May 26, 2015 -In Edinburgh, Day before going home

Last Day traveling in Edinburgh with Elder Dalton and the Adam's Family

Brother Adam

Saying Good-bye

Elder Dalton and I

Racing Home

I have Learned Much

Well I never thought that this email would come TOO fast! These last two years have not been the easiest, but it has been the best two years of my life and the best two years for my life.  I have truly found out who I am and I have come to love that person. I am just so thankful for the ability to have done all that I have.  I have met people that have changed my life forever and that I will never forget. I have truly gained a love for the people of Scotland and Ireland. I have learned so much that will make every day after my mission truly great. I know things will still be hard, and that I still have a lot more to learn but that makes me excited and I want to become better in all that I do. 

Mark 8:35 - “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." This scripture truly says it all. I have gained more for giving up two years than I ever would have thought.  I love you and thank you for all that you have done.  (I will see you soon J)

Wow, the Time is Flying

May 11, 2015

It was wonderful to talk with you all yesterday!  I can't believe the end is coming so close! We will be very busy the next couple of weeks.  Jim didn't come to Church yesterday, I'm hoping he was just visiting his Mom or something.  
The Bryson's are coming to see me before I return home. They tell me they will pay for me to return to Belfast to attend the temple with them when they are sealed, hopefully later this year.
It's kind of weird, I hardly think about the fact that my mission is about to come to a close soon, I just keep working.

LOVE YOU!

Over-seeing the land (and water) I've grown to love

The Holbrook Family

A random cat just came up and sat on my lap

RM Adam Holbrook and Elder Crocket.  My trainer came to visit me with his family!

May 5, 2015

No, don't worry, I have another set of shoes. I'll be fine. 

This week was pretty good.  We got to play flag football, a bunch of people got to show up and participate.  Then we got to paint the Adam's house because they are pretty much repainting the entire inside of their house. I love doing work like that. I'm so thankful that Dad brought us up doing work so we could learn how to help with things around the house, There have been so many times that I have used those skills on my mission. 

This week Jim brought Steph to the lesson. She used to be taught but I hadn't taught her yet and it was really great because we got to answer a BUNCH of questions that she had.

I'll have to give you an email later in the week of what time I'll be skyping because I haven't figured that all out yet.

Work on-

Elder Crockett is a really good kid. We had flag football on Friday and Brother Adam thought he was too young to be my companion so he thought he was just another kid that was there, haha! I'll admit I can see why, but I'm sure that by the end of his mission he will look a lot older. He is 19 years old and is from Utah and he is about four and a half months out. President Brown said that he really wants me to be a good example this last transfer and show that you can have fun and joy even when I'm so close to home. So I'm going to try my best, haha but I think I can do it. 

We teach Jim pretty much every week and he still comes to church every week. Right now we are just going by a ton of people and members and just keeping busy.  We are working with everyone from former investigators to less-actives, to members, and people on the street or at their door.  We see a lot of them, but it's still a slow process to have them see why they need the Church.

Yes, I got my sunglasses and they are awesome, I love them. 

Wow, that's crazy that Mary Barlow is going to England on her mission.  I could give her tons of advice because the missions are a lot alike and a lot of members here have served there and have told me a bunch about it. 

This week is going to be great! We have a ton of appointments planned and we are going to be doing a lot of service now that the sun has come out. 

Today Elder Holbrook (my trainer) is coming to visit Scotland with his family and he is taking us to a castle and it will be awesome because is will be that last castle in Aberdeen that I haven't seen. Remember, I was going to go at the beginning of my mission but I was with Elder Howie and he wanted to clean a fridge instead... haha.

LOVE YOU!! 

Another pair DOWN!

The sun!

Going on in Port of Don

Well, I'm staying, but that wasn't the biggest surprise and Elder Benson is going to Dundee, just below Aberdeen, and man, I'm going to miss him. I'm going to be getting a new missionary named Elder Crockett.  I haven't really heard anything about him so I'm not to sure what to expect, but it will be good.  This transfer is also going to be a five week one so its going to fly by! Other than that, that's about it. We are going to be going by and saying goodbye to a bunch of members with Elder Benson and I'm just going to be getting things ready for Elder Crockett. On Satuday night we had a bunch of Elders stay the night at our flat because we were having stake conference and it was a ton of fun getting to see all of them. Elder Holbrook said he is going to come visit me next Monday so that will be pretty cool!

