Email 11/04/13

The rain has began in Portlandia! This past week we have been having many rain drops on our heads, but most of them leading to good and better things. We have been in a slight "drought" of finding new people to teach, and last week we were able to find some people who want to here the gospel! Plus, this morning before we went out for the day we had a potential investigator text us and ask if we could come over and teach her this morning! It really has been a flood of new miracles for the Elders in the Alameda ward here in Portland. I think that the mission is about to split our area and so we are trying to get everything ready for the new set of missionaries that MAY come in. We don't know for sure, but transfers are next week and we'll just have to wait and see then.

Anyway, Halloween in Portland was interesting. There is a very popular, local street in our area where many people in Portland like to "hang out" at. There is more than enough cafes, bistros, bars, and shops to keep there heads wet and their pockets dry. We had to do some Stake Reports on Thursday, and when we were heading back home from the church we took this street. I think that it will be the closest to a zombie apocalypse I will ever be to...! It is a good thing that we had to be home or else I would have slapped these people or died laughing (which I did anyhow). It is amazing how much wickedness is mistaken for happiness or even the slightest goodness. But it doesn't matter who you are, when you embarrass yourself like that, there has to be somebody out there laughing!

There was one aspect that thoroughly shocked me to the core. For the past five weeks that I have been here I have witnessed the literal destruction of self worth moral values which has been evident in the problems people present and confused state they subject themselves to. These problems have almost convinced me that there are just some places that will never accept the gospel. Yet as we made our travels upon Halloween, diligently performing our duties, I saw something that astonished me--families spending time together. I am not saying a lone mother with her kids, or an unmarried couple with kids. No, full families spending time together and enjoying perhaps one of the only nights of the year which they can all be together at once. Smiling faces and happy laughs filled the air as they (the families) went from shop to shop scaring the candy from the owners. My heart took pride in knowing that I have such a knowledge of the true happiness that can only be brought through living as a family.

Well, I think that is all for now. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Hamblin