Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving

Hey friends and fam! Happy Thanksgiving Week!!!

Hope everyone has had a fantastic week this week!! I have for sure. It's been a super awesome week!

Last Wednesday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Child in Scripps Ranch, and it was super fun. They live with an awesome member family, the Hansens. They have a super fun house and their little apartment is super cool. We were walking back to the house after an appointment and a little car pulled over and it turned out to be my ward mission Leader's wife from Sweetwater. It was crazy, she was working in that neighborhood and couldn't figure out how to get out of the neighborhood. It was crazy, what are the chances I'm on exchanges in another area, and we happened to be on the same street that she was driving on, it was a cool little miracle and testimony how the Lord puts you where you need to be. It was also just a super fun day. After planning we went down and talked with the Hansen's a little bit. Brother Hansen is a Lawyer so I wanted to talk to him a little about his career. It's pretty sick, he has some awesome stories. At the end we had "family prayer" and went to bed. It was so fun.

Saturday was such an awesome day!! We got to go to the temple with Alex Jamchi, who got baptized in August. We did some baptisms for the dead which was awesome since its been so long since I've done them. Elder Augusto and I baptized eachother. Alex had his father's name to do which was absolutely awesome. We are also teaching his wife Shana and two daughters Savannah (10) and Jordan (8) who will be getting baptized soon. His son Austin is awesome too but he's just 6 :)

Sunday was sweet. We had 3 investigators at church. Shana and Jordan and Savannah loved it, plus our investigator Martha came too. We had a sweet lesson about eternal families and the family proclamation. It was perfect for both the Jamchis and martha. Other fun experience Sunday. We had dinner at the Tolleys, sister Tolley and we figured out that she knew you mom! I will include more about that in your personal
email ;)

Monday was MTEs, which is where we have a training meeting in the morning and then in the afternoon we do exchanges with 2 other zones. I got to go down to Ramona with Elder Maughan. It was sick, he's a stud. He's a pretty young missionary but hes already a beast missionary. We taught a couple sick lessons, and we were just walking down the street like 50 yards from the church, and we saw a guy so we started talking to him a little bit, and he's like, you have a church around here? and we did, really close so we gave him a church tour and he's coming to church on Sunday. It was sick. Today we had the follow up meeting where we talk about all the miracles we had, and then we
played ball with President Schmitt and we've been running around doing pday stuff :)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all my friends and family, I'm thankful for the gospel in my life and the joy it brings, and more than anything I'm grateful to be a missionary!!!!!!

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Hey family and friends! The end of a great week here in Penasquitos!

Last Wednesday we went to transfer meeting and dropped off Elder Fiso, it was pretty sad going there to lose a companion but not pick one up. Transfer meeting is always kind of fun because you get to see all the changes that President makes and lots of times there are some big surprises. So that was interesting, not much happened in our zone but we welcomed two new sisters to the zone! One from the Philippines and one from Mexico, which is cool!

Wednesday night Cynthia got baptized in the Sweetwater branch, which was awesome so Elder Augusto and I went back and saw that, plus I got to teach the intermediate message with my Canadian friend Elder Neilson. Since Elder Cloes did the baptism and was changing I got to help out with that, it was a good refresher on my Spanish :)

Friday Elder Thueson came with me on exchanges, we had a good time! Did some service, taught some good lessons. It was a fun day!!

Sunday was sick too, we had church, Shana our investigator came which was awesome, she's been coming for a while with her husband Alex (he got baptized a couple of months ago). Alex is a beast!! They have three kids (6,8,10) who love primary too. It's an awesome family. Alex is going to the temple this Saturday to do baptisms for the first time, he's really excited to do the work for his dad especially. We are stoked to go with him.

Then Sunday night we had a mission president's fireside. It was in Spanish too, and I got to go sing in the choir. I love those things!! We get to see a bunch of the elders we have served with, plus it's always great to hear the testimonies of the recent converts that come.

Monday was an awesome day!!! We call them miracle Monday's. We talked to a couple of really great and promising people in between appointments who are really open to the spirit and open to learn more. One of which is from 10 minutes away from, where Elder Augusto is from in Portugal. I wish I got a picture of Elder Augustos face when he said where he was from, and then I got to sit back and chill while they talked in Portuguese. It was pretty cool. He was super nice too. Then later on we had a really awesome lesson with Alex's family in a members home (the Grants). It makes a huge difference to have the lesson at a members house, it was awesome. We talked about the plan of salvation, and teaching with kids present we taught it very simply and I feel very clearly, it was awesome to see how the plan of salvation just clicked in them and then we set the rest of Alex's family with a baptismal date for December 5th and hey are super solid for it. We are stoked for that family and their progress.

