02/24/14

So this week was a pretty good week. We are starting to have a lot more member present lessons, which we all know is way more effective. The problem with Sister XXX is that she is the husband and the wife doing all the work on her own so its really hard for her to find time to go to church and what not. We have explained that trials will not go away but she will be more organized and be able to accomplish everything if she gives some of her time to God. She understands,  so we will just have to see if she will act on her faith. I was able to do my second service project of my mission last Saturday....and I forgot to take pics...hahah sorry mom! (Seriously Riley???) but we just helped build a house by moving sand or buhangin into their house to elevate it. The house is low,  so if the rain comes in hard their house would flood really quickly. But it was fun and nice to do something else other than walking,  sitting,  teaching,  walking,  sitting,  teaching,  eating,  walking,  sitting,  teaching eating,  sleeping,  study etc...hahahaha But yeah,  for the most part the week was really good. Today was the day that I say goodbye to two elders in my district, they go home tomorrow so that is crazy. One of the elders (Elder Policaripio was my first DL) and now I'm his last hahaha I made that chocolate eclair cake and I'm actually pretty impressed with myself. We have no mixer,  no measurement tools or anything and I think I did really good. The only problem was that the chocolate didn't set......but still very delicious. One thing that I have noticed is that missionary work becomes work when you have a bad attitude about things. I love going out and working everyday...I don't really consider it work because I love it so much. Its more like I'm just serving for love. Service is doing something with out expecting a return.....missionaries are not paid,  etc. So I don't really like to call it work anymore because we are serving people not just working. I will send more pics in another email.  But yeah that's about all I have.  Oh and my ingrown is starting to come back after like four months.....ahhhhh.!

love

Elder Hansen

Elder Hansen and Elder Urcia

02/17/14

MOM COMMENT:
I am seeing that Elder Hansen is becoming very matter of fact and his English is falling to pieces! I will try and recreate the sentence structures and punctuation, but if you were to see the original it is hilarious!  I hope he will be able to speak English when he gets home!


Alright,  so this week was pretty decent. I've been able to help out the other elders in my district by going on exchanges with them this past week. They are just really trunky because they both go home together....and they are in a threesome companionship so they are way crazy together,  way loud and stuff....But yeah,  so on
Friday I went on exchanges with them and the APs decided to go on exchanges with us as well.  But I didn't know so they went straight to my area. They worked with my companion and another elder from a different companionship. So even tho the aps worked in my area I didn't work with them....So now I can officially say that I am at a year in the mission....Koa (this is his friend that he went on vacation to the Philippines with as a senior in high school and then those two and the boy who took them to the Philippines all got called to The Philippines on missions) even though you are in Manilla I'm at a year hahaha! Just kiddin man your lucky,  I wish I still had that much time in the mission because It really is such a fun time here.  You learn so many things from others. I've noticed the big change in my personality...I'm not nearly as sarcastic as I used to be and I don't crack as many jokes as I used too....maybe I'm growing up on the mission......nahhhhhh......hahaha! I still dont know how to wash clothes or cook.....thats Philippines mission life....tagalaba and you have Filipinos who know how to cook. (Ok, What???!!! another mom insert!)

The area is doing alright.  We have actually been dropping some of our investigators because they just arent progressing. We don't want to continue wasting precious hours teaching people that refuse to change. I have been able to develop my faith more in finding.  You have to do a lot of street contacts to even find people that wanna listen and when your in an area like mine there arnt many people to talk to. #BUKIDLIFE haha! But yeah we will be focusing on getting the members more involved in giving referals to us and then they join in the lessons so they can become the fellowshipper. Its been a challenge to help them learn and gain the confidence. 

we met a less active  who was baptized a long time ago but got offended when he move here to Aguilar....he actually changed religions and everything to iglesia ni cristo.......so that was interesting but his daughter was baptized 2011 and she is willing to come back.  So we actually got some ni (Tagalog word?) out of that visit. Other than that nothing much is happening right now. I'm sad because my follow up goes home this next week,  Elder barney......Its way weird how fast time goes by.

Anyway,  I love you all.  Write back if you would like to..

Love Elder Hansen

 

 

This is an excerpt from Elder Hansen's personal email to us.  We had just told him how our Stake President gave us a challenge to pray about three families or people to hopefully introduce to the gospel.  He told us that when it is right, the people seem to come into your life more often and allows chances to be friends and get to know them and love them and hopefully teach them.  The missionaries really need the members to be diligent in this missionary work!  That is what he is trying to teach the members in the Philippines, so that the teaching will be more accepted and the area will grow>

 

I want to start off with saying I'm so glad that the stake President is having you do that. It really needs to start happening with all the members.  That is the only way that missionary work will take off. More people get baptized and stay active in the church if they have been referred to the missionaries by one of their friends and that friend becomes their fellowshipper....Its so hard to get people to understand that here......I hope you will apply that in your life.  I will continue to pray for Griffin and all of you. Don't worry about my birthday just send me your love hahaha and a new CTR ring if you want........mine is broken....... So Elder Barney goes home next week. It seems like yesterday that I was with him in Asingan now he is going home......It scares me how fast time goes. I also can't believe that my birthday is all ready way close.....like I'm starting all of my lasts in the mission last birthday last Mothers day and stuff like that....its pretty crazy....but hey just wanna say that I am way jealous of Koa in Manila he has like Ihop and all these sweet resteraunts....I'm still thinking of the first place I will eat at when I go home......maybe Cafe Rio......

