Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Es que ando para arriba y para abajo, y realmente nunca estoy (I am up and down and never really am)

What's up fam and friends! Happy Tuesday, I hope you are all well and have had a fantastic week!

Elder Laws and I are for sure enjoying our time here in beautiful Logan Heights. We decided this pretty much feels like a 6 week Exchange and we still find it hard to believe we are companions.

This week has been a good one, but it's getting hard to think of good email material, so forgive me if this email lulls you to sleep.

It's been a little more challenging around here finding people to teach, but we found a couple of really cool people this week. Last week we were walking down the street and saw a lady painting over some graffiti (there is a lot of graffiti here), so we stopped and offered to help. Normally people reject our help but she let us paint over it really quick and while one was painting the other was talking to here. She was super nice and we set up an appointment for Sunday. Sunday we taught them a good first lesson and will be going back this week. We are always grateful and excited when people accept our spontaneous service.

Unfortunately Veronica was out of town again and wasn't able to go to church. It seems like she is a little bit less excited than she was for her baptism, but we saw her yesterday and had a really good, short, powerful lesson. She is praying now about baptism and Wednesday we are going to reset her with a new baptismal date. Keep her in your prayers! She's awesome.

We had a member bring her friend to church this past week, we are going to pass by and teach her tonight. Her name is Estefenia, she's super nice and seemed to really like church. We will let you know how that goes next week.

That's about all I got this week. Me and elder laws have been trying to take more pictures so we have some good ones.

Last night we did a four man push up, it didn't work out so good. I'll include the video. Eventually we got it down.

Love you all!! Have a good week!

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

May 17, 2016  Es que ya leemos la Biblia todo el día (I read the Bible all day)

What's up queridos amigos!!

We had a fantastic week this week. Elder Laws and I are living it up down here in Logan. We've had to drop a few investigators that just weren't quite ready to act yet, but the Lord has blessed us to find a couple of really cool new people. One of them is Luis, who is the cousin of a member that we visit quite a bit. Luis is 12 and has attended church with that member in the past (David Estrada). Luis didn't live with David before, he lived out of our branch boundaries, but now his family moved in with David and so we are working with both of them, super cool kids.

We also started teaching an awesome little family, it's a long story how we met them, but it's Marabel the mom, Jazmin who is 15, Natalie who is 11, Daniela who is 9 and Joselyne who is 7. They are super nice kids and they've been going to mutual a little bit, we are just working on helping them not go to Tijuana  on the weekend so they can attend church.

Yesterday we found a super nice lady named Rosa who we met on the street, we had a great first lesson with her yesterday and we are going to start teaching her husband on Thursday.

We are still working with Veronica, we are working towards the 28th of May, unfortunately she wasn't able to go to church this past Sunday, but she's still searching for her answer and she's loving what she's reading in the Book of Mormon.

Last week we had MTE's which is a training meeting, then exchanges with a couple other zones and then another training and miracle report the next day. I went on exchanges with Elder Thomson who is an English Elder, but we had a lot of fun. We talked to people in English anyway. There's a picture of us down in Barrio Logan.

Probably the highlight of this past week was our stake conference which was presided by President Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It was incredible to hear him speak and feel the spirit that he brought with him. Saturday he spoke for about an hour without any notes or anything. He testified and taught of the Savior, he talked about His role throughout the Old and New Testament and quoted so many scriptures! He was incredible. Sunday he talked about joy and all the things we can do to have joy. One of my favorite quotes was "Do you want to have more joy? Be a missionary!". He listed so many great things that we can do to have joy in our lives, I have pages of notes! It was incredible. Right before the Sunday meeting started we were hanging out in the room with the Spanish translation group and President Nelson came in to personally greet all of the Spanish members that were there. Since we were here we got to shake his hand and talk to him for just a few seconds.  He asked where we were from and practiced a little Spanish with us. "Buenos Dias Elderes" all in all it was super cool to hear from him.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

What's up fam and friends!

