Jan 19 Transfer Calls

Well folks we got transfer calls this week and it looks like.... Sister Fiefia is leaving!!! She is going to Glenville and re-opening an area that has been closed for 1 transfer and she is training!! I am so excited for her, but we are pretty sad she is leaving!! Also as far as I go.... I will be taking over the Carthage area and...... Training!! I will be staying a sister training leader and oh yeah did I mention that I will be getting a brand new subaru (I am pretty excited about that) but overall I am very nervous and a little bit stressed!! I am super excited though I get to go pick up my little newbie on wednesday FOP (fresh off the plane) I have no idea who she is so I will give you all the good details next week!! I just have to remember to trust in the Lord and he will give me the strength that I need! As far as this week goes... It was an amazing week!! WE FINALLY SET A BAPTISMAL DATE!!! Yay!!! it is for a 12 year old girl and we are planning for February 28th so hopefully that ends up working out!!! Her little brother who is 9 will probably be getting baptized as well!!! We also met this awesome young couple I was backing sister Fiefia up (standing behind the car so she doesn't hit anything its a required thing) and this guy yelled hello sister! I casually said Hello back and then I realized what had just happened... people don't do that in New York .... They don't know who "sisters" are so I walked over and started talking to him and he and his wife got married 1 year ago and they have a 6 week old baby! He has been inactive for 8 years and she has been inactive for about 2! They are seriously amazing though I love them! and... THEY CAME TO CHURCH!!! such a miracle!! also this SUPER less active family that we have been visiting faithfully the entire time I have been here randomly (very randomly) showed up to church!!! MY JAW DROPPED .... not an exaggeration!!! So we saw so many miracles this week!! I was also able to train at our Zone Training Meeting on the power of the spirit in conversion and that was way sweet! Naturally as always I was super nervous but it went really well!! Then after that meeting we had our interviews with President and he asked me if I would train so since wednesday I have been super stressed and freaking out but I am finally starting to calm down a little but I just honestly don't feel like I know how to be a missionary yet! but we will see!! also this week we had lunch with a couple of our investigators their names are the Tyners they are like eternal investigators that we just picked up!! They have been seeing missionaries off and on for like 9 or so years and He has read the entire book of mormon 2 times and really there shouldn't be anything holding him back he just always says I was born a methodist I have lived a methodist and I will die a methodist... hahaha little does he know!!! they are very prepared though and in my opinion super ready now so hopefully we will be able to see some progress with them!!  I love them so much though they are in the mid to later 70's!!! but yeah I think that was about how my week went!!! lots of fun!! Lots of miracles!! and non stop spiritual experiences!! It truly doesn't get better than this!! :) I love you all!! Stay strong!! and remember that Heavenly Father always has His hand stretched out towards you.... its your choice whether or not you grab on and let Him help and guide you!!!

Keep the Faith!!

Love Sister Hamilton :)

Jan 13 LAKE EFFECT

So if I was home and was able to go skiing, the lake effect snow storms would be the bomb!! No joke we are talking 4 ft of snow in one night or day and it is fluffy!! However, I get the wonderful opportunity of tracting in it instead because we aren't allowed to drive the car in those storms. We get to walk  and then I get the most amazing feeling cause when we come in for lunch and I take off my coat and hat etc I feel like I just got done skiing, literally, snow/ice on my face and bright red cheeks with snow stuck in my hair and then I warm up with some hot chocolate!! I seriously love it though, we made good use of our tracting and we shoveled a lot of drive ways... Yes I was so sore, I thought I was going to die but at least the people who's drive ways that we shoveled weren't sore!!! I love being a missionary and wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world!! This week was amazing and full of so many miracles as are all the weeks!! Time is flying by, every time I blink another week has come and gone!! I am super grateful this week for the power and influence of the gift of the Holy Ghost!! We went into a less actives home this week and when we walked into her living room there was a murder mystery show on and I literally felt the spirit leave me and it was not a fun feeling! My heart was seriously aching (like legit pain) so I just said a loving prayer to Heavenly Father that he would let the spirit come back to me and then I asked the lady to turn off the show.  I felt the spirit come back!! I realized how easy it is to become desensitized in this the world! Well that is pretty much the gist of my week not a whole lot of exciting things just a lot of amazing lessons and watching peoples lives change. There isn't better feeling in the world!!! I love you all and hope you have a superb week and remember to live worthily of the spirits presence, it makes a world of a difference!!!! 

Love Sister Hamilton!!!!

Moroni 7 :33

Jan 5 Snow....and freezing weather!

