february 20, 2012

feb 20

hiiiii everyone!

i would like to start this letter with a kind of depressing (for me) anecdote. once upon a time an elder saw the picture that i have of our family, ya know that one from a couple christmases ago at wendy's house with everyone in it. anyway, so he saw it and was like "hey i think i know that girl on the far right..." at first i thought he was joking, but then he was like "oh no. i thought it was one of my friends from back home. man i really thought that i knew her..." and then i was like "uhh...elder....that's ME." HE DIDN'T RECOGNIZE ME IN THE PICTURE. how depressing is that? I'M ONE OF THOSE SISTER MISSIONARIES THAT GETS FAT AND UGLY ON HER MISSION!!!!!!!! it was a sad moment for me. oh well. not sad enough to motivate me to diet or do my hair, so the ugly cycle will continue everyone. just a warning for future photos. 

also another anecdote: yesterday my companion almost blew up our house because she put a metal bowl in the microwave for like 10 minutes. i didn't know she'd done it until the microwave beeped and i opened it up and i was like "GAAH SOEUR YOU CAN'T PUT METAL IN THE MICROWAVE WHO RAISED YOU!?" i seriously think we were protected my some angel or something, because there is no logical reason as to how our microwave did not EXPLODE. 

this was a pretty solid week all in all. we starting teaching a new couple--moea and tupea, and i'm seriously in love with them. they're so great!! the "husband" (not married, but everyone here calls them their husband or wife even if they're not married) is an inactive member and the "wife" is really interested and receptive. actually this reference is kind of a miracle in and of itself, because we first met them at one of our missionary concerts back in december and we gave them our number and they were like "yeah we'll call you" and we were like "yeaaah we know what that means ok have a nice life!" but last week, they totally called! and we were like whoa! so we went to go teach them and it was awesome. the spirit was totally there and we were able to establish a really good rapport with them. i'm hoping to see some good progress in this couple.

one of our other investigators, frere guillemet, is doing pretty well too. there was a time for about 3 weeks where he stopped coming to church and would cancel his lessons at the last minute so we were like hey what the heck is going on. so we decided that we would just stop by unannounced to see how he was doing. he has been struggling to quit smoking and drinking, but we were able to encourage him and now he's coming back to church and the lessons have started back up again. we had a really good lesson about the atonement and at the end of it he was like whoa i really needed that. he's such an awesome guy--his wife is inactive and they have 4 kids. he really wants to change and be a good example for his kids, but obviously it's not easy to make those changes. but i know that he can do it. 

anyway, this week was cool because i really felt so much love for our investigators. as tired as i am of this area, there's still a part of me that's like nooo i don't want to leave because i want to stay with these investigators and keep teaching them! it's definitely not easy to try and listen to the Spirit to teach what they need to hear, but i'm finding that the more i try and focus on their needs and think about them, the more i come to love them and seriously just want them to be happy. there are still ups and downs every day, but things are going well. working on my weaknesses is a grueling process, but i know that it'll be worth it in the end. 

last week i finished the book of mormon for the first round on my mission. it was a really good experience and confirmed my testimony of it's truthfulness. it has also given me a lot more motivation to do everything i can to get our investigators to read it and gain a testimony of it for themselves. i know that there is a power in that book that can change peoples' lives. 

welp i better wrap this up. hope everyone back home is doing well and being happy. i love you!

love,

soeur hansen

february 13, 2012

Feb. 13

hey everyone!

another pday has arrived, and i am here happy that the computers aren't being idiots this week so i have some time to write out this email. this past week was pretty solid. let me tell you about it.

every week when we do our weekly planning, we choose a christlike attribute to try and develop during the week. this week, my companion and i chose "diligence." and we went out and tried to work our butts off to make up for the week before when we were both out of commission because of germs and stuff. anyway, we were really blessed this week, not to sound cheesy or anything. normally we have about 18ish lessons for the week but this past week we had 28 lessons! boom bam!! when we did our evaluation last night and all the totals we were like WHOA we had a lot of lessons this week! we really tried to use our time effectively and if we didn't have lessons fixed, we went out and looked for people to teach. we took the first steps to conquering our dislike/fear of going door to door and contacting people. the first day that we did it, it actually went pretty well. we only got rejected a couple of times but we were able to share messages with a couple people too. the second day we did contacting, we were rejected at every house, haha. luckily people aren't really mean though, they're just like nah don't have time i'm about to leave, or they just say no thanks. no one points guns at us or anything. anyway, the second day that we did contacting, i felt like we should go into a certain neighborhood to knock, and afterwards i was like "man why did i feel like we needed to go there and no one wanted to listen to us??" but as we were walking back to the car, a guy in one of our wards was like running towards us and was like "man i'm glad i found you! the spirit totally told me to come here." at first i thought he was kidding but he was totally serious because he wanted to set up a time for us to come and teach his two brothers. it was pretty cool. (sidenote: we didn't actually end up teaching his brothers when we had set up the time, because they were kiiiiiiiind of drunk, but the seed has been planted!!)

