Christmas is HERE!

Dear Family,

i wish i could say i am feeling better then when i wrote last week, but im working on it. I dont know what is wrong with me. But i will tell you about my new area. 

So it is a small small country town in the east part of Texas. I was in the farthest south east part of the mission in Louisiana, and now i am in the farthest north east part of the mission in Livingston. This was an elders area untill 4 transfers ago, so the apartment still smells like stinky boys and it is really gross. But we have a washer and dryer so that is something positive. there are a couple main roads but then everything else is dirt roads. all the roads to get to members houses and dirt, and they are bumpy and its like going on indiana jones ride whenever we are driving. i think i am getting shaken baby syndrome. There are so many rednecks and hicks here i dont know what to do with myself. This is the exact reason why i didnt want to come to Texas and i have avoided it till now. haha i guess i have to face it at some point.The ward is 90% old people, so i guess that is good since i love old people but its just weird going from a singles branch to an old folks home. haha My companion is sister Young. she just got done being trained. her trainer was very controlling so that is how she tries to act with me. So that has been a challenge. But i am pushing her to be more outgoing and to talk to people. the first time we went tracting she wouldnt talk so we just sat there till she was ready to talk. Im not trying to be rude but i am not going to help her at all if i just do everything for her. I have been having really bad anxiety being up here all alone. I never really felt lonely before because i was in cities and there was always people around, but now there is no one and it has been hard for me. But i am trying my best to just put myself here and do what i need to do. This is definately not like anything i have ever experienced in my mission so far. Christmas is almost here and the only thing that makes me happy is that i get to talk to yall! i cant wait. i am going to bawl my eyes out, so im warning you now. haha. it has been really cold here the past couple days and we are so far north that it snows here, so maybe it will be snowing on christmas. 

Im sorry that i am not being spiritual or very positive, but i am just in a hard place right now and i am working on getting over it. So excuse me. But i am still grateful to be a missionary. We have an investigator getting baptized on the 11th, marissa. and then paula who i left in Beaumont is getting Baptized on the 25th. So things are looking up as far as that goes. I hope that yall have a very merry Christmas 

Love you!

hard week

Hey family.

Well i dont really have much to say today. and what i have to say is really depressing so bear with me.

This past week has been the hardest week of my entire mission.

On thursday I found out that J Passed away.

I know it is better for him that he is gone but its hard for me. I truly loved that man and i really felt like i was sent here to help him and to teach him and bring him unto christ and I feel like i failed him. Maybe if i had been better he would have got baptized before he passed.

But i have hope and i know that he is being taught in the spirit world, by missionaries far better then me.

I pray that he will accept the Gospel on the other side.

I hope he had a great reunion with his dear wife.

I still pray for him.

On friday i had the flu and was throwing up all night and was miserable the next day.

I was so sick.

On saturday i found out that i am being transfered.

My heart has never hurt this bad.

I feel empty inside.

I have never cried so much and had to say so many hard godbyes.

I ask alot why i cant stay as other missionaries get to stay in their areas for longer amounts of time.

I ask why i have to get transfered right before christmas and go to a new area with a new companion while having my first christmas away from home is already going to be hard enough.

I have so many questions running thru my head and tears running down my cheeks.

I pray for the strength to be able to not sink into another depression and to be able to go and do what i am here to do.

Please Pray for me.

I love you all.

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

Family!

I hope you had an awesome week! It was fun to get all those pictures. yall are getting so big and grown up! i cant believe it!

So  i need to start out with a funny story. yall migh not think it is funny but maybe you just had to be there.

So on monday we went to meet our recent convert N at mickey d's close to his dorm to have a lesson with him. So we were in there and no one else was in there just us three so the whole restaurant was empty. well a while later a scary looking person comes in and sits like two tables away from us even tho the whole place is empty. well we were watching it and decided it was a girl, but she looked like a mix between michael jackson and ET so it was pretty scary. And she was obviously a crack head cause she was doing all sorts of crazy stuff and she was talking to herself and then she got up to go get more drink and there was a fly on a chair and she flung her whole cup of ice at it and it went all over us. Then she went and got more drink then went back to her table, then back to the fountain and got napkins, then back to her table then back to get napkins and she did this about 5 times in two minutes. then i noticed that one time she didnt come back so i turned to look and she was about 2 feet away from me with her hands like a gun pointed at my head! i just looked at her and said what? and she muttered something that we couldnt understand, so i said what? again and then she pretended to shoot me in the head and muttered something again and then walked off to her table. Hahahahaha I was dying! i almost peed my pants. it was sooooo funny and it was so random. only in beaumont Texas would i get shot up by a crack head at mickey D's. hahahah so funny.

Well anyway besides the fact that i dont have a head anymore cause i got shot up this week was pretty good! I went on exchanges fridayand we decided that we need to use the branch more and get them more excited about missionary work. and we already did the willing and brief message with them so now we are gonig to start meeting with them indivudally and follow up with the challenge that we gave them. I hope it will be good and we are going to really try our hardest to help them trust us and want to refer us to their friends and teach them. So i hope and pray that it will go well. They have such an awesome opportunity to share the gospel everyday with all the kids they see and go to school with.

This week has been pretty slow and its so hard for us to find new investigatiors. Its so cold and so noone is outside and nooone wants to talk they just want to stay in their houses and keep warm. But we were able to have a really good lesson with P on thursday. she hasnt quite grasped the whole importance of the priesthood yet and why she needs to be baptized again but she will get there. I love teaching P because she is so ready for the Gospel and she hangs on our every word when we teach her. She looks you right in the eye and she is always giving us her full attention. She was out of town yesterday so she wasnt able to make it to church but she did come to our ward christmas party. that was good. she was able to meet some ward memebers and get used to the church and now hopefully comoing to church will be easier.

R has finals this week so we were not able to see him. He apologizes all the time and says that he still wants to see us and meet with us, he is just so busy. I think that is how alot of people are. The holidays are a busy time and just like our church leaders last night said, we need to make sure that we are thinking of Christ and who this holiday is for instead of running around busy all the time and getting caught up in other things.

I loved the christmas Devotional! it was inspiring and uplifting. I love christmas time so much. I love how everyone is so nice to each other and the spirit of the holidays is the best. I hope that we will be able to find more people because i feel like they would be more open to the spirit during this time. but most people tell us to come back after the holidays. I know that there are people our here tho that need the gospel. We just have to find them. Its like an Easter egg hunt. Sometimes you have to look at it different so it is fun instead of a drag. cause knocking doors in the freezing cold isnt very fun sometimes, but when you think about all those people who need to hear the gospel and you think about how you are that person who needs to bring that to them you feel a sense of ergency and you want to work hard and make sure that you find those people. I love what i do and i love being a missionary. Watching paula and the light in her eyes as we teach her is worth all the doors shut in my face and all the raw knuckles from knocking in the cold.

