Recent Pics

hey family,

this week went by really fast i feel like, so it was good.  But we have two baptismal dates for the 5th of may, so we´re hoping and praying that everything goes well with them.  One is a guy from momostenango, and other from here, juan pablo and vincent, so i hope everything works out there.  But we are also looking always.  The truck kind of took a hit this week, but we weren´t driving it, or in it.  the office couple got hit by a motorcycle when they were driving it, so it kind of hit the bumper and stuff, but it´s fixed already i think.  

     I can´t believe that jared is going to prom, that seems so weird.  i remember my first prom i went with jenna bingham ( it took me a while to remember, haha, it´s been a long time).  So that´s crazy.  my little boys growing up so fast!, haha.  I feel bad about the beets though, hopefully everything can get back on track with those, but there´s opposition in all things, so i guess we can´t worry too much. 

    The work in the office is good, i feel like i´m in the tv show, ´the office´sometimes.  No, not really, but it kind of does remind me of it.   I have learned everything i need to do.  most of it´s not too hard, it just takes a little bit of organization and it´s easy, but pretty much the secretary before set it up good for me.  At first it was kind of stressful just because the day after the other secretary left, i was in charge of getting a missionary back to his house, he was finishing his mission, but now it´s not too bad.  There´s 15 missionaries leaving in this next group, and 13 coming, so i have to be in charge of getting them here, and also sending the other ones off.  

     1.  my license expires in october on my birthday i think, but i´m 98.9 percent positive that i won´t need it by then, because i´ll be out of the office, but if you want to renew it that´s fine, if not, that´s perfect too. but maybe just renew it in case. 2.  i did get my bankcard and everything is good with that, I bought some corte, so we´re going to see if we can make pants out of it somewhere, and some ties.  3.  my health is better than it was in the u.s. 4. i don´t need anything here, i have more than i had in the u.s. haha, no just kidding, but you don´t need to sent anything down.

   to be honest, i´m pretty far behind in my reading of the Book of Mormon, but i for sure will catch up, but some days it´s hard, because I don´t have time for language study in the afternoon, but I know i´ll finish it.  anyway,  evwerything is going good here, i´ll have to get some more pictures sent offf, and i hope that you all got the other ones.  That´s cool too that jaime and riley are going to be living close to mark, that´s great.  But I hope that you all take care, and have a good week. I look forward to hearing from you the next week.  

love, you all,

Elder hansen

hey family,

sounds like you´re all doing, que me alegre.  But i´ll have to ask my companion about those people.  pretty much my responsibility is to get people to and from the mission, so it´s fun, i´ve already called some parents from the u.s., i´ve called the ccm a couple times, i called the mtc in provo yesterday, and i talk to president and everything to get everything coordinated.  I like it alot, at least so far, some people say they don´t like it too much, but that´s probably after about 4 months, haha, but i´m liking it.  We always try and get out at about 4, and that´s not too bad, it hasn´t happened so far, but this week we want it to happen.  my companion is the retention secretary, and he pretty much just takes all the dats and everything, but this next change he´s leaving, and to be honest, i think an elder hales is coming to be my companion, but i´m not sure yet, it´s too soon to tell, haha.  But we live with the assistents, so that´s pretty fun, the house is nice, i´ll have to take a video tour of it.  i just uploaded like 7 pictures, but the computer just deleted them off the email, so that´s awesome!  let me upload them again, but i´m on the computer alot, right now i´m just pretty much trying to understand everything and what´s going on, so that´s why it´s taking a little bit more time.  But we also do little errands and everything, we went to toto on thursday i think, cause we had to run some phones up there, so i was in my old area, and i talked witht eh bishop´s wife and everything, it seemed kind of weird, but i liked it.  

