Alice in Wonderland, Rockstar Lair, and MIRACLES

Buenos días mi familia y amigos que son tan cercitos a mi corazón.  😂

Love you alllll, sounds like y'all have had a good week! With Stake Conference, I'm sure there was revelation that touched many of y'all's hearts. I love Stake Conference and am excited to have it the week after General Conference. Also heard that Ben got to speak!! That is pretty cool, thats a lot of people in one room! I'm sure he killed it, he's BEN HANSEN!

This week was a good week. Wow did we see the hand of the Lord. We saw the opportunity to bless the lives of our members and to see miracles in those that we teach and in finding. I thought I had a good solid testimony on the timing of the Lord before I left due to all the school issues, and how everything works out in his time and not ours. I WAS WRONG! I have grown leaps and bounds in seeing the hand of the Lord. How it all works in his time.

We had many cancelled lessons, and I don't think I've ever been this happy that they cancelled. Honestly, I probably should be pretty bummed haha. This one day in specific, we had 3 lined up back to back to back. All of them dropped. So we decided to head to an area and we knew we were there for a reason. We met a wonderful family.  When testimonies of the Savior's atonement came, that's when the tears came for Ana. It was a great experience.

 Also another day, we had 2 lessons dropped and we went to go see a member who's been going through a tough time. We left a short message and then Elder Christopherson prayed. As he prayed tears flowed for this family and this Sunday they came up and thanked him specifically, it was great. They said that they could feel the Spirit so strongly, quite honestly, I could too. It was such a beautiful experience. 

There have been other miracles, and that was my goal this week, was to see miracles. I wanted to see the hand of the Lord. I knew if we do that, we will be more joyful! 2 Nephi 2:25 “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have JOY!“ I for sure saw myself feeling a bit more joyful. Miracles are out there. They are. No doubt. You just need to look for them. I promise you as you look for them, and acknowledge our Lord's hand in making it happen, we will be blessed and we will live a joyful life. 

Our ward did an eating calendar for the missionaries for the weekends and then during the week they are bringing their friends that are less active and nonmember. WE GOT FILLED UP. I was so happy that lots of members want us over!

Anyways, you're probably thinking, "OK, I see miracles in the subject title, but what about the other stuff?" Please allow me to explain. 😊

Well we have a goal to connect with as many people as possible in a variety of ways. It is an incredible blessing and it's super fun to look for ways to connect. Anyway this one guy was getting in his car, and I went to try to talk to him. And I quoted the Cheshire Cat from when Alice was trying to choose what road to take. He got the reference, then I tried telling him it's important to choose the right road, even better, the road of Christ! I thought that was a quality analogy there, but he didnt think the same, hopped in the car after that, and left. 😂😂 Probably one of the most random conversations I have ever had.

Last part about the Rockstar. Well I was on exchanges with Elder Ledezma in his area and we knocked a door, and Frank answered, he was a 25 yr old kid with LONG hair on one side and short on the other. Half Salvadoran. We started telling him what we do and how we try to help people get closer to their Savior. He invited us into his room, and whenever that happens, we're like "YES! SWEET!" Well, when we walked in to his studio, we see all these instruments, and look up and see candle holders from like a lair and ALL these posters of heavy metal bands that aren't exactly the same as Coldplay and Imagine Dragons haha. Scared me to death. I wanted to bolt but little did I know, Elder Ledezma used to be way into Heavy Metal like that when he was a teenager. Great. So I was sitting in the rockers lair for a while as we tried to teach about the happy message of the gospel, he wasn't interested. He was a very practicing Buddhist. 

I snuck these pictures.  

Also quick question, we met the family of Ken Banister (The Animal) who played in the NBA for a while. We have any big time fans out there?

I love you all and hope you all see the hand of the Lord, as he works miracles for you daily!  Love you so much!!!

Elder Hansen 

Brett

Facebook, Zone Conference and BERNIE'S

Holaaaaaaa familiaaaaaa!

What's up, how are you all doing? Hopefully just swimmingly, I love you all. Sounds like this week was...eventful. I'm going to NEED some more information from my family when I call them. Holy cow, my interest is PEAKED. It's like they gave me just enough bait to be dying to ask them haha. Well sounds like Brik is killing it in Arizona and that Ben had an interesting birthday. Crazy to hear my cousin Sav got married. I met the guy she married once, and I can say, from meeting him one time, I totally approve. Seemed worthy of her awesomeness, Savanah Longson.

Well, that's another week in the book folks. I'll be completely honest, this week has been quite the week. I loved Zone Conference. I also love getting to see some of my friends from other areas.  I can feel the goodness in the room.  We had the chance to do a service project with the English sisters.  It was fun and we planted a TON of trees!

