Professional T-Shirt Designer

Hi,

This week in Ft. Apache Elder Hamson had a cool, strange, successful,
long week.

Sound good? Good.

Haha I'm kidding, I don't what to say about this week because we had a
ton of lessons and I can't remember anything else that happened. One
of our progressing investigators is going great and he might drop
coffee from his diet soon. But, he didn't come to church this week and
we are hopping it was just like a doctor appointment or something.
Dwight though he is still going strong. He has come to church twice
now it has been great he is definitely looking for a change from his
interesting history. We are supposed to get Marcella baptized but,
this fair is coming to the reservation this week and it is ruining all
of our plans.  Haha, one of these days she will be baptized. We really
need to get her dad active though. He works on forest fires and they
are always busy over the summer.
We met three new investigators this week! One of them, Bailey, is a
super nice guy who believes in God but, has never been a part of any
religions. So, we are hoping on helping him understand a bit more.
Matthew is a shy soul who we found and he has been open so far to
hearing our lessons. Finally, Robert live two minutes walking distance
from the church and we hope to help him with his questions. He has a
super great family and it is would be amazing how much the Gospel
could effect his life.
Man I miss doing a bunch of service. Back in Snowflake we did a bunch
of service almost every morning. This week were going to help these
people build a shed and it was gonna be fun. Then, it rained and they
called it off. But, rain is good, I like rain.
Our zone leader is a good artist and we were trying to get him to get
some art done for a zone T-Shirt so, apparently that is my job. So, it
has been interesting trying to motivate him into drawing it out. Once
he drew it I scanned, designed, and created the T-Shirts in PDF format
for the shirt people. So, the shirt design for our zone feels like my
baby. I am so excited we have them printed today. I will send a sweet
picture next week. It isn't crazy intricate because we wanted to go
for simplicity.  There is power in simplicity. I'll let you ponder on
that for a bit.

Love ya'll!

Elder Hamson


A little taste of a rez sunset

Gold Plates!

Ey!

This week was super good! We reached all of our goals and my trainee
is doing splendid! We started the week off strong with six lessons in
one day. Eddie, is slowly progressing. But, the fact is that he is
progressing. We just need him to heal up from his surgery he had
recently. Jarilyn we taught and she always asks tons of questions.
That is super awesome. She has been reading and hopefully we can get
her to come to church. All the people that we taught this week I have
just grown a love for just because off all the things they face on the
reservation and all the blessings they could have in there lives if
they would simply work at finding faith in christ. Faith and
repentance, is all we teach as missionaries. We teach about what has
happened, where we came from, and where we are going. But, ultimately
it is all about what is the purpose of life. God's purpose is to bring
to pass the immortality and eternal life of man! So, God gave us a
plan through Jesus Christ we can have that immortality and eternal
life. Faith and repentance is that plan. It is so simple, yet so
difficult, yet possible.

Oooo, we hiked Tuesday and it was amazing. Sorry if I told you I hate
hiking but, I actually love nature so... Awkward it makes it all worth
it!

We had interviews this week with the mission President. That was super
awesome. So, I have a new iPad, right? (Long story) but, anyway the
wifi is horrible on the reservation. So while we were up there, i got
to download a bunch of bible videos and mormon messages. That was
awesome, because now I have some good stuff to help people! Haha,
anyway the interviews went great! It is always great to talk with
President. He is really a cool guy and now I am more motivated to do
the work. Also, we had car inspections that day too, and we got the
gold plates! So, the companionship who had the cleanest car at
inspections for the zone gets golden license plate lining. It is super
sweet so, a little perfectionist me moment. Our car was spotless just
so you know, anyway!

I love you all! I am doing great don't worry! 😘

Elder Hamson

Pinetop Zone

Dou-tae!

