Tuesday, April 26, 2016

What's up dear family and friends, the end of another sick week here in Logan Heights has come to an end. We are now in week 6 of the transfer, final week! Time is flying by faster than ever.

We have seen some awesome miracles, the Lord's hand is in His work! Last Monday we got chased down by a man named Pablo, apparently he was trying to catch up to us for 2 blocks but didn't catch us until we got to our destination. He stopped us and asked if we were missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ-- we said yes of course, he asked what we had to give him. We were taken aback but quickly handed him everything we had to give him, a Book of Mormon a couple pamphlets and our phone number. He told us he had met with missionaries before in Mexico but had since lost his way a little bit and now wants to follow God. We went to teach him the following day and had an awesome restoration lesson. He lit up as the gospel started to click for him again and he accepted a baptismal date for really soon. He said one of the simplest, most humble prayers I've ever heard at the end of the lesson, earnestly asking for God's help to be able to follow him. As he ended the prayer and tears ran down his cheeks the spirit was so strong! He just sat there and clutched his chest. We continued to teach him the following few days and he was eating everything up, loving all of the reading assignments and pamphlets. Unfortunately he was living out of his work van and his situation wasn't very conducive to progress and he decided to move to Oxnard California with his brother. We are helping him get in contact with missionaries up there, but all in all it was a very humbling and enlightening experience to teach Pablo, even for such a short time.

Veronica and Her nephew Bryan are awesome, they came to mutual with us last Thursday which was good! It's a super cool family, they also came to the Mormon battalion with us yesterday, we had an activity as a branch so we had a bunch of members there and the battalion is an awesome place to feel the spirit. Veronica's sister Rebecca (who was baptized in Oregon a while ago) is doing awesome at helping them along. We are super stoked about them, they are a blast to teach.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with elder Winn in his area, the walking area which is always a lot of fun. We talked to a ton of people, met some really cool ones. Elder Winn was the first elder I met, in the airport in Houston on our way to Mexico, now we get to "die" in Logan together. (Die means go home in mission language). We had a super fun day, he's a stud.


Church was great because we had a lot of recent converts there, it's fun when they are all there participating in gospel principles class.

Those are probably the big highlights of the week, things are going really well. Can't wait to hear from you all!

Elder Hansen

April 19, 2016

             

















Que transa queridos amigos y familia??

Hope you all have had a fantastic week! I know we have for sure!

Here's some highlights of what's been going down in sunny San Diego.

Last week I went on exchanges to the other elders area here in the Logan Heights branch. I was with Elder Diaz, who has been out for about 4 weeks now. He's awesome and it's awesome to see how much fire he has for sharing the gospel. We had an awesome day and met a couple really cool people throughout the day, it's a walking area so it's nice to be out and able to talk to everyone we see.

Thursday I came back to our good old area- we helped Gissel, a convert of a couple of weeks find a name to take to the temple which was sweet, and then we brought Abdi, our recent convert out to a lesson with us and he shared his testimony which was super cool. He's such an awesome kid! We also had an awesome lesson with Veronica Partida- who we met on exchanges and she is just so prepared. Her son is preparing for a mission, and she has a lot of LDS family members but isn't baptized herself. We had some great lessons with her, she's super cool. One of the nicest people I've meet and so humble and open to the Holy Spirit.

Saturday was super awesome. The branch had a temple baptism trip for youth and recent converts and since we had two recent converts going we got to go! (Picture at the bottom) it was awesome. The temple is the best, it's really great to get away from the world. It's like heaven on earth

                               



















Sunday Veronica and her sister Rebecca and her nephew Brian came to church, Rebecca is a member but Brian and Veronica aren't yet. It was a really good sacrament meeting and I think they really enjoyed it. It was cool because they called Veronica in to work, but she said sorry I can't go until later because I have church. That was awesome because that takes a lot of faith, but she really loved it.
Today Anna from the valley was over here in San Diego! We met for lunch, that was a fun surprise. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture...

