I'm just going to keep on working

Yeah, I got the card in the mail on Saturday. 

The world cup is massive over here and you can't go a couple of feet without seeing something about it. England already got out. 

For the last couple months in this ward the Priesthood and women has been getting a big toppic and it's just amazing how the fathers and husbands all respect the women here and praise them for all they do.  

We have not seen Sam recently but we will hopefully see him in a couple days. It's pretty hard out here and I'm pretty sad because of how much I love these people and their hearts are so hard because of all the conflict this country has gone through.  It makes me admire those that are strong right now so much because they are so much stronger than I am and they go through a lot more than I think I can, but I know that no matter what, I'm just going to keep working. 

Elder McDonald goes home, next Monday will be his last day.  I assume I'll stay here in Belfast, that's pretty much what happens.

Love you all!

Elder H.

Interesting Week

So this week was an interesting one. On Wednesday we had zone interview training and when I was interviewed by President Brown, it was like a movie, like it didn't really happen, but he read to me the email Mom sent him saying that Dad has cancer. I didn't really react to it or it didn't really hit me but it's all I could think about all day, but through it all, I was just really calm and knew everything was going to be OK. 

I also got sick on Friday night and was throwing up all the time and I was still sick until Sunday, but now I'm a lot better. 

We also got a new investigator whose name is Sam. He started off reading the Bible, just to bash with religion but since he had kids, that changed things for him. He knew nothing of the Book of Mormon and agreed with everything we said. He just said "You know, it would make sense for there to be prophets still" and he said he was going to read and we are going to see him again on Saturday.

-Elder Hanson 

  

A Blessing

So this week we went on a bunch of exchanges and one of them was with the zone leaders. When I was with them, it was just a day of everything falling through, even our back-ups fell through. I was with Elder Brown for the day and he just came from Aberdeen. It was a pretty long day of tracting non-stop.  But, it was ok, I’ve learned how to make anything a good time. At the end of the night what we did was in Bangor they challenged the members to write their testimonies in a Book of Mormon and pray about a name or street and the missionaries will give it to that person. Well, at about 8:00 that night. a member, Bro. Peacock, prayed about a street and we just went and chapped it.  When we got there it looked like we were just going to be getting a lot of doors in our face. the odds weren't really looking good.  The zone leaders already chapped the entire side of one street and so when we got there, there were only a handful of houses left.  I was pretty doubtful because I haven't had a lesson on a door step in a long time, let alone given a person a Book of Mormon.  Just right on the door step. we started chapping some doors and it looked like everything was going as I thought it would.  But, I was more than happy to be proven wrong. We knocked on a door and a woman answered and we just said "Hey, we are sharing something that will improve your life." and I just thought right after saying it ‘Who in their right mind says that?’, it’s pretty much telling her that we think her life sucks.  She just answered "Actually, yeah that's interesting because I’ve just been going through a lot in my life and that's just what I need."  Every single word we said was exactly what she needed. We gave her a Book of Mormon and we explained that we actually had a member pray about this street to find her individually and that his testimony was in the back. I haven't seen someone so promising and needing the gospel. I know that she might not be in my area and I may never see her again, but I know I needed to see that miracle. 

Continuing

So they are having us do family history for an hour a week so have Dad check on his side because I added people and I’m not completely sure if its correct so check it so I don’t screw it up.

Tell Devin he needs to message me. 

So this week was pretty alright, right now I have one of my knee braces on because I twisted it during zone development when we were playing sports.  I’ll be fine, I just need to keep the brace on.  I also hurt my back falling on it after an Elder threw me over his shoulder. It knocked the wind out of me and I was having that 10 second freak-out moment where I thought I would never breath again, haha.  Other than that it was a lot of fun. For zone development other than sports, we did an old western murder mystery and we all dressed up and it was a lot of fun. My character was Ol'Bar, an old crazy trapper from the hills and my goal was to pretty much just act crazy, it was pretty funny and I found a pretty gnarly beard at a costume shop. It turned out McDonald was actually the killer, haha.

As for the work, it’s been the same with this area probably being the slowest area I have been in.  I think that every area I go to the slower/ harder the work has gotten. The ward is amazing though and it just sucks because I want to help them so bad and they are always willing to help us but there is nothing to help us with haha.  Oh well, no work is wasted just as long as we are trying and working hard, then it’s ok by me because I’m not really in complete control of what happens.  The Lord is.  

I found another one!