Prayers Answered, Broken Bikes and Proposals

HELLOOOOO family, 

How are yall doing?? Hope you had a fantastic week!  Heard it rained a lot back home in CA, so that's too bad. Here it has been so nice, best weather I've ever had here in TX (knock on wood) 70 and sunny with little humidity all week. MAJOR BLESSINGS!!

Wow has this week been a week SO full of miracles, you have no idea. What an incredible week. We saw some things that we have never seen before, me especially. We worked REALLY really hard, and we're blessed to see the blessings come. Also many things that just made me laugh, things that would for sure just happen to me for some reason, made me just laugh.

Well let's start with the obvious, yes, "emergency bike #2" broke last night. That kind of stunk, but at the same time I found it comical. My history of bikes is hilarious I think. Most would disagree, but it's not like I'm careless or going off jumps on the bike, things just happen it seems like haha. A lot of what happened is just inexplicable. 1st bike, the pedal fell off, and the inside got stripped. 2nd bike, one of the old Assistants bike, the front brake and axel exploded, don't ask, it just did, don't know how. 3rd bike, which was my bike, now "fixed" , the pedal and lever fell off again and the inside stripped again, so that bike went to the graveyard. Bike #4, Elder Wilkinson's bike he left because he went home, the gear shifter and the gears got completely destroyed, so we sent that one back to the mission office. Following that, we got "Emergency Bike #1", (Bike#5) which in the first 15 minutes of riding it, the frame broke from me sitting on it, and so the office missionary said it was junk now. The following week, they send me "Emergency Bike #2" and last night my back axel exploded, once again, don't know how, but it did. So now we're going for bike #7!!! So today, we are going to the Mission Office today to see what we can do to fix the axel. But HEY!! TENDER MERCY!! One of the only In N Outs that was recently constructed here is on the way to the office, sooooo we are getting some In N Out!!! 

Also! Whoa! One of the amazing families that we teach, Oslin and Michelle! Got ENGAGED!! The past lesson, Elder Cram and I had the blessing to teach about eternal families. It is one of my most favorite principles to teach. I know that we not only have the ability to be a family here on earth, but for the eternities to come. We shared with this amazing family 4 Nefi 1:10-13 and shared about how this people were so inexplicably happy. And how the reason they were so happy came from being centered in God and following his commandments, and being centered in their family. Something must have really struck Oslin, because about a week later he decided to propose to Michelle and marry. He invited us to be there as he proposed and we were! It was SO NEAT! I love being able to see people begin living the gospel that our Savior left for us and take steps on their own. Honestly, not much more gives me as much joy as that.

Rolling in suits!  We went to try to bring a family to church with us on the bus.  They said yes on Saturday night.  Then Sunday morning came and all the sudden they couldn’t. It’s OK, at leas we looked good on the bikes.  

Also, a really big blessing for me. This week we got to take our monthly trip back up to H1 for our meeting with the Stake President to discuss missionary work, and I saw Edith there!! She was a lady that Elder Johnson and I baptized reaaaaaally early in our missions. I asked her what she was doing there, and she said she was going to get interviewed by Bishop and was preparing to receive her recommend to go to the temple!! I am so excited for her!! It was an incredible experience to get to discuss with her the miracles that the gospel has brought to her family's life.

Comp unity.  Some bird pooped on Elder Cram for the second time.  He asked me to get it out. It’s a good thing he’s one of my favorite comps!  #charityneverfaileth

We had a great week all in all, but this final experience was the crowning jewel. Not only for the week, or the month, but probably up there for one of the greatest experiences of my entire mission. Many weeks back I talked about Mario, who was the Relief Society president's daughter's boyfriend (hope you followed that). He has been coming to church every week now for the past 3 or so months. He would come with Kendra (R. S. Pres's daughter/ his girlfriend) and at first it was purely for her. Then we got to know him and got to be friends and we started talking to him a bit about God and his beliefs regarding that. He shared with us his story that he needed to cross the border at 7 years old, alone, without parents or family, 100% alone. He said it was a living nightmare, and ever since then, he asked himself if God was real, because where was He when he needed Him the most. He decided that he was not. 

