Mission Tour

Hey Family!  How are you all doing this week??  I hope everyone is
doin well.  Thanks for your emails and letters.  You guys are awesome.
Well this week was interesting.  We taught a lot more and found some
new people to teach which was awesome!  We also had Mission Tour!  Its
basically like a zone conference meeting, but with more like 4 zones.
It was sweet.  Two elders from the first quorum of the seventy came
and spoke to us.  Elder Foster and Elder Whitting.  They were awesome!
 It was a very good meeting.  A little long (3 hours straight)  but I
learned a lot and got a lot out of it that applies to where I am
serving right now and how I can be a better missionary.  It was great.
  We also heard from our mission president and his wife.  They both
gave great talks.  It was cool :)
Hmmm what else was this week.   We did service for a couple people. .
.  We just worked every day . .  Same old.  haha.
So I forgot to tell you guys that President didnt end up coming out
with us the other week to teach, but he is coming out to teach with us
tonight!! So hopefully it will be a great lesson and we can invite
this new investigator to be baptized and he will accept.
Anyway,   not much else . . .  I spoke in sacrament yesterday.  They
told me I was going to speak about 1 or 2 hours before it started.  So
I didnt really prepare anything specific, but I think it went okay.
We ate at a Brazilians house and we are supposed to eat with them next
week as well and they are planning a Brazilian barbeque.  mmmmm  Im so
excited for that!  haha . .
Oh yeah! we were supposed to have two baptisms last Saturday, but they
both cancelled on us.     :(  One was sick and the other one fell off
the face of the planet. .   Seriously.  we can't find him anywhere!
hah . .  but I did get the opportunity to go back up to Farmington on
Saturday and see one of the investigators I taught, Tiffany
Montgomery, be baptized!  It was great!  I got to see Elder Miller
again too. It was sweet.  I hope to see them get sealed in the temple
in a year err so.  I will still be out here and I asked if I could go
and they said yes.  So Im gonna try to make sure it happens.  Word.
 Well  not much else to report.  Life as a missionary is great.  Very
rewarding.  also very draining . . haha Im getting pretty tired, but
its all good.  The Lord will help us have strength to do all the work
He needs done here.    So yeah . .  Well I hope you all have a
fantastic week!  I love you all.
Godspeed.
-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy

P.S. This is a picture of Tiffany and her family and us.  Wordski. .
That was probably pretty self explanatory, but whateva.

Yo

Hey Family!! 
Thanks for all your letters and emails!  I  miss you all.  Hope everything is going well for you guys.  I can't believe school is starting.  Woah.  Soo weird.  Anyway, some stuff happened this week.  Just the usual.  There was a baptism for the elders right next to us and the woman who got baptized was super prego!   yeah she was pregnant.  like a lot .     . . like she was in labor when she came to the baptism!  It was crazy! She was in the hospital and they were going to give her drugs to help the pain and stuff but she said she had to leave to go get baptized so she made it back to the area and was like 2 hours late, but she still got baptized and once she did she stopped having contractions and was doing much better! It was a miracle!   Still a little weird though. .   a woman who is in labor getting baptized.    Word!

Well other than that, we are trying really hard to get the work going in this area.  We are fasting and praying and working hard. . I just want it to pay off soon . haha  .  but anyway,  we found out that some other elders are teaching someone in our area..... they call it poaching!  Its stupid.  Its not supposed to be that way, but he is not "comfortable" in our ward so he is going somewhere else.  Bleh   its okay though. . Whatever is best for the investigator!!!  Anyway. 

Im gonna make this short today.   Cause I want to go play basketball and stuff for a bit..... wordski.  But I love you guys! 
I got to go to the Salt Lake Temple today!! :) it was awesome!!  Its so cool that we get to move room to room and it is done live! :)  Its fun.     We also went to temple square with an investigator this week.  It was sweet too!!  Went to downtown Salt Lake City a lot this week.      Also we teach a lot of Sudanese people!  We can go out of our zone and even out of our mission to teach the Sudanese people actually!  because they have a program in our ward for them.   So yeah. .  Its sweet :)

well have a great week!!!!
Love you,
Godspeed.
-Elder Hansen
Peak the Strategy

Unexpected

Hello Family!   Hows it goin?!?!?!  haha soooo yeah . . Im sure most of you if not all of you have heard by now that I saw Paula and Brian and their kids this week!  It was crazy.   Basically I was reading during personal study and I moved my study journal and saw the invitation I received to Caleb Cox's wedding!  I opened it up again to look at what day it was on and it was that night, Friday night!  i thought hey maybe I could go, but didnt think much more about it till later.  Then at dinner we were eating with a really chill family (the Easters) so I randomly was like hey you guys want to go to Bountiful tonight?  And they said that sure they would take me if I got permission.  So I texted the APs and asked them if I could go up to Bountiful for my friends wedding reception for a couple minutes and they said yes as long as I got a ride with a member!!  So basically 30 minutes later we were in Bountiful up at the reception!  I walked in and everyone was so surprised.  Sister Cox was so happy to see me :)  Their whole family was.  It was so nice to see them and see Caleb.  I can't believe he just got married!!  Thats soo nuts.  Anyway.  Then Emily said oh your sister is coming in about an hour.  So I thought, well I should probably leave before then.   (Not cause I didnt want to, but cause Im not really supposed to see my family.)  Anyway, I talked to a lot of people then went to go get my camera to take a picture with the Cox family before I left.  On my way over I saw Steven Loveday! So I talked to him for a minute and then Paula and Brian walked in!!  It was crazy! haha it was nice to see them.  I can't believe how different Christopher looked already!  So yeah.  It was pretty unexpected but it was fun :) Then I talked to Natalie on the phone for like 2 minutes.  Sorry I couldn't wait for you guys to get there Natalie and Jamie!  I had to go.  And sorry if I was awkward or anything.  It was weird to talk to you guys and see you as a missionary!!!  So yeah . . forgive me,  but I consider it a blessing that I got to see some of you and know that you are still doing okay :)  

