18 MONTHS IN CHILE: January 2015

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Sopa de pata de vaca. WHY IS THIS SO SWEET?‏

FAMILY!

BASICALLY Hermana Evans and I are just the happiest missionaries ever. And we are great friends. And we get to turn a year together. And she was with me since day 1 in the adventure to get to Chile until we walked into the CCM (I say day one because that was an adventure of THREE DAYS.... but I digress.)

ANYWAYS.

Let´s start with some miracles. First off, GABRIELA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! AHHH! Seriously, it was so amazing. God did it ALL. We just had daily contact with her and kept up her animo and God just came in and she resisted. It was amazing. Sunday, though, we had a horror story, but it has happened with seriously every baptism I´ve had haha. We´re at lunch, eating lasagna, and all of the sudden, Thiare, Gabriela's daughter, calls us FRANTIC and says "Hermanas! call my mom RIGHT NOW something happened!" So we´re freaking out because it was about 2:30 and her baptism was at 5. I call her and she says "hermana, no me voy a bautizar" which is "I am not going to get baptized." My heart DROPPED. Seriously, I was gonna cry. turns out, the branch president and his family weren´t going to be at her baptism, and they have been a big support and friendship for her in this process, and she was way hurt and upset that they weren´t going to come to her BAPTISM and so she cancelled it. That started a huge stress out for us, so we made a million calls and they were going to get back at 8, so we changed it to 8 at night. But then the mission leader was like this is dumb I´m going to go talk to her and then we were stressed because we didn´t want them to argue, but God stepped in again and calmed everyone down and she was baptised at 5 pm by her 16 year old recent convert son. It was beautiful. Her daughter gave a talk on baptism, and it was the SWEETEST thing. She started crying about this is all she has wanted since she got baptized and then she can´t wait for her dad to get baptized someday so that they can be an eternal family. I love eternal families. I just want everyone to be a part of this, honestly! The gospel brings so much joy and miracles into people´s lives. That´s why even running up and down hills and stairs all day in the hot sun and being bit by a million fleas and mosquitos, we missionaries are still some of the happiest people in the world. I love it.

Another miracle, after the baptism, we went to teach this guy A, that when we contacted him he was kinda weird, but he was interested so we went to teach him in this random court (he didn´t want to give us his address...) and he was there waiting for us! Miracle! It turns out he has a lot of friends that are members and he has suffered a lot. He is looking for the truth and for why there´s so many churches. He had an accident and so he gets discriminated a lot because he can´t walk well, but he finds peace in the teachings of Christ. We had a good lesson with him and he accepted a baptismal date for the 15th of February!!! Pray for him, he is going to come to church on Sunday and if he comes, we know he will be baptized.

Besides that, we have just seen miracles going on left and right. Gabriela introduced us to her family friends that aren´t members, and they are AWESOME. They want to repent and start over, so we´re going to help them :) And Gabriela also brought her brother to church, who recently stopped smoking and drinking for health reasons, and he liked it and we taught him and is coming to church next week too and wants to learn more. we are honestly so blessed to be here and I can´t wait to see what happens this coming month :)

Funny stories: We ate cow foot soup and it tasted like it sounds. We thought he had said pato, which means duck, but he said PATA, which is foot. So, we ate cow foot soup with an old man on his front porch and tried not to vomit hahaha. Also, we work with these AWESOME recent converts every Sunday night, there's three and we just get them all together to be more time efficient, and they surprised us with once, which is like herbal tea and bread basically. She made us eggs, and there were two salt shakers, and Hermana Evans ended up dumping powdered sugar on her eggs instead of salt! hahaha We just have a lot of fun here.

Anyways, hope you guys have a good week!! I can´t believe i´m going to turn a year this week in the mission....Hermana Evans and Ifeel like we left yesterday! But I am so glad for the things I have lived here. I have changed so much and am simply happy, because that´s what living the gospel does to you! Love you all so much!!

hermana hansen

photos - baptism, PAN <3, and the hills which i swear are steeper than this picture makes it look!!

Hayley with Gabriela on her baptism day

Gabriela and her son Johan

Gabriela with her kids - Johan and Thiare

With Hayley and Hermana Evans

The family with the missionaries

pretty flower

SUPER steep hills in her new area

Hayley's new area

TV on the roof. It says: "sin ti mujer, no hay vida" - "without you, woman, there is no life"

View from Hayley's area

Nora - the fiesty new convert

Antonio and Javier (the young men's president and a recent convert)

Being silly at Once.

Once (a late afternoon light meal/teatime in Chile)

Bread at once

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

¡COMO HOMBRE!‏

Hayley had a friend that she baptized come and visit!

Hey family!

