October 13, 2015 Feliz Cumpleaños

Feliz Cumpleaños Elder Hansen (Happy Birthday)

October 13, 2015

What's up family!

It's been an awesome week out here in Penasquitos! The wards out here are absolutely amazing and so fired up about the work!! It's awesome.

This past week we have been getting to know the members and stuff, Elder Fiso only has 1 transfer here so he is still getting to know the people with us. We had coordination meetings with both of our ward mission leaders, who are awesome. They are just taking care of business in both wards! It's awesome to see how great things can function when
the ward council really works together.

I went to church for the first time in the new area because of conference. It was sweet. 6   hours of church plus 2 ward councils made for a long Sunday but it was all really good. We had President Holmes of the Young Men's general presidency there. He did a training up here and then visited both of our wards for fast and testimony meeting which was awesome.

Fun experience in the second church (Penasquitos 1st ward) our assistant ward mission leader brother Knapp's mom was there and she's from Mexico, so brother Knapp and I switched off translating for her. That was pretty tough but really fun. Then she decided to go up and give her testimony so I translated that over the pulpit which was a little bit scary. haha but it was fun! :) I also translated Gospel Principals for her so I got a good 2 hours of practice in which was good since it's straight English pretty much from now on! Since we are in English wards we don't teach in Spanish, but we run into Spanish
speakers on the street and we refer them to the Spanish Elders over in the Poway branch.

We gave a sweet zone meeting on Friday about Faith. Based it on a talk given by Elder Bednar called "According to thy faith" It was given at BYUI in like 2000. 

(FYI  Elder Hansen has been called as Zone Leader as part of his latest transfer but never really mentioned it in his emails to us until we asked him later in another email).

That day I was also on exchanges with a new Elder in our district Elder Thueson, he's super cool, we had a really good, busy exchange.

We have been doing tons of Service out here too, it's been great. Life is good! 

Love Elder Hansen

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

What's up dear friends and family! New transfer, new area, new wardS, new companionS, new language, still tons of fun!

Lots of changes this past couple of weeks have made for an exciting time! So transfers were Wednesday, needless to say I was very sad to leave the Sweetwater Spanish branch, Elder Cloes and the awesome investigators we were teaching. We all             headed out to transfer meeting and I'm always suuuper nervous for transfers...we have no idea what's going to happen to us     except that one is leaving so it's a big old surprise. President reads off the lists of missionaries getting a new companion and   announces who is going there to be their comp. Most of the areas that we had predicted had past when we got to the Penasquitos 1st and 3rd ward area (English) where Elder Fiso is serving and BAM out of nowhere president threw a curveball and that's where I went. It was a huge surprise because it's an English Zone leader area, but it's also really happy news because Elder      Fiso is a blast and a stud missionary. Not only do I get to work with Elder Fiso from Hawaii but we get Elder Augusto out here  with us, he's from Portugal. It's a pretty diverse trio. haha

I served with Elder Fiso out in the Imperial valley, he served in Brawley while I was in Calexico, so we were in the same zone. I  think I probably included a picture of him in an email home last November because we went on MTEs in the valley and I got to  go to his area.

More about the area-so the area is awesome. Penasquitos is out towards the north east part of San Diego. It's a really nice area up in the hills on the north border of the mission, we border with the Carlsbad mission. The wards are awesome from what I've seen. Obviously I haven't been able to go to church and meet everyone but all the members I have eaten with and taught with   are amazing. The best part is they are super fired up about missionary work out here! It's a night and day difference from my     last area, gated communities, big houses and hills and mountains off in the distance. It's pretty sweet though. Plus we are        covering 2 wards instead of half of a ward like I was before. It's crazy.

Our companionship is having a super good time. It's a lot of fun out here with these two. Elder Augusto goes home in like 2     months, Elder Fiso has about 6 months and I have about 8 months left. (where did the time go...?)

Yesterday we had Mission Leadership conference, which is with the Assistants, the Zone leaders and sister training leaders.   We talked a lot about faith and helping the  missionaries we work with exercise and increase their faith, which leads into some of the things that really stood out to me about conference.

Elder Anderson's talk in the priesthood session talked about faith. He opened by saying "The Savior perceived the strength or weakness in the faith of those around Him." to one person, Jesus said "Great is thy faith." To others He said, "O ye of little faith." With that, Elder Anderson asked the question, How does the Savior see Your faith." You can take that two ways.. a measurement like "little faith, or great faith" Or how our president phrased it... "Based on your actions, how does the Savior SEE your     faith?" or, in other words, "How is my faith evident in my actions so that it is visible to the Savior?" This is the penetrating       question that we are currently pondering. He also asked "When was the last time that you read the Book of Mormon from cover-to-cover? Read it again. It will increase your faith." And our mission has taken that and put the goal of reading it cover to         cover between now and Christmas.

