Watching this change brings so much joy to me!

The work is moving right along! We have a pretty solid teaching pool right now! It has been awesome to see them start to progress! Something that was great this last week was yesterday morning we met up with 2 of our investigators and rode with them the 30 minute bike ride to church from our place! So that was really awesome to get to ride with them to church!  Their names are Smith and Kyle. But they are doing really well! Right now they are set for a baptismal date of July 28th!

Also, this Sunday was really perfect because we also had a member of the ward that has been away for more than 15 years come back to church for the first time! He loved it and has started to read in the Book of Mormon again!! It is so great to see the difference that LIVING the gospel makes in a person! When we first met him he was sad, didn’t want to talk really, everything was alright… but as he has started to come back he is more excited, he likes to talk, it puts a smile on his face when he starts to understand the gospel better, and that is what it is all about!!  Watching this change brings so much Joy to me!

Elder Hansen

New Mission President... President and Sister Brown!

This week has been great! We got to go down to Kingston to meet the new Mission President! So that was really awesome! We each individually got to speak with them for a little while and then they just talked to us as a group and told us about themselves! They talked a lot about 2 Nephi 2: 11-14! Which was really interesting because it talks about how we need to ACT rather than to be acted upon? This means that we need to exercise our agency in righteous ways so we can receive the blessings? They are definitely different people than President and Sister Brown but they are great people! They are from Utah and served here a few years ago! So at least they kind of know the area! I am excited to see what they will do with the mission to improve it! So new things to come from that!! 

Other than that our week has been pretty good! One of our progressing investigators disappeared all of sudden so that was sad but on the bright side, Romells mom the one that struggled to sign Romell’s baptism record is now wanting to learn more! She came to church for Romell’s baptism and said that she loved it! So we will start teaching her and she will soon get baptized!  

Transfer calls were also this past week but I will be staying in Linstead with Elder Porter so nothing new! But I am excited because Linstead is great! We have really been trying to work with the members more and to build our trust with them! I am more than grateful for the time that I have to serve and love helping others come unto Christ!!

T-bone crash and baptism all in one week!

 A lot of crazy stuff happened this week! Our district leader got really sick so he got sent home on Wednesday and so I was then called as the new district leader!
 On Thursday I t-boned a car that pulled out on a blind corner going down a huge hill! I destroyed the whole front end of the car and the bumper was completely off!! I am alright! Just a scraped up shoulder and a sore arm!! But i flew probably 10 or 15 feet over the hood of the car and rolled right up to my feet! Pretty scary! The Rasta jumps out of his car to make sure I am alright and then just wants me to leave so I don’t press charges! So we left and my front wheel was basically bent in half so we had to get that fixed! But it was amazing that nothing serious happened to me because we were going fast!!! I am very thankful for the Lords protection in that!

   After that on Sunday we had a baptism for Romell!! This was so great! He is a recent convert’s brother so we had been teaching him for a while and he was finally able to do it! So it was a hectic but great week!! SO glad that I get to be a part of this gospel and get to go out and share it each and every day for 2 years!!

Elder Hansen

A Jamaican holding a Book of Mormon in public!?

Yea the week has been great! The weather is still getting hotter and more humid but it is still great!! One of the days we were riding to our next appointment down one of these streets and I am just looking around looking for people and I see this old man holding a Book of Mormon!!? I think I looked back 2 or 3 times just to make sure I was actually seeing this!!! So we turn around and start to go talk to this guy named Mr. Johnson. Come to find out that it isn’t his but it was someone’s that was living at his house. So we scheduled a return appointment with him for the next day. We come back the next day and now there is this lady there named Chin. So, we start talking to her and find out that the Book of Mormon is hers. She had been meeting with the missionaries over a year ago and one day they just kind of disappeared? So now we have been teaching Chin and Mr. Johnson and they are planning to be baptized the 7th of August. That was a pretty cool experience to be able to find them! It was super crazy to see a Jamaican holding a Book of Mormon in public!  

