Well this is kinda weird because I just had p day on Wednesday, so not
a ton has happened, but it's been a good week!
Thursday, 23 October 2014
Elder Hamilton from the mission office asked us to bring our car in to
have it repainted. I don't remember if I told you but a couple weeks
back our car got dinged up/side swiped in the target parking lot. So
we went to Arcadia to the mission office and switched our Corolla for
a min van haha. But it's actually a really nice car. It's a 2014 Dodge
Grand Caravan. We had a really good lesson with Hermana meza and a
friend of hers who was there who's in our ward. We went over the
Christlike attributes activity in Preach My Gospel and gave them the
scripture references to study for the attribute they wanted to work
on. Then we went and visited with Hermana Hernandez and her daughter
Deseree. The lessons with them are usually in English but sometimes we
throw in a little Spanish. Hermana Hernandez just got her calling as
sunbeams teacher. It's her first calling!! So we helped her go over
her lesson. And of course we ate, she ALWAYS feeds us! :)
Friday, 24 October 2014
We did weekly planning at the church. We'd had a dinner appointment
with the Conrados that night (they're like the coolest family; theyre
always willing to help us with anything). But they also wanted to
invite the elders. The elders said they couldn't go to their house
because it was out of their area and they didn't have time to get
permission. So we had it at the church with all 10 of the missionaries
serving in our ward. They made taquitos and they were amazing!!! You
cannot say you've had taquitos unless you've had them homemade by a
native. And we had this awesome salsa verde and avocado spread. We
went on visits with Hermana Espinoza to visit the less active YSA
sisters. We got to visit with 2 sisters and it went really well. It's
crazy, you learn all sorts of things about what people are going
through from being a missionary. We had to take some surveys because I
guess a Seventy is taking a tour of our mission soon.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
We saw Kate and Chris and their mom Josefina in the morning. She's
trying to find a new job because she's not being treated very well at
her current job by a fellow Mormon coworker who makes her out to look
like a bad Mormon. She hasn't gone to do baptisms at the temple yet
and so we're going to prepare her to go through for herself. To start
out though, we want to get her there to do baptisms. Her daughter has
been once. She's getting an interview set up soon for her recommend.
The lesson went really good. We also read a chapter from Chris' Book
of Mormon children's book. He's the one with autism and he's always so
excited to read with us when we get there. I got to go to my first
baptism since being here. We've been working with Hermana Sara nava
and her daughter genny. They're new converts as of about 2 months ago.
Hermana nava has a son named Luis--he's the one who got baptized
Saturday night. He's 22 years old and has a 4 year old daughter whose
name I can't remember. Hermana Nichols and I got asked to go to the
baptism and perform a musical number. We sang "El Bautismo." I'm not
sure what it is in English but it's about when Christ was baptized.
The spirit at that baptismal service was so strong. Their whole family
was in tears and crying. These baptisms are so different than just a
member baptism. Especially when you know them and their family. Then
after we went to dinner with Hermana Nichols' first convert from her
last area. He was baptized in March I believe. But we went and had sub
sandwiches. It was cool. She said one of our investigators (David)
reminds her a lot of Jose, her first convert. I was thinking the exact
same thing as her when I met him. She said Jose used to be just the
same way as David but he's changed SO much.
Sunday, 26 October 2014
I got asked on Friday to give a 12 minute talk in sacrament meeting in
place of a girl who wasn't going to be able to make it. It was on D&C
115:5 "arise and shine." I mostly used a talk from sister Marriott
from this last general women's conference about sharing your light.
The previous Sunday, David had told us to come by his house to knock
on his door and wake him up for church. He has a busy work schedule.
