Letter 8/19/13

Dear Family,
Well I pretty much said all I was going to say in my email, but here is something I am working on.

This week I had the amazing opportunity to go on an exchange with Sister Chipman from Colorado.  This sister is one of the most inspired people I have ever met.  She is a Sister Training Leader (kind of like a Zone Leader for the sisters).  And she is SO sweet.  She has an amazing testimony and is one of the best missionaries I've ever met.  I love her so much. 

Anyway, something we worked on together (because I need it) was self confidence, and developing a righteous self respect.  I cannot believe how wrong I've been about myself in the past.  It was a great learning opportunity for me and I am still working on letting go of fear.  We talked about developing a love for ourselves like Christ has for us.

Something I am really good at is asking Heavenly Father to help me love others as he loves them, but I've never thought to ask for that kind of love for me.  What an amazing thought!  She shared with me 1 John 4:18 and the scripture (that I can't seem to find right now) that says "Love thy neighbor as thyself."  But you can't love your neighbor if you don't love yourself.  You get what I'm saying?

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to be so sappy and self centered.  I just hope this helps someone else.

I love you all!  Good luck with everything, and Mom and Dad, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!  I hope you have the most fantastic day ever!

Love,
Sister Hamblin

Letter 8/26/13
Dear Family,
Today's letter is short because I am running out of time, but please know that I love each of you so so much.

As I see more and more families I am continually and increasingly grateful for our strong family.  There are so many ways Satan gets at each of us and our families.  I am eternally grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the strength and unity it brings to our family.  Thank you all for living Gospel values and working so hard to do what's right

YOU ARE ALL THE BEST!

Love,
The Oldest Sister Hamblin

Email 8/26/13

Dear Family,

Wheew what a week we've had! From service to Zone Conference we are exhausted physically and soaring spiritually. We this is such an exciting time in the New York, New York South mission! President Calderwood has just made it possible for us to attend the temple every six months and as often as we can returning members and investigators. The Temple is the main focus of this mission. We are working for real growth. We want to see those we help bring into the church stay. A good indicator of those who stay in the church after they are baptized is who goes to the temple after they are baptized. Something like 80% are more likely to stay after they have been to the temple! We are so blessed in this mission to have one so close! I actually have the chance to go to the temple next Tuesday! I am so excited to see the new film and to experience the Manhattan Temple! We've been there once but this time we actually get to do a session! I am so excited! Sister Kapisi is also really excited because she gets to work in a different area that day. She is going to Bensonhurst which is on the very Western edge of Long Island. She will be working with my MTC companion's trainer! Isn't that so cool?! I am really excited for them to learn from each other! Both are excellent missionaries and they are going to get along great!

We had Zone Conference this week and it was amazing as always! President Calderwood, Elder Wang and Elder Labaron are great missionaries who teach us so many awesome things every time we meet. They talked to us about temples, Patriarchal Blessings and not judging others. Three things that go hand in hand in my opinion. I just really love our leaders in this mission. They are so inspired and they know how to be bold and loving missionaries. 

Well, I don't know what else to write so I will just send pictures... a picture's worth a thousand words anyway right :)

Thank you all so much for your letters and prayers. 
Kale- I am so glad you are still alive after that explosion incident... 

Radman- Tell me all about FOOTBALL:) I miss high school football a lot!

Mom- You are amazing! I'm so happy you had a happy anniversary!

Dad- Thanks for loving mom so much! You are awesome!

Love,
Sister Hamblin :)

435- ZONE CONFERENCE!!!!! Isn't my zone the greatest?!!! 

431- We play soccer almost every morning at Bay Shore High School

430- As I said before we play soccer... left to right Elder Woolly, Elder Farmer, Me... :) Sister Kapisi, Elder Clark, Elder McPherson

426- Gross right? We were at ward correlation meeting and this guy interrupted our meeting :)

428- Sunrise in Bay Shore... or course it is a lot more beautiful in person but...

415- This is after a working at an investigators house for a long time :) It was SO much FUN!

Email 8/19/13

Dear Family,

So my world is in a spin right now... I can not believe that Riann is in college, Raddon started High School and Mom is teaching Kindergarten! I also can't believe that our green and white chouch is not at our house anymore :) What happened? What are you using in the living room in it's place? I can't believe how much everything is changing! It is so cool!

This week has been crazy! We have been doing a lot of service in the community and in people's homes who are not members of the church. As you are well aware, this is my favorite kind of missionary work. It is one thing for us to say that we follow Christ and we obey His teachings but when we are actually doing it and people in the community see that and feel of the love the Savior has for them through acts of service... that is when we are able to "Bring the name of the church out of obscurity" and help people grow so much! It's like Brother Riley told us before we left "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." What great advice! 

