. And, as all of you know last week was fast sunday, and going 24 hours without water and food doing the work of a missionary, literally makes you play catchup with your health for the next few days. so on saturday i bought 3 liters of Guaraná Antartica and my comp bought 3 liters of coke. we make a quick stop at home before lunch today... haha

This week we had a zone confrence in Juiz De Fora again and interviews with O presidente!!! hes literally the best ever. at times he can crack down on a group of missionaries but when you talk with him one on one, you can just tell this man was called of God.

So we took a survey the other day on the computer about all the rules and we were suppose to put a 1-5 on how well we actually follow them. my comp took the survey first and and was obviously trying to influence my numbers since after every question he was like, oh we do that mostlyyy... like... im wit' you 24 a day who you trynna kid? haha so i decided to be brutaly honest with my responses.

so when i got to my interview with the prez he pulled up his tablet and looked at my numbers... to be honest it wasnt pretty. we have a slight problem with a lot of rules that are easily fixable, we just have to have a desire to fix them. so after going over every question i didnt put a 5 for (which was probably 3/4ths) he hands me a paper and i circle the ones i need to work on and he ends with, youre young, youre learning right? that what the mission is for, to better yourself and if you have a 5 or even a 4 for all of these, you would be a perfect missionary so thank you for your honesty. 

MAN it felt good to just tell the truth! it wasnt easy when he asks, what do you mean you have more than 1 hour for lunch? well sometimes lunch isnt ready and we talk for a while. You use more than 1 hour and 15 minutes for internet? yes sometimes we email for a little longer. but at the end it was good to just get it all out. 

my comp on the other hand was pretty, well, lets call it unexcited after the interview he had with the prez after me. this is why its always just better to tell the truth and if youre ashamed of the truth, change who you are so you can be proud of the truth.

well we might actually have a batism next week! were definitely seeing miricales in our area because of the hard work we've been doing. we have been working our butts off to teach lessons, contact people, help people progress, were leading the zone right now with lessons and contacts. its pretty sweet but at the end of the day its like all we can do to just make some rice for dinner and then pass out in our beds.

So I can pretty much understand everything and talk with out thinking but if you ask some random question using like strange vocab, i wont understand. the other day we visited a member at work and he was trying to tell me how to print a newspaper and im like, yeah i dont know any of these word, i must have skipped over the printing press part of my vocab booklet. sorry brah.

Capybara

You guys arent going to believe this butttt SANTA ALSO SPEAKS PORTUGUESE!!! I know what you're thinking, ``I thought santa clause only spoke english and broken German´´ but no. I saw him on a float this week and I tried to shout out to him in english but I dont think he heard me... but I heard him speaking Portuguese! Man that guy really is something ya know? 

So these photos are of a animal that lives in Juiz De Fora, he looks like a giant Nutmeg (our pet guinea pig) they are one ugly animal. and the other photo is of the Brazil countryside after it rains for a week. nice and green. and the last photo is probably the most important part.

Its a scripture in the Book of Mormon I came across during my person study. its in Mosiah 20:11 if you google translate exactly how it is you will read that they were fighting WITH dragons....  its funny that one little mark in pen can make this scripture mean something different. haha

love you all hope you have a great week.  

Abraço,

Elder Hamm

A mighty pirate with holes in the soles of my shoes

This is M.  He's a recent convert that my first trainer baptized and we're working on him and his whole family.  

SOOO to start of the wonderful questions from my dad,
Questions of the week – So how is your Portuguese coming – you understand most of what folks say? yes. it is nice i can finally understand, so close, to everything people say. its pretty shweet portuguese. and its nice to have a little ``wiggle room`` during our lessons where i can say what i actually feel like i need to say instead of the same ol thing over and over again cause i didnt know how to say much

 What is a typical door approach or contact?   normally, we say ``Ola, (boa noite, boa tarde, bom dia) como senhor(a) se chama? they say their name and i try and repeat it. (normally they have to say it 2-3 times but its funny for everyone) then we say nos somos Missionários da igreja de jesus christo dos santos dos ultimo dias, sou Elder Hamm e este e meu amigo, Elder Lucena, voce ja teve de oportunidade para falar com missionários?
if they say yes, O que senhor(a) achou?  if they say não, tao, a gente temos uma mensagem bem especial sobre O Evangelho de Jesus Cristo  e como O Evangelho pode abençoa as famílias, podemeos compartilhar este mensagem com você e sua família um outro dia? and boom we get that address.

