My ankle is ripped!

Hey there.  Thanks for the emails and letters as always!

Well this feels weird. Writing home for the 2nd to last time.  Hmmmmmm.  Oh well. I don't like thinking about it.

This week has been awesome!  We have been teaching a lot and the members have been involved in almost every lesson.  It has been a blessing.  We found another new person to teach!  Her name is Emily. She is very open to learning which is great. 

Dylan is doing well also!  He is going to be baptized on the 9th of May! Right before I leave.  I am so happy for him.  He came to the regional conference yesterday down in Salt Lake City.  We sat together on the 5th row in the conference center.  It was an awesome conference.  Elder Niel L. Anderson spoke.  He is so inspired.  He talked about faith, diligence, and patience.  It was great.  Also Elder Arnold of the Seventy spoke and talked about hastening the work!  He used examples of families that were taught by missionaries in our mission! There were some pictures shown as well.  It was cool.  

The night before Elder Hawkins and I had the opportunity to speak in the adult session of stake conference.  It was good!  It was sad to think it was the last time I would get to speak as a missionary, but it was awesome to be able to share some of the things that I have learned about being a member missionary and hastening the work after serving 2 years in Utah.  The members here are amazing.  I hope they keep inviting their friends and helping the work to go forward here.

Well.  Other than that, I guess I should tell you what really happened to my ankle.  It is not just buff.  I just rolled it pretty bad playing basketball, but I am fine.  I can walk pretty well still and it won't hinder the work at all.  Glad we have a car though. :)  Anyways, it is completely fine so don't worry about it (mom... :)  )  

Alright, Love you all!!  The church is true.  The work is hastening!  Keep inviting your friends and neighbors and doing what you are supposed to.  Jesus Christ is our Savior.  I owe everything in my life to him and the love he has for me and my family.

Love,

-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy 

Miracles.

Hey!  This week has been pretty good!  We have seen a couple great miracles.  We have found 2 new people to teach.  They are very prepared.  I am excited to continue working with them and helping them feel the effect of the atonement in their lives.

Our greatest miracle this week was that on Monday afternoon we got a media referral (text) to go and see a man named Dylan Lines.  Our appointment fell through at 6:00 p.m. so we decided to visit this referral.  We knocked on his door and he said "wow, that was fast!" and let us come in.  We got to know him and his background and set expectations with him. He moved to Utah last fall from Indiana.  We went back on Wednesday and taught him about the restoration and invited him to be baptized.  He said yes and is preparing for the 17th of May!  I think he will be ready even before then so hopefully I can ask him to be baptized before I leave.  (Might be a little selfish, but I think he will be ready before then!) Then we met with him on Friday at the church and gave him a tour and showed him the chapel, classrooms, elder quorum room, and the baptismal font.  He said that he talked with his father about it and he got very emotional and started telling about when he was baptized and how great it was.  He is very happy for Dylan that he has decided to be baptized!  Soo cool. :) Then he came to church on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours.  He is very prepared.  The Lord sent him here to receive the gospel. I know it.  We are meeting with him tonight as well.  The Lord is blessing us. :)

The other miracle was meeting a young man named Tyler.  He moved from Delaware in January.  A member took me there (Elder Hawkins was with another member) and we started talking with him.  His big question was why there are so many different churches and why there isn't just one church and one faith in God.  So that was a great place to start! :) :)  I shared the restoration with him and we came back a couple of days later and taught him again.  One of his best friends was killed in a car crash recently so he says it is hard but that it is making him depend on God more.  The Lord truly is preparing people all around us to share the gospel with!  We all need to be better at getting over being scared and just be open about what we believe.

Well that is about all I have time for.  I love you all very much!  I will write more next week. 

God lives and loves all of his children.

Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

Easter was awesome.  I love sharing my testimony of Christ.  Did you see that video "Because of Him" on mormon.org? If not, watch it!!  Its good! 

Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. He restored this gospel in its fulness. I am so grateful for what he did.

Love,

-Elder Hansen

Peak the Strategy

Crazy week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello!!  Well this week has been all over the place.  It has been great though. 

So as you know on Tuesday I got transferred to Bountiful Stone Creek Stake.  On Monday before that I went to the temple with the missionaries that were about to go home.  It was really cool.  A long session though because there were so many people!  It was because a lot of people stayed an extra day after conference to go to the temple.  I liked going to those temple trips before when I wasn't the one going home because I got to say goodbye to a lot of great friends and previous companions.  But now being the one that is leaving soon it was different.  It still hasn't sunk in quite yet!  On Tuesday the departing missionaries have a special testimony meeting in the evening where they all invite member families, past recent converts, and investigators and bear their testimonies.  Since I will be gone for the next one, I bore my testimony at this one.  It was a cool but kind of sad experience.  The good part was that I got to say that I am staying for another month or so!  So afterwards we went and taught a lesson to a less-active family!  It was great, but the meeting was so powerful.  Hearing missionaries right before they leave talk about what they learned and bear their testimonies is something else. 

Anyways, enough about that!  After those couple rough days, the week has been back to normal.  Teaching and finding and doing the Lord's work!  We had a lot of cancelled appointments this week though.  It always happens.  Im not sure how to get around it.  But we are meeting with some wonderful families that are progressing toward full activity in the church.  We are also teaching a few that are looking toward baptism.  I hope to see more success before I leave in helping people participate in ordinances.

Well. Today we went hiking.  Hiked up to the "V" in Centerville.  It wasn't a hard hike at all, but it was pretty fun.  I'll send a picture or two.  Other than that we have just been moving forward.  Trying to help people make changes in their lives.  Its a good time :) 

Love you all!  Hope everything is going well and that you are all healthy and happy.

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

Peak The Strategy

Transfers...

Hello!!!  Sorry I did not email yesterday.  I was at the temple with the departing missionaries for most of the day and then saying goodbye to people for the rest. I got transferred.  It was kind of disappointing to leave with only a small part of my mission left.  I wasn't happy at first, but I know President wouldn't do it unless he felt a good reason. So I know that there is someone here in my new area that I need to meet and be in contact with.  I am serving in the Bountiful Stone Creek Stake in the farmington zone.  It is a great place.  My new companion is Elder Hawkins from Washington. He is awesome.  we have served around each other a lot but never really talked a lot.  But it will be fun to work with him.  He goes home just after I do.  

Anyways,

General Conference was amazing.  I don't have time to write about it now, but it was cool.  Saw some people that I know from home and from the mission that have already finished.  Also we took Chuck our investigator to the priesthood session and he loved it.  And on Sunday afternoon we had really good seats.  

On top of all that, we had a baptism!!  Chase Clampitt got baptized.  It was so cool.  It has been one of the coolest experiences on my mission to be able to teach him and see how he accepts everything and progresses in this gospel.  He will be confirmed next Sunday and also receive the priesthood. He will be going to the temple with the youth to do baptisms at the end of this month as well. :)  so great!  I'll send a picture.

I don't have any more time to write, but I will send you some more pictures next week to make up for it.  

Love you all!!  The church is true!

Godspeed.

-Elder Hansen

  

P.S.  Here is my new address -  1040 West 600 North, West Bountiful, Utah, 84087

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