  But this last week we challenged a kid to baptism, he´s 17 so not quite priesthood, but he´s a good kid.  we put the date for april 5, so i hope that he´s able to reach that.  He wasn´t able to come see a baptismal service last night, but i´m pretty sure that he´s coming to church again on sunday.   our ward is almost like a ward in the u.s. 

    i´ve pretty much had warm showers my whole mission, except that one month, so it´s not too big of a deal, haha, but it is nice to have burning water.  hey, and our house is getting fixed too, the electricity is only 110, so pretty much  only the microwave and washer work, but they changing it to 220, so that´ll be good.  

anyway, other than that, everything´s prettty good, the president said i would be here 5 to 6 months.  i´m learning alot, and enjoying life.  i hope that all ya´ll are doing good, and thanks for your support always.  i think i´m calling you next month right?  or i could just call you whenever i want, and say it´s for office business, haha, no, but anyway, take care and love you all.

love,

Elder Hansen

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Doug Hansen <dhans10@hotmail.com> wrote:

hey family, how is everything going?

ya, sorry haha, that I just wrote that haha, but i moved into a new area...the office, so our preparation day is on saturday, just for us.  I'm getting trained to be the next general secretary and an elder named Elder Frodsham is the current one, so that's pretty fun.  I got a call on wednesday morning and they said to come to xela at 3, and so i came down with elder posas.  Then we came to the office and they told me, but i actually knew earlier that morning that i was coming to the office because an old assistent to the president told me, who was in my district in toto.  So i traded spots with an Elder de Lora, who came with me in my group, who now is in toto with elder posas, and i'm in the office.  But there's three secretaries because elder carter broke his foot about 4 weeks ago or so, and also elder de lora had a broken foot, so there were three secretaries two of which had broken foots, but now there{s three, two of which are healthy, haha.  

   I also got to drive for the first time in 9 and a half months, so it was kind of scary when i first started, but i just drove last night, it was fun. there's only two cars in the mission, so i feel priviledged to be able to drive one.  But we pretty much only get to drive because of elder carter's broken foot, but when he leaves, which i think he is in three weeks, then it's back to walking and everything, except when we need to move stuff and everything.  But it's not as fun to drive as i thought it was going to be, just because it's really slow here and everything, especially when there's alot of traffic, which is pretty much always, haha.  But our house is pretty nice, i feel like i had a huge change of houses, environment, everything, it's pretty crazy.  I pretty much speak english all day, but there's an assistent from el salvador, so i try and talk to him alot, just so i keep learning, and don't lose any spanish.  But there's a hot water heater in our house, which i haven't used for a while.  

     pretty much we are in the office after our studies in the morning, and then until 5 or 6.  The last couple days have been pretty slow because there hasn't really been much to do, but as soon as elder frodsham leaves, then i'm gonna probably have a ton to do, just working on projects and everything, which i'm pretty sure that he's leaving on tuesday.  But everything's going good, and i love the area that we're working in, it's great.  i'm still getting to know it and everything. 

   But my companion officialy is elder carter from sandy utah, but then the assistents are elder becerra, whose dad is the mission president in the california arcadia mission, and elder andrade from el salvador, i think?, and then elder frodsham who's the general secretary, was.  

    but also, everyone has a baby picture, or whatever picture of them when they were little, here in the office, so if you could send one of me when i was little, with whoever, or whatever, it doesn't matter, just when i was little.  also in the office are an elder and sister fairbourne, and they're from idaho falls idaho, originally, but they have lived in minnessota for 35 years or something.  anyway, everything's going good, and you can send me a picture whenever because i'll be able to look it up any day of the week and print it out or something.  But i hope that all of you have a great week, and have fun with mark and everything.  i'll be writing you then from saturday on, but you can probably send an email whenever, i could read it, but just not respond or anything probably until saturday.  anyway, i love you all, and i'll have to let you more about the investigators and or members when i get to know them better. take care,