We taught him about our Heavenly Father, about our Savior and how he felt everything Mario ever felt, even in his times of seemingly infinite struggle. We taught him that because God loves us, he allows us to go through things, so that may recognize his hand in an even grander way. We taught about how God never leaves his children alone.  We would teach him every week, and he said conceptually it made sense, but he still couldn't accept there was a God. He had questions, but they weren't being answered. 

During the lessons, we would invite him to read and pray. After 1.5 months of not keeping invitations, and at the same time not receiving his answers, he decided to read the Book of Mormon. If he couldn't get answers his way, he might as way try to get them some other way. He read the entire book in 2 weeks, then told us he didn't understand a thing. We then invited him to pray as well as read, and this was what was the hardest for him. Praying to someone that he didn't think was there. One night late, a few days after we left him the invitation, he called his girlfriend, Kendra, and asked her to help him pray. And so he began to pray.

 After about another month of reading the complete Book of Mormon for the 2nd time and attempting to pray and ask God if he was there, he told us he was getting nothing, every time we met. He was sure God wasn't real. We kept telling him, "If you ask in faith, with real intent, we promise God will answer your prayer".

On one day during the week, Elder Cram and I offered up a prayer of gratitude for the Savior which came as a daily prompt from Light the World. As we finished we both felt the prompting to prepare to extend baptism to Mario. We had no clue why. He still didn't even believe God existed. Regardless, we followed the Spirit and trusted in the Lord on this one! 

Just this last Thursday, we sit down in another lesson, and begin by answering some of his profound, conceptual questions. We answered and discussed, and he at one point said "I believe you, but I just can't believe there is a God yet”.  We asked him if he would be willing to leave everything behind, all sins and mistakes, all to know if there was a God. Was he at the point of Lamoni's father? He said yes.

At this point, the room went silent, Kendra left to get a drink of water, and it left him and us. The Spirit was so strong, it was almost palpable. After a couple of seconds, he began to cry. He sat there, and cried and cried for a couple minutes. He's a real tough guy too, so it was out of the ordinary. When we asked him what he was feeling, he said he didn't know. He couldn't understand it. We explained to him that the inexplicable feeling he was having was the Holy Ghost testifying to him that God is there, that He is mindful of Mario, and that He loves him. Mario agreed. He told us that from that point, he knew by the power of God, that He really did exist, and that Jesus Christ knew Mario's pain. In that moment we extended him the opportunity to leave his past behind, and follow the Savior into the waters of baptism. He accepted. He will be baptized in 2 weeks. 

The reason why this is one of my most favorite experiences is because Elder Cram and I could do pretty much nothing. We couldnt force him into believing in God. We couldn't give him cold hard proof or DNA evidence. We couldn't. Only something as divine as a witness of the Holy Ghost could do that could teach Mario that we have a loving God. We were 100% fully dependent on the Lord. All we could do was be his friend, help him with a few questions, and continue with the faith that God would answer him one day. And he did.

 I know, and can testify as a witness of this, that our Heavenly Father listens to every prayer. I know He answers if we look for the answer with real intent, and ask for wisdom. I know He loves each and every one of his children, regardless of all circumstances, he loves them all the same. I know that miracles are brought about by faith, because what happened that night was exactly that, a miracle. He loves us all and His timing, not ours, is perfect. I am so grateful for Him and love Him with all I've got.

I hope y'all enjoy your week. I love you all so much! The restored gospel is so true and it changes lives!!

Love, 

Elder Brett Hansen

Chicken Feet, Birthdays and BoMs

Hey Familia,

How are yall doing?? Hope you had a fantastic week!! We had quite the week here in good ole H2 North with Élder Cram. We really did enjoy ourselves here and saw some pretty amazing miracles. Let us begin!!

We are teaching the most awesome family! I love them, it's the Bonilla-Montoya. I KNOW I talked about them last week. This week we taught Carlos and Olga. They aren't married. As we were teaching, we invited them to marry and they accepted. It was pretty neat! Apparently for YEARS Carlos has said no to marriage, but when we extended, he accepted. They are preparing to do so now, so that Olga and her 2 kids, Johnathan and Stefanie, can be baptized! After, we had a great meal of tejadas with chicken feet. It happened to be my birthday dinner. I thought that one Chinese restaurant was the last time I would eat chicken feet, but think again! It was good! Families truly can be forever! This family shared that they have been having some family issues, but believe that the gospel will be what unites them. I know that to be true, because I have seen it in my own family.

