september 17, 2012

everyone.

i am sick. possibly dying.

just kidding about the dying part, but serious about the i am sick part. it started on saturday with a scratchy dry throat and slowly progressed into a hurricane of stuffy nose, headache, cough, and hard-to-breath-ness. and the thing is, i just really don't want to go to the doctor (mom, i can hear your exasperated scream from here) because MODERN MEDICINE IN TAHITI IS A JOKE. and i hate spending money for a doctor to tell me to take "doliprane" (the french equivalent of like tylenol or something) and it'll be fine. stupid! and my companion has suddenly switched over into crazy macho-mom mode (i.e. "IF YOU GET OUT OF BED I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU!" or basically just telling me what to do aaallllllll the time.) i see that this is an expression of her love for me, which is nice. but also suffocating. which is bad since i'm already having difficulties breathing. ANYWAY. the point is, i'm giving in and going to see the doctor after i send off this email.

in other news, when i'm sick, i tend to have some pretty crazy dreams. like where somehow there's a mixture of britney spears and the tree of life. not seeing how my brain made THAT connection, but whatever. i can't remember if i told y'all in the last email, but i definitely had a dream a few weeks ago that i was teaching britney spears about the law of chastity. why i keep dreaming about britney spears? i wish i knew.

anyway anyway, this week was pretty good aside from the whole i'm dying part. we got three new references from our members! i'm so happy! i love member references! andrea is a single mom with three kids and she is so dang nice and i really just love her. we had our first lesson with her and it went really well and she talked about how she just feels good when she goes to church and stuff and it helps her so much. and i was like yes! it does! don't stop! we set up a family home evening with her and her integrating member (i actually don't know how you say that in english) and it was soooo great! matevahi is a youngin'--she's 18 and her aunt and uncle are members are proposed the lessons to her and she said ok. not really sure about her REAL level of interest, but the first lesson went well and she's just really cute and i love her too. and then lahaina is also a youngin' who comes and stays with a member family over the weekend. let me just tell you why member references are SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE. it's because there's an AUTOMATIC support. once we leave, they're not all alone. and things just work better. so i'm excited to see how these investigators are going to progress, because i love them all.

yesterday was the primary program sunday in both of our wards. probably one of my favorite sundays of the whole year. love seeing the kids up front because somehow they think that they can see everyone but no one can see them. cue the funny faces, wedgie-picking, nose-picking, crying, etc. i can just hear the silent groan going throughout the parents. so awesome. i hope your respective primary programs were equally entertaining.

alright everybody. my body hurts, so i'm gonna stop typing now. i think you all are just great.

love,

soeur hansen

september 10, 2012

hiiiiiiiiiii everyone!

did you miss me last week? i will just assume that there was a resounding YES that echoed in america just now. mission conference was GREAT. elder pearson from the 70 came down and beat us repeatedly with a spiritual bat and i loved every second of it. he definitely knows how to get to the point and tell us what's up, but he did it in such a loving way that afterwards you're just filled with desire to change and be better. and i'm like YEAH THE GOSPEL DOES THAT! and it's just cool. so it went until 3:00 in the afternoon and with all the transits and everything afterwards we didn't have time to do emails, but it was worth the sacrifice. hopefully not too many tears were shed on your end. 

let's seeeeee what can i tell you about the past two weeks...guys i gotta be honest i feel like i say the same things in every email i send so forgive me if my updates are boring now. by the way, i'm hitting my one year in tahiti mark this week! i arrived a fresh-faced missionary on the 12 of september 2011. man how time flies. that means i've almost hit my 15 month mark in the mission total. WEIRD. anyway, back to telling you the same thing i tell you every week. 

ah! we fixed a baptismal date last week. her name is malia and she is 10. her dad is an inactive member who's trying to come back to church. and she is just precious and we love her. so we're excited about that. we've been doing a lot of door-to-door lately and it's good, but we're also trying to work more with the members because that's where the mega-fruit comes from. but it's like a diesel engine. slow to start. (pretty sure i've already used THAT analogy in my emails like fifty bajillion times. don't be mad.) guys i really like this sector and our amis. the members are great too (even if they don't really help us haha). we had a really good family home evening yesterday (not a big deal that it's not on monday, right? right) and there were 3 potential investigators there. one of them is ata--she's like 20 and living with a semi-active member family. she is so great! and little by little i think we're making progress with her. and i gave her all my clothes that don't fit me anymore hahaha. 

