First Group Email! 12/09/13

So Unker, (that would be Elder Unker) has been talking me into doing a weekly letter or something so that people know what I'm doing out here in the mission.....I'm not the best at expressing what is happening here but I will try my best. So last p day our whole zone went to a mall. Keep in mind its the Philippines, not America.  But we went to a mall and decided to go inside and Christmas carol because its December....in the Philippines, once its September that means it is now Christmas! It's the BER months octoBER novemBER.... which just means that it is kind of cold....but anyway we went caroling.  No one wanted to at first but once we all started singing it was actually way fun! I enjoyed it...the people gave us weird looks though...and some took our pictures so it was fun. But this week was good.  An Elder that was in my house in my first area just moved into this house so we get to be together again in the apartment.  He is way funny. We also decided to stop by a school that has a bunch of home made Christmas trees out front and we took some pics.  The people were a little shocked we were doing that but its okay....they wanted pictures too. The members are way nice here though and the work is so much better when they come along. We are trying to get them more excited about missionary work especally since we have some baptisms coming up we feel that they will be more excited to do missionary work. One of our families we teach is actually a PM family who went less active in 2008 they have now been to church 3 times and two of their kids will be baptized. Hopefully in December but if not the first Saturday in January.  The Mata family (mata means eye by the way in Tagalog) but they are way sweet! So that's about what is going on so far right now.....but yeah I hope you are all having a great holiday season! Love Elder Hansen

 Elder Hansen and some Missionaries apparently play basketball at 5:00am twice a week. So they made jerseys.  29 is Elder Hansen's baseball number from High School.  Staying in the spirit of the Gospel, his team are the Nephites!

Below:  This must be one of the homemade Christmas Trees that was in front of the school.  Oh to be wearing short sleeves at Christmas time!