anyway, we got some new investigators this week andsaw some awesome progress in other investigators that we already have. the two sisters that we've been teaching, nella and melodie, are still doing well. there was about a month where they stopped coming to church because they were really busy with school, but we went to visit them on saturday and i shared a message in d&c 103:36 about diligence, fidelity, and prayers of faith helping to bring to pass victory (sorry i'm totally badly translating that verse...go look it up yo'selves) and connected it to how if they made time for spiritual things, they would see the blessing come in the temporal aspects of their lives too. then i helped them with their english homework and it was so fun. the next day, they both came to church! and nella was talking about how she's going to come every sunday now because she knows it's important to make time for the savior before school. ah i was so happy! i really love those two and i'm hoping they'll continue to progress. we're teaching their cousins and nephew as well. one of their cousins, tavirei, shared with us how she has really started reading the book of mormon and how it has brought a lot of changes into her life. it's moments like that where i'm like yesssssss it's worrrkinngggggg!! 

ok cute/funny story: we started teaching this little 9 year old boy named utaha. the first lesson was on prayer and we committed him to say his prayers every day. then we went back to teach him on saturday and the first thing he said to me was "soeur hansen i said my prayers!!" and he told me this story about how he had gone to the river with his family and he was going to jump off a big rock, but he got scared, so he was like, "so i said a prayer and asked heavenly father if i could do it and in my mind the spirit told me 'YES!' so i did it and i wasn't scared anymore it was great!!" haha. it was so cute. 

anyway, this week was just a good experience that showed me when we set goals and do our best to achieve them, heavenly father will help with the rest. here's hoping this next week we'll be able to harvest some of the fruits of our diligence last week. (by the way, i'm STILL in faaa...6 months and trying not to count...) love you all and hope you have a great week!

love,

soeur hansen

february 6, 2012

hey errbody,

let's talk about how this week was kind of not the best. i got strep throat. it was weird and not fun. monday night i went to bed with a little bit of a sore throat but i was like whatevs it'll be gone when i wake up tomorrow morning. WRONG. i woke up feeling like a truck full of germs had ran over my face. it was not fun. so my companion was like hey you're not doing so good, here's what we're gonna do--i'm gonna call up one of the ward missionaries and set up a split, and while i'm out with her, you'll stay at their house and sleep. and i was like uhh can we do that? but she called president and he said it was cool so we did it. so i slept at these members' house. it was kind of weird, i'm not gonna lie. especially since in a lot of tahitian houses, they kind of just have beds everywhere, like in the front room and stuff. especially this particular members house--their front room is just couches and beds. so i just chilled in bed in my pjs and wanted to die for a couple hours. luckily the sister at the house had some random antibiotics laying around, so she gave them to me for freeeeee which was awesome. so i took those throughout the week and now i'm all better. but i was out of commission for a couple days, and then as soon as i started feeling better, soeur teheiura got sick. so it wasn't the most productive week for us, but we were still able to get some work done. 

also other really not cool thing that happened this week: our investigator that we've been working with who was supposed to get baptized on the 17th kind of did a total 180. the member that comes to the lessons with us called this week to tell us that he doesn't want us to come to the house anymore, he doesn't want the lessons anymore, and he doesn't want to get baptized anymore. i guess he fell back into his old word of wisdom problems and didn't want to tell us and now he's just given up. that actually made me legitimately sad, because he was doing so well before. but we're going to try and go back this week and see him face to face. hopefully we'll be able to encourage him to get back on his feet. we've been praying a lot for him. 

i'm trying to think of other things to report, but since i was kind of dead for the majority of this week, i don't really have too much. my companion is still cool. she took really good care of me when i was sick, and continues to encourage and support me. i'm grateful to have her as my companion. she is a pretty interesting person. last night we had another missionary concert, in her home stake actually--paea. and she was so excited to sing in front of her stake, she just sang her little heart out. the only problem is she is TOTALLY tone deaf. her place is right behind me in the choir, and i seriously could not help but crack up during some of the songs because she was singing SO loud and SO off key. it was precious. but she was really happy because her grandma came to the concert so she gave it her all. this week we're going to try to be better about going tracting and talking to EVERYONE. we realized that we're both pretty bad at that. a few weeks ago we set up a plan to smile and say hi to everyone, and so far it's going well. now we just have to take it to the next level and start contacting people. it's just really hard sometimes to know how to start conversations with total strangers. but duh, i'm a missionary, so i need to just suck it up and figure it out. 

this week i really felt the heavy hand of the adversary in our work--we were both sick, baptism fell through, a lot of our amis are canceling lessons lately--this week just felt kind of heavy. but my companion really helped me out and together we've both been working hard to be obedient and rely on the spirit. it's definitely not easy, but i know that God gives line upon line, precept upon precept. If we do our best to do our part, he'll do his. So, as usual, i'm trying to keep my head up! still have a testimony and stuff. :)

anyway, the two pictures i'm sending: 

1. when i fell down the hill into the mud.

2. me, soeur taie, and soeur teheiura when he dropped off soeur taie at the airport. 

welp i love all of you sooooo much and miss you. keep writing! i love to get news from home.

love,

soeur hansen