Monday, January 25, 2015



monkey eating a tube of superglue. He's looking at his hands wondering why the heck they're so sticky. Funniest thing ever, poor guy. 

This is our branch presidents house, I like it a lot. Nice rural area, clean house, solidly built, gets a nice breeze. They're doing pretty good for Roatan. 

 

 

Hey everybody!

Curtis-1st for markham for shot put or mile, or how does it work? either way, that's awesome. tearing it up. how's your kayak? been out on the river? And no way. I'm doing pushups and pullups everyday, I'm still gonna take you down, hard and fast. Go do wrestling though! Does markham offer wrestling? 

Also, one other item of business-this might be my last pday on the island. Transfers are coming up so I'm gonna go buy some souveneirs for the family. Just little stuff, but could you put a little money on my card, quick? And if you have any requests for things you want me to buy have at it. I'm gonna get a tshirt for me, and some little wood carvings of islandy stuff, and a map, but give me requests if you want anything. 
Nice to hear about all the family. Except the St. Johns family, who knows what to do. Is dad gonna go out there solo pretty soon? 

Sarah bought her horse yet?

 

And I can't believe you all bought fake logs...what the heck. And hey, I loved the mudwalk! I'm glad they're still doing it. And I'm glad he'll have Mrs. Voke...another science project but she's really great, I like her alot. And I loved the photos with connor at the temple, made me laugh about him asking for the day off. How's everybody doing in the shop? Dad bought a new truck yet? Good luck with Boca. 

story time. The big news: We have 2 baptisms this saturday, and the other elders will have a third and then a child will be baptized as well. A quadruple baptism! Marsela and Stephani will be baptized. We've been meeting with them pretty much every day and they've been progressing well. They are at a very basic level but they're excited have great desires to follow christ and are progressing and have recieved answers and that's enough for us. So cross your fingers, hopefully next week they'll be some baptism photos! (And of members...I'll get the important ones for sure).

And I've got a good little story about krisia; we went to visit her with a recent convert of a similar background. The visit started off a little rocky, but the member was great and talked about her testimony and experiences and the blessings she's recieved from the gospel and we kind of all talked for a few minutes without any interaction from Krisia, and then we asked her to pray for us, and she just sat there not saying anything. I was waiting, and then after a minute I asked her again (I couldn't see her, this all happened in pitch black because her candle burned out, Honduras) And then she just said "Sure, but...I'm crying" she had been crying for the past 3 or 4 minutes and we had no idea. And then She talked about about how she felt such peace and tranquility, which was especially cool because a couple days before we really focused on feeling peace and comfort and I promised her that through our message she could feel that peace-and then that night she got her answer and her peace. Great experience for everyone, including our member that left with us. 

We've been doing alot of work with members-much more excitement in the branch-and it makes a big difference. It's such a powerful tool. Its better for the investigators, it builds member's testimonies, gives them the confidence to share the gospel on their own, and prepares the young ones to serve missions. Our little branch is small but powerful. 

And I always laugh about how small the island really is. We'll be in a lesson in someones house, and then all of a sudden another of our investigators will walk through the door, and we come to find out they're in laws or cousins or something. I feel like I know everybody. And the other thing that makes me laugh is their dirrections-reminds me how we always laugh at the directions that st. johns people give, because they're exactly the same. For example, someone told us "Ok, go up to the monkey (years ago there was a statute of a monkey there, but it hasn't even been there for years) and keep on going up to the point (which one, there are 4) and cross the bride, and then on the other side theres a palm tree and there's always a black dog under the palm tree, that's where pedro lives"  And I've started to have fun with them, whenever they give us directions like that, I'm just like "Ohhh yeah, I know where that is, there's always that mangy looking dog hanging around right??" and they're like "Yeah! that's the place!". 

Also, another funny story, in hindsight. We were with Alonso's family, bout ready to leave, and miguel, the 6 year old, runs up to me and shouts "HUEVOS!" (eggs) and grabs my testicles. Like, grabs them. owwwww. Why the heck would he do that? I got mad at him in the moment but it makes me laugh every time I think of it now. Kids here have no manners. nada. And if you're gonna post this on your blog don't edit anything. Only edit my racism please. 

