Good bye San Marcos

Familia y Amigos,

Well I’m going to make this a short one because I want to go and say bye to some people here.  Changes are tomorrow (just this time) and I just found out that I will be leaving San Marcos.  It has been super awesome here, I love this city and the people, the ward the members and everything and I am going to miss it a ton.... but oh well!

This week was cool, we saw a couple of miracles.  One of the ones we saw was with this family we are teaching. We have been fighting with them for 2 weeks and trying to get them married.  One of the days this week I said a specific prayer and was praying all day long that we could find a way to do it.  We showed up to the house and the husband wasn’t there, but the wife was.  I felt like we should ask her a question.  I asked her simply what was stopping her from being married.  She said "I don’t want to get married in front of everyone Sunday, I don’t like a lot of people!" hahahah! It was awesome that we could finally find out why.  She committed to being baptized as well so I’m not going to get to see it but I’m sure I will see pictures. The husband of her also has a fecha (baptismal date) for the 7th of May.

Another cool thing, don’t know if I have told you this, but the Maria lady we baptized back in March (the 19th) is super awesome.  She has 9 kids and we are teaching 6 of the 9, each of them have their pareja (spouse) and kids, it is dope.  We are teaching one of her sons and he has been progressing really well. He has a fecha with his son, and his cuñada (mother-in-law) for the 30th of April. For the 30th we also have a family of 2 that is progressing really well, the husband stopped smoking and we are praying that he stops for good.

I’m leaving some really awesome people here and a lot of baptisms so I hope they are all able to reach their goals and stay active. That’s all I really got, I’m excited for this next area (probably will be my last :( ). It has been super awesome to see this zone start having success, and I am definitely going to miss it! I love you all! have a great week!!!

Elder Hanson

last time with distrito diriamba

Stake President Meeting, Hipica

Me with a new chocoyo.

Familia y Amigos,

This week was pretty chill, not a ton of stuff happened, but all went well. Here’s what happened.

Tuesday I went and did divisions in this area called La Concepcion (or as the gente say La Concha).  It was a very interesting day.  The area is known as one of the castigo (punishment) areas of the mission and the missionaries there are not doing the best, so I went and tried to help out but not much got done.  It was a hard day but there wasn’t much we could do. The people were nice and I got a whole bag of oranges and a huge aguacate. Hahah that was fun.

Wednesday we dropped Elder Lambson off in Diriamba and worked the day in our area because we had a meeting with the Stake President and President Russell. During the day we felt like we should visit this less active that we had only visited one time before.  She told us that we were angels because the only 2 times we had come had been when she most needed it.  That was an awesome experience. It was a really cool meeting and we just discussed the progress of the stake.  The stake is doing great so there were no problems. They might put a rama (branch) in San Rafael del Sur as well which would be really cool!

Thursday was a normal day in the area, and Friday I went and interviewed everyone that we have for this Saturday. I love baptismal interviews because the spirit is always so strong.  Love doing them.

Saturday was the adult’s session of stake conference and there was a 70 visiting, Elder Arredondo and we were able to bring some investigators.  It didn’t turn out that great. We got everyone ready for church.

Sunday was the general session and the ward left late so we got the very back of the stake center seats and we couldn’t really hear and there were a lot of distractions. But it is all good.  We headed back to San Marcos and finished out the week of work.  But it was something called la Hipica.  Pretty much everyone comes in from out of town with their horses, they set up beer tents all over the park and everyone gets wasted (including the horses) so we tried to stay away from there.  It was huge. Pobre horses.....

Sorry none of that was too exciting but I hope that you all have a great week. Thanks for all you do!!

Elder Hanson

Me and the free aguacate.

Conference Weekend #4

Familia y Amigos,

How are you all doing?  I hope all of you had a great weekend listening to conference and were able to receive some type of personal revelation.  I was able to go to the majority of conference and we had a good number of people that came which was awesome. This week flew by so here’s what happened.

Monday night we taught a family that we have the word of wisdom.  The guy in the family told us that he smokes like a pack a day which was kind of a downer but he told us that he had a goal to quit smoking by the end of the month, which was that week.  He has really cut down on smoking so pray for him so that he and his wife can be baptized!

On Tuesday we had consejo (leadership conference), that was alright I woke up and realized that I was probably going to have a kidney stone again so that wasn’t too fun.  It ended up being true but whatever! We presented our presentation and everything went well, we had a pretty good month last month in the area so I was happy about that. It was good to see all of the friends as usual and it was a good consejo.

Wednesday and Thursday we just worked in the area, we have a couple of cool people that we area teaching that have been progressing well so that was good.  We are setting things up for the end of this month and for the next one as well.  We should have some success, which is always great.

Friday I went to Diriamba and animated some of the people they are teaching, and got to know them.  They are progressing well and this month they should have a good month too.  We also tried to get everyone committed to conference the next day.

