PAJARO EN LA CASA‏

Hayley and Nora

Hey family!!!

This week was crazy. Oh my gosh there are no words to describe how much I LOVE being a missionary!!! Seriously. We have seen so so so many miracles this week. I can´t even begin to describe it!! THE BEST. 

Okay let´s start out. Monday was again horrible with the whole A deal. We left him, and it was really hard. And Gabriela, our convert, her husband said that none of them can go to church now and that he doesn´t want anyone from the church in the house. HEARTBREAKING. But we are fasting and praying for them and we know it will turn out okay. He´s letting us in now, but didn´t let them go to church yesterday... but we know he will. But that night, we were just heartbroken. So, we decided to re open Chorrillos. Just start from scratch. 

So we did! The next day we just went and contacted and explored ALL DAY. We found really good future investigators and found a FAMILY :) The crazy twist is that the parents are deaf, so we teach them with a lot of pictures, scriptures, and through the children, who know sign language. CRAZY, huh?! This is when I need Hermana Bluth again who knows sign language!!! haha 

 

But then wednesday was awesome. I literally have the best district ever. All I have to say about that. And our district leader, Elder Flake, challenged us to invite someone to be baptized every day. So now it´s our goal. We were able to invite some new investigators to be baptized and they said they would! Not with a date yet, but seriously, they´re progressing!!

Thursday brought to a close my dentosalud days (knock on wood, FOR NOW at least!) Hermana Evans finished her root canal!! WOOO :) So that was great. 

Friday was intercambios, and it was miraculous. We found less actives that are endowed that we haven't been able to before that LET US IN and we set a couple baptismal dates and found a ton of new investigators, AND on top of that, I got to see ARLETT :) one of my favorite people from Placilla!! Turns out she is Perla´s, a girl from my branch here in Chorrillos, companion from the mission! So they had that surprise for me and gave us... BROWNIES AND ICE CREAM. So I was just in heaven basically hahaha.

Saturday was also full of miracles, we found new investigators, including someone named D who said he would get baptized but not with a date until he goes to church and finds out for himself. He's kinda old, and walks around with a walking stick and lives on the top of the hill and church is at the bottom, but we invited him and prayed that he would come. The rest of the day was great as well!

So on Sunday we were waiting for like 5 people to come to church, and sacrament meeting started and no one was there... :( MAJOR bummer. But then, halfway through the first talk, who walks in but D! Walking stick and all, in dress pants and a sweater! It was so great haha we were SO happy! And a ton of people know him! So it was just PERFECT. And he stayed for all three hours and said he LOVED it!! Okay but then... the trial of the day. FOOD. We ate with a family that makes really yummy food, homemade noodles and alfredo sauce and avocado and celery salad and then AMERICAN BRAND ice cream for dessert. So we ate a ton. Then after, we were contacting and this AWESOME golden family let us in and gave us this strawberry milk (filling) and then a raspberry meringue cake! We were SO FULL. But oh my gosh the family is golden. So two gold families last week!! AHH. We´re gonna see them on Thursday, let´s hope it goes well! But then we had to RUN to another appointment we had with a recent convert, and so we had to RUN UP THE HILL and a million stairs to get there, but then a colectivo driver stopped and offered to take us up for free! BLESSINGS. But then the recent convert was like surprise, I have FOOD FOR YOU. yep. Chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, bread, and avocado. Topped off with herbal tea. Let me tell ya, I thought I was gonna vomit.I  was praying WAY hard on that one. But then we were bummed, because we hadn´t invited anyone to be baptized but we had to go teach some recent converts, not investigators! We had made no bake cookies for them and everything. But then.... we walk in to their house... and OUR INVESTIGATOR is sitting in there!! Turns out she´s old friends with this recent convert! So we were able to invite her to be baptized, and she said she would on the 15th of march if she got a spiritual confirmation!! AHHH. seriously,  I have never been so happy and grateful. 

So basically, it was the best week ever. I love the mission. I love being here. I LOVE Chile!!! And even more, I love this gospel. It is amazing to see the hand of God in my life and in the lives of others. It´s all so carefully prepared, and I am so grateful for the chance I have to be here, serving him, and helping him make his plan happen. Remember that our Heavenly Father loves each one of you, and that he WILL take care of you if you are faithful! Everything turns out good in the end :)

Sorry this is so long, just a TON happened, love you guys lots, have a great week!!!

Hermana Hansen

ps. don´t worry, we ran off all the food today, we ran in the morning for excercises and then ran AGAIN all the way from chorrillos to downtown viña. also there was a bird in our house this morning. talk about random. but i love it. chau!!!