I am so blessed to be the one to bring the gospel to these people. I dont ever want to stop.

I hope that yall have a good week! i love you soooo sooo much!

Love sister hamilton

December what? (from 12/2/2013)

Hello my darling family!

I hope that yall had a good thanksgiving and you ate lots of food. Cause we sure did! we had three dinners but only ate at two of them. It was a good time and I am so grateful for the ward members who took us in as their own and let us join with their families and spend the day with them. The Lord truly blessed me because the day was not as hard as i thought it would be, being away from all of yall. But i still thought about you and i still missed you. but i am grateful for I am grateful for this time that i have to be away from home serving my Savior. This time has truly blessed my life and i will forever be grateful for it.

I cant believe that it is december already! The time has flown by. the leaves are just barely starting to change here so it doesnt feel like december. We were biking on wednesday and it was soooooo cold! i was frozen from head to toe, and i was thinking about how the next day was thanksgiving and i was away from home and my family but i was so happy! i had an overwhelming feeling come over me that this is where i need to be and that i am doing what my Heavenly Father wants me to do. Maybe i need to bike more often ;)

This week was pretty slow considering the holiday and such but we tried our hardest to not let it get to us and to work hard. Its so sad how we have to start over because almost all of our investigators have dropped us or gone missing and they wont get back to us and they are never home. But we still have R. But he will not be getting baptized saturday. he still hasnt made it to church. and we were not able to meet with him again this week. but we talk to him a couple times a week and he is still doing good. We asked the branch fast for him yesterday. im not sure if anyone actually did, but I felt assured as i was fasting for him that all will be well and that Heavenly Father is aware of R and he loves him.

We were able to get back in contact with P, and we are going to keep teaching her. Things just got really crazy with her bed bug infestation and she struggles financially so her phone got shut off. The day we Biked Heavenly Father blessed us with so many miracles. It was a great day.

I have been thinking alot about what im grateful for and everyday that i am out doing my Fathers business i am reminded more and more of all the blessings i have. Especially as we were at a recent converts home the other night and there was roaches crawling EVERYWHERE!! they were in our cups that we were trying to drink out of, we were killing them on the floor as they were crawling past, we were smacking them off the couch when they were trying to crawl on us. I felt so bad for them. my heart was broken that they have to live like that. I guess there is alot worse things then bugs but it was really really bad and instead of being discusted i just wanted to cry. I am so blessed that i dont have to live like that. Althought i have occasionally killed huge wood roaches there has never been a million of them crawling everywhere. I am so blessed. And i have noticed that i take alot of things for granted. I complain because our apartment smells like smoke, and the neighbors keep us up all night with there screaming and loud music, and its not as nice as the elders, and its in the Ghetto. But atleast i have a nice apartment that isnt full of bugs, i have a bed that doesnt have bed bugs in it, i have hot water to take a shower in, i have clean clothes and food to eat. I really am blessed. I hope that yall take the time every night when you are praying to give thanks for all the many things that we are blessed with. Especailly the gift of being members of the church! that is one of the greatest blessings we have! 

I love yall sooo sooo much and i am so grateful for you! have a good week!

Love sister Hamilton 

Hard Week

Dearest Family,

Well this week was pretty tough. Basically all of our investigators dropped us :( I decided that because i was being so puffed up with pride cause i showed the ZL's whats up that now i am being punished and put in my place. But yeah it was really hard. Tracting is not working. noone is ever home. we knock doors for hours and maybe three people will answer. We are working really hard trying to help the members do missionary work and help us find people to teach but that isnt really working either. Richie is the only investigator that we still have. and he is doing alright. he is still just scared about getting baptized. James is not doing well. His countenance is dark now, and he is not the same person. his daughter is living with him and she is really baptist and told him that he doesnt need to be baptized because God has a plan for us and it doesnt matter if you are baptist mormon catholic or anything it doesnt change your fate. So taht was really hard for me to hear. and he told us that we are just wasting our time cause he is not going to change and he loves us too much to have us waste our time. so we dont really know what we are going to do to help him anymore. 

At least on the bright side i am getting really good at contacting! hahah that is all we do is just try and contact people all day everyday and we havent been finding very much and we havent been teaching very much. But i have faith that things will change and get better. We are trying to think of new ways to do things. we are going to just ride our bikes around everywhere and try and find people and then we are going to go store contacting when its bad weather. I want to have a sign that says free hair cuts and then they have to listen to a message if they want one but i dont know how well that would go over. haha 

Our neighbors broke into our car friday night. I was so scared because all my hair cutting stuff was out of the bag and flung everywhere and i was so sure that they stole it. but everything was still there. the only damage we had was they smoked inside so it smells like smoke. but nothing was stolen. That same night they woke me up cause they were outside screaming at each other. it was a crazy night. Oh the adventures that we have in the ghetto. its so fun! hahah

Well keep praying for Richie that he will get baptized and pray that we can find new investigators! I hope that yall have a happy thanksgiving and you take the time everyday, not just thursday to pray and thank heavenly father for those things that you are grateful for! i love you!

What? its Wednesday

Heeellloooooo!

Well its wednesday and its been crazy week already!

Monday the librarys were all closed and then yesterday was transfer meeting so we were basically in kingwood all day. so i am just now finding the time to email! so dont worry. im not dead or anything.

So i now have a new companion, Sister S. she came out a transfer after me and she is really awesome. i am excited to get to work with her and to do some serious work! Tonight we are teaching FHE in the branch and we are talking about missionary work (obviously) but we are doing what is called the willing and brief. you ask random people that you talk to and even your frineds if they would be WILLING to listen to a BRIEF message about. . . . whatever you think they need or would be interested in. it works really well and that is how we got R. alot of people are not interested or even want to listen but they may be willing. so if you use willing they are more likely to say yes. so its pretty much awesome and it works so well!

Well R has a baptism date! he is going to be baptized on december 7th. he is really nervous because he said that his family will disown him if he gets baptized. but he believes everything we are teaching him and he really loves the gospel. so we just need to pray for his family that their hearts will be softened. but we had the most amazing lesson with him. we wathced the restoration video with him and then after we talked about it and i invited him to be baptized and he accepted but then we talked about his family and how he was scared but we had our recent convert Nick there who his family disowned him when he got baptized so he was able to talk to him and really help him. the spirit was so strong! it was amazing. so we are just praying that he will have the courage and strength to go thru with his baptism.

J is doing so awesome. we havnt set a date with him yet. the spirit just keeps telling us the time isnt right yet. but he is super open to everything and he tells us that he believes that everything we are teaching him is true. His daughter is in town so we taught her too and that was really good. I love J so much. he is so sweet.

the primary program was on sunday and Marily was in it, but her mom didnt come. not even to watch her in the program :( it was really really sad. so we dont know if they are actually going to progress or not. we might have to have a make it or break it lesson.

