Oct 13 Fear Not

Well this week was my first exchange and it was awesome. One of the girls has one transfer left and the other girl has only been out one transfer, it was amazing that over such a short time as 3 days that they were able to open up so much to me and that I was able to help them in their teaching just a little bit. Hopefully, I will be better at helping with teaching in the future. It is rough for me right now because I am still learning the restored teaching method and I'm not very good at it! But I will improve, I have faith lol!!! So yeah that was pretty much the sum of my exchange. I was in Cooperstown and yes the Baseball hall of fame is there but I was not there on a P-day so I was not able to go, but wow Cooperstown is amazing!!!  It's so beautiful and there is so much potential there!!! Something I wanted to tell you about is the quirks of NY, so they leave the stuff they don't want on their lawn in front of their houses and people just come and pick it up. The other day there was a pink toilet and sink haha so funny!!! Next there are stores and dentist offices and all sorts of stuff in old houses, so its not like the normal business buildings of the west, it is super weird. Also most people do not have you take off your shoes in their home and if they do they have slippers for you to wear because of the cold floors. Finally, unique to Utica is Chicken Riggis, It is a super good pasta dish but we get it fed to us all the time!! and also Utica greens but I haven't had those yet so yeah, that's new york for ya. Oh yeah and there are funny colored houses all over like BRIGHT orange with purple and all sorts of stuff super weird lol!!! 

It is crazy how much I have realized the power of inspiration!! We pray about topics for our sisters to study before we go on exchanges and it is always EXACTLY what they need at the time. Sister Barley and I had to teach at Zone Training this week!!!! (yeah I have been getting out of my comfort zone one giant leap at a time) So we were praying about how to teach on the Book of Mormon and I felt like we needed to touch on the sacredness of it and how it was the keystone and sister barley felt like we needed to touch on humbling ourselves enough to trust using it in lessons and that it was the keystone. The first quote that was read at ZTM was about humbling ourselves and trusting the Sacredness of the book of Mormon (TOTALLY THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER) Wow inspiration is just the best and we HAVE to trust it!! If it is good it is from God, trust it!!!! Second I was feeling very over whelmed because I was asked to share a spiritual thought and play the piano for DLC which I do not like playing the piano in front of people, and then I was asked to train at Zone Training Meeting,and then the bishop called as asked if I could give a talk on Sunday and on top of that it was the first week of Exchanges. So I asked sister barley what more they could ask me to do this week and that I was overwhelmed and she told me that maybe Heavenly Father was just trying to teach me to give my ALL to him, which I thought I had been doing.... but after thinking about it there was a lot that I was holding back, in a sense I was not contributing to teaching a lot because I was scared and a lot of other things. So I just let it go!! I let go of all the fear of everything that was holding me back and I prayed harder than ever before and I just let Him take control. I said I will give my all and I will let you make me the best instrument that you can.... and He did!! I have not become anything amazing but I was not nervous to train our ENTIRE zone and I wasn't scared to give my talk, and I wasn't scared for exchanges either.  I learned that it is amazing what the Lord can do for us when we trust him completely and Fear Not for He is ALWAYS with us!!! It was a very spiritual experience and there are still times I have fear but in those moments I pray for the strength to give my ALL. So that was the majority of my week I hope you are all doing amazing and that you let Heavenly Father guide your lives because he truly knows what is best for you!! Stay Strong!! 

Love Sister Hamilton

Orchard in Copperstown and Sister Barley and I in giraffe onsies.  Ha Ha enough said. 

 



Sister's that I went on exchanges with.

Lake in Coppertown






Tree outside of my apartment.


Closet thing is the entrance to the underground railroad.  I get to go on it today.

Oct 6 Conference yay!