Anything that you took with you that hasn’t held up at all? yes, my shoes. my good tracting shoes have a hole in the bottom of them right underneath the middle top part of my foot. but no its cool, i feel like Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate with holes in the soles of my shoes, dancin across the street trying to avoid the puddles. haha im in the process of fixing them but shoes here cost like 45 reals so im thinking ill just buy some new ones. haha

Our Christmas Tree!!!

so this week was rainy again. but that couldnt dampen our spirits, cause...wait for it.... WE GOT A CHRISTMAS TREEEE!!! and its beautiful. haha ill send a picture of it. but yeah everytime weve had a tough day, we come back home to see that christmas tree and it lightens up our mood. haha 

so this sunday was kinda crazy, so im in northern rio, which is pretty much like the city right above h***.  so no one really wants to do anything. me and my comp teach like 30+ lessons a week and no one comes to church. its really sad actually. haha our ward has 30 people more or less, and only 7 males so last sunday i lead the music, offered the opening prayer, and passed the sacrament...

oh and for the music, we dont really have anyone who can play the piano so the person who leads the music has to sing the first line so people know what hymn we are singing, so i had to sing the first verse and everyone laughed at my american accent, and the fact that Elder Hamm was leading the music was just the funniest thing in the world to everyone.

ALSO! i recieved my first present from a snakie today!!! it was a polo shirt she bought me and my comp for christmas! haha so we both put it on and took a picture with her. shes actually really awesome

so this whole, tarantula situation is getting out of hand, i lost track of how many ive seen and they are all super big and super ugly and i can tell they want to hurt me. haha so my comp saids he knows how to pick them up so i think im gonna try to snag a pic with one in my hand for you all back home to show you that all fears can be conquered. haha or maybe not. i dunno. 

so ive been here for 4 months without a baptism... 4 months in brazil, without baptising is like a record. my comp said the other day that ill probably be the next prophet. when i asked why he said, cause Gordan B. Hinckley went 6 months without baptising and then after that he baptised por cu rumba. 

so yeah, we have the number to show were working our butts off, but the people here are pretty stubborn. but we made a goal this transfer and said no less than 4 baptisms! so we are working extra hard to hit that goal and my comp said he wont leave or be transferred until we get a baptism haha Elder L is a straight G

SO yeah baptism this week will be sweet and ill send you guys some pictures in another email because i cant fit them all in this one. 

But i love you guys! miss you all

Elder Hamm

This bird reminded me of the bird in Robin Hood that yelled, ``4 O´CLOCK AND ALL IS WELL´ haha the one that guarded the jail its like a vulture here and it was eating i think a dog. it was a dog used in an animal sacrafice so its head was like on the other side of the road. it get nasty out here. haha

End of Transfers #2

This was my first attempt at making pudding (you guys probably know it as flan or something).  It was good but the third time I made it was the BESTTT.  I gave this one to my district at our district meeting. haha

Sooo this week was good. haha
Questions: What are typical Christmas decorations? same as in the states. christmas trees and lighs and such.
 Do they have Christmas lights on the outside of their houses? yeah but not alot and not on the roof. mainly on like the balcony and such. i have yet to see any on top of houses. How do you meet most of your investigators? knockin doors man. we knock doors till our hands bleed from clapping haha. we got 19 new investigators this week! so hopefully well have some good ones out of the 19 haha.

So tuesday night was my comps anniversary of his mission! hes now got 11 months!! woohoo! so we decided after a long depressing day of knocking doors and cutting our only investigator named N because she was in some messed up relationship I won't get into,  that we would go to habibs for dinner bring it home and feast! (Habibs is a fast food place but also a really fancy sit down place).

so we had been knocking doors all day and teaching lessons and were super tired and at 18h30 we remembered that we had to go to a family night with someone in the ward at 19h with a bunch of investigators. AND to top it off she lives wayyy on top of a hill that you have to take a dirt path up a hill to get to (its kinda a sick path). so we are walking pretty fast cause she lived far away and as we start climbing the hill we realize it was 19h05 and we didnt have cell phone credit to call to say we would be late! so we take off like almost running up this hill and our phone starts ringing and its the wife calling to say that its been postponed till quarta feira. and were like THATS IT WERE GOING TO HABIBS! 

Habibs - Spheres

so we go to Habibs at like 19h45 and get some delicious spheres (theyre like little pizzas that cost 1 real but with the deal they had it was buy one get one free so it was perfect) i got like 8 and he got 10 and since it was his anniversary he paid! so i got the Guaraná! Its all in the picture i sent.

so im in line to buy the guarana and we get a call from a RM who's here on buisness and says ``lets get pizza`` so were like yeah definitly! so he said ``sweet ill be at your house in 5`` we were at least 10 minutes from home. so we literally are running down the street with two 2 liters of guarana and like 20 spheres trying to beat him to our appartment complex. haha we arrive and stash the goods and by the time were outside again hes waiting in the car.