That's all I got for ya, time's a tickin. Miss you all, love you all, thanks for the pictures, and can't wait to hear from ya next week! 

first off, I have a blog? what the heck? 

second, atta boy curtis!
and ahhh. The weather. I love this time of year in florida. Orrin sent me some pictures of him offshore with bluebird skies....perfect. But it's actually been pretty nice here, sometimes I have to turn my fan off in the night because I'm cold. It's been in the 70's in the mornings. 

I'm just gonna respond to everyting in order, hope you all can decipher it. 

Week has been good. We had to push Marsela's back a little bit for more preparation but we still have her, krisia, and a girl named stephanie scheduled for the next two weeks. And funny story about Marsela...we've always had a funny vibe about her family...it's a house with 3 women and there is always a ton of guys-men, boys, teenagers-just loitering around the house. Elder Vasquez and I were thinking something fishy was going on but we went ahead and taught and all was well. Marsela is the normal one in the family though, she's great. But anyways, we came to find out this week that the mother, in fact, runs a prostitution operation on the beach. That was interesting. So for the past 3 months two mormon missionaries have been going into a whorehouse twice a week, ain't that something. 
And stephanie is interesting. We contacted their house, and then they invited us in and started off by telling us "I had a dream about you two last night" (we're there for the first time, ever) and I was just bracing myself for something weird or another woman that had a dream about marrying a gringo missionary, and then she was like " I dreamed last night that there were four men praying, and then they arose and told me that tomorrow I was gonna hear the word of god, and then I saw two men in my house and they said that they had a message" and her daughter, at the same time, was telling us how she had a similar dream and she had a dream that one of the sister missionaries they had come in contact with before visited her in the dream and told her to wake up and accept the missionaries. So that was interesting. I'm usually pretty reluctant to believe stuff like that because the people here make up all kinds of crap about their dreams and spiritual visitations but they seemed very sincere and if so...that's pretty cool. This lady recieved a book of mormon from the sisters a while ago and has been reading "in my hammock 3 pages every day and I'm in the alma part". Talk about golden investigators. 
But yes, I dream in spanish. I speak way more spanish than english, we speak spanish in the house and I only ever speak english if we're teaching someone that literally doesn't understand spanish. 

Sterling as quarterback! right on. Sounds like a fun team. Is devin snyder good? his whole family is athletic. how come you're playing football right now, do they have stuff at this time of year? Football in chilly weather is the best. 

Curtis killin' it with the ladies. are those the twins? The mile is hard, I could never get good enough mile times, I could only ever run long distance. And I'm glad you're liking civics! Do you have a good teacher or are they super liberal? Politics and history, good stuff. 

Also, poor skip. I hope he kills the cat. I actually have a cat friend here, his names bambino. I like him cause he's like a dog. He's our cooks cat and we give him bones to eat and he eats them like bread. I mess with him a lot and he's clawed and bit me but we're still buddies. 

So what's going on with this horse of sarah's? That's exciting. where's the money coming from? Your dream's coming true. how's the club going? I want a tshirt, i'm not kidding. Good luck on admissions!

Kate, way to do your missionary work! three mormons in one class, that's fun. sun rail and park avenue? how ritzy. Thanks for helping curtis out and all, at least he's batting for the right team. 

I do love BYU basketball, keep me posted. 

that's great that orlando and boca are pulling a profit! And the buffalo job, ohhhh. I can just feel the frustration, I remember how that goes. 

And I am in full agreement about the whole spouse thing! It makes a huge difference, I've seen it a million times here. 

The boys making firecrackers, sounds like fun. I used to try and do that with shotgun shells but it never worked. And church ball, wooo! sounds like a party, who got thrown out? 

anyways, here's my brief little update, not a ton. The biggest thing that's happened is our shakeups in leadership. Our new branch president is changing things up and it's awesome. He's a great guy. He works like president carter and he's super nice and friendly like president pratt. We're finally getting branch support and we're being included in more things and just working alot more effectively. He brought us in for a few meetings with other priesthood leaders and he was just grilling me (cause my comp is a scrub and I didn't want him to answer for us) just rapid fire, how, what, when, where, why, tell me what you need. I loved it. Straight up and to the point. Told him how we're doing, where we're falling short, where we're doing good, and what help we need. It was a big change and much welcomed. 

