"He (God) has created numberless cosmos and populated them with worlds, yet you and I can talk with Him personally, and He will ever answer." - Elder Richard G. Scott.
We can speak with God. He is the supreme governor of the universe. His power, knowledge, glory, and love is eternal. We desperately need Him. As insignificant and unprofitable as we are, we can communicate with our Heavenly Father. We are blessed with the supernal gift of prayer. Use it. I promise you that He will answer.
"He (God) has created numberless cosmos and populated them with worlds, yet you and I can talk with Him personally, and He will ever answer." - Elder Richard G. Scott.
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Goodness, I can hardly even remember what happened this past week, it went by so quickly. This transfer is 7 weeks long, and we're almost over - two weeks remaining. I hit my 7 month mark on Sunday - I didn't realize it until about halfway through sacrament meeting. Time is just zipping by now.
On Saturday, we had a mission-wide conference. President and Sister Riggs, and Elder S. Gifford Nielson of the Quorum of the 70 instructed us. It was a 4 1/2 hr. long spiritual feast! Our goal for this year is to achieve 756 baptisms. The mission conference was pretty much a pep rally to get us excited to hit the streets. It sure did work for me - when we went back to our area, I was filled with more love for the people around me than I ever had in my entire life. I feel like that was the first time I have really felt pure charity for everyone around me. The amazing thing is, I wasn't afraid at all to talk to everyone. The scripture in Moroni8:16: "for perfect love casteth out all fear," became real to me. As a result, Elder Grow and I found 2 really promising investigators. We were on exchanges with a member one freezing cold night, and the lesson we had planned with Kabar didn't happen. So we walked to a different apartment building to check up on a potential investigator. Along the way, we stopped and spoke with someone. His name is Jacinto, and he's from Equitorial Guinea. Apparently, they speak Spanish there. Lucky for us, the member that came out with us that night spoke Spanish. He helped him understand what we were telling him, and Jacinto walked away with a copy of the Book of Mormon. We went to our potential investigators home, she let us in, and we were blessed to give her a Book of Mormon, too. She is from Equitorial Guinea as well, and the member was able to help her understandwhat we taught. It was a great night! We had another amazing experience with one of our newer investigators, Ernst. We hadn't seen him for a long time, and we were really happy to have an opportunity to teach him again. He had been reading from the Book of Mormon, and he said he knew it was true. I asked him, "Do you believe Joseph Smith is a prophet?" He said "Yes, yes, I do!" "Do you believe he restored Christ's church to the earth?" "Yes, of course!" "Well heck, will you be baptized on March 1st?" "Yes, I will!" It was such an awesome experience. It literally came out of nowhere - it had been so long since we had seen Ernest, and he wasn't progressing since we had last seen him. We read with him 2 Nephi 31, and told him about the sacred covenant he will make with Heavenly Father, and the blessings that come from it. He was so anxious to come to church with us on Sunday, but unfortunately he had to work. I've been working on recognizing and acting on the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Sunday night, Elder Grow and I were walking to an investigator's house through a neighborhood, when i felt like we should try knocking a few doors in an apartment complex to the right of us. I took a leap of faith. We knocked about 6 doors in when we met Eva. She is baptist, but all of her kids are Mormons. She was happy to talk to us, she said we were an answer to her prayers - she was so certain that God had lead us there, that she wanted us to come back and teach her with her son. It was such an amazing miracle! I'm finally starting to learn a llittle bit of what it's like to be prompted by the Holy Ghost. Thank you all for your support, prayers, love and letters. Love you! Elder Hansen This week went by so quickly! We found some really cool people to begin teaching this week.
Elder Grow and I, on our first day in Alexandria together, we met this group of college-aged kids late one night at a bus stop. We made pretty good friends, and we tried to teach them the gospel, but they were in a rush. We gave them our phone number. A few weeks later, we run into a couple of them again. They had lost our cards, so they were happy to see us! We talked to them for a bit, got their addresses and phone numbers, and gave each of them a Restoration pamphlet. The next day, we were walking around this place called Quantrell Avenue, and we see them sitting outside their apartment building. We said hello, and taught them the Restoration. It was a powerful lesson - they had never heard of Joseph Smith before, and they wanted to learn more about him. They both accepted the invitation to be baptized! One of them, Tony, was really curious about the church. Before we taught him, he searched on google and wikipedia about Mormons. Uh-oh. He had some interesting questions. It was cool to look back on that whole experience and see that God placed them in our path many, many times. There's obviously a reason for it - they're prepared for the gospel. We're been praying really hard for God to place prepared people in our path, and we promise that we will talk to everyone. If we show God that we're willing to talk to everyone, and act on the opportunities God gives us, He's going to give us more and more people to teach. We found this one man five days ago who had been taught by missionaries in California. he said that we could go over to his house to teach him again. We left with him a Restoration pamphlet and scheduled an appointment for the next day. When we went over there to teach him, he had actually read through the entire pamphlet. Miracle! When we finished teaching him the Restoration, we left with him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and a copy of the Book of Mormon. We went back the next day, and he had read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and parts from the Book of Mormon. Whoa! We went through the Plan of Salvation and gave him a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. We went back the next day, and he had read through that pamphlet, too. I have never seen that in any of the people I've taught before. He shows a lot of real intent. Right now, he just needs help understanding why we need the Book of Mormon, and receiving an answer that it's true. He took us to lunch, too. He's originally from Ethiopia, so he took us to an authentic Ethiopian restaurant. It was weird - Elder Grow and I stood out like a couple of twinkies in a Maverik (unless twinkies are back... I don't remember.) Anyway, we drew a lot of attention when we went inside. Ethiopian food is actually pretty good. It's pretty spicy. They give you a massive plate piled with meats and vegetables and mystery sauces. They don't give you any silverware, they give you some weird bread stuff. It's really thin and spongy. You're supposed to tear off a piece of bread, grab some meat with it, dip it in some hot sauce, then eat it. It was really messy! Our investigator kept teling us to "Eat, eat, eat!" I barely made it out of there alive. This week was reallly good. Thank yo0u all for your prayers, love, and support! Love you! Elder Hansen. This week was really rewarding! We saw so many cool miracles. On Saturday, Elder Grow and I had 7 appointments scheduled, yet they all fell through. We were pretty bummed out, but we continued to work. We were knocking out all the doors to a small apartment complex, and it was about 8:50. We literally had one door left, and Elder Grow suggested that go home so we can make our curfew. Instead, we knocked, hoping that someone would accept us. This man opens the door, and we ended up having a really great discussion on the Restoration! We asked if he could end with the closing prayer, and he did. He said a very humble, sincere prayer. He was trying to mask his emotions, but I could see him wiping away tears from his eyes. It was such a rewarding experience, and such a great lesson to learn from. If we show our faithfulness towards God through the hard times, then He will bless us with miracles.