let's seeeeeee...soeur isnard is doing well. she's making a lot of progress in her lessons and tracting approaches, so i'm happy about that. MAN I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING REMOTELY CLEVER OR WITTY TO SAY! guhhhh. oh! ha. funny thing that happened this week. the jehovah's witnesses came and tracted out our house. we were doing our personal study in the morning and we hear people calling out in our front yard and i'm like what the?? and we go out and boom--two women in skirts with pamphlets are there waiting for us. when they saw our tags there were like ohh...so...you're mormons. and we were like yup. we had a nice little chat but in the end they continued along their way without leaving a brochure. it was weird to be on the other side of tracting, haha. 

other than that, things are just moving along. as usual, some investigators are progressing, others are not, but we love them all regardless. i'm really happy though because i can honestly feel how much God has blessed me to just be able to LOVE people. i don't really feel like i was like that before. obviously there are some people where i find it easier to love them than others, but in general, i just feel happy to be around people. ok well i'm tired of being so dang boring so i'm gonna finish this off. know that i love you all (as usual) and miss you and hope to get some letters from you soon!! 

love,

soeur hansen

august 27, 2012

EVERYONE

it's pday! i'm gonna take a nap today. wanna know why? BECAUSE I'M SO TIRED. this was a really good week though. we worked our little missionary bums off (although at this point in my mission i'm afraid i can't really say that my missionary bum is "little" but you know what? IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL) and were able to double the amount of lessons we had last week, we had 3 amis come to church yesterday, and we got a new ami. yaaaaaaaaay! things are going well in the sector. it's still pretty slow going, and we're still trying to work our way up from zero, but i guess on a scale of 1-10 we're like at...4 now. so that's good, right?

our new ami that we have is named honore. he's a champion boxer. he's a cool guy, and he is suuuuuuuuuper nice. he's really receptive to the gospel and he is eager to learn. he always talks about how he has been to other churches but now he wants to "taste the fruit" of the gospel. actually it sounds kind of creepy when i type it out in english, but in french it sounds pretty normal, especially in the context that he says it. DON'T BE WEIRDED OUT GUYS. anyway, we committed him to baptism in our last lesson and he said YES! weeee! so now we're going to work with him to help him be ready to pick a date. but it's great because he has a good friend who supports him and always comes to lessons and is with him at church and stuff. and it really makes all the difference, so i'm really happy to have his help. we're going to have a family home evening with them tonight so hopefully everything will go well.

let's see...oh yeah. we did SO MUCH TRACTING THIS WEEK OH MY GOSH. guys. door-to-door tracting...is grueling. it's cool because you get to meet a lot of people and sometimes it's funny because people are just funny, sometimes it's annoying because EVERYONE has dogs and THEY BARK SO MUCH and i don't even like dogs. it can also be saddening because people are mean. haha. but we had some good experiences this week. mostly i just learned the importance of gritting my teeth and barreling forward. we had spent almost the entire day getting rejected and it was hot and we were just about to start going to a new little neighborhood and i was like ok guys. let's pause for a moment. here's what we're gonna do. WE GONNA PRAY. so we stopped on the side of the road with our bikes and our helmets and we just said a little prayer so that we could find people that would just listen to us. haha. and boom. the next three people we met were happy to listen to us, we got a future teaching appointment fixed, and one lady even gave us free donuts. BAM. and i was like "hey thanks heavenly father!"

another nice tracting experience--saturday. again, almost the whole day spent doing tracting. by the end of the day, i was just like man i'm kind of tired of getting rejected. and it was around 5:00, and we have to be at the house before sun-down (because we're girls on bikes and there are lots of drunk people that roam at night), and after getting another rejection in my head, i was like GUH WAAA BLEHHH LET'S GO HOME EARLY. so tempting. (yeah i know, don't be surprised that missionaries aren't perfect, k??) but then this little voice came in my head and was like "hey. don't go home early. keep working til sundown and God will less you." and i was like ooooooooook. bam. next house we went to, this lady comes out and is ALL ABOUT TALKNG TO US. she was SO NICE! and so full of love. and ok, yeah, it's not like she was like HEY I WANNA GET BAPTIZED! or anything like that, but you know, sometimes all you need is for someone to just be nice and listen to you. and we had the chance to accomplish our missionary objective, which in all simplicity, comes down to being able to invite people to come unto christ. so that's what we did.

anyway, so this week was long, but it was satisfying to see the results of our efforts when we gave our report at the end. soeur teraiamano finished her mini mission so now it's just me and the other mini missionary, soeur isnard. she still talks a lot. sometimes i wonder how it's possible that one person could have so much to say. but she really is so nice. i think God is giving me an opportunity to expand my love. next monday we have mission conference and i'm soooooooooo excited! so i might not get the chance to write, but know that i love you!