They also came to a church activity this last Wednesday and even came to church! They LOVED it! Olga is already in with all of the Hermanas in the world and they love her. It is so awesome! Johnathan and a couple other youth really got along and now Johnathan is going to come to Mutual on Wed.. We are so excited!

My man, Cesar.  

We had a ton of meetings this week. It was really fun, because we got to see a lot of missionaries, but man was it tiring. I felt overloaded with information. But cool news, apparently a new white Handbook should be released here in about 2 weeks, so we're excited for that! Overall, a lot of time sitting down, writing notes. Haha! But we got to go back to H1 and see Patricia, Estefany, and Edith in the Bering building! They are doing so well! All are preparing to go to the temple! 

Another neat experience that happened yesterday was the Mario came to church again, who was the boyfriend of a super active member named Kendra. He and I are brothers. He is awesome, just struggling with his belief in God, he's not sure if he's there. We'll, 2 weeks ago we gave him a Book of Mormon and today we asked if he's read any of it. He said he actually only had a few pages left. 😧 Yep, he's read the whole thing in 2 weeks. He says it has answered almost all of his questions about life in its own. We have a lesson with him tonight to talk more! Send prayers our way! 

Also wanted to thank everyone for wishing me a happy bday!! It was so awesome being able to hear from yall, I'm super grateful to have the best friends and family! Thank you for taking the time to write a note or send a video! It meant a lot!! 

These guys are two of my best friends and best companions.  I love them both.  

We also met some pretty neat people this week! We met a guy last night that shared with us quite a bit about how he ended up in Juvy, how he "has the 6th sense" (hope you got that reference), and how he's a crypt (yeah, like the gang) and that was a pretty an interesting experience…

How do you like this rule for the complex?  “No sagging pants.”  😂

Also, we met the coolest 21 yr old girl named Bianca who already has 4 kids and has been married for 5 years. Yeah, the math there is crazy. Anyways, she was real interested in getting close to her Savior and we are really excited to get to teach her and her family.

Over the past couple days I've been reading about Samuel the Lamanite and his prophecy of the coming of Christ, which is perfect timing, considering Christmas is right around the corner. Anyways, as he was preaching on the wall about the coming of Christ and prophecy of a day, a night, and a day as if it was one day. There were 3 classes of people listening. The ones who immediately recognized him as a messenger of the Lord, repented, and grew in faith of the coming of the Christ. Next, those who were firing arrows at him and saw they couldn't hit them. 

Helaman 16:3 Now when they saw that they could not hit him, there were many more who did believe on his words, insomuch that they went away unto Nephi to be baptized.

Then the ones that wanted to capture and kill Samuel. I reflected on that personally. Am I one who believes the words of the prophet and his disciples on faith? Am I receptive enough to the Holy Spirit that I know truth when I hear it? I sure hope so! I know not always, and I am continually working on that. Or am I one who needs to see a miracle first? Do I need something to shake my ground to cause me to repent and change? I am so grateful for how the scriptures teach us. I know that it is the Lord teaching me on how I may better myself as a disciple of Him.

I love y'all much! I love the work! I love being a missionary. More than anything though, I love losing myself in the service of the Lord and of others!

Love y'all!

Elder Hansen

Families, Dates and MoooooCity

Hey y'all, 

How are you doing? Hope y'all have had such a great week!  Elder Loar and I have had a week for the ages and I am so pumped to tell y'all all about it!!

At the beginning of the week we had an amazing lesson with the family Calderon. I ALWAYS send pics of them. They have been taught for quite a long time, years in fact, and never had taken the step of baptism because they were worried that they had already been baptized in another church and that that was a big no no. Walter, the father, mentioned to us that he had had a dream. A dream in which it was the end of the world, every horrible thing that could happen, was happening, and Walter was not prepared. In turn, when we showed up, and he shared this experience, he said that he and his family wants to prepare themselves for baptism because they know it's true and want to be prepared to meet their Creator. We were so excited. It's a family so special! Please keep the Calderon family in your prayers!!