Hello!! family and friends I love you all so much so this is gonna be pretty short cause not a lot happened this week EXCEPT conference!!! Oh my gosh i love conference it is like christmas in the mission field way way way amazing one of my favorite talks was by Jorg Klebingat he just laid it down I loved it! Super powerful also the Elder Kache that spoke is coming to my mission next month so that is pretty exciting I would say!!! Lots of fun stuff!! Conference is just the greatest!!! and Elder Bednars talk wow that was powerful!! I just wanted every person in the world to listen!! so So SO good!!! So as far as things this week, those 2 black guys that called us sista sista decided that because they were always together they were considered bro-innaries I laughed soooo hard. so we had to explain to them that they were not bro-innaries lol and So one of the amazing things that happened this week was one of the elders in my area was talking about make up etc and said that when god created us that he looked at us and said this is my greatest creation why then do we try and cover up what God made so perfectly. (if you want to read more of that look on my facebook) but it really touched me I actually went without any make up yesterday! but think about it God made us perfect how neat!!! always remember that!!! He has a special role and plan for every single one of us!!! I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be out here serving it has seriously brought me so many blessings already and I have learned so much!! I encourage you all to pray sincerely and develop a relationship with Heavenly Father he will be your greatest strength in this life! everything we have we owe to Him. Its finally starting to get chilly here and oh boy when it gets chilly it gets chilly for sure!! Haha new york is amazing though I love it and the work is amazing the young guy we have a baptismal date set for is actually homosexual so we will be pushing his date farther back but hopefully he will still come through I have faith in him!! We had Missionary Leadership Council this week and that was super long but fun and exciting to be in on all the major decision making stuff of the mission! and we are starting to pick up the teaching pace a little more as we get more familiar with things so that is awesome!! and yeah we are having a district activity of mini golfing today so im excited for that but really that was all for the week nothing to major or exciting!!!! 

Remember to find refuge in the arms of Christ!

Stay strong and know I love and miss you all!!!

Sister Hamilton

Sep 29 I Love NY

So for this week it was a little bit of a crazy week but I absolutely love it here. New York is truly beautiful and there are so many opportunities to share the gospel!! there are like no members here and if they are members they are not active at all So we share the ward with 2 other sets of missionaries and our area alone is about a 30 mile radius of city no joke and the ward is super tiny its like completely opposite of the west! totally different ball game out here but I love it!! There are a ton of black people and oh my gosh I love them they are just the best and have the strongest personalities ever! This week we had zone conference and that was simply incredible we learned about the power of teaching online discussions so that was exciting and then we learned about faith and the importance of never letting our faith waiver!! also he talked about we are like a bouncy ball when we fall we need to bounce back up and usually a bouncy ball will bounce higher up the harder it is thrown down and how important it is to look up and how we have to look up in order to catch the ball etc it was awesome other things that happened this week were we got a baptismal date set for tyler williams on Oct 25 so we will see how that goes! also we met some amazing potentials but we have a rule that they have to be taught 2 times before they are an investigator so yeah but we met this black lady named barbara and she was onry and we asked her what was wrong and she said she was waiting for her maintanence guy and she was in a hurry and so we asked what was wrong and she explained a flipped multi breaker so I went in and flipped the breaker and she was so happy she started freaking out and gave us a rootbeer and asked us to come back and see her and that she loved us it was awesome at how quickly her day could be turned around at just the simplest act of kindness also you all need to watch the new mormon message about the mom that doesnt get anything done (mom when you feel like you didnt get anything done in the day just remember how many lives you blessed that day and you didnt even know it) and then we met a few less actives in the nursing home and they are just the sweetest ladies ever and then we met 2 black kids and they pretty much asked us on dates but we said we couldnt because we were missionaries but that they said that they would come to church and let us talk to them about Christ anyway so that was a rather fun moment! this mission is always throwing curve balls at you but they asked us what our street names were like what our government names were and we were just laughing super super hard lol!!! we told them we go by sister haha so they put us in their phone as sista sista lol!!! anyway so that was a funny moment in my studies this week I read 1 john 4:7-9 and it talks about how God is love and I realized literally everything revolves around love our relationships the gospel everything revolves around love and the importance of us loving everyone we come in contact with and that there are 2 types of love 1) I love someone because... 2) I love someone despite.... it is important for us to love others despite their imperfections!!! So yeah all in all that is about the gist of my week hopefully we will get a little more organized and be able to pick up the work a little better here so yeah! anyway I love you all!!! have an amazing week 

Sister Hamilton