Another Week in Lemon Grove/Sweetwater!

Hey family! How's it going?

It's been a good week! Nothing too incredibly exciting happened!

One miracle though we have one investigator who has been kind of hard to contact since I've been here, but we had a sweet lesson with her on Friday last week. She's super ready to get baptized in the next couple weeks! We are stoked!  She met the missionaries when she was 12 and she's 19 now and she's finally getting baptized! We are super excited for her! It was awesome to hear her bear testimony about how the spirit has slowly worked on her over time and she's developed the desire to get baptized! She was talking about how she has no doubt about the Book of Mormon or the living prophet, and she even wants to serve a mission in a couple of years! It was awesome!

My comp and I are having a blast.  He's hilarious. We get along super well! So that's good. Our apartment is interesting though. haha cockroaches everywhere...it's nast! But we put out some little poison things and now they just show up dead everywhere. It is what it is. It's been a missionary apartment forever so what else can we expect!

Me and my district have been having a lot of fun! We helped paint last Friday after district meeting and we did community service with Mormon Helping Hands on Saturday morning which was fun!

Last Thursday the Mission Leadership Council was awesome. It was Brother Hemmingway, who is in charge of the missionary department and Brother Donaldson who is also in the missionary department He was the mission president here in San Diego when the District 2 was filmed and Brother Hemmingway was executive producer of the District 1, so they had some really cool information and insights on the district videos. Also, they just had some incredible things to teach us. It was awesome to receive instruction from people with so much experience in Missionary work. It was a 7 hour meeting, but it flew by, I loved every second of it and It has played a huge influence on how we are going to do missionary work from this point forward!

They didn't even really talk that much about ipads... But that will come later in the month of May, which is sweet! the meeting for that is May 19th when we should receive them.

Those are the highlights of what's going on around here!

District meetings are good. We have lots of stuff to talk about. I'm just always looking for fun activities and games to keep it interesting. So if you have anything from all those books you have of activities and stuff that you have used I would really appreciate it!

Our area is interesting...we meet a lot of weird people especially in public transportation...Our apartment complex is pretty nice, but our apartment has been a missionary apartment for too long it's beat up.  We live in the same building as 2 English zone leaders and 2 of our sisters. The English Elders drive us around a lot which is great. The street we live on is pretty much businesses and restaurants so we have like everything close by.

That's all I got! 

Love you all so much!

Elder Hansen

April 21, 2015 - Transferred to Lemon Grove/Sweetwater

Hey fam!

What's up?? 

I'm now serving in the Sweetwater 3rd branch in the Sweetwater stake. My area covers Lemon Grove, part of Sweetwater and then part of it is in San Diego. The area is gigantic. And we don't have a car so we travel a lot by bus and trolley and we walk. The branch is awesome. It's actually bigger than my last two units, which were both wards so I'm not sure why this one is a branch. I'm also super stoked because I'm in the same Zone as Elder Carlson. I was so happy to see him again! My mission dad :)

My new companion is Elder Gonzalez from Cuernavaca Morelos Mexico. It's pretty cool, he's the only missionary in the mission I think that comes from Mexico. A few others were born there but then moved to the US. He obviously speaks perfect Spanish which is awesome. He helps me a ton. And he studied English for like 12 years in school so he speaks that well too! He usually speaks to me in English and I speak to him in Spanish. That way we both can learn. Elder Gonzalez has been out on the mission for about 3 months  He came out with Elder Quinonez, my mission hijo. They were comps in the MTC. He's has been here for 2 transfers. His whole mission! 

We live really far away from church...sometimes we have to take the bus to church but usually members give us a ride. We have investigators, but nothing super solid at this point. It's been kind of a slow first week as I get used to the changes and the new area. There hasn't been a whole lot going on lately here as far as the work goes.  It's really difficult to get out to all the parts of our area because of how big it is. But we are still working super hard! Things will pick up!  We are gonna turn things around.

The highlights of this week have really been getting to know the members and a few of the investigators. The branch is really strong, and they have an awesome sense of unity.  Friday the branch had a talent night, which was sweet. The relief society asked us to participate in it. Elder Gonzalez played the "groom" in the 10 Virgins story and I said one little line into a microphone backstage. Haha I'll throw in a picture of that.

Friday we had our first district meeting. Part of what I have to do now is plan out the district meetings...It's kind of a hassle but it's pretty fun too. In my district it's my companionship, and two companionships of sisters. 2 of which are Sister Training Leaders. It's a pretty awesome group!  My whole district is in the Sweetwater Branch. 3 companionships! It's sweet how many missionaries are in Spanish units here. Our mission is shrinking from 250 to 200 though in the coming months so there are going to be a lot of changes in the coming transfers. I'm not going to lie it makes me a little nervous.

This week we have a special Mission Leadership meeting, and some of the people from the missionary department are coming. Normally District Leaders don't go to the Mission Leadership Conference so this is pretty exciting stuff. We will see what goes down there! I imagine it's about the ipads that are coming. 

