April 20th, 2015

(Scott has an extra partial Pday this week so we heard from him twice.  I was able to email back and forth with him and that was so fun!)

Playing soccer. Not fat, it's the wind. I'm actually getting skinny again, my little balleada belly went away. Hondurans are so direct, I've had lots of people come up and pat me on the belly and say " you're getting a little fat now ain't ya??" I love it, it cracks me up



Javier Ramos with his son and daughter. They all got up early, at 5<30 AM, to go to stake conference with us, and Javier was sustained to become an Elder. His wife's not in the picture. 

Just so you all know, this is the hottest place on earth. Between now and June is basically hell. It's unbearable hot, there's no rain, and it's still humid, and all the haze has lifted up and covers the valley. It's stifling. But, no worries. 

Other interesting things from this week! We had stake conference this week. And it was really nice. As cool as it is having church outside on someone's porch, it is truly refreshing to be with a large group of saints, in a chapel, with air conditioning. It's powerful. And the priesthood sessions too, singing "praise to the man"with 600 priesthood holders is pretty cool and made me homesick. Strength in numbers!

Had kind of a rough experience this week though. Not rough per say, but here goes. One of those times that reminds me that, as tranquil as morazan is, we're still in Honduras. So we've been working with a man named Carlos for a long time. 20 years old. His family are more or less active members. He finally gained some trust in us and this week he confided in us what's up. Basically, he left home when he was 15 because of family problems and long story short ended up getting forced into a gang. This actually happens alot, what happens is you offend the gang or someone related to the gang, and then they're like..."well, we've got two options...we'll kill you and your whole family, or...you sell this truckload of cocaine in two weeks"and then they end up selling drugs to preserve their lives. Can't go to the police because the police will just tell the gangs that somebody snitched, and they'll end up getting killed just as quick. Long story short, Carlos and his cousin sold the drugs but then burned through all the money. So the gang chief in charge of carlos kept threatening to kill him and made attempts, so carlos, as a 15 year old, went to his house and killed this man with a belt and shoving a bottle of pure alcohol down his throat. Turns out this man has higher up connections, like Narco/cartel connections, so now the cartel wants revenge. He told us that they drive by the house every 15 minutes and are always watching him just waiting for their chance. So, we called president and he told us that we really don't have a choice, we have to leave him. For our own safety and for the safety of the church (the inactive son of the woman that hosts the church in her house has cartel connections and a fear is that if Carlos ever came to church he'd tell his associates and they'd come by and kill him in church) we have to leave him. Honestly broke my heart. He'd come so far. He has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He reads. We had just gained his trust to where he told us of his past. We told him he could be forgiven. I feel for his poor mother, who sticks by his side 24/7 to feel like she's protecting him and had such high hopes for our visits and clasped our hands and kept saying "bless you, bless you" when we first started to visit carlos...And now we have to leave him. Learned alot from this experience. Lots of gratitude for where I'm from and the kind of family I have. And Its a perfect example of how easy it is to get caught up in things like that. Little steps lead to big steaps and pretty soon you're bound in chains like Carlos is. Satan binds us by flaxen threads. Carlos just started off smoking weed on the street corner with his cousin and kept getting brought down that road. Hate weed and I hate the gangs and I hate the cartel and most of all I hate the honduran government. 

Anyways. Now I'm not really in the mood to share anything else haha but that's our week. Definitely some high points though. We have a super solid investigator named Luis that's gonna be baptized next weekend. He goes to seminary, went to all three sessions of stake conference, made friends in the church, reads the scriptures regularly, and in our last lesson he bore his testimony to his parents about how he's repented and ready to be baptized. In the bus ride someone hopped on the bus to sell snacks and stuff, like normal, and he announces to us "well, I gotta make good use of my time before I'm baptized and have to keep the sabbath"and then he bought what the man was selling, super funny. Pray for him! And if everything goes well we'll baptize Yudit next weekend too. She's so solid, goes to church and reads, its just a marriage issue. Her husband has been working in the states for two years so we'll just have to see what they decide. 

I'm kinda struggling with my personality too. Like, I feel so blad as a missionary. And a lot of it is that it's hard to have a personality in a different language but still. But really, I get to thinking, who am I? Why do people like me? Ya know? 

Also, today I turn 8 months old, fun fact. 

That's all I got for now. Can't wait to hear from you all! Love and miss you all, every day.

Elder Hansen

Playing soccer. Not fat, it's the wind. I'm actually getting skinny again, my little balleada belly went away. Hondurans are so direct, I've