He works Monday through Saturday from like 4am to 4 pm, so we can only
catch him on Sundays. We went by this Sunday to wake him up and
someone else, I believe his dad or a friend said he wasn't there. We
were a little upset. Both Hermana Nichols and I sat on the stand. I
had a talk and I'm now the permanent chorister. It's like whatever the
ward member don't feel comfortable doing, they ask the missionaries to
do. Probably because we never say no hahaha. But Hermana Nichols was
also on the stand because she was playing the piano. At the end of
sacrament meeting, Hna. Nichols grabbed me and pulled me out into the
congregation. She said David had come in and we wanted to catch him
before he left. I guess the elders were super kind a a couple of them
sat back with him. He said he had plans for the rest of the day in LA
and couldn't stay all 3 hours but next week he will. We gave him a
quick tour and ended in the old bishops office where there's an image
of the savior being baptized. We talked a little more about baptism
and he said he really wanted to be baptized. And change his life
around. We gave him a date for his baptismal interview which we'd been
praying about. He said he knew that that was the right day but we
still asked him to pray about it. We can't give him a definite baptism
date yet because of reasons with him being in trouble with the law and
in jail recently, we can't give him a date to be baptized yet. I don't
completely understand how that works, but Hna. Nichols just told me
that. He hasn't been really reading the Book of Mormon but at least
he's honest. But we're going to try to send he reminders over text
throughout the week! I wish you guys could just see him, he's quite a
punk haha in a good way. He's got a couple tattoos on his arms and
some small ones on his face. And he always wears a SnapBack. He wore
his sweats and hat to church. Just wanted to give you a mental image
of him, haha. But he's awesome. Then We went to another baptism that
night. For a couple: Enrique and Maricela García! The Hermana is super
sweet and we've talked to her a few times at church, super nice lady.
We also sang a musical number at that baptism. And I was in the
program to lead the music as well. That's one thing about Spanish
work. Oftentimes you just get signed up to do things and don't find
out until right before haha. But I love it!
Monday, 27 October 2014
Today we made cupcakes because Hermana Nichols' birthday is tomorrow!
And we should be getting our car from Arcadia tomorrow. :) I love you
all and I hope everyone has an awesome week!
Quote of the week, found in the October 2014 Ensign article "The
Prayer of Faith" by President Eyring. Of the promise in Moroni 10:3-5
he says, "That promise is sure. Millions of people have tested and
proved that wonderful promise about prayer by receiving a blessing
that has filled their lives with joy and lasting happiness. That
promise applies to all our prayers to know the mind and will of God
for us. We can apply it whenever we receive counsel from a servant of
God who is authorized to give us direction. For instance, we can
depend on it when we have listened to a sermon in general conference.
We can apply it when we are taught by humble missionaries called of
God by the living prophet. It applies as well to the counsel we
receive from our bishop or branch president." I invite you to apply
this principle. We pray to know the Book of Mormon is true and receive
a witness of it. I know that as we listen to the counsel of other
leaders such as General authorities in conference and pray to know the
truth of their messages, you'll receive a witness.
Love, Hermana Hansen
a ton has happened, but it's been a good week!
Thursday, 23 October 2014
Elder Hamilton from the mission office asked us to bring our car in to
have it repainted. I don't remember if I told you but a couple weeks
back our car got dinged up/side swiped in the target parking lot. So
we went to Arcadia to the mission office and switched our Corolla for
a min van haha. But it's actually a really nice car. It's a 2014 Dodge
Grand Caravan. We had a really good lesson with Hermana meza and a
friend of hers who was there who's in our ward. We went over the
Christlike attributes activity in Preach My Gospel and gave them the
scripture references to study for the attribute they wanted to work
on. Then we went and visited with Hermana Hernandez and her daughter
Deseree. The lessons with them are usually in English but sometimes we
throw in a little Spanish. Hermana Hernandez just got her calling as
sunbeams teacher. It's her first calling!! So we helped her go over
her lesson. And of course we ate, she ALWAYS feeds us! :)
Friday, 24 October 2014
We did weekly planning at the church. We'd had a dinner appointment
with the Conrados that night (they're like the coolest family; theyre
always willing to help us with anything). But they also wanted to
invite the elders. The elders said they couldn't go to their house
because it was out of their area and they didn't have time to get
permission. So we had it at the church with all 10 of the missionaries
serving in our ward. They made taquitos and they were amazing!!! You
cannot say you've had taquitos unless you've had them homemade by a
native. And we had this awesome salsa verde and avocado spread. We
went on visits with Hermana Espinoza to visit the less active YSA
sisters. We got to visit with 2 sisters and it went really well. It's
crazy, you learn all sorts of things about what people are going
through from being a missionary. We had to take some surveys because I
guess a Seventy is taking a tour of our mission soon.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
We saw Kate and Chris and their mom Josefina in the morning. She's
trying to find a new job because she's not being treated very well at
her current job by a fellow Mormon coworker who makes her out to look
like a bad Mormon. She hasn't gone to do baptisms at the temple yet
and so we're going to prepare her to go through for herself. To start
out though, we want to get her there to do baptisms. Her daughter has
been once. She's getting an interview set up soon for her recommend.