OH YEAH! haha. gotta talk about this really fast. last night we ate with the 2n counselor and seriously me and him (uhh proper englishhhhh) had like a 30 minute argument (not really an argument but whatever) about whether or not there were 50 or 52 states in the united states. and i was like BROTHA, I AM A PURE-BLOOD AMERICAN WITH 12 YEARS SPENT IN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM--THERE ARE 50 STATES DANGIT. but he did NOT want to accept defeat. but, in the american spirit, i did not back down and came out victorious. BOOYAH.

obviously the virtue i'm choosing to work on this week is humility.

ahaaaaaaa!

love,

soeur hansen

ok the pictures (i don't remember the order)

last pday we went to some caves with the other sisters, so i think there are some pictures of us there and me in front of the cave sign.

another picture is the physical proof of our hard work this week--my apologies if it's too hot for myldsmail, but i am proud of my tan lines!

aaaaaaaaaand i don't remember what the other pictures are but i just know you will LOVE them.

august 10, 2012

iaorana errbody!

ok! i feel like i have so many things to say about this week but i don't know how to organize my thoughts so...basically i'm apologizing in advance if this email is just a giant mass of word vomit. YOU'LL READ IT AND LIKE IT ANYWAY.

so i'm in PAEA now! it's a new sector for the soeurs so i'm opening it up and lemme tell ya. opening a sector is kind of...how do i put this...grueling. yes. that is a good word. so we got here on tuesday and walked into the house that they just rented for us--it's completely empty, and filthy. me=not happy about this. and so we spent the day de-filthing and settling it. oh by the way, when i say "we", i'm referring to me and the holy ghost. just kidding. me and my new companion, soeur teraiamano (teh-ra-ay-ah-mah-no). she's actually not a real missionary, she's on a what they call a "mini mission." she's 19 and preparing to go on a mission in two years. since there's a serious lack of soeurs in the mission for the moment, i guess president set up some deal or something where ward missionaries could become provisionary missionaries and serve with us to fill in the gaps until more newbs arrive. i didn't really ask too many questions. but soeur teraiamano is great--she's like already super missionary, and we get along well. so anyway.

let's talk about how this all went down. our sector is TEENY, but there are two wards that we took from the elders (vaiatu and tepuhapa). so i talk to the elders

me: i'm like hey buddies, can we get the area books and a run-down of the area?

elders: yeah! we'll make a list of all of our potentials and fixed baptisms and give you all the stuff tomorrow.

me: yay!

next day: we go to pick up the stuff.

elders: here you go! *hands over area books*

me: thanks! so the list of potentials is in here?

elders: huh? no we're keeping those for us. here are all the stand bys.

me: ..................(i hate you guys)

so basically they gave us NOTHING. and i had to work really hard on my christlike attributes. but then i was like WHATEVER we'll find our OWN amis! so this week we basically ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to track down all of the people in the area book that had previously met with the missionaries to see if we could recontact them and start up lessons again, all the while stopping and visiting and introducing ourselves to the members. it was grueling. but we were able to get some lessons fixed for next week and we even have two new potential investigators! pretty happy about that. BUT, the elders redeemed themselves on sunday.

elders: hey we talked it over and we decided to give you our potential amis.

me: yaaaaaaay i don't hate you anymore!

anyway, now there's another mini missionary with us, soeur isnard. soeur teraiamano finishes next week because she has to go back to school. and i'm sad because i like her a lot. soeur isnard got here on saturday. she's cool, although i feel like i need four ears to listen and process all that she says because...she talks a lot. but she's suuuuuuuuuuuper nice.

anyway, i'm gonna try and wrap this up. all in all, things are going well. the new sector is good and we have high hopes for the future. just trying to work hard and be happy!

love,

soeur hansen

p.s. the picture--me, soeur teraiamano, soeur weller (a new american! finally!!! the last american sister to get here was ME), and soeur tauaroa at the beach at paea