OKAY so this week was way good, again, and as always. Seriously being a missionary is just my favorite thing. Let's see... We had a replica of consejo, Hermana Evans' first one, but she did great. It's so weird, my zone is TINY!!! and we're the only hermanas!!! Coming from Valparaiso where there were also two other companionships and a big zone, I'm way confused haha. It's fun, but also way less participation, so we're gonna work on animating them a bit haha. But it's a great zone, I'm excited.

We are seeing progress with G, she's seeing the changes in herself and is getting really excited about her baptism on Sunday!!! She smoked last Friday because there was a temblor at night (seriously, testing patience haha because there are SO many here! and this one wasn't even strong enough to wake me up!)

And we just contacted, looked through menos activos, taught, retained, and just had a good week. I don't even know where to start with the miracles, but we are writing them all down every day and putting them in a jar, so that we can read them all at the end of the cambio and remember and just be happy! This week a ton of people gave us food, so that's always fun haha.

Besides that, the work is going on! We had interviews with president, which is always awesome. But cleaning the pension was... an adventure. haha It's different from my last two super nice pensions, and as we deep cleaned it, we found out that the stains we thought could never come out... do come out. And the things that were beige... are white. So, after some intital shock, we got down to it and now it's beautiful. President was amazed hahaha. But it was nice to have interviews, I always get WAY nervous and it's always like 'you're great, keep doing what you're doing and you'll see miracles and then he leaves. Answers my questions and then he's out. I really hope that's what judgement day is like haha that I'll be way nervous and God just says: "good job. you did a lot better than you think you did, don't be so hard on yourself!" President DID call me a perfectionist though, and just told me to not be so hard on myself and just trust in the Lord, that I'm doing better than I think I am, and that I will see miracles. So, I'm way excited for the miracles to continue!

So basically, everything is great. There's a funny recent convert, N who is an old woman that's always yelling at her recent convert son that's like 37 or something, and it is SO HILARIOUS. She's always like: "por favor bendice mi hijo porfiado que tengo" (bless this...I don't know a good translation but disobedient basically, but it sounds lame in English) in her prayers and tells him that he needs to go to church COMO HOMBRE! (like a MAN) Also, fun story, my companion has tooth problems so we went BACK to the same dentist place I basically lived at with Hermana Page! It was so funny, everyone recognized me and was like "HOW ARE YOU? Where's Abigail? Where are you? How was Christmas?" haha - I bet Hermana Evans was a little confused at why I knew them all so well, but it was also fun to see them all.

Anyways, I hope you have a GREAT week, I love you all so so much!! :) Also Hermana Barros is getting married in February WHAT. Totally killing me that I can't go to her wedding. She's the best.

LOVE YOU!

hermana hansen

Hayley with her mission president and her companion

View of her new area, Chorillos

View of Chorillos

They found a cow wandering on a hill in their area!

View of Chorillos

Movie night

View from her apartment

All three of these cute girls started their missions together: Hayley, Hna. Watt & Hna. Evans

Hayley with her old companion, Hermana Page

Hermana Evans with the broken stand. They use this display for street contacting

A rooster on the roof in her area

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Dios nos contesta DE VERDAD‏

January Leadership Conference

HEY

Oh my gosh seriously this week has been INSANE. Honestly, there was just miracle after miracle, falling from the sky. Hermana Evans and I are SO excited and can't even wait to see what more is coming. But basically, I love Chorrillos, even though the hills are crazy and there are a million fleas, it's the best.

Let me just fill you in on the best miracles, because we have to deep clean our pension today for interviews and we're already a little pressed on time haha. SO. First of all, remember how I mentioned G? She's been listening to the missionaries for like 9 months and just never gave up smoking to get baptized. She is AWESOME. So, we fasted with her on Saturday to Sunday so that she could quit so that she can get baptized on the 18th. And she did it!! Her first full fast! And then afterwards we came over to teach her and asked her about it and she said it's never been smoking, that was just an excuse because she felt insecure. But now she feels secure and she knows she won't smoke again and she's getting baptized next Sunday!! AHHH :) Seriously such a miracle!!

Another miracle: We were contacting and hadn't had too much success, and we were knocking one last door and they didn't answer for a way long time. So we started walking away and we heard the door open but then shut because we had left. We looked at each other and Hermana Evans said, "lets go back". So we went, and it was this woman named M A. She's a nice older lady, and turns out she raised her siblings and her own kids and her kids' kids and her great grand-kids, but now no one visits her or calls her except for one grandson. At first she was telling us that she's still okay with it, but then we said the first prayer and she was literally BAWLING. She said we were what she needed, that she had felt alone and to have us here and to pray and share with her, she felt the relief she needed and like a weight was lifted off her and like a new person. It was seriously SO amazing!! We explained to her that it was the spirit, and turns out that she has family and close family friends that are members and she trusts in our church more than any other. We are going back today, pray that she will accept being baptized!!