The lesson went really good. We also read a chapter from Chris' Book
of Mormon children's book. He's the one with autism and he's always so
excited to read with us when we get there. I got to go to my first
baptism since being here. We've been working with Hermana Sara nava
and her daughter genny. They're new converts as of about 2 months ago.
Hermana nava has a son named Luis--he's the one who got baptized
Saturday night. He's 22 years old and has a 4 year old daughter whose
name I can't remember. Hermana Nichols and I got asked to go to the
baptism and perform a musical number. We sang "El Bautismo." I'm not
sure what it is in English but it's about when Christ was baptized.
The spirit at that baptismal service was so strong. Their whole family
was in tears and crying. These baptisms are so different than just a
member baptism. Especially when you know them and their family. Then
after we went to dinner with Hermana Nichols' first convert from her
last area. He was baptized in March I believe. But we went and had sub
sandwiches. It was cool. She said one of our investigators (David)
reminds her a lot of Jose, her first convert. I was thinking the exact
same thing as her when I met him. She said Jose used to be just the
same way as David but he's changed SO much.
Sunday, 26 October 2014
I got asked on Friday to give a 12 minute talk in sacrament meeting in
place of a girl who wasn't going to be able to make it. It was on D&C
115:5 "arise and shine." I mostly used a talk from sister Marriott
from this last general women's conference about sharing your light.
The previous Sunday, David had told us to come by his house to knock
on his door and wake him up for church. He has a busy work schedule.
He works Monday through Saturday from like 4am to 4 pm, so we can only
catch him on Sundays. We went by this Sunday to wake him up and
someone else, I believe his dad or a friend said he wasn't there. We
were a little upset. Both Hermana Nichols and I sat on the stand. I
had a talk and I'm now the permanent chorister. It's like whatever the
ward member don't feel comfortable doing, they ask the missionaries to
do. Probably because we never say no hahaha. But Hermana Nichols was
also on the stand because she was playing the piano. At the end of
sacrament meeting, Hna. Nichols grabbed me and pulled me out into the
congregation. She said David had come in and we wanted to catch him
before he left. I guess the elders were super kind a a couple of them
sat back with him. He said he had plans for the rest of the day in LA
and couldn't stay all 3 hours but next week he will. We gave him a
quick tour and ended in the old bishops office where there's an image
of the savior being baptized. We talked a little more about baptism
and he said he really wanted to be baptized. And change his life
around. We gave him a date for his baptismal interview which we'd been
praying about. He said he knew that that was the right day but we
still asked him to pray about it. We can't give him a definite baptism
date yet because of reasons with him being in trouble with the law and
in jail recently, we can't give him a date to be baptized yet. I don't
completely understand how that works, but Hna. Nichols just told me
that. He hasn't been really reading the Book of Mormon but at least
he's honest. But we're going to try to send he reminders over text
throughout the week! I wish you guys could just see him, he's quite a
punk haha in a good way. He's got a couple tattoos on his arms and
some small ones on his face. And he always wears a SnapBack. He wore
his sweats and hat to church. Just wanted to give you a mental image
of him, haha. But he's awesome. Then We went to another baptism that
night. For a couple: Enrique and Maricela García! The Hermana is super
sweet and we've talked to her a few times at church, super nice lady.
We also sang a musical number at that baptism. And I was in the
program to lead the music as well. That's one thing about Spanish
work. Oftentimes you just get signed up to do things and don't find
out until right before haha. But I love it!
Monday, 27 October 2014
Today we made cupcakes because Hermana Nichols' birthday is tomorrow!
And we should be getting our car from Arcadia tomorrow. :) I love you
all and I hope everyone has an awesome week!
Quote of the week, found in the October 2014 Ensign article "The
Prayer of Faith" by President Eyring. Of the promise in Moroni 10:3-5
he says, "That promise is sure. Millions of people have tested and
proved that wonderful promise about prayer by receiving a blessing
that has filled their lives with joy and lasting happiness. That
promise applies to all our prayers to know the mind and will of God
for us. We can apply it whenever we receive counsel from a servant of
God who is authorized to give us direction. For instance, we can
depend on it when we have listened to a sermon in general conference.
We can apply it when we are taught by humble missionaries called of
God by the living prophet. It applies as well to the counsel we
receive from our bishop or branch president." I invite you to apply
this principle. We pray to know the Book of Mormon is true and receive
a witness of it. I know that as we listen to the counsel of other
leaders such as General authorities in conference and pray to know the
truth of their messages, you'll receive a witness.
Love, Hermana Hansen