Email 12/16/13

'Dear Family,

This week we have seen so many miracles in our district. At the same time we have Satan trying so hard to stop the work from happening. It is amazing how it works and how once we learn how to conquer Satan everything is better. Yesterday Elders Hooper and Legere put together a baptism that was amazing! The Spirit was so strong and the members were so supportive! Basically the whole ward stayed for the baptism and Brother Donald felt like he belonged to a family even though his family is so far away in Sri Lanka. The most amazing thing about it was that his family was able to join us for the baptism through Skype! Technology is so cool! The Elders have begun teaching Brother Donald's family and they are all excited to progress in the gospel. One week before the baptism Brother Donald's father passed away. He was obviously upset and almost canceled the baptism. Yesterday he couldn't stop saying how happy he was and how he knew that this is what Heavenly Father wanted him to do.

Sadly there was supposed to be another baptism that happened yesterday. However the man who was supposed to be baptized is missing. Elders Liston and Finlinson have taught him cannot come in contact with him. The members of the ward have tried contacting him, his non-member friends have tried contacting him... we just don't know where he is or what happened. The Elders taught him a lesson three days before he was to be baptized, he was supposed to have a interview for baptism the next day but canceled it because he had some concerns and we haven't heard from him since. It's crazy! The same Elders are teaching an amazing family and their house burnt down yesterday! These poor guys are just going through it! They are positive about the future however and are keeping their heads high and their faith firmly planted. Satan can't get to this group of missionaries :)

Sister Howard and I have seen a lot of miracles as well. Two transfers ago our phone broke so we had to get a different one. In that process we lost a lady's number who had been interested in the gospel but was held back by her husband who said they didn't need to switch religions at that point. This week the Lord prompted her to text us! We are back in contact with her and she said she wants start going to church. She is just the sweetest lady and we are so excited to start working more with her. One of our other investigators who has been coming to church regularly but has been too busy to meet with us said that this week we could come meet with her. She is a full time student, mom, and she has a full time job. Her last final is on Thursday and so she said that she expected to see a lot more of us this week! We are so excited. We are just being so blessed here on Staten Island!

I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be serving a mission here in the New York, New York South Mission! I just love it so much! We have lots of amazing things planned for this upcoming week and we can't wait for CHRISTmas! The ward is taking very good care of us! We are just about the most spoiled missionarires in the whole world I think!

Well I love you all So much! Thank you all for your prayers and letters.

Love,

Sister Hamblin :)

Here is what our beautiful Christmas tree looks like! We love it!!

A sister in our ward made these stockings for us and filled them with
all this delicious things! Her husband is studying to be a dentist so
we all received new toothbrushes! Ha ha it was so fun!

I don't know if you saw this on Facebook but I just love it! Our
Christmas party was on Friday and the Elders had way too much fun!

Ok here are some of the decorations from the party and if you notice
we even had a few whos from whovile in the background.

Email 12/09/13

Dear Family,

This weekend has been so fun! This weekend was the Brooklyn Stake Conference. Because our stake is too big to fit in any building in the stake we had meet in the grand ball room of the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. Walking in I felt like a princess. There were several beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the chairs provided were elegant and comfortable. Our Stake President, Nelson, encouraged everyone to do missionary work. In the adult session of stake conference he had all the bishops call up each missionary by name and encouraged each of the ward members to get to know each of our names so that they would feel more comfortable introducing their friends and family to us. This inspired me to learn more of the names of the members of our ward on Staten Island. One of the Elders in our district is really great at remembering names of people and has seen a lot of success because of his ability to converse with each of them by name. There is something special associated with names.

Oh another really awesome thing... Bishop Glick, the Bishop of the Staten Island 1st ward, the ward in which I am serving, is in this video https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/jesus-heals-a-man-born-blind?lang=eng . He is the Pharisee speaking at 4:10! Look for him, he's pretty awesome!

Transfers are this week. Sister Howard and I are both staying here in Staten Island. She will be the companion that I have had for the longest amount of time! We are so excited to see what this transfer holds and we are so excited that we will be staying together for Christmas! One of our Zone Leaders is leaving and we are all really sad about it because he was our comic relief! We are excited to see what will happen across the mission and to watch the hand of the Lord once again sweep across the New York, New York South mission. This transfer is a little sad because a lot of my friends that I have served with in Bay Shore and here are going home :(. It is a sad thing to see them go but I know in my heart that they are going to do amazing things! I can't wait to see what the future holds for each of them.

More exciting news after hours and hours of entering, we have finished converting all of our paper information to electronic!!! We are so happy to get that out of the way so that we can be out looking up those who have fallen by the way side! This took a long time but we are excited because we found a lot of names of people we haven't seen before! Hopefully we will be able to meet with them and help them to experience true happiness!

I have to say that I love Christmas here in New York. The decorations here are out of this world! People with the tiniest of yards have gigantic blow up figurines of Christmas items such as santas, nativity scenes, snoopy on a motorcycle, snowmen, Whiney the Poo, reindeer, and during Hanukkah, huge white bears holding dradels! Lights are everywhere and it feels like a winter wonderland going through some of the towns! people are hustling around trying to get everything in order before the big day! It snowed a little last night just in time for the Christmas devotional and I felt that it was the perfect ending to the day!

