September 2, 2019
Hola!
So this week has been a whirlwind haha. I found out I'm TRAINING AGAIN for my last 2 transfers. Hermana Iverson will be too and she will open a new area in Omaha! So this will be the 3rd time I've trained (well 2.5th time because one was just for 1 transfer instead of 2). It came as a huge surprise and I was quite stressed and sad and cried a lot for a minute there... mostly because I don't want Hermana Iverson to leave me... but it will be okay!!!! I'm excited to meet her and I know God has a plan. Our plan is like almost never His plan! And great things will come out of it.
I have some cool miracles to share with you this week. So as you know, last week was kind of rough. All of our strong progressing people have kind of been avoiding us and stopped answering the door and our calls... It's been a little saddening. We have been praying so much and working so hard and we love these people!!! Miracles:
Roberto:
We brought our friend James with us to an appointment with Roberto this week. James is 21 and he is about to leave on his mission to Ecuador next week! Roberto is the one whose brother just got deported and he is all alone... We knocked on Roberto's door like 4 times and no answer... So we left a little sad because we've unsuccessfully tried to bring James to a lesson at least 5 times now and everyone cancelled. But then Roberto walked outside! He was just on the phone so he didn't answer!!! We had an AWESOME lesson with him. Found out he has read a ton in the Book of Mormon. One hour every single night to be exact. The best part of the lesson was that James had been practicing bearing his testimony simply in Spanish. He just said "Yo sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero. Yo sé que Jesucristo es mi Salvador. Yo sé que la iglesia es verdadera." (I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know the church is true). That is all James could say in Spanish... but it was the most powerful thing ever. The spirit was like exploding in the air. Simple testimony is so powerful. Roberto prayed in the lesson and said that he believes the Book of Mormon is true in his prayer! It was so awesome. Later that week Roberto messaged us on Facebook and asked if he could call us and read the book of mormon with us. Ummm yes!!!! No one does that! We were able to read a chapter with him. Roberto is so prepared!!!
Marlon:
Remember the awesome family that invited us to their daughter's birthday party? Well they cancelled their last appointment with us and we hadn't seen them in a while. We felt like we should just stop by and see them one night. We showed up and they were sitting on their porch, talking about how awful their day had been... they were surprised to see us! We were able to cheer them up a little bit and they invited us inside. We taught them the restoration and something incredible happened. I shared the 1st vision of Joseph Smith and bore testimony that I know Joseph truly saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. And they told him that none of the churches were complete on the earth anymore, so it needed to be restored. When I said those words, Marlon started to cry. Like head in his hands weeping. The spirit was so strong I felt like the house was going to start floating. When Marlon finally gathered himself he told us that he used to be a missionary like us, he would preach the word of God in the street and on buses. But he said it always felt like something was missing. He never felt like it was complete. And he said he understood completely how Joseph felt, and the words of his vision touched him so powerfully. We testified to him, that that feeling was the Holy Ghost telling him that these things were true. And that the church has been restored on the earth again today. That might have been the most powerful lessons I have ever had on my mission. It was exactly what we needed this week too. His wife told us she knew God sent us to their house that night... to cheer them up from having a bad day and to share the story of Joseph Smith. His wife is having a baby this week! Pray for her too!
I just want to bear my testimony and witness that God loves us so much, He hears our cries and our prayers... He knows when we are struggling and when we need Him most. There are times I've questioned that. Just yesterday we were having such a hard day (fasting might have added to the difficulty haha). We had back to back appointments all day, and yet again every single one of them cancelled, one by one. We were feeling discouraged and sad. We had only found 1 new person to teach that week and to meet mission standards we had to find at least one more. But no one seemed to have time or care to listen to us... then we got the call from president finding out we were getting transferred... It was rough. I momentarily thought "Why would God do this to us?" We pulled ourselves together and went to go knock some more doors, doing anything to find one more person to teach. There was a locked apartment we'd seen some Hispanic people walk in and out of at one point, so we went to go see if we could get in somehow. As we got closer we saw there was a tiny rock in the door holding it open!!!! Tender mercy. The first door we knocked was a guy from Guatemala that we ended up teaching. :) I looked back at the day and thought... wow. The Lord did not forget about us. He knows how hard we've been trying and how hard this day was. He put that rock in the door for us. He does love us. It made me think of Ether 12:18 "And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith."
I also know Christ loves us so much. Sometimes as a missionary you think "Why am I here? What is the point?" Don't you think Christ ever got home from a long day of people rejecting him and spitting on him ever thought to himself "Am I really the Son of God? No one gets it. What is the point?" Maybe He did. But He went on with His purpose and suffered for each one of us, because He love us. That is the point of all of this. To share the message of hope Christ's infinite Atonement offers.
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Hansen
The only picture this week: our district
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