Miracles for this week, I don't know if I could put my finger on one extremely prominent life changing moment where I totally had my mind blown by Lord coming in with his hand and just fixing something, or saving us from a situation, or anything along those lines. However, I do feel like it was made up of a bunch little tiny miracles daily. I mean, that's what this mission is, right? Changing daily to transform you into a stronger disciple of Christ, with a testimony that  stands strong, built upon the rock, and is still growing. By that saying, discipleship never ends. I live by that 1% motto. That is something I'm going to work on, seeing the miracles, and recognizing the little ones.

The basic highlights for the week. Well, Elder Christopherson and I have been praying in every prayer for a referral of someone who is prepared for the gospel. We have been blessed to have been teaching a lot.  Daily miracles. If you have righteous desires and intentions, the Lord will bless you IN HIS TIME. Sometimes we mix up his time for our time and that's where we go wrong.

We have been trying to come up with creative ways to use Facebook and Messenger. Its a tool that we have been blessed with to forward the work here and even try to help out a little back home. Honestly if anyone has any ideas, questions, or anything, shoot me an email and I'd be pumped to get back to you on Pday.

Also, we had BERNIES BURGER BUS. A place has been under construction forever and finally opened up. Holy cow, turned out to be like a 10 dollar burger, so a little more expensive but wow... Worth every penny. Best milkshake I have ever had. If there's one near you, you are blessed. Cookie Butter milkshake will change your life. 

Well I hope y'all know I love ya! The Church is true and the Book is blue. I love reading the Book of Mormon. I never feel more love than I do when reading it. I KNOW it is the word of God. It's undeniable. If you read the entire Book of Mormon. You will know, and discover so many truths. I hope we can all be converted unto the Lord. 

Omni 1:26

26 And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.

Keep on holding tight to the rod. It's tough sometimes, I know, but hey, it's OK!!! The prize at the end is worth more than anything we may have here on earth. Exaltation isn't cheap. This life is called a test, and sometimes, some questions are tough. But if we keep holding to the rod, we will be supported. I can promise that because I've seen and felt it.

Love y'all!

Elder Hansen

Brett

Ukes, Pupusas, and I CROSSED THE BORDER (Bayou)

Buenos días a todos!! 

Como estamos esta bonita mañana??

So we've got another week in the books. And have we seen miracles? Oh yeah, we've seen miracles. Gratefully, myself and Elder Christopherson have seen an increase in success over the past 2 weeks. Kind of though the first week was a fluke, but nope, we ended up finding 6 new people to teach, and have people coming to church for the 2nd week in a row.  It's all about the miracles.

Well, first off, I don't know if I mentioned this but Elder Christopherson is a great ukelele player. Like really really good. And it is so interesting because when he starts singing, his stutter goes away. So we decided, that we are going to sing a hymn to some people we teach. We teach this less active named Maricel who is taking care of her mom who is suffering from Parkinson's. She is a very kind lady and always wants to feed us. We always love teaching, but we totally tried something different this time. We sang "Soy un Hijo de Dios” (I am a Child of God)  and testified of how the power of the living God was restored to the earth because a son asked his Father a question.  It is all about families and progressing together. The Spirit was so strong. It really was such a blessing. 

It was so great we decided to do it with Gabriela and Rafael. Same response. I know I'm not musically inclined at all, have a horrible ear, and when I sing, birds fall from the sky, however, hymns are like prayers. They invite the Spirit in, and the message's truth can be testified by the power of the Holy Ghost. Very special. Now Franchesca wants to learn to play the ukulele!

Here’s a couple shots of our apartment.  

We ate pupusas with the Campos family.  We also had arepas colombianas, a soup with a sugarcane drink that was SO good!

We had a knocking miracle this week. I have sent a few pictures of me by the bayou. Across the bayou there are trailers. Well the other day we decided to cross the bayou. We went walking through some mud and muck to get to the other side, and when we did, we found this dog. It came up to us, sniffed us. Then took off running, then stopped. We followed, it took off running, then stopped. We followed. It took off again and this time stopped in front of a house. We walk to the house and there was a pass a long card of ours taped to the door. We knock and this sweet older couple open up. Josefina and Javier from Monterrey, México. Me caen bien los regios! The most humble people, that have the most sincere desires to get close to God. Such an incredible blessing. I believe that we were guided to that house to knock that door. 

