Locking down baps

Elder Merrill's Birthday

Familia y Amigos,

I hope that all of you were able to have a good week, celebrating a lot of birthdays at home and having a good time!  This week was nothing too special.  We lost a lot of time in the area because me and Elder Merrill were trying to get to know all of the possibilities that the zone has for baptism for the rest of the month.  We are working hard to get as many people as we can in the last 5 week month of President Russell, we could win the BBQ :)

Tuesday Elder Merrill and I went to Loma Linda to work with the sisters there.  We worked all day long, got to find a couple people, as well as get to know the people they have for baptism. We were able to help them to fix a couple things and they had a LOT of success in church on Sunday, which was great to see!

Wednesday we went to help some Elders out in the morning to try and get out a birth certificate so this lady can get baptized.  We had to go all the way up to the Crucero (the farthest south part of the zone) and see what we could do.  Anyway everything here is in books, they have like no computer system.  So when we got there, they told us that they only had the books from 2000 on, and the lady was born in the 70s.  Luckily the workers there knew her somehow (everyone knows everyone) and tuns out she isn’t inscrito. So she is like 40 years old and it is like she doesn’t even exist.  We lost a lot of time and the process to inscribe someone is really long and takes forever so its going to be a while before she can get married and baptized.  We had a little bit of time in the afternoon to teach some investigators.

On Thursday It was the day we had to work the most in the area, but there was also an activity at the church so we tried to bring some people there.  We also went and got to know some more of the sisters possibilities here in Altagracia that are doing great.

Friday we went around the whole zone and got to know some more people, but it was a bad day (probably because it was Friday the 13th hahah). I had this baptismal interview that was really really bad, a kid that was supposed to get baptized didn’t want to commit to stop drinking coffee, and another person told us that her mom told her that she couldn’t go to church anymore while I was getting to know people during divisions.  That kind of stunk, but to end out the night we met a cool family that is doing great for their baptism in another area.  Its crazy how we get to know so many people, their doubts, needs, and try to do everything we can to help them.  I know that I am not capable of doing it alone and the Lord is definitely here helping us.

On Saturday we had a baptism, of this kid I met the first day in the area.  It is a sealed family that went inactive a year ago and didn’t baptize their son.  We were able to reactivate the family and they are doing super awesome! We didn’t have any baptismal pants because there were also 2 other people that got baptized.  I had to squeeze into some super tiny ones hahah.

Sunday was Elder Merrill’s Birthday, and the only thing he really wanted was investigators at church and it happened :)  We bought him a cake to celebrate. They broke eggs and it was a great time.  That night we went and did some baptismal interviews and got some more people ready for this week. Super crazy week but it flew through.

This morning we played some basketball and then we ate some Mcdonalds, that was fun.  This week we have Consejo and preparing for the last week of this month which will be really stressful but I know we can break 40 baptisms in the zone!!! It would be awesome.  I love you all lots, have a great week!

Elder Hanson

Baptism

Members!

Interviews, Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day Selfie

Familia y Amigos,

It was great to be able to talk to you guys yesterday, everyone looks so grown up!  But this week was a pretty good one.  Before I get started I had a special request and don’t want you all to forget Owen’s, Maddy’s, and Riley’s birthdays this week. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Anyway so Tuesday was spent getting some things ready for the interviews with President Russell.  On Monday here they had a big SOY (EFY) activity and they didn’t clean up... the usual so we had to clean the chapel as well so it was presentable.

Wednesday we had the interviews, that was a good time.  Our zone is doing well so there wasn’t much to talk about.  I had a pretty quick interview with President Russell and it went really well.  We were able to talk about my progress and he said some nice things.  My interview with Pres. and Elder Merrill also went really well and he is happy with the progress of the zone.

Thursday we just had a normal day of work.

Friday I had to give the class at District meeting and that was chill, talked a little bit about verification and it went well.

Saturday we helped the sisters out with their baptism, they had an investigator that didn’t stop drinking coffee but in the interview I was able to find the reason why, super awesome and she committed to stop drinking and got baptized! It was great to see.

Sunday was a normal day, we got some people to church and it all went well.  It was awesome to talk to you guys and see you all! This email was super lame, but not much really happened so whatever!  

