Once bitten and twice shy - 12/09/13

This week was amazing. I don't even know where to begin. 

Meetings galore this week. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed being with the other zone leaders, sister training leaders, and the mission president on Thursday. We talked about a lot of things like the possibility of changing the "standard of excellence" or increasing the amount of grocery money we get a month. That, and we talked about our goals and where the mission is headed, and the possibility of us actually reaching our goal of 800 that was set before they split the mission and put our mission in turmoil. In all honesty, we might actually hit it still, and our mission is outperforming all of the other missions in the area in terms of efficiency. It felt really great to look forward to the future and see how great we could be. And anytime I'm with the APs and President Smart, I just feel great. 

The Parking Lot Miracle couple continued to provide me with miracles to think about. We learned that they will not be able to get married for probably six months, because that's how long it will take for the man to get divorced from his past wife. They were bummed about not being able to be married and baptized for six months, so we discussed the possibility of separating. They prayed and the next day decided that they wanted to live separately so they could get baptized as soon as possible. The problem is that they have no money and neither one of them has a job yet. But they want to get baptized as soon as possible. 

So, we got them in touch with the employment specialist, and now the man has an offer to go to trucking school and sign with a trucking company so he won't have any debt to worry about. We got them in touch with a realtor, and he's confident that the house will sell in the first week or two. It's on the market right now. The wife will take half of whatever they make selling it, but they will probably still end up with 40 grand in pocket, if what he's told us about his mortgage is accurate. So that's in the works. 

They've both smoked for years and years and have tried to quit earlier to no avail. So, we took a member with us that had quit smoking and drinking and taught them about the Lord's law of health as clearly and simply as we could and committed them again to quit. Not say they would try to quit and taper off, and hopefully get there sometime before baptism, but to quit cold turkey and just get it over with. The member offered to fast with them on Sunday to overcome their addiction. Saturday night, we talked to lots of members and got 16 of them to offer to fast with us. Then we started the fast with them and crushed their last pack of cigarettes. We fasted for a full 24 hours and I was surprisingly spry the whole time. Then we had Bishop come with us to give them a priesthood blessing to overcome their addiction to tobacco. It was very powerful. I hope that they can quit and commit to it and stick to it. I'm quite confident that it was a faith-building experience for them. 

Now we have the Law of Chastity to worry about. Our ward mission leader wanted us to call our mission president and see if he would let them get baptized if they just promise not to have sex. Yeah, I told him right then and there that Pres would never let that fly. I've heard of missionaries coming up with every conceivable reason to have opposite-gender roommates get baptized and President has never let anybody get baptized that is in a co-habitation situation. They have to get married or move out, and that's just the rule. So my companion and I came up with a game plan and pitched it to the ward council to find a home for PLM girl to sleep in until her husband-to-be got to hit the road trucking. Well, bishop put us off until very last in ward council, and then shot us down pretty hard and said they wouldn't be comfortable asking anyone in the ward to do that. So we walked out of there pretty discouraged. 

Then another member and our Bishop offered us a new plan. This member has an RV he's willing to let us borrow. Bishop will let us park it on his property. So now we have a place for her to sleep and they can get baptized on the day that we picked: December 22. I am so flipping excited I can't put it into words. These are really the coolest people. I kind of understand a bit more of parenting from this whole thing. They aren't perfect, in fact the decisions they make are pretty aggravating sometimes. But they want to do the right thing, and they really want to keep the commandments and get baptized, and the struggles we've had to go through together have made the whole experience really rewarding.

Other than that, our teaching pool is really, really shallow. The potential for baptisms seems to be a lady ("B") we met and a couple part-member families. We found "B" in a parking lot. I actually wasn't there, we were on exchanges. But we went by and gave her a blessing and taught her the restoration and she was crying. It was pretty amazing. Then she left town for Thanksgiving and was gone the whole week. She was nice to us when we came by and asked for another Book of Mormon because she lost the first one we gave her but then she canceled our appointment, so I dunno where she is now. Hopefully we can get her and her two kids that are accountable and maybe her husband but we've never met him. 

The part-member family, The "F"s are really nice. Sister "F" comes to church sometimes and brings her unbaptized children but her husband is very hard-hearted against the Book of Mormon. He's said that if it wasn't for the Book of Mormon, he would join the church. We had dinner over there once and warmed up to him a bit, but when we asked about his concerns, he wasn't willing to dive into it just yet. Apparently he's been looking at the scriptures and the Lord is trying to soften his heart enough to listen to us, according to what we've heard from the wife, but he's still pretty stubborn about us not teaching his son and we haven't tried to get in to talk through his concerns yet. But I feel like that is something we could find success in. 

Sister "R" is totally not an active member, but her Mom is. Mom just got called to teach primary and has taken her granddaughter with her the past few weeks. So hopefully the Mom will loosen up a bit and let her daughter get baptized. We stopped by once and helped them get their Christmas tree from the car into the house, which was appreciated. Then we shared a spiritual thought that turned into Hansen just sharing silly scriptures like 2 Kings 2:23-24 but that actually got the non-member dad really thinking. So I think that would be a possibility. 

