december 3, 2012

dec. 3

heyyyy everyoneeeee,

happy december! i hope you all got a chance to watch the christmas devotional last night, because i did and it was great! love motab. i can't believe it's already december. except it's weird because it doesn't feel like it at all here! it is SO hot. december/january is the hot, rainy season in tahiti, so it is suffocatingly hot all the time, then it rains in the afternoon, which is nice while it's raining because it cools off, but then immediately after, it's AWFUL because it makes it SOOOOO humid! oh my gosh. you can like DRINK the air there is so much moisture in it. gross. other than that though, things are good. christmas is just different here because people don't really put up lights, some people have christmas trees but most people don't, and the traditional christmas foods i'm used to aren't really part of the routine. but we get to start singing christmas songs now, which is awesome. love that.

ok ok ok let's talk about this week....this week wasssss great! nothing too particularly exciting happened (like no more parasites, for example), but it was just a pretty solid week. we had some really good lessons and got some new investigators, which is always nice. and we have two more baptism potentials, we're just trying to nail down a date to work towards. we're still going strong with our english class--we're doing it every friday night. GUYS IT'S SO FUNNNN. i love it. and we do a slang word of the week just to make it a little more lively--last week we taught them how to say "dude", and this week we taught them " awww man!", and they love it. and i love it. we always start with a prayer and a spiritual thought and then connect our lesson to what we share in the spiritual thought. for example, this past week we talked about thanksgiving (for like a cultural note about america), and then taught how to share the things that we're grateful for in our lives, and then taught them how to pray in english so they can thank God for all their blessings! next week we're gonna start with some christmas themes and i'm stoked.

soeur cook is doing great. her french gets better every day and we have so muc fun together. seriously we just laugh all the time and i lovvvvvve it. i was scared that my last transfer was gonna be a dud but nope! it has been great and i'm grateful to be able to have her as my last companion. love our amis, love our members, and love my companion. i got a lotta love in my life right now, and it's pretty nice. oh yeah, i love you guys too!!!!!! take advantage of all the christmas-time awesomeness and have a good week!

love,
soeur hansen

p.s. pictures from the hike we went on last pday--there was a natural waterslide that we would have LOVED to go down but contented ourselves to just taking a picture by it...and then me carrying two banana...things (i don't know how to say that in english...) the traditional way. i'm legit. and it was really heavy.

november 26, 2012

nov. 26

hiiiiiii!! 

i don't have a lot of time (are you guys getting tired of hearing that every week??) but there are soooo many funny things to say about this week.

GUYS. i honestly hesitated about putting this in my email because i'm pretty embarrassed about it, but then i was like eh i have no dignity left anymore and it's actually hilarious soo...let's all laugh together about how awful this week was because....wait for it....


I GOT LICE. IT WAS TERRIBLE. AND SOOOOO SO FUNNY. last week my head started itching like really bad and i was like huh. this is weird. so i called the mission nurse, hoping that she would say "oh that's totally normal! heads are just itchy in tahiti!" nope she did not in fact say that. she was like welp you probably have lice. (little piece of me died in that moment. fast forward to a few hours later in zone conference where i get called out because soeur bangerter (mission nurse) is waiting for me in the PUBLIC PARKING LOT with the office couple which leads to a public inspection of my head (just like monkeys do, not even kidding) to confirm that yes, i did have lice. i came back to break the news to soeur cook, because it was going to have to be her to put the special shampoo on my head, which according to the directions had to be left on ALL NIGHT. she was NOT excited about it. i probably should have taken a tally of how many times she whimpered "i don't wanna do this..." while applying to goop to my head. it was worse when she had to comb out the dead lice bugs...hahahahahhahahaha. SO GROSS!!! we actually laughed really hard about it. but yeah. it was gross. but good news--i'm lice free! but i've come very very wary of children now; because i'm pretty sure that that's how i got it. the point is, that was on thanksgiving. so instead of feasting on turkey, parasites feasted on my scalp. are you throwing up yet??

anyway, something good that happened this week--we started giving an english class! it was AWESOME! i loved it so so so much and we're gonna start doing it every friday. guys, i just love teaching. good thing that's gonna be my profession and stuff.

ok i gotta go but i lovvvvvve you!

love,
soeur hansen

november 19, 2012

herro everyone,

i guess i didn't realize that thanksgiving was this week! i thought it was next week. i think i will choose to celebrate by eating fresh mangoes instead of turkey because this past week everyone we saw decided to just give us mangoes. that's a good substitute for turkey, right? right. anyway, think of me as you eat turkey, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole all slathered in gravy. mmmmmmm....gravy...does not exist here.