The other thing that stood out a lot was PONDERIZING by elder Durant. I hope you all accepted the invitation as we have to      ponderize a scripture once a week! I'm stoked to do it, we started as a companionship.

Don't forget Elder Holland's awesome talk about mothers. I LOVE YOU MOM!

Anyway there's what I got for today. I love you all, I love the work, it's going great and I'm having a blast. Keep the pics of         Harvey and company comin! I love em!

With love,
Elder Hansen

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Hey fam! It's been a great last week here in Lemon Grove. I'm glad to hear things are well with Amber and the baby. CONGRATS!! 

Transfer news is in, and I´m packing my bags and heading out I'm kinda sad, I'm really going to miss this branch and all of the people I taught and worked with. Not to mention how much I'm going to miss Elder Cloes. We are both kind of down about this, but that's the way it goes in the mission, when you start feeling comfortable and in a rhythm the Lord puts His plan into play to make us stretch and grow. 

I've learned a lot here in the Sweetwater 3rd branch, I've been here for about 6 months and it has absolutely flown by! This branch has a ton of potential and I'm stoked to see where it goes in the coming months. I'm sad to leave these investigators behind but I'm happy to know I've planted a lot of really awesome seeds with the people we have found and taught here. There are big things to come in this area. I'm excited and nervous of course for transfers, you never know what could happen... We are in full transfer prediction mode, but it really can't be predicted. The Lord always has plans that we just could never predict.  

We are working with largely the same group of people. Eduardo and Cynthia and Raquel and Paola and Julio are all progressing well and we love to see them learn and grow in the process, I'm excited to see what the future holds for all of them and the other wonderful people in this area. 

It's been a good day here even though I'm sad to leave. Haha here's a pic of me and Elder Carlson my trainer at the airport and me and Elder Laws and Elder Cloes on the top of a hill in the sun. We are hanging out today because Elder Carlson was Elder Laws companion and he went home. 

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Hey fam, it´s been another good week in Lemon Grove, California.  Just started the last week of the transfer, these past 5 weeks have absolutely floooown by.

This past week we've been working with pretty much the same people, it's been kind of hard to find new investigators but we keep going anyway. Eduardo is doing well, still working on helping him to grow his faith and set a new baptismal date, he looks great and has come so far!! He and the guy who he rents from--Jose came to church on Sunday. They're funny guys, they are the ones that started to call me Chicharito, which means little pea because of the soccer player, but now they call me Chicharote, which means big pea.  haha  they say my eyes look like his eyes...    

Saturday we had more Lengua for dinner :) A member family-the Quinonez's made us tacos de Lengua. They prepared it a little different than Eduardo but they were super good too. We are helping their little 8 year old Angel get ready for his baptism in the next couple weeks.

Sunday was awesome. Raquel and Cynthia and their daughter Melanie came to church with us! (Melanie is like the friendliest little 2.5 year old ever). They had a really good experience. We had the privilege of teaching  gospel principals super last minute because our teacher wasn't feeling good--he told us as we were walking into the class..we taught about obedience. It wasn't too bad. Later on we had a mission president's fireside in Chula Vista so we went there for that, it was good to see a couple of people from the old ward although there were a few people that weren't there that I was hoping would be. I got to see my "mom and dad" from that ward, the Quintero family, I'll try to send ya a picture. Hermano Espinoza was also there who is one of my favorite people I've met in the mission.

Yesterday we had dinner with the other Quinonez family-they're brothers. She asked what we wanted and Elder Cloes said Aguachiles, which is his new favorite thing. It's shrimp which is cooked, but not really cooked. It sits in lime so the acidity cooks it, it's really good. We also had shrimp ceviche which is similar, just that the Aguachiles is made with chiles. so It's spicy. We love Mexican seafood!

Can't wait to see my little nephew! Send me pics and info asap!!

Love you tons!

Elder Hansen

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

 My Comp decided to play a game of "stack stuff" on me.

 Zone Conference

 The new International Zone t-shirt I designed.

Hey fam! 

It's been an awesome week here in beautiful Lemon Grove. It's currently pouring down rain which is a pleasant surprise!!

We started this awesome week with Zone Conference last Wednesday which is when Our zone and the Chula Vista English and Spanish zones get together and we get some awesome instruction from the members of the mission presidency and president Schmitt.

This time we talked about working with members, and how essential it is in missionary work that members work alongside us, we are on the same team. We talked about working with our ward and branch leaders and how the bishop or branch president   holds the keys for the work and needs to have a high vision for there to be success. After that he needs to work through the    ward mission leader, branch or ward council and the missionaries to bring to pass his inspired vision. We have been putting all of that into action this week, we got together with our branch president and set some expectations and made a plan and talked about it in ward council.

