Billy Brazelton's Baptism!

Sup Family!  How is everyone doing?? Thanks so much for your emails and letters this week.  I truly appreciate everything you send and say to encourage me.  It is such a blessing to have such great friends and family.  I love you all and miss you very much.  

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, the place we email at was closed so we had to take a little time today to write.

This week has been very good.  We have experienced some miracles that I wish I had time to talk about today, but I will have to share them another time.  This week we were supposed to have 3 baptisms.  Because of the inclement weather 2 of them got moved to this next week.  One is a boy named John. His family lives in Tooele (Toeele? I have no idea how to spell that!) anyway, in Utah! And they got a lot of snow or something so they couldn't make the drive out here last weekend.  So next weekend it will happen!  But one person was still able to get baptized.  His name is Morris William Brazelton Jr.  He is sooo cool.  He goes by Bill or Billy, and he is a great Christian man.  He loves the church and loves how he feels so accepted there and how we follow Christ so fully as members of the LDS church.  He was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday.  I'll attach a picture.  He is 4' 11"!  He is strong though.  He has had to struggle through a lot of things in his life, but through the Lord and his help he has become strong.  I am so grateful that he was open enough to listen to us and that the members referred us to him!   We met him only 2 weeks ago and now he is a member of the church and moving forward very quickly.  The Lord truly is at the head of this work and it is true!

So ya.  We also found a lot more people to teach which was such a blessing.  We hit the Standard of Excellence as a companionship this week.  Which is having 1 baptism, 1 confirmation, 3 on date for baptism, 5 at church, 8 lessons with members present, and 3 new investigators.  

We had been praying all week for a miracle that we would be able to achieve the goal of hitting the SOE as a zone.  Which would mean, 8 baptisms, 8 confirmations, 24 people on date for baptism, 40 people at church, 64 lessons with members present, and 24 new investigators.  Through our prayers and faith we were able to achieve it!!!  Here were the numbers this week.  8 baptized,  8 confirmed, 26 people on date for baptism, 54 people at church, 94 Lessons with members present, and 30 new investigators!  

I am not all about numbers, trust me. I actually hate them because it distracts from the actual people you are finding, teaching, and baptizing.  But they are good to help focus our efforts and help us stretch and grow to be even better missionaries and disciples of Jesus Christ.  

"The Lord always blesses the exercise of Faith"  That is what President Winn always says.  I have come to know this week in particular that this is true.  As we exercise faith, we will be blessed!

Well not much else to say, and I don't have much more time.  Gotta go out and do the work this afternoon and find more people to teach.

One more thing.  Last night we had an amazing lesson with a couple and their child.  The Wright family.  They are so prepared.  It was one of the most spiritual lessons that I have ever had on my mission.  As we shared the message of the restoration and the first vision in particular the father, Jake, was able to feel the spirit so strongly testify to his heart that this was true.  Also when we told him that he could have the opportunity to have the restored priesthood himself to bless his family, he started to cry.  I love the Lord's work.  It has changed me in every single way.  I will never be the same because I know the joy that comes from sharing the gospel with others and helping them in the crucial steps to receiving eternal life and eternal happiness with our Father in Heaven and with their families.

I love you all.  I hope you are feeling the blessings that the Lord has for you as you continue in keeping his commandments and improving yourselves to become more like our Savior Jesus Christ.

Have a fantastic week.

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak the Strategy

Is it real??

Dearest Family,

Hey.  How is everyone???  I miss you all.  Thanks for all the birthday wishes and packages and things!! I sure appreciate everything you all do for me.  Thanks so much!

Also Happy St. Patricks Day!!   I feel ashamed though.. I forgot to wear a green tie...... oops.  There is always next year right?? 

Well cool.  This week was flippin sweet.  Seriously.  We saw some amazing miracles.  We did exchanges with a district leader over in Lyman.  I stayed in our area and we were able to pick up a new investigator and it turns out that she has a pet Racoon!   So she let us touch it and pet it and it was like licking our hands! It was nuts!  We took some pictures of it, but they are on another missionaries camera, so i'll send them next week!  We also taught some great lessons that night and put another person named Theron on date to be baptized on the 13th of April.  The work is moving forward very quickly!  We have 3 baptisms this week!  Its going to be awesome!  

As a zone this week we hit the Dry SOE. Which means that we hit the standard of excellence as a zone except for in baptisms.  Next week we should have 13 baptisms as a zone.  So we will hit the Standard of Excellence which is (as a zone) 8 baptisms, 24 people on date, 40 people at church, 64 lessons with a member present, and 24 new investigators.  It is so exciting! 

