Two amazing weeks in one blog post...

August 15, 2016

This week has truly been a great one! First off, Beverly Tingling received an answer that the Book of Mormon is true!! We asked how she knew and she said that she was able to feel the power of the Holy Ghost as she read and prayed about it!! It was so great to hear her say those words because a lot of the time she has a hard time understanding everything! So the spirit has truly been able to work on her! She continually tells us how she wants to and needs to get baptized so that she can be sealed to her family! That is what it is all about!! Helping people to make it to the Temple so that Families can be sealed together forever because without the priesthood power being restored and the ordinances done in the temple there would be no hope for us to return back to our Father in Heaven!!

Then on Sunday we had a member fireside where Linda K. Burton, Neil Marriot, of the Relief Society presidency and then Hugo E. Martinez were here visiting. It was so great to hear them speak and bare simple testimony of the Savior and what the people of Jamaica need to do to become a "Zion-Like" nation! It was fantastic and we were able to bring Brother Mauris Tingling with us. The person who has been gone for more than 10 years and has recently started coming back to full-activity! I know I have talked about him before but it is so awesome to see how the gospel changes people! It really is like a light coming back on in somebody! When we first met him he quiet and didn’t talk a lot now he jokes around laughs and seems like a lot happier person!! It has been really great to help people come closer to our Heavenly Father and I am grateful for that!

August 22, 2016

A miraculous week we have had! Transfer calls came and I will be staying in Linstead as district leader as well as training a new elder! So that will be exciting! I go down on Wednesday to pick him up! Too bad elder porter had to leave but he was just transferred to Spanish Town which isn’t too far away.

But for the week... we were able to get a lot done with our investigators! We were also able to find a lot of new investigators that have some great potential! But for a miracle this week: We were riding down to see one of our investigators named Delroy. He lives by a bar... so we are riding down this hill and can see that there is a lot of people outside the bar talking to him. As we are riding up Elder porter and I are saying to ourselves "and everyone be gone", "and everyone go away". So as we ride up we find Delroy amongst the crowd of people and ask if we are still good to sit down for a while. He said, “sure.”  So we go and sit down and before we know it EVERYONE was gone! I didn’t even realize they had left but they had all vanished! It was really cool to see the power of Heavenly Father.

But as I continued to think about this it reminded me of the story with Joshua and leading the children of Israel through the Jordan River. The river didn’t part as priesthood bearers sat on the edge of the river, they had to start walking into to the river to show their faith and then the water parted! So as elder porter and I started into the crowd instead of just riding by we were able to "part the crowd" so we could have a lesson with Delroy to help him towards Salvation.

Elder Hansen

Great things are happening!

This week has been pretty good! However I did break my bicycle crank shaft this last week so that was no fun trying to run around to different shops to find the right parts and then put it all together! 

We also helped one of the members get saw dust for his chicken coop. Nobody really has vehicles here so we just had to use our bikes but we hiked clear up this trail into the mountains.  Basically just going straight up! I just keep thinking to myself, “Who has a saw mill in the middle of nowhere??”   But, we finally get there and have to haul 5 large bags of sawdust back down this trail to his house! So that was pretty good trying to ride down while holding this huge bag of saw dust! 

As for our investigators, they are doing great! We are still working with all of them and they are progressing well! Over time they will continue to repent and change their lives so they can be baptized! Something that was also great to see was seeing the spirit work on Beverly Tingling! She has a really hard time understanding the gospel or really anything! But as we started to testify, very simply, she started to understand a lot better! She then agreed to be baptized on September 4th! So great things to come and great things currently happening!

Elder Hansen

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