Thursday we had weekly planning and stuff-its always kind of a long day because we have to spend a lot of time inside the       apartment. We also had dinner with our branch mission leader and the sisters here serving in our ward. Hermana Robledo       made carne asada and pollo asado and she makes awesome salsa and guacamole. It was awesome. Then we had coordination which was good! People in the branch are getting a lot more motivated to work. We had an awesome lesson after with Julio and Paola, plus little juliette. They are such an awesome family! (Pics of us with them later on)

Friday we had a couple sweet lessons with our investigators Raquel and her daughter Cynthia. It's cool to see how the Lord     has prepared them through trials and life  experiences to receive the gospel, especially Cynthia, and they are super stoked! We also had an awesome lesson with a less active member who we just met. He's super friendly and really fun!

Saturday we had dmeet (district meeting)! We talked more about working with members-there is a sweet talk called "It's a          Miracle" by Elder Anderson that we talked about. Our branch president had a birthday party for their daughter. She turned 14-it was awesome.   It was princess themed and there were lots of people and lots of good food!  While we were there we got one of the best phone calls ever ... that the speakers weren't going to be able to speak so they called us, the missionaries, to give the   talks the following day...like 15 hours before the sacrament meeting. We talked about prophets and the restoration. It went      pretty well.

There's a little summary of the week! Love you all!

Elder Hansen

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The end of another awesome week here in Beautiful Lemon Grove, California!

Elder Cloes and I are still having a blast out here in the Sweetwater branch!  

Here are a few highlights!  

We are teaching an awesome family consisting of Juliet (1 year old), Paola and Julio. They are awesome! They are a lot of fun to teach and this week we were helping them get the first birthday party of Juliet all put together. We were helping them glue ribbons on jars, little "Juliet" stickers on stuff, marshmallows on a stick and other crafty stuff. It reminded me of getting things together with my crafty mom and sisters! We got permission to go to the party even though it was out of our area. Birthday parties are a huge deal in Mexican culture. They rented out a hall, had tons of decorations, dinner and even a mechanical bull. Unfortunately we didn't participate in that... :/ But it was packed!! We helped serve food and we were running around helping Paola and Julio as much as we could. It was cool to see all the Mexican traditions. Piñatas, Mexican dulces (candy) and the tradition when they throw quarters out to the crowd. We came up on some extra laundry money for the week :) There was lots of good food and it was cool to meet all the friends and family. We were definitely the only white people there. haha  

We have been teaching Raquel, she's doing awesome! She's always so grateful for everything we teach her and everything we do. She says we are like her sons. This week we also started teaching her daughter Cynthia, who is super nice and cool! It's an awesome little family. Cynthia has a crazy little 2 year old who is always running around and having a good time. She falls down a lot but never cries. Just sticks her hand out and waits until someone helps her up, then she dusts herself off and goes again!  

Eduardo is still doing really good. It's cool how he has started to recognize the changes he has made, and how much better he feels now. We had an awesome lesson with his neighbor Jose as well. He is feeling pretty down and lonely since his mom died recently and all of his kids are grown. He has really been humbled and it's cool to see the spirit work on him.  

I can't remember if I mentioned the best restaurant ever!! Bankhead Mississippi cooking. We went back as our pre-fast meal and man!! It was just as good this time. It's like takin a trip to the south. Had some baked chicken, fried chicken and smothered chicken plus smothered potatoes and Mac N Cheese. It was good preparation for Sunday.  

Sunday we went to lunch after church with some members that I met in Chula Vista, the Gallegos family. They are so awesome! Side story-I had some really good pistachio ice cream and pistachio popsicles in Chula and ever since whenever we run into a palatero I ask if they have them, they never do. But after we finished eating Hermana Gallegos was like what flavor ice cream do you want? Pistachio or I don't even know what she said afterwards because she lost me at pistachio. I started acting like a child because I was so excited. But anyway I had my pistachio ice cream and she bought me a whole container of it this week :) haha 

Since we have a car it has been a lot easier to get out and meet the members and eat with them :) we get fed quite a bit now.  

I love you dear family and friends! Thank you for all of the love and support!  

Elder Hansen

Hey family!

It's going to be a quick email this week, but it's been an awesome week! A picture is worth a thousand words right?

Things are going great here in Lemon Grove! Still teaching some great people! We currently have 3 with a baptismal date and we are still finding a lot of awesome people! We got a referral from the English elders this week, her name is Alica and she is super prepared! She had been talking to her boss and has LDS family, and we are super stoked to go back and teach her this week!

Tonight we will be eating tacos de lengua with our investigator Eduardo (Tacos of tongue). 

They are actually delicious.

This is a taco de lengua. It's actually really good. When we come back, we will eat some. 

Love you family!

Elder Hansen