Gira de misión con Elder Ochoa, consejo

Familia y Amigos,

This week was a really good one, we were able to have Elder Ochoa of the Area Presidency come and give us a training and we also had a consejo (leadership training) with him which was super awesome.

On Tuesday it was just a normal day of work, not too much happened. We were just contacting and looking for some new investigators and some people to teach. It went alright, not the best day ever.

Wednesday was awesome.  We had a multizona (multizone conference) with Juigalpa, Sandino, Managua, and Masaya (all of the homies menos Elder Heileson).  Elder Ochoa gave an awesome talk.  He said a couple of things that hit me.  He talked about how we all needed to have more faith, that with more faith we can recieve more revelation.  He said to obtain more faith, we need to study it and then act.  He talked about finding investigators that were "escogidos" (chosen) and how we will baptize more if we focus on teaching just people that the lord has chosen, and not waste time doing lessons just to get a lesson.  He also talked about how we should work to baptize every week and how we need to make better the reason why we need to baptize.  I really enjoyed his words and his wife gave a great message too.  It was awesome and the spirit testified to me of some things I could do.

Thursday was another day in the area, nothing too special.

Friday was also great.  We had a consejo de liderazgo (leadership training) with Elder Ochoa.  That went super well.  President Russell was directing the conference and we were talking about all the things we had learned.  Elder Ochoa shared some cool stories and helped us to understand more his message.  I like what he said at one point, when he said, "I want the Lord to be able to give you more.  For him to be able to bless you more you need to get better.  I am not asking that you get better from today to tomorrow, but that you all try to be better people every day.  Little by Little."  I really enjoyed that and know that I will have success as I get better every day.  

Saturday was the usual running around.  We had the baptism of a daughter of a less active. She was super excited to get baptized and we have been reactivating her family with it.

Sunday was an alright day for me, not the best ever but all of the converts I have had here came.  Along with their families.  We have been able to reactivate like 3 or 4 families with the people we have baptized recently which has been awesome.  The asistencia (attendance) here in San Marcos is also going up, so things are going great!  I hope that all of you have a great week, I am praying for all of you. 

Love you all,

Elder Hanson

There was not much time for fotos this week, here is one of the baptism

Divisions on Divisions

Selfie on Sunday with some members that are dope

Familia y amigos,

How is it going?? I hope everyone had a great week, things are going well here and it was a super crazy week.  I always feel like I am running from place to place and never get to do the things I want!! But here’s what happened this week.

Tuesday me and Elder Lambson worked together, we had a pretty successful day and 3 of the people we found went to church which was awesome.  We just kind of dedicated it to contacting and finding new people. We found an antigua investigator that we are going to be working with.  She knows everything just needs a little more testimony so she can get baptized.

Wednesday I did divisions with Elder Fonseca.  It was a day of divisions that was supposed to be in my area, but I felt really bad because it turned into a day of running around in his area and all over the zone.  He had a possibility that needed to be intervewed. It was a super crazy interview, we showed up and the neighbor told us she had 3 parejas (which is surprising, but a lot of times normal here).  We verified the law of chastity and she was all good.  She was a little shaky but we helped her to realize the blessings she had received from going to church and the ones she would receive from baptism and she committed to do it.  We then had to go and find some elders that didn’t answer their phone (for 6 hours) it was super ridiculous and we ended up working in my area for like 2 hours.  Whoops!

Thursday was a super awesome day because I got to work with Elder Nave in my area.  We had always wanted to be companions since day one in the MTC so it was a blast working with him, we had an alright day, got someone else interviewed in my area who is going to get baptized this week and found some people. It was nice being able to work with someone who has the same time, a lot easier!

Friday was good, went to district meeting in Elder Nave´s district.  That went well.  Saturday we ran around committing everyone.  That actually went well too and we got a lot of people committed and ready to go to church.