Other than that not a whole lot of interesting things happened! We had Zone Meeting down in Spanish Town! Our zone is pretty awesome! Talked a lot about going to the Rescue and working with Members! Trying to help member’s fulfill their duties by sharing the gospel to their friends and non-member families and friends!! So we will really try to apply what we learned with the members here! Also, for stake conference here they challenged everyone to think of people that they know that aren’t members? So I would issue that same challenge! Think of some people who need the gospel! And then invite them over for dinner or something! And for that dinner have the missionaries over also! The missionaries would love you guys for the food and new people to teach!! I know that the Lord will not only bless you for sharing the gospel but for the people who are learning and growing from the gospel! It is a WIN WIN situation! 

Elder Hansen

Prayers are answered!

Had a great week! This week we have done a lot of different things! The summer is getting Hot! & Humid! We got to help this old man, recent convert Brother James, move this truck load of sand into a sand pit thing and let me tell you I have never sweat so much in my entire life!! It was absolutely crazy! I guess that’s what shoveling sand in the middle of the day in Jamaica will do to you! We got a good workout from that! He also shared an interesting analogy with us! We asked him how he came to know this was the true church and he compared himself to a stone in a river…He said that, "We must not be like a rolling stone in a river that just rolls until stopped by something, we must be like a firm stone in a river that is able to grow moss so fish can feed." At first I was so confused but then realized that there is a lesson to be learned here! We have to be firm in our church and stay planted so that we don’t get tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine! The fish feeding off the moss on the stone is us helping others and being an example to others so they can feed off our goodness! Super weird analogy but pretty interesting if you think about it!

We have been teaching a recent converts’ brother as well and we have had trouble getting his mom to accept for him to be baptized! We continue meeting with him and trying our best to keep him positive and finally this week she agreed for him to be baptized so he will be baptized July 3rd!!! I can truly tell you that prayer works!! Elder Porter and I had been praying very hard for his mom’s heart to be softened and guess what... Heavenly Father heard and answered our prayers!!! It’s great! Everything is going great Elder Porter and I are having a great time and we are really trying to find more people to teach!! We have found a lot and so time will tell! Grateful for this gospel and for the time that I have to serve!

Elder Hansen

"I know the gospel is true, but am I true to the gospel?"

This week has been great! I am starting to get more familiar with the area and it has been wonderful! This week was a pretty normal week in the field! However we did have Stake Conference in Spanish Town so that was great! We got to hear from two of the area seventies for our area! I can’t remember their names because they were hard names but one was from Haiti and he couldn’t speak English so he had a translator up there so he could speak to us! He had a super awesome testimony on how he got the mission going back in Haiti after all of the foreign missionaries got shipped out for good! So it was great to hear from them and the other leaders of the Island! It was President Brown’s last address as well! They all have such a strong testimony of this gospel and are truly inspiring people! The spirit at these meetings was very strong! They spoke a lot about Sabbath Day Observance, Temple Prep, Self-Reliance and Missionary work! These are the 4 key points of the Caribbean area vision! It is so simple and so great! 

Elder Porter and I are doing great as well! We have found a lot of interested people this last week! We have been really trying to grow our teaching pool so we have been doing a lot of contacting! It has been a great week and things are going great! Oh yes and something I heard that I thought was wonderful is, "I know the gospel is true, but am I true to the Gospel??" Now what does that mean!? It means that we must share the gospel and live by the standards that our Heavenly has presented in his Gospel!!

Elder Hansen

Late Post from June 6th....This new area is SWEET!

The new area is way sweet! We just moved into a brand new house Saturday because the last one was pretty gross! So we had been getting that all figured out! Linstead has a ward here so there are around 100 people that come to church!!!!!!! Which is so awesome!!! They also have their own building so we don’t have to be crammed in the back of a plaza now! SO yea Linstead is pretty awesome it is super beautiful here! Also here in Linstead they actually have underground pipes that take the water to different areas for homes and businesses. In Junction they had big trucks that had to individually truck the water to each of the houses! So Linstead is a lot more advanced than Junction and quite a bit different! It’s hard to leave Junction because the Branch was great there and our investigators were great also but I know here will be just as great and that we will be able to get work done here!

My new companion Elder Porter is from Mesa, Arizona. So he is kind of used to the heat! He is a super great missionary though! He has been out for a little over 10 months. We get a long together really well! Excited for these couple transfers they should be great! 

Our current teaching pool is pretty good! We have got a lot of part member families in our area so we are trying to focus on getting those to full-member families! We also have a couple different families! So hopefully this next week we will be able to make some better progress with all these people!

Elder Hansen