Hermana Brittany Haven Hammond: June 2, 2014 Let me explain.. no there is too much.. let me sum up!

June 2, 2014 Let me explain...no there is too much.. let me sum up!

Mi Hermosa Familia!
Yay for Jacob graduating! I was worried;)... Naw... I am proud of you
brother! Seriously out here.. Graduating is a big deal! Bien hecho!
Feliz Cumpleanos: Uncle Brad!!!!

I just want to say Happy Birthday to my wonderful dad! I love my dad
so much, I look up to you in every way. One day I hope to be like you
dad, one of the most Christ-like people on this entire planet. Dad
thanks for being there every step of the way, well also the stumbles
and falls the leaps and the biffs; the whole time you've been there, I
love ya dad:)
Happy birthday to Brielle and Brooke this week too! Holy cow my
favorite twins in the whole world, literally I miss you so much! Have
the best birthday ever!

Now you're ready to hear about my week....(say in Spanish accent) "Let
me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up..." Haha but really...
It has been the most incredible, crazy, overly emotional, sad, awesome
week ever!

Lunes- thank you for sending me a wonderful birthday again! It was
amazing! I also got to spend it with la familia Gomez. I love them!
They are wonderful, we are trying to get them to go to the temple, so
we taught the plan of Salvation and they were like, "when we go
through the temple, we want you there with us!" I died:)

Martes- We had a crazy day this day, probably one of the saddest on my
mission. We went to go visit Hermana Monge and her family. I think I
have had ALL of my crazy stories at her home. Haha, I love her. Well
we started by doing her dishes and they were plied so high it took us
an hour and a half, literally. While Hermana Monge was cooking for us
we started reading books to the children, Memo and Bella. They never
get that, so we read the Dr. Seuss books at their home with them.

This next part I am going to quote what I said in my journal word by word,
"My heart broke today...after reading a couple books to the kids,
Hilda all of a sudden started screaming in the other room at the top
of her lungs. Then she came out of the door and slammed the other door
into the bathroom, and started screaming in there. Then opened the
door, slammed the door to the bathroom and ran outside. Then her
children started screaming and crying, "Mommy not again, mommy don't
leave us again..." It was so traumatizing.

Long story short, the kids ran out to follow their mom, and Hermana Monge just stayed on the
couch (because this sort of thing happens all the time she told us).
There was fighting, screaming, hitting, (between Hilda and her
boyfriend) but eventually we found out someone robbed them and stole
all of Hilda's money to pay rent that month. This family is so
incredibly poor. They literally have no money to wash clothes, no
money for gas, no money to pay rent, and honestly no money to buy
food. Hilda works the jobs that only pay minimum wage and that's all
their income. Hermana Woolf and I were so heart broken." That was the
story from my journal.

Short story what happened after is Hilda drove
away and so Hermana Woolf and I took the kids inside, because Hermana
Monge didn't get up from the couch, and just started reading books to
them again. We tried to just show them love. We also finished cooking
and gave it to the kids, Josh, and Hermana Monge (Josh is Hilda's
boyfriend who is on House Arrest and lives there).

I cannot describe the feelings in our hearts when this was all happening. It may not
sound like a huge deal, but it was to me. When a sweet child sees
his/her mother screaming, hitting, fighting, and leaving there is a
little imprint made on that child's heart, that will not be forgotten.
I am so grateful for parents who never screamed, nor hit, nor fight,
or left when a bad situation arose. Hermana Woolf and I left after
awhile feeling so hurt for this family.

Right after we went to go see a teenager in our branch who is 13 years
old and is addicted to drugs. She has a lot of problems, but we asked
her mom if we could come over to just show her love. We went over to
just be friends with her and right away she started talking to us
right away about drugs, because this teenager doesn't think there is
anything wrong with getting stoned, and it makes her "feel good." We
tried to explain that drugs take your life away.

Long story short, we are now friends with her and she laughs at me because I have
a great double chin. It was so sad because her mother and father love
her so much and here she is, doing drugs at such a young age.
We went home on Tuesday very humbled and changed people.

Miercoles- we had a great district meeting! Right after we went to
Crystal Lake to visit a less active (in the Elders area) but she is a
recent convert and she needs love. (Plus there was no guy so the
Elders asked us to go see her) it was great! We found her at home and
asked her if we could take her to a lesson for our investigator
Gabriela! She totally said yes! So this Tuesday we are getting a
member present! Then we came home and straight away went to go pick up
Sister Sites, for out lesson with Arlene. Soon Arlene will be 12 and
Sister sites is the Young Women's president.

