Week 86 - New missionaries and knocking loudly

We stopped by the other mission office this week

Hey fam!!

Another week in the books. Was a pretty packed week with changes and a bunch of random stuff, but it was really fun this week. Also this week President had to take off for some medical exams in Salt Lake and a substitute mission president came yesterday to step in while he's gone. He's Elder Arredondo from the area seventy and is super nice and excited to work. He wants to leave the mission so much better for President when he gets back, so we're pretty excited. 

So this week the new missionaries came. I really can't believe it's been six weeks already. But it meant another trip to the airport. We now know how to get to the airport without the GPS. Kinda a big deal haha and it's always fun to see the new missionaries come out, especially the gringos because they look so lost and confused and it always makes me remember how I felt haha but then President always takes them to lunch and they look at lot better after that haha.

New missionary couldn't stay awake

Then the rest of the week was mostly normal. We had a really cool experience on Thursday night. There was this one family we found a few weeks ago that accepted everything super fast and said that they loved the church, but were a little anxious about leaving their old one. We didn't want to pressure them so we just kept inviting them and teaching as best we could. Everything seemed to being going great until we got a text from them saying that it was probably better that we didn't keep coming because they didn't want to get confused, which meant that their pastor had talked to them and scared them enough to stop wanting us to come. So we let them go for a little, but we both felt that night that we needed to head up to see if we couldn't visit them. As I'm sure you've all seen, it's been pouring over here and that night was one of the worst. And when the rain starts coming hard, it's hard for people inside to hear because almost all the roofs are made of tin. But we made it up and knocked on the gate and as expected, there was no answer. There were lights on inside so we kept knocking without results. Then Elder Vasquez looks at me and says "Ok, one more time. As loud as we can." So we both yelled as loud as possible and just like that the door opens and the dad comes out with a big smile on his face. They let us in and we had a great lesson and at the end they told us how much they had missed our visits and that they really wanted to learn more. It was such an amazing experience.

But I gotta take off. I love you all a ton. I hope everything is going great back there!

Elder Hansen

Week 85 - A Surprise Visit

[Ed. note: The honeymooners made a surprise visit to the mission office to see Reese. Erik said that the look on Reese's face was priceless. We're so happy that he was able to meet Kelly!]

Hey guys!!!

Well, pretty big surprise this week haha 

But it's changes today and I don't have a lot of time so I'll just tell the story next week. But it was really cool to see Erik and Kelly, biggest surprise of my mission by far. 

Life's great out here, loving every minute. I hope you guys are all doing awesome and enjoy the lovely picture!

Love you all!!

Elder Hansen

Week 84 - No longer a teenager

Hey guys!!

Another great week out here in Tres Rios. Every week just seems to get better and better. The rain has come back in full force this week, I've never seen so many lightning bolts in my life. Almost every morning it starts out sunny and then at about 1 it all starts going dark and by about 3 the rain comes in heavy. But I've gotten pretty good at making songs with the sounds my shoes make when they fill up with water haha I think I'll write a CD. 

But anyway, on to the week!!

So after the soccer game on Monday, we spent the next few days regretting almost all of it because of how sore we felt haha. I woke up Tuesday morning with legs stiffer than a Lamanite's neck. Bending over and picking things up became big mental debates haha but Tuesday we went to Concepcion, the neighboring district for their district meeting. Got to see my buddy Elder Davis which was super fun. Miss that guy. After that, we had a lesson at the church with one of Gerardo's friends who had come to church for the past few weeks, but we hadn't been able to sit down to teach him because of his work schedule, but we finally got to see him and he was so prepared, we just ran quickly through the lesson and he basically challenged himself and put his own baptismal date haha. He wants to get baptized at the end of this month. The Lord really has an amazing way of preparing people. Everyone has their own pathway, but it always brings them to the same point. 

Wednesday, we headed over to my old district in La Loma where I was over a year ago now. It was a really good meeting, focusing on repentance and how we can teach that better to our investigators. Sometimes, we pass too quickly over the importance of repentance and we need to make sure that people are aware of the miraculous blessing we have, every single day of our lives, to change who we were yesterday and move forward. 

Thursday was great, don't remember much, but it was fun haha

Friday, hmmm?

Saturday the same haha sorry I'm drawing a blank right now.

Sunday, was great haha. I actually waited until my birthday to open up the package, Mom. You should be so proud haha. Loved the card also the chocolate pretzels didn't last even an hour after I opened the package, oops. Then church was great as always. We had lunch with the bishop after and he treated us to some great hamburgers. After that we had some really good lessons and finished the day up with a dinner at the house of some members who live right down the street from us. I hadn't told almost anyone that it was my birthday, so it was a big surprise when they bring out a huge cake. It was a complete coincidence and before they cut the cake Elder Vasquez yells, "Wait! Lets sing!" and they all freaked out and got super excited and almost upset that we didn't tell them, but they brought out a small candle and sang happy birthday haha. 

Here in Costa Rica, it's tradition to smash eggs on the head of whoever has a birthday so after we got back to the house, Elder Hernandez, Greene and Vasquez happily carried out the tradition haha.

