Attacked by a dog, stress, and the temple

Hola Familia y Amigos!!!

I made it to my first transfer in the field!!! However Hermana Thacker and I will stay put since I am being trained still. :) Chances are I will actually probably stay in Worthington for about 6 months! Since there are only 6 Spanish Sisters and 3 areas in my entire mission, we can pretty much predict who we will be serving with next and where. Everyone gets about 6 months in each area (Worthington Minnesota, Sioux City Iowa, and Omaha Nebraska). Of course it is all determined by revelation, and there are surprises sometimes!
 

First crazy story of the week: On Wednesday night we were tracting and we saw some people bringing their groceries in. We walked up to offer them some help, when their HUGE black dog (about the size of me) started barking and charged at me at full speed. You should have seen the look on my face, my life literally flashed before my eyes and I let out this high loud pitched scream. I had every right to though, because that thing launched itself at me and CHOMPED MY ARM!!! Yup, I got attacked and chomped. Don't worry though, I walked out with nothing but a few teeth marks and a good bruise. And we still went to talk to the owners afterward (I was holding back tears, no biggie). They weren't interested, but we offered a pass-a-long card!

This week was honestly pretty hard for me. Let me give you a little explanation. Missionary work is AWESOME, and being able to teach people in Spanish is wonderful too. The Hispanic people here are SO nice (most of them are from Guatemala, but we meet people from all over the place). A lot of them will let us teach them a lesson right then and there and we get return appointments pretty easily with them! It's so awesome, but also has caused my companion and I a ton of stress. This week we filled up our schedules really fast and still had a TON of people we needed to go visit and teach, with literally no time. We also kept double-booking ourselves by accident and had to reschedule appointments quite a few times, which is also very stressful as a missionary because people never really answer the phone, most of the appointments end up being up in the air. Now THAT is very stressful to me, because I like to have everything set in stone. Does that make sense? My companion and I would pretty much get home every night and try not to cry because of how stressed we were haha. But I learned a few very valuable things from this experience:

1. EVERYTHING works out if you leave it up to Heavenly Father. Pretty much every morning I would look at our schedule and cringe -- because so many things were up in the air/double-booked. But I would tell myself, "I am going to put this day in Heavenly Father's hands, and let him take control." And guess what? EVERYTHING worked out!!! Pretty much without fail, every time we accidentally double-book things, one of the appointments cancel at the last minute and we are able to go to the other appointment stress free. And I know that is because Heavenly Father is watching out for us and He is taking control!!

2. During my personal study one morning I was reading in Alma 58 -- this is during a war and the army of Helaman has not been receiving the provisions, food, or military support they needed from the government. I'm sure you can imagine how stressed they were! But this is what Helaman said in verse 37: "But, behold, it mattereth not—we trust God will deliver us." That's all we need to do, trust God and He will deliver us. :)

3. Our Sister Training leaders sent us this quote this week:

"If you feel a little overwhelmed, take that as a good sign. It indicates that you can sense the magnitude of trust God has placed in you." -Henry B Eyring

So comforting. :)

This week I also experienced something very new to me, doubts! I can honestly say I've never really had doubts about the gospel in my entire life. It's always been very easy for me to believe, and I have always known it is true! But for some reason, this week I have been struggling. I testify of the truthfulness of this gospel like 100 times a day and promise people the blessings of living it. But for some reason, as I say the words, "I know this is true," this little voice in the back of my head goes, "do you really know this is true though?" And as soon as that thought comes, the Holy Ghost is gone, and I forget how to speak Spanish. EVERY TIME, WITHOUT FAIL! There was an experience that really helped me overcome that this week:

We call Wednesdays our "adventure days" because we have district meeting in Marshall (about an hour away) and on the way back we go to a bunch of different people's homes that we usually don't have time for during the week because they are far away. This week we stopped at the Sas family's house! They have 2 sons that have autism, and both of them were baptized last transfer. One of them is 8 (Emmett), and one of them is 10 (Jaarom). We taught Jaarom a lesson about Family History. Because of his autism we teach him extremely simply, and only ask yes or no questions. During this lesson I felt the spirit SO strong, reminding me that this gospel really is so simple. And it is SO true. And I DO know it is true. Everything suddenly made sense.

Funny story from this experience: Emmett (the 8-year-old who also has autism) apparently loves Harry Potter. Apparently when he got confirmed, when they put their hands on his head to do the blessing he was whispering, "Not Slytherin, Not Slytherin." Over and over. When they told me that I died laughing. Good stuff.

Sorry this email is so long again, but the best part of my week was that Roy and Peda (two of the boys who got baptized a few weeks ago) went to the temple on Friday to do baptisms for the dead, and we got to go with them!!! The temple is in Omaha (3.5 hours away) so we pretty much got to spend the whole day with them and the members who drove us. Such an amazing experience!!!! And I needed it after all the stress we had this week. I love the temple, it truly is the most peaceful place on earth -- separate from all of the distractions in the world!

I love you all so much! Never forget how much Heavenly Father loves you, and never forget that He is in charge!!!

Have a great week,

--Hermana Hansen

Pictures:

3 blurry pictures from the temple and 1 of my district!