The lesson went really well! Member present lessons are truly inspired! Then we had to go
straight to our Book of Mormon class. Only one member showed up,
Hermana Gomez. We were so grateful one showed up! We are praying more
ha how up next time. We taught and it went well, we were kinda
stressed because we were running around all day crazy it seemed, but
it was an awesome day!

Jueves- well, it was weekly planning day! We planned and then we again
went over to Hermana Monge/ Hilda because we had had that cita
actually planned a week before. Hermana Monge was in her room
sleeping, but it was perfect because we got to just talk to Hilda. It
was a miracle. While Hilda made food for us she just talked to us. She
told us a lot of her life story. She told us when she was a
gang-banger. She also in detail told us what taking drugs is like. It
was very interesting. It's really interesting talking to someone who
has had so much experience in this area because it made me so
incredibly grateful for the gospel.

I have personally seem the after affects of what drugs can do to a person. I have personally seen what
it does to children to break the law of Chastity before marriage. It
is so incredibly sad, so many people here are so addicted to these
drugs, and are living in sin. What I have realized, is that every
single one of these people who has these problems is not happy. They
may be happy for a few minutes, or even hours, then the "happiness"
goes away.

The long term affect is only sadness. I am so happy that
Hilda is talking with us! I know one day she will change, because she
can! We all make mistakes and that's why we have a Savior. Pray for
Hilda so she will want to use the atonement to change!

Viernes- We rode bike around Woodstock all day long and tried to find
people. We also did some community service in the library. Which is
awesome because we are making friends in their! Also they were like,
"We need help with story time for Spanish, our Spanish speaker left
for vacation, can you two do it." So awesome! We will be doing story
time at the library with Hispanics every Monday for 30 min for 8
weeks. (We can totally get some referrals, and investigators). I am so
excited! We start next week!

Sabado- this day was AWESOME, INSANE, TOTALLY COOL! So, we got
permission for our district to run a 5K color run! It was so fun! We
all put on our shirts Mormon.org! And we passed our pass-along cards
and we died a little bit. Haven't run that long in a while.. Haha. But
it was so fun! They covered us in color and we had such a great time!
Also all of us missionaries are going to be on the cover of the
color-run race banner for the next year. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

That was at 8, then we had to hurry and shower because we had a branch
activity Picnic after. So we showered and went to the activity..
(Which we invite like the whole world) and guess who showed up?......
HILDA and ALL the family! We were sooo happy to see her! We played
volleyball and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Around 3:30 we had to leave because....drum roll.... We went to the city to go see
RICARDO AND CARMEN GET BAPTIZED! Ahhhhhhhh I was so excited!

(This is the family I met in my first area when we were inspired to say Hi and carry in their groceries.)

We traveled to the city and met with Hermana Felt and then we went all
the way to Midway! My home! I was nervous to go because I didn't know
if they would remember me. It didn't really hit me that they were
getting baptized until I walked and I saw them in white. Then I gave
Carmen the biggest abrazo and just started to cry. I asked how they
were and they said, "Hermana Hammond, we love you, and we are so ready
to be clean." I thought to myself, this is what the gospel is! This is
people changing their lives to become better!

This mission was all worth it to see these people enter the waters of baptism! I sat by
Hermana Felt and right when Carmen came up out of the water we both
smiled so big at each other!
I have never been so happy. After the baptism was over I asked Ricardo
how he was, and then we both started to cry and all he said to me was,
"limpio....limpio" in English, "clean.. Clean.." Tears just streamed
down my face as I said, "Hermano si, you are."
My day was made completely! What a miracle wow!

Well after we missed the bus to go home and the next bus was at 10:30,
so we would have gotten home around 12:30 at night... No gracias in
Chicago, so we got permission from president to sleep with Hermana
felt and her companion for the night! We were so tired, so we all fell
over when we got home! (Hermana Woolf and I were inspired and we just
happened to bring our toothbrushes...haha that's it)

Domingo- because this email is a novel I will sum up this day. We got
home at 12 afternoon, because that was the earliest train. We missed
some of church but it was okay. We got there in time for Sacrament!
Then after we did finding and found a less active that has been lost
for YEARS! Yay! Another miracle!

Well as you all can see my week has been quite memorable. I am
grateful for every experience I am having. I love this work! It really
is the work of Salvation! How incredible that I am on the front lines!
I feel so humbled to be working with so many of Gods children who are
struggling. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to lift the
hands that hang low. How incredible!

I love you family!
For another week in Woodstock!
All of me loves all of you all!
Hermana Hammond
Hermana woolf, Hermana Monge y Bella (Hilda's daughter)