How are you all doing?? Good to hear that Brik had a great week of ball, and he played well. Nice to hear the left-handed slinger is back at it again. Super cool to see that you all went to the A's game! A's vs Angels is always a tough one. Brik is always dedicated to those LA teams though. ALSO, someone gave Brik a bobblehead?? That kid gets away with everything! Seeing Ben wearing his AreaCodes hat cracks me up, because that's what I did every game too! haha.
Pizza and wings below. Thanks Dad!!! Elder Perkins and I had a great night that night on exchanges. There’s nothing like a huge pizza showing up at your door at 10pm after a long day of work.
This week was a pretty wild! Day freaking one of the week, we found 4 new people to teach. This is not something just normal. Our mission struggles with finding people to teach. So that is pretty crazy. We found Dora and her family. While we were talking to another person across the way, she yelled at us asking if we were the missionaries. We said yes, and she said that she needed help, and that she wanted to talk with us for the longest time! So that is awesome! Super pumped with her family!
Here is our district at the Familia Cruz home. Great guys to work with!
Also we extended a date to Glenda again, and she accepted!! We will see where this one will go. She needs to make a bunch of changes, and wants too, but she has been having a rough time. I am really hoping to have her become closer to God, because the gospel can SO help her. I know that it brings families together, and she wants help for her family of 6! Really hope.
We found an Asian buffet place that is like Panda but UNLIMITED food! GOLD MINE!!
Most of you all have heard a bit of my story. Of having the chance to talk to President Guthrie for a long time before my mission, and being able to get to know him. He was an incredible influence on me, because he told me if there was one thing to do, it was to go on a mission. Because his mission blessed him a lot, he knew it would bless me. So long story short, I was fortunate enough to be called to his mission and learn from him even more. One other person who definitely was an example to me was Taylor Cole. Taylor Cole played at BYU after turning down 2 offers to play professional out of high school and JC. He then served a mission in Canada. After, he came back and played a year for BYU and signed with the Blue Jays. He made his debut last year, and now he is ending his rookie year with the Angels MLB squad.
I got to talk to him a little bit before everything was set with my mission and other things. All of this happened because of our dads. At one of Ben's tournaments in Las Vegas, Taylor's younger brother Peyton was playing there as well. It just so happened that my dad and their dad were sitting next to each other at the tournament. (Obviously not a coincidence!) About 8 months later my Mom was in San Diego with Ben at a baseball tournament. They randomly ended up sitting next to Taylor’s dad and Peyton at a Marriott eating breakfast not knowing who they were until they struck up a conversation. Small world, but definitely not another coincidence. Anyways, Taylor and I had a chance to talk and he told me how much of a blessing a mission was. He worked super hard through the minors, and now he is in the bigs. He was in town pitching against the Astros, and he and President Guthrie were friends.
I was spending the day helping to clean up the yard of the nicest lady. (Thanks, Dad, for all those years of “letting” me mow our lawn. She really liked the straight lines that I made. I told her it was from years and years of practice! In fact if pitching doesn’t work out, then I just might become a major league groundskeeper. haha) Out of the blue President Guthrie drove up with Taylor in the car. I was shocked! We had a chance to talk again and it was so great. It was like a full circle. Being able to meet him in person was awesome because we’d only spoken on the phone. He is one of the most humble people ever, and very gracious. When I saw him walking up I recognized him, but didn't know where from, but when I found out, gave him a bro hug, and just talked. It was a very cool experience.
I realize how blessed I am to be around the people I am while doing the Lord's work. Through baseball and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we got connected. I am super grateful to have the time to be around these types of amazingly good, humble disciples of Christ who just so happened to have a great professional career in baseball. They are both examples to me, and I am blessed to have chances like these. God knows us all. He knows the ins and the outs of our lives. There is a talk in the Oct '99 conference titled "Prophets and Spiritual Mole Crickets". (I know - crazy title.) It gives a great analogy of how the Lord knows each and every one of us. All we need to do is follow his commandments and trust him.
I love you all and hope you all have an awesome week! Les amo muchisimo!
Brett / Elder Hansen