Other than that, we also found an old investigator that we haven't been able to find, M C, that is a little weird (but she gave us pan de pascua as a gift so it's okay haha). And we had an awesome lesson with her, and she wants to be baptized to cleanse herself before God!! SO awesome! So she has a date for the 1st of February! Besides that we have just said things like "oh we just want to talk to someone to help G" and we just so happen to walk by the relief society president to talk to about her. And "oh we need to find more less active families to activate" and the branch president calls with an updated list with 12 new families that he doesn't know on it.... it´s been crazy. I am so blessed to be here. I can't believe how God is just controlling this work.

Also awesome, we went to consejo, and I got to see Hermana Page :) Love her so much! It was also one of the best consejos I have been to. The testimonies were amazing, especially from one elder, elder sherwood, who used to be assistant, that just made us all bawl. Everyone just talked about gratitude to God and to president more than anything. And then after president got up and said lets say a prayer and we all knelt down and he just waited in silence for a while and then said the most beautiful prayer! Seriously it reminded me of when Christ prayed for the Nephites, there are no words to describe it.There was not a dry eye in the room.

Basically, I am so happy. I miss Placilla a LOT, but I am so excited for the work I have to do here in Chorrillos. It has been an incredible week, and I am so excited to see what else is going to happen! I know this church is true, and that God is a god of miracles. I love you all so much, have a great week!!!

hermana hansen

ps sorry for no pictures, i will send some next week i promise!!

*hayley wasn't able to send photos, so I found as many as I could on the mission blog from the leadership conference. *

Hayley and Hermana Evans at Leadership Conference

Monday, January 5, 2015

Nuevo año, nuevo sector... Hola de Chorrillos, Viña del Mar!‏

HEY!

OH MY GOSH! I have way too much to say. Let's see how this goes, okay? But I'll tell you what you're all waiting to hear first, haha don't worry. I got CHANGED :( Seriously bawled when they called me and cried saying bye to everyone. But it's okay, I know that it's what's supposed to happen, and Hermana Watt replaced me and she's awesome, and I know I need to progress in other ways! But Placilla will honestly always have my heart. I love it so so much.

BUT now I am in Viña! So I didn't go too far haha. I'm in a sector called Chorrillos with Hermana Evans from San Diego!!! Who I also got here with! We had the whole Atlanta plane adventure together, we were together for the longer Peru flight too! So it's just been SO nice to be with someone I already know. And I love her!

I'm in a little branch, the sector is 100% hills, half of them straight up, and the first couple days my legs were KILLING me! It's better now, but that was a big shock after having completely flat sectors the whole mission haha. I don't know the sector very well yet, but I love it already! The view is beautiful, and the investigators are great, so I am way excited. Big plus, I got changed on new year's eve. There's the 3rd best fireworks show in the world and the biggest in South America that they do all along the coast of Valparaiso, Viña, and Con Con, and I COULD SEE IT FROM MY WINDOW! Dream come true! President doesn't let us go out to see it, but he said if any missionary could see it from their house, they could stay up to watch the show. Awesome, no? I was way happy haha.

Besides that, the week has been great! It was sad saying bye to Hermana Page, I just love her so much. But she's still a hermana leader, so I'll see her at consejo next week and then once more 3 days before she goes home, so it's okay.

Let's see, we have G here in Chorrillos, she is going to get baptized this month si o si, she just needs to quit smoking! She's gone from 15 a day to 1 every other day, and she really wants to be baptized, and we have the faith she can this Saturday. Pray for her!! Also J and C, a MARRIED young couple, so receptive, only problem is the marijuana plant in their front yard. Bummerrr hahaha. But it's fun.

One of my zone leaders is Elder Tinney, my old district leader from a couple changes ago in Valpo!! So that's super fun. Our district is all the office people, one of them Elder Huntsman who was in Placilla with me for a bit! And Elder Brown is still assistant and in my zone, so it's like Valpo all over again haha.

Honestly I have already seen miracles here though. Totally prepared contacts, even a last minute new year's eve dinner! the didn't have one, but we ran into a less active and they invited us over. Tender mercies. God loves us! I am super excited to be here, and I am really happy to serve in Viña in the mission Viña! I hope all is well at home, I love you all so much! :)

love,

Hermana Hansen

PS: Also, just to reassure you, I totally embarrassed myself when I presented myself in the branch. Instead of saying i have been out for 11 months, I said 11 years. everyone was teasing me afterwards. So don't worry, Hermana Hansen is still embarrassing herself everywhere she goes, just like good old Hayley hahaha. Have a good week!

*Hayley hadn't been able to send photos the past couple of weeks, so she caught up this week by sending LOTS. :) I am loving it! :)*