Sister A, our most amazing less active lady we work with has her non member nephew, J, living with her. so we talked to him the other night whenwe went over and we are going to get him involved inthe YSA. he went and played soccer with them last night and the boys said that he loved it and wants to go again. so now we just need him to come to church! he is all tatted up and he has had a rough life but he is changing things around and wants to get in a new group of people so it will be so awesome for him to get involved with the boys. there are some really awesome guys in the branch so i am happy.

Elder C our DL went home yesterday. it was sad. he was a great DL. he is so funny. after the ZL's were being rude to us he was alll mad and kept telling us that we were better then him cause we were over it and he wasnt. haha but he is sweet and he was all worried and wanted to know if he had ever done anything to hurt us or make us upset. he is a big guy and when he stood up yesterday on the stand to go and bear his testimony his belt broke and everyone saw it. so he goes. dont buy belts from walmart. haha But our district is awesome. we were all supposed to teach 20 lessons last week wich is the mission standard and so we were all on board and then we were the only ones who actually ended up teaching 20 lessons. we sure showed the ZL's who is purpose driven. but we had a good time monday. sister clegg wanted to throw flour in all of their faces since she was leaving and she cant eat gluten. so that was pretty funny. we got elder chaves really good. but i love my district. the spanish elders are OBSESSED with us. they call us everyday and want to go to luch or do something. crazy guys. but we all do work and work hard so that is good.

Im still cutting hair like a boss and i dont miss many mondays without cutting hair. Things are going well and itis super! coldhere so that is awesome. I am happy and i am so glad taht i am here serving a mission. its the best thing in the whole world.

I hope that yall are doing well and that you are enjoying life. life is good. Know that i love you sooooo much and i pray for yall fer dayyyyys! have a good week!

Love sister hamilton

Learning

Family, i am glad that yall are doing well and that you survived your trip down south. Isnt the south awesome?! and Porter there are Lizards everywhere here too and they freak me out. i dont like them. But this week has been really good weather, and on thursday it was so rainy it flooded everywhere and cars were getting staled in the roads cause it was like driving in  a river the water was so deep. it was awesome! but now the mosquitos are out in full force with all the water left over. I might be one big mosquito bite by the time i get home! haha but i am having a great time.

I was pretty sick this week tho. i had a fever everyday last week except yesterday. I was so weak i could barely get out of bed. It was the weirdest thing. and my health was effecting the work so finally becauase i wasnt getting better i had the elders give me a blessing and now i am doing TONS better! alot of the members told me that htat is just what happends when the weather changes, because it will be super cold in the morning and then get really hot in the afternoon. and because of the humidity the cold goes into your bones and really chills you. now i just have a bad cold but its alot better then it was before!

So that having been said we didnt get much done this week. We taught a couple lessons and we found 2 new gators but i feel really bad cause we were going to kick butt this week and do work and then i was sick. but all i can do is just work even harder this week! Feeling bad about thigns doesnt accomplish anything. just got to work harder. But i had alot of time to think while i was down for the count. I was thinking about yall and the fun that you were having and how i was kinda sad that i was missing out on it, but then i was reminded of what elder bednar said at our stake conference before i left, that my absence will make more of an impact then my presence ever could. and i thought about how yall will have good memories from that trip and you will think about them and hopefully you will remember that i wasnt there and when you remembver that iwasnt there you will remember that i was serving a mission, and when you (especially Konor and Porter), think about how i was serving a mission you will remember that if i can do it you can do it, and you can do hard things and that serving a mission is the most amazing thing you could ever do with 2 years of your life and you will never regret the time that you spent in the service of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

I was having a hard day and talking about how i was worthless as a missionary and i should just go home and how i was missing out on everything and sister C said something very profound to me. She said that i will have the rest of my life to be with my family and to do worldy things, but i only have this 18 months to serve a mission and to give my whole self to the Lord. That really hit me. its so true. when i first came out i found myself wishing away my time and hoping that it would go by fast, and now that i am more then halfway done i am wishing for more time!  But all i can do is make the most of the time that i have here and to remember that i will never get this time back. this is sacred time because i am on the lords time. Serving a mission is so special and personal, I feel so privledged to be able to be out here and im so grateful for a family that supports me and encourages me to do better and to be better! My testimony of my savior has grown so much and i feel like i now have a personal relationship with him and i know that he is always with me and helping me along. 

I know that prayer works! we have so many members praying for our investigators and i know that yall are praying for our investigators and they are being blessed because of it. Last night J told us that he would get baptized! it is truly a miracle and i know that the lord softened his heart because of all yall praying for him. The spirit does wonders and works miracles on our hearts when we let it. 

We have been having a hard time with our zone leaders and last night it was really bad. i wont go into the petty details but lets just say that i was so mad after they hung up that i screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs for about 45 seconds to let off steam. hahaha but i prayed for strength and charity to be nice to them and to support them as my leaders and this morning it was put to the test when they showed up at our door step and brought us something but told us that they werent really sorry they were just sorry enough to come over to save face. But i was able to just let it go and get over myself being a girl and i even gave them some cupcakes that i made. That may seem dumb and it kinda is but that was a big step for me. to bite my tongue, swallow my pride (because they were the ones in the wrong and they knew it they just woldnt admit it), and to forgive them and just show them christ like love. Charity is the hardest christ like attribute to master i think because there is so much that is a part of it. but that is why if you have charity you are good to go. but it is a life time process to have charity in your heart. just like conversion isnt an event it is a process. And i am so blessed to have this experience to help me in my process to becoming fully converted. yall think that you had a good time in Florida but i am really the lucky one to be here in Beaumont Texas Serving a mission! I love yall soooo soooo much! i hopeyou know that. I will be eternally grateful for the impact that each and every one of you have had on my life. yall have changed me and helped me become the person that i am and the person that i am striving to become.

have a good week!

Love sister hamilton

I'm Old

Dearest famila! well to start off i just have to tell you a little story. last night as i was getting ready for bed i was looking in the mirror at my regrowth and planning a time when i can color my hair and I FOUND A WHITE HAIR GROWING OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!! :,'( I started crying. it was really sad. i am too young to have white hair. i pulled it out and taped it in my journal.but it was pretty. so i guess i am going to have white hair. i must really be an indian. sweet. but anyway yeah that was interesting. but enough of that.

