tour de maryland

Hey Family!
Well i can't believe that one week has already gone by and here i am again emailing my first full week of the mission haha wow what a week! All i have to say is that i haven't slept this good in my entire life! i come home at night and colapse in bed and it's the best feeling in the entire world! Ha wow when i talk titled this email tour de maryland is because i feel like we have been all around the state...yep on bike haha i'll be like lance armstrong when i get back you just watch! haha Ok well thank you so much for the emails i loved reading those and being able to open up my emails and see some emails from ya wow that was fun. i can't decide if you should email or write just becuase we only get an hour so maybe do some shorter emails and write dear elders because that will be easier i think but i'll let you know as time goes on. Well this week i got a couple letters from you mom and one from grandma hafen and a couple from my other pen pals. Thank you so so much i loved reading them and love the happiness to hear from all of you. Thank you i think the best is to just send stuff to my apartment because i think the mission home is a little slow on sending them to us so ya. But thank you all for those they have been so great. Thank you grandma fro that wonderful story in your letter what a inspirtaion that was thank you thank you!
Well now to the good stuff, my week! Ha well after we left last week we went shopping and got some stuff and i got unpacked and had to hurry and get to an appt. Sorry for not writing letters last week to you all and my pen pals but i didn't have any time i'm sorry but there will be some goign out in the mail today so be watching for them! So we get ready to go out and teach a lady named marta and were on bikes and i have no idea wehre i'm going ha i'm just following my companion and my eyes are wide open haha Welcome to the east coast! Wow there is some things out here that are just hilarious. But wow that first day was an eye opening experience i tell ya but i love it it's really great out here. So we are riding our bikes and i'm riding and i hear this clink, clink, clink...yep my pedal off my bike fell off! haha it was funny and we couldn't get it fixed and we were luckily clost to home and just walked it back(Don't worry mom my bike is fine i got it fixed and it's perfect now it just needed a screw don't worry)so we missed our apptment and i was like dang thats not how i want to start off ha but we got right back out there and started looking for people. We ran into a hispanic on the road and we started right then and there teaching him and i couldn't understand a lick! but i got to pipe in quite a bit and do some teaching. It was a lot of fun to get to talk and now that i have been around so many hispanics, my ears are starting to get trained on how to pick words up and i'm understanding better and better everyday. The lord is blessing me that's for sure. But ya it was nice to get that first spanish contact but we haven't seen or heard from him since. The latin culture is different and in a week i can already tell that i love these people. That night we went knocking and it's really difficult for me and my companion just because we are spanish and want to talk to just spanish cause there is english elders but when we go knocking we have to be prepared to do either or haha so that kind of makes it interesting. But that night we were able to knock on a door and his name was Jeremiah and he was pretty anti at the beginning and then as we started talking to him about the book of mormon and what we bleieve in he started to really warm up to the idea of us. I could tell that the spirit was working on him a little bit and we gave him a book of mormon and it was sweet and were gonna go back this week and check up on him. So that first night was pretty fun and yes i slept like a rock ha i have no problem getting sleep that is for sure! So the next day we were up and at em again and on our bikes again and it was hot! haha i was leaking pops absolutely leaking! I loved it though my companion just said follow me and i did and we were off to referals homes and riding the light rail (ha that's a sweet experience!) and ya the tour de maryland had officially begun. I've never been more tired in my life at the end of that night being on a bike and my bottom getting used to that Bike seat ha thats an experience in and of itself haha but that day we had been everywhere and we had a dinner aptment and we were late and we were just booking it there and we were about a half hour late and we got there (it felt like we had just biked across the state i might add haha) and we get to this house and tortellini was waiting for us. ha i am gaining a great appreciation for food out here cause good home cooked meals are the best! The couple that had us over for dinner are two young married people that just live in a little house in maryland and are so nice. So we get talking during dinner and he says he served his mission in fiji, suva and i was like oh really thats strange and then he starts saying that he was in the kiribus islands for most of the time and i asked him if he knew mitch north. OH YEAH mitch was this guys zone leader! his name is matt larsen. i swear the world is so small and everyone knows everyone here i tell ya, but ya i thought that was really funny! So after dinner we went and visited some less active families and wow these little kids just steal my heart. These people have nothing here absolutely nothing, and these little kids come out and play with us and smile and laugh and it just gets to me how these kids can be so happy when they have nothing and its really humbling. Ha they make fun of my spanish and at the same time they help me with it too but i can tell that the little kids here are gonna be really fun and i love it. I absolutely love it here and being so out of my shell in utah. There is so much poverty here and everything is so different but it's humbling to know how much i have and how grateful i am each night when i pray to have a family and a home and food.
