Hermana Juliet Hansen - The Missionary Work is Swiftly Increasing ....

Life has been really amazing. There really is no greater time to be a missionary. And God has been granting us so many miracles.

 

First, I thought you might enjoy some pictures of the fun things that we've been up to recently. One is of Hna Whetten and I making smores over our gas stove :) And the other two are from a hike that we took just this morning. All of us Hermanas decided to strike a yoga pose on an awesome rock formation, it was super fun. You might be able to tell that I'm not skilled at yoga [but if Hna Whetten has anything to say about it, I will be :)]. We do a lot of amazing things with teaching others about the gospel of Jesus Christ but we do enjoy ourselves with other things too. (We will add the photos into this posting later)

 

So some cool experiences for the week...

 

Friday we were getting ready to leave the car to go contact a potential investigator when who should walk across the street but a boy named M...... He goes to church every week but for some reason he's not baptised. When I saw him I about jumped for joy but was slightly limited by being in the car. And I'll tell you why I was so excited... When Hna Fish and I were together we tried many times to visit with him and his mom but every time the lesson would get cancelled. In the three months that we were together, I never had the opportunity to talk with him apart from seeing him at church on Sundays and Wednesdays. Not even once were we successful. So when I saw him in my mind I was like, "This is it!" We didn't even pray, we just booked it after him. We knocked his door and asked if we could visit him. He said yes and we had a great conversation outside on the stairs. It was such an awesome lesson. He has a great testimony of everything. So we asked him if he would be baptised and he said "Yes"!! It was truly one of those experiences where we were able to teach some one who is literally ready to be baptised the next day. I didn't ever imagine that that would happen on my mission.

 

And in BIG news. I've talked before about the Y.... family and their son E..... Well on Sunday we were finally able to meet with the mom and it was such an amazing lesson. We went in with the plan to teach the restoration really focusing on authority and how we have the priesthood. And during that lesson we saw just how much the experiences she's been having with E..... have prepared her to accept the Gospel in her life. When we talked to her about how Jesus Christ gave his authority to the apostles by the laying on of hands it was like a light bulb went off in her head. And she said, "That's how you do it. That makes so much sense now." And it was like that the whole lesson. She really understood everything so well. And she wants to read the Book of Mormon without us even having to ask her. She wants to know the truth so badly in her life and now she knows how to do it. And she wants to be baptised in December!!!! Wooohhhh!!!

 

Well, I'm again out of time. I LOVE being a missionary!

 

I hope you have a terrific week.

 

Con amor,

 

Hermana Hansen 

Hermana Juliet Hansen - Priesthood Blessings Bring About Miracles

Buenas tardes a todos,

 

Random interesting fact provided by the brother of my companion. He works for the Missionary training center and was told this...

Normally in a two week period the brethren receive 400-600 missionary applications. During the 2 weeks after President Monson's announcement of the age change the brethren received 8000 applications. The work is moving forward rapidly and I'm soooooo excited :)

 

On to this week. It absolutely flew by but it was filled with really great experiences.

 

One of the coolest experiences from the week was this past Friday. We went to go visit our investigator H...... to commit her to church on Sunday. Well of all the great surprises we were able to meet her husband M...... for the first time. And because he had never met with us before we basically scrapped our original lesson plan and taught him the restoration. It was so great and when we gave him his own copy of the Book of Mormon his face literally lit up and he said "Really! this is for me?" He even said that he would read it in his car whenever he's on break for work. And when we invited him to be baptised he said that he would have to learn more but it is definitely something that he would work towards. It really was so amazing to see how excited about everything he was.