So this week was kinda poopy. i had the flu friday night and saturday. it was yucky. i was throwing up all night friday and then saturday i didnt eat anything all day so i was fine but i still didnt feel very well. but we had lots to do on saturday so i just dealt with it. but saturdaywas our ward halloween party and it was crazy. we had one of our new investigators D come. she is a funny black lady with no teeth and a grey fro. but she is so sweet and cracks me up. so she came and she was just having a good time eating food.; well she would get up and leave and then come back and later we found out that during those times she was going around asking the members for money!!!  ahhhh. not good. but it was kinda funny. then she told the member that took her home that she didnt have any lightbulbs in her house that someone stole them so we had to take her a lightbulb. but when we got there with the lightbulb she had every light in the house on and was watching tv. she is crazy. so we are going to try and teach her and she if she is actually interested in learing about the gospel or if she just wants stuff. so that should be fun. but she lives in a really bad part of town and our members told us not to go back there. but that is our whole area. hahah we found D on tuesday when i was on exchanges with HMNA arcila. we were driving down her street trying to contact a referral and she was out in the middle of the road cause a huge 18 wheeler had tore down the power lines to her house and he just drove away. so she asked us to go chase him down and get his licence # so she could call the police. so we did and then when we went back to give it to her we taught her and she was interested. But now we are wondering how interesed she really is. haha

S and L basically dropped us on wednesday. but we are not going to let them get off that easy. they are just scared of change and they are comfortable where they are. story of my life with missionary work. everyone is comfortable where they are (so they think) and they dont want to change. even when they feel the spirit. its so hard cause we can only do so much and the rest is up to them.

A member asked me the other night at dinner what has been the hardest part of my mission. a million thoughts ran thru my mind, Leaving my famly, having to get up early every morning, having a tight schedule, having to be with someone 24/7, and so on. but the thing that stood out the most to me and that i thought really has been the hardest is watching my investigators feel the spirit, or taste of the fruit and then for some reason or another they reject it, or get scared and turn away. that has been the hardest thing for me on my mission. it is like 1nephi 8;28. they taste of the fruit but they are ashames becausae of what others are saying. and so they fall away. it breaks my heart to see that. i want everyone to be able to enjoy the blessing of the gospel!

We had a breakthru lesson with J yesterday. we talked about the spirit, the priesthood, prayer and how he feels about what we ahve taught. he said taht he believes and feels that everything is true and when we talked about baptism he said he is comfortable wehre he is ( imagine that!) but we talked about ahuthority and it finally clicked with him then he said that if only he would have known about the mormon church earlier he might have got baptized but he is just too sick now. but we talked about the lord providing a way and he is going to get a blessing and he told us that is like an iceberg and we are chipping away at him. haha so he knows that he needs to get baptized. he just likes to be stubborn.

P had a bed bug infestation so we didnt get to meet with her this last week but she calls us everyday and wants to pray with us over the phone. so we might have bed bugs now. yikes. but we aired out our mattresses and cleaned really good today so hopefully we wont get them. i was paranoid all night long that we had bedbugs! ahha if we do that will be just another story to add to the collection!

The YSA is having a big halloween party so we decided to take around fliers to all the LA members and try and get them to come out. then we gave alot of the members fliers and challenged them to give them to their non member friends and try and get ppl to come to the party so hopefully that goes well!!

Well i love yall so much! i am glad that you are having fun in florida. im not even jealous one bit. i wouldnt want to be anywhere else then right here in beaumont Texas sharing the Gospel with crazy people in the Ghetto! I love this work so much and i am so happy! Have a good week! love yall!

It'a Fall!.... Maybe

Well this week it has been like 65 almost everyday and it is so amazing! i finally got to pull my cardigans out of my suitcase and wear them! haha it has been super nice but everyone says it wont last long and it will get warm again soon. but im counting my blessings for now!

So this week was pretty awesome! we were able to get 6 member present lessons! we are working really hard trying to get our investigators to progress, we have alot but they dont all seem to be progresssing very well which is always a challenge. all we can do it invite and share what we know and it is up to them to act on the message we have to share. But we have a couple that are progressing really well.

P is amazing! we taught her twice this last week. we went on wednesday and had a good Book of mormon lesson and she had already started reading the intro and she really liked it. then she asked us to come back the next day so we went back and she had already read the first three chapters in 1nephi! then she wanted to come to church but she got stuck in orange with some family and wasnt able to make it but we WILL get her to come this week!

The A family is breaking my heart. THey finally let us in there house and it is worse then outside. it is so bad. our memeber that was with us offered to give them some spare mattresses because they were sleeping on the floor on piles of blankets. it was so sad. and there house is just discusting. i feel like i am in a third world country when i go over there. but Mari loves the church and she wants to get baptized so bad! but we arent going to baptize a 9 year old with no support from her family. the same member when to get them for church and they were all still asleep but mari wanted to come so bad that she hurry and got up and they had to dig dirty clothes out of the corner for her to wear. But she came but her mom wouldnt come.

J is so sick he cant get off the couch. he is going to see a specialist tomorrow and hopefully they will be able to help him. he tells us all the time that he wants to come to church he is just too sick. but he is the sweetest old man ever. i love him.

R is our new investigator in the YSA branch. we had a super awesome lesson with him on thursday and he was so oped to everything! it was amazing. he took everything so well. we were talking about recognizing and feeling the spirit and he siad that he has never felt the spirit and it kinda took my by surprise because he siad he was raised catholic and goes to church every sunday with his fmaily. so then he asked me if that was unusual that he has never felt the spirit and i told him that i am sure that he as he just didnt recognize it, that made him happy cause he wants to feel the spirit. so it was a really awesome lesson and he asked to meet with us again.

As we go around and have dinner with members we give them a list of alll our investigators and we talk about them and tell the members about them and ask the members to pray for them by name. it gets the members excited and they love feeling needed. it has worked really well and it really brings the spirit into the homes when you ask them to do something so personal for people that they have never met.

I have been counting my blessing this week! i feel so blessed to be where i am and with the people that i am with. I love the people in Beaumont and i am so glad that i am here. When i first got put here i was super grumpy and i didnt want to stay, but healvenly father knew that i needed to be here and that there are lessons for me to learn here. I was also reminded of how blessed i am to be a missionary as i watched a boy in the YSA branch who has been a member for a year open his misison call. he was in tears and it made me cry because i thought about how lucky i am to be out here serving and getting to share the gospel. it is a precious gift and i feel blessed to have been found worthy to share this wonderful message with the people in Texas. And yes, i love Texas now. I love it with all my heart and i will never ever again say that i hate Texas. And there is nothing wrong with staying state side to serve. People everywhere need to hear the Gospel. I am so blessed! Every night i just pour out my heart in gratitude for the many blessings that i have.

I hope yall are doing good! i miss you bunches and bunches but i cant believe how fast time is going by. it is really sad. before i know it i will be home. Please pray for our investigators! they need the help and strength that only Heaven can give them.

I love you all soooooooo much! have a great week!

Love sister hamilton

Miracles All Around

Well this week was Pretty darn good! Lots of miracles all around. it never ceases to amaze me. I wish yall could be here with me and seeing everything cause its so hard for me to explain especially in an email. but i always try my best.

