birthday week

hey family,

how are you all doing.  This week was great, i forgot about the birthday and everything that i had.  I will try and remember to send some pictures next week.  On tuesday, a family made me some cake, and then that same night we went to the bishops house and had dominos and more cake and popcorn and ice cream, so i only gained 10 pounds there.  I was so full, haha, but that was great.  Then on wednesday night, another family, the family mendez made us supper and made another cake for me! so that was great.   And then on thursday night, another family invited us to eat and we had dominoes again, so we were pretty spoiled this week.  Then on friday we went to xela for a conference with trainers and the new missionaries, my group. That was good, and then on saturday president bautista came to work with us as a companionship.  We gave a lesson to Rogelio with him, and challenged him to be baptized, and he accepted for this saturday! we were happy about that, and it was a great lesson. His wife and daughter though, don´t want anything to do with the church.  We wanted to do a service projecdt with Rogelio, but his wife won´t even let us come and do that.  He´s pretty poor too, cause he has no work right now, he´s from Barillas btw, but we´re trying to help him.  He´s probably the most humble and genuine person that i know of, and i know that the spirit has touched his heart.  Missionary works´different than what i thought, because really it´s all about if the person has a desire to know for themselves.  The missionary just kind of tells them  what they know to be true, but when the person looks and researches, that´s when they are converted.  Because really a 20 year old white kid doesn´t know much about life and everything, but it´s just if a companionship can bring the spirit into the lesson, that´s a huge part of it. 

    Also, another kid named amilcar that´s 17 said he would be baptized as well.  We think that he has some personal problems, lke smoking, but we hope he has stopped  completely.  I don´t think that i´ve told you about the Espital family, amilcar is the son.  But this lady named maria espital lives literally in the middle of the forest, about at least 2 kilometros and maybe 3 .  But she is a recent convert with 6 kids, 2 of which are baptized.  my companion and his old comp baptized them. But she is completely poor, because her house is just those sheets of plastic, ´laminas´´ they´re called.  But she sells random stuff 2 days a week, and i actually have no idea how she gets food.  They all shower and wash their clothes in a stream.  me and my comp bought those little hats from her, that she made, with strings on the side.  But amilcar doesn´t work and so we´re trying to help him get a job. He didn´t want to work before, but now i think he´s starting to change, cause he could help so much, if he worked.  But we have just been promising them that blessings will come, if they keep the commandments, and always go to church and stuff.  But I know that they are happy, and really it doesn´t matter how much money you have, it just matters how close your family is and that´s where happiness comes from.

     oh also, i´vwe had the chance to play alot more piano this week.  The last sunday, i played for the primary presentation so that was great, and now i always play for opening exercises for priesthood.  So that´s good.  About Elder Benche´s family, that is probably his mom, so idk, i guess maybe call them or something.  But ya, Elder Bench is in my mission, maybe if you sent him a package or even just an encouraging letter, that would be really nice. 

     spanish is pretty hard still.  I feel like i´m good at it, it´s just that i can´t say whatever i want cause i don´t know how to say it, haha.  But i feel like my comp is helping me alot, and i really try and talk as much as i can.  Other people don´t understand how hard it is to be fluent, and to get to the point to where you can understand almost everything, but i just think of mark and brian and evewryone else in the familoy that has learned a language, and i know i still have a ton of time to improve. 

     About el mirador, that´s just a word that means lookout or viewpoint, because it´s above the whole valley where you can see alot, pretty much like the mountain b y pomerelle.  But Al Mirador, just means to the lookout, that´s just the street sign. There´s no ruins or anything, it´s just a place that all the missionaries go and everything, just for a trip.  I hope colton homer does good on the mission, I think he´ll do great, and he has a good character and everything to be a missionary.  That´s great that you got done with the harvest of potatoes, so good luck with the rest.  This week was altogether great.  I don´t know what else to say about it.  The days are passing by pretty fast, and going faster with time.  I´ll let you know how the baptisms go and if we have any more investigators.  Mirna told us that she wants to be baptized, but not now, so one needs the urim and thummim to interpret what that means, hahah.  Sounds like brian and mark and marissa and jared and alysha are all good.  Wish jared good luck with the tryouts.  and that´s awesome about the minico football team, and hope they take state, and is perrigot still the coach?  i´ll pray for jared to do good on his assignment.  i´ll let you know if anything new happens this week and do the same for me.  love you all alot

Love,

Elder Hansen

p.s. that´s awesome about julian, i hope he´s happy with that job, and that all goes well with the family moving.