Sunday morning the Lord blessed us and we were able to bring 7! I was stoked.  The rest of Sunday was also super crazy and I had an awesome baptismal interview.  Long story short, the lady was preparing to be a nun and hadn’t said anything to the missionaries at all until I got into the interview.  So the head nun lady in Nicaragua had called her, asking if she was going to do it and she told the lady she was going to get baptized in our church.  The catholic lady then told her to remember how she was already baptized, to do what she wanted but that she should be loyal.  So she was kind of scared to tell her no, had doubts about being baptized again, TONs of things. At the end of the interview I helped her to understand with the scriptures how she could be baptized again and pulled out a scripture in Alma, the usual 32:21 about how faith isn’t a perfect knowledge, and how she didn’t need a perfect knowledge to be baptized.  She looked at me and said, "I just felt something inside me that I have never felt before, like a happiness, harmony, peace" I helped her to understand it was the Holy Ghost and she committed to be baptized.  One of the coolest interviews ever, and a testimony builder to how the Spirit really does work. It was awesome. 

This week elder Ochoa is coming so we are getting ready for him! I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Hanson

Saturday we made pizza with a member.

 This guy is a member that we found and he had a jazz hat on.

Entrevistas, getting chilly

Me and one of my converts that got baptized in December. 
He is going to Guatemala today for a job training the church is doing.

Familia y amigos,

There’s not too much new to tell you guys, I feel like my emails are all the same and not too much happens every week but ill try to spice them up here. It has been a little cold here lately, I don’t know if you all remember but in my training it would get cold at night.  It is the same here, it feels really good but we don’t usually have to sleep with fans which is nice, I usually turn it on though because it puts me to sleep, can’t sleep without one.

Tuesday we had interviews with President.  We got to the chapel to find out that the bishop’s office didn’t have ac.... That was not good at all so we had to find a way to get the place with ac.  We realized that we could do them in the salon sacramental, but we only had some dumb church tables that weren’t going to look very good.  We saw that in a room there was a good desk that we could use, but the door was locked.  Turns out the room was the stake patriarch’s office, so we went to call the stake patriarch.... but there isn’t one.  So we ran around found the key and everything ended up being ok. hahah great start.  The interviews lasted all day and were super long, so that was kind of tiring.  I went around and inspected all of the houses and everyone in the zone passed :)

Wednesday we had divisions in our area.  The church has changed things up and now the missionaries will be coming to our area to do divisions, see how we work and then apply it in their areas.  Well me and Elder Wagstaff planned it out to be a super great day and it was like the worst day ever, every single one of the citas (appointments) we had fell so it turned into a day of contacting.  We didn’t find a lot of the people in the end but at least the sisters that came and worked with me and Elder Wagstaff could see how to recover the worst day ever.  Funny story, we were contacting and trying to put a baptismal date with this lady who was like 40.  Her mom walked in and saw us and you could tell by the things that they had in their house that they were Catholic.  We kept teaching, but the lady got scared.  The mom walked over and walked through us and turned on the tv, and switched the channel to a catholic mass.  My companion lost it and was trying to hide his laughter but it was impossible.  hahah we ended up leaving because nothing was going to happen.  I also saw one of my first converts here in San Marcos. He drove by and shouted out to me, I went over and we talked for a minute, that was cool!

Thursday to Friday not much happened.  I went to Diriamba on Friday for the district meeting and it was normal.  The zone is struggling a little bit right now baptism wise but we are trying to get all we can out.

Saturday was the usual commit people to church, we were knocking doors again and we found a little gift from God, it was a less active member (turns out she is the daughter in law of the second counselor in the Bishopric from my first area in the mission) and she has a son that is 11 and isn’t baptized.  She also gave us a reference to teach her sister in law so we are going to teach them together!  The kid came to church on Sunday which was great.

Sunday was also normal.  It was Valentine’s day and here in Centroamerica they have something called Dia de Amistad y Amor but they don’t really do anything.  Thanks to granny and grandpa for the awesome package, I loved it!  Also thanks Lily for the drawings, they were great.  I hope that you all have a great week, I love you lots!

Elder Hanson

Consejo, raising the bar

Consejo with Elder Heileson and Elder Merrill

 Familia y Amigos,

Que nota? Not much is new here in good ol san Marcos, this week was pretty chill and things went all right.  We are already on week 4 of this change..... super crazy!!