Next up, a MIRACLE FIND! The biggest one came from finding the Fernandez family. The father, Jose, is the long lost inactive son of an extremely active family. He left the church and his family when he was 15. No one knew he existed until Elder Hoeger and I on an exchange, stopped him at a ges station. We walk into their house and sit down and he invited his 5 children to sit down with us and his wife. He shared with us that he still knows the church is true, and showed some true humility. He said he knows he needs to come back to church and shared he's been carrying the load of leaving the church for 16 years and he's ready to let it go. All we talked about was Christ and how he is the center of everything and showed a great video on Jesus's sacrifice for us. We then talked about whatever we do here is because we love him and want to show him we want to follow him. I felt the Spirit so strong, because as I was testifying, I could feel it grow my testimony. Everything that I do here is for Him, because of Him, and because I love Him.  I felt my love for the Savior and his infinite sacrifice grow even more. They are being prepared to return to church and grow in the gospel even more.

The crowning jewel of it all was yesterday. My goodness, probably the greatest day of my mission. Not just because I got to go back to MoCity, but because I got to see an family make steps towards being an eternal family. Yesterday I got to go back and see Franchesca get baptized, who was the daughter of Gabriela (who we helped enter the waters of baptism back in February). This family has always had such a special spot in my heart, and I am so grateful to be able to see them take steps even closer to our kind Heavenly Father. Franchesca is one of the most I intelligent, loving kids ever, and it was so exciting to be able to see her so excited to be able to follow her mom and be baptized yesterday. What a blessing.

Here is an awesome man we get to work with.  Hermano Bonet.  

I have been reading in the book if Alma recently, in the Book of Mormon, and the story of Ammon in Chapter 17 stood out so much. Here the Lamanite enemies scatter the flocks of the sheep, and then the servants of the King weep because they fear the King will kill them because of such. Well as Ammon sees so, he tells them "Be of good cheer"... Wow... telling a group of weeping grown men who are positive they are going to be killed to be of good cheer doesn't sound like the most natural thing to say, doesn't it? Ammon does so anyway and then invites them to come with him and gather up the flock. 1. Be of Good Cheer. 2. Go to work! Those two commandments are pretty powerful. The final.command that Ammon gives is 3. "Encircle the flock". I feel as if the command is often forgotten. We must encircle the flock. Applying it to our lives. We are always trying to bring in the lost ones of the flock, and at times, we are the lost ones. However, after we are brought in, the importance of "encircling the flock" is so pertinent to keeping us in the flock, to keep us safe. We must encircle ourselves with the things of the Lord, through scripture study, prayer, coming to church, spending time as a family. Wholesome activities that keep us safe from the outer dangers of the enemy. I know as we do so, we will he protected, just as Ammon explained. 

Great group of missionaries I get to work with. 

It has been a pretty amazing week. I love all of y'all much! Thank you for being the greatest!! 

Elder Brett Hansen

Floods, Birthdays and Transfers

Helloooo greatest family ever!! 

How are y'all doing?? Hope y'all have had an amazing week, and I hope it wasn't quite as eventful as ours out here in Houston haha!

First off, can you read what is written in sharpie on the mailboxes?  haha  “Ghetto" My home.  😂

I'm sure the entire United States knew, but we got hit by Tropical Storm Imelda out here in Houston, and got hit pretty bad. There have been some fatalities, and so many people have lost their homes. It has been so sad to see. We were not expecting this. It began on Thursday. As we went with Elders Handy and Hoeger to do some service, the rain started coming down. In the morning at 10AM it looked as if it were 7pm at night. It was so odd, very dark and ominous clouds above us. We left and the rain never stopped. We received a text from President Guthrie telling us to leave wherever we were and to stay inside the rest of the day, the storm was coming, and it was mad. So we left, and as we headed up our road, the water was too high. This is only in 2 hours of rain, at 12 o'clock. A foot and a half of water just like that. So, we turned around and Elder Loar and I had to spend the rest of the day and night inside the other Elders' apartment. 

Here’s what the skies looked like about an hour before the storm hit. 

