Hola familia!! Man do I love hearing from you guys each week, it is so nice to be able to hear what is going on back in Magrath with everyone. Its weird being secluded from the world but I know why its necessary and I actually do like it a lot haha. I thought i would miss all the electronics and communicating devices but i actually don't.. its nice to just focus on someone 100%. but don't get me wrong i still do love hearing from you guys.
Its weird another hockey season is starting and I'm not playing. I'm excited to hear from Russ and see how he is doing! Expecting him to have at least 40 goals this year! haha. That is so awesome about volleyball Carter, sounds like you are dominating out there, keep up the good work! Looks like you guys should be one of the favorites to win it all, so just work hard and I know you guys will be pull it off! Make sure you update me on each one of your games I'd love to hear every week how you are doing!
I'm so sad I missed Mitch's homecoming talk, I'm sure he did a great job! I would love to hear from him and know how he's doing and how he's adjusting to the hockey life back home.. I bet its super weird! I already feel like it would be weird and I've only been out a month. Crazy I've been out a month today! Ill be sure to write Chase a little message and say hi and ask how he is doing! He is such a cute little kid and it melts my heart that he said that. haha.
Like I said its weird I've been out a month today. According to our president he wants us to be fluent in 3 months.. so according to him we should we a third of the way there. I don't even feel close at allll haha. But thats ok, I'm learning lots each day. I find it easier and easier every time I try to talk with someone. We got a new group of latinos in yesterday so we were trying to help them settle in and they didn't speak much English so we had to do most of in it Spanish. It made it tough but it was a good experience. I don't know how you felt after a month dad, I'm sure japanese is much harder to learn.. but the stuff we are learning now is so frustrating. We are learning subjunctives right now, I don't even know what that is in English so its quite interesting. haha. I also had to give a 5 minute talk in Spanish last sunday. about 90% of it was in Spanish, and then I said some english words that I didnt know how to say. I remember the first sunday when we were here and the people who had been here 4 weeks gave their talks, I thought there was no way i would be able to do that in 4 weeks. but sure enough I can, with the Lord and great teachers we learn so quickly!
To answer your questions. My shoes are doing good! Both are really worked in and pretty comfortable, my feet do get a little sore from being in them all day but its getting better. We only get to take pictures every other Sunday, so I have been taking lots of pictures on those days.. I think I'm going to take my camera when I go proselyting on Saturday. We aren't supposed to look like tourists, but i figure if there is something awesome I will take a quick picture of it. There are no new Canadians with the new group of missionaries, it is just me and hermana Drew and the rest are americans. We are highly outnumbered but we both have Canada shirts we wear pretty much everyday haha. We can print off the emails we get which is nice, I don't print off all of them.. usually just the ones i don't have time to read then I can respond to them the next week. I don't need anything that i can think of, plus i won't be here long enough to receive it anyways. Once i get to the mission home and where I'll be staying i can let you know if i need something!
So on to the proselyting. It was another great day but wayyy different than the last time we went out. We woke up to it absolutely pouring outside, and it seriously didn't stop all day. So we all got our rain coats and umbrellas and just sucked it up and went out. And when i say pouring it was seriously pounding down, i could hardly hear when the rain was hitting the top of my umbrella. The streets had about 3 inches of water everywhere.. so we had to jump through puddles and try to find whatever dry ground we could to walk on.. was an adventure. It definitely made it difficult to proselyte because there was pretty much nobody on the streets anywhere! The odd person here or there, but they were in too much of a rush to stop and talk to us. So we started knocking doors to see if we would have any success that way. We were walking up to this guys house and he was standing in the entryway, and when he saw us he kind of left... we decided to be annoying and knock anyways. He answered the door and we told him we were missionaries, and we talked to him for about 2 minutes before he actually let us in his house. It was a tiny little cement apartment with 2 rooms and a disgusting bathroom that smelt like an outhouse. We went into one of the rooms and his friend was in there, probably in his 70s, wrapped up in a blanket super sick. We talked to them and shared a bit of a message about Gods purpose for us, and then we talked about the book of mormon for a bit and he said he would read it. I had the prompting to give his friend a blessing but i couldn't think of how to say anything in Spanish, i felt so dumb so i didn't ask but now i wish i just would have and not worried about the language.. but it was a learning experience. But we did ask them if we could offer a prayer for them and they said yes, it was a short but powerful prayer and they were very acceptive. I then asked the guy if he would like to be baptized.. yes baptized haha. We are taught you are supposed to ask people to be baptized almost every time you talk to them even though they will almost always say no. When i asked this guy he said, si amen. I don't think he really understood what i was asking him though haha.
So we went back out in the rain for about an hour and had no success.. we decided to eat lunch and we had to walk for about 15 minutes to find a place that was dry enough that we could actually eat there. it was a struggle... once we did find a place when we were done eating it was tough to motivate ourselves to get back out in the rain, but we knew its what we had to do. So off we went to knock some more doors. about a half hour later we knocked on this guys door and he opened up, and when he opened the door i could see inside and he had a giant hole in his roof that the water was just pouring through! We asked if we could help him and he said no, he said that he would love to talk to us and invite us in but he couldn't right now.. so we left. We weren't more than 50 feet away when we were inspired that we had to go back. So we went back to his house, said we are sorry to bother you again, then we asked him for his name and address so we could come back and visit later. We then left him with a book of mormon to read. It was cool how accepting he was when we went back and bothered him again.
I feel like there is getting less to talk about, just because days here are getting pretty routine. We do learn a lot each day but I'm not gonna bore you with the Spanish lessons we are receiving haha. Im sure when I'm out in the field I'll have a lot of experiences to share with you guys.
I just wanna finish with my testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith! We watched "Joseph Smith the Restoration" movie last Sunday, and it was incredible. Its funny how before my mission i never ever watched church movies and now I love them. You guys should watch this movie, it's about the life and trials of Joseph Smith, and it definitely had my eyes going a bit glossy at certain points. I really do know he is a true prophet of God. I want to become like him in the sense when we found out the truth, all he wanted to do was share it. I do have the truth in my life and I do want to share it, but I've been praying for the burning desire to share it with everybody I come in contact with. I love you guys and hope everything is going good! Thanks for being such great people and good examples. I loved your talk dad. I'm blessed to have parents who are so strong in the gospel. It's been the biggest blessing in my life and I see it more everyday! Take care.
Love, Elder Hansen.
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