The end of another fantastic week here in beautiful scenic Logan Heights. Last week as I mentioned my mission bro Elder Laws came to be my companion. ITS SO SICK!! Elder Laws is an awesome friend and an awesome missionary.

We are having a blast and seeing lots of miracles. This last week we had some good times. We were able to find a bunch of super cool new investigators. Some of them include Marabel and her 4 daughters. They are super cool, the oldest, Jazmin went to mutual a couple weeks ago, that's where we met her- it's kind of a long story. But we are super stoked about them!

We also met Yaneri, who is a college student. She's super cool, she had actually met a couple of the elders up at the school where she goes and she was stoked that we had found her. She was just on our potential list in area book so we decided to go by and try, while we were walking through the apartment complex we saw a younger couple with some kids. We Elder Laws and I were like "oh, we should go talk to them!" And we started getting close and as we got close to them we realized the guy was on a knee and the kids were taking a video and we were about to interrupt a proposal. We got a good laugh about that after. We are pretty sure we are in the video. Haha

Me and Elder Laws are always laughing. It's funny because you would think that as you have more time in the mission you stop doing dumb things like drop a bunch of pass a long cards while you're talking to someone on the street, but yesterday that's exactly what I did. And then as we were bending down to pick them up we bonked heads... I wish I had a blooper reel of my mission, but there would be way too many clips on it.  The cool thing was she actually said we could come over and teach her family, we think she felt bad for us. Haha

Yesterday we went to the Mormon Battalion with one of our investigators Yadira and her sister Rebecca. Yadira is super awesome, her daughter is even on a mission right now somewhere in California. She looked like she had a blast. We will throw in some pictures.

Those are the highlights of the week. We are just Loving life, working hard and seeing tons of miracles.

Love you all!
Elder Hansen

Tuesday May 3, 2016

                                                                           


What up what up. It's the end of another week, another transfer and tristemente the Burtsen companionship. It's been a good run! Me and Elder Burt had a blast together and saw tons of miracles, it's always sad to say goodbye to a brother and a friend. The good thing is we will both be at BYU later. But he's getting shipped off to the Imperial Valley so he's gonna be burning out in the desert for a while :)

My new companion is Elder Laws!! You have no idea how stoked I was to see the transfer info. I've wanted to be Elder Laws' companion forever. We served together in Chula and Sweetwater a while back. He's super cool, we are stoked to work together. He's coming in from the valley so he and Elder Burt are doing a little swap.

Yesterday was the departure activities for missionaries going home. Elder Takke, one of my mission bros went home. Since he was out in the Imperial Valley again (two hours away) he spent the night at our apartment since we are the closest to the airport. It was great to have him over and get to catch up a little. I love that guy. You meet some great people on the mission. Today we dropped him off at the airport.

So this last week we had to drop a bunch of people, which is always sad. You have to find a balance between seeing people's potential and people's willingness to act. It's never fun, but it's always for the best. The Lord is always working ahead of us to prepare their hearts.

The good news is Pablo found some work and is going to stay here, we've been continuing to teach him, he's determined to change his life and grow close to God. It's awesome to see the light of the gospel fill his eyes as we talk and study and as he takes his own time to read and pray.

Veronica, Rebecca, Bryan and Yadira are still doing super awesome. Veronica had a temporary job which was causing her to work these next two Sundays and it was making her unable to attend church. We told her to pray and ask God to help her find a way to attend church. Yesterday when we taught her she said they showed up to work and the boss told her that their days off would be changed to Wednesday and Sunday, so she will be able to attend church. She is so happy!!

We have been continuing to work with the recent converts in the branch as well which is awesome. Gissel gave a Book of Mormon to her cousin who is going through a hard time and she has really caught the fire of missionary work. She also invited her cousin to the Mormon battalion site yesterday, she wasn't able to come but we were able to go with Gissel and her husband George. It was awesome, they really enjoyed it.

The work is great. The Lord truly does care about each and every one of us. He knows us, he's aware of what we need and his hand is in our lives.

I love you all!