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

october 22, 2012

hey everyonnnnnne,

we just had a very long pday. with a lot of driving. and errands. and hotness. (as in the temperature outside, not a reflection of my personal appearance, rest assured.) but i'm pretty excited because this lady told me that she would make me a tahitian dress so i got to pick out some fabric today. weeeeeeee! 

guys. this week. was hard. really really hard. honestly my brain is just kind of fried so i don't really have a lot to say. mostly i think it was just one giant test of my patience. i'm still waiting to get my grade back, so we'll see how that goes. our investigators are alright--we had to drop one this week because she told us she didn't want the lessons anymore (ouch). but we had a lot of our investigators come to church for the first time this past sunday, which was definitely a plus. 

there were little rays of hope throughout the week though--we had a really good stake activity and a bunch of our investigators came. it was polynesian day with a bunch of traditional activities like breaking coconuts with rocks and kayaking. (too bad we had to watch from the beach...). then on sunday we had a musical fireside and it went really well. i even sang (not by myself)! 

mostly this week i'm just grateful for prayer. that i can just pray all the time in my heart, and that i don't have to worry about using up my minutes. prayer was what got me through this week. here's hoping that this next week will be brighter! gotta get going because the lady who is taking us home is waiting for us. sorry for the downer email, but know that i love you!!

love,

soeur hansen

october 15, 2012

HEY!

i'm eating puff cheetos and trying to type at the same time. challenge.

EVERYBODY! where did october go? can we please talk about this? because i'm really confused. this week went by super fast, but it was a good one! on tuesday we did SPLITS! for the first time. i went to go work with soeur weller, the newb american in her sector and it was just dreamy. we did personal and companionship study ON THE BEACH! i was just full of happiness. then on wednesday i went back to my area with my companion. but it was a nice change of pace to break up the routine a little bit.

on saturday we had a free car wash! it was actually really really fun. the young adults who are preparing for their missions put it together and invited us to come help with the other missionaries in our zone. the way it was set up was the cars would come in, and while the drivers were waiting, they could come and snack a little bit and talk with the missionaries/young adults and get brochures and stuff. it actually worked out really well and we got some references, which is always great. in the meantime, it was also just really entertaining to go out on the side of the road and yell at cars "CARWASH! IT'S FREE!" on one of the signs we wrote "it's not a joke, it really is free!" because most people asked us how much it cost when they came in. haha.

let's see...ok story time. first off, things here in tahiti are disgustingly overpriced. that's what happens when you're a tiny island in the middle of the pacific ocean. so this means that things that should normally cost like...5 dollars end up costing like 20 bucks. for example, flip flops. well this week my trusty pair of flip flops broke, so i was like ok time for a new pair. went to the store, got mad about how expensive they were, but bought a pair anyways because i needed one. (20 bucks for flip flops. MAD.) bought them on saturday. sunday night we're at a young adult's house because she needed help translating something into english. we get up to leave and i'm like hmmm where is my other sandal?

THE DOG ATE IT. i wanted to THROW UP all over that dog. i didn't want to make a big deal out of it though, but the girl felt super bad and started offering me all of her shoes and i was like nooo don't give me your shooooes...but she like would NOT let me leave until i took a pair. so i walked a way with a fancy little pair of pink sandals. and then, this morning i was looking at them and noticed the brand: "Amyshoes". HA! i was destined for those sandals. but basically this story is just another evidence of why the mission has solidified my hatred for dogs.

our amis are doing well. things are moving along slowly but surely and we still just love them a lot. still no baptismal dates fixed, but there are a couple potentials that we're really praying for and focusing on. i don't have a whole lot of time because people are waiting for the computer, but you guys are great and i love you!! enjoy the picture--that's our activity today--learning how to DANCE! i've never felt so white in my life, but i love it. the girl teaching us was like "soeur hansen, this is the dance you have to do for your husband at your wedding!" and i was like "yeeahhhh i'm pretty sure if i dance this for him, our marriage will not be eternal." i dunno know, there's gotta be something kind of charming watching an awkward white girl wave her hands around to tahitian music, right? right.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK!!

love, soeur Hansen