11/22/10 Luis Baptism

Saludos de Acapulco,

This week went ok. We had a baptism. It was a niño magico. A member told us to visit an inactive family last week, so we did. And we found out that the youngest kid had just turned eight and had not been baptized. The kid lives with his grandma who is a member, but his mom is dead and his dad left them. So it counted as a convert baptism because his parents aren't members. We were going to do the baptism in the ocean, but the bishop never showed up. It then was too dark to go to the beach, and we needed another witness. So we called just about every member in the ward looking for a witness untill we finally found one. We then had to clean and fill up the font. Then our investigators went to go eat, and took forever to come back. We thought they had ditched. But in the end it all worked out. After three tries the kid, Luis, was baptized, and yesterday he was confirmed.

The week was a little rough. A lot of our investigators died on us. We're starting this week with almost nobody, but we have a lot of ideas, and we're going to try new things other than knocking doors.

It's weird to think that Thanksgiving is this week, because it feels like summer here. Today we got the two zones together to play football on the beach. It was our Turkey Bowl. It was a lot of fun, but the water looked very tempting. The beach was gorgeous. We should come back some day. It's called Pie de la Cuesta. I think to celebrate Thanksgiving we're going to eat at Applebee's on Thursday. Yea there's an Applebee's in Acapulco. It's pretty incredible.

This new ward is a little less organized than my last area. On Sunday they called on us to speak without warning us beforehand. I pretty much gave the same talk our president gave in the zone conference last week.
Also, the primary is preparing for the Christmas program, and they are going to sing Christmas songs in English. It is pretty hilarious. I'll be sure to take a video on the day of the program.

Well, that's all for this week.

Ciao
Elder Hansen

11/15/10 Transferred to Acapulco!

Hola,

Big news. I got changed. I am now in Acapulco Centro. It looks like I'm going to end my mission in sunny Acapulco. I actually got changed on Tuesday. There were some special changes, and I think because President knew that my comp and I were having problems he changed me. I am so happy here. I was starting to get kind of depressed in my last area because of our problems. But I'm loving it here. My new companion is Elder Harley from Saratoga Springs, Utah. He's kind of a quiet guy, but we get along really well.

I have a completely different opinion of Acapulco from the last time I was here. When I left Acapulco, I swore that I never wanted to go back to that ugly place. But now I am in the centro, which is a pretty nice area, and the weather is a lot better in November than it is in July. My area covers the a lot of the coastline, and almost everywhere in my area I have an ocean view. I now only have 6 weeks left, but I'm going to make the most of it. We have a number of cool investigators, and I think we could baptize a lot in the coming month.

On Sunday we had a regional conference for the whole country of Mexico. Elder Christensen of the 70, Elder Bednar, and President Eyring spoke. They all gave really great talks. Bednar spoke of how we recieve revelation. There are three ways we can receive revelation. One comes suddenly like turning on a light switch in a dark room. The next comes gradually like a sunrise. The last type comes without us really knowing it like a sunrise on a foggy or cloudy morning. President Eyring spoke of creating a heritage of righteousness.

Well, I hope all is going well back home. All is well here.

Love,
Elder Hansen

11/8/10 Virgilia's Baptism

Hola,
This week went pretty well. We had a baptism on Saturday. The old lady I wrote about, Virgilia, was baptized. The baptism went really well except for when the Bishop started rambling and going into deep doctrine. But overall it turned out fine.
This week we found a new family that we started teaching. It's a single mom with three kids. The mom had a stroke 6 years ago and can't speak very clearly. But they are really cool, and they all came to church on Sunday. It was kind of difficult to bring them to church because the mom was afraid to leave the house by alone. She said that they never leave the house alone because someone might come in and rob them. We were able to convince her to come for just the first hour, but she was still pretty unsure. I hope we can find a solution to that problem.

We should have a baptism this Sunday. Her name is Mayra, and she is the mom of the two kids that were baptized three weeks ago. We had a cool experience with her this week. She is currently separated from her husband, but a few weeks ago we had the opportunity to teach him when he came to visit the kids. This week we were talking about her relationship with her husband and she told us that he called her and told her that the lesson we taught had really touched him. He said that in a month he is going to visit for a few weeks, and he would like us to teach the lessons and be baptized.

This week we had a cold front come in. I think it has gotten down to the 40s at night. I know that's not much for you Wisconsinites, but when you live in a cement house that's pretty dang cold. During the day the weather has been gorgeous, in the 70s and sunny. And in the evening I've been able to use my sweaters for the first time since the MTC. But the cold front has caused quite an uproar. Apparently, it never gets this cold this early in the year, and everyone thinks the cold is just unbearable. I'm enjoying it while I can before I have to face a cold January in Utah.

I liked Dad's story about the old man that won the marathon race. I guess sometimes we've just got to keep on keepin' on.

Well, I hope all ya'll have a great week.

Love,
Elder Hansen

11/1/10 Dia de Muertos

Feliz Dia de Muertos,

It's a holiday here in Mexico today and tomorrow. Everyone puts up a shrine in their houses for their deceased family members. The shrine includes all of their favorite food. The tradition is that the dead come on November 2 at mid-day and eat the food. Outside of every house there is a trail of yellow flower petals leading to the shrine. Then on the night of November 2 everyone eats the food, and drinks the alcohol that they put for their dead grandpa. But nobody celebrates anything on the 31, so yesterday was pretty uneventful.

Yesterday was the day of changes, but neither my companion nor I got changed. I guess Elder B will be my last companion. I guess that's alright. I think God wants me to learn a little more patience before I go home.

