Hello from Guam 3

       I hope all is going well there. Everything is good here. The trade winds have started to blow here so it’s a little cooler I think. Sister Hamilton doesn’t think so but I do. It’s just one of the things we discuss when we walk in the mornings. We still do that 5 days a week. We walk around the university about 3 miles. Most of the time we get home before it rains because it does that almost every day here. If you happen to be out when it starts you’ll get soaked. Last night we stopped by the grocery store on the way home for some $7.00 a gal milk. We didn’t even realize it was cloudy because it was so dark. When we got inside we heard it start. You could hear it pounding on the roof. Before we came out about 10 minutes later everything was flooding. We probably got about 1 to 2 inches of rain in a half hour. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t have been here but it does that all the time. The great thing about it is it’s warm like a shower. It’s not bad getting wet.

       It’s 3:30 in the morning here and I can’t sleep so I decided to write you. Yesterday was a hard day for me so I woke up thinking. I had a disagreement with a car dealer in town about a vehicle we have been having trouble with. It’s been in the shop for probably 90% of the time I have been here. It’s always the same problem. It has a check engine light on and the car misses really badly. When I had it checked out there they told me that someone had run over something and bent the exhaust system and that was the cause. They were just trying to find something to blame it on. They gave me a quote to redo the whole exhaust system and the quote was for about $4300.00. Not covered under warranty. They gave us a cost break down. They were charging things like $5.00 for a 5/16 in. nut. We told them we wanted a list with part numbers which they gladly gave us. From there we went shopping on line and bought all the parts. All genuine GM parts for around $400.00. When the parts came in the total was about $600.00 including shipping. From there I went shopping for bids to install. I looked at the dealer. They were way out, about $400.00 to install. I finally found a muffler shop that did it that day for $180.00. I thought that was great. My $4300.00 bill was now around $800.00. I was happy. The only thing was I still had a check engine light. So back to the dealer we went. They cleared the light but charged me $27.00 to do it. I argued with them and told them if that didn’t fix the problem then I wanted my money back. I was told that was no problem they would do that for me. I took the car and decided to drive it myself for a while so I gave my pretty new car away. It only had 9000 miles on it. This Junker only has 20,000 miles on it. I never made it to the gas station before it started giving me trouble. When I shut it off to gas up it didn’t want to start again. It did, so back to the dealership I went. Guess what? Same problem. Only now because I took it to someone else to put the exhaust system on it and the dealer didn’t install the genuine GM parts that I bought from other genuine GM dealers my warranty is voided. I lost my temper and didn’t represent the church very well so that’s why I have been up since 3:00 am this morning. Sorry to unload on you but it does help a little.

            The work here is never done. We go from one thing to another with hardly a chance to breath. We had another baptism on Saturday. We have them just about every week. This time Sister Hamilton and I couldn’t attend. We were at the Sister’s apartment with a repairman. They had AC problems and we didn’t want them to be there alone when the repairman came. I spent 2.5 hours stressing cleanliness is next to godliness to them. I think they were glad to see the repairman leave. That’s just another small thing we do is take care of the apartments. We have a great couple that help us with some of that. He is our Mission Nurse. They work really hard at keeping the mission well. They have come up with some recipes to help the missionaries with their food budget. Sometimes on Pday she will make one of the recipes for the missionaries to try. They always like that because it is free food.

            This has been a great experience for us. We have learned and are learning a lot. I had one young man call on Monday and ask whose responsibility it was to monitor their mileage because he was getting close. I explained that it was his responsibility to monitor it. He said then I guess we will be walking the rest of the month. He is such a good young man. He wants to be exactly obedient to the things he is supposed to do. I wish they were all like that. We have a great time with them and I tease them to death. Its great fun. I try to look for teaching moments so I can try to firm up and add support to what President Zarbock teaches them. I encourage and promise them that they won’t go wrong if they listen to his counsel. I love all the missionaries even the ones that make it hard to love them. I’m not quite to President Zarbock’s enthusiasm level yet but I’m trying. Whenever I ask him how he is doing he says, “I’m Living the dream Elder Hamilton, Living the dream.” Sister Hamilton and I are working on that kind of attitude. I hope I get it soon. A note to all you parents out there please teach your prospective missionaries what a check engine light means and how to put air in their tires. That would help some poor senior missionary a lot when your missionaries go out. It may even keep that senior missionary from ______.

           Oh by the way President Thomas I want a refund for my missionary prep class because you didn't prep me for anything we are going through here. That's ok your a great teacher and I learned a lot even if it's not helping with what we are currently doing.

We love you and think of you all everyday. May God bless you in your lives and travels. Please tell all Hi from us. Elder and Sister Hamilton