Anyway on Tuesday we had Consejo. The goal for January was 300 baptisms and we came no where close.... we ended up getting 167 which was pretty bad for a 5 week month but it was an improvement from the last 2 years so the mission is going up still.  We also found out that there are now new normas de excelencia which is going to be a challenge.  We are now expected to have 8 lessons a day, 5 lessons with converts and less actives, 26 contacts a day and 7 or more people in church...  This Sunday didn’t go so hot with that but we are doing our best to be able to find new people to teach and baptize.

On Wednesday it was a normal day in the area.  In the night time I went to Diriamba for a baptismal interview.... he didn’t pass.  People think they can just throw their inviestigators into the interview with a million doubts.  Sometimes it is possible to answer them all, but other times no.  It’s the worst. That day we also had a cool lesson with a testigo, they were really interested in the Book of Mormon and didn’t end up reading it but the lesson was cool.

On Thursday everything was normal too, nothing too cool.

Friday we had zone meeting and it went pretty well.  We were able to see how things are going in the zone and this month shouldn’t be too bad, even though we didn’t baptize this first week.  We had some cool lessons Friday too, we are teaching this lady whose husband is a pastor.  He doesn’t want her to get baptized but their daughter is super cool.  She is like 30 and we put a fecha with her.  She is really interested and has gone to church in the past so we will see how things progress with her. 

Saturday we just tried to get people committed to church and Sunday was the usual running around trying to get everyone we could.  Didn’t have the best turnout ever but we´ll bounce back this week!  I hope that all is well there.  We have interviews as a zone tomorrow with President Russell so we will see how that goes.  Thanks for all you do!!!

Elder Hanson

Zone selfie without San Rafael (there is a special in the grocery store where if you buy 2 deodorants they give you a free selfie stick so some elders bought some haha)

Back to 4, Breaking records

Elder Wagstaff, Elder Hanson, baptism this week, Elder Lambson, Elder Hernandez

 Familia y Amigos,

This week was super crazy, I don’t know when the craziness or tiredness is ever going to end. Not a ton of things happened during the week but it was a good one.

Last Monday we had that conference so we just started the week out super tired without p day.  We got back to the area, wrote, and then started working.

Tuesday I went out to Diriamba to do some divisions there.  I wanted to get to know all of the people that were getting ready for baptisms and try to do some jarrones.  It was a super unsuccessful day, nobody was home, all of the jarrones fell through so it wasn’t really what I was hoping. We needed por lo menos 7 baptisms to beat the all time record here in Zona Carazo so we were trying to get all that we could in the water.

Wednesday was a day in the area.  It was all right, we were able to put a lot of fechas but they really weren’t too positive.  I don’t get how someone can commit to be baptized, but then not want to go to church at all, makes no sense.

Thursday we found 2 cool families, one of them chuped (fell through) Saturday night because they said they were Catholic and the suegra(mother in law) told us never to come back, but the other one is still going good, didn’t go to church but we still have faith they are going to end well.  We also got a call on Thursday saying that I was going to be working with the APs on Friday so my whole day there went down the drain.

Friday Elder Hironaka and Elder Alcerro came out to animate some possibilities and work in the zone.  It went pretty well, we were looking at 8 possibilities that could be baptized, everything was going really well.  Our baptism started saying that she didn’t want to do it, that she  "couldn’t andar en dos caballos" (ride two horses) but we got out her doubts and were able to commit her to do it.

Saturday was the baptisms, we had it at 2.  All day long we were verifying with the companionships to make sure that everyone went down in the water so that we would be set up.  Last second a dad showed up for one of the possibilities and said he was catholic and took him off to Managua so that one also chuped (fell through).  It was down to the wire to break the record, nobody could fall Sunday morning which is very rare.  We also ran all over the place because the APs told us we had to find another baptism, we were SO CLOSE, but she wouldn’t commit to live the law of chastity. COME ON!!!!!

Sunday morning it went smooth, all was good and everyone got confirmed.  We were really hoping to do better this month, but there were a lot of baptisms that fell, kind of disappointing.  The zone didn’t do too hot in church either.  This Tuesday is Consejo (leadership training), the mission didn’t start the year too well so we will see what happens.  Thanks for all you do! 

Elder Hanson

Aguacate (avocado) picking with the APs hahaha

Elder Hanson and Elder Kendrick

Beach pictures from the Mission activity in January