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!!!

October 27, 2015 Happy Halloween

What up family!!

Happy Halloween!! We've had an awesome week up here in beautiful  Peñasquitos. Hope all is well with everyone.  Started off an exciting week last week with an exchange with one of our district leaders into Tagalog work. That was an adventure. Elder Martinez and I had a good time, even though I really couldn't help him in any Tagalog situations. Haha it was a fun day, and we got to drive all over the mission since they cover half of it.

Thursday one of our members, sister Peterson took us out to lunch, we always love  that! Then we had weekly planning, we recorded our entire companionship inventory on video and something kind of funny happened so I'll send you guys a clip. Elder Fiso is a prankster.. Haha we also had a good dinner that night, mom you should be happy to  know that we are getting fed well. Probably too well. :)

Friday was awesome, we had a special mission leadership conference because brother Mike Hemmingway, the director of proselytizing from the missionary department was in town and agreed to do a little training.  It was awesome. He talked a bit about how we need to counsel with the Lord in everything (Alma 37:37) in missionary work especially and outside. He also talked about how important it is to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. And it's really easy to get in a routine as a missionary and forgetting to really focus on the spirit, and it's something we have been trying to apply since last Friday.  Afterwards we had dinner and then we had the trunk or treat for PQ 1st ward. It was super awesome to see all the members who invited friends and meet their non- member friends, we will be following up with them soon to see who we can go see.

After the party we had like half an hour left so we prayed to see where the Lord would have us go. All three of us got the Impression to go to one family, which we knew we couldn't knock on that late, but while we were over there we met Kyle, who is a super prepared guy, we gave him a Book of Mormon and he will be meeting with the YSA Elders soon.

Saturday was a super busy day, had coordination meetings for both wards. Both our ward mission leaders are studs by the way! And then we had district meeting, plus PQ 3rd's trunk or treat Halloween party. Met some cool non-members there as well.

Had a pretty typical Sunday- 6 hours of church, dinner and a couple of appointments fell through. Did splits with an awesome couple that night though and were able to add a new investigator, Nick who is the son of a member.

Yesterday was kind of a fail...one of those days when you have something super awesome planned and then it falls apart but you just laugh and move on.  We had a three way split planned, which was awesome. But early in the day one of the appointments cancelled and then as soon as we split another one cancelled, but Elder Fiso couldn't really do much but stay at the members house and wait for us to finish with our ward mission leader brother Gosch and then Elder Augusto and I went to our appointment.  Ours was busy because they had a newborn. All we could really do is just laugh. It was a good idea though :)

Looking forward to Halloween, we will be in early just hangin out, studying and preparing lessons and stuff. Hope you all have a good one! Love hearing from you all! Thanks for all the love and support! :)

Love,

Elder Hansen

Elders Augusto, Fiso & Hansen - Men in Black?

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.