Us out proselyting the day before.  This wasn’t even the big storm!

It was sad.  You saw a bunch of abandoned cars.  Here’s one of them.  We helped one man move his car. The water just filled it up. 

Flooded streets. 

OK. This is crazy.  This lake/pond behind me  you usually see a bridge and lots more grass.  At this point the water was 4 feet higher than normal. 

Luckily, our mission wasn't hit as bad as others. Here there were many who had flooding into their apartments, but it wasn't destructive. In the other Houston missions, we have heard it was pretty horrific. Apparently it was the 7 wettest tropical storm in the history of the US. Pretty wild. The storm ended at like 7pm, but at that point, you still couldn't leave because of the flooding, so we stayed the night and left in the morning.

We had many lessons cancel this week, however, we did have the chance to have Rodrigo come to church, he is starting to be a regular, so that is quite exciting! We also have an AMAZING referral set up for tonight that I am so pumped for. There is a great family in H2 called the Baten, and their daughter is dating a nonmember. He came to church today, and he has come a few times before. His name is Mario, and he's 18. We struck up a conversation and we got along really well.  They are so cool. The dad invited us over to teach him a lesson.  Funny, when we asked about what he wanted us to teach on he said "Law of chastity and word of wisdom". Sounds like a pretty awesome father trying to protect his daughter, and he's right! The gospel truly provides protection. 

To add onto the week, it was awesome companion Elder Loar's birthday! We celebrated by teaching repentance and preparing people for baptism! To end the day we ended at the golden restaurant, Cici's Pizza. It was perfect, because we got to contact an investigator there! She works there! It was great! 

I also had a crazy experience. We were walking out of a gas station, and there was a man who greeted us, and you could tell he recognized we were missionaries. Come to find out he is a way less active member, José. But his family is in our ward and they are one of the most active families there are we did not know there was a rogue brother of the family. He started sharing about how he has made a lot of mistakes, and how he hasn't talked to his family in years, but he's been thinking about making everything right. He told us he knows the church is true and that he knows he needs to come back. So he invited Elder Loar and me over this Tuesday to teach his entire non member family of 7. So my new transfer goal is to reunite the Fernández family. Such an amazing experience. I am so grateful that the Spirit told me to open my mouth and talk. 

Bonus!! Transfer news came out, and Elder Loar and I are staying together again for another 6 weeks. We are super excited, we know it will be another transfer FULL of miracles. 

I also got the chance to watch the President Nelson devotional at BYU. Wow, how awesome is he? He shared so much that stood out. Truth is truth and laws are laws. I love that the Lord will do anything in his power to help us CHOOSE to come back to him, as long as it doesn't break 2 universal laws, our liberal agency and His commandments that He has established. He can't bend laws for one person nor can he force anyone to do anything. But he will do all he can do to bring sheep back to his fold, as long as it coincides with those two things. 

General conference is only in 2 weeks!! I am so excited and I have felt such joy being able to listen to the words of the modern day prophets that we have. I know they are called of God. I am so excited to be able to really just soak it all in. Hope we all prepare to recieve the personal revelation we all need! 

Love y'all muchísimo! Hope y'all have an amazing week! Thank you for being the best family ever! 

Elder Brett Hansen

The Bronx, Pro Boxers and Family Complete

Holaaaa a todos!! 

How are y'all!! Sounds like this week was a pretty exciting week! So neat to hear that the team from Curaçao made it so far in the Little League World Series. It was weird, I remember being told what was happening in the LLWS last year out here in the field. Crazy how time just flies! I wish it would just slow down a bit.

Here is “the pana” (dude) Rafael.  V is for Venezuela.

This week was a MIRACLE week. Elder Loar and I saw so many miracles it was ridiculous! I thought the first week was incredible, this week was insane. We saw the hand of the Lord so prominently, in so many different aspects this week. He was so kind to us and he truly did bless us. Every single day it seemed like there was something, but I will just go over the biggest highlights!

Here are the great missionaries I serve with in H2. 