Holding Down the Fort

Moves call is on Sunday and I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying and that Elder Benson will be moving.  He really wants to go back to Ireland, so do I, but we will see what happens. This week was a pretty slow one.  On Tuesday I was super sick, I’m pretty sure I threw up like six times and I just drank stuff all day, but I’m fine now.  Elder Benson had to deal with taking care of me.  I got so bored just sitting in the flat, I never want to do it again.  I found a book in the ward library that's all about the Nephites and it’s really good.  I love just learning and taking in more.  We are going to meet with Jim on Tuesday to see all that he thought about general conference. 

On Saturday we helped clean up and put away chairs after a wedding at our building and it was pretty cool.  Here they have to get married civilly before they can get sealed, so on Saturday most of the ward went down to the temple and stayed until Sunday, so we barley had anyone at church yesterday but it was fun, we made it work. 

Just Because 

Easter Week

Teaching Jim this week was really good.  We went to his flat and he has a flat covered in just stuff but it's all just organized.  He has multiples of everything.  He attended conference.  After priesthood we spent time at the Adams.  It was really fun.  We ate food and chocolate eggs and conference was amazing, it was just an amazing day!  We watched all of the sessions except the last Sunday session.

This week was really good and Easter was just a blast.  I'm so excited for Spring to be here, people are just happier and so am I and it went by pretty fast and we were super busy. We just had a pretty sound week.  Elder Massey and I were on exchanges and we were just talking about how Aberdeen is just one of the hardest places for missionary work, so work is moving kinda slow but its good. 

That's awesome that they continued the Two Brothers.  I was wandering when they would. 

 

Plugging along

We are going to be teaching Jim Thursday.  On Sunday a pretty cool thing happened.  Sister Leonard, the Gospel Principal's teacher, was talking with Jim after church and just said, "Jim, why don't you just get baptised, you already go to church every week and you know you probably come because you know its true."  But, she said it all in a really cheeky way.  It was pretty funny.  He kind-a just said, "I'm still waiting for my answer." So there isn't much we could say against that.
I was so sore for like three days after zone development on Monday, but it was so much fun. The ward is really great, they are all really nice and I like it because there are mostly young families in the ward. Other than that, it's been another ordinary week.  I'll be going on exchanges twice this week and we are still just talking to a bunch of U students and going by some records of people that we have.  On Sunday we went to the Adam's family house and it was awesome because they live out in the country so its a lot like an American home because it's a lot bigger and there is a lot more space.   We made dinner for the Leonard's because they are a young married couple and we go over there sometimes and we asked them if we could.  So we have a slow cooker in our flat, we made pulled pork burritos and some kind of jello cheese cake. We also spent the rest of our money.  We tried to buy chocolate milk and we found out that I only had two pounds in my account but Elder Benson had only like 50 pence! I have no idea how we go through so much money but luckily we had cereal, cup of noodles, and chicken nuggets to last us till the end of the month, but the dinner was so worth it. 
Love you!
Elder Hanson  
    

Country home

Elder Benson on Adams' pull-up bar

Adams' rabbit

On the way to the Adams'

Short and sweet

Jim is doing great.  He told us that "this is the church for me" and that when he gets an answer, then he will be baptized and until then he will be going to church and do everything that he should be doing.  Also, on Sunday during Gospel Principals, we broke up into four groups.  Each one was in charge of a book of scriptures and he was the spokesman for his group and he did an amazing job talking about the Book of Mormon.  We also got in touch with an old investigator.  I don’t remember his first name but his last name is White and he should be pretty good.  We will be seeing him on Thursday.

Staying put with Elder Benson

Well, Elder Benson and I are both staying with each other! I’m really excited about that. Other than that, there isn’t too much that’s happening.  We got to go over to the Adams' for p-day and roasted S’mores and it was awesome to do just some of the normal things. The weather has been pretty dry but it’s been super cold. It’s crazy how fast this transfer went by, I can’t believe it, and I loved every second of it. This week we got four referrals from the mission home that are all pretty far away but we are going to be in a trio with an Elder from Buchen because he’s finished his mission so we will have a car until Wednesday and that will make things so much easier. 