Well hmm what else happened this week.  I am just jumping all over the place in this email... but on my birthday we went to Salt Lake for an all day training. It was pretty good. Then we had dinner with Elder Edstrom's family because they were in town and his sister was going into the MTC the next day.  It was great.  Olive Garden.  Mmmmm.  Then we went back to the Winn's house and they made me brownies for my birthday, got me a tie that matched President Winn's, and a really soft blanket.  It was very nice of them.  I am so grateful to have such an awesome mission president and his wife!

Well the last thing is the pictures this week!  Sooo YES! It is real!  Those are REAL academy awards.  This man who is letting us teach his friend in his home pulled them out yesterday.  They were given to his Grandfather.  His Grandfather got 7 Oscars! He has three of them.  He got them in set decoration!  And guess what movies for?  Hello Dolly, Cleopatra, and one other one I can't remember.   It was sooo cool!!  The only time I'll ever get to hold a real Oscar!!  I bet you are jealous Jennie... :)   ha ha it made me think of you.  ha ha So yeah.  Just another random cool thing that happens to us.  I love being a missionary.  And the man we are teaching in his home should be getting baptized this weekend.  His name is Billy.  Im excited.

Well I think that is it!  I love you all!  Miss you tons.  Hope you have an awesome week!

The church is true. 

Word.

Godspeed,

-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy

Happy Birthday Jennie!!!!!!!!!

Hello my wonderful family! How is everyone?????  I hear there was a pretty awesome birthday party last weekend!!  Wish I could have been there. But its all good.  There will be plenty of birthdays in the future that we can party for!   Thanks for all the emails and letters and birthday stuff.  It really has made my week so much better.  So thanks!

Well this week was kinda the same as usual... The beginning of the week was great! We had a lot of lessons and helped a lot of people progress in the gospel.  Then the second half everything like stopped..... it was hard.  Everyone was gone or was ignoring us and cancelled all the lessons we had set up.  It was frustrating.  But in the end the week was good.  We had 5 people come to church which was a miracle.  We added 3 new investigators this week and one is already on date to be baptized on the 23rd of March.  We had our first lesson with him last night and it was sooo powerful.  He is so prepared and we are so excited for him.  His name is Bill.  So ya.  

We spoke in 2 wards yesterday.  The 2nd and 3rd wards.  It went pretty well.  I still don't like speaking that much, but it has gotten a lot easier since we do it soo much.  

Well what else....  I think that is about it!  We did cook the fish that we caught last Monday and it was soooooo good!! It makes me want to go again just so that we can eat it again!  But It was kind of a lot of money and time to get up there.... especially when you can just buy fish at the store.... ha ha :) but it was fun anyway.

Here are some pictures at the state line. Utah and Wyoming.    Its still funny to me that I am serving here, but I love it.  It is a great area and the people are phenomenal.  It is awesome.  

Love you all!!! Miss you! 

God lives and loves us.

Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

The church is true.

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy

Ice Fishing???

HELLO!!!  Well today was crazy.  We got up early and went ice fishing! Drilled holes through the ice and just fished.  It was like 15 degrees.  It was actually pretty fun! I caught two myself.  We stayed there for a long time.  Till like 2:00pm. But I actually liked it.  More than I thought I would.   So ya. I'll send a picture of that as well.

Anyway...  This week was sweet.  We had Zone Leader Council down in Salt Lake at the mission office on Tuesday.  Learned a lot and had a great time. Then on Wednesday we had Zone meetings and interviews with President Winn.  The Winns picked us up at 7:30am and we drove out to Rock Springs and gave our first training to District B. Then right after we got done we drove back to Evanston and gave the same training again to District A and President had his interviews with them.  It was crazy. Giving the same training twice in a row was weird... but it went well. The training was on studying for our investigators. The Lord really does inspire our leaders in the mission to help us succeed and become better missionaries.  I am so grateful for that.  We got done at about 4:30pm that day....  So yeah.  

A lot of great lessons with our investigators this week.  They are progressing! We have 4 people on date to be baptized and a couple more to put on date this week. The Lord is truly blessing us for our efforts and for our faith which is in Him and His Son Jesus Christ.  I love this gospel. And I love being a missionary.  

We also found three new investigators this week.  They are going to be solid. One is a girl from the family we gave blessings to last week.  They are all non-members, but they had a loss in the family and we were able to give them blessings.  The kids asked me to do all of theirs.  So I did 4 out of the 6 and bishop kennedy and my companion did the other two.  Gods love for them was soo incredibly strong and real.  It was an amazing experience.  One of the best on my mission so far.  

Well what else happened...... oh.  There was stake conference this week.  And we had to speak in the Sunday morning Priesthood Leadership meeting at 7:00am.... It was early.  But it turned out well I think.  A lot of the members are listening to us and willing to help us out which is awesome!   My companion's testimony has effected many people in this area very strongly.  I hope mine will do the same. 

Alright. I don't have any more time to write.... sorry!  but I love you all!  I miss you tons and hope you all are doing great!

Keep the faith,

Peak the Strategy,

Much love, 

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen