How to laugh in Spanish: Wajajajaja

June 24, 2019

Hola buenos dias!

This week was full of miracles!!! We've literally been running from lesson to lesson every single day and it's felt like we have had no time to breathe! It's a good problem to have :) 

Last transfer we had Brian K Taylor come talk to us at zone conference, and he gave us something called the "YES list." It has a series of inspired questions that we ask members to get referrals from them, and it emphasizes contacting part-member families in the ward/branch and those that have unbaptized children over the age of 8! The word he used for the YES list is "rigorous." It is!! It's taken a lot of work and dedication to do all the items on the list, but this week we finally started seeing the fruits of our labors!!

After asking quite a few members in the branch if there had been anyone on their mind and hearts that they want us to go visit, someone mentioned an inactive part-member family in the branch named the Romeros. We went over, talked with the mom, and she told us that we can teach and baptized her kids!!!! We started teaching them and they are on date for baptism for July 20th! We also have been knocking on this lady's door that has an unbaptized 11-year-old for a week and she hasn't been home. But last week we were just walking through her neighborhood and she was outside! She called us over and said "Hermanas guess what?! We just had a meeting at work and they told us that we can start having Sundays off! I am going to be able to go to church for the first time in years!" We were soooo excited! Then she goes on to say, "My son Adrian is 11 and he hasn't got baptized yet!!! He needs to get baptized!" We were like WE CAN HELP WITH THAT! Haha so this is the first time we have ever met this lady and she literally just told us she is coming to church and asked us to baptize her son. We didn't even have to bring it up! So we will be teaching her son this week :) Heavenly Father just put them right into our hands!

Being in a trio has been SO FUN. It's like having a sleepover every night and we just laugh and have fun all day haha. I love mission life. We found tennis rackets in our apartment so Hermana Johnson and I play tennis in the church parking lot every morning while Hermana Jorgensen runs in cirlces around us hahaha. Gotta do what you gotta do when you have to be sight and sound from each other. 

This week we took a couple we are teaching to the visitor center and to the temple grounds! I love going to the trail center because it always reminds me about the sacrifices the pioneers made for us. What they did makes the missionary work we do "nowadays" feel so easy. It reminds me that I should never complain on days that we walk a lot and I should never complain when the weather is bad!!! That being said, we have had so many storms this week!!! The lightening struck our power box on Friday and we lost power for a little while in our apartment. It was fun pretending like we were pioneers without electricity for a little while haha. We really are so blessed to live in this day with such advanced technology! The work of the Lord is moving so fast because of it! :) 

Love you all!!! Have an amazing week! <3

Hermana Hansen 

Pictures: 

1. Us eating Guatemalan tamales from Boris :)

2. A missionary cake a member made for us

3. The missionary cake that landed in the cupholder when I accidentally slammed on my breaks too hard in the car hahahaha

4. Us with Griselda and David at the temple (we were on exchanges so Hermana Johnson didn't come with us)

5. The dog pile hahaha I love my companions 

We met the king of France

June 17, 2019

Hola!!!

This was a great week. Hermana Jorgensen and I got to go to the temple because we are TRAINING! It was so so so amazing to get to go. I will never take having 5 temples 20 minutes away from me for granted ever again when I get back home! That is the most peaceful place ever. Such an amazing escape from the crazy world around us and such a good opportunity to seek revelation from Heavenly Father. 

So we are in a trio with Hermana Johnson now!!! We are both training her. WE LOVE HER SO MUCH it has been so fun. Heavenly Father has just been blessing us so much. We moved into a bigger apartment to fit all 3 of us and it has just been like a sleepover every night it's so fun. She is from St. George Utah and went to Dixie before she came here and is studying medical biology. 

A few things that happened this week:

- We were sitting outside the church when this insane guy just comes and sits by us and starts talkin. He was on MANY drugs haha he introduced himself and the king of france. He told us that his brother is Michael Jackson and that his mom's estate are the Egyptian pyramids. I asked him if he wanted to go to church sometime and he looks at me dead in the eyes and says, "Lady. I am the church." Hahahaha. I was shook. Ah, the people you meet in Omaha. 

- We took Guadalupe our recent convert to a lesson with us and it was so awesome. She has the strongest testimony ever and she is not afraid to look people in the face and tell them to get baptized. She literally put her hands up in the air in the middle of the lesson and goes "Javier, sea bautizado en el NOMBRE de Jesucristo!!!!!" (Get baptized in the name of Jesus Christ!!!) Hahaha it was so awesome. I want her boldness.

- It's been interesting to see how much random people open up to us about the struggles they go through. This week we knocked on this lady's door, and she stepped out onto the porch and just told us her whole life story. She started bawling and opened up to us about the personal struggles she is going through and a death that happened in her family. I felt so sad for her. But we were able to testify of Jesus Christ and that he truly can take away her pain! People really do recognize us as representatives of Jesus Christ and know that we will not judge and we are really just here to help. Sometimes I start to feel weighed down by hearing about the trials and problems that people are having, especially when I realize that I can't help them or take away pain. But what is amazing is that we can lead them to their Savior, Jesus Christ - He is the true Healer. Then the weight I felt while momentarily bearing their sorrows goes away, because they are at the foot of the Savior. Oh how I love Him!!!!

My favorite scripture from my studies this week was Mormon 5:23 "Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God?" We are in the hands of God people!!!! He will not leave us! We are never alone and He is always there to help us! Remember that :)

Love you!

-Hermana Hansen 

Pictures:

-The temple, our new trio, us celebrating our first night together with pan from Boris' panaderia! 

It's not every week that you meet an apostle and have 2 baptisms and find out you're trio training!

June 10, 2019

Hola!!!! I don't have the energy or strength to describe this week but I'll do my best haha. If you want the short version of my week read my subject :) 

Elder Renlund

SO yeah basically this was the best weekend of my life. The whole mission came down to Omaha because Elder Renlund and 4 sets of either area 70 or general 70 came to visit our mission!!! Elder Renlund came to the Mexico MTC when I was there so when I shook his hand I reminded him I'd met him before. He totally remembered me! ;) Haha broma. The council he and his wife gave us was exactly what I needed. I forgot my notes but he made us some amazing prophetic promises and if you really want to know what they were, email me and I'll let ya know when I get my notes haha. 

Baptism of Yonatan and Boris

Yeah it turns out that Boris actually has spelled his named with an i instead of a y (instead of Borys) and he was just lying to us the whole time haha. THIS WAS THE MOST AMAZING DAY OF MY LIFE. For Boris this day has been LONG awaited. The first time I met him in February he was afraid to pray aloud. He was so timid and convinced that he would never get to the point of being baptized. I have seen him literally TRANSFORM into a new person. I'm convinced that I came to Omaha Nebraska on my mission to meet Boris. He will be a life long friend for sure. THANK YOU for all of your prayers. He has conquered so so so many roadblocks to get here. It was so amazing to help Yonatan get to this point too. Never have I seen someone so prepared and willing to drop everything to change and become a member of Christ's church. The coolest thing is that Yonatan brought his kids to his baptism (that's the first time we've met them) and they were SO EXCITED for their dad. He also surprised his dad that day in Guatemala who has been a member for 10 years and didn't know he was getting baptized :) It was cool to see his father's example play effect on him so many years after his conversion, and it was cool to see Yonatan being an example to his little children too. I can only imagine how proud our HEAVENLY Father is of his decision to repent and be baptized. Both Yonatan and Boris bore testimonies at the end after they got baptized and these were no ordinary testimonies. IT WAS POETRY. And they were both like 15 minutes long hahaha. Boris literally wrote the most beautiful poem I've ever heard and read it. They both expressed how the scriptures have filled an emptiness that they had. Yonatan told us that we are angels sent from God and Boris said that we rescued him. What I don't think they realize is that THEY were the ones that did this - not us. They followed the Spirit and that is what prepared them to make this covenant with God, not us! Also how special is it that both Yonatan and Boris came into the church at the same time and they are both from Guatemala? They literally became instant best friends and now will fellowship and support each other in the church probably until the day they die haha. On Sunday they got confirmed, and after Boris's confirmation he sat down by us and was literally glowing and had the biggest smile I've ever seen him have. WOW. I wish I could explain the feelings I felt this weekend but I can't. I am like Nephi: 

"And now I, (Hermana Hansen), cannot write all the things which (happen on my mission); neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men." - 2 Nephi 33:1

Hopefully the Holy Ghost carried something into your heart after reading this messy email :) 

Oh by the way Hermana Jorgensen and I found out that we are TRAINING TOGETHER!!! Haha so we will be getting a new Hermana and we'll be training her in a trio. We're moving apartments because ours is tiny and we are moving in with the Senior couple the Hickmans in our branch and we are so excited they are literally our best friends haha. IT'S A GOOD WEEK TO BE A MISSIONARY!!!!  

LOVE YOU ALL! 

-Hermana Hansen

Pictures:

1. We finally got the Mexico MTC gang back TOGETHER! The picture on top was taken in the CCM a year ago!!! And the picture on bottom was on Saturday! 

2. Hermana Iverson and I up close and personal haha

3-4. Yonatan and Boris's baptism!!! 

5. All the Spanish missionaries (minus a few) after the devotional with Elder Renlund :)

The Lord Magnifies our Efforts

June 3, 2019

Hola qué onda!?

THIS WEEK WAS SO FULL I literally don't even know where to start. 

Some bullet points:

-English class was another success with almost 50 people again!

-We served at a food pantry.

-We had an AMAZING Zone Conference with Brian K. Taylor from the 70. He gave the talk "Am I a Child of God?" in general conference of April last year. The biggest thing that happened is that he promised us in the name of Jesus Christ that if we give it EVERYTHING we got, we will have 40 baptisms as a mission in the month of June. That's pretty big for our mission considering we only had 18 baptisms last month as an entire mission! He gave us some pretty specific and divine instructions about how we will obtain this goal so we are all re-energized and excited to do some missionary work!!! 

-We took Borys and Yonatan to the temple and trail center and they loved it! Yonatan was literally vlogging the whole thing for his dad in Guatemala it was so cute haha. Guadalupe also did baptisms for the dead and took her father's name and her grandparents. So amazing to be able to see her progress so much in the gospel. She's gotten pretty sucked into family history work and told us she wakes up in the middle of the night and can't sleep because she can't stop thinking about it!!!

-We had exchanges on Friday, then on Saturday we spent half of the day cleaning this lady's house. We met her last week and she said she wanted us to come over to do a "study" but then expressed that she's really not interested in the gospel at all, she just wanted us to clean her house. Her house was... full. Haha. Just full. I was a little annoyed at first and felt like she was just trying to take advantage of us, but when we went back to clean on Saturday I felt an overwhelming feeling of love for her. I know that God loves her and she is truly my sister. My annoyance changed to gratitude for the chance we got to serve her and help her. Even after my fingers were swollen and raisiny after doing dishes for over 3 HOURS straight. We flipped that place around!!  

-We served food at a quinceañera for a girl in our branch and it was like the time of my life. Not much else to say about that other than I wish I was Mexican. 

One last story:

This week someone named Javier requested a Book of Mormon online so we decided to take Guadalupe with us to go meet him. We went to his house and no one answered the door, and the guy that was trimming the bushes out front said he didn't live there. So we left, and walked back to the car around the corner. Hermana Jorgensen and I got in the car, but Guadalupe opened the door, paused, and then closed the door again and didn't get in the car! So we got back out and she was like, "We have to go back!" And we were like "Why??" And she was like "This man made an appointment with you! He has to be there! We are going back!" So I supressed the thoughts in my head that were saying, "He probably just forget, we'll just go another day" and we caught up with Guadalupe who was practically running back up to his house. (Let me remind you that she is like a 67 year old woman with the energy of a 20 year old.) She called up to the man that was trimming the bushes and she said, "You made an appointment with these sisters and they are here to talk to you!" He called back again and explained that he did not live there. So Guadalupe walked right passed him and went to the back of the house, and there we found a bunch of guys outside drinking and smoking. They told us that Javier was inside and they went and got him for us! We proceeded to have one of the most powerful restoration lessons we've ever had. Guadalupe bore a STRONG witness that the gospel is true and that he NEEDS to come to church because it will change his life.  Wow. What would we do without this woman? She has taught me so much more than we ever taught her. She has so much faith. I'm convinced we would have never found Javier if it weren't for her faith! The best part of the story is the guy that was trimming the bushes went to the back of the house and was hanging out with the guys back there during the lesson. Guadalupe was like "I KNEW HE LIVED THERE" haha. The Spirit speaks to that woman! 

We had such a full week and still managed to find 3 new people to teach this week. The Lord really never fails to magnify our time and efforts. I love being a missionary and I love this church. These 2 guys we met last night told us we had a "beautiful ambiance" and they couldn't pinpoint what it was. They could tell that there was something different about us. It was the Spirit!!! We are so excited for Yonatan and Borys' baptism this Saturday! Also President Renlund is coming and we are excited for that too. Thanks for all your prayers! :) 

Con amor,

Hermana Hansen 

Pictures:

1 - Me in front of a Guatemala mural. I'll actually go there someday haha

2. Me celebrating my YEAR MARK with HuHot one of my fav restaurants :) 

3. Service with Sister Hickman at the food pantry

4. We had another sleepover with the HERMANAS! They came down for Zone Conference :)

5. This is us after cleaning that lady's house all day and serving food at the quinceañera haha. So exhausted.

More to come in the next email because it won't let me send more than 5 

GIANT ENGLISH CLASS

May 27, 2019

Feliz Memorial Day!! As for us we completely forgot it was a holiday so we drove all the way to the computer lab and realized it's closed, so I'm typing this on my phone (face plam).

I'm sure all of you have been dying to know how our English class went last week after going viral on Facebook. OVER 50 PEOPLE SHOWED UP. It was literally the best day of our lives. We were surprised because there was a huge storm happening but that didn't stop anyone! It was a huge success and everyone loved it. The best part was that afterward a ton of people messaged us on Facebook saying how much they loved it and a lot of the conversations led us to sharing parts of the gospel with them!!! We know this is going to lead to awesome teaching and finding opportunities 

We had 4 people we are teaching come to church on Sunday!!! That's huge for us. A couple in Council Bluffs, Iowa we have been teaching for a while now took the huge step and came even though the ward is all in English. We went to the first part of their sacrament meeting (they aren't in our area) to get them settled before having to race back to ours to greet Yonatan and Borys that were coming to our branch! 

Everytime we have a lesson with Yonatan we are so blown away. We teach him every other day and give him a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon between visits. On Thursday we asked how Alma 34 went, and he said something like this: "Well I didn't know who Alma was, so I read Alma chapter 1 to get some background, then I read Chapters 30-34 but I reread Alma 34 like 4 times to make sure I  understood everything it was saying." And then he tells us in DETAIL all the things that liked and felt as he read. Wow. I have never met someone like this before. He said normally when he woke up he would watch TV but instead he just listens to General Conference talks because they're more fulfilling. I had no idea how close you could get with someone in just a few short weeks. The gospel really does connect people  A member took us out to eat Tacos this week and they took Yonatan too and we just laughed and ate a bunch of tacos and just had such a great time. 

A huge miracle happened for Borys too!!! After much much fasting and prayer, and after being turned down by his boss a few weeks ago when asking for Sundays off to go to church, his boss rearranged some stuff at work and said that he can have most Sundays off!!! Hallelujah! 

I doubt this part will even be interesting to you because this wouldn't matter to anyone else that isn't a missionary But sleep and safety are 2 things that are like very important in missionary work because you can't do missionary work without those things. But on Saturday night at like 10:25 our fire alarm started going off and we were a little worried because the Safety Zone video about the Co2 detector freaked us out a little (these sisters' detector went off and they had to wake up the whole apartment building to save everyone from DYING). But there was no smoke so we turned it off, said our prayers, promised Heavenly Father that if it went off again we would do something about it, and went to sleep. Well a few short hours later at 1:00AM IT WENT OFF AGAIN. It scared me so bad I literally flew out of bed. We called our President and he told us to deactivate it and go to sleep Haha. Long story short we think our neighbor was smoking and set it off lol. Probably one of the wildest nights of my mission. Goes to show how wild missionaries get 

Guess what happens this week? I'M HITTING MY ONE-YEAR MARK. This has been a roller coaster of a year. I've had extremely hard times and extremely amazing ones. I've seen a lifetime of miracles. But the most important thing that happened is that my relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ has grown immensely and that is something that has changed the course for the rest of my life. When you put Him first, everything else falls into place . 

Con amor,

Hermana Hansen

Pics: 

1-2: ENGLISH CLASS! We split them into levels according to how much English they knew so here are the 2 groups.

3. A selfie Yonatan sent us with his cute kids

4. A lesson we had outside at Yonatan's house when this random cat just climbed into my lap and sat their for the remainder of the lesson Haha it was very distracting 

5. Eating tacos with Yonatan, the elders, and Ricky! After dinner Yonatan asked Ricky to baptize him all by himself Haha we were so proud 

Going viral on Facebook

May 20, 2019

Queridos hermanas y hermanos,

I had a few other subjects in mind but I feel like going viral on facebook was one of the craziest things that happened so it won haha. The other subject lines I considered were "double baptism" and also "BORYS IS GETTING BAPTIZED" so I'll fill you in on everything! 

Going Viral on Facebook:

First things first. So the past couple weeks we have had very little attendance at English classes. We've done almost everything we knew how to do: post up fliers, hand out cards, and text members who don't speak english. Still, we have had like 3 or less people there every week. So we tried something different this week. One morning we joined a private Spanish facebook vend/trade/buy page for Omaha and posted about English Class. We turned off the data and did studies, and about an hour later when we turned it on my phone was BLOWING UP. We are talking TONS of people messaging me about english class. Long story short we threw together a sign up sheet and we have 112 people signed up. I have been getting non stop messages ALL WEEKEND haha. Is this what it feels like to be famous?? Hermana Jorgensen and I were so excited at first but now we are a little scared to see what tomorrow's class will be like... Hopefully this will turn into a teaching opportunity for some of these people and not just pure chaos haha. We had a meeting with the teachers though and we have a plan! We'll let you know how it turns out next week ;) 

Double Baptism:

This weekend a lady named Erin got baptized in our branch! Her and her husband found the church about a year ago and have come SO FAR to get baptized. He got baptized in September and due to some legal issues she couldn't. Through much work, prayer, and fasting, she got permission from the 1st presidency last week to be baptized!!!! So we were able to help her make the final step into the waters of baptism on Saturday and it was so beautiful. Borys came with us and I was translating for him and he whispered to us, "The next baptism is going to be mine!" Our mission President was there and we introduced Borys to him and Borys was in shock that he met him. His eyes were literally huge haha. Anyways, the elders also had a baptism on Saturday it was a big day for our little branch :) So amazing seeing all these people making covenants with God!

BORYS IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!! 

So we have been working with Borys for a long time now. The only issue keeping him from being baptized was that he works on Sunday during church. He already changed jobs hoping to get Sundays off for church but they still make him work on Sunday haha. Last week Borys finally got enough courage to talk to his boss this week to ask for Sundays off, and he said no. He literally called us and we are pretty sure he was crying! He was so heart broken! But the past 2 weeks he randomly got Sundays off so he came to church! We called our President and asked if we would be allowed to baptize him because he has been to church a few times now and is literally doing EVERYTHING he can to get baptized. Our President said that if he gets the day off for his confirmation and just keeps doing everything he can to try and get Sundays off, he can be baptized. When we told him he almost fell over he was so excited. He talked to his boss yesterday and he got work off on June 9th so he is getting baptized on the 8th!!!

The best part about this is that Yonatan (the other guy from Guatemala we're working with) is getting baptized on that day too!!! AND that's the day that Elder Renlund is coming to visit our mission. So basically that is gonna be the best day of my life. 

I'm convinced that there is no fuller joy than bringing people into the fold of God. A lot of people congratulate us when we tell them that we have a few baptisms coming up, but then I remind them that we didn't do anything. Heavenly Father has been preparing them, and the Spirit taught them, not us! After all, we are only just servants of God! Like He said, "but behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand." (3 Nephi 21:10)

Los amo,

Hermana Hansen 

Pictures:

Not sure what order these will be in but:

1. A selfie that Borys, Yonatan, and Rogelio (guy elders are teaching) took at family home evening. They're all investigating the church and are all becoming best friends it makes us so happy!!!

2-3: Erin's baptism:) 

4-5: Me!

I never want to leave

May 13, 2019

Buenos dias!!! 

I hope you all had an amazing mothers day and got to reflect on all the amazing women in your life! I am so thankful for your example and testimony Mom, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you! (Literally haha) I know I say this a lot but THIS WAS THE BEST WEEK OF MY MISSION! Haha I never want to leave. We literally doubled our teaching pool this week. I have like 1001 things to write about but I'll try to just pick a couple things that I have learned this week.

When we show God we are willing to work, He rains blessings on us:

This week on Tuesday and Wednesday we worked like as hard as we could and knocked the doors a lot of people with potential, and no one answered/was interested. But we showed God that we were willing to work hard, so on Thursday he just started POURING blessings on us like I have never seen before! We got a referral from Salt Lake for this guy named Yonatan that requested a Book of Mormon online. He is in his 30's and his parents have been members in Guatemala for 10 years. He's gone through some hard times that have humbled him and prepared him for the gospel!!! He seriously just ate up the lessons we taught him and read a TON in the Book of Mormon and then he came to church on Sunday!!! He is so amazing and prepared!! 

Technology is changing missionary work:

I have a lot I could say about this. But to start, throughout my mission I have seen a giant change in the way missionary work is being done. I feel like it was a common thought that the only way we could find people to teach was by knocking on doors. This is changing!!! A lot of missionaries here have been posting Books of Mormons in the buy/sell/trade page on Facebook. This lady requested a Book of Mormon from them and she spoke Spanish, so they referred her to us! She is also so prepared!!! She had so many questions about the church that we were able to answer for her and she is coming to church on Sunday! All from a post on facebook! We would have never found her if we were just knocking on doors. 

Last night we saw in our car and just spent a couple hours just communicating with the people we were teaching over Facebook messenger! We were sending videos/scriptures and having conversations with like 5 people at once about the gospel, teaching and fellowshipping them from our phone! It's impossible to be in 5 places at once. But it is possible to teach 5 people at once that are all in different places at the same time over technology! The Lord is hastening his work and it's through technology!   

The Holy Ghost changes lives:

One of the most amazing things I've seen this week is how the Holy Ghost works through people. 3 of the people we are teaching literally said the exact thing this week. Something along the lines of: "Every time I read the scriptures I get this feeling of peace and comfort in my heart I can't exactly explain it." THAT IS THE HOLY GHOST! It's been such a blessing to be able to help people identify that. I think as members of the church sometimes we forget how powerful the Spirit's influence is, because we have been living under His gift and guidance for so long. It's so special to be able to see it work through people that haven't recognized it before. I am so blessed! 

"Missions are hard:"

I've been thinking a lot about when people say that missions are hard. The reason that missions are hard is because we literally have to change our desires so much. To be successful and happy we have to learn to put off the natural man and throw what we want out the window. All of the times in my mission that I struggled were because deep down I did not want to be doing what I was doing. Through prayer, fasting, scripture study, and the miracles I have witnessed through obedience - my desires have changed. I feel one with God and His will for his children. That is why I feel so happy! This quote by Neal A. Maxwell says it all: 

"When you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!!!

Love, Hermana Hansen :) 

Pics:

1. Hermana Gubler came to visit and so we had a lesson with Borys with her!!! 

2. A card we made for someone we're teaching :)