But today is sister C Bday! yay! we are twins. she is so funny. she gets really tired at night and so i tell her to tell me a story when she is like half asleep and i always end up peeing my pants cause she says that most random funny stuff. and she is OBSESSED with honking the horn. she doesnt like to drive so i always do but she will always reach aross me and honk the horn. so on saturday we were sitting at a stop sign looking at this creepy dog when all the suddenthis horn honks and freaks me out, it was sister clegg she reached across me and honked and it freaked the dog out too and so the dog pooped. we had some good laughs for days about that one. But yeah i have been laughing alot this week, or at least trying cause when i laugh then i am more positive and happy and i can have more joy in my work! Our neighbor is a drug dealer so there is always stuff going on next door. its so crazy. and they blast there music all night long. haha its soooooo funny the things that happen to you. it is seriously an adventure and i love every minute of it! its so fun to look back and rememver all the crazy stuff that happens to you! but sister cleggs parents sent us pepper spray for our birthdays so we are safe!

So we have ALOT of gators now. like i have no idea how we got them all. its just because we are blessed and we have faith and we trust in the lord that he will provide a way and help us find those who are prepared for the gospel! not all of them are super progressing but we sill have alot that we are teaching and working really hard on helping them to progress, but all we can do is invite and it is up to them if they want to put action into it or not. But James is not really doing so well anymore. he is so sick and stubborn. he fell the other day and sliced open his head. poor little guy. he is just a skeleton with skin onit. but i stiilll love him and i pray that one day he will accept the gospel.

S and L are doing AMAZING!!!!!  we taught them last night and we were planning on doing a BOok of mormon lesson but they just started asking us all these questions about the plan of salvation so we were like well we will just teach you that. so we did and the spirit was sooooo strong! it was incredible. They both were very into the lesson and had lots of questions that we were able to answer and they are both really pleased with the church and what we have taught them so far. We sang I am a child of God to them and they were both in tears. I loved it. THen we committed them to come to church! it may not seem like alot but htat is a big step for thme. sandy tells us everytime that she has a church that she is happy with but i know that she is just telling herself that because she is scared cause she feels the spirit and knows that what we are teaching is true. so that is good. we will get her. i specifically fasted for them yesterday because i feel so connected to them and i know that they will get baptized if i put forth the faith and do all i can to help bring the spirit.

We got a really solid new investigator this last week. she was a referral from a less active man in the ward. her name is P and she said that she has seen the difference that the church has made in her friends life and she wants that for her too. so we had a really good lesson with her saturday and she begged us to come back! it was a great lesson.

The A family is still struggling but we are doing our best to help them progresss. the little girl still wants to get baptized and come to church but noone else in the family does. its so sad. it breaks my heart.

We are teaching a 92 year old lady named M and she is so sweet! she always holds my hand the whole time we are over there and she tells me that i look like an indian! yes. that made my whole life! finally someone sees me for my true self! haha But we are trying to get her to come to church but she only leaves her house to go to the store and the doctor.

It was a great week! we also got a new investigator in the singles branch which is very exciting for them and they were all so happy!

THings are going good in Beaumont, i am happy that i got to stay for a transfer longer and i am so blessed to get to work with the people here. I love them so much.And we are teaching a bunch of old people andi love old people so i am happy! but i truly am grateful for all the experiences thati am going thru. easy and hard. they are all helping me so much and changing me in ways that i didnt know that i needed to be changed. but i am happy and loving life. I am truly blessed. I love you all soooooo much! i am so grateful for each one of you in my life and i pray for you on the daily! hope yall have a good week!

Love sister Hamilton

I'm not a teenager anymore

Dearest family,

First of all, thank you so much for my letters and my package! i do have to say that i bawled my eyes out reading all of the letters and sister C took some nice pictures of me wiping snot off of my face, haha i will have to send them next week. but i really do appreciate it. and I do have to say that i think it was the best birthday i have had! it was so special. and i dont know if i will be able to explain it. but being able to watch conference as a representative of Jesus Christ on your birthday is pretty awesome. We also got to teach S and L a little Book of Mormon lesson that evening and i got to testify about the truthfulness of that book. it was the best birthday ever!

I have been thinking about my life alot this week obviously and then after conference i had even more to think about. But i was so inspired and uplifted by the messages that we heard. lots of  things really stood out to me but a few of my favorites was from elder Holland when he was talking about depression and hard things we go thru and how he was talking about christ and how the cup could not pass from him and sometimes that happens to us, the cup can not pass so we need to "drink it and be strong" that really hit me. That is going to be my new motto in life. Drink it and be strong. I am going to try and do that more as i face hard times and challenges in my service and in life in general. Another thing that brought great peace to my heart was (i dont remeber who said it) but they said; "Its impossible for us to fail when we do our best when we are on the errand of the Lord." I think that was meant just for me. Alot of times i look around and i am not having as much success as those around me and i feel like a failure of a missionary, but as long as i do my best it is impossible for me to fail because i am on the errand of the Lord. I really needed to hear that. We had one of our Less active members come to conference on saturday. she cried the whole time. President Uchtdorfs talk really hit home with her. she wanted to take us out to lunch for my birthday but she couldnt stop crying and she told us that she just needed some time and she needed to go sort some things out. So i am praying that she will work hard to change those things in her life that are preventing her from coming to church and being worthy to take the sacrament. I love her so much, she has become a dear friend to me and it broke my heart to see her like that, but the words of the prophets and apostles are true and Heavenly Father knew what she needed to hear. On sunday we had one of the little girls in our family come to conference with us at a members home. She stayed home from her grandmas cause she wanted to come to church so bad! so we didnt get the whole family because they were at grandmas but she came and i hope that she felt the spirit, she told us that she knew they were talking about important stuff. she is 9 and so cute! the family just took her right in and we all played conference bingo. I felt like i was home over there. they have 7 kids and their youngest little boy who is 20 months old was all over me. I just attract little kids for some reason. haha and then i get in trouble because i am not supposed to hold them or let them sit on my lap but whenever i sit down they just come flocking! haha but it was fun to be with a family to watch conference. S and L are amazing! they are the couple that we found a couple weeks ago during our hour of power. S called on saturday morning because she was trying to read the Book of Mormon but the words were too small and she couldnt see them. so she asked if we could get her a larger print one so she can read! then she told us that L is also very interested which is very surprising to her because he has never been like this with religion so she is happy and told us to keep coming over. she also said that she has a church that she is perfectly happy with and she doesnt want to mislead us but L is super open. But i have no doubt in my mind that once they read the book of Mormon that they will both feel the spirit testify to them of the truthfulness of it and they will both get baptized. I had a dream about them, both in white and we were taking pictures infront of a picture of chirst. So i know that the Lord has plans for them. Our family is having a hard time progressing, the 9 year old is the only one that has any interest in progressing and reading from the book of mormon and coming to church. But we are still working with them. J is really sick again and told us that he just wants all this to be over with and he just wants to die. I just want him to get his answer so he will be baptized. All of our other investigators are experiencing alot of pull from the advesary. T, who was doing so well had an ex boyfriend come out of nowhere and got her to start using drugs again. It never ceases to amaze me how hard satan works to keep us from doing what the Lord wants us to do. It is so hard to not give in and to be strong and withstand temptaion, but we can do it if we put our trust and faith in the Lord.