Then today was the monthly check-up for the trainers and their trainees. It's really fun because we get to hear about how they're doing, how their first month has gone and what they've learned. And we get to eat hamburgers. That's the best part haha.

But that's the update this week. Life's going super great. Loving it out here. Have an awesome week everybody! Love you!!

Elder Hansen

"On our way to month check with the secretaries"

"My buddy Elder Ferrin who's going home this week"

Week 83 - House hunting, soccer and a ward activity

Hey team!!

Well I think I owe you guys a good email for once haha

But first off, congrats to Erik and Kelly!! Proud of you guys and love you a ton! Sorry I couldn't be there haha.... ha.....haaa..........

But anyway, these past few weeks have been super busy but some of the best of my mission. Last week, we had a few ward activities for the Week of the Family. There are two wards here so they each had separate activities but we were invited to all of them and they were all super fun. On Friday night, there was a talent show in the San Diego ward, (where Elder Greene and Hernandez are), so we played it cool and sang a hymn with Elder Greene's harmonica. It was cool but we saved the best for the talent show we had in the Tres Rios ward (our ward). On Thursday morning, we had already decided what to do in the other talent show and we wanted to do something better for our ward so we came up with the idea to make a music video to a song some missionaries from Columbia had written a while ago and published online. It's based on some old classic song, can't remember which, but talks about some missionaries that got accidentally taken to jail and there they preached about the Book of Mormon and everyone was converted. Anyway, so we filmed the video, almost making it up as we went and then edited it, and presented it Saturday night for the activity. When it finished, it was the biggest hit of the night haha everyone came up and was asking for a copy of it and wanted to see it again and again haha. We thought it had pretty much ended there, but the next day everyone was talking about it and apparently the stake president had put it on some social media thing and it went out from there, getting on Facebook and YouTube and almost all this week we've been getting calls and messages from members, missionaries, converts, everyone asking about the video haha. I'm not gonna lie, it's one of the coolest things I've done on my mission and the members have been a lot more open to us after that so it's worked out great.

Then on Tuesday, President asked us to go down to Perez Zeledon, about 3 hours outside of San Jose to go check in on a district. I was pumped because it was another place I'd never been and there's this one place called the Cerro de la Muerte, or the Hill of Death (lovely right?) where it's supposed to be really cool and super cold. The drive down was amazing, super green and some great views, but the best past was when we passed by the Hill of Death. It was covered by a dense fog and had this eerie feel about it and when we stuck our hands out the window it was freeeeezing. I've felt cold before, but that was something different. Anyway, just a cool experience haha.

On Wednesday we had to go house hunting because our house just wasn't good for us anymore. The neighbors were crazy and someone had tried to break in a few weeks ago so we wanted to get out. We had a few options but they all ended up falling through so we had one day to find a house that was good enough and as always the Lord came through. We were walking around almost all morning looking and looking and found nothing that was going to work right, until we finally found something. There was a tiny sign that said for rent outside so we knocked on the door and this really nice old lady let us in to see the house. It turned out being on the other side of the street, where we had looked before, but not seeing a sign, we'd passed by. But we saw the house and everything worked out perfect and Thursday, soaking wet, we moved into paradise.

After that, Friday and Saturday were pretty normal.

Sunday was another great day. We had a really good lesson with the younger sister of the member who washes our clothes. She's here for a while to help out her sister who's about to have a baby and has apparently really liked the church, but there's always been something holding her back. The member and her husband are both returned missionaries so they had taught a lot already and we wanted to pretty much just run through lesson 1 to know what she already understood. We got through the lesson and at the end we basically just asked if she already understood everything, what was the problem? After putting up and few reasons about how she was waiting for an answer, her sister gave a really powerful testimony about how it was that she came to know the church was true and why she wanted her sister to be able to do the same. That was when the tears started flowing and she told us that she had gotten an answer she just wasn't sure what to do with it. But it was an incredibly powerful moment because the spirit hit so strongly when her sister bore her testimony. It just never ceases to amaze me how much stronger are the sincere and genuine testimonies of regular members. I love this gospel and I love members.

The winning team

Then today, we had a super cool pday. Zona Cartago hit their goal this month which means we can get permission from President to leave the zone and do something cool. We decided to challenge the neighboring zone, Zona La Paz to a game of soccer. These past few weeks, we've been super pumped up for the game and today was the big day haha it was the first time in my mission playing on a full sized grass field and man am I out of shape haha but it was super fun and we walked away with the victory 5-3. I even had a sweet bicycle kick assist haha. And they made shirts for the whole team and they're super sick haha it's the shirt of the soccer team in Cartago but we put Zona Cartago and our last names on it and its now officially my favorite shirt.

But anyway that about sums it up. Life's great out here! Loving every minute of it! Hope that email was long enough for ya dad! haha also it's the last one I'll write as a teenager. I'll just leave it write there. pun very much intended hahah

Love you all!

Elder Hansen

On the way to the game 

"Post game taco bell.......bad choice haha"

"Elder Hernandez fell asleep"

"With my boy Elder Hansgen. We're tight because he's got almost the same last name as me"