So the next day we headed up to Brooklyn Park ha now thats a sweet area, but one thing i ha ve figured out here is don't judge the people by the house beause some of the worst houses is where the Best People are! We ttalked that night with a lady named marleni and her husband marco and we hadn't talked to them before and we were just trying to get to know them and not just jump into a lesson and it was so great. The people in this culture are so NICE. They always invite us in and always ask us if we need a coke or orange soda ha (orange soda is turning into my new favorite) and we sat there and talked about families and the blessings that they are and the joy in our lives and if there is one thing that i ha ve learned to do it is to testify of my love of families and how grateful i am for mine. And it was really cool to listen to her haha actually TRY and listen to her, this lady talks as fast as a speeding bullet ha but she just talked about how amazing it was to see 19 year old boys dedicating their lives to this work and how amazing it is how fast we can learn and communicate in spanish, and i just looked at her and i've been getting in this habit when we talk with people and i was like ok you'd be an amazing member ha but ya it's just fun to be around this culture that is for sure.
So elder caballero and i have a huge area and we only get so many miles the car every other day so we are working the pavement on the bikes ha. We ride the light rail and buses too and it's sweet to talk to people on those and just see the different kind of people that are in this world ha. It's really weird though i have been in some fun areas and around some funny people and never not once have i felt unsafe. i remember when nick talked about his tag being his shield and i am gaining a testimony of that for sure. The lord is with us and takes good care of us! No need to worry mom i promise that i am safe and sound and loving every minute of it!So we also have another area that we just took over too cause the sisters aren't there anymore so that's just peachy haha. This sunday we went to 2 different wards and 6 hours of meetings that was fun haha
We had zone conference on monday and that was a fun experience. Our mission pres is the man. He was on one about being obedient and get to work ha he was saying i get so tired of whining out here and then he was like "so buck up and get to work" and i just love his personality. He always has a smile on his face. ALWAYS and he just has so much love ofr all of us and i am excited to spend more tiem with him but zone conference was great!
Last night we went to Golden Corral with a member from the other ward ha i never knew i liked Golden Corral that much but as grandpa hafen says when we go to buffets "they didn't make any money off of me" that was true last night. haha
So i have one last story. We knocked on this ladies door the other day and she thought we were JW'S. But she said we could come back and teach her so we went back and it was her birthday. She invited us in and gave us cake and ice cream. It was sweet and then we started to talk to her. And she told us this story about how she had heart surgery and during the surgery she was dead for about 5 minutes and she said she had seen the other side and all she wanted to know was if we believed in life after death. And i got so excited beause everythign she was saying was the Plan of salvation and wow i just got chills she said she had seen the light on the other side and her husband was there telling her that she needed to go back. So basically it was the most spiritually uplifting lesson i've had since i've been here. She talked about faith and how she's always had it and that is what has got her through. It was a testimony builder to me that we need to have faith. She had so much and had a really ruff like and the only thing i can say is i feel like she's gonna be a baptism, i just feel it so i will keep you posted on her as well!
Well fam everything is great in maryland it's beautiful here the trees are enormous and the east coast is great. I have so much to learn and so much to do but this is a happy time. I love my companion and i love the people that we are teaching. Mom and Dad congrats on 28 years i'm sorry i forgot that but I'M So happy for you! Thanks for being great examples to me and i love you both so much. Bell congrats on getting asked to Homecoming. If he touches you i'll kill him plain and simple haha I'm healthy and i'm happy and this work is amazing. I am doing great mom don't worry. We've got the lord on our side and we have no need to fear! I love you all so much and i pray for all of you and hope that you can feel the love of me and the lord in your lives everyday because i can feel yours everyday! Thank you all so much and i can't wait to tell you the new adventures of this week! Take care and thanks for all the letters and packages fam and pen pals your the best and i love you all!
Nos vemos,
Elder Hammer