Baptism of Prisca and Precious

Hello Everyone,

 

I know I say this every week, but this has been the best week of the mission! It was filled with so many miracles and finished with the baptism of 2 of my bestfriends:)

 

This week we taught a man called Kyle. He is super prepared to receive the gosple he told us he wants to be baptised that he thinks it would help his family. We will be seeing him later in the week. His grandpa is a member. He came to the baptism on Saturday. It was like a half an hour walk in down pour, but he showed up! He has great commitment.

 

I was able to help set apart one of the sisters from the Stockport ward. She will be serving a mini mission in Liverpool for 4 weeks. It was great to talk her through all the mission rules and help her understand how to be a great missionary:) She has only been a member just barely over 2 years now.

 

We taught our friend Jason and his daughter Millie. We showed the Restoration DVD and at the end he said he was emotionally moved by it. Especially the part where Jospeh's father is baptised:) We hadn't see him in about a month since before christmas, and he said he had been missing something. and really felt alot better since we came over. Then we set up a time to see him and his daughter Millie. Because she was sad she was gone for the lesson last week.

 

We were at the Martin's home this week. They had their friend Jay over. He was amazing in the lesson. We taught about the restoration, and he participated well, and you could tell that Chris and Kim had been talking to him about it. It is so wonderful to see the excitement The Martin's are bringing.

 

The baptism was amazing!!! Prisca and Precious had been waiting for this day since we met them. Every lesson was super good. They were so prepared to hear the gosple. they were introduced by a member friend back in Wrexham. Then was taught in Chester and eventually moved up to Stockport. KIm Martin gave a great talk on baptism. Which is really great since she was only baptised last March. Then one of the sister that taught them in Chester, Sister Snarr, talked on the Holy Ghost that is when I could really feel the spirit. I was so excited and a bit nervous. Since this was my first time baptising. But when I met them in the font, all those nerves went away. It is wonderful to see their smiling faces when they came up out of the water. They were well ready for this day. Then we had loads of African Food! which is amaizngly good. Then on Sunday I was able to confirm the little girl Precious. This was my first time doing a confirmation, but the spirit directed it all. I was so touched by the things that were said. I know Precious will be a special member of her family and the church. She will be a great influence on everyone that she meets. I have them all CTR rings to help them remember their specail day!

 

This week has been amazing! I love the Silver family and am so happy I got to meet them and help them on their journey back to Heavenly Father. They are such a loving family and I can't thank the Lord enough for being blessed to meet them!

I love you all have a marvelous week,

 

love Elder Hammond

January!!

Hello Everyone:)

 

First off, I am super excited that the Broncos made the Super Bowl!:) But I know a have a more important game to play :)

 

This week we taught Prisca and Precious! They are so amazing! It is hard to believe that I met them 3 months ago in Wrexham, and now on Saturday I will be baptising them:) This family is fanominal! On Monday, we met at the chapel to teach them a lesson, and she brought us food! Which African food is the bomb! They had their interview and passed it, then on Friday it was the son Jessi's birthday, so we sang happy birthday to him. And at church yesterday he brought pictures of his birthday to show us. His mom was telling us how he was really excited to tell the missionaries about his special day.

We taught our recent convert Kim and Chris's son Jayden again this week. He is super good. We talked about the plan of salvation, and when we got to the spirit world. He told us how his grandma didn't have a chance to learn about God, so his mom got baptised for her. So that she could go from prison to paradise! He knew it all! He will decide when he wants to get baptised, which I think it will be soon:)

 

We had a special 4 hour finding on Saturday. We do it every 6 weeks. Our theme for this time was working with members. So we went out with the bishop and knocked a street that another member of the bishopric had prayed about. It went so well, we met this man that knew about Brigham Young and how he had come to Stockport over a 100 years ago. The bishop invited him to our ward's 50th celebration. The chapel has been here 50 years in Stockport. After we had many miracles, and people asking about family history, we went to a members home and had lunch. We had gammon! The best meat in the world, then went to another area and worked with a recent convert, and a less active. They went on splits with us. We were able to find a family of 5 and teach them about the Plan of Salvation! So many miracles. Then yesterday at church, we had this man from Russia walk in off the street. He thought he needed to be at church. We will hopefully see him next Sunday.

 

I love you!

