Email 9/23/13

Dear Family,

HELLO from STATEN ISLAND!!!! I can't believe what a crazy week it has been. From beginning to end we have been running from appointment to appointment and from Staten Island to Bay Shore and New Jersey. It has just been the craziest week! Here's the brake down:

Tuesday- Rego Park in Queens (Mission office) TRANSFER MEETING!!!! I love transfer meeting. President Calderwood is an excellent speaker and really knows how to get 285 missionaries excited and ready for missionary work. I just love listening to him and Sister Calderwood speak and encourage us to be obedient so that we can receive the blessings of the Lord. 

Wednesday- Zone Meeting in Brooklyn. When I got to Staten Island I was a little overwhelmed because of how different from Bay Shore it is. Then we went to Brooklyn for our Zone getting-to-know-you activity and I was blown away! There are so many buildings and people there who don't speak English, I looked like a deer in the headlights. After our zone meeting we did a Chinese street sweep inviting people to free English class. Let's just say that I will be able to tell Sister Blake Hamblin where she can go for free English class in her mission language when she gets home :)

Thursday- LONGEST planning session ever! Each week we have a few hours set aside to plan for the rest of the week. This week's planning session lasted entirely too long. However I am better antiquated with Staten Island and my new companions (Sister Casperson and Sister Howard, yes I'm in a TRIO) really helped me to get to know our investigators and members of the ward.

Friday- Singing at the docks. Between Staten Island and Manhattan there are ferries that take people to and from work every 30-45 minutes. The missionaries in my district and the missionaries in the Spanish district have a routine to go and give away free lemonade and fearless people and on Fridays we sing hymns! It is so fun. People from all over the world stop and talk to us and thank us for our singing and it is really exciting to see so many people stop and talk or just listen to what we have to say. 

Saturday- NEW JERSEY!!! The Staten Island 1st ward has an apple picking activity every year in New Jersey. This year the missionaries were invited to go and after getting permission from our mission president we headed off to the unknown beyond our mission boundaries. It was AWESOME! I took some awesome pictures... however my email time is not going to be the same as it has been in the past so please don't expect anything too grand in weeks following. 

We also had the opportunity to go to Bay Shore for the Musical Celebration of Families that I helped plan. President really is so nice to let me go back for such a special occasion. It was really awesome and there were a lot of non-members there. Members brought thier family members who were not members and they really enjoyed themselves. It was such an amazing experience. We did however have some technical difficulties but we got over it and the program turned out nicely anyway. It was just a really great experience.

Sunday- CHURCH! I had the opportunity to speak on my very first Sunday in the Staten Island first ward. The ward members were really nice to me and I feel very welcomed in this ward. Bishop Glick even invited us over for dinner. It was an amazing experience! 

I am so excited to be serving here in Staten Island in a trio! New experiences are scary but help us grow so much. Hence the Plan of Salvation. How could we ever become like God if we could not have awesome experiences like He had. WE ARE SO BLESSED!!!

I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and for your letters! You're the best!

Love,
Sister Hamblin :)

P.S.

Austin Gregory served here and EVERYBODY loves him members, non-members, less-actives. They all love him. All I had to say was "I'm from Eagar, AZ" and everybody was responded "Elder Gregory was from there! He was such a great missionary! We love him!" I'm so grateful that He put such an amazing name out for Eagar Arizona. It's always nice to follow an excellent missionary. So if you see him tell him thank you for me. And see if there is anyone he wants me to visit for him. These people here are so amazing and I am so excited to be working with them!