We are trying to meet new people, it’s really easy to talk to a bunch of people, but it’s really hard to set up appointments with them.  That’s pretty much how all the work is going. 

Love you!

They put public urinals in the streets on the weekends because there are so many drunk people.
This is only a dramatization
Mom says, SICK!  (Not in a good way)

One hundredth post

Jim and Pearl are great and they both went to church and Bob and Allen are both reactivated and Bob just got a temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead for the temple trip in a couple months and he also started passing the sacrament. We are also seeing Jim later in the week and that should be really good, I like teaching him because we go really in depth with things and it helps me learn a little every time. 

This week we got to move a woman who has been living in Spain off and on for the past couple of years and her husband just passed away so we helped her move because she just sold her house and it was a blast! I love helping people move and things like that. Her brother also was in charge of beef jerky starting in the UK so he gave us a bunch after we helped out and it was awesome. When we were going back, the driver noticed that they forgot to fill up on gas so we were running on empty, trying to get to a gas station and I've never seen anything like it in my life. We ran out of gas right on the entrance of the filling station and just coasted to the filling spot and we made it all the way, three miles, it was so cool. 

We also went to a Nigerian member's home for lunch again and they made us Nigerian food and it was sooooo spicy, they made egg pasta and you should look up peppa soup. 

The work's going well.

Love, Elder H.

Jerky treasure

After SPICY food

Progressing

Teaching Jim is going really well.  He went to Ward Conference and the Stake President talked all about spiritual and temporal self-reliance and building your spiritual foundation.

Finding is actually going really well.  We are just finding at the college all the time and I’m loving it, it’s a blast and we are having amazing conversations with students and we are meeting with a lot of people all the time.

We didn't get any pictures from our castle excursion last week because the road was closed leading to the castle and so we couldn’t go in so I don’t have anything.  I’ll try more next week when we are going to another castle that should be open.  I  haven’t gotten any pictures of the flat yet but I’ll try to do that this week. 

This week we went to Morin’s for lunch and it’s pretty cool because she is a recent convert from when I was in Aberdeen before and I taught her a couple of times when I was on exchanges and she fed us a Nigerian dish called egg pasta that was sooooooo hot.  I was drinking so much water and I was sweating so much and my nose was running and it was so bad because I haven’t had spicy food in so long but it was really good. 

Yesterday for zone development we just played sports all day.  We did chair football and volleyball and dodge ball and it was a lot of fun and I just like feeling sore from doing sports all day. We also had Costco pizza and muffins and it was so much fun.  But, the best part was just talking with all my other missionary friends.

I love you!

Elders Benson, Cavolero, and I

Busy

I'm not sure, to Americans I probably could imitate Scotts or the Irish pretty well, but mostly I can just say Irish or Scottish slang or words. I've noticed that I will say "like" or "but" at the end of sentences even when they aren't needed and Elder Benson also does because his last area was in Northern Ireland, so we make each other say the weirdest things. 

We have people we are teaching - Jim and he's great.  He is looking for a job right now and he comes to church every week.  He just isn't ready for baptism yet but he's a really good guy! 

Pearl is the mother of some members and she actually comes to church a lot but she's still just scared of a couple things. 

Some less actives are doing well.  Allen was actually baptised when I was in Aberdeen before but just hasn't been to church in a while but now he's for sure coming back.

Moligetta is doing good too. 

Bob is a wee man that's just the nicest and we actually took him tracting with us a little because he wanted to help us.  Almost all the less actives we are teaching have a goal of the temple in the future. 

Since I was in Aberdeen and it was the other side of the city, I actually haven't run into too many of the same people. 

This week was a blast. I'm loving being with Elder B.  We have been pretty dang busy and have able to see a ton of people. Today we went to a castle that I don't even know where it was and it took a long time to get there so that's why I didn't get to email earlier today.

E-mailing on P-Day

We're doing a lot of good

The interview with President Brown was great!  We had a couple laughs and it was just really good.  I’m not really nervous any more about interviews.   The zone meeting was ok, they did a lot of role plays, other than that, it was pretty normal.

We have a couple of really good people right now that we are teaching, they are really great, we also had a lot of less-actives come to church! 

The ward has about 75-80, but it feels massive because I got so used to Cumbernauld.