 

Chicken and mashed potatoes

Hermanina - the recent convert who made the delicious meal.

Recent converts having fun at "once"

Fun times at "once"

No bake cookies

Pajaro en la casa!  A bird is not only in the house, but chillin' in the make up bag!!

The bird with some Books of Mormon

 

FOOL´S GOLD.

Hayley with her package from Grandma Niki

Hey family!

This week.....I don't even KNOW! HUGE roller coaster. But first, what you all want to know, I´m still here in Chorrillos with Hermana Evans! My zone leaders changed, but Elder Tinney is now the mission secretary and so he´s still in my district and Elder Brock is my new zone leader and Elder Esquivia, the old assistant, is in my district now! Also, Elder Bojorquez, my zone leader that was part of the pmoney/peggy deal with Hermana Barros, is the new assistant!!! SO two of my favorite elders and two of my old Valparaiso zone leaders are assistants now, so I´m way happy. And Hermana Morris who came with me is in Placilla with Hermana Watt, so that´s just AWESOME. 

Okay this week. I have an awesome district, my district leader is now someone from my ward at BYU, Elder Flake! Way crazy how small the world is haha. But he´s great too! Hermana Evans is ALMOST done with all of her dental work, we spent a lot of time there this week.

Okay here is my sad news of the week, but at the same time, a miracle. The whole week, I have been WAY stressed out. I've been getting weird rashes from stress and muscle cramps and everything, and a lot of it was because of A! For some reason I felt really strongly that he was smoking, but we verified literally every day and he kept saying no no no. Everything was going great, and then on Sunday when he came to church he was sitting down and this crazy less active told him to get out of that spot because it was hers and he got really offended and just booked it. We went out and talked to him about it and he said he doesn´t want to deal with her so he was done. We were super sad, but then he came back and said no I will just ignore her. BUT by that point it was halfway through sacrament meeting, but it was fine. After, our ward mission leader and branch president were freaking out, so we were like just talk to him and you´ll see that he just wants to follow Christ! So the branch president called him in for an interview, and we went to principios del evangelio, but then A just storms in and says I´m out. And leaves. It was just the worst. So then we go in to talk to the branch president, and he said that A had a really bad attitude and just yelled at him and said am I getting baptized or not?? And president told him that is really up to him, and his conversion. And A just got mad and stormed out! Oh my gosh. It was crazy. But then our convert G who had to quit smoking told us that she has seen him smoking EVERY SINGLE DAY this week. Talk about a slap in the FACE. It was hard, but you know what? I am so grateful for it. It was an answer to my prayers. I had such a strong feeling that he was smoking, and I didn´t know what to do about it, and had been praying a ton about it, and God just fixed it for us. It´s sad it had to happen, but I know that He is watching out for us! And we found we have a lot of support from the branch president and mission leader, because they talked to us after and said they love the missionaries in their ward because we work hard and have the most investigators Chorrillos has had in years, and that they are here to help us. It was so great in the end. We are going to keep teaching A, but start from square one again, and see if he is ready to humble himself and repent. 

BESIDES THAT, a less active who is endowed came to church and had an awesome interview with the branch president, and our investigator K came to church! So really, it was a good week, just with a hard let down on Sunday. But I know it happened for a reason, and know I have an even STRONGER testimony that God answers our prayers and takes good care of us. 

Fun news, on Valentines day (thanks for all the decorating stuff and food mom! we had a lot of fun with that :)) we had a ton of random surprises! A member we don´t know from another stake and her daughter bought us roses in the street, our investigator, L gave us a big chocolate heart, our convert G gave us stickers, we had tacos with homemade tortillas for lunch, and another investigator gave us alfajores!!! :) Seriously it was so awesome. 

Long story short, I am doing great. We have people progressing, and I love my district and zone and companion. It´s funny, when that whole thing went down, all I wanted was to be able to talk to you guys, Tori, or Hermana Page. It made me laugh! Love you guys, and thanks so much for always being there for me and supporting me! The church is true, God loves us all and really is looking out for us :) Have a great week!!

Hermana Hansen

Hayley's temporary comp while on exchanges

Some of the cute valentine's day gifts

Tratamiento de conducto #2 y más milagros.

 

No photos this week - so I am posting this as a shout out to Hermana Page who is HOME now! :)

Hey!

So this week went well! We saw lots of miracles, a little bit of sun, a lot of fog, even more dogs, went to the dentist, and just had a bunch of fun. 