We are having a musical fireside next month and I am so excited for it! We had our first rehearsal for it yesterday and I am so impressed with the musical talent in the Bay Shore ward. There were only a few people in the choir but we sounded like THE Mormon Tabernacle Choir! It was awesome! We have an awesome director, her name is Sister Jo-Marie Burgess and she, along with her husband Brother Bradley Burgess (the pianist) are from South Africa! They are so talented and quite famous where they come from as I understand it. She has sung for The Queen of England and Michelle Obama and we are just really lucky to have them! We are really excited about this event. The ward members are helping us advertise it on Facebook and Eventbrite and Twitter, and Instagram and everywhere! Ha ha it's going to be so awesome!

We have a zone conference this week and I am so excited about it! Sister Kapisi is playing the piano at it and she is so nervous. She is really great at the piano though so I don't know why she is so worried.

Well now I'm not sure what I am going to write about in my letter but I hope you all are having a great time! I miss you all so much! 

Please let me know how everyone is doing. Like Sisters Blake and Rachel Hamblin and Elders Graham and Hunter and Rex Hamblin. I just don't hear back from them as often as I would like.... I'm just selfish :) 

You are all so great! I love you so much!

Kale- Hang in there girl, it's comming. God is just preparing your area of service for the best sister missionary that area has EVER seen! 

Love,

The Oldest Sister Hamblin :)

P.S.

Here are some pictures :)

418- Our District!

423- One of our investigators gave us tiaras and told us we were "Pretty, Pretty Princesses"

Letter 8/05/13

Dear Family, Well another week has gone by so quickly. The ending and beginning of this week marks the end and start of a new transfer. Again we, mostly I , can not believe how fat time is flying This week was filled with miracles. Not miracles that have to do with a big part of the work but miracles within myself. I feel the Lord's love for me so strongly in my life now more than ever. as I was reading President Uchtdorf's talk to the priesthood called "Four Titles" I was struck with how well our Father in Heaven really knows each of us as individuals. We are just so blessed as members of the church to know that from our infancy. "I Am A Child Of God" helps us begin to see our individual worth and as we grow and learn more from prophets, recent and in times of old, parents, friends and teachers we begin to see and know for a fat that "I Am I Child Of God"! What a blessing! So many people on this earth struggle and wander. They cling to hope found in hopeless situations and fail to see their true divine potential. I'm not saying as members of the church we are perfect at this, but I am saying at least we know...you know?! Many, I don't know if I've said this yet but, WE ARE SO BLESSED! Ok, I love you all so much! Love, The Eldest Sister Hamblin Letter 8/12/13 Dear Family, Sorry my email was so short! There are so many missionaries in our area and for some reason we all come to the same library every week. They really are starting not to like us very much here That is really not good I guess, we'll just have to find some wy to serve them. This week has been filled with service and miracles. We helped at a craft fair. AS you can imagine this wasn't my favorite thing ever, but it was fun to see that there really are some "small town" people even in New York City. These people that we helped were so nice and just so grateful to receive help from "kids". They asked us great questions and we answered them to the best of our abilities. Anyway, it was awesome. WE also had the opportunity to help an investigators of ours clean up her yard! I LOVE working in the yard! I know I used to hate it, but it is so fun! We cleared so many weeds and junk from the back yard I would not believe they were the same yard If I hadn't been helping. I love service! Our investigator had a friend with her who is an Atheist. It was so interesting to hear him talk about how there really is no possibility of a God. He really doesn't want to believe in God at all. He fights against it with all his heart, but I KNOW he knows that there is a God. In all our conversations he testified through his unconscious words that he believes in God. I can't wait until he actually acknowledges that he does. he was telling us that all the worlds problems would be solved if fathers and mothers were married and worked hard together to raise their children "in a good way"...Wanna be a Mormon? YES! We also had a really great lesson with a new investigator. She is awesome! She asks really awesome questions that I am often afraid to answer, but she really accepts and thinks about what we say. Well, I've got to go. Thanks for being so awesome. I really appreciate your letters and prayers. Love, The Oldest Sister Hamblin

Email 8/12/13

Dear Family, 

Today my email is going to be a little short. I have three other missionaries waiting to get on the computers. Please know that I love you and that you are all awesome! I promise to write an awesome letter... :) maybe :) 

Love,
The Oldest Sister Hamblin :)

Email 8/05/13

Dear Family,

First off I would like to say that I am really jealous that Elder Hamblin gets to meet Elder Holland! That is so cool! I would really like to hear about that! That is so cool! 

Second, HI how are you all? Man I love hearing from you! I am SOOO excited to get a letter from the gimp! :) I am pretty sorry to hear about that though! That is so disgusting! I that stinks that he is going through football camp on that thing! Man he is a trooper. 