One day we were biking down a road back to the apartment to study, and we hear this man flag us down "Hey, I have a question for you". Usually when this happens, it doesn't turn out well, but we turned around and pulled up to his car, because he pulled over to flag us down. We get close, and he asks, "Does church still start at 11". Elder Loar and I were in shock. "No it starts at 9" we said, then we asked his name. His name was Rodrigo. When we heard his name, we were shocked. He was the famous Rodrigo. The one person in our entire area book who had been taught Everything, but was not yet a member for some reason and stopped seeing the missionaries. He was so cool, he mentioned he is a boxer who is actually turning pro here real soon. Coolest guy ever. He told us that his family was kind of against the church and his ex-girlfriend, but he felt like it was time for him to come back to church and act upon the gospel. We passed by his house 3 days beforehand, and apparently his parents saw us, and called him. And ever since, he had been looking for the missionaries on the street again. It was an incredible 15 minute exchange that was divinely constructed by the Lord. There are no coincidences when you are on God's errand.

Follow Elder Loar’s finger. haha  Can you see the cops?  Regular thing for us.  

Yep.  We witnessed an arrest.  Just another day her in H2 area. 😁

One of the biggest miracles of them all came from our friend Omar. Wednesday we were walking back to our bikes after a lesson that we had and we were walking along side this man, I started talking to him and all the sudden he got super excited! He introduced himself as Omar, and told us that he had only been here in Houston a month. He said that he grew up in Honduras for most his youth, then for about 20 years he spent it in the Bronx. He told us that when he was 14 years old, he was about to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints out there in Honduras, but 2 weeks before his date came, he had to move to the US. In the Bronx he never saw missionaries, and we were the first ones he saw since Honduras. We asked if he would like to make that same covenant he was going to make years ago here, and to come to church and do all such things, and he said he would love to. We taught him once outside and at the end, he gave us the biggest hug, thanking us for coming and giving him the message of the restored gospel. 

The next time, yesterday, we had a lesson, we show up, because he was supposed to come to church and didn't end up coming, and we see him outside helping a homeless man, giving him some water. Doing his best to help him out. We show up and it starts down pouring, the man had to leave, and Omar invited us inside his apartment, as we walked in, we were shocked. There was nothing. Nothing more than 3 kitchen chairs. No table, no nothing. He invited us to sit down. We started talking and it became evident, the Spirit made it crystal clear, that this man was the most humble man ever, but still one of the happiest men I have ever met. I asked him what made him happy and he said "I always have a prayer in my heart, and with God, he always gives me enough". We asked what kept him from coming to church today, and he said he had to take his wife to the hospital at 2 AM because she had an emergency with the pregnancy she has. Omar is worried, but he said that he knows that God will be his support through all this. It became evident to me, and the Spirit was telling me that this man had been prepared for quite some time. We promised him Heavenly blessing for keeping the commandments of God, and invited him to be baptized and he accepted, and then once again, gave us the biggest hug. 

He taught me so much about what truly is true joy and happiness. It is the gospel. It is trusting in God. It is knowing that he will give us strength to get through trials. It is not found in material things, it is found in our families, both here on earth and in the heavens above. As we focus on the family and serve others, we recieve pure joy. Omar helped me realized truly what is true, pure joy.

Yesterday I had the chance to go back to MoCity and Baptize a 9 yr old girl of a part member family that I taught my entire time there! It was so neat that I could do that for Emily and the Guzman Bolaños family!! They were so amazing! Families really are eternal, and we were one more step closer to making that family an eternal family after being so inactive for so long. What a blessing. It was also amazing to see all the members again. Got to see Gaby and Rafael too. It was as if I truly was going back to my home. I love MoCity!! 

Caught in a downpour - again. 

Lunch today. 

There was a scripture in my study that I loved this week. It was in 1 Nephi when Nephi was building the boat to bring his family across the ocean. Laman and Lemuel are complaining once again, but are helping Nephi build nonetheless. It says in 1Nephi 18:

2 Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.

   3 And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.

   4 And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine; wherefore, they did humble themselves again before the Lord.

