Merry Christmas!!!

Dear Family,
Hey there! How is everyone?? Thanks for the letters and packages you have been sending!  And Merry Christmas!!!! :) I can’t believe that it is already Christmas again...  So weird.  It feels like just yesterday was last Christmas!  I don’t know where the whole year went.  But I am happy to be able to share the message of Christ’s birth as a missionary during this time of year!  It is amazing to see how much the life of an individual can change because of our Saviors life.  I love being able to invite people to make changes in their lives to be able to be more like Christ and use his atonement.  So yeah.


Well these past couple of weeks have been nuts.  We have been taking time to plan meetings for the mission ahead for the next year or so….  So just some calendaring things and working on meetings that are this month.  We had a Leadership Training with all the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, and District Leaders.  It was a cool meeting.  We talked about how to help individual companionships work toward and achieve their goals.  Just increasing a little bit every transfer.  We aren’t asking for impractical things, but as we just set our goals a little bit higher than before we will be able to see some great things happen in this mission.  So it was a good meeting.  Right afterward we had a meeting with all the newly called leaders and talked to them about their roles to lift, inspire, bless and help the missionaries in their districts and zones. 


The other day we had 4 new missionaries come to our mission! The MTC just told us a week or two ago that they were sending them to us in the middle of the transfer. So we had a mini transfer with all the trainers involved and had a couple trainings.  It was a fun day.  I love being with new missionaries! They are so eager to work and to help people.  Full of fire. It helps me remember what I wanted to do when I came out and just puts all of this into perspective.  I feel so blessed to be able to serve and serve with the missionaries in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission. 


As a fun test the other night my companion asked if I could name or write down the names of all of the missionaries in our mission without looking at anything.  So I got out a piece of paper and started writing by zone.  It took me about an hour to do it, but I remembered all 216 missionaries and where they are serving.  I don’t think that I could quite tell you the names of each stake (there are 67) but I could probably get a little over half.  It is so cool to see how the Lord has been able to help me and enlarge my memory and mind to be able to remember all of these missionaries and areas and housing and cars and just everything! I am not sure that I told you this but when President Hansen called me and we were talking and he asked me to serve the missionaries with him he gave me a blessing.  He blessed me with exactly what I have seen happen.  An increase in mind, understanding and memory to help serve these missionaries and that I would have all the necessary means to do so.  I feel so blessed to see the Lord work in my life and help me to be able to bless others.  I truly love this work.
Well I will email again on Monday and probably tell you when I am going to want to call (or skype / google hangout) on Christmas.  I hope you are all being blessed during this time of year and have opportunities to share the gospel with your friends!  I also hope and pray that you are all travelling safely in the weather!!


Thanks again for everything.  I love and miss you all! Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!! :)


Godspeed.
-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy.

Hello!  These past few weeks have been pretty good!  Thank you Paula and Brian for the package!  We already ate all the cookies, they were delicious!!  I shared them with some of the office staff, my companion, and President Hansen.  He said to tell you that they were great! ha ha  Also Mom I got the two packages for Christmas but I haven't opened them yet because I think I will wait till either Christmas day or a little earlier.  I appreciate all of you for emailing me and sending me letters and things.  They always seem to come at the right time.  When things aren't going so well or our missionaries are doing not the smartest things and it is frustrating - that is when I receive your emails and letters and it really helps, so thanks!

So.  Its been forever since I wrote last...  Thanksgiving was great!  We ate at President and Sister Hansen's house.  Some other elders joined us.  President bought a Foosball table and put it downstairs in the mission home so we played a lot of Foosball and just talked and had a good time.  Then the rest of the evening we worked on transfers...  We finished everything up early this time and everything went pretty well!  I am still with Elder Williams in our same area.  It has been hard lately. We haven't had as much time to work as we would like to and then when we do it is hard to find anyone home.  We set up appointments with new people and they just keep cancelling.  And with finals coming up our work is going to be almost halted.....  but we are still working with some people like Marlen, Justin, Gio, and some others!  The Lord is blessing us for the work we do and I am so grateful for that.  

Anyways, we have been running around giving trainings and working with President on where this mission is headed.  It is an exciting time!!  I feel sooo lucky to be serving at this time when we are defining how the work is moved forward at an accelerated pace in our mission and what our goals and plans are as a mission (all of this relating to hastening the work of salvation).  I am learning so much and having such a good time.  I love all of our missionaries (even when they do stupid things... :) ha ha)   We have very powerful, strong, converted missionaries that uplift and inspire others and are true disciples of Christ.   I love this work and I love my mission.  

I will just talk about yesterday for a bit then I have to go.  In the morning we went to the Wells YSA ward and we both spoke and my companion did a phenomenal musical number "The First Noel" on the piano.  It was so good.  Almost everyone was crying by the end.  He is so talented.  And I don't think that he realizes that not everyone can just do that!  Especially with no music in front of him and just pretty much making it up as he goes!  It was so good.  Then we left there and went to the Capitol Hill YSA ward and did the same thing! My talk was better in this ward than the first.  It was awesome.  Then we split up and my companion went to the Cannon YSA ward and I stayed in Capitol Hill and taught Elders Quorum.  Did a lesson with the video clip of Elder Ballard at conference and his invitation to invite one before Christmas.  It was cool.  Handed out a note card to each of them and had them write their name and phone number on the front and on the back write the names of 2 non-members they know and 2 less-actives that they know.  Then circle the one that you want to invite before Christmas and on the bottom write the invitation you will give them.  We brainstormed invitations that they could leave.  I think it was an okay lesson.  I got a little "up in their faces" to get the point through to them that an apostle/prophet of God had invited them / asked them to do this and that we need to apply it now.  No more waiting around saying that we will do it sometime in the future. No more only praying that we can apply it and then not taking the action required to apply the principle and doctrine in our lives.  So ya.  That was fun.  Then taught a girl named Erika about the gospel.  She is great.  She is an active member but never really knew much about the church so we are teaching her and she is asking all sorts of cool questions.  For example she asked us a lot about the second coming yesterday and we had a great conversation about it.  But yeah, then guess who I saw at the Institute building???  Aaron Young!!!  It was so crazy to see him!  It has been like 4 years!  He is awesome as usual. He is in a different ward that attends in that building.  So ya.  That was a fun side note!  Then we went to the Christmas devotional at the conference center with Marlen and her friend Laurel!  We didnt have tickets but since it was so cold and snowy there were not very many people there so they just gave us tickets and let us go in!  It was so good!!!!  Very cool devotional!  If you didnt get to watch it you should!  The music was exceptional as always and the speakers were very good as well.  Then some members of the Cannon ward brought us some dinner at the office.  It was delicious!  Then we went to President's house and worked for the remainder of the evening.  It was a long, but great day.

Well that is about all that I have time to write.  I love you all soo much!!!! I miss you and hope and pray that everything goes well with you this week!  I hope you know how much I care even thought my writing is so sporadic.  

Have a wonderful week!

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak the Strategy

P.S. Mom and Dad I am doing great.  I feel good and am no longer sore at all.  I feel better and we were able to get all our stuff and most of it is handled.  So yeah.  Love you!!!