Something else that i learned from conference is that misisonary work is easy! so yall need to get to work! I hope that you have an awesome week! i love yall soooooooooo much! thanks again for the birthday wishes!

Love sister Hamilton

Blessed (from Sept. 16)

WOW!!!! that is all i have to say about this last week. it was full of miracles and i think i have used more faith this week then i ever have. which is sad because i should always be using tons of faith. but it was really put to the test this week. so i dont have time to tell you everything but i will do my best.

So tuesday i had the worst migrain ever mixed with sinus stuff. so i didnt even move untill 5 pm. sister clegg thought i was dead and when i woke up i thought it was like 11 but no it was 5. so i felt really bad and i was really depressed because i just wasted a whole day with my migrain. but i was determined to work super hard the rest of the week to try and make up for lost time. so wednesday wasnt too good it was a struggle and noone was home. we went tracting for hours and noone answered. so we tried some less active members of the singles branch and nothing. But we got a referral from the spanish elders that we were supposed to contact on friday. so thursday President crawford called to talk to sister clegg and then we talked to president about Karen cause she is just crazy and is not progressin and just streassing us out. so he told us to drop her and to just move on. so it was really hard to think about dropping her because she was one of our two investigators so if we dropped her we woule have one gator and that was stressful. but we decided we needed to. so we went over and i told her that when she is ready to keep the commandments she can call us and we will come back but for now she just needs to keep reading the Book of moron and praying about it. so she was REALLY REALLY mad. she told us taht we let the Devil into us and then she slammed the door in our faces. it was interesting. but we could take a deep breath after. so then we went home cause sister c wasnt feeling well. so i decided that i needed to pray. so i got on my knees and plead with the lord for about two hours to help us. i told him that i know he can do anyting and i really needed help. I feel frustrated with my companion who doesnt want to work as hard as i do and if i have to do this on my own i need his help. i told him that i know he could help us find a new investigator that night during the hour of power to replace k. It was the first time in my life that i think i have ever prayed that hard and with so much faith. it was draining, but then i woke up sister c and we went to go meet with a member who was in the hospital and to do our hour of power lesson with her. so then we went to the street that i had prayed about and felt like we should go there. so we went and it was a dud. there was no housese on it. then  the back up one was exactly the same. so then i was super frustrated cause i prayed so hard about what street to go to and they were both duds. so i was just like ok lets just go to the one inbetween the two of them cause it had houses on it. so we started and no success, and the hour was starting to get towatrda the end and stll we hadnt found anything. but i kept praying and praying in my heart and i KNEW that we would find someone. so we knocked on a door and the woman let us right in. we talked to her and her husband and they both had had good interactinos with the church and were familiar with it and they had SO many questions about our church and the BOok of mormon and Joseph Smith and then the husband tells us that he believes Joseph smith is a prophet. then they ask us to come back, and the husband, L tells us that if we dont come back he would come find us so that we could teach them! we set a return appt and as soon as we left i just started crying becasue my prayer was answered! and not only did the Lord bless us with one new investigator to replace K but two! and they are so awesome! Then the next day we contacted our referral from the spanish elders and it was a family of 10! and the mom, na was so excited to have her kids come to church on sunday. So taht was another miracle! then on saturday sister A who is a less active that we work with alot had us over for lunch and she had a friend there that she had been sharing the gospel with and she wants to learn more! so another miracle! then on sunday our family came to church so we had 6 investigators at church! The Lord works with our faith and when we have little faith he cant do anything. My testimony was strengthened so much this week. i asked the Lord to help us find one, ONE new investigator to replace K and i dont know if you counted but we got EIGHT new investigators this week. I am so humbled and so full of gratitute for a Heavenly Father who hears my prayers and my cries and my broken hearted pleas and he answered them in a way that was so much more then i asked for. I am truly, truly grateful for this gosple.I dont know wehre i would be without it and i am so blessed to be a representitve of Jesus Christ, a missionary. I have the privledge of sharing the Gospel with everyone around me and i am so grateful for that. My heavenly Father has truly helped me change the desires of my heart. I love being here, Iove riding my bike in the heat, i love coming home every night sweaty and tired, but most of all i love when i get to see the light of the Gospel enter the eyes of those that i am blessed to teach. I hope yall have a good week! i love you so very much and i am so blessed to have such an awesome family. I love yall!

On a side note, J is not doing very well and is going to pass away very shortly. Please keep him in your prayers and pray that his heart will be softened and he will get baptized before he passes. K came to church and caused a huge scene. she is trying to get an answer that she is exempt from all the commandments and she wasnt getting that from us, or the elders, so she is talking to all the ward memebers trying to get them to tell her that she dosent have to keep the commmandments. So that was interesting.

Good Week (From Sept. 23)

well this week was a pretty good week! its hard to follow after the week that we had last week but it was still good and there are miracles happening everyday!