So we go get dominoes (which is 1000 times better in brazil) and it was sweet. haha

I also was workin my culinary art skills to make pudding. its different here than the states. its a creamy firm thing that tastes like carmelized sugar and condensed milk. haha its easy to make, IF you have the right pan. we didnt have a special pan so it took more than 2 hours to cook the first and second... the third took 30 minutes cause we had the right pan. haha 

The first puddin was  a mirical puddin. haha seriously it was 23h30 and it had been cooking for like 2 hours so i was like ``aye Elder L, say a prayer for my pudding and lets go to bed`` haha so i stuck it in the fridge and in the morning it was ready to eat! haha so that was cool.

Today is transfers and we're both still here without a phone call so i think that means we`ll both be here for another 6 weeks. so you know what that means? TIME TO BUY OUR CHIRSTMASS TREEEE AND DECORATE THE HOUSEEE!!! haha im so pumped for christmas its crazy.

love you all beijos 

Elder Hamm

ohh and ps. im puting together a package for youssss. yay!

It's Beginning to Feel like Merry Christmas!!

SOOOO yeah, im pretty hyped for christmas as you can tell? 

DADS QUESTIONS
 Is there a hymn in their hymnbook not in ours that you enjoy? If so, what is it? soo there is a few but i still dont know the names of it and my personal hymn book has all the english names for the hymn at the bottom of the page because i forget the names. and names of things like movies and hymns arent an exact translation. take the movie The Hangover for instance. here its call ``Se Bebe, não casa`` which means if you drink no marrage. its weird

 Do they have good hamburgers there? I actually have yet to eat fast food. its funny but i juts dont have time to eat at restraunts but whenever we go on splits with Guaraciaba (a super cool convert in the bishopric who is learning english so we speak english, well i speak english he tries to understand) he always offers to take us to get a real brazillian burger, hell pay. but we have never had time so maybe this week! haha they have eggs, bacon, pinapple, all sorts of stuff on them.

SOO this week, the confrence with out zone and 2 other zones went well, the reciting os mandamentos went... well its over with now so thats good. haha presidente had elder B (my first companion in the mtc) recite the the first lesson which is short and easy. then elder H (a missionary i met in the ctm) had to recite the second lesson which is longer but still super easy and is just the chapter headings in preach my gospel chapter 3 lesson 2. then a hispanic elder had to recite the third lesson which is longer but easy. and then came os mandamentos which i had to say...

So the presidente gets up there on the stand and announces the order and what theyll say so when it was my turn I walked up to the pulpit and said, os... mandamentos. *sigh* and everyone starts laughing. haha cause they know its long and super hard and its the second to hardest. so the whole first 3 benches have sisters who are literally whispering every single word i need to say, theyre so awesome but i couldnt really hear them cause they were all whispering at once, and it was really just more confusing. so i start off strong get to the second to last point which talks about how to contribute to tithing and fast offerings and i skip a whole line. the presidente was helping too if i paused to longer than 5 seconds he would say one word and i would continue. BUT I made it though!! and only missed 1 line! and probably a few words. everyone who was chosen to recite something recieved a package of wafers and i got wafters and a chocolate bar cause

os mandamentos are super long and the guy after me, a district leader, got 3 chocolate things cause the one after mine is even longer! but yeah so that was nice.

but the confrence was super cool i learned a lot about how to be better missionary and about what i need to focus on and whatnot.

so if i stay here another transfer me and Elder L are going to buy a christmas tree. yes. i may not be home for christmas but ill be darned if I dont at least have a christmas tree. i already bought lights to hang up on our tiny little balconey and we were looking at christmas trees (fake ones, i know, shut up) and a tree 1 meter tall only costs like 18 reals. and with lights and balls already on it costs like 25. so i think we´re going to buy a white fake tree with colorful lights and buy some mini balls to put on it. its gonna be sweeeeet.

so as you know all missionary houses have (or should have) a picture of Jesus on the door. so the other day i made a santa hat out of paper and colored penciles and im no artist, but this was a pretty good santa hat if i do say so myself. so we put it on the photo of jesus and now when we're chillin in our living room near the door or at night we can hear people laugh at our santa jesus. haha its awesome but probably boarderline sacreligious. dunno, we sent sister cascardi a picture so maybe ill be home for christmas.. haha well see.