Those are pretty much e highlights of the week! Everything out here is good, Elder Burt and I are having a ton of fun an seeing miracles left and right. God's hand is truly in His work and in each and every one of our lives, I love you all!!!

April 12, 2016 Es que yo no vivo en esta área

Buenos Dias family and friends!!

I hope you all had a great week! We did out here in beautiful Logan.

Here's some highlights.


Last Wednesday we had exchanges, I went with Elder Dahl, who is in the other Spanish unit in our zone right now. Fun fact he lived in May Hall at BYU the same time I did, we ran into each other once that we can remember, when we found out we had both been called to San Diego, but it took me almost a year in the mission to find him and remember that. We had a super sick day in Logan, he served here last summer so he knew some of the members and stuff, but the area has changed a lot since then.

We decided to take a member named Valeria out with us to go contact some people and to have her introduce us to her friends. She seems to know everyone and everyone knows her, and she's out here street contacting as if she was a missionary. It was awesome, and she took us to her friend Rita, who is one of the sweetest ladies I've met here in Logan. We had an awesome restoration lesson with her and she even agreed to be baptized in May. She is awesome!

Later that same day a crazy drunk guy stopped us and we were trying to make our getaway, but he was being difficult. Luckily this girl had just gotten off the bus and was running over to talk to us, not only did she save us from talking to that guy more, she turned out to be super cool (more about her later).

A really cool miracle this week- we invited Abdi to pray to ask if he should be baptized last Saturday (we asked him on Monday) and when we finally found him home Thursday we followed up and he said simply "I just know I need to be baptized". He has such a pure desire to follow Christ. So we arranged the interview and had a miracle baptism on Saturday, he's such an awesome kid. The best part was that the ward really rallied around him and are really stoked.

So we went back to the girl who saved us from the crazy guy- her name was Veronica. She had recently moved here from Oregon with a bunch of her family. Turns out her kids, who live with her sister in Oregon are all members and her son just finished putting in his mission papers.
One of her sisters that she lives with is also a member and she has two nephews on missions. She is super awesome and we had one of the most spiritual restoration lessons. She felt the spirit super strong and really has a strong desire to follow Christ. We are super stoked about her and all of her family.

Sunday was awesome, we had all of the recent converts in the branch there all at once which was super cool, the branch is stoked about that, and Abdi was even able to receive the Aaronic priesthood. Things are looking great here in Logan, the members are super stoked about the work right now and so are we.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016 Porque les engaño? (Because I'm Kidding?)

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Hey everyone! Hope it was an awesome week this past week, we had a great one down here.

The highlight was definitely general conference, it's always a privilege to hear from God's servants, their messages are truly inspired.

We had an awesome week as we were able to find 8 new investigators, and teach a bunch of our current progressing ones! Abdi, who will be baptized soon came back from L.A. And is still excited about his baptism and the gospel in general, which is awesome because sometimes people leave and come back and lose the fire they once had. He's an awesome kid and is just praying to be ready this Saturday, and if not, the following Saturday. We also started teaching his little brother Pedro, who is 14. It was cool because he really hasn't shown interest at all, but yesterday when we came by to visit their mom Brenda, a recent convert.  He just asked us "How can I be baptized?"  We were like we can show you and we were able to share the restoration with him. He's a good kid.  It's going to be a little challenging to him go to church because he spends the weekends with his dad in another city, so keep him in your prayers so that we can find a way to bring him to church! But it's really cool to see how the gospel is changing Brenda's family slowly but surely.

General conference was AWESOME! Unfortunately none of the investigators who had committed to come came, so that was a little sad, especially because we worked SO hard to take every obstacle out of their path. But it was great anyway because it's always good to hear the words of modern apostles. If you didn't get a chance to hear it, Check it out at https://www.lds.org/general-conference

 Some of my favorite talks were definitely elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, as well as Ronald A. Rasband and David A. Bednar, Highly recommend those, but all are great. Hope you all had a fantastic week!   Can't wait to hear about it.

  A little S.W.A.T. action in the Barrio.