 

Love Elder Hammond

 

Chip sandwich! Weird, but actually quite nice.

My district:)

Moi everyone!

Moi means hi in Finnish! And on Tuesday I got my Finnish name badge. So now you can call me Vanhin Hammond. Which means Elder Hammond. We had transfer calls. I will be staying in the blessed land of Stockport with my companion Elder Maljanen. I am so excited for this. This week I had a fried mars bar from one of the chippy's in Stockport. I took 1 bite and threw it away. It wasn't very good.

So incase I haven't already told you, Prisca and Precious are amazing! They are so prepared to receive the gosple. They have had a hard life, but Prisca is really trying to provide the best life for her kids. So she is taking them to church. She got introduced to the church by some friends in Wrexham. Which is where I served before and I actully met her. Didn't think much about it, now she moved to Stockport and is ready to be baptised:) They are going to be baptised on January 25th! Which is so amazing there is another baptism in our district as well. We have been seeing alot of miracles in 2014. It is looking like it will be a great year. On Wednesday we taught Prisca and Precious with our recent converts KIm and Chris. They are both so amazing they shared powerfull testimonies of the change the gosple has brought to their lifes. And Prisca's and Kim's kids got along so well. Oliva the little 4 year old met Holly and they acted like they had been bestfriends forever. It was well good.

After our lesson with Prisca, we taught Kim and Chris's son Jayden. He is 9 and hasn't made the decision to be baptised yet. But he is really open to it. I think it will be sometime in February:)

 

We started teaching this dad and her 3 daughters again. His name is Jason. We called the Elder's Quorum president, and relief society president to come with us, which just happen to be husband and wife ;) they were great fellowshippers. They invited Jason and his family to church. Then even invited them to have family home evening in their home tonight! How amazing is that. The members in Stockport are amazing they really want to help us, and build up their ward. They have a goal of bringing 50 more people to church a week. Since this year is the 50th anniversery of their chapel. We have about 10 more coming right now, Prisca and her family of 3, and a family that just moved in that has 6!

 

Yesterday we had this less active man named Ray Jones come to church! Missionaries have been trying for along time to get him to come. And he even made a goal of coming to church. And yesterday he did!! NO one was more excited to see him there than we were. He stayed for all the meetings and participated well. It was like he hadn't even been gone for long:) It was truely a miracle.

 

This past week has really been a wonderful one. We have really seen a push for members and missionaries to work together. And we have seen so many miracles from us uniting together!

 

I love you all,

 

Love Elder Hammond

Fasting bring Miracles!!

Hello Everyone!:)

I have defianly had a wonderful week it has been full of exciting things and a great New Year! It is only the 6th of January, and I have already seen so many miracles.

2013 was a great year for me and I really have grown so much over this past year. It was about a year ago that I started to fill out my mission papers. Then of course I got the honour of serving in the England Manchester Mission. It exactly where I need to be! I have a strong testimony of this.

On New Years day we went to a member that had just moved to Stockport. The father is from Peru and the wife is English. They fixed us Peruvian food that was amazing. It was much different from Mexican food. It was well nice. Then in the middle of us being there, the son got really sick and they had to take him to the hospital. So we stayed at their house until we got a ride home.

I had an amazing miracle happen this week! We got a call from a sister serving in Chester. Saying one of the ladies she was working with is moving to Stockport and she gave us her phone number. We called and she said she had been waiting for our call. When I heard her voice, I reconized it. It was a lady I had taught at a members home in Wrexham. Her name is Prisca. So we met on Saturday and gave her a church tour. She remembered me. And when we showed her the baptismal font. She said she was suppose to be baptized on the 20th of December!!! We dated her for baptism on the 25th of January!! But it gets better I was on exchanges with an elder from Macclesfield. Prisca brought her friend with her on the church tour and guess where she was from Macclesfield!! It was such a tender mercy of the Lord. Prisca and her daughter Precious are amazing. They testified to the friend on the importance of church and how it would help her in her life.

Yesterday we went to teach this lady named Sarah! She is amazing and so prepared she said she has been praying to find the truth and wants to know God's plan for her:)

I have seen so many miracles this week! It is an exciting time to be on my mission with the Hastening the Work of Salvation! Fasting works I have a testimony of it. I know if we excercise our faith in the lord he will answer our prayers!

I love you all

Love Elder Hammond