We ate dinner at a member's home last night. At the end of the meal, the father asked if we could give him a blessing of comfort. He asked me to give that blessing. It was the second time I've actually given a blessing, and this was the first time I've given one on my mission. It was a cool experience - I could feel the Spirit work through me and guide my words. It rained 2 days in a row this week. One wet Wednesday night, Elder Grow and I were walking down the street, looking for people to teach. I prayed really hard in my mind for God to lead me to those who are ready to embrace the gospel. I felt like I needed to go to a certain apartment building. I wondered if it was the Spirit telling me to go there, so I did anyway. I felt kind of dumb, because usually the apartment complexes around here require a code to get inside. Unusually, the door was opened. We walked inside and went to the basement. The first door we knocked on, we met a girl who was really interested in what we had to say! We began to teach the Restoration, and about halfway through we asked her if she had any questions. She said, "No, no, go on. This is so interesting, I've never heard aobut this before!" She allowed us inside, and we gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read it. She said she would. We wanted to schedule a time when we could teach her again, but she said she was going back to her country (Equitorial Guinea? I think that's a place. If it's not, then I remember her saying it was somewhere in Western Africa). It was a bittersweet moment. We were so glad to have found her and taught her the truth, but we were sad because we might never teach her again. Hopefully the seed we planted will grow and she will one day get baptized! Thank you all for all your love and support! Love you! Elder Hansen. Happy New Year!
This week was really good! It was pretty hard to want to work because it was freezing outside. There're some benefits to having a car - one of them being we doing have to walk all day outside in the cold. Another benefit is bragging rights. But there're also down sides to having a car. After you park, you know that you have to get out of your nice warm car into the cold, dark night to preach the gospel. It's hard to do that! But, there've been so many wonderful miracles from sacrificing for the welfare of the "souls who know not God." (Alma 6:6). For example: for a long while, we weren't able to visit one of our investigators, Sammy. He wasn't responding our texts and calls, and he wasn't answering his door. We getting down on that. We had to take him off date for baptism because he wasn't progressing. But, one night, we were out looking for people to teach, and Sammy pops up out of nowhere! It was so good to see him again! He said that we should try to meet together again and talk about the gospel. It warmed my heart to know that he still wants to speak with us. Hopefully we can teach him a lot this week. Last Sunday, a recent convert brought one of his friends to church. His name is Kabarr, and he's from Sierra Leone. We taught him on Thursday, and again yesterday (Sun.) he said that he would be baptized if he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet. On Sunday, the Hartmann family invited Kabarr, the recent convert, and us over to their home for dinner. We had a really great discussion on prayer and recognizing the Holy Ghost. I'm so thankful that God blesses us with challenges. They're opportunities for us to grow, and we learn the most from them when we make it a matter of sincere, earnest prayer. I've seen it happen time and time again so far. I've learned a lot of great new skills that have come from times when I've made a mistake or have been presented with an opportunity to be thrown out of my comfort zone. Thank you all for your prayers, love, and support. Love you! Elder Hansen. This week was so rewarding! We weren't able to teach any of our usual progressing investigators, (David and Sammy), but we found 6 new investigators this week!
We knocked on a potential investigator's door, and a man we had never met before answered. His name is Ernest, and he watned to hear the word of God. We were happy to oblige! He let us in and we taught him and his two daughters the first half of the Restoration. It kind of got out of hand, because Ernest and his daughters spent about 10 minutes arguing about the priesthood. We invited them to come to church and to be baptized, and they said they would! They didn't come to church this week, but they said they would next week. We taught Jose twice this week. Jose is a former investigator who we felt like we should go visit. He let us right in and we taught him about the Book of Mormon. He's very friendly and honest, and he wants to make changes in his life. We met with him the second time to ask him if he read from the Book of Mormon, and he said he didn't. We told him why it's so important to read the Book of Mormon, and bore testimony of its truth. The Spirit was really powerful, and he was commited to read every day until we met him at church on Sunday. We went by his home a third time on Saturday to check up on Jose's reading, and we see this huge moving truck in his driveway. We helped them move boxes and boxes filled with baseball equipment. Apparently, Jose is the President of a non-profit organization that puts on a baseball league for kids who can't afford to play. Jose then came to all 3 hours of church on Sunday, even though he said he was hungry throughout the entire sacrament service! (I can't say I haven't been in his position before!) Thank you for all of your prayers, Emails, and support. Love you! Elder Hansen. |