May 26 2014

This week I got my first package from my family and it was so wonderful! I also recieved a bunch of letters full of kind, encouraging words so thank you too all!! :) This week one of our investigators had a bunch of baby chicks finally hatch and she was so excited. When we got there she showed us this very first and then had us spit on two of our fingers and pet the top of its head.... apparently this is a 'good luck' thing that they do here. It was kind funny. Also, some more exciting news is that we get to go to the temple in Tegucigalpa on the 29th this week. I'm so excited, but it will definitely be a little different seeing that the session is going to be completely in Spanish!

Last week at a reunion we had one of our elders spoke a little bit about being humble. He said that one day he was talking to his brother and told him that a Narcissist (or however you spell that) only thinks of himself and a person with low self-esteem doesn't think of himself enough, but that a humble person has the perfect balance between them both. His brother looked at him and said no, A person that is truly humble doesn't think of himself at all and is always looking out for other people and for the will of God. I really liked this a lot, because it is super direct and there is no room to misinterpret. When we truly humble ourselves we only want what God wants and we don't confuse our wants and desires with what God would have us do. This week my companion and I really humbled ourselves in prayer before the Lord for one of our investigators that told us that she wasn't ready for baptism (even though we knew she really was) and that very next lesson we had with her she accepted a date to be baptized! Her name is Norma, I learned through this experience with Hermana Norma that through specific, sincere prayer miracles are wrought to pass.

I love you all so much and I love my work here. Remember that if you ever feel alone or that you need a friend, that your father in heaven is always there to support you in your trials. Alma 36:3

Much Love,

Hermana Hansen

May 19 2014

May 19, 2014

At the beginning of this week my companion was really sick so we were in our house for an entire day. She slept most of the day regaining her energy while I read many articles en the ensigns, studied scriptures, and watched A LOT of church videos. This experience made me grateful that we have lessons and set things to be doing everyday, because just sitting in our house was definitely not the most exciting thing of the week. But, the most important thing is that she is feeling better now and we are back to work with our new familias and new investigators. More good news! This week was our recent convert (Wilmer's) birthday so we bought him a beautiful cake and this time we actually got to try a piece of it, ha ha. His mom told us that they didn't have much money right then, so that was going to be the only special thing they did for his birthday. It made me so happy that we had decided to do that for him!

Another day earlier in the week we met with one of our menos activos and were helping her make tortillas. She sells them every day and they make 1000 tortillas every day to sell! I thought that was so crazy, but while I was helping flip the tortillas I could feel these little pinches on my feet. I looked down, but couldn't see anything. After a while I switched my companion places so I could sit down and take a closer look and there were all of these tiny little black ants that had climbed into my shoes and were biting my feet and ankles. But no worries, after a few minutes I got them all off and only have a handful of red spots from there. Here the ants are a little more aggressive then, back home.

This Friday we had a Confrencia de Zona with our Mission President and it was really good. You can tell that he truly is an inspired man that is called of God to help guide us missionaries. He focused a lot in the prayer and the faith. He said that we need to pray specifically for our investigators and for the things that we are struggling with. So, this week my companion and I have been trying to be even more specific and ask God for help when we need it. Our Father in Heaven truly is willing to help us and even wants to help us, but we need to put forth the effort to kneel down humbly before him and ask in faith for those things that we need. He loves us more than we can imagine and being here on the mission has just proved that to me even more. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all!