Grandma emailed and said that Uncle Merrill is being/has been inducted into the Eagar Hall of Fame?! That is so cool! He is such a sweet guy... way different from his younger brothers :) I'm just kidding I love you DADDY :) Ha ha. She also said that he is having surgery on his arm? What's going on with that? 

Things here are great! We are seeing so many miracles and we are seeing so many blessings from creativity (don't freak out and think I got all creative, Sister Kapisi is so awesome and is the creative one). On Saturday we went to a different part of our zone and did a singing sweep. We set up behind a huge Mormon.org poster and sang hymns for like two hours. It was so cool. While most of  us sang others went around handing out fliers and inviting people to Family History night and to a Restoration concert the Terryville ward is having pretty soon. So it was really neat! We haven't heard if they found anyone that way but we'll see them next week so we'll see! I really hope we get to do that more often! They are all such great singers! 

This week is transfers. We are both staying in Bay Shore! I love this place so much! I am so happy that I get to stay! I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to be moved! This is just the greatest area ever! We have such great members here! They are so willing to reach out to those members who are less active and they are working hard to be friends to our investigators... we couldn't ask for more awesome members... ever :) I LOVE THEM!

Sister Kapisi and I are working on a musical fireside called "Families, God Gift to Us." Cheesy I know but it is going to be so great! Our ward has a LOT of musical talent! One Sister has sang for Michelle Obama, the Queen of England, and at major venues all over Europe and South Africa (She is from South Africa), her husband is an professional piano player (he is SO good), a young woman has so many talents we're not sure which one we want her to show, everyone is just really great and we are planning it for September 21, that's right the day after Kale's birthday and Aunt Kristi's birthday! It really is a tribute to them :) Ha ha just kidding :)

Well, I'll let you all go for now.
Mom- I hope you had the best day ever at work! Happy first day of school! I LOVE YOU

Dad- Have you're ears been burning lately? I've been talking a lot about you

Raddon- YAY FOR LETTERS!!!
Riann- Are you ready ?

Love,

The Oldest Sister Hamblin :)

Sorry I forgot that I had pictures to send today. they will come in several different emails but here you go! :)

375- My district! They are so great! Left to right... Elder McPherson, Elder Hooper, Elder Legere, Elder Clark, Sister Kapisi

374-We play monoply Deal sometimes... These are members of our zone who live in our building. They speak Spanish....

385- From our beautiful hike/nature walk today!

387- SO PRETTY

406- This leaf was just a lonely red leaf amongst the green... It also was so pretty!

411- GO ELKS!

417-We're trying to take a jumping picture... I was a little late :)

418- Now we jumped to early, but at least we landed safe...

420- VICTORY IS OURS!

Letter 7/29/13

Dear Family,
Ok seriously I feel like I've just finished writing last weeks letter about how I don't know what happened to the week.  If you could please let me know where the time has gone I would really appreciate it!  :)

This week has been crazy busy.  We had exchanges, deep clean, talent sweeps, pool parties (no we didn't swim), beautiful dinners and so much more.  I really can't believe that some of these things happened last week.  I almost feel like they happened 3 weeks ago, and yesterday all at the same time.

We had exchanges with the sisters from Freeport.  Sister Hales is the sister I was with and she and I sat on the airplane together from Salt Lake to New York, so it was good to see and talk to her and see how her mission is going.

Deep clean is my most favorite day of the transfer.  This is the day when we spend a good chunk of the day cleaning our apartment.  Thanks to you mom, I know where to clean, what to clean and with what to clean.  Because of this our apartment is one of only the few that doesn't have bed bugs, cockroaches and all other types of disgusting things crawling around.  Thank you so much!

Our zone got together this week and had what we call a talent sweep.  To me it felt a little like the circus but it was fun and we got to talk to quite a few people.  So what we did was use all our talents and set up at a park and perform.  When people would walk by we would ask if they would like to see or if they would like to hear about the church.  Most didn't even give us the time of day but there were a few people who were very interested in seeing members of our zone juggle, sing, twirl, etc.  It was fun.  We had a 13 year old from our ward come with us and twirl her batons.  She is #1 in the nation in her division.  It was SO cool to watch her.

The primary had a pool party and we invited some less active families to come.  So we went so we could introduce them to members of the ward, but they didn't show up so we left early.

We had homemade ravioli with one of our investigators that night and it was so good!  She is Italian and LOVES to cook, we just love her so much!  She has had the hardest life of almost anyone I've ever heard of.  She loves our Father in Heaven and truly wants to do what He wants her to do.  She's just having a hard time realizing what that is.

Well, I guess I'll close for today.  I'm not sure what I'll write my email about now so hope it turns out alright.

I love you all so much!
Love, Sister Hamblin :)