Saturday and Sunday were conference.  Like I said we had a really good turn out and I was glad we were able to listen to what we did.  I listened in Spanish and I didn’t get the most out of it so I am downloading the talks right now, but some of the speakers I really enjoyed were Elder Holland, Elder Oaks, and Elder Uchtdorf’s talk in the Sunday morning session. As well as Elder Christensen’s talk. That was a good one too.

This week we have stake conference and it will be my 3rd time here in Estaca Jinotepe, which means that in my mission I have only missed one of them.  I love Estaca Jinotepe, it is the greatest. I hope you all have a great week, love you lots!

Elder Hanson

no pics this week, sorry!!!

People forgot it was Easter...

 Baptism (gotta love the nica smile :))

Familia y Amigos,

Happy Easter!! I hope that everyone had a good weekend remembering the Savior.  Here the people kind of forgot... there were no Easter hymns and the word Easter wasn’t mentioned, but I remembered so that’s all that matters!

This week was a good one, we didn’t have a lot of time to work in the area but we focused on finding people to baptize this week.  It was awesome because we were able to find some cool people and help the investigators that we have progress.

On Tuesday I went to do divisions with the DL in Diriamba. They are still struggling out there so I went to help them out.  We found a cool lady who had been to church before so we were able to get her excited and put a fecha with her. It gets pretty cold there at night (it is the coldest area of the mission) so it was nice to get out of the heat.  Even though I’m in one of the cooler parts of the mission it has still been really hot lately.

On Wednesday we had a multizona in Managua with Zonas Universitaria and Granada so I got to see Elder Merrill, Elder Heileson, and Elder Nave.  That was a good time.  I really enjoyed Sister Russell’s talk about repentance and she talked about the importance of it now in our lives and also in the future.  It was a good day, we got back to the area and went to our possibility for baptism to keep him animated.

On Thursday we worked in the area and I really wanted to find some people, so in the morning I said a specific prayer that we could find 4 positive people that we could help to progress, that we would work hard all day long to find them. I went and visited a reference that a member gave me who I thought wasn’t going to progress but he ended up being really cool.  He went to church this week which was great. We ended up finding some pretty cool people, 4 actually and even though some of them didn’t go to church we will be working with them to help them repent.

Friday was district meeting and I went again to Diriamba.  It went well and we went back to the area to work again.  Focused again on finding people for baptism.

Saturday we woke up and got the pila ready for the baptism, our baptism told us he was going to fast in the morning (this guy is super awesome) and that he was going to come on his own.  He has a bike and rides from super far away to come to church which is a big sacrifice, but he has a big desire to live the gospel.  He was able to give up smoking and has been reading the Book of Mormon every night. He was super ready.  The baptism went smooth, the elders quorum pres baptized him and it all went great! We ran around committing everyone to church and it didn’t look like we were going to have a great turn out.

So Sunday morning I did divisions with a member to get people. We had committed a couple families that ended up going and when I showed up to church, a ton of our investigators that we couldn’t get to on Saturday showed up.  We ended up bringing a really good number of people along with our confirmation which was a huge blessing.  Focusing on repentance and baptism is the way to do it :)  I hope that you all have a good week, we have consejo tomorrow so that’ll be interesting.

Elder Hanson

With Elder Merrill and Elder Heileson

With Elder Nave

Confirmations are always a surprise

Baptism

Familia y Amigos,

This week was chill, it was a crazy weekend but it all ended well so Im happy :)

On Tuesday I had the news and trainers meeting, that all went well.  Elder Lambson is progressing well in his training so they were happy with that. Elder Heileson is training too, so it was chill to see him. Elder Wagstaff went down to San Rafael to work with them and it all went well.

Wednesday was a normal day, and then Thursday I got to go over to Masatepe to work with Elder Medrano.  We had a really successful day and were able to teach a lot of people.  They have this super awesome family that they found, and it turns out their sister is a member. Supposedly the member had come back trying to find some dates for her family history so they were interested in that.  They have found a ton of cool people there.

Friday I woke up in Masatepe due to the divisions so I went to their district meeting.  We after just worked in the area trying to find some new people.  We had a pretty solid day so all was well.  We got the baptism all set up so that there would be no problems Saturday.

On Saturday we had 2 baptisms at 10:30am. It all went good and they were both really excited to be able to get baptized.  The rest of the day went really well too.  We were able to teach a really awesome family that we have progressing.  We taught them the Book of Mormon and read a little with them. At the end of the lesson, I felt prompted to ask a question, and I asked, "do you have a question that you have never been able to answer in your life?" haha I have asked this question before and the answer is always no, so I was expecting the same.  He then said "where am I going to go when I die?" I just sat there staring at him because it was like the first time I got a legit response - hahaha. We left him a chapter and we have a cita (appointment) with him tomorrow so we will see how it goes.