So i went on exchanges with the sister Training leader, Hermana Arcila on tuesday. it was a good day. I love when i get to work with other sisters and learn from them. We had a good day. noone was home that we wanted to see but we got to spend some time with a recent convert who is in our area but the elders baptized but we are helping with the new member stuff. she is so funny. She has a strong testimony and she is ready to work and help build up the church. she got a calling on wednesday and she put it all over facebook before they announced it in church. haha it was funny but she was so excited! she has the same calling as you mom! We taught teresa again and she is so awesome. when we teach her she just cries and cries the whole time because she can feel the spirit. when i invited her to be baptized she said, well i was christened as a baby, and i was baptized in the methodist church, so i guess one more time wont hurt. haha so we need to talk more about the priesthood so we gets the importance of the decision she will be making. but she likes everything we ahve taught her so far and she is excited to read the book of mormon. We taught are family on wednesday and it was so awesome! all the kids were so excited to read the book of mormon it was so cute! they got their mom excited about it too and they asked if they can read a chapter of it together every night before they go to bed. I realized that i need to be more excited about reading the Book of Mormon! it is such an amazing book we should all be excited everytime we get to read it! on thursday we were at the college down here, Lamar, and we set up a table at a student fair and we were trying to contact people and get more investigators for the YSA branch. It was pretty fun but i am so awkward when it comes to talking to people my own aget. I can talk to older people no problem but when i have to talk to people my own age i get all awkward. it must be because i am a missionary. haha but we contacted alot of people and hopefully we can get some of them to become investigatiors. we are still working on the member of the branch to bring their friends to activities and such. During the Hour of Power we were able to find alot of potential investigators and we are going to start teaching one of the ladies taht we found.she just moved and her neighbor before was a lady in the ward, and so she knows mormons and was excited to have us come back. so that was pretty cool. and we are trying to use these family history cards that the stake made so we were useing those during our contacting and we found the cutest little old lady who had on a shirt that was taling about geneology so she told us that she loves the church cause we have helped her trace her ancestors cause we ahve the most records. so we are going to start teaching her too. so it was a pretty good night! lots of miracles. SO the recent convert in the YSA branch is super awesome. we ahve been teac hing him his new member lessons and he is so smart and has the strongest testimony. i am always inspired by the people that i meet that leave their families to join the church because they know it is true and their families want nothing to do with it and disown them if they join.  i have wondered if i have the courage to do that if i had to. i would like to say that i do but im glad that i never had to go thru that. I could battle with Nephi about who has the best parents, and im pretty sure i would win :) James is doing a little better. he is still being fiesty and giving us a hard time but i know that he knows the church is true, it is just a matter of him needed to accept it. I love when i get to share my testimony! that is one of my favorite parts about being a missionary. When i get to testify about what i Know is true, noone can fight that. because it is a testimony, and it is what i know. James tells me all the time that he can tell by looking in my eyes that i really do know that the things i am talking about are true. I think that is the biggest compliment that i could ever get. Im glad that he can see the love that i have of the gospel in my eyes. Becasue its there. I keep thinking that my testimony is strong, and then something will happen and it will test me and then my testimony will grow in  ways that i didnt know it needed to. But i am so grateful for every single experience that i go thru. They have all helped me in ways that my Heavenly Father knew i needed and even if i didnt realize it at the time, at the end i can look back and see what i have learned and how i grew from the things that i go thru. The desires of my heart are truly changing. because i pray for that every night, i am getting the help that i need. I may not ever come home, i love being a missionary too much. But i love yall sooooo much and i couldnt be doing this without all of your support. You willl never know how grateful i am for all that yall have done for me, words cant express how i feel. But i do hope you know that i love you! Hope yall have a good week and dont get robbed again! Love you soooo much!

Love sister Hamilton

Staying in B-town

Well i dont have much to say this week cause it was a really bad week for me. Im on the rebound now so hopefully this coming up week will be better.

I had high hope for this week because we got to go to the temple on tuesday, which was amazing. i really miss going to the temple often. when we only get to go once every three months you really start to notice. But when i was in the temple i decided that my mind is on too many other things besides the task at hand. I had to force myself to concentrate and not be thinking about other things. I have been having a hard time with that lately. I Feel like i have depression, but for no reason! im super frustrated, mainly with myself. But i just need to trust in the lord more that he knows what he is doing. I tell myself that all the time and i know it, but it is easier said then done. And i am workin on making it a part of my everyday life. I was sick on saturday and i didnt have the energy to drag myself out of bed. i think it is because the weather is changing. but i was thinking as i was reflecting on my week during sacrament meeting that i can do this. The savior fell on his face in agony for me in the garden of gethseme, and i am denying him when i am not using his atonement in my everyday life. I think because i am a missionary that i am different and i use the atonement in different ways, but no it is the same for everyone and i need to let my savior help me more then i currently do. I tell people all the time to use the atonement and let it heal them but then i am not really doing so myself. i dont think that i will ever to fully comprehend everything that my savior felt, and went thru for me while he was in that garden, but what i do know is that he loves me and he wants me to be happy and know that as long as i do my best that is enough and that he is proud of me. and sometimes my best is just getting out of bed in the morning and keeping a smile on my face during the day even tho nothing goes how i want it to or how it is supposed to. Even when inside i want to scream and give up, And when my companion is driving me nuts. I can do my best. I am so grateful for all of the prayers coming my way. Sometimes when i want to give up i feel strength come and i know it is because all of you are praying for me. Our family is doing well and will hopefully be getting baptized on the12th of october. We are working really hard with them and praying that everything goes well and they will keep progressing. what a blessing it is to be able to listen to general conference this weekend! i hope that yall will really listen and pay attention to the words of our prophet and go with a question that you need answered. Because they are always answered. look at me! my question was answered and it has come to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. I am sorry this is short but just know that i love you and i am praying for you always!

Love sister Hamilton

Eaten Alive

Well this week was a pretty good week. things are going good and I'm alive!

So it has been super super rainy all last week which is awesome because then it is not so hot! i love being wet from the rain instead of my sweat. hahah we had a lot of miracles this week and I'm trying harder to see the hand of the lord in our everyday work. We have to sent a miracle of the day to our DL who then sends it to the ZL and then the ZL sent out the best miracle to the whole zone. so that makes us think back over our day and find the miracle.

So i guess the biggest miracle of the week was with La's

One of our main LA ladies is working really hard with her friends getting them to take the lessons. so we had a really good lesson with one of her friends and he is super excited about the book of mormon and keeps asking us what is next. so hopefully we can continue to help him to feel the spirit as we teach. then during the Hour of Power it was dumping buckets! it was crazy but it was super fun. this tree 5 feet away from us got struck by lightning! it was so crazy but it was awesome. we were basically walking around in 3 inches of water. it was fun! but then it stopped raining and all the mosquito came out and i got eaten alive.  i am basically just a giant mosquito bite! haha but the very last house we knocked on the lady let us right in and was like i know who you are and then she was like i was raised mormon. so we talked to her for about an hour and she told us her life story and she is married to a non member and she wants to come back to church and she wants her husband to join cause she wants to raise her kids in the church and she is 6 months pregnant. so that was super awesome! hopefully we can start teaching her husband soon but we have to wait till after football season cause he is a coach and he is never home. but one day we will get him baptized. it was so amazing. that is the first time that i have just come across a member that no one knew about. the lord really does guide us to his children, especially the ones who have strayed.

Then on Sunday I decided that we needed to go check on this LA guy in the singles branch that we have been trying to contact for 6 weeks. so before we went to knock I prayed so hard and fervently that this guy would be there. so we went, and he was! we had a really good talk with him and we were able to laugh and get to know him a little and make him feel comfortable with us and then he opened up and told us why he hasn't come to church and i just decided that i needed to be bold and i told him that he needed to come to church especially because he just got a new job and doesn't have to work on Sundays, I told him that it was a message from God that he needs to go back to church. and he was like ok ill think about it. and he wouldn't commit. then i gave him our number and told him to text us if he ever needed anything. but he wouldn't write down our number or put it in his phone so i was getting frustrated but i just kept praying that we could help this guy. then we left and right after we pulled away he texted us and told us that he would see us at church on sunday! it made me so happy and i immediately started a prayer of thanks for the blessing i received. so he better keep his promise and come to church sunday! oh and we taught RS in the singles branch yesterday, it was really fun. this is a good branch and the Singles are awesome. we have alot of fun with them and they are working on bringing non members to activities so we have more people to teach.