Also had divisions this week and I spent a day with the elder from mexico. he and I are best buds, I like him alot. He's all about wrangler jeans and ford trucks and mexican food. Good guy. And the jokes...I remember what lucian said about mexican humor and it is spot on. 

That's about all I got for ya! Thanks for the pictures, always love to see home and family. 

miss ya'll,

Elder Hansen

In Scott's letter he said this was Alonso's family

 

Happy Monday!  Glad to hear that now everyone in the family can ball except me. At least I can play soccer now. So Krista up and quit huh? Sounds like its for the best, works better for everybody. Who are you gonna replace her with? Glad to hear that NC is still coming along. And since when does Jason drink coffee? Glad he had it though, that is a little scary. Always truck problems. How's everybody in the shop? I bet Nikki's real happy with Ohio state's performance this year. Still can't believe there's a cat in the house either. Poor skip, doesn't even get to rest in his old age. 

 

Marsela is doing great.  She's coming to church on her own and if everything goes well she's gonna get baptized the 24th. Jaisler as well, but we need President Kline to come out to the island for the interview. Gustavo is attending church still but never has time to meet with us and I honestly think he doesn't want to. But at least he is still actively investiagating on his own. 

And we have another solid woman named Krisia, also from mosquitia, who lives in the worst part of the island that I know. She also started with zero fundamentals, but is progressing and has the desire to make changes and be a woman of God and raise up her family in the right way. We haven't taught her about the word of wisdom or the law of chastity yet, but without us teaching it she decided to leave her boyfriend and quit drinking. She only has one church attendance (and it was a mess, we brought her in in jeans and a tank top, 20  mins late, with 3 raggedy black children in tow) but she liked it and has a baptism date for the 31st. Her kids are adorable, usually. Sometimes I want to beat them. She has 3 boys, and they're all tiny. Oldest one is 6 and the youngest one is 3 or 4. Always barefoot, excpet when they went to the church, sometimes naked, sometimes wearing underwear and a tshirt, and sometimes they get all dressed up with jeans and jordan imitation high top sneakers. The youngest one is Shula Alexander, and if you don't use his full name he gets mad. He's bitten me several times. Whenever the kids see us passing on the street they yell and scream and swarm us and then walk with us wherever we're going, and when we're walking on the street they grab our hands and walk with us wherever we're going. I feel like the pied piper leading a bunch of el swampo kids around town. and sometimes I bring little candies or chips for them, we have quite the fan club. But, they can be awful too. One time we were waiting for Krisia and I was playing with shula and he spit right in my face-I told him to stop and he did it again and ahhhh I wanted to hit him so bad. That's Krisia's Kids. 

Lots of other investigators, still teaching a ton, but nobody is married. We've gotta learn to just leave them.  No one ever does what's necessary to get the papers. (It's the governments fault though, they make it ridiculously hard to get married, its another way for them to bruise the poor and suck out a little more money-I hate the Honduran government worse than I've ever hated anything in american politics) The good thing right now is that we have 3 single/soon to be single people, for once. Still working in spring garden and right now we're also traveling to a little town called french harbor (look it up, its pretty-not tourist pretty but its genuine roatan) to work with a reference from the president. He has a friend who has a daughter who went and fell in love with an islander and they're gonna get married so we're giving the lessons to this guy. Also, I found an old progress record sheet from the missionaries in the longwood ward when I was a ward missionary...holy cow, they had 8 lessons in one week! We've had 8 in one day before, I guess Roatan isn't so bad after all. 

The island is still beautiful this time of year. Even away from the coast it's real picturesque. The other day I was up on our balcony washing my clothes and realized how beautiful it is. The air is dry, with a light breeze, cool in the shade, and blue skies. We're surrounded by coconut and mango trees, and below us is a green field rimmed by banana trees with a bunch of chickens running around. I can smell someone making tortillas in the pulperia behind us and I can hear someone playing spanish music in a house down the road. 

And then when we're up in the hills it feels just like Florida-we'll be teaching a family on their porch (kinda, its more like sticks with a sheet of tin and a bare light bulb, but still) as the suns setting back in the jungle and the crickets start singing and it feels like I'm back at Julie's or anywhere in florida. And then it really feels like Florida when we're in the coastal parts and everyone's black and has some money. The black people with money drive nice trucks and listen to country music and have fish stickers on their trucks and have construction companies and stuff, it's like being back home, except the wealthy blacks hate us. And all the cars here must be secondhand from florida. I've seen so many cars with UF, USF, Stetson, FSU stickers, Seminole State parking passes, Gander Mountain stickers, sorority stickers, the works. It's odd. 