So yeah . . that was a great part of the week!   but as far as missionary work goes, this week was not the best . ..     but our recent convert got out of jail!! so thats good hahaha . .  His wife should be getting baptized this Saturday.   The problem right now is that we can't find anyone home.  And then the wards are not helping us at all.  I find it funny how a lot of people even though they are so poor here will feed us anyway when I would rather not eat or just eat ramen everyday if they would give us a referral instead!!! Seriously, nobody is trying to help us. .  . .  even the bishop of one ward seems very unwilling to help us.  I think that he thinks that we are not doing our job... which sucks cause I dont know what else we can do.   We go out and work hard everyday and we teach lessons in church if they ask and we are trying to do service when people will let us!!!  Seriously we ask to do service for everyone and it seems like around here it is obviously needed, but nobody will let us help. . . . . . Its weird.   So right now Im frustrated with how the work is going in these two wards, but I am trying hard to change the sterotype / false traditions of our fathers  so that people in the ward will like us and want us to help them and be around them and teach their nonmember friends!! 
Anyway, not much more than that!!!  I love you all!! Miss you guys.   I hope you all are doing well!  Good luck with school starting!  I dont have to go this year . . .   for the first time in a lot of years . . So thats weird!  But its good. . I'd rather be out here doing the work of the Lord :)    sick .
Alright, Have a great week!!!!
Love,
-Elder Hansen
Peak The Strat.
Godspeed.
Word.
P.S. I'll try to send some pictures soon!!! sweet

Crazy!

Well this week was awesome!!  A lot happened  . . some crazy stuff . .  ha ha but thats just how it goes around here I spose :)   . . . First off thanks for the emails and letters Mom and Dad!!  Im sorry I dont have time to reply to youre individual emails right now, but know that they were greatly appreciated and I love to get them whenever you have the spare moment :) So thanks!!!!

Anyway, this week Christopher Good was baptized.   He is a 9 year old boy who just decided to be baptized!!  It was awesome!!  They almost didnt show up though! They thought it was at a different building so they werent there for the first baptism (because we were doing it with stake baptisms)  but we eventually found them after a lot of running around and he got baptized!!  Then they were like 15 minutes late to sacrament meeting soo he almost didnt get confirmed!!  It was scary, but they got there just in time and so he got confirmed and received the Holy Ghost yesterday!  It was awesome :)   we were supposed to have 2 or 3 baptisms this weekend, but some stuff happened soo we couldnt . . .   Basically one of our recent converts, his wife was supposed to be baptized on friday night.  But then she called us in the middle of the night on Friday but we didnt answer because we were asleep.  We called back and finally got a hold of her and she told us that her husband (the recent convert)  was in prison!!  . . . pfff . . so we were like umm . . well why is he there?  and it is hard to understand her because she is from the Congo, but it is something about driving with a suspended license and expired registration and some other stuff that we dont really know about . . so yeah!  That was interesting . .  
We had been knocking on their door all week to see if she was still going to be baptized and had been calling her a ton, and it turns out they moved to another apartment in the same building, but never told us. . .   haha but we have talked to her a lot in the last couple days and called the prison like 7 times to find out where her husband is at and when he will be back ..  its just been a little ridiculous. . . hah . .  so yeah . . hopefully the husband gets out today and we can figure out everything and she can still get baptized soon!!
This whole week has been sorta like what I told you about just now. .   Just crazy . .     We couldn't find our investigators anywhere!!!!!! We stopped by their houses and called them all like 50 times . . its ridiculous . .  but a lot of people dont have phones, or their phones dont work because they are out of money, or they move without telling you . . . hahaha its funny . . somewhat hard to get missionary work done when everyone is so flakey . .  but its all good . . we are trying our best and we have two more set baptisms for the 25th of august and a couple more hopefully on the 18th of august for these people who were supposed to be baptized this weekend.

So yeah!  Not much more to report.  We are workin hard. .  .  President Winn (our mission president) is planning on coming out to teach with us on Thursday night.  So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully we will have some solid appointments that actually are home and we can teach lessons . . thats the biggest struggle in this area . . Its hard to be patient when you lose contact with your investigator for 2 weeks even though you are trying your hardest to talk to them and find them and you go over to their house multiple times everyday. . .   haha but its good .  The church is true.   The gospel really blesses and changes peoples lives!  God lives and loves us!   I hope all is well with you guys!!  Its weird to not really know whats going on out there in the world.   But its pretty nice at the same time :) ignorance is bliss right??? hahaha well I love you all!!
miss you!  Have an awesome week ma familia!
Godspeed.

Love,
-Elder Hansen
Peak the Strategy

P.S.  I have pictures from the baptism but I forgot to bring my camera to the library . . . oops!! but I may have an opportunity to send them later today!    . ..   word.