Thank you so much for sending my coat and some delicious hot chocolate by-the-way! They came just in time and I am so warm! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Also we received Christmas presents from Elder Eggleston's mom! It was so cute! She wrote us each individual notes and sent stockings, candy canes, rolo's, and wrapped it all so beautifully!

 

Ok I'd better go! I love you all so much! Thanks again for all the letters, prayers and love!

Love,

Sister Hamblin :)

Letters

11/25/13

Dear Family,

We have had a very exciting week filled with miracles all around.  I am not sure if I mentioned this last week but two weeks ago I wrote to President Calderwood and expressed the joy I had been feeling over the blessings we had been receiving in our district and around the mission.  He wrote back and simply stated "obedience brings blessings.  Exact obedience brings miracles".  I shared this with my district and we have committed to be exactly obedient.  Hence, the miracles we have been witnesses of.  I mean, we're not claiming to be exactly obedient in everything, we're not perfect, but as we've tried harder more blessings have come.  So cool!

This week we were able to go on exchanges with the sister training leaders and I spent the day in Queens.  The best part was that I was able to talk to some of my good friends from Bay Shore who are serving there now.  It was awesome!  Elder Clark told me that he gets to pick up Sister McKee from the airport in a few weeks when she gets back from Bermuda!  I am so jealous and really freaked out that time went by so fast!

We had a mega Zone Conference with all of the missionaries who serve in the Brooklyn Stake (which is about 80 missionaries) on Wednesday.  President and Sister Calderwood both told us of miracles that are happening around the mission.  They again encouraged us to be exactly obedient and kick Satan out of our lives.  WE are so blessed with such great leaders. 

I love you all so much!  Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Love,
Sister Hamblin :)

12/02/13

Dear Family,
What an awesome week it's been.  We've had an excellent Thanksgiving weekend!

On Thanksgiving we spent most of the day planning and preparing for the rest of the week and then we had to opportunity to have dinner with a Phillipino family!  Sister REyes is the Primary President in our ward and both she and her husband came here for work after their second child was born.  Sister Reyes has 2 sisters who live very near to her here, who are members and we spent a lot of time getting to know them.  We had so much fun!  They all have young children who run around and play games with each other.  It was fun to see them because it felt a little more like "the good old days" at grandma's house.

We did have a "Turkey Bowl" Thursday morning.  Some members of our ward and most of the missionaries from our Zone got together and played a couple of games of football!  It was really fun, but most of us were sore from it in the days that followed.  We have a Chinese district in our zone, and they were surprisingly really good!  It was really fun!

Yesterday was a wonderful day because during fast and testimony meeting one of the Elders' investigators got up and bore a powerful testimony on Joseph Smith and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon!  It was so awesome.  Heavenly Father is truly leading us to the pure in heart, including families!  We are so blessed!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Black Friday.  Raddon, you are a champion for going shopping with those crazy girls!  Believe me, I know.  It's not easy :)

I love you all so much!
Happy December!

Love, Sister Hamblin

Email 12/03/12

Dear Family,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I'm glad to hear that your Thanksgiving went well. Grandma said she was glad to be there and that she was happy that at least one of her children was in town. I am sorry to hear about the RV football game! I am however very impressed that they got so far. I think it is something they can learn from for the rest of their lives but especially when they all go on their missions. They already know what it is like to work so hard and do all you can to make it to the finish line and then feel like they haven't succeed. But as they look back over the pain and early mornings, and sacrifices and the work they had to do in school to get there they realize that they have become forever changed by this experience. They know how to work hard and how to find joy in the little successes along the way! These things are so valuable! As they apply them in life they will find life to be much more enjoyable. Right Dad? "It's the hard that makes it good."

Things here are great! We are seeing a change coming here to the Staten Island first ward. The members are becoming more and more involved and they are starting to love visiting and home teaching! Our Relief Society President is really trying to get everyone involved in this great work. She bore a powerful testimony yesterday and the sisters came up to us afterward and asked us for tips, asked if they could take us with them and asked when they could come with us! I is so great! We have been working so hard to help this ward be so strong so that we can bring people here who can build on that strength. The members here are amazing! I love them all so much! The missionaries that we are working with are as well. I just feel such a sense of unity between us and the ward and I really hope the ward can feel it as well.

It is really cold here in New York. The Turkey Bowel (our flag football game on Thanksgiving) was more of an Ice bowel but we still had fun. The Sisters had a great advantage because every time we got the ball no one would come near us. The only thing was that I couldn't catch the ball at all :) Thankfully Sister Howard has played powder puff football throughout high school and college so we had an advantage. We had some ward members come and help us out too. It was just a lot of fun and I am a little sad that I won't be here next year to participate in it.

Oh I have big news! My trainer got married!!! She got Sealed in the Salt Lake Temple and then flew back to Puerto Rico for their reception. Everything in her pictures looked beautiful! How wonderful is life?! I am so excited for her and her husband Alexis!

 Ok, I guess I'll let you all go. Thank you so much for the Christmas tree! I LOVE IT!

Love,

Sister Hamblin :)