 

For awhile now a family we know has been going through a hard experience that has been a huge miracle in their lives. I don't remember how much I've shared of this so far but it really is so amazing. This miracle's name is E........ At about 5 months along E.....'s mom's water broke. And at that point the doctor's said that if she had the baby then they wouldn't be able to do anything to help him live. So for a week she laid flat on her back to give him more time to grow. Then she started bleeding but she was afraid to tell anyone what was going on. And for another week she laid still to give him the greatest possiblity to survive. And for that week the baby did great. But then at exactly the time when the doctor's could actually do things to help him E.....'s heart rate dropped drastically. So the doctors performed an emergency c-section. And for the last 3 months or so he has been hooked up to a respirator in an incubator. The situation wasn't super great and about a week ago the respirator was working at 100% because his lungs just weren't functioning. So his parents called some members of the ward to give E..... a blessing. His parents said that it was an amazing experience. Half an hour after receiving the blessing the respirator was working only at 25% and his lungs were doing 75% of the work. And then he was moved from the incubator to a crib. His parents are so grateful for the miracle that he is in their lives. And this is helping E....'s mom to become even more open to receive the gospel in her life.

 

I know that priesthood blessings work and that miracles still happen today. We just have the faith to ask and then accept the father's will.

 

There were so many other great things that happened this week but I'm running out of time. I'll just save those for another time.

 

With much love,

 

Hermana Hansen

Hermana Juliet Hansen - Bienvenido dia lunes, hoy podemos descansar :)

Another Monday has swiftly approached us and it happens that today is the start of transfer 9!! And guess what -  I'm staying in Reseda with Hna Whetten :) This has never happened to me before. 5 transfers in one place and 3 transfers with the same person. I'm super excited to see where this new transfer will take us. We have a lot of big plans and we really want it all to work out. And it will if we trust in God and have the faith.

 

Recently, we've had some really cool experiences with setting baptismal dates. One of those was when we were visiting with a less active member this past Saturday. We had this lesson planned based off the talk given by President Monson in general conference because we thought she hadn't been able to go. But it turned out that she had gone and actually watched the talk so it kind of made our lesson a mote point. But as we were talking it came up that her mom had questions about the church and wanted to know more about Joseph Smith. So we were able to turn the lesson and gear it towards her mom and the questions that she had. And it was a really good lesson and she was very willing to accept what we shared with her. There was a point where I thought to myself "should we invite her to be baptised?" and then immediately the thought was "why not?" And then we and her daughter were completely shocked when she said yes to the invitation. The member even commented that our faces looked absolutely glowing because we were so happy. I'm excited for her desire to be baptised. It's going to be an interesting experience because she is close to 90 and has some health problems that could impede her progress but we are super optimistic for her.

 

We also had a great opportunity to be the answer to someone's prayers this week. Saturday afternoon we went to go try and meet an inactive young single adult. It turned out that she was not at all interested so we started to head to the exit. As we were about to leave we saw a lady struggling to get things moved out of her apartment and my companion asked her if she wanted help. She looked at us and said emphatically YES!! It turned out that she had to move abruptly from her apartment because of a bad roommate situation and she had been moving all day but she only had one guy helping her. And it was getting close to the end of the day and she was desperate because she needed to get everything done before going to work. So she had been praying to God that someone would come and help her. And we just happened to show up right when she needed someone the most. She tried to pay us to get us to come to Santa Monica to help unload the stuff. We told her we couldn't because it's outside of our mission but we would make some calls and see what we could do. With 3 simple phone calls we were able to get her in contact with missionaries that could help her out on the other end. It really was a testament to me of how well organized the church is. So much so that you can organize assistance in a matter of minutes. I don't know how the story ended and if she was able to get everything unloaded in Santa Monica and then to work on time. I'm just grateful that we had the opportunity to help someone who really needed it and know that we were a direct answer to her prayer. Needless to say I went to bed very happy that night.

 

All the experiences that we've been having recently have really helped build my testimony that God really does know us personally and he always answers our prayers. It's amazing to feel the love that He had for me and all of His children. And if you ever think that he isn't there I would encourage you to get on your knees and just ask. I promise that experience will change your life.

 

Con mucho amor,

 

Hermana Hansen

Hermana Juliet Hansen - Come Listen to a Prophets Voice

What a week it has been. As always General Conference is such an amazing experience. I loved how the overall theme worked out to be, Are we truly converted? Are we committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? I loved so many of the talks and learned so much. One of the talks that I enjoyed was Elder Nelson's. It was the message of the restoration in it's purest form and it was a call to many to seek out the missionaries to answer many questions. If you didn't get the chance to see it, here's the link http://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2012/10?lang=eng&vid=1882747991001&cid=10

We all have questions about life, God's plan for us, etc. So like Elder Nelson said, "Ask the missionaries, they can help you!"

