A Year Later - 06/25/12

Brett will be coming up on his hump day this week.  Friday to be exact.  We asked him what meal he would like us to eat in honor of him that day. Here is what he said:

Tanner guessed it right. If I could have any meal right now it would be the typical Sunday dinner with the family. Roast Beef, taters, gravy and corn. What more could you want? Ha ha hah

Wow. A year later and I still feel like I´m just starting my mission. Granted, I´ve grown more in this one year than I have my entire life, but I still feel like this has been the fastest year of my life. Everyone always said that the time flies on the mission, but I had no idea it would go by this fast.

So this week was a great week. We ended up finding a ton of new people to teach. We knocked on a few doors, and it was actually really nice to be invited in a couple of times right then and there. There were also some not so nice people who said some not so nice things, but that comes with the blessings. I´m just happy that the blessings outnumber the trials.

I heard something really cool from a pastor of a different church. He said ¨You want an easy life? You want to have less trials? The answer is simple. Die¨ While it sounds really strong and negative, it actually has some truth to it. One of the biggest reasons we are here is to be tested. We need our trials, we need sufferings, we need this to be hard. It's a cool perspective to think about and ponder.

Alicia left for El Salvador this week. On Wednesday we called to verify the lesson and they told us they were going to El Salvador for a few days. They were supposed to come back on Friday, but they are still in El Salvador, so we didn´t have our baptism this week. Hopefully they´ll come back soon and we can talk to them and see how they are.

Things are going great with Elder Aguilar. He´s a great guy, and we have tons of fun. Today we´re going to go play soccer, again. Hopefully I won´t break both my ankles. Ha ha ha ha ha

I love you guys and I miss you. Be of good cheer!

Elder Hansen

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - 06/18/12

Things continue to go well.

Wow, my big brother got married. I´m happy for you Jared, and you guys sure looked fancy in your matching ties.

This week was pretty chill. We had a reunion of all the trainers and all the greenies. They separated us and asked us about the good bad and ugly that we´re experiencing. It was then that I realized how awesome my companion is. He´s amazing, and we really haven´t had any problems with our companionship. Listening to all the other trainers complain about how their companions don´t want to do anything or are disobedient or don´t participate was kinda sad, but it made me grateful, so I guess that's good. Life is great

We are planning a baptism for this Saturday. Her name is Alicia, and she´s been begging to be baptized since the beginning of this month. The thing is that we have a rule that you have to go to church before baptism, and she hadn´t had the chance to go sufficient times to be baptized. Her mom is less active, but we helped her become active as well. They´re pretty cool,  and I´m  excited to see them both grow.

The temple open house will be at the end of November. I´m actually in the stake where the temple is, so that's pretty cool. Its about 10 minutes from my house, which is cool, but it would be cooler if I was here in about 5 months from now. Chances are that I´ll be moved to another area right before the open house, but at least I can prepare my investigators and converts to go.

I found this quote today during my personal study. I like it alot, and its from President Dieter Uchtdorf:

"Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope."

I love you guys, and I know that love is the center of all things. Anger only dwells in the bosoms of fools. God is love.

Take care!
Elder Hansen

Happy Days - 06/11/12

Both Tyler and Brett had baptisms this week.  Pretty cool!

This week was pretty freaking AMAZING! I´m not sure where to start, but I guess I should probably start off with the baptism we had on Saturday.

Entonces, the picture I sent you guys is of me, Bryam, and Elder Ahlborn. The story behind Bryam is really cool actually. So his grandparents are the founders of the Catholic church here in Pedregal. The Catholic Church here in Pedregal is about the size of a football field, and no I´m not exaggerating. Its HUGE, and everyone and their dog either goes there or to the Aposento Alto, an evangelical church that is just as big. Needless to say Pedregal is very religious. So, anyways, he´s got some pretty strong Catholic roots. The other Elders were out walking one night and Bryam comes running to them to tell them that the Catholic church isn´t filling his needs and he wants to check out the Mormons. Due to his work, the office elders could never teach him, but he came to church for a month and a half without anyone bringing him or inviting him really. The office elders recently got emergency transferred to a new area, and we got all of their three investigators! Woo Hoo!  So we taught Bryam, and in the first lesson we challenged him to be baptized and he accepted! So yeah, we taught all of the lessons to him this week, which was pretty interesting/hectic, but it was worth it. His testimony is amazingly powerful, far beyond that of your normal recent convert, and his willingness to be obedient to every commandment shocks me. When we talked about tithing he said he has been waiting for us to talk about it and that he´s more than ready to start contributing. Teaching him was probably the easiest teaching I´ve done on my mission. He wants to learn and he´s willing to change.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that we started teaching Ivonne, a reference that we received from the activity a week ago. She is also progressing amazingly and we are planning her baptism for the 30th of June. She really is ready for it this week, but she´s afraid of it, and she wants to wait it out to make sure she isn´t rushing in to it. The thing is that she knows its true, so now its just a matter of time and telling her to conquer her fears and show her faith. We´ve already told her that we think she´s ready, but we´ve also told her that we want her to feel ready, and if she doesn´t feel it we won´t do it. We invited her to pray about a specific date (she´s already received the answer that she needs to be baptized) so hopefully tonight we can set a date with her. Fun stuff.

Also, this morning I killed a mouse with the bottom of my shoe. It felt really weird squishing him, but I know that we can´t have mice living in our apartment, especially when we know they are coming from the sewer.

Life is good and I´m loving every single second of my mission. The time is going by so fast! Holy cow! The 20th is exchanges, and I feel like it was yesterday when we went to the last exchanges. Everyone says the second half goes by faster than the first half. I still feel like the first half went by way too fast.

I love you guys, you´re all amazing. Remember that the Atonement doesn´t only clean us, it can transform us

Elder Hansen

Plan of Salvation Party - 06/04/12

 Things seem to be going well for Elder Brett.

Hi guys. I´m kinda shocked that its June already. I´m wondering right now what happened to the months of April and May. Holy cow the time is going by so stinking fast! Before you know it I´ll be home! Ahhhh!

This week was pretty cool. We put in a ton of hours into this activity that we had on Saturday, but in the end it was worth it. Saturday we literally spent all day in the church preparing the different rooms. The organizations asked for our help, so we figured it would be like an hour or so. But it turns out we were there from 2pm until 9pm. Fun stuff. The good thing is that we had 4 investigators show up and 5 Less actives! Our tour guide took them to the Terrestrial Kingdom first, but other than that everything went smoothly. One of the investigators started crying after she left the Celestial Kingdom, so I guess you could say it had an impact on her. I´m just really glad that we got the members out of the house and we received some new positive people to teach.

This is the last month that we have with President Flores. Its a little surreal to me that he´ll be leaving and that this month I´ll hit my hump day. Its true that time flies when you are working hard, but right now I just want it to slow down so that I can catch my breath. But I love being busy and working my little butt bone off. It feels really good at the end of the day when you are completely exhausted and you can say ¨Today I gave it my all¨

My comp is amazing. Both the DL and I have recommended him to start training at the end of the 12 weeks. He´s got a maturity that at times is above that of me and the ZL´s. He´s amazing, and I love him so stinking much.

This month we have a goal of baptizing 4 people. Right now, we´ve got 3 positive potentials, but we still have to go and find our lost friend. Wish us luck that this week we can be guided to him/her.

I love you guys a ton! Have fun at the wedding and be sure to send me a picture of Jared and Allison.

Love, 
Elder Hansen