All in all it's been an awesome week! Love you all! 

Have a great week! 

Elder Hansen 

Elders Hansen & Gonzalez

Sweetwater 3rd Spanish Branch

Branch Talent Night - The Parable of the 10 Virgins

April 14, 2015 - Last Day in Chula Vista

We had a fantastic week this last week! Elder Quiñonez and I have been having a blast! 

Highlight of the week was Friday! We had a triple baptismal service, sooo sick! 

Our investigator Yolanda was baptized along with the sister's investigator Junior and the other elders investigator Maria, who's the sweetest grandma. We love her! Anyway those three got baptized, and the baptismal service was awesome! 

Saturday I went on an exchange with Elder Brandner out in his area, that was super fun! We met their investigator and he committed to be baptized on the 25th. He's a 16 year old young man who's mom and stepdad are members and he's been meeting with the missionaries. He had been deciding between the church his dad goes to, and the church his mom goes to (our church). Recently he's had a couple of key spiritual experiences with the missionaries, and he's been more open and excited. We had a sweet lesson. We had no idea what we were going to teach, but we went in and asked some good questions and were able to teach to his needs. It's so fun when the spirit takes over. We talked about baptism, he's been invited countless times, but he finally accepted and is going to prepare for the 25th! 

Sunday was a really stressful day, but also super sweet! We confirmed the 3 new members. We had ward members confirm ours and I confirmed the sisters investigator Junior. I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting this week, so I gave that, in Spanish. It was about the atonement. While I was preparing I found an awesome talk by Elder McConckie. It's called "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" And I loved it, so I sort of based my talk on that and one by Elder Bednar.  

For Sunday School the Gospel Principles teacher never showed up, so Elder Quiñonez and I taught that, without any preparation, but it went pretty good. Luckily priesthood meeting was relaxing... then we went to dinner at bishop's house and we had a fireside with all the people from Imperial Beach too. President even came. It was a great fireside about Christ, with testimonies shared by a few members. 

Also- Last night we got transfer calls. I'm out! No idea where I'm going, so I'll have some news for you when I email you next p-day! 

There's Elder McConkie's talk

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/04/the-purifying-power-of-gethsemane?lang=eng&query=purifying+gethsemanie 

And Elder Bednar's

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng 

April 7, 2015

Cool shirts from the thrift store.

 

Elder Hansen & Lola


Arm's Length from the Sisters

We had a great week last week! It was a little bit slow as far as the work goes, I would imagine that it had to do with spring break and Easter, but it was also super awesome because of Conference and Easter. We had an awesome General Conference! We had 6 investigators come to at least one session of conference. Plus Yolanda had her baptismal interview and she's all ready to go for Friday! Each of the three companionships in our ward are baptizing this weekend! We are super stoked! It's the last weekend of the transfer so if I leave next week it will be a great way to end my time here in Chula! We will find out next p-day if I'm staying or going. I kind of have a feeling I'm leaving, but I could also stay here for another transfer, we will see how it goes. 

Conference was sweet! I loved Elder Holland's talk a lot. But I loved Elder Brent H. Nielson's talk right before his, about his sister who fell away for a while. He is the seventy who came to our mission in December and spoke to us. I loved how personal his talk was, and he also taught some great principals of love and patience and just living the gospel. I also really loved President Uchtdorf's talk right after Elder Holland's. I felt like Elder Holland hit us with a super passionate testimony about the Atonement, and then President Uchtdorf hit us with the grace and mercy talk which was like the "why" or the doctrine behind the Atonement. Those three talks in a row were just like a spiritual knockout punch for anyone who was listening. I loved it!!

Elder Quiñonez and I have been having a ton of fun lately, and we have really been on the same page as far as teaching goes, which is sweet. It also makes me think we will be transferred because it seems like as soon as you are having a ton of fun and you really love your companion you get transferred... but we will see! We are also super stoked because Alma, Yolanda's daughter came to conference and really liked it. That's 2 weeks in a row at church and I can see her getting baptized soon, so we are going to try and set her with a baptismal date for pretty soon. That was sweet! I also went on a sweet exchange with Elder Conner, he's our new zone leader. He went into the MTC with me at the same time, but was in another district, plus we served with each other for 3 transfers in the Valley. It was a lot of fun. I'll throw in a picture of that!

We went to the Mormon Battalion yesterday with Larry, Rosio Sam and Sam's little friend Jonas. It was sweet! I will include a picture of that too!

Thanks for the update on the Mariners, hopefully they can keep this goin and play up to their potential! 

I forgot to mention what we did on Easter! 

We were well taken care of. President Hunt from the Mission Presidency invited all the missionaries in the Chula Vista Zones who didn't have a dinner appointment to his house to eat. He has a super nice house so we ate in the back by his pool. The weather was great! It was awesome! 

It was great to hear from you parents! Thanks for being the best!