Sunday morning we got up early to get the confirmations to the church.  We did divisions with a member and I went with the member.  So we got to the house and neither of them were there..... my heart dropped because it is the worst thing ever. So the daughter of one of the converts said that her mom hadn’t come back since the last night, so we thought we knew where she would be, but the other one´s dad had taken her in the morning to her other grandma’s house.  Luckily they told me that she lived in our area, but they didn’t know her dirección (address). They gave me her name and the name of the barrio that she lived and I started out the search.  I was just praying and praying that we could find her. After like 45 minutes looking I felt like I should stop at this corner house and ask if they knew the name they gave us.  He told us that there was only one person named that like 3 blocks away.  We showed up to the house, and asked if the lady lived there and they kid said no.  However, he looked exactly like the confirmation.  I knew he was lying, and next thing you know the confirmation popped her head out the door.  We were able to get her to come.  Elder Wagstaff found the other one and we got them there right on time :)  The spirit definitely guided us hahah.

The rest of Sunday was good, I went down to San Rafael to do some interviews and then headed back.  This morning we went to Managua to get my cedula renewed and then headed back.  All is well.  Thanks for all your prayers, have a great week!

Elder Hanson

San Marcos round 3 :)

Baptism

Familia y Amigos,

Well turns out I was right and I am going to be here in San Marcos another change. I am actually excited because we are going to do well this month in the area, and also semana santa (holy week) is this month and I will be in one of the cooler areas, that is a blessing!  Hahah my companions are Elder Wagstaff and Elder Lambson, we are in a trio which will be good to work a little more with the zone and be able to keep the area running. We should have some success in the area this month so all is well!

This week not too much happened, on Tuesday we got the call that Elder Hernandez would be leaving.  The members didn’t really get to know him at all and he wasn’t their favorite so there were no tears shed there.  We found a couple cool people and got everything ready for changes.

Wednesday we got up early and went to change meeting.  Change meeting is always fun to get to see all of the ZLs and hang out, we got a pretty good zone so I am excited to see what people can do.  Elder Nave left and is now a ZL in Granada, so we have a new DL there in Masatepe.  The other DLs stayed the same, and our zone now has 19 missionaries.  Things are going great.

Thursday we got out possibility interviewed for baptism, I also had to go to Masatepe to look for a house with them. While we were looking we were kind of contacting at the same time.  We got to this guy and I started talking about repentance, and he let us in super quick.  He told us that he was going through some hard times, and he needed help.  We talked about the atonement and stuff like that.  Turns out he went to church on Sunday with the Elders there so that was cool!

Friday was a super crazy day, I had to make like 4 trips to Diriamba, it was a ton of traveling.  Elder Wagstaff went and did divisions there, but they had a couple problems with some people that were going to get baptized.  I went with them to try to save the baptisms but it didn’t happen. The daughter of a less active that we baptized last week (her mom came to church this week for the first time in a couple years too) gave us a reference for a family that lives in front of her. We had a lesson with the family and they were super awesome.  The guy asked us for a Book of Mormon so we are in the process of teaching him.  They came to church on Sunday which was great.

Saturday we were blessed to have a baptism. It was the son of a less active, we were able to reactivate the whole family while teaching him which was awesome.  He also brought his aunt and cousin to the baptism so we have a cita (appointment) with them tonight.  We have been getting a lot of references lately which is the best.

Sunday was a great day, we got everyone we needed to to church, along with 2 families. This week we should have 2 baptisms, and the next week have 2 as well, so if you could keep Maria, Kati, Roger and William in your prayers that would be great.  Another member brought us her neighbor after church and we put a fecha (baptismal date) with her too, she should progress well.  Thanks for all of your prayers, they are all appreciated. 

Love you lots,

Elder Hanson

Me and Elder Medrano eating cacao. It was delicious.

Another change done...

Consejo last week

Familia y Amigos,

Time is really flying by because this change of 7 weeks flew. This week we will find out if we have cambios or not, but I’m almost 100 percent positive I will not have them, who knows though!

To start out I want to wish my dad a happy birthday this week!!! Thanks for all you do, love you lots.

This week was a pretty good one.  On Tuesday I went down to San Rafael to work with Elder Petty, him and Elder Passey have had a couple rough weeks at church so we went and found a ton of people.  We found a lot of families and they ended up bringing like 18 people to church so that was awesome to be able to see the fruits of our labor :)

The rest of the week was just contacting in the area, finding new people and all that fun stuff. Thursday I hit 18 months, we didn’t really do anything special.

Friday was zone meeting and we were able to talk with the zone about a couple things that Elder Ochoa had taught.  We mostly focused on baptizing every week.  The zone doesn’t look too bad for this month so we are going to be working with them to get things going.

I was going to have a baptism this week, but they had like a last second multiestaca conference with all of Central America so we couldn’t confirm anyone. He will be getting baptized this week! My turn out was better than usual so I was happy.  This was a really lame email so I’m sorry, I hope you all have a great week, love you all!!!

Elder Hanson

Candle lit dinner because there was no power.