Hermana Evans got part one of her root canal, that was sad for her, but it wasn´t too bad! We have to go back for part 2 tomorrow and part 3 on Thursday, so we´ll see how it goes! Seriously I could be a dentist at this point how many times I´ve watched dental work here in Chile haha it´s too good. We also have 2 more bunk beds in our apartment now! We´re the only hermanas in the Viña zone, and we´re STLS, so they always stick hermanas in with us if they need somewhere to stay. So now we have four beds! WOO. 

Besides that, A PASSED HIS INTERVIEW WOOOO!!! He´s going to get baptized next Sunday!!! :) haha He is seriously such a miracle. I contacted him in intercambios 2 Saturdays ago and then we taught him the next day and now he´s getting baptized! And he is so awesome. We asked him if he feels like he´s changed since he started talking to us and he said yes and we asked him how and he said in a lot of ways, I'm happier than I´ve ever been in my entire life. SO awesome to hear things like that. The gospel seriously changes peoples lives and just makes them HAPPY. I love it.

Also, we had consejo (saw Hermana Page for the last time :((( miss her already!) It was way good! President is inspired. I am so grateful to that man! He changed my life, and keeps changing it. I KNOW that he is led by the spirit! So awesome. But afterwards, we had two hermanas stay in our apartment because of a bus mix up (after the assistants called us a million times... long story.) And they contacted while we were teaching and they found an antigua we´ve been looking for for FOREVER named S.  She is 10 and her family is all less active, but she wants to get baptized!! So they put a baptismal date with her,and then her and a lot of her family came to church on Sunday!! It was SO awesome :) Just have to make sure that they keep coming!!! 

What else... hmm.. I got sick this week.  I had a 101 degree fever at one point haha and was just way sick for about 3 days, but we still got stuff done and worked hard because my only symptoms were body aches, a fever, and fatigue, nothing else! Not even a stuffy nose. So don´t worry about me! :) And I´m 100% better now!

Besides that, everything is just continuing on! We´re doing really well here, I love it so much. I also have to say Tori Talbot is THE BEST for always sending me handwritten letters and just making my day when we get mail every month. love her love her love her. But, I LOVE Chile, LOVE the mission, and LOVE the gospel! I love being happy, and I know that the gospel is what is going to keep me this way :) Love you all so much, I hope you have a great week!!!

Hermana Hansen

FELIZ AÑO A NOSOTRAS‏

 

Hermana Evans and Hermana Hansen celebrating one year in Chile!

The day has come. A YEAR IN THE MISSION. What in the world. Yeah I don´t even know but I do know that I do not falta poco, falta mucho - and that´s all I have to say about that. Also this email is going to be way short because a lot of people wrote me this week actually (miracle, I KNOW) 

This week went really well though!! We found a bunch of people, we made resolutions to be EXACTLY obedient and went through the Christlike attributes test part of PMG and wrote down all the ones we want to work on as a companionship and put them up on the door and fasted to be able to do it on Saturday. Basically, we are going to be THE BEST missionaries in Chile Viña del Mar, most likely the world. haha But really, I´m excited about it, because I have seen how many blessings obedience brings!

Also my companion officially needs to get a root canal - BUMMER! Why am I doing this to everyone?! I feel so bad, but Hermana Evans is so awesome and just totally fine about it. More news, Gabriela got confirmed and A came to church! And he also still wants to get baptized in two weeks, so we´re hoping it happens!! The only problem is that we can only see him on weekends, so it´s a question of teaching him... and we saw him smoking, so we are teaching him about the word of wisdom on Tuesday haha. But besides that, the work is going on!! We´re focusing on making the branch more united, because there´s some big disasters happening. but our mission leader all of the sudden is super supportive and so we are going to CHANGE CHORRILLOS :) 

Besides that, I´ve had a good week! I´m way happy here in Chorrillos, The work is challenging but rewarding, we are seeing miracles, and I love my companion, so I really have no room to complain. Also we made homemade guacamole and tortillas and had quesadillas with doritos crunched into the melted cheese, so I´m a happy camper. Also we are going to subway today. What more can a girl ask for?!

I know the church is true,and that Christ lives! My companion and I are reading Jesus the Christ, and I´m getting pretty far in, and it is just incredible. He is an incredibly REAL person. I hope I can be as similar to him as humanly possible! Have a great week, share the gospel, and just choose to be happy :) I love you all!

Hermana Hansen

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/mens-hearts-shall-fail-them-1 (watch it)

Hermana Evans prepping for the celebration

Happy One Year in the Mission!

Homemade tortillas for the celebration

Views of the sunrise from one of their daily runs

Hermana Evans on their daily run

A beautiful sunset

One of the huge spiders the girls keep encountering

Someone gave the girls food for "the golden years". :)

A photo of the dog who can always be found sitting on top of this car.

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