I imagine Nephi and his brothers were probably quite confused when the got the plans from the Lord on how to construct the ship. They said it was of "curious workmanship" a few verses back, and it was not made after the "manner of men". They were probably worried because they werent used to building a ship in such a way, and couldn't see the whole picture. However, they were building the ship by direction the Lord gave them, and through much prayer (v. 3), faith and ACTION, the come to see once it is finished that the boat was exceedingly fine, and it turned out great, because it was directed by the Lord. Made me think.. "How are we constructing out boats?" our families, personal lives, etc. Are we constructing them in a curious way not after the workmanship of man, or in the way of the Lord. The promise we recieve is if we are directed in our lives by the Lord, though at times it may appear strange, in the long run, we will see that the workmanship will be "exceedingly fine".

Love y'all mucho! Sorry for the long email, it was just an amazing week of growth and miracles. Hope y'all could feel the spirit of missionary work. There is no better work out there, we see the Lord's hand every day!! Hope y'all have an amazing week!!

Elder Brett Hansen

Families, Bikes and Old Friends

Hey y'all!! 

Sounds like everything is going well!! How exciting to hear that school is starting up. That summer feels like it flew on by. Over here, I think this last week was the fastest week of the mission. My entire mission. We were just running, working so hard, and just finding and teaching like crazy.  To kick off the week, we learned a little Swahili! 

Just when I get out, the city pulled me right back in.  Our area is quite small, which is perfect for being in a Bike area. Truly, we are living in little Mexico. It is all Spanish all the time, which is SOOO nice. That's a huge change from MoCity, which is about half and half. Here, it is full Spanish, and I love it, it is way more fun, way more prepared people, and wow did we see miracles this week. 

We ran into a member of H1who saw us on the road and pulled over to say hi.  Hermana Abarca is awesome!

We are working right next to Third Ward which is a famous area in the mission. In this entire week I have felt as if I was sent right on back to H1. I recognized a ton of people. It was really neat! Back in H1 people would go play soccer some nights at the Bering building, who were from H2, so I would talk to them there.  In fact, Obispo Ortiz, the bishop we have in our ward actually remembers my name (without looking at my plaque).

My new companion is Elder Loar and he's from good ole Gilbert, Arizona. We worked together back in H1 for a transfer, and now they put us together. He is AWESOME! He has good Spanish, good connections with the ward, and we get along SUPER well, which makes me excited for this transfer.

We saw a huge miracle in this family that we just started teaching, the Calderón family. WOW. This family is so prepared, they already have testimonies about everything and shared with us their testimonies of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyways, we invited them to church, and they said they would come, and they did... ALL 7 OF THEM!! They are the coolest family ever and I feel so amazingly blessed to have the opportunity to teach them.

On the way to their lessons this storm was looming above us.  We were on bikes and couldn’t get out of the way.  It destroyed us.  

Raindrops the size of golf balls just before we got to the Calderon family’s home.  

I actually have never taught this many families in my entire mission. We are teaching 4 different families, and all are incredible!! Just the kindest people, willing to do so much for their Savior, even if they don't have much. I'm truly humbled by the circumstances they find themselves in, and where their heart lays. They are truly disciples of Christ.

Back in the complexes where we spend a lot of our time. 

There’s wall art like this everywhere in our area. 

This was reassuring. Trying to steer away robbers!

I had a great study this past week, and it was mainly focused on the power of prayer. There is an incredible talk by President Nelson in April 2003 titled, "Sweet Power of Prayer" in which he describes truly what role prayer should be in our lives. It is there so that we align ourselves more with the Father and what he desires of us. At times we forget, His desire is to try us, to strengthen us, and help us achieve our full potential. In doing so, sometimes the answer to our "hail mary" prayers is going to be "no". He is there to help us grow, and as we learn that he is there to help us achieve full potential, and not take us out of potential problems, our will lines up with that of the Father.

I love the scripture Jacob 4:10 which reads "10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.". As we learn to take counsel from the Lord, and not to counsel him, we will live a successful life in the sight of our great Father. He will direct our paths, and we will recieve joy not only in this life from living the gospel, but after this life as well.

Love y'all mucho! Excited to be here on the mission as a servant of the Lord. There is no better work than being a missionary!! I am so blessed to be able to call myself an official representative of the Lord, who wears His name on my chest every day. Make sure we all have His name written on our hearts! 

Keep on keeping on y'all!

