Hermana Juliet Hansen - "the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind"

Hello all,

 

This week I learned a lot about myself. There were three days in a row where I really felt like I wasn't a good missionary. I had dropped the ball on a few things and I was really beating myself up about it. And after talking with a couple of other missionaries on Sunday about how I was doing I came to realize that a lot of what I was struggling with was perfectionism. I think I've always been the type where I think about what I could have done better in every situation. Even if others say I did a good job, I always think differently. Crazy, I know. And that perfectionism really affects me as a missionary. I thought I had learned the lesson about how I don't need to expect perfection at the beginning of my mission. But I guess I only applied it in one area of my life, with my Spanish learning abilities. I let go of requiring perfection of myself then and my spanish progressed a lot and I was much happier. Now that I'm learning how to be senior companion I'm having the same experience again. So I'm starting to work on letting the perfection go. Because though the Lord asks us to become perfect, I am only human and I am going to make mistakes. And when I make mistakes I just need to accept them as opportunities to learn. And one of the sister missionaries shared this quote with me after talking with her,

 

"When you let go of who you were, then Heavenly Father will show you who you really are."

So this is me resolved to let go of my old perfectionist self so that the Lord can mold me into who He needs me to be. And I'm excited to be shown who I really am. I guess you could say I'm off on a road of self discovery :)

 

In other news.... this weekend we had a baptism!!! (Sorry no pictures, I don't have the right cord to connect my camera to the computer anymore)

It was a baptism for a 10 year old named Nicte. She is such an amazing girl. She's been waiting for a while to be baptised because she really wanted her dad to do it. So for 2 years missionaries have been going over to her family's house every tuesday. Hermana Fish has told me that the change in the family over the last 3 months has been amazing. The parents used to just go to church for one hour (sacrament meeting) and the mom wasn't sure that she really had a testimony. But over these past 3 months the parents are now going to every activity, all 3 hours of church, and the mom KNOWS without a doubt that the church is true. AND what is even better is that Nicte's dad was able to baptise her! He'd never baptised anyone before, so he had to do it 3 times :) But I have never seen someone so happy to be baptised as this little girl. She is truly converted and she is SOOOO excited to get the Holy Ghost next week. This family is such a great example to me and I'm so grateful that I have a chance to be a part of their lives as they now prepare to go to the temple to sealed as a family.

 

I love you all,

 

Hermana Hansen

 

 

Hermana Juliet Hansen - Feliz dia de las madres !!

Hello all,

 

It was so great to have the opportunity to talk with the family for a little bit yesterday (Sunday). I hope everyone had a terrific Mother's Day. We had the opportunity to celebrate Mother's Day twice in our ward because Mother's Day in Mexico is the 11th of May. Our ward had a really great activity in honor of mothers on Friday night. There was really great food and then they had a live Mariachi band come and play. It was a super fun way to celebrate the weekend. And then of course American Mother's Day on Sunday.

 

This week was really great. We had a lot of success and we were kept really busy. There is so much work to be done here and we really could use another set of missionaries here to help us out. We have about 70 member families in our area (so far half of which are inactive) and about 25 families in our teaching pool of investigators. That is a lot of people that we want to work with. But with just the two of us there is not enough time in the week to visit everyone. Hopefully one day we will get more missionaries but for now we'll keep working hard and seeing as many people as we can with just our companionship.

 

The Lord is definitely blessing us for the hard work that we are putting in. One of the big miracles that happened for us this week was a lesson we had with N..... and J....... We go over to visit with N.......'s mom, A...., every Tuesday and Thursday. When the sister missionaries started visiting about 3 months ago, N..... and J....... would always go and hide in the back room or sit outside until the sisters left. Then this past Thursday we go to visit Alma and we start talking with N...... and J...... about the baptism we are going to have this weekend. (N......'s sister is dating the older brother of the girl that is getting baptised) They expressed interest in going and then N...... out of the blue asks us if we could explain Joseph Smith. We were shocked but we said sure we can explain that for you. So we sat down and talked. They actually listened to a lesson on the Restoration! It was awesome!!! And now N..... really wants to go to church. J..... has had some bad experiences with religion in the past so she's a little more skeptical but with time we're sure that she will come around. And hopefully now that the whole family is meeting with us it will be easier for them to come to church. But it was such a great lesson and we're excited to see how everything turns out with them.