What a wonderful week I have been blessed with!!!! I got to spend Tuesday-Friday morning up in Gouverneur, New York and it was such a wonderful week filled with lots of snow! The weather here is SUPER DUPER bipolar haha it is now freezing cold and with the wind it is no bueno!!!  I was able to go to Ogdensburg for a district meeting and I literally was able to see Canada it was 1 mile away!! Crazy right haha!! The exchange was wonderful, full of lots of miracles. And then.... well the driver was girl from California who has never ever driven in snow and her companion does not have a drivers license and I don't have a TIWI card so I wasn't able to drive.... well, needless to say we ended up getting in a car accident (no big deal I promise!! So you can just breath mom)! Anyway, we just ran into a wire guardrail and it ripped off the front bumper and smashed part of my side of the car but I didn't even get whiplash and the airbags didn't even go off, so literally no problemo haha!! We just slid a little and she over corrected and yeah no worries, I am perfectly fine and we got 3 potentials from it so yay!! We had to go back to Gouverneur (we were on our way to Carthage) in the cop car hahaha, never thought that would happen on my mission. lol Then super early the next morning the senior couple came and picked us up so me and sister Fiefia could go to MLC meeting. The rest of the week was awesome with SO many miracles and the Lord truly is protecting us!!! Today we had a nerf gun war for our district activity IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!! We had a member let us borrow her nerf guns and we went to the church and set up tables and chairs and played capture the flag and sudden death and it was just the coolest thing ever haha!! But yeah that was my week ,super amazing and full of so many miracles and so many blessings. It is probably one of the greater weeks of my mission!! (Mom, seriously I am ok i promise just breath lol) I love you all, I hope you have a wonderful week!!! Remember that it is never too late to make changes and become a better version of yourself!!! I am striving to do that everyday!! I love ya!!!
Love Sister Hamilton :)

Dec 29 Hello Family & Friends

So this week was an amazing one filled with the wonderful spirit of Christ and an awesome time talking to my family!! It is incredible how much you can appreciate a phone call home to your family when you don't get to talk to them very often!! Serving a mission has been the greatest gift and privilege of my life especially this Christmas season! It was amazing to see the spirit of Christ radiate as we were able to go out and teach on Christmas!!! We had an incredible week and were able to teach a lot of people and it is so fun to watch them progress in the gospel, even if the progression is very very small, it is still amazing! This week we had a guy read 1 verse out of the Book of Mormon and I was so happy I thought I was going to cry... but seriously watching people come closer to Christ is one of the greatest feelings in the world!! I also just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the Priesthood on the earth today... This whole gospel is only possible because of the priesthood! I have been able to witness some of the most touching priesthood blessings and I know they were truly inspired from God! It is incredible the power that the priesthood has!! I am so grateful to be able to share Christ's message with the world even when the doors get slammed in our face at least I know they saw my name tag and maybe years from now they will be curious and look into it! Everyday we live is such a blessing whether as a missionary or not! One of my favorite quotes is "the trick to life is to enjoy each day not wait for better ones ahead!" I am beginning to realize how quickly my mission is going by and I am learning that even on the hard days it is so important to find enjoyment in the day and live in that day and not wait for a better day ahead because even though this day is hard I will never get to live it again... especially as a missionary!! I love you all so much and I am so grateful for your support and prayers!! You all have a wonderful week and remember how much Heavenly Father loves you!!!! :)

Eternally in the Lord's service!

Sister Hamilton

Dec 22 Celebrating the spirit of Christmas

What a wonderful time of the year I have been blessed to serve in! I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to share the gospel of Christ during this holiday season! I have had the most wonderful week of my mission!! True miracles have come from my decision to give all of my heart and mind to the work and not just all of my might and strength! This week we were able to teach 42 lessons which is 12 more then I have ever taught before and we were able to pick up 3 new investigators! When Elder Kacher came to the mission he talked on changing out mindsets ("usually" you don't have a lot of baptisms/investigators in this mission) He challenged us to have 10 progressing investigators our jaws all dropped, literally. Because the norm is like 2 maybe and in Carthage we had 0 so yeah!!! But we have set goals and given our all to the work and the Lord has blessed us with our righteous desires, at this point I think we have 5 progressing and we actually have 10 investigators now! And I have to consistently turn to Alma 26:12 where I am reminded that I can not boast of my own strength because everything that happened this week was the Lord's doing! He does answer our prayers and he does bless us for our efforts!! The investigators that we have are Belise and Martin they are a family from Africa and they are amazing and very prepared. It is super exciting working with them we also have Darryl and Sarah and their kids (we are mostly teaching the kids) but they are an adorable black family (the mom is white) but they are so fun and they are so excited every time we come over! This week we also picked up an amazing family from Germany (she is an amazing cook) but they are so nice and I just love them to death! We also have Marylou a sweet old lady who thinks that we are perfect and she is amazing also. Doug is a nice guy and he is doing amazing and progressing very well! We have Donna a sweet lady who is slightly anti religion but we are making progress so we are stoked and the Dolan and Ward families and they are just amazing and I love them so much!! We have been extremely blessed and with the Christmas season here everyone is so kind and loving and I am just beginning to realize how incredible it is that I get to share this amazing spirit with people all day everyday all year long! Time is flying by but I am loving every second of it! The Lord is mindful of each of us and knows how he can best help us.  His hand is out stretched towards us but he can't force us to ask for His guidance!! I have also been trying very diligently to finish the Book of Mormon before Christmas because I figure that is one of the best gifts I can give Christ this year and I just want you all to know that the Book of Mormon is true! It is our instruction manual to this life, it was saved for our day so that we can learn and grow from it! I know that we can come closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ by reading it and that if we want Him to talk to us, we read! I love the Book of Mormon and I am so grateful for the lessons I learn from it and the examples of those who gave their lives to follow Christ! I love you all so much and I pray at this time of year especially that you will be able to give yourself more to Christ but that you will continue to give to him by keeping the spirit of Christ with you throughout the year! I love you all and have a Merry Christmas!!! You are all amazing and I am so grateful for you support! 