ANYWAY. guys! this was such a great week! we fixed 3 baptismal dates with our amis and i am feeling GREAT about that. one we're probably gonna have to push back because she didn't realize that she kiiiiind of has to get married before she can get baptized, but we're working on it. and we've been working a lot with some of the inactives in our area lately and it is seriously the best. gaah! there's this one couple, jean-yves and myrna. they've both been through the temple but have been inactive for quite some time. we committed them to be temple worthy before the end of my mission so we could go do a session together before i leave and they were like whoa! that's really soon! and i was like is it too soon to receive ETERNAL BLESSINGS? ok ok i didn't really say it like that, but i was thinking it. but they said YES! and then THEY CAME TO STAKE CONFERENCE! i literally like...happy screamed when i saw myrna there and 1. i think she was kind of scared but maybe thought it was endearing? yes? and 2. i was just like oh man i have become that stereotypical sister missionary. WHATEVER I'M OK WITH IT. 

ok. let's talk about two miracles that happened this week. first: we had stake conference. one of the speakers came up to give her talk and she was like i'm gonna speak in tahitian and everyone was like ok that's cool. so i'm listening and stuff and there comes a moment where she says something funny, and i laugh. and everyone else laughed at the same time. and i was like heyyyy...i laughed at the same time as everyone else because i actually thought it was funny and not just because everyone else was laughing...because...i...understand...everything...that she's saying....I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING THAT SHE'S SAYING!! i think it was like the first time where i realized...hey! i speak tahitian! and i was really happy and satisfied in that moment. the gift of tongues people. it's real. it may or may not take a while to really sink in, but i tell you it happens.

the other miracle: lydie. lydie is a long but awesome story that i will try to abridge as much as possible because i'm typing on a french keyboard and it is annoying. when i first started my mission in Faaa almost a year and a half ago (ah!), Lydie was there living with a new convert family. She was kind of on and off for the lessons, not really ready to commit to anything. Anyway, transfers happen, the rest of my mission happens, etc. Fast forward to about a month ago here in Paea. Riding my bike down the side of the road and i hear, "soeur hansen!! soeur hansen!" i look, it's lydie! she was at her sister's house and saw us and was like "ah i'm so glad i found you! i told myself that if i ever saw you i would start taking the lessons again. when can you come teach me?" HELLO BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! so since then we've been teaching her and last friday we committed her to baptism and she was like yup and i wanna do it on my birthday before you leave--december 25th. BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVERRRRRR!!! lydie is a miracle. and the gospel has changed her--you can tell when you look at her. gaaah! so great. 

in other news, soeur cook is doing well. for the moment it's just us two because soeur weller's companion is sick so soeur maitere is with her temporarily. this is good though because now soeur cook is forced to speak more during lessons and she has made a lot of progress. and she is hilarious. when we do language study together i like pee my pants because she really likes to make up words in french. aaha...you kind of have to be there. just know it's funny. OK I GOTTA GO BUT I LOVE YOU ALL AND HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!

love,
soeur hansen

november 12, 2012

helloooooooooooooo,

aaahhh this week was long and short all at the same time, but all in all it was great. showing the sector to the newbs and introducing them to all of our investigators and training them to teach and contact and all that jazz is pretty exhausting, but they are quick learners and eager to work, so it makes it much more enjoyable. this week we had lots of opportunities to encourage our investigators to move forward and make important changes in their lives. we got to fast with one of our amies, andrea, and it was a really good experience. and it actually worked out really well because we were able to invite an inactive member (one of her good friends) to join us in the fast and at first she was pretty reluctant but with a little bit of encouragement, she agreed to fast with us. and it was very positive for everyone at the end. they were both able to make it the whole 24 hours and we were just happy about it. 