love,

Elder hansen 

familia,
sounds like everything´s going good.  I´m glad that Brian and Ashlee
are doing good there, I feel bad that some beets blew out, you never
want to hear that happen. I planted some corn and beans this week with
a family where only 3 of the kids are members, the familia cóp.  So
that was fun, brought me back for sure, haha.  But noone came to
church this week, no investigators, but we´ll have to get some for
next week.  The papers for rosa are done by the government, but it´s
just about impossible to get a divorce here, but hopefully it can
happen soon.
   Today we went to those same waterfalls that we went to about 5
weeks ago, it was good, we hiked up to the top, and just kind of
stayed there a while.  But i left all my stuff to be able to send you
pictures at the zone leaders house, so that´s kind of lame, but i´ll
have to get it for next week, if i can get organized and everything.
But i´m learning alot always, and having good experiences.  that´s
awesome that that lady vivian was baptized, maybe you guys should
invite her over or something, for dinner or whatever, or a family home
evening, that would be good.  we have a family home evening tonight
with some investigators, so we´ll see how that goes, i hope that it´s
good.
     The next 40 days we have a challenge to read the book of mormon,
so i´m gonna try and do that in spanish, I really need to read every
page, and also this week we are trying to contact 40 positive people
that want to know more about the gospel, and those are the mission
goals.
   I don´t think that they have easter here, because nothing happened.
 They just have the semana santa (holy week)  where the catholics like
reenact the death of jesus christ and everything, but to be honest I
didn´t see anything, but I guess the reenact everything, and i don´t
know, it´s really lame, and mostly it´s just a vacation and an excuse
to drink alcohol, but that´s the tradition here.  But I pretty much
just had a normal week.
  i´m proud of jared that he´s doing track, that´s good for him, I
hope that he continues to have success.
   i played the piano this sunday, the guy that usually plays the
piano didn´t know that i could i guess, but i think that from now on
i´m going to be playing on sundays,
   about uncle richard coming, to be honest I don´t need anything, my
shoes are fine, they should last my whole mission, and i have
everything, no need for anything else, so don´t worry.  But i hope
that all you guys have a good week, send pictures when you can.
love,
Elder hansen

 hey mamaita linda, and all the familia chula,
> how´s everything going?  What a great letter, and what a great
> conference too that we had.  Ya, we were able to watch every session.
> in our zone, i think there´s 16 or 18 elders, so that´s good.  We were
> all able to be there and the english white people all watched it in
> one room, there was only 6 of us, so not too big, but it was good to
> hear it in english and everything. Before, last week, i downloaded all
> the sessions in spanish from the last conference and listened to
> almost all of it, that was good.  But ya, i loved every talk, and they
> really applied to me, and helped me out alot actually. i´ll have to
> read over the notes and everything i took, but it was great and i
> liked it alot.  And one thing we said is that the themes were really
> interesting, and kind of different, some of them, then they have been
> before.
>    i´m glad that you guys were able to go to florida, that´s awesome,
> i´m sure it was alot of fun. and also i can´t believe shane´s coming
> home in a month, that´s really weird, and went by fast.
>   i´m happy for brian and ashlee too, i hope they enjoy it there, the
> farm was a good place to grow up, haha.  But that´s great for them,
> and i hope that everything continues to go well.  Tell brian to plant
> the beets straight, so that we look like professional farmers, haha.
> the weirdest thing here, mostly they plant corn here, but they make
> huge rows of dirt, the hills,  like twice the size of the potato
> hills, and from there they put about 5 or 7 corn seeds on the side of
> the little hill, and they do that on both sides of the hill, and about
> every 3 feet they plant seeds, so it´s really different.  I heard of
> one family here that they just plant it normally like us, and that it
> grows better, but i´ll have to take a picture so that you can
> understand it better what they do.  They do everything with those big
> hoes, but no one really has a lot of land anyway.  like i´ve said,
> i´ve just seen one tractor here.
>    as far as the missionary work, Rosa is still just waiting for her
> divorce papers to go through and everything, it´s just waiting, she
> can´t do anything else, so that´s a pester, but there´s not much else
> anyone can do.  also, yesterday, a guy in a wheelchair came to church
> with us, his name is samuel.  He liked it alot and said he felt the
> spirit, and he recognized it.  His life is harder than i can describe,
> but i know that the gospel and the priesthood could help him if he
> allows it to.  And that´s really what the gospel is about, to be able
> to bless us, because God wants us to be happy, but he can´t just give
> us certain blessings without reason, he allows us to learn and I think
> to see the cause and effect also, and of course we always need to
> practice faith.  But conference helped my testimony too, and i was
> just thinking about how lucky we are to have such guidance, the world
> doesn´t have that surety and it´s sad, but the Lord offers everything,
> if only we ask him, and do His will, it´s just that simple.  Like
> president Uchtdord said, if you have any feelings of hatred or have a
> grudge against someone, Stop It! it´s just that simple, so it´s great.
>     Anyway, the package should come tomorrow because that´s when the
> zone leaders go to xela, and also i´m the district leader now, there´s
> 8 in our district.  It´s good because i get a cell phone, which is
> nice. I´ll have to send some pictures when I can, but you guys should
> send me some of whatever, just by email and i´ll get them and also am
> able to print out photos here.  have a good week everyone, and thanks
> for everything.
> love,
> elder hansen