Zone Conference

Hey everyone!  This email is going to be pretty short because we have to go to lunch in a couple minutes.

Thanks for your emails and letters!  They brighten my day.  Especially the pictures from my nieces and nephews! :)

Well this week was a little rough. A lot of our appointments cancelled and some people just decided that they didn't want to meet with us anymore.  It was hard, but things are still going okay.  The end of the week was the beginning of spring break so hardly anyone was home!  But we still met with a few people and had some great experiences.

Thursday was Zone Conference.  It was a looong day, but it was very good.  We talked a lot about teaching with the pamphlets and practiced.  Elder Kuck and I gave a training on teaching the Plan of Salvation.  It was pretty good I think.  We also found out about our mission goal for the month of April. It was a great zone conference!  Sad that it was my last though.....

This morning we got to go to the temple.  We saw a lot of missionaries from the East mission that we know well that are heading home tomorrow....  It was sad to see them go and it is scary to think that it is coming fast for us too. But it is okay.  

General Conference is coming!!!  We have tickets to 3 sessions.  We are bringing 2 or 3 investigators and 1 less-active family.  It is exciting!  I love general conference.  Here is an awesome quote from Elder Robert D. Hales about conference - 

" I promise that if you will listen, you will feel the Spirit well up within you. The Lord will tell you what He wants you to do with your life. In conferences we can receive the word of the Lord meant just for us."

Love it.  I know we can find answers and gain more spiritual knowledge at conference.  

Well that is all I have time for.  I hope everything is going well!  Love you!

The church is true!

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Marianne's Baptism!

Hola!  This week has been great.  We had some great miracles and had a baptism!  Marianne was baptized and confirmed.  She is so awesome.  She wants so badly to follow the Savior in her life.  I am grateful that we got to teach her and help her on the path to eternal life.  I will send a picture from her baptism.  A lot of missionaries taught her over the last 6 months so they came back to see it.  So yeah.  Nothing better than baptisms.  I love it.

Well what else?  I will send another picture from a week or two ago.  So we were in this apartment complex called rose cove (where Marianne lives) and we see this dog running around.  A lady came outside and said that it had ran inside her house through the back door and took the bone from her dog!! ha ha so we went over to try to catch it and after a couple tries we caught the dog. We found a phone number on the collar and called it.  They asked if we could bring it back to them (they lived a couple of miles away!) and so we got the dog into our car and drove it to their house!  ha ha it was awesome.  We were hoping that they would be non-members or at least that they would be less-active, but they were active members.  So we talked for a bit and asked them how long the dog had been gone.  They said he only got out 1 hour ago!  It ran quite a long way. And it was kind of wet so we assume it went through a creek or pool or something.  It was an adventure! 

We have been teaching a good amount this week, but one of our investigators moved out without telling us.... and then another person dropped us.  So that was lame.  But the work moves on and we keep moving forward.  We are still teaching Chase and getting better at teaching with the pamphlets.  I love it.  I like the way it can become so interactive as we ask the right questions and keep them involved.  

We found a new person to teach this week.  His name is Kendall.  He is a handyman.  Like the one I used to work for with Wade and his brothers.  He is awesome.  We talked a little about the atonement and he is pretty receptive.  He has awesome kids and grandkids.  We can't wait to teach him more this week.  It is going to change his life a lot if he lets it! 

Well I know this is short-ish but we are running around today doing a bunch of stuff.  We played sand volleyball a bit today.  It was awesome.  This week we have zone conference on Thursday.  So that will be fun! I am excited for what we will learn and talk about.  Anyways.

The church is true!  

God lives and He loves us.

Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak the Strategy

Birthdays!

Hey!  I don't have a lot of time to write today because we have been doing a lot.  Thanks for all your emails.  I love reading them. :)  Happy Birthday Jennie!

So this week has been good!  It has been hard because we have not had a lot of lessons, but Marianne accepted a baptismal date!  She is preparing for the 22nd!  We are excited!  There are a couple others that seem to be getting close for the weeks after.  I love serving in this area.  It is an awesome place.  I love this work.  

Also this week we spoke in a sacrament meeting.  It was great.  The fire alarm went off just as my companion started his talk!!!  It was loud and the Bishop said to just keep going... ha ha so he tried to talk over it and finally it got turned off.  We don't know who pulled it, but it was the first time that has ever happened to us!  It was funny.  

Elder Ballard came on Tuesday and spoke to us!  It was awesome! He talked mostly about treasuring up the scriptures and the lessons in PMG and then teaching for understanding.  It was awesome!  He also brought along Elder Bill Marriott!  So that was a treat!  He spoke to us as well.  He talked about how to be successful missionaries as well as some ways to be successful after our missions.  I learned a lot!  I feel so lucky to have heard from so many awesome people on my mission.  It has been such a blessing.  

Well that is about all I have time for! Sorry for cutting it short this time.  I love you all and miss you!  

Oh and last thing. Today we hiked Flag rock! (again)  So that is the third time I have hiked it!!  It was fun.  We had the whole zone come!  I will send a picture.  It was awesome.  

Love you!

The church is true!  

God lives and loves us.

Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy

:)

Hello all!  I am so excited to hear about my new niece!!!!! The pictures you sent were awesome.  I am excited to meet her!  I am happy that Jennie, Paul, and Ruth are healthy and back home.  I hope this email finds everyone doing well and happy!

Well It is official, I came to Farmington on Tuesday!  I am serving in the Farmington Oakridge Stake.  It is a wonderful place to be.  There is a lot of teaching and work going on.  I love it here.  It is good to be back.  I was released from my last assignment and am now serving with Elder Kuck as a zone leader.  He is awesome.  He is from Atlanta, Georgia!  He is a Braves fan like us!  We are very similar and it is awesome to serve with someone who has been out the same amount as you.  We both go home in May.  

This week has been a little rough because 13 of our appointments cancelled or rescheduled!  But we still taught quite a bit.  I got to see some of the people that I taught 6 months ago that were baptized!  It was nice.  We had a pretty awesome miracle this week.  We set up a lesson with a lady named Connie.  She did a mission for her church a while back and she hosts a bible study once a month at her house.  She has studied the bible for +40 years.  She is way cool.  We had our first lesson with her and taught the restoration.  She was so open and already believes in almost everything.  She stopped us near the beginning and said, "I don't mean to offend anyone, but I want to tell you that I believe that God and Jesus Christ are two separate beings."  We were like, "no that is great, we believe that too!"    She grew up Catholic but she always thought that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were separate.  It was cool.  She is soo prepared.  She said that her son became a Mormon and she always wondered why he did.  She raised him to be Christian and then he converted and she said now it is time for her to see why he joined!  We committed her to read the Book of Mormon and pray.  She said she would.  We are excited to go back and talk with her more.  She is an awesome person.  

Well not much else crazy happened.  I will send some pictures this week.  Some from the baptism a week ago.  Danielle was baptized. She is great.  Then one we where Elder Williams, Elder Olsen (the new ap) and I were just messing around. :)  ha ha   

Once again I hope you are all doing well!  I love you tons!  And I miss you!  I promise to be more consistent in writing now that I should have the time.  :)

Love,

-Elder Hansen

Peak the Strategy

P.S. Elder Ballard is coming to speak to our mission on Tuesday! :) don't tell anyone.  ha ha I will write about it next week.