so weve been chillin on pdays with this couple and the other day he was wearing like a slightly cowboy jungle, boating hat and i was like, ``aye R thats a super awesome hat, im jealous.`` and he was like, ``of this?!``
cause its kinda dirty and pretty old. and im like ``yeah, its show de bola (which is actually only a phrase americans say in our mission but it means sweet)`` and hes like, ``well then you can have it`` and he gave it to me!! so now its hanging up in my room and its freakin sweet and i wear it around the house at night cause its awesome and has a brazillian flag stiched into the side so its pretty much the coolest thing i have from this mission yet... aside from my testimony of course. im gonna get him to sign the inside of it next week. hes sick. hes in the photo i sent. they were both baptized liked 15 years ago but left the church for 7 of those years. but now theyre back and want to go to the temple and eventually serve a mission. so hes almost as awesome as my hat.

so yeah thats my week. i love you all and miss you and think of you all the time!!!

love you!

Elder Hamm,

Tarantula

Pancakes!!!!

questions from my dad, as always. 

Questions: Who are the people in your neighborhood (Any neighbors or characters)? we live in an appartment building so we dont really know our neighbors but we're planning on giving everyone in our building a pass along card with our number this week so we'll tell you how that goes.
 
What was something nice someone did for you this week?  everyone here is so nice. and youll realize that the things people do for you when youre on a mission, you can never fully repay them for the love and kindness they showed you. just a cup of water or someone in church just coming up to me and asking me how its going is a nice gesture that goes a lot longer than you would think.

What is one thing you were grateful for this week? im grateful for everything. Brazil is so beautiful, its awesome, my life's pretty sweet.

 Is there a word in Portuguese that is way better at describing something than we have in English? yes but not that I fully understand yet... haha like I hear some words and know how to use them but I cant really tell you what they mean.. i just know when to use it... haha...sowwy

SSSOOOO this week I saw something that I dont ever want to see again.
so we were walking along the road and one side had houses and the other side was jungle and bamboo. so the girl in front of us starts screaming and stomping her foot so vigorously she almost breaks her ankle on the curb and im like what the heck is this? she literally just flipped out. so as we approach her I see this big fat tarantula still fighting for life. my first thought was, it kinda looked like a crab, which is wayyy less frightening. but then my second thought was Dear Father in Heaven why here? so yeah I now think every big chunk of fur on the street or every dark shadow as big as my hand is a tarantula. so theres that. 

So I also realized that the US should move thanksgiving to like the 3-4 of november because everyone here is aready singing christmas songs and getting out christmas decorations and im like WAIT WE STILL HAVE... wait, no we dont have another holiday before christmas. so me and my comp started a christmas tree fund and if we both stay here another transfer (God willing) we're going to buy a tree. haha


Sunday was actually really hard cause this family that I love and is inactive and recently baptised, didnt come to church for like the 6th time in a row and we had been working with them all week and had a awesome family night with them and the dad gave the lesson and it was sick and everyone said they would go to church and id bring my camera to get a picture all together and sunday morning when we called to make sure they would go to church, the mom said her daughter was sick and so they took her to the doctors so thats why they werent at church. it was super sad but i went over there after church and they we were both kinda sad and asked why i was so sad, and i told them that its tough. missionary work is tough. you work all week long and put your heart into people and then when sunday rolls around no one comes to church to partake of the joy therein, and to progress and learn. so they felt bad, but im pretty sure next sunday theyll all go to church. haha

oh, I´ve also decided to tell my self my mission is 30 months (2 1/2 years) so that it will seem like it is super short. it also makes me want to work harder cause im here for so longer so if i say something about how much longer i have on the mish and it seems weird, thats why.

ALSO, tomorrow we have a conference with the presidente of the misson and a few other zones, so how this works is every transfer we either have an interview with the presidente or a conferencie de zona which actually includes a few other zones but its like all day in Juiz De Fora. 

So the lideras de Zona called TODAY and said that I have to recite from memory the 4th lesson os mandamentos, doutrina e compromissos. this is freaking long and my comp told me yesterday that if i had to say anything at the conference it would be lesson one or two because im still a fairly new missionary. so for the rest of today and tomorrow i will be praying and trying to memorize this page in my planar. haha but really im excited.

so yeah thats all for this week, we´ll see how the next week goes, we could potentially have a batismo on sunday but well see how that goes. I love you guys and think about you guys all the time!!! Love you!

Elder Hamm 

Chocolate!!