Love you all,

Elder Hanson

Nicas put the root beer in the beer aisle at Walmart!

At consejo last week!

Here comes the rain

Familia y Amigos,

It was another good week here in the heat of Managua, things went pretty well and we had an all right week so here’s how it went.

Monday night was cool, we were just looking for some new people to teach and me and my companion were both walking and at the same time we turned around to go and contact this lady.  We didn’t know how positive she was going to be, but she told us to come back the next day. Tuesday we showed up and her whole family was there, we put a fecha with them and committed them to read a folleto (pamphlet). Anyway long story short she read 2 folletos and some of the Book of Mormon and went to church, so that was cool! The spirit does guide if we listen!

Tuesday and Wednesday we just contacted. The rain also started up as well which was pretty nice.  It cools down while it rains but when the sun comes out it just gets worse.  Managua is known for flooding and it gets raining pretty hard for a couple of hours and then chills out. The rain storms should be like an every day thing from now on so looking forward (kind of) to that.

Thursday we had consejo (leadership conference), we thought that it was going to be Elder Merrill’s last one but turns out we are going to have another one in the end of May so that was kind of a bummer.  We showed up a little early and met Elder Copeland and Elder Heileson there so we could chill for a little before it all started.  All went well at consejo, Our big goal for this month is that as a mission we break 300 baptisms.  Our zone is one of the bigger ones so they are relying on a lot of baptisms from us. We have a goal of 50 baptisms between our 24 missionaries so pray that we can reach it please!  We need all the help we can get.

Friday we had Zone Meeting and that was fun to see all of the Elders and Sister there. We have a pretty fun zone, I’m not really with any people I have been with before in the zone.  Sister Russell at consejo talked about 8 things we can do to be better missionaries and we shared those 8 things with them.  We just worked the rest of the day trying to find people.

Saturday we were blessed to have a baptism.  It was a little later at night, but all went well.  She was the cousin of a recent convert and she had the biggest desire to get baptized, so let’s hope she stays active! Everyone we had planned was able to get baptized in the zone so that was great.

Sunday the water went out, so that was the excuse of the day to not go to church.  Every time that it rains here they shut off the water, it doesn’t make sense to me but whatever!! We had an off week but the majority of our investigators are still progressing for this month.  I am excited to see what we can do. Thanks for all you do, love you guys lots! This week we will also have interviews so lets hope all goes well there too!

Elder Hanson

This country is so hot

Baptisms

Familia y Amigos,

How are you all doing?  Like I said last week I had changes, so Tuesday we went down to change meeting.  I was pretty convinced that I was going somewhere in Managua, and turns out that my companion is Elder Merrill! We were already companions for one change in Juigalpa but I am stoked to be back with him. We had joked about it a little but it was something that didn’t seem like it was going to happen. I am also here with Elder Martell and Elder Hall.  The name of my area is Altagracia I, in la Zona Universitaria. The zone is doing really well right now so that is awesome too.

But let me tell you this place is SO hot... Coming from San Marcos to here was a big change.  At like 9 oclock at night I sweat more than I have ever sweat playing in any lacrosse game. It is unreal.  I sweat just doing the simple motion of brushing my teeth.  Wow. The rain storms supposedly start this week so we will see how things go :)

This week was pretty good, me and Elder Martell have just been looking for some people, Elder Heileson left some good investigators so we are working with them and helping them for this month of May.

On Friday Elder Merrill and I went and visited some possibilities in Monte Fresco, one of the areas in my zone. Monte Fresco actually is on the road to San Marcos so that is cool, but we had to go down in this canyon a couple times and it was super exhausting. We got home super tired and just fell asleep.

Saturday we were able to have 2 baptisms that I walked in on.  2 people I had prepared in San Marcos also got baptized so that was awesome to hear. The rest of the zone also got everyone baptized and the zone ended really well this month.  I didn’t really have anything to do with the success but it is still cool to see the progress they had.

Sunday was church, got to work in the afternoon with some future missionaries, and got to know some of the members so that was great.  I am loving it here in this area and know that we will be able to have success in May. Thanks for all of your prayers, love you all!

Also, thanks to Gran and Papi for the package!!

Elder Hanson

An awesome fam in San Marcos

Companions

Home sweet home

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!!!