This week went alright. We were both expecting a change, so we didn't work as hard as we could have. But yesterday we planned really well for this change, and I think that we should have success. We should have a baptism this Saturday. It should be really cool, because she is an old lady that almost everyone in the town knows. Everyone seems really surprised that she accepted to be baptized. Apparently she used to be really Catholic, but ever since her husband died she has been looking for answers that she could never find in her religion.

There's not much new here in Cocoyoc. I hope all is well back home.

Love,
Elder Hansen

10/25/10 Virgilia

Hola,

This week went pretty well. Last Sunday an old lady sister from the ward brought her friend to church with her, so we set up an appointmet to visit her. We went and challenged her to be baptized in the first lesson, and she accepted. It was a good way to start the week. Her name is Virgilia, and she's an old widow. She's pretty lonely and loves when we go to visit her. Last time we went, she had little sandwiches prepared for us when we got there. She now has two times in church and should be baptized on November 6.

This week we tried out a new idea to find new investigators. We put up a stand near the market of Cocoyoc. We set up a table with all of our different pamphlets, some Book of Mormons, some DVDs, and the special Liahona about temples. We also put up posters with different questions on them: What is the purpose of life? How can my family be more happy and unified? What does Jesus Christ expect of me? So we spent the whole morning in that stand contacting people. It went alright. We got a few appointments out of it. But it's nice to try something different every now and then.

There are a lot of new missionaries arriving to the mission right now. I heard that half of the mission is going to be new missionaries and their trainers. Two weeks ago like 12 new gringos came. Today 9 more came, and next Monday 14 Mexicans arrive. A lot of the Americans had visa problems and that's why they're getting here right now instead of on their original date. My companion is a little bummed out because a lot of people are being made trainers and he's still junior comp. We had a good talk yesterday. I think our relationship has improved drastically. We went the whole week without a single arguement. I don't think that had happened since our first week together.

Today I saw one of my MTC buddies for the first time since the MTC. He's had a pretty difficult mission. I think he's had even more difficult companions than I've had. But I was glad to see that he still has a good attitude and was just made a zone leader.

Well, there's not much new. I finally brought my cable, so I'll send some pictures. (note from mom--didn't see any pictures???)

Love,
Elder Hansen

10/18/10 Jonathan & Bryan Baptisms

Hola,
Well, this week was another good week. We had two more baptisms,
and we found quite a few new investigators. The two people that were
baptized are named Jonathan and Bryan. They are the nephews of a
member in the ward. We are also teaching their mom. She is really
cool and wants to be baptized, but she has only come to church once.
She works nights and going to church at 9:00 am has been a little
difficult. But I think that after seeing her kids' baptisms she will
be more willing to come to church.

We also have another family that we are teaching. But they are kind
of special. They just came here from some little town in the
mountains in Guerrero. They're from the "sierrra" as they say it
here. Sierra means mountains or hills. The sierra is kind of it's
own little world, and the people there have difficulty interacting
with other `people. They are super poor, and none of them know how to
read. The oldest son is 17 and is pretty out of control. They just
moved in to a little room next to the bishop's house. They've come to
church with us twice, but I'm not sure how much they get out of it.
This week we got the youngest girl to say a prayer and the grandma
said one once. It's been pretty difficult trying to teach them, but
we feel like they have made some `progress.

I haven't really written much about my companion. These 2 changes
that we've been together haven't been very easy. He's very different
than any other companion that I've had. With my other companions, our
disagreements were almost always over obedience or work issues. But
this companion works hard, is obedient, yet he's probably been my most
difficult companion so far. He is very sensitive, and I have to be
careful about everything I say and do. He also gets angry very
easily, and it seems like every other day he gets angry at me. It's
been a challenge. Last night, he exploded and started yelling at me.
I wanted so badly to just get up and walk away, yell back, or hit him.
Butt I just waited for him to calm down and I started thinking of what
I could say to calm him down. I asked if there was anything I could
do to serve him. His attitude changed immediately. We were able to
find a solution to the problem and make plans to prevent future
arguements. Today we have gotten along really well.

Well, I think that's all for this week. I forgot my camera cable
again, so sorry i still don't have pictures.

Love,
Elder Hansen

10/11/10 Ruby's Family Baptisms

¡Feliz Dia de Cristobal Colon!

Happy birthday Zac and Brooke.

Clint, keep telling the missionaries in your ward that they're dumb. We don't do that here.

Well, this week was a week full of blessings. We had three baptisms on Saturday. Ariel, Martha, and Jose, who are the siblings of Rubi that was baptized two weeks ago, were all baptized and confirmed. It was really cool. I had never had three baptisms on the same day before. On Sunday, Ariel even came with a white shirt and tie. But wait, it gets even better. We had 10 investigators at church on Sunday. It was great. I had never had that many in church before. Right now we have seven with baptismal dates for this month. Our goal was 3 confirmations, but I think we could double or even triple it. But wait there's more. They made me the new district leader. On Sunday, we fasted just to give thanks for an amazing month, but as we did that God blessed us even more. We can never give sufficient thanks.

Today we went to this cool town called Tepoztlan. We hiked to this temple that's built on top of a mountain. The hike was more difficult than I thought it would be, but it was worth it. It's pretty amazing how there's this pyramid on top of a mountain. It wasn't that big, but it was still cool. The town is pretty tourist friendly, and we even saw a few white people there.

Well, last week was a good week and I think this week will be as well. If all goes well, we will have two baptisms this Saturday.
That's all for now. Have a great week.

Love,
Elder Hansen

PS next week i'll send pictures. i forgot the cable today.