8 - 05/20/13

Altos y Bajos (Highs and lows) 

This week was pretty good.  I had an amazing time in the temple, which I´ll talk about more later on in the letter.  We also had a miracle happen at church.  We passed by to bring our investigators, and they told us they wouldn´t come.  My comp told them to come, and we left.  As we were walking away, he told me that they´d be at church.  I said, "Wow, you´ve got a lot of faith."  All 3 of them came.  He said "told you so".  He also told me that they´re going to be baptized this weekend.  I´m a believer.

On Tuesday we had a temple trip. We woke up at 3 am to get ready to go. It was hard, but we knew that it´d be worth it. I was so stoked to get to go to the temple, and I was praying that I would have an amazing experience there. 

The Lord answered that prayer in a way that I didn´t see coming. 

So it was about 7:45 in the morning.  We´d been in the bus for about 3 hours or so.  We were going to pick up the last 8 Elders that live in Talanga (including my kid Elder Aguilar).  We´re about 5 minutes out of Talanga, and I recognized the road and I knew where we were.  I was sitting in the front seat next to Elder Yela, a really good friend of mine.  We were talking, having a good time when my eyes were directed to a someone on the side of the road.  My foot instinctively lifted up to push on the brakes, even though I wasn´t even driving.  Later I received the confirmation that that was the Holy Ghost protecting me.  

Anyways, I stopped listening and started watching the man.  He got on his motorcycle and I´m guessing he forgot to look back.  He just turned it on and literally jumped right in front of the bus, and the bus was going about 60.  We had about a second to react.  I started to shout Whoa!  The bus driver reacted really fast. He swerved to the left lane and honked the horn.  Sadly, the motorcycle driver saw the bus, and tried to beat it to the other side of the road.  He didn´t make it in time.  We hit him dead on, and the bike passed under the left side tires, front and back.  There was no doubt as to whether or not he was dead.  We all knew it was over.  The bus driver pulled the bus over, said a prayer, and turned himself over to the cops.  We got out, saw the bus, and a few of us went over to see the body.  I was one of them, with the ZL´s, and it was pretty graphic. It's an image that I probably won´t ever forget.  We all got back in the bus, and waited for the police to show up.  The ambulance got there in about 3 minutes, and it took the police 2 hours.  Honduras is so messed up.  Anyways, Elder Yela and I were asked to give our testimonies as to what happened.  We called Pres to make sure it was okay, and he gave us the the thumbs up.  We told them how it went down, and the guy writing our testimony changed our words to make it sound worse than it was.  A lawyer showed up, and she fixed it for us, because we wouldn´t sign it until it was fixed.  We used our money to hire another bus from some members, and we left to go to the temple.  

We got there about 12, did a session, and to be honest, I didn´t feel any hunger or the time pass by. When I was in the session, I felt the spirit, and I forgot about the experience for the majority of the session, but it kept coming back in my mind.  I got into the Celestial Room, and I prayed really hard for help.  I needed peace for my soul.  I needed comfort.  I got it immediately.  It was incredible.  I kept praying, thanking God for all that He has given me.  It was a very sacred moment for me. 

I got the strong impression to trust in God.  He has a plan.  The accident was part of the plan, and he put it in there to help me come closer to Him.  It helped me to have an amazing time in the temple.  It helped me to realize that death isn´t the end, and that I should always be ready for when it happens to me.  It taught me that the Holy Ghost was protecting me, and prompted me of the accident before it happened.  These are a few of the impressions that came, and there are many more, but those are the big ones. 

Well, Thanks for everything guys. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. I´m going to have an excellent week this week. We have a seventy passing through, so that´ll be fun. Wish me luck! 

Elder Hansen

All the small things - 05/20/13

9 - 05/13/13

Well, we´re in the single digits. That's pretty weird to me.

Talking to you guys last night was pretty sweet. I hope I didn´t make all of you guys super sleepy for your days today. It was great talking to you guys, and it made me so happy. Nothing like a little motivation to make you work harder. 

Things are going great here in Honduras.   Working hard like always.  As far as news, this past week was a great week.  We had a reunion with Pres and Zona Talanga. I got to see a lot of old friends, like Elder "A".  I trained him almost a year ago.  Time goes by so fast. The meeting was great, and I learned a lot of stuff.  It was interesting to me, because generally it's like they grab us by the necks and say go baptize more people and stop being so disobedient!  But this time the enfoque was in the less actives, which was pretty cool to me.  We´re going to be working a lot more with the ward so that this district will finally become a stake.  We´re so close!  I can feel it!

My comp is a huge support to me. This week there has been a lot of disobedience in the district. The Elders are listening to music and inviting people to their houses.  I told them to stop, and when I passed by 20 minutes later they still had the music on.  I told them I was disappointed in them, and I really am.  We´re never going to do anything if we´re disobedient.   They don´t have faith that we´ll meet the goal this month, and obviously they can´t if they continue in their unrighteousness. 

Enough of that rant. 