Also, the roaches fly here. Like mosquitos. Buzzing around. It's awful. 

But yes, Winter is the best time to come, it would be a blast to bring the family back here and dive/explore. It's soo cheap. Their tourism industry has taken a beating too, so the resorts are super cheap. And its super safe and the touristy areas are really clean. 

I've had a pretty good week. Very motivated. Very on top of things. With the new year we've been working with the branch counsel and I've done very well in presenting ourselves, our needs, ideas, and taking counsel. Still comp issues, as always. I didn't do super well with my patience\parental role this week, we fought quite a bit. I can't even begin to list the stuff this guy does. But the highlights this week, just to give you an example, he: told a black guy he would go to spirit prison because of his skin, laughed in the middle of an investigator's prayer when she said something a little different, told me to shut up in the middle of a lesson, and told someone that the psalms weren't inspired of god and that the ones with symbols are from satan. It's been an interesting week. I can deal with the weird stuff but the things I find very hard to forgive are his lies and his laziness. He works in the lessons, but as soon as we have time to give service or help somebody he's just about useless. And the lies...that's what I hate the most. He's full of crap and he knows that I know it. But enough complaining about my comp, he's got his good side. He's good with kids and he does have the desire to baptize and teach lessons and he knows the scriptures very well. So we're in two steps forward and one step back and this week was kind of a step back. 

Also, we can't go anywhere in town without people stopping us on the street and asking us to pray for them like we're some kind of catholic priest. They're usually drunk though, so we just tell them that we'll pray for them, tell them that they can pray for themselves, that god loves them, and to quit drinking. We've got it down to about a 30 second spiel and then we gotta book it out of there because they keep trying to hold our hands. I had one drunk guy start kissing my hands after our little message, that was a first. 

So that's Roatan for ya, always interesting. My spanish has been really good this week, I can read and write fluently and my verbal/listening is close to fluent, and when we're teaching lessons totally fluent. It's just hard because Roatan, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico all have different vocabularies so its like I'm learning 4 languages. Also, I'm really impressed with Elder Sandoval, the 25 year old convert from Mexico. We need more Mexicans like him in the states. 

Also, that sounds like a sweet plan for summer, That's what I would vote for. Go big and swing up through the carolinas and virginia for the hiking and then go to Palmyra and then cross over to Nauvoo. I never wanted to do a church history tour when I was younger but now that sounds like a blast. 

How's the arizona family doing? And how did Sarah's tournament go? 

 

I'm sure I'll remember something else soon but that's all I have for now!

 love yall

I took this off the mission blog - I am guessing it was a zone conference

Monday, January 5, 2015

Thanks for all the pictures! As always, glad to hear about everybody and see everybody. And the superstitions look beautiful, that´s pretty cool. Kate and Sarah, that´s funny. How tall is kate now? sarah still the same? Looks like everybody´s doing good, our family is sure good looking. I heard about the girls party, Jen was there and said that sarah and kate were looking ¨gorgeous as usual¨. And that dinner that dad made sounds like heaven....that´s exactly what I want when I get back home. Plus some homemade bread. Actually by that time I´ll probably be so accustomed to balleadas and fried food I won´t want anything else. I am developing a little soda addiction, I´ve been having to watch myself and force myself to buy water instead of soda. And my chocolate made it just fine! the cherries were a little damaged but they tasted the same. I could probably use some new contacts soon-I´m fine for now but I don´t want to be without them while I´m waiting for a package.  Also looking forward to hearing about sarah´s tournament. And that´s glad to hear about the baptism, sounds like a good fit.

Here´s my update. I had a bunch of stuff written down to tell you all but I forgot it and I´m gonna have to try and remember everything.