Love you all so much! Love Elder Hansen

 

***Obviously time to send some treats from home again!***

ONE YEAR!!!! 02/13/14 POST ON 02/09/14

All right so I titled this letter one year because this Thursday will be my year mark or as my mom said HUMP DAY....hahah so yeah I'm heading over the hump right now.  Gonna be starting year number two....its actually crazy that I'm to this point in my mission. Most missionaries spend a lot of their time saying I'll be comfortable when I'm at six months in the mish then you hit six months so you say you know I'll be good when I'm at a year....but the thing is if you are getting comfortable as a missionary you are not growing as a person. You can't be comfortable. You need a little stress, you need trials, you need to adjust your teaching, adjust your own personality,  adjust to comps and so on and so forth....you can't be comfortable as a missionary. That is one thing that I have really learned so far in the mission and I cannot believe its all ready half way over....Technically its more than half way over cause my release date is in Jan. not Feb.....My follow up trainer who is a zone leader right now goes home this transfer.....It's gonna be way weird.  A lot  of the people that I now know in the misson are home or going home....So for this week it was okay.  We had two days where it was a pretty rough time...we got punted and just had a hard time finding.  So what we did was went to our Branch president and just sat down with him and talked some stuff out explained what is going on what help we really need and stuff.   On Sunday it was awesome our BML started doing his calling and things just started going better. We have some families that we are teaching and we went to give them IBDS but we want to make sure they will at least go to church that first time before we give it to them. But things are looking in an upward direction for the area, as long as the members are doing their jobs the work will progress! I love the fact that I'm growing closer to the Savior every day. I can truly see the influence His atonement has had in my life. A gift from a friend has a scripture engraved in it and its this wonderful scripture alma 44:4 its a wonderful scripture.

Love,
Elder Hansen

Here is the scripture

Alma 44:4
 4 Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are ^afaithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith.

 Krispy Kreme a luxury!

 HUMP DAY! 02/13/14
Way to go Elder Hansen on faithfully serving for one full year!  This package also included a stuffed camel and some Valentine treats for He and Elder Urcia!  (Yes, I drew that camel!  I have camel skills!  So if anyone is in dire need of a camel drawing I'm your girl! Ha Ha!)

 

 

Elder Hansen did not go into detail other than this is me with a monkey.  I'm sad it is chained up. Probably someone's pet.  What this picture depicts to me is boys are boys no matter where they come from, of course they are drawn to a soft, sweet monkey!

 

 

02/02/14 A Rougher Week (And a Miracle!)

Alright so my title explains my week in a nut shell......this week was a rather rough week. It was hard teaching lessons,  it was very hard on Sunday because we had no investigators attend church.  We are having a hard time in the finding part of the work because we can't get the members to work with us very often....One good thing is that we got our water fixed and now we actually will be moving apartments to a nicer new one where we will get the third floor and the roof so it is a really cool house!!! Let me just jump into the miracle. So as I said earlier we have had a really hard time getting referrals in this area....the members kind of don't know how to give them correctly.  But as I have been praying hard to receive help and blessings in the area I finally got an answer.

I logged onto my email and notice that I got an email from a sister serving in Laog mission that is from my branch. I have never talked to her before and I actually don't know how she got my email.  But she did somehow and she knew somehow that she needed to email me. She sent me a list of names,  three investigator referrals and two less active referrals!!!! I can just say that is a blessing, no,  a miracle for me and this area! I know the Lord has his hand in the work and as long as we are doing what we need to do we will be blessed. I can see this happening right before my eyes!!! 

Stay obedient,  stay focused on the Lord. Stay focused on becoming better and focused on His will not ours. Even though we have a rough time we will be blessed.

I'm sorry this is short,  but I love you all.  Thanks for everthing and I'm so excited to receive some emails from all of you if you aren't too busy....hahaha

 

 

This is a picture of a stone head that Elder Hansen found just walking along a path!

 

 

 

 

1/26/14 Very Happy Message!

Alright,  so I would love to start this week off with some great news!!!!!!!!!!! This news will actually blow you away because of its truthfulness. Just wanna mention that Jesus Christ lives. I feel his presence always here in this work.  I know that he is guiding this work everyday and puts people in our lives for a reason. Love everyone know matter how they treat you. A member mentioned to us on Sunday that about our freedom to choose or about all of our decisions even with being offended or not. We choose to be offended,  we choose to be happy,  we choose to be sad,  we choose whether to be obedient or not. People can never say that someone else made me disobedient,  we choose those things for ourselves. But anyway,  I would just like to say that this week was a great week! We are starting to find more and we have some good progressing investigators.   I'm very excited for them. One family,  the XXXX family,  was a street contact.  We taught them once and that Sunday they went to church.  Me and Elder Urcia are very excited about them!!! We also had some other investigators come to church which made for a great Sunday! As for me and Elder Urcia we are doing great we have a really great companionship. So just for all my friends serving missions in the states,  I would just like to give you a little shout out to not complain ever about your apartments.  Here in out apartment we have no running water and havent now for about a week.......I will add a lovely picture of what came out of the bottom of our water tank here at the end of this so take a nice look! But as for me I'm doing great.  I can't believe that I'm now way close to a year mark....it scares me how fast time goes by.  I can't wait for Sunday,  I'm going to share my testimony of what I have noticed change in my life since I have been in the mission. One thing I have noticed is my outlook on all people. If I think about where I started to where I am now coming into a new country,  new race etc....I think I was judging the people because they live differently than us, but as I think of it now I have grown such a love for this country and I am so grateful that I['m serving here!!! Heavenly Father has helped me develop a great love for all people!!! I love this work with all my heart and will be very sad to leave this place.

I will always have the Philippines pride in my heart!!

Love Elder Hansen