But of all the talks I think my favorite was by far President Uchtdorf's. Again here's the link, http://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2012/10?lang=eng&vid=1882749069001&cid=12

I love that he taught us how to live our life so that we don't have any regrets. This talk applies to life as a whole but I really love how it applies to specific experiences like serving a mission. So I'm going to do my best to apply the things that he said by 1) being my best self and spending meaningful time with those around me (i.e. companions, investigators, members), 2) completely immersing myself in the work, and 3) being happy regardless of the circumstances. I know that as I apply these things I will come home from my mission without regrets and I'll know that I've served to the best of my ability.

What were some of your favorite parts about conference? Anything that struck you and that you want to improve on in your life?

 

One of our investigators, H........, has been in Mexico for the last 2 weeks. And originally she had told us that she would be back the 14th of the month. Well, we were concerned because we didn't know if she would be able to make her baptismal date because of the trip. And while she was gone we decided that we would try to visit with her daughter and see if we could teach her. Well, this past Saturday we went to the house to see if we could visit with the daughter but lo and behold who should we see but H........ Just returned from Mexico as of 3 hours earlier. We couldn't have been more thrilled. And so we visited with her for a little bit. We watched the Restoration DVD with her and she just is so awed by the first vision. She told us that she knows it's true and she's still wanting to be baptised at the end of the month. At the end of the lesson she put her hands to her heart and said, "I feel my faith growing."

 

Another investigator, S......., continues to be so amazing. She is super excited to be getting baptised this coming Sunday. We reviewed with her the plan of salvation yesterday and she really understands it so well. We asked her at the end of the lesson what it means to her to know that God has this plan for her and she said, "Well, it means that I need to follow this plan because I know what will happen if I don't." She is so terrific and it's been such an amazing process to see how her life has been changing. One of the things that she told us was that over the course of meeting with us she has come to know just how much her life has value.

 

I love life. And I'm so excited for the new announcement that boys can leave at 18 and girls can leave at 19. I'm so excited to see what it does for missionary work all over the world.

 

I love all of you. And I know that God knows you each individually and is aware of your needs.

 

Have a terrific week,

 

Hermana Hansen

Hermana Juliet Hansen - The Temperatures keep rising ......

Hi all,

 

I think today was the hottest day of the summer. Our car at one point read 126 degrees. And of course it would be the day that we move apartments. The poor elders had to haul so much big furniture from one apartment to the other. But we really are so appreciative for all their efforts because now we actually live in our area and can hopefully help more people because we don't have to commute so much.

 

If I recall correctly, last week I told you about a lady named D.......  who came up to us after church and asked us what the process was to be baptised. Well we met with her and her mom after church and it turns out that she was actually baptised when she was 8 years old. The reason we thought she hadn't was because she had been told that her baptism didn't count because she had stopped going to church so long ago. And so she just wanted to know how she could be rebaptised. Well after talking with her again, we're now going to try to hunt down her records and hopefully avoid the rebaptism situation.

 

S........ came to the Relief Society General Broadcast on Saturday and to church. It was so great. And she's been reading a little bit of the Book of Mormon every day. She's in chapter 8 of 1 Nephi. It's really amazing to see how her life is changing. I'm really so excited for her.

 

Well, sorry for the short letter this week. I'm kind of out of time. Just know that everything is going really well.

 

But one last thing...during a personal study last week I was reading over my notes from the MTC and one of the questions we got asked was why are we happy as missionaries??

 

So this is a little bit of what I wrote in my journal...

Why I'm happy as a missionary:

1) I get to help others come unto Christ every day

2) Seeing hearts change is SOOO amazing

3) I get to study the scriptures and really come to know them

4) I get to feel God's love for everyone around me, basically from when I first meet them

5) I get to meet so many amazing people with such interesting stories

6) I get to become the person that God wants me to be

 

I hope you all have a terrific week

 

Con amor,

Hermana Hansen