This week was awesome sauce!!  I’m having the best time with Elder Benson.  He’s from Utah and we have a ton in common and we have been going about doing a lot of good. This week we have a lot planned and a lot of people to see.  The weather has actually been really good for the past couple days and today its actually been kind-a warm... it’s been a long time.  Today for P-Day we are going to go on a hike to somewhere. 

Just trying it out.

Bridge of Don

My first week in Bridge of Don has been pretty amazing.  I already love it a lot here.

 Elder Benson is so funny, I probably haven't stopped laughing since Wednesday.  I already knew him so I was really looking forward to being with him. 

The work is just a little different, we mainly go finding around the college and that’s awesome just talking to people that age because that is when people start making those large decisions and they are really open.

I’m already in love with the ward they are so good and I can tell that they love us. 

Elder Rogers is out of my zone so I probably won’t see him all that much.

The weather is a little dryer but a wee bit colder.  There hasn’t really been any snow up here. 

My week has been great.  I’m so happy to be here and I love being with Elder Benson.  He’s a really good guy.  We joke all the time and we have both been out a good amount of time so we both know a lot.  This next week I’ll be having an interview with President during zone interview training and we will also get instructions from our zone leaders. Right now we are just finding people to teach and things are going pretty well. 

I actually just read that same scripture this morning:  1  Nephi 17:50 "And I said unto them: If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done."

LOVE, Elder H.

I've come full circle--back to where I started-in Aberdeen

Well I should know a lot about the place I’m going because I’m going to Bridge of Dawn in Aberdeen, so I started where I might end. 

For once I know my new companion and his name is Elder Benson!  I met him in Belfast and I’m pretty excited because we got along really well. 

Elder Rogers will be staying in Cumbernauld with Elder Winder and I don’t really know anything about him. 

I’m really good, I’m just excited to have Elder Benson as a comp.  I knew that I was going to be moving because a lot of things always happen with your investigators right when you move. Billy is doing amazing and wanted to go see James's baptism on Saturday... Oh yeah and James, a young man in the ward finally got the ‘ok’ to get baptized by his Mom so we have taught him a bunch this week, and the recent reactivated girl in the ward will be going on a mission now, and the ward has been just amazing.  It’s going to suck to leave but I’m kind of excited, but it’s kind-a lame that I’m going back to another area that I have already been again.  Haha, but it will be good.

Teaching, snow, letter from Bryson's

We are getting moves call on Sunday night and I'm pretty sure that I'll be moving. We weren't able to meet with all of our investigators this week but we were able to really work with helping members know what to do and say when they are asked about what they believe.  We are also helping a member that has been less active for a long time and is now coming back.  So we are helping by teaching her the missionary lessons and it's really good to see someone grow and learn and regain a lot of what they have forgotten. Usually it's kind of hard to explain the feeling of the Holy Ghost but she explained how it was just knowing, and so she already knew what it was, and all the feelings that the gospel with give you.  She also explained that she is just happier since she has been back. It's been snowing pretty much all week so it's been pretty cool, especially since it's the first time Elder Rogers has ever seen snow.

A letter from the Bryson's!:

"Hello There Big Irish Son

Hope you are not to cold and you are being looked after J

To say we miss you is an understatement I know it may not seem like it cause I have not been in touch but I do miss you and your counsel .  I am struggling a bit but Russell is doing so well. He passed sacrament last Sunday and Sunday just passed and the Bishop had a word and told him he would soon be blessing the Sacrament.  The first Sunday he passed it, I was sitting in church and was proud beyond  words and cried my eyes out.  Russell has also been asked by his Mum to confirm our Great Nephew who is getting Baptised up in Derry so he asked the Bishop if that would be ok and he gave him his blessing so , as long as the Bishop up in Derry says it is ok then he is good to go.  All these things that Russell is doing is also a credit to you and the work you did with us and without you we would never have got this far, even though I am finding it tough I know I am closer to where I need to be and without your spirit and prayers and counsel I would be wandering in a very dark place, I will be forever grateful. 

Carter is fine and he got a part time job in a brill American BBQ place in Ballyhackamore and he loves it, will you keep him in your prayers as he is finding it tough going in College, thank you pet. 

I am in work at the moment so have to be quick I must mail our other son to let him know.  Thank you for always being there and never forget we are always here for you.

Our Love and Prayers

Your Irish Mum and Dad xoxoxoxox"