11 - 28 / Days Left, 55 Week of Events

It's been a pretty eventful week so let me just take on great event at a time:

DEPARTING TALK & CRAZINESS:

So much happened today. Let’s start with first things first. I gave my departing talk in church, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2014.  It actually went really well. I spoke with Sister Asay, Gee, Khoa, & Yeung. Everyone gave me the nicest compliments all day on the things I shared. That was really sweet! 

It’s also Carlos’ 1 year mark of being a member of the church. Wow, I am so grateful for his strength in the gospel and everything that he’s learned & accomplished. He told me today that he’s turning in his mission papers by late January/early February! Which means I can be on skype!  And, he’s also applying to BYU-I so he can go after his mission. AMAZING. 

As far as current investigators go, I feel like I’m in the Sahara Desert. All the good potentials won’t answer their phones & David our investigator on date has started drinking & smoking again, didn’t even go to church because he was hung over! Today was also weekly planning. So that means companionship inventory. S. Jarrett basically said that she didn’t care about anything anymore that she’s checked out. She thinks that because we don’t have anyone progressing and nothing perfect happening for us that nothing matters anymore so she’ll just continue to go through the motions these last 2 weeks of her mission. She completely contradicts herself by saying the only thing she cares about is God and that she loves him. I think if you truly love God you do His work in His way, with your whole heart, mind, might & strength just like he’s asked us to.  

Since Sis. Jarrett has to have weekly meetings with  President Poulsen, I asked her if she was sharing how she's feeling with him. She responded that she hasn't.  The one good thing in this situation, is that I have learned that living obediently to the gospel is also trusting in the people He has called to fulfill certain callings.  If we love God and truly have a broken heart and contrite spirit, we are always open to change, in the name of progression, so we must trust those he’s called to help us do that. He’s called President to guide us when we need direction & when we’re stuck, not being able to figure out how to move forward & become better. 

I asked her what we could do to be better & to finish the transfer strong. Her answer was, “Keep trying & doing what we’re doing.” 

I said, “Isn’t that what we have been doing?"….

"Yes"....

"And where has that gotten us so far?” 

Then S. Tiritilli kind of pitched in a comment since she was sitting right there. She said “The definition of someone insane is when you keep doing what you've always done expecting different results” AMEN! It doesn’t matter how much we want to be better, how much we want to serve God until we are actually willing to do something about it. You simply cannot say one thing and do another. What a challenge it is to be trying to work this way.  I’m not here to endure this transfer & say every day, that’s okay only 17 days left, 16 days left all the way down to 0! I just want to do Gods work in His way. That’s what I’m here for & that’s what I promised Him I would do.

DIRKMAATS VISIT: 

Well Nate's family came to the square this week! President Poulsen let me take them on a tour. It was fun to see them. I was SOOO happy, you can only imagine :) Check out the pics:

THANKSGIVING:

We got to go to a families house for Dinner. We went to the Rasband family in Bountiful. They were super nice & it was yummy. My stomach has been realllly bothering me lately, so I didn't eat that much & didn't have dessert or anything. I hope it gets better soon cause I've been nauseous and had no appetite for like a week now.


The Christmas Lights turn on tonight! That should be fun.


They changed the whole entire North Visitors Center. It looks AWESOME! We are freaking out about it cause it's been the same exact thing for the past 16 months!


Everyone go to Mormon.org/Christmas and watch He is the Gift. It's an amazing new video the church put out for Christams! They've done soooo much work on it. I could go on and on telling you about it.

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Hansen

P.S. (This is Mom -- don't think Emily knew, at the time of this writing, that older brother Blake's employer, Sansom Media was the company commissioned to produce He Is The Gift.  So Blake was very involved with the production and his sweet girlfriend Emily and her cute bulldog, June, are in one of the beginning scenes, haha. Who knew!?)