October 7, 2019
Thanks for all the happy birthdays! It was a great day and there was no better way to celebrate than watching conference!!
This week was FULL I mean FULL haha. We had Zone Conference in Omaha which occupied like a day and a half including driving and spending the night, and then 10 hours of General Conference. So basically it involved a lot of sitting and being spiritually edified. All good things! Haha. So we had a BIG change announced at Zone Conference... you know all those rumors you've heard about missionaries in the U.S. that can't eat with members anymore? Yep. The dreaded day arrived and they are implementing that rule in our mission....!!! Hahaha. But there are some exceptions. We can eat with members if they invite a non-member or less-active member, or if it is at 4:00 on Saturday or Sunday. And unless those things are the case, we eat alone at 4:00 every day. It's all with the purpose of us being out proselyting from 5:00 - 8:00 which are hours that people are normally at home! At first everyone was a little upset when our mission president announced the change. Then I felt like everyone calmed down and we actually all felt the Spirit. It was just a calm feeling, helping us realize that this will be a good thing. It will help us be more effective, and it will hopefully get the members excited to be more involved in the work, and we'll be able to find those who are prepared to receive this important message!!!! And if worst things comes to worst, they gave us all crock pots so we'll have to learn how to cook for ourselves hahaha.
We had a really spiritual lesson this week with Annette and Jose. Jose has been a member for several years but has fallen inactive, and Annette isn't a member. It's been a little hard to find our swing in teaching them because she's a native english speaker and he only speaks Spanish, so it's been very spanglish-y. We read Alma 36 with them in the Book of Mormon with them and neither of them understood a single thing. We broke it down for them in very simple terms, but they still didn't understand. Finally, in English, we asked something like, "Annette, do you know what it means when we say that Christ suffered for your sins?" "No," she said. In that moment we instantly realized that she has basically no knowledge about God or our Savior. I mean, why would she? She didn't grow up religious. We took it from square 0 and testified about Christ's mission and His Atonement. We told her that He suffered and died for her. He knows her pain and sorrows. And He is the only way we can make it back to Heavenly Father again. The spirit was so strong. I haven't had many times I've gotten to teach in English on my mission, and hearing those words in my native tongue touched my spirit and it was re-affirmed to me that those things are true. It is so special to be able to teach someone who has never heard those words before and to invite the Spirit into a person's life who hasn't been able to recognize it before. Jesus Christ knows us. He loves us.
A few things that stuck out to me during conference were how they kept telling us to put away worldly distractions. I heard so many warnings about Satan and his tactics. I heard that we need to keep our covenants and that there is a need to access God's power more than ever before in our lives. I heard that we need to become true disciples of Jesus Christ. I heard that we need to repent and become holier. All these things led with a promise of happiness and joy... All we have to do is make the changes and we can be happy! I testify that that is true.
This week for my birthday I got a 12 pack box of popcorn. I was so happy until I realized that... if I want to finish all this popcorn before the end of my mission... I basically need to eat 2 bags a week. It then hit me how little time I have left on my mission... It was a very bitter sweet moment. The popcorn won't be a problem though. It will probably be gone next week let's be real.
Love you all!!!
<3 Hermana Hansen
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