Elder Hansen

Elder Bednar/Astros Recap, Finding and MIRACLES

Hey y'all, what a week. Let me tell you, it feels like a looooong time since a Pday like this. Like I mean a really long time. I can't really remember the last one.  It has been quite a past week and it has been chock full of amazing experiences, so buckle up, we're about to go for a wild ride.

MONDAY: Elder Bednar came and spake to us, and it was amazing. He had a huge question and answer for 3 hours straight. President Guthrie invited us all to come in with a question to be answered. My personal question was how and what does an apostle do when he is finding the greatest growth in his testimony? Reason behind this question is if you can find out what an Apostle does to deepen his conversion to the Savior, if you do something similar, you are putting yourself in good company. However, I didn't even have to ask the question. Elder Bednar answered it on his own saying that his personal conversion grows the most as he does the small and simple things correctly and with intent.

I learned so much more. He talked a lot about faith and how people say they have "faith to move a mountain". Elder Bednar then straight up said "No you don't. The mountain will move if the Lord wants it to move. Not if you want it to move. True faith comes through your own personal action, and then trusting that what takes place is the Lord's will, and truly believing that it is what he wants.

He also talked about repentance and maintaining a remission of sins. I always thought that as we took the sacrament, we obtain a remission of our sins as we partake of the bread and water. Elder Bednar said that is not true. The sacrament is there for us to show to our Father that we are willing to keep the covenant we made with him at baptism, the remission of sins starts the come the moment we begin the repentance process. As we do so, the Holy Ghost comes into our life. That is the key. How do we know we maintain a remission of our sins? We have the company of the Holy Ghost.

So yeah, mind blown with Elder Bednar. After, we hopped on a bus and headed to MinuteMaid Park. We went in, got to walk around, and saw some old friends, including my trainer, Elder Ledezma, I mean, Isaac (because he finished his mission). We then got to sing (or mouth the words for some of us) on the field. There is just a feeling on an MLB field you can't deny. That was the  3rd park that I’ve been on the field, and it just feels so good.  (A’s and Giants field too!) The sights and smells were so good to see and smell again. My love of the game was renewed once more. It was one of the greatest days of my mission. 

Here we are heading in.

First ones to get behind the dish.

Getting ready to go out and sing!

What a view!

Me and one of my favorite comps, Elder Handy.  So good to see him again. 

Me, Elder Jewkes, 3 ex hermanas and Isaac ( Elder Ledezma).

TUESDAY: Exchange day. I was with Elder Buchanan. We actually got to find 2 new people to teach and one was a part member family. It was a returning less active family. The daughter, Emily, we put on date for BAPTISM the last day of the transfer. So SUPER exciting!!

WEDNESDAY: District council day. We had a blast together. I love this district, we haven't been really changed in like 4 months, so we have gotten to know each other really well.

THURSDAY: OK, FANTASTIC day, biggest highlight was at night. We had a lesson with David again. First thing out of his mouth was that he wanted to come to church. That was great, so we of course said yes. Afterwhich, we asked about what he learned from his reading, and he recited pretty much exactly what happened with Joseph Smith and Angel Moroni and the gold plates. He has such a great testimony of the Book of Mormon and restoration and it is growing just like a seed.

FRIDAY: I went with Elder Tai, one of my good friends here in the mission. He is a 6'8" O-Lineman who is going to go to BYU. We actually found 3 people in that day, so THAT was pretty miraculous. Fun day.

SATURDAY: Had an interview with President Guthrie, and that was pretty great. I love sitting down and talking to him. We had a great discussion. It was so nice.

SUNDAY: David came to church as well as a bunch of other people we were teaching. Javier came to church wearing a white shirt and Rafael with a blue dress shirt. It was FANTASTIC. It was so cool seeing the inward change affect themselves outwardly. It was so neat to see. 

Santi here got baptized.  We taught him all the lessons at the request of his parents.  He is a part of a great family. 

Me and a Jesus mural on the side of an abandoned trailer. 

Zoom in!  Big Baller Brand is now making wheels?

I know the church is true, the book is blue, and I love this gospel through and through. Hope y'all have a good week, as good as we had this past week. The Lord is raining his blessings on MoCity West and 5th street!

Love y'all mucho!!

Elder Brett Hansen