 

Much Love,

Hermana Hansen

May 12 2014

This week went by so fast!! I was so glad it did, because I got to talk to my wonderful family on the phone yesterday evening! So now for the exciting adventures of the week. First off, one night this week my companion and I came home and I went into the bathroom to find a huge spider up on our wall. But, the worst part wasn't there was this huge spider, but that it was so far up the wall neither of us could reach it to kill it. So, I went to bed that night just waiting to be devoured by this nasty, old spider. Luckily, the next day I found him in a different part of our casa and took care of him. So, none of you need to worry about my companion or me being eaten by this spider :)

This thursday I had inter-cambios with our sister trainers and they actually went really well. Even with a bit of a language barrier hna Patzan and I were able to find a new family. Every inter-cambio I believe there is at least one main lesson that needs to be learned. This time I learned the importance of talking to everyone, because if we hadn't we wouldn't have found our wonderful new family. As a result of that lesson my actual companion and I were able to find 2 other new families yesterday, so now we've got 3 new families that we've just started teaching. It was definitely a happy ending to this week.

But with the ups there are always a few downs. We had an investigator named norma who was progressing so well with her son Antonio and so we decided to invite them (again) to be baptized this week. When we did she just told us that she loves what we teach and she is slowly starting to understand the Book of Mormon, but she doesn't want to play with God and be baptized into another church. It was pretty heartbreaking. She's still going to allow us to come and teach and read with her from the Book of Mormon, but I guess it's just not quite her time yet.

This week I learned (again) the importance of prayer, and not just prayer, but specific prayer. We had been praying all week to blessed with a new family and we prayed diligently, every day, multiple times to find a new family. And like I already mentioned we were blessed with 3 beautiful, new families. The lesson here is that God does hear and answer prayers. But the trick is, we actually have to take the time to kneel down and ask him for the things that we need or tell him of our problems if we want his help. Prayer truly is so powerful and I have seen many, many blessings come from constant prayer here on my mission. I love you all so much and am grateful for you. You are always in my prayers! I hope you all have a wonderful week and hope that everyone had a wonderful mother's day!

 

Love Always,

Hermana Hansen

Rain, Rain, and then some Rain! May 5 2014

Dear Familia,

I can't believe that mothers day is coming up so quickly and that I will get to talk to you guys next Sunday! I am definitely looking forward to getting to talk with all of you. Well I've learned a few things this week and want to share them with you. #1 Attitude is Everything. This is true for everyone, but especially out here in the mission. There are days that are rough and my companion and I feel a little discouraged and our lessons don't go as planned or we have no success contacting people. But, then there are days that I leave our house with the attitude that I am ready to baptize everyone that lives here in Marcala! And it's on these days that we find new investigators and that we are able to teach more fully with the spirit. So, just remember that if you are ever having a rough day change your attitude and your whole day will flip around! Second, I've learned how important it is to work with members. When we teach lessons with a member present (which unfortunately is not very often here) the spirit is that much stronger and these investigators are more likely to accept the Gospel. Also, when we recieve references from members those investigators are always more receptive to our message. I want to challenge all of you , if you have missionaries in your ward to ask them if you can help them or accompany them to any lessons. If you don't have any missionaries I want to challenge you to invite a non-member friend or aquaintence to go with you to some church activity. I promise that God will bless you for your efforts if you just try.

This week my companion and I went into this little store that sells ice cream and my companion ordered queso y fresa... which directly translated is cheese and strawberry icecream. I was a little worried at first until I realized that queso y fresa is equivalent to our strawberry cheesecake. It was a little interesting, but actually pretty good! Ah, also this week we have had rain like nobody's business! On Wed. around 12:30 it starting pouring, pouring rain and we had to wait inside of a members house for almost 2 hours before it finally slowed down enough for us to make it back to our house. And on top of that the electricity was out for 8 hours that day. Another time we got caught in the rain a nice old lady let us inside her house and made us a nice little drink. It was basically cold water with oats and a little bit of sugar... I would be happy to never have to drink that again because it was not very good. But, I was very grateful for her letting us in during the pouring rain. It has actually rained for the passed 4 days here and it has made all of the roads extrememly muddy. It has also made it extrememly difficult to do laundry, because our clothes have to hang outside to dry. But, really this week has been wonderful and we have found some investigators that I'm pretty excited to teach. I love you all so much and can't wait to talk to you on Sunday!

 

Much Love,

 

Hermana Hansen