Moroni 7:33

Dec 15 What a wonderful week!

Well this week was amazing!!! There was a pretty intense snow storm and president made us park the car. We decided to continually be diligent in our missionary work so we went tracting in the snow storm (while I was sick) haha great idea I know. We saw miracles because of it... we found 3 new investigators that day Sarah, Darryl, and Soncerae, yay we are so stoked!!! That was a way exciting cold day (and the new coat worked miracles thank you mom and dad). We had Zone Conference and they talked about the importance of our calling and how we are simply instruments in the Lord's hands and we are here to "create beautiful music" and that all the instruments in an orchestra are necessary and that they are NOT the same so that we needed to stop comparing ourselves and start realizing that we all have something to offer and that we need to give ourselves to the Lord to do as He pleases. We also learned about the ladder of faith the 1st rung is I can't do this ,there is no point in trying! 2nd Rung I might be able to do this I might as well give it a try 3rd rung I can do this if I work really really hard and give it everything 4th I can do this with the Lord's help and 5th The Lord can do this and I can be His instrument in doing it! Now I have strictly been the middle rung thus far on my mission and I am striving to reach the 5th rung and completely trust my Father in Heaven! I realized that I am expecting too much of myself all at once and so my companion gave me a talk to read titled "Learning to love yourself" by Louise Brown i think! and I am super prideful, so I had to humble myself a little and realized that maybe I did need to learn to love myself more.... well I read the talk and it was just what I needed.  I realized I have tried way too hard my entire life to get approval from others and that I demanded success from myself before I learned how to do something, hence the reason I hate softball etc because I demanded myself to be amazing at it without ever playing it. And that by doing this I have literally set myself up for failure and I have unrealistic expectations set for myself! So I need to learn that is ok to fail (First attempt in learning) and its ok not to be perfect!! I have learned that God's love is not academic. We learn and grow at our own speed and in our own way. I have slowly come to realize what this means and I encourage you all to read that talk!! We also found another 2 investigators this week Donna and Martin and we have had many super spiritual experiences. I am just learning how blessed we are in this work!!! Anyway, I love you all I am sorry this is such a short email!! I will tell you more next week when I have a bit more time!! I miss you all and Love you a lot have a wonderful Christmas!!! :) 

Love Sister Hamilton! :)

Dec 8 Transfers...Staying in Carthage

So good news, transfer calls came and I am staying in Carthage!!! YAY no more moving around for this girl!! Also I am staying a Sister Training Leader which I am super happy about, because I dont know how to be a missionary without being an STL haha!  I am super stoked, I am only over 2 areas now instead of 4 though which is kind of relieving!!! So this week I spent a total of only 2 days in Carthage haha! So monday was P-day and that was good just wrote a ton of stinking letters and relaxed!! Then Tuesday we had district meeting and learned the importance of asking inspired questions and effective questions that get people searching analyzing their feelings. We had a district activity where we went and helped decorate Christmas Trees.  I went on Exchanges to Watertown and was there all day tuesday and wednesday and it was way fun although I froze my butt off.... makes me so grateful for my area and the fact that we have a car!!!! haha Thursday we worked for a little over half of the day and then the Potsdam Zone leaders came and picked us up to go to Utica for MLC and they have a truck (not just a little stupid truck but a nice Chevy Silverado) well that made me so happy to FINALLY be in a truck again!!! We hung out at the mission home for a couple hours until we had to go to bed then we woke up in the morning on Friday, went to MLC (missionary leadership council) and that lasted all day. We drove back to Carthage but after so many miles we can't use the vehicles here so they sell the cars and get new ones. We are always driving like brand new cars (its gonna ruin me for real life) but the truck which was like a 2013 maybe, was "out of miles" and so we got to drive a new 2015 Silverado home that only had 58 miles on it... I almost cried, I was so happy!!! Then Saturday we worked real hard and got transfer calls and yeah nothing is changing here for me and sister Fiefia!! If you haven't watched "He is the gift" on Mormon.org then do it!! SO good!!! Well I miss you all so much I hope you have a wonderful week and that you remember the true meaning of Christmas because the first gift was the Savior!!! and He gave so much for us!! remember to give back!! I love you!!!

Love sister Hamilton