The church is true! things are hard and i get frustrated with myself everyday but i know that the Lord isnt giving me anything that icant handle. so i just have to have faith that i can handle this and try and find a way to accomplish everything! I love yall so much! have a good week!

Becoming

Well family, sorry im a day late but hope yall had a good labor day. We just hung out and we watched the elders play dungeons and dragons. whatever that is. but it was a good day.

So i dont really know what to say about this week. It was a really hard weeek and it felt like everything was working against us. But i have had alot of weeks like that on my mission and i just need to get over it and keep workin harder. So we only found one new investigator this last week which was frustrating  because we desperatly need more people to teach! But aside from all of that i will talk about the highlights of the week.

So the Elders had 4 baptisms on saturday, it was supposed to be five cause Karen was supposed to be getting baptized but that obviously fell through. But it was a good day and it was so awesome to see how happy those individuals were when they came out of the water. I was in tears the whole time and i felt the spirit so strong! it was a good time for me to reflect on my own baptism and the promises and covenants that i made with my heavenly father. James came to the baptism which was good. we told us he wouldnt but we went back over to his house a couple hours before and invited him again and he said he would be there. I hope it was a good exsperience for him and that he felt the spirit. I Have decided that the hardest thing for me as a missionary is getting my investigators to recognize the spirit. Their conversion would be alot easier if they could recognize and acknowledge the spirit. I do all i can to help them but i could obviously be doing more or they would get it. I guess i just need to work on my teaching skills more. I have so many things that i need to work on that i feel like i will never have enough time to work on them all. And most times i feel overwhelmed and dont know where to start. That is why my email is titles becoming, because i decided that i am not becoming the missionary that i want to be and i dont feel like i have progressed very much. so i am going thru my life and everything and deciding what i need to give up and what i need to do bettor on. I am scared and it gives me anxiety because of some of the things that i decided that i need to give up but i am willing to make this sacrifice so that i can become the missionary that i want to be and the missionary that the Lord expects me to become. So just keep praying for me that i will have the strength and courage that i need to follow thru with the goals and decisions tha i have made for myself. Missions are hard but they are alot harder if you dont do your best. If you do your best even when they are hard you can be assured taht you did your best and the Lord is happy with your work. I am not yet at that point and i dont know if i will ever get to that point. It has to start with me accepting myself and knowing tha i have worth and that i can do this hard thing that has been placed before me. I know that i am a daughter of God andt that he loves me, but i am still struggling. This has been a hard week but i am doing my best. Just know that i love you and i pray for all of yall and i am so grateful for all the prayers coming my way. I can feel them and i am so blessed to have such an amazing family. Have a good week! i LOVE YOU!!!

Sister Hamilton

week 1

Well its about time! i feel like it has been ages since i got to email home. haha maybe it was just a really long week. super stressful for me and i have been running on maybe 2 hours of sleep a night. so that is fun too. but im not complaining. i am just trying to take everything in stride and do the best i can to learn from all my experiences.

So transfer meeting was good. I got to see two of my favorite elders go home so that was good. They opened two more sisters areas in our zone and flushed the elders out, sisters are slowly taking over THE mission! its crazy. Our favorite LA lady drove us and we had a nice talk. i love her lots. she is returning to church after being away for 20+ years. when we got home we went to this huge event at the civic center here in beaumont called a Tasting. its a fund raiser for the food bank here. so all the churches in beaumont set up a booth and serve some kind of food. tons and tons fo ppl go and eat lots of food. and we served bread at the booth that the church had set up. it was pretty fun. we got to meet lots of ppl and pass out lots of mormon.org cards. haha then we had a social at the instutute to go to because we cover the singles branch here as well. i dont know if i told you that or not. but we cover the family ward with the ZL's and then the singles branch also. so that is keeping up busy.

Karen had to practice her baptism for 3 hours on wednesday. she is really scared and now it isnt even happening anymore. it is really sad and i am really frustrated because i feel ike it is my fault because she says that i am a horrible teacher and i am making up al of these commandments and we should tell ppl about them before we try and get them to get baptized. so keep praying for her. she knows the book of mormon is true, she just needs to have a deeper testimony of Joseph smith.

James is doing good. he is still as cute as ever. He told us that he is going to start going back to his wifes church just to make sure about everything. he is really impressed with our church and he loves all the ppl and he feels good when he comes even tho he cant hear anything. he just wants to make sure he knows everything because when he commits to something he puts in 110% so he wants to make sure he Knows what we are teaching him is true. But keep praying for him.

We are having a hard time finding, well finding those who are ready and want to commit. We have a lot of potential investigators but none of thm want to keep commitments and are never home when we come back for appointments. But this is all part of the work and it happens so i just have to keep working harder and harder. maybe if we knock on every single door in beaumont we will find people who want to hear about the Gospel. We are trying really hard to help our members get excited about misisonary work because the investigators that are the most solid are the ones who have member friends. so that is what we are working on is member referrals.easier said then done. I think that everyone is afraid of misisonary work. whenever they hear that word they stop listening. haha but i guess i have no room to talk cause i wasnt doing misisonary work before i was a missionary. haha but that is going to change when i get home!

Well I had to sing in STAKE CONFERENCE on saturday. ahhhhhh i didnt eat anything all day because i was so nervous and my tummy was all churny. i was so sick. haha i hate singing. but as a misisonary you do whatever ppl ask you to. and being on a mission in general is out of my comfort zone so i might as well just do everything that makes me get out of my zone. haha at least i am a sister missionary so even if i sounded horrible everyone says you didi good cause your a missionary. haha but im glad that is over!

So i wish i had some awesome thing to tell you about all the amazing things that i learned this week but all i can thing to say is that i have a long way to go when it comes to charity and patience. I thought i was doing my hardest to be full of love and patience but when it got put to the test i learned that i didnt have as much as i thought i did. As missionaries we cant get complacent. just when we think we are doing good, getting the hang of things, and we think we know what we are doing things change and everything you have and are is put to the test and you are given a new challenge. i think the same thing happens in life. We shouldnt ever be comfortable where we are. there is always room to grow and improve and if we think we are doing good we must not be looking hard enough. Acknowledge the savior, increase our commitment to follow him more each day. That is what i am trying my best to do. it is hard and sometimes the things i go thru are painful and they break my heart and tear at my very foundation of what i am, but at the end i always turn to my savior and he helps me tru the lessons that i have to learn as a missionary. "And now my beloved brethren after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path  i would ask if all is done? behold i say unto you nay for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him relying wholly upon the merits oh him who is mighty to save. Wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. wherefore if ye shall press forward and endure to the end behold thus saith the father ye shall have eternal life." 2 Nephi 31; 19-20. This is so true. All is not done. we have to do more then just be on the path. And that is my hope and my prayer to all of you, that you will do all you can to bring others onto this path and do more then just be there yourself. There are so many people out there who do now have the gospel and we need to share what we have with them!