Today we went and hiked up to potato chip rock as a zone which was pretty cool! I'll include some pictures.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

What's up everybody!! Already came to the end of my first transfer here in Penasquitos, it's crazy how fast time flies. Got the transfer news today and Elder Fiso is leaving :/ Elder Augusto and I are kinda bummed, but at least we still have each other.

We had an awesome week this week! We were able to add 4 new investigators which is awesome because finding new investigators is the hardest part about PQ for sure.

We started teaching Shana and her daughter Savannah on Monday at a member's house which is awesome. Shana's Husband Alex was baptized a few months ago, we are excited for him to go to the temple this month as well for baptisms.

We also started teaching Kara, who we met on the street, she just moved here pretty recently with her husband from the Midwest and she doesn't have a job yet so she's got a ton of time to read the Book of  Mormon, which is awesome. We didn't even know but her neighbor, Sister Jones, invited her to a service project a couple months ago and she loved it. That was an awesome miracle to find her.

We also started working with Brother Lundin, who just came back from a military thing in Yuma, his girlfriend is a member and he's an awesome guy, so we are going to help them get married and baptized, because she really wants to get sealed in the temple. Which is awesome!!

Tons of miracles out here in PQ, the members are still awesome, when we don't have a dinner they call and order a pizza for us even while they are out of town, or they drop off food which is SO nice.

Taught a sick Zone meeting yesterday about catching the mission fire and becoming  master finders, planners and teachers, it was a lot of fun! Teaching training is probably the best part of being a Zone Leader.

Hope everyone has an awesome week!!

Elder Hansen

November 3, 2015

What's up family and friends!!

It's been an awesome week out here in beautiful Rancho Penasquitos. I love this place. Lots of cool stuff happening here in the area. The wards are amazing and the leadership of the ward is awesome.

We've really been seeing Miracles, especially as we pray more frequently and are looking for the Lord's guidance throughout the day, we keep meeting people we know the Lord wanted us to meet, which is the best feeling ever. Knowing you listened and acted upon a prompting and were exactly where the Lord wanted you to be. If there is anything I've learned in the past couple weeks it's this: That the Lord truly does know and love us each individually, and his hand is in every moment of our lives. He knows what is happening each and every moment and is there for us.

Last week our president had us set a goal for how many baptisms we were going to have before Christmas, or in our case before Elder Augusto goes home (December 15). We set a lofty one, especially for these areas. The cool thing though, is that as we have been praying and working towards it, we have seen people fall into place and have the names to back it up.

One of our miracles is Martha Marin. Her daughter Rebecca got baptized earlier this year, and she has been taking the lessons for a long time, but just hasn't had the desire to be baptized, despite having many spiritual experiences. Last week we texted Rebecca to see if we could stop by and teach her, but Rebecca said she was busy. 15 minutes later we got a text saying we needed to come over because Martha wants to get baptized!! So we did  and she does, we are now working with her to set a date, she has pneumonia though so we haven't been able to see her too much. It's awesome to see how the Lord touches people's hearts and allows them to be open to the gospel.

Other miracle- Sister Youkel our investigator with a baptismal date came to church and she and her husband had their baby blessed. That was awesome, we know it was a very spiritual experience for her and her husband who is coming back to church after years.

Lots of other cool stuff is happening, we are finding new investigators, old ones are opening up and becoming more receptive, we know the Lord is blessing us as we put our trust in Him.

We had lots of fun on halloween, we had an awesome dinner with the Henry family. Brother Henry served in the Mountlake Ward on his mission in 1962! So it was cool to talk about that. Plus she served dinner in a pumpkin. It was really good. It was a rice/beef creation which she also roasted in a pumpkin. It was super good and really festive :) I wish I got a picture of it. That night we didn't get a single trick or treater... it was kind of sad, we even had our bowl of candy ready, but we used our time well (we had to be in the apartment by 6pm) and played lost of hide and go seek in the dark plus
made brownies and read the Book of Mormon. Good times.

Anyway-Life is good out here, the work is hastening and the wards are amazing. I love you all and hope all is well! I love the gospel and more than anything I love sharing it with those around me! Have an awesome week!! :)

Elder Hansen

The Chick Magnet!!!