Oh yeah, there's also the "W"s. We haven't taught them anything yet, but the non-member husband is the realtor I mentioned earlier, and he's invited us over for dinner a couple times already, which is pretty awesome. We're thinking he'll want to talk to us even more now that we've found him a house to sell. 

*sigh* So much happened this week. I really enjoyed talking to my zone and training them on finding new investigators this Friday. Then I went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President.  One elder has been an AP for five transfers and kind of knows a lot about what's going on. Well, this was our first time getting to know each other in any sort of significant way, and he told me that he really liked working with me. He also told me about how much respect Pres has for me for being so patient and taking on so many hard assignments in my mission so far. I have a lot of charity and love and I've helped a lot of missionaries. To confirm what he said, we actually had lunch with a former AP who has gone home and was visiting the mission and took us out to lunch. He said basically the same thing, that I'm known as a really patient, really loving missionary among the other leaders. That really warmed my soul. It was also cool to see Elder "D" again after he'd gone home. I can tell he misses the mission a lot. 

Other than that, I'm really looking forward to Christmas. I put up my little teeny table-top Christmas tree and put the lights and ornaments on it. It sits on my kitchen counter and makes me smile. 

I talked to a homeless girl recently who made me cry. She overheard me talking to somebody else in the parking lot and walked up and asked if our church had any shelters. I told her I didn't, and I couldn't think of anything to offer her other than some money for food. She and her husband didn't have a place to stay that night and it was cold. We've been in a cold front for a while. I told her that the best I could do was tell her about how much God loves her. My heart was aching. She said "Thank you, hopefully that will help me stay warm tonight." I about lost it. I actually shed a couple tears over it later. I spent that night wondering if I could have given her the coat I was wearing, even though it was a gift from someone I love dearly and really didn't want to part with it. I could have gone in the Target right there and bought her a blanket or a sleeping bag, I probably could live off the ramen and oatmeal and protein I have at home. I was thinking about it for a while. In the end, I just have to accept that I can't do everything for everyone, but the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ can make everything right in the end.

I love my mission. I have so much work to do in the last few months, but I know that I have the confidence and the faith to make it happen. God is awesome. REJOICE EVERMORE. Talk to you soon. 

There's no way we're gonna give up - 12/02/13

Exciting news! I get to stay with my companion for one more transfer. That means I'm staying here in Hemet for Christmas and New Years. Most of our zone stayed the same. Two elders left and got switched out, and one ward is getting a second set of elders. 

This means that I know where I'll be living for Christmas. Last year I discovered that the mission office likes to hold packages that come in December and hand them out at the mission party on Christmas Eve. So if you plan on sending me something to open up BEFORE Christmas Eve, you'll need to send it directly to me. 

Elder Tyler T. Hansen

470-A Westminster Ct

Hemet, CA 92545 

So, this week was a lot of fun. I think I have some pictures to send you of our Thanksgiving and Black Friday baptism. 

I feel like my mission is flying by. This entire transfer has gone by and I haven't even written in my journal once. I need to catch up. 

So, the man we called The Straggler is a straggler no more. He got baptized on Friday 29 November at 10am. One of the elders that taught him before me came back and got to be at the baptism. There were lots of little kids at the baptism so it was a lot of fun playing with them while the second speaker tried his hardest to give a general conference talk. I've been to enough baptismal programs where the exact same talks are given to where shorter is better in my book, but it's not my baptism, so I let them do what they want. 

The Parking Lot Miracle seemed to be getting complacent until their phone got shut off. That day they came to us and told us how they are looking for jobs with renewed effort, and asked us exactly what they needed to do in order to get baptized. They still need to get a divorce finalized so that they can get married and get baptized. But that's what they want. They plan on having our bishop marry them as soon as humanly possible and we are super excited. I've never married anyone before! So that should be interesting. It'll feel weird to marry someone only until the end of their lives instead of for all eternity, but I have confidence that they will progress towards the temple once they are baptized. The ward loves them a lot and they are very grateful for all the love and support they have found just in the short time they've been coming to church. 

Speaking of which, they actually missed church for the first time in a month. The reason being that they didn't have any clean clothes, so they drove all the way to Colton to do laundry and got stuck there. I wish I would have known so I could have offered to let them do laundry with a member family somewhere here. In fact that thought crossed my mind in our last lesson when I realized that the guy was wearing the same shirt as the last time I saw him and that it had a spot on it. Oh well. We are teaching them again tonight at the Stake President's home. 

Oh man Thanksgiving was fun. The in-laws of The Straggler had us over to their home and we ate and talked and lounged around and watched the little kids shoot some .22s. Then their grandfather showed me his gun safe that was full of historic rifles from World War II and Vietnam.  I think I saw seven or eight rifles in total and he told me about them and I got to be a little bit nostalgic for a minute before we put them back in the safe. My companion didn't really care but I thought it was really cool. 

