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