So I gave a talk in church, and it also had to do with obedience and diligence. I had a lot of people come up afterwards and tell me that they liked it. I mentioned my mom a couple times in it, and how a big of an influence she has been in my life.  Love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Tomorrow we´re going to the Temple!!! Sweeeeet! I´m so stoked! Its been like, 22 months since I´ve been to the temple! On Friday we´re going to have another trainers meeting in Tegucigalpa, which means that we´re going to spend several hours this week in a bus. 16 to be exact. Fun stuff eh?

Well, I love you all and I wish the best. Take care and see you soon

Elder Hansen

10 - 05/06/13

This week was SWEET!

The obra misional is going really great. We are still struggling in some things, but that is what comes when you white wash an area. What we are really good at is finding new people to teach. We found 5 new families to teach this week, which for me is AMAZING! I don´t think I´ve ever found 5 in one week. The Lord is blessing us. 

My comp and I are getting along really well. He´s pretty much the best. I made him pancakes today while he was showering in an attempt to surprise him. When I went to the bedroom to drop them off, he was shining my shoes! Hahahaha, what a great guy.

Its weird that this week is Mother's Day. This is my last time to call home in the mission. I´m excited to talk to my family.

Things are looking really good here in Honduras. I´m happy to be here. I love you all I miss you too.

Elder Hansen

11 - 04/29/13

I love my life!

Things are going really great here in Catacamas. So we came to this area with tons of excitement and energy, and we are starting to see the results. The numbers have more than doubled in both our area and district in New investigators, Lessons taught with member and investigators at church. We´re pretty stoked, and everyone is working hard. We should finish this week with 5 baptisms, which means 5 interviews. I love doing interviews, they are always really spiritual experiences.

Me and my comp are tearing it up here in Catacamas. We recieved 9 references this week, which was a big surprise for me. The members like us, which is pretty nice. We still don´t have any lunches or dinners yet, but those will come with time. We prayed on Saturday that we could have something to eat, and we got lunch and dinner that day from random people. Prayer works.

But yeah, we found 10 investigators this week and 2 new families. We´re pretty excited. We´ve got 2 teens that we are working with for baptism. Their Mom gave us permission yesterday, and they also went to church for the second time. We´re planning the baptism for the 25 of May, so hopefully they´ll accept it and we can finish this month with some baptisms! Woo Hoo

I´ve noticed that I want my companion to have the best mission possible, so that I´m pushing myself to make sure that it becomes a reality. I love him so much. He´s a great kid.

An Elder in my district lost his father this week. He´s the only member in his family, and he´s having a hard time right now. His name is Elder Guevara, and if you could keep him in your prayers, it would be great. He went home to El Salvador to go to the funeral, but he´s coming back on Tuesday.

Well, things are going great here in Honduras. I hope you guys all have a great week. Take care.

Elder Hansen

12 - 04/22/13

New Companion - Elder "J"
New Area - Guayape A
New Zone - Catacamas

Sweeeeet.

Things are going pretty great in the mission. Wednesday we had transfers, and I´m going to be honest, they caught me by surprise. 

So I heard that we had a large group of Elders from Nicaragua coming this transfer. Just to explain a little bit, we´ve had some really disobedient Elders come from Nicaragua. I was pretty worried that I was going to get one. 

Also, the Catacamas Zone has been closed off for Gringos for quite some time now. Almost 2 years to be exact. They started off in Juticalpa, which is a neighboring city, and Elder Dunlop was the first in Catacamas a few transfers ago. But yeah, I wasn´t expecting to be called there.  It's the first Zone that they announce in the meeting, so first I saw one of my good friend, Elder "L", was called as the new ZL there, and then the next one after him was yours truly.  I´ll be double timing it as DL and Trainer, and Guayape hasn´t had a gringo in it for over 2 years. I´m stoked to be here, and things are looking good.  The Branch is so excited to see us. The last Elders here really screwed things up.  Sadly, Gringos or white elders are generally more obedient and harder workers.  They haven´t had a good pair of missionaries in a while. 

My companion is from Nicaragua.  He is different than the stereotype that they give to all Elders from Nicaragua. He speaks English, he is obedient and we get along really, really well. He´s very independent, and it helps us out alot.  We are working as equals, and that's something I love.  Things are going really, really good in our companionship. 

So I´ve always had the desire to go to Catacamas, and now I´ve got it.  It's really funny out here, mostly because the majority of the people are Latin Cowboys. They walk around with their revolvers and ride around on horses and everything. I´ve also learned that the rumors aren´t true. It's a very peaceful place, and I actually feel safer here than I did in Tegucigalpa. 

I was expecting to have a little break from being DL. Turns out the Lord wants me to work hard until the end. I´m excited for the blessing that will come from being diligent. 

We came here and there were literally no investigators. Nothing. Nada. The area book is pretty empty and pathetic. So we started contacting like crazy. We found 14 new investigators and 3 new families in 4 days. I´ve never had that kind of success in the city, so I´m pretty excited to be here. The people here are more humble. I like that. 

Oh yeah, Catacamas is a 4 hour drive away from Tegucigalpa. I´m pretty far out. 

Well, just wanted to let you know that I´m safe, happy and pumped. Things are going great, and I love you all. Take care guys 

Elder Hansen