As far as my comp goes, I´m not gonna write a ton about him cause it´ll just stress me out but basically he´s the polar opposite of everything I respect in a person. Thinks he´s a thug. dishonest. lies to people. offends people. and he´s just not quite right. I´m not sure if he should have been allowed to go on a mission and he has some mental issues I think. He has an odd obsession with the law of chastity and shares odd scriptures. We´ve had investigator tell him to shape up, and people have asked me in private if something is wrong with him. But, it´s all good. He does like to work, more or less, so i can´t fault him for that. But I´m working hard to find the good in him and I´ve found how to work with him and how to motivate him and how to be the senior companion even though I´m not. He´s like a brand new missionary and president told me to train him basically. So I have to make all the decisions while still making him feel important and in charge. But he knows the scriptures very well and is very intelligent in that regard. He´s really good with kids and he gets us all kinds of free stuff because he asks for food and meals like I never would. I always get mad when he begs for food, but...I can´t really be mad because at least we´re not going hungry. We´re working well together and the experience has humbled me and made me rely on Christ alot more and focus more. I don´t have time to be anxious when I´m only thinking about how to work with my comp. And I´m trying hard to just be friends with him and love him too, and he´s growing on me. His disobedience is improving rapidly and I give lots of positive encouragement. I figured that this is my lot for the next little while and I better make the best of it, so I´m enduring and enduring well and learning alot. So that´s that.

we worked alot this week, we met the mission goal of 35 lessons a week and most missionaries only do that 3 or 4 times in their mission.

We have 3 promising investigators: Marsela, of the familia velasquez, is 19, and lives with a wacky family but she has the desire and is coming to church. If she can understand everything and keep on progressing she´ll be baptized in two weeks. Gustavo is an attorney and very intelligent and is investigating the church on his own. We have done next to nothing because he never has time to meet with us but is attending the church on his own (this is huge) and reading. When president Kline was here to reorganize our branch presidency President taught a class, and Gustavo made a comment about how if he is the head of the household and providing the money then he gets to call all the shots and be the boss of the house. And then president Kline tore into him and told him firmly how he was wrong and how he needs to change, and Gustavo really respected that and seemed to take to it and it ended up being  a really good experience for him. Then we have Jaisler, who is from mosquitia (just about the most undeveloped, uncivilized place on earth-look it up) and here to find work. He´s 29 and had no knowledge of God or anything when we started. So that has been a cool experience starting from step one and working our way up, and watching him develop faith and prayer and hearing him talk about how he feels in his prayers and his readings. He is really hard up though, and he hasn´t had any work and when he came to church on sunday we found out through asking some prodding questions that he hadn´t eaten in 3 days and the 3rd day was just an orange. So after church we rounded up a bunch of scraps in our apartment and gave it to him-some eggs, a little oatmeal, little cornmeal, little milk, some rice, gatorade powder, and some little biscuits-and dropped it offf with him. The only challenge with him is that he killed a man in his younger years-he was in a room with his cousin and someone came in and killed his cousin, didn´t see jaisler, and then as the man was leaving jaisler shot him in the back three times. So he´ll have to be interviewed by the mission president for that one but because he had literally no knowledge of God when he did it and he´s very repentant about it, I think it will be approved. Teaching him reminds me of Ammon teaching King Lamoni. If everything goes well he´ll be baptized at the end of the month.

And then we have about 20 other investiagtors but those above are my favorites.

The weather is beautiful right now. It´s always sunny, dry, 85, and breezey. The water looks beautiful and this is the high season. Lots of tourists on the island. Some of the tourists that I met when I was just starting out came back and it was fun to see them again. I told you all last time that I wouldn´t want to return here but I changed my mind. You all would love this place. With all the water activities, pirate/plantation/indian history, different languages, tourist stuff, museums, food-the family would have a blast here. I just got all crochety before thinking how much the tourists bothered me I didn´t think I would return but now I want to again.

Also ran into a tourist from new york the other day. Still hate em.

we´re doing a lot of work right now in a place called spring garden, and its beautiful. It´s up in the hills and far away but its real rural-picture steep hills covered in banana and coconut trees with thick jungle plants all around, and then little grassy meadows with chickens running around, and then when you climb the hills you can see the ocean down below and on clear days you can see the mountains on the mainland.

Thanks to writing out all my problems I´m out of time, but that´s my little update. Love you all, miss you all, and can´t wait to hear from you again! Next time I´m going to do my best to get pictures of people and tell you all about them. I´ve gotten really close with alot of the people here and it´ll be sad to leave them. I´m probably gone in februrary.

Anyways. bye now!