Earlier that day, we got to play flag football with all the missionaries in Hemet. I think we played for about three hours. I was so sore the day after. And the day after. And a little bit the day after that. I think I'm better now. But goodness, I didn't think I would make it to the shower when I rolled out of bed Friday morning. We played hard. But I was lucky enough to be on the coolest team. At first we were playing 14 on 14, and it was kind of crowded, so we split into three teams. My team was selected according to who was the most fun, not who was the superstar player, or so the captain told me after we got together. We were the only team that selected a team name - the Sunbeams - and we practiced our team victory celebrations so we had a different one for every touchdown we scored. It went pretty quickly from that point on, because with the three teams we switched out the teams every time someone scored, so there really wasn't a whole lot of defense going on. But it was so fun. I loved being on TEAM SUNBEAM. 

My old companion is now the newest AP. That's kind of cool. My current companion served with him in the Jurupa 2nd ward as well. So we called him and reminisced for a little bit after transfer calls. It was super cool. 

Well I love you guys tons! Have a very happy December. God is awesome!

When it gets cold outside and you've got nobody to love - 11/25/13

It got a bit colder this week. In fact, we even got some rain this week, and I got to wear my raincoat that my grandfather gave me for maybe the fifth or sixth time this year. I was told that I look like a secret agent in my big long raincoat. I like it. 

I am so very blessed. The mission has been good to me this week.

The people that were progressing last week are still progressing this week. The ones that gave me headaches are still being sketchy and giving me headaches. In a way I guess that means nothing has changed.

The Straggler has moved his baptismal date. He's being dunked on Black Friday at 10am. Not a whole lot of people will come, but that's the way he wants it. We had a lesson with him last night and he was a bit bummed at how his Catholic parents reacted to his invitation to come to his baptism. But our teamup who knows the family well did an excellent job of bringing things into perspective. I'd like to think my scripture references helped too, but mostly it was the 80-year-old sage we brought with us. I call it teamwork. 

Maybe it's just the title, but I feel like I should be baptizing at least once a month as a zone leader. So far it took us a whole month just to squeeze out this one guy. I'm in such a fertile zone, with such a good companion, you'd think we would see more fruits of our efforts. But I think my reward is the peace and love that I feel on a daily basis as I buckle down and work consistently. It would still be nice to baptize more. 

This week is going to be a fun one. We have Thanksgiving dinner lined up with the in-laws of The Straggler. The missionaries all plan on playing flag football together that morning. I've got a baptism on Friday. I think we have a hefty service project lined up on Wednesday. Meetings on Tuesday.

Oh speaking of service... we did so much service on Saturday that I didn't even get to start proselyting until 5pm. We were loading and unloading U-Hauls all day, got home, and no joke, somebody knocked on the door of our apartment and asked us if we could unload another. It was pretty weird. All this was on exchanges, too. I exchanged twice this week, one day was all on bike.  And today I get to do some more service that I'm really not looking forward to. My Mondays are supposed to be my sacred days of rest! Oh well. 

Le sigh. I have so many good things to talk about but my brain is tired. I love you guys. Talk to you later.

If I Go Crazy Then Will You Still Call Me Superman? - 11/18/13

Well, I survived another week. 

Actually the time is flying by, it's gone by so fast so far. This transfer has been so quick it's a blur. 

I guess the biggest news is that The Straggler got hit with another spiritual brick to the face and accepted a baptismal date. He's committed to 30 Nov 2013. There's also a wedding reception going on that day, unfortunately, so we will have to do it at another building or do it earlier in the morning. But I'm super excited that he's actually going through with the baptism! It's about time. His wife has started joking with him about "It's the start of our eternal family... you'll be stuck with me forever" and he loves it. :D Families are forever guys! 

The Parking Lot Miracle couple is trucking along towards baptism, it's just that stupid divorce to work through still. The miracle of this week is that the wife wasn't sure if she was going to make it to church. At our lesson on Saturday she laid on the couch under four blankets and just listened. We bailed on Ward Council Sunday morning to go give her a blessing and she was not looking good at all. She was puking a lot. But then we did the priesthood blessing and said she felt warmth and healing as soon as our hands left her head. She said a personal prayer in her room, then hopped in the shower and got ready for church. Oh, but first she texted us and asked if it was okay for her to wash her hair after we anointed her. :P Sincere investigators can be so cute when they remind you of little things you just haven't thought to teach them.

I exchanged again this week, this time I was with Elder "T". We had an awesome day of visiting less-actives and part-member families. I don't know which was more potent, the magic of exchanges or the magic of Elder "T"'s personality, but we got into a lot of doors that have been closed to me and Knudsen since I got here. And we are excited to continue working with those families.

Our lessons were pretty great this week. We did a lot of work in the Four Seasons gated community by having a member call us in to visit her family and then just lingering and visiting a lot of less-actives. It may have been bending the rules but nobody seemed to mind. I'm always grateful to see the new things we think of when we take a minute to pray and ponder. 

Thanksgiving is coming up soon! Wasn't it just Independence day? Sheesh time is flying by. I hope I can inspire my zone to get a lot of baptisms lined up for December. We're performing really well this month so far, in my opinion, but there are still a few adjustments that could be made. So I'll try to have some ideas in my head for the next MLC and Zone Meeting.

Love you guys tons. Have a great week.