 

A...... came to the ward activity on Friday which was a huge step for her. She had foot surgery about the time the sisters first started going over and so hasn't been able to go anywhere for a long time. But her recovery is going really well so she was able to spend some time at the church on Friday. We're also hoping that now that she can walk around without assistance and that she's met more people from church that she'll feel more comfortable to come to the services on Sunday.

 

Today happens to be exactly 8 months from when I entered the MTC in September. How quickly the time flies. I feel like I've come such a long way. And I know that I still have so many things to learn, I'm excited to see what else is in store.

 

Thanks for all your support.

 

Con amor,

 

Hermana Hansen

Hermana Juliet Hansen - And the learning continues...

Hello everyone!

 

This week has been a big learning curve for me. Going to a new area, a new companion, and becoming senior companion. A lot of changes in a short amount of time. But every day I'm getting a little bit better and a little bit more comfortable in the area.  

 

We're working a lot with our area book and trying to find old investigators to see if they would be interested in listening to the missionaries again. We've actually had some success with that.

One day we were looking for a man named Antonio. We knocked his door and started talking to him and he really gave off the impression that he didn't want to talk to us. So we left after a couple of minutes. I came away feeling like we wouldn't ever see him again but Hna Fish felt like we weren't done with him, that he still had some potential. We then realized that we hadn't knocked some of the other people that live in his complex so we turned around and went back in. We walk by and Antonio starts coming down his stairs to talk to us again. He was like "Wait! I have a question. Why are there so many churches?" I was floored. I don't know what changed from when we were talking to him at his door to two minutes later when we were walking by his staircase. But whatever happened we ended up talking to him for 20 minutes or so about how so many churches came to be. We then left him with a pamphlet on the restoration to read. Hopefully we can visit with him again this week and talk more....hopefully in his home and not on the staircase :)

Another day we decided that we would try to visit a family that had met with the missionaries a little over a year ago. Often times if it's been that long the people will have moved but miracle of miracle we were able to find the wife at home. This family seems so great. They loved coming to church last year but they stopped progressing because his mother showed them some anti-mormon literature. Well, the wife was incredibly welcoming. She remembered fondly the missionaries that had taught her before and she was very open to us coming back to visit. What was interesting was that in the short time that we talked with her, we learned that her husband is good friends with one of the members in our ward. So we talked with that member and he was absolutely thrilled to hear that we had found that family again. So tonight we are going with the member to visit with them.

 

We also have started teaching a 10 year old girl named Katherine. She is terrific. She is the daughter of a less active member who really wants to come back to church. We taught Katherine for the first time this week and she literally soaked everything up like a sponge. We asked to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon before we came and visited again. And she said that she would have the first 8 chapters read!! Hardly ever does someone say that they will do more than what we assign them. Generally, they'll say well I'll try to read the chapter but I won't make any promises. She actually said that she would read way more!! Then on Sunday I asked her if she had been reading. And she said yes and that she found it to be really interesting. Hallelujah!!! We set a date with her to be baptised the 27th of this month. The only thing that would potentially keep that from happening is if her dad doesn't give permission. But we have an appointment for Wednesday and hopefully we can talk to him then.

 

So many awesome people live here. The members are terrific [they feed us a ton, so I may gain a bajillion pounds but hopefully not :)]. There are so many areas of untapped potential to find more investigators. Many of the investigators that we do have, have such a desire to learn and progress.

 

Looking back on the week it has been a really refreshing change of pace.

 

I continue to learn every day from my study of the New Testament. This week I finished Romans and read a lot in 1 Corinthians. If you ever want to know how you can become more like Christ, I would suggest reading Romans 12. I LOVE that chapter.

 

Well, that's all for now. I love you all and pray for you.

 

Con amor,

 

Hermana Hansen