man i feel like so many things happened this week but as soon as i sit down to email about it, poof! my mind goes blank. ha! ok. in the mission, there is something called a "celestial day." this is a day where all of your lessons work out, nothing falls through, and you can go through the entire day without having to turn to a plan b (or c, d, e...etc.). wednesday was one of those days. we had lessons solid every hour until the night and it was glorious. at the end of the day i was like man newbs, we were spoiled today! but we were too busy basking in the wonderfulness of it all. then BOOOM. thursday: outer darkness day. NOTHING worked. ALL of our lessons fell through, even our dinner appointment, haha. i was like gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! angst! i guess that's just God's way of being like heyyyyy don't get too confident! but all in all i'm pretty happy and satisfied with our week. we got some good work done and we tried our best, so that's what matters, right?

ummmmmm....AH. we have a baptism on friday? i put that in the form of a question because i'm not actually sure what is happening. it kind of just like...fell out of the sky. it's a man who is married to a member and has been and investigator for about 5 years and finally decided to get baptized. we met with him for the first time (although let it be known that since i arrived in the area 3 months ago, we've tried SEVERAL times to set up an appointment with them...) yesterday to be like soooo you're getting baptized? he's a good guy. the situation is just kind of weird, so i'm interested to see how it's all going to pan out. stay tuned for next week i guess. 

ok well i really am drawing a blank and my email time is even more limited than before since we're a companionship of three now, so i'm gonna cut this short. love you!!

love,

soeur hansen

november 5, 2012

heyyyyy everybody!

sorry for the lack of email last week. i was pretty busy hanging out on the top of tahiti looking out onto the vastness of the pacific ocean....so actually i'm not really that sorry because it was AWESOME. but it's too bad because i had a lot of cool things to say about two weeks ago. so now i'm gonna try to cram everything into one email, because a lot of stuff went down this week too. and unfortuately for all of you, there is a direct correlation between the time left in my mission and my desire to right big huge emails, coupled with the fact that i am also writing on a french keyboard which is mega annoying. BUT. i have pictures to sooth your tears. 

OK. first and foremost, let's talk about some of our amis. couzy (no idea where his parents got this name but it's not a big deal) is a young guy that we teach. he hasn't really been progressing too much, but we taught him about the word of wisdom a couple weeks ago and paired it with the story of daniel and how for 10 days he lived the word of wisdom and was great afterwards. so we gave couzy a challenge to live the WoW for 10 days and to see the difference it could make in his life. the first time around, he made it 7 days and then caved, but afterwards he was like man les soeurs i feel really bad, but i was hoping that you could give me another chance. and we were like duh of course. so he tried it again and when we went back we were like sooo couzy how did it go? and he lwas like i made it 9 days and we were like yaaay! and then he was like and you know what? i decided that smoking is really dumb and messes up my body, so i stopped. and i was like YAAAAAAYYYYY!!! really happy about this.

another ami--norbert. norbert is living with a inactive member. we've been trying really hard to get them married so norbert can get baptized, because he wants to. we finally got the chance to fast with them this weekend (which took a lot of planning because kalimy, his girlfriend, has a baby that depends on her mom-ness for his food, if you get what i'm saying here). but norbert was like so gung-ho about this fast. it was his first fast and we were like ok well you guys talk together to decide what you're going to fast for, and he was like oh i already decided--it's so we can get married and i can get baptized. and i was like ok i am not mad about this. so yesterday we finished up the fast together and ate and stuff and norbert was like man that was hard but i feel really good, because for the past 2 weeks i prayed and prayed that i could make it through the fast. and i was just like MAN YOU ARE THE BEST. i love them a lot and just want them to have an eternal fambly.

there were other cool things that happened in the past two weeks, but let's talk about some other stuff. like for example, I'M A MOM AGAIN! surprise! and, surprise of all surprises, I HAVE TWO KIDS AT THE SAME TIME! yup. finishing my mission with a bang--the next three months (and last three months) will be spent training two newbs--soeur maitere (tahitian) and soeur cook(american). they got here this past weekend and they are great. neither of them speak tahitian, which is going to be funny, and soeur cook's french is...how do i put this diplomatically...comprehensible. kind of. actually she gets by surprisingly well and is really eager to learn, but sometimes i just feel sorry for her because she has a perma-lost look, haha. but i believe in the gift of tongues and am confident that she'll pick it up really quickly. i'm really really happy to be serving with full-time missionaries now. i feel like they brought a breath of fresh air into the sector and the work, an di'm looking forward to the good things that await me as i finish up. i can't believe how fast time goes by. 

anyway, gonna wrap this up. love you all!!

love,
soeur hansen