We had a solid week. We are seeing the Lord extend his hand and bless us. We got to listen to Elder Pieper the other day and he asked what was the most prominent commandment and promise repeated in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. It is "Keep my commandments and ye shall prosper in the land". It's as simple as that. The mutual theme is "If you love me, keep my commandments". So let's do it. Let's show our love for him by keeping his commandments. I have seen the blessings that he's just waiting to give. He wants to bless us. We are his children so why not? 

I love you all. Hope you have an AMAZING week full of miracles. Vayan con Dios y sigan con fe y esperanza!

Elder Hansen

Brett

Conferences, Pupusas and TALKIN BOUT PRACTICE!

Hey y'all! 

Hope y'all had a good week and saw the hand of the Lord in your daily life. I know I did. Wow did I get a full helping of the Spirit this week, and I am so grateful that I did. This week was definitely a not normal week full of conferences. But that's GREAT! We were counseled so well on how to get better and bless the mission.

So before we get started, New Transfer this past week, and I am staying and received a new companion Elder Christopherson. He's from Fresno, CA and has been out for just a little over a year. Short bio: He comes from a family of 10 Kids, loves the ukulele and is really good at playing hymns on it, is probably one of the happiest persons you will ever meet. Ever. He also has a little bit of a stutter, so when he speaks, he doesn't speak a ton of words, because he struggles a little, but when he does, oh my goodness, the Spirit comes into the room so rapid, it is AMAZING. I couldn't have asked for a better companion. He is so filled with the Spirit and is so close to the Savior that we have a great time teaching together and just being together, sight and sound 24/7.

So what happened this week is... A LOT. We had 3 conferences with Elder Robbins, who is the Area Seventy here. He talked a lot about families, and how the mission, if treated the right way, prepares you for life. He talked about being 100% responsible. He challenged us to always be 100% responsible, no matter what happens, no matter the outside factors, we are responsible for what happens to us, no excuses. He gave a great talk on that and I invite y'all to read it. You can find it on BYU Talks. It is amazing.

One thing that he talked about that I am putting into practice is a To-Be list. Us as humans are great box-checkers. When our To-Do list is done for the day, it releases endorphins that give us that sense of accomplishment. We'll that is working through goals without a vision. He invited us to make a To-Be list, and then make a To-Do list to achieve the To-Be list. Like for me right now, my To-Be goal is to try to have the perfect love of Christ, Charity. That is impossible for me to accomplish, I will never have the perfect love of Christ. BUT, I can better myself to BE more charitable. So I created a To-Do list if things that I can do daily to try to help achieve my To-Be goal, such as little acts of service, being considerate toward certain aspects, just trying to better myself. I love the saying, and I can't remember who said it, but he said "God is easy to please, but impossible to satisfy." So, my goal, is to continually try to please God.

This is actually one of my favorites.  I’m sure it’s one of Mom’s too! haha  (Inside joke from years ago!)

President Guthrie said, “We’re talking about practice!” during the conference.  I am pretty sure I was the only one in the entire mission who got the reference.  He was saying we need to practice opening our mouths and making connections with people.  He thought it was so funny, I did too.  No one else got it in the whole mission.  😂

So we had 3 conferences this week like that. It was fun, I got to see a lot of the missionaries I haven't seen in a while. Elder Parks was one I havent seen in a while, I missed him. You sit next to a guy on an airplane for 3 hours and you become pretty much best friends, who knew. The whole Houston district got broken up last transfer apparently, so they were all sad. Elder Hale came down here to my zone though! 

We had pupusas at the Parada house, so that was AWESOME! With Gustavo and Lorena too. Found out some news that Gustavo doesn't want to be baptized unless he does it with Lorena and so we asked her about it, and she has ZERO desire right now. She needs lots of prayers, because Gustavo is so ready.  Rafael is progressing slowly but surely. He will get there eventually. 

The biggest breakthrough we had was with Omar, he is now going to go LOOK FOR A RING TO MARRY KARLA!! He had a miracle and feels that he got the answer to his prayer, and bore testimony on the truth of God and the power of the Book of Mormon. That was so exciting!!

Anyways, Elder Christopherson got attacked by the neighborhood dogs the other day. I'd like to say I ran in to save him, but I'd be lying. We took off running. We do have a few tricks up our sleeve to scare them away, but it doesn’t always work.  

I think that's all that's been going on this week. I hope you all have a great week. Please send prayers our way as missionaries, we feel them. I have been touched this week by the simplicity of how God works. "If ye keep my commandments, ye will prosper in the land". I would just invite each of you to look for ways to better keep his commandments. He wants to bless you. He loves you. He cares for you. He is our loving Heavenly Father. Please come unto him. Read the Book of Mormon, give it a shot, it will change your life as it has mine.

Have a great week!

Elder Hansen

Brett