Okay, well this week was pretty epic! We started off with a birthday
party for one of the investigators that is getting baptized and we
tried to give a blessing to this lady later. But, she decided she was
okay.
Tuesday was Zone Training Meeting. We had some good trainings. They
were all about working with members and the wards and branches we are
in. It is also interesting to know that I am now apart of the very
first Pinetop Zone. We used to be the Apache Zone (much cooler) but,
our boundaries just changed and now our name changed. There were also
a bunch of other changes that were made too but, that's boring.
We picked up five new investigators this week! It was super awesome!
And now we already have set a goal with two of those five for baptism.
We had an opportunity to paint someone's house too. That was a bunch
of fun.
This week was just full of a bunch of uplifting and spiritually
edifying lessons. Sometimes you really get the purpose of it all and
how much people can gain from the knowledge of Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is so rewarding when you can feel the spirit  testifying to them.
Today we had a meeting with the branch seminary leader and talked
about how to teach Seminary. We will be teaching the seminary class
down here in the Fort Apache branch. I learned a lot in that little
meeting. It's kinda nuts! So much is happening and I am excited for
this week.
I went on exchanges with Elder Kapisi and that is always entertaining.
He always picks up any change on the ground. So, I joined this time.
It makes for an entertaining competition. We pray for a lot of people
that day. Usually people know us as ministers around here and ask us
to pray for them to get over their addictions. We ran into these two
ladies and they called us over and they wanted us to pray for them.
And after the prayer this one lady tried to hug Elder Kapisi because
apparently they thought he was cute. Haha it get interesting out here.
I hope you all had a great week! Some day I will figure out how to do
these weekly emails more effectively.

I love you!
Elder Hamson

Let's Stay Positive

Okay! Hello!

Alright this week was pretty good! We went to the temple on Saturday
because Kenneth was going through for the first time. Which is huge
progress from where he has been. Whelp, that's it, thank you for
tuning in!

😅 Haha just kidding! This week was interesting and we barely had any
lessons.... But! Let's stay positive! My companion is great! My
District is great! The people are great, and the area is great! So,
there really is so many things to be grateful for! We really did talk
to a bunch of people though. A lot of new and interesting people! I
like it! It was just hard to have a formal lesson with people and all
the people that said they would be home, weren't. This one guys
though, he is a pastor over his local church. He is super old and we
gave him a Book of Mormon. He said "Oh, thank you!" and we tried to
explain to him that it is was comparable to The Bible but, a different
record. I don't think he understood because he continued to show us
his collection of bibles. So, I guess we added to his strange
collection of scripture. Then, this one guy. I don't think he spoke
any english because he just talked to us in his native language and
after a while we just had to say goodbye. It was super awkward but,
that is how it goes!
Next week will be cooler, I promise!
Goodnight!
I Love you, my family!

Elder Hamson

A wet week

Sic-nae! What uppp!

Elder Bay (Bayder) is no more... :(

But, that is okay because Elder Youngstrom is amazing! He is a full on
gymnast and can do back flips and everything! It is super cool. We go
to the gym in the morning and I am benching my humble 70 Lbs. He is
over in the corner doing a full on cross fit workout. Doing handstand
push-ups and crazy yoga move ab exercises or something. I don't know,
he does his thing and I do mine. He is from Idaho and his dad owns a
company that makes huge log homes so you know he is pulling in some
serious $$. Anyway! We have been doing super well here on the
reservation with the Apache people. So good! Apparently it is monsoon
season because there has been a bunch of rain and cloud cover. Which
is great! Because, it helps with the heat and free car washes! I love
the rain! It makes me so happy, that is probably why we did so well
this week! Thank you rain!

I picked him up on Tuesday and that was a crazy weird day because we
had to go shopping because he just came into the area. And Thursday I
conducted my first meeting as a District leader. Kind of a funky week
but, I am getting use to it.

We had a bunch of good lessons this week and had an opportunity to
teach a couple new people! Leroy is my favorite less active, he is
doing super good and reads the Book of Mormon. But, we really need to
get him to church. We met this new guy named Mando, he seemed super
interested in what we had to say and he said he will read before we
come back. So, we are hoping for the best! We also taught this guy who
was talking to us about all the times he broke the law and is was
weird but, we showed him a quick vid about the book of mormon and he
said he was gonna read it as well! So that is great! Marcella is
totally getting baptized next week so stay tuned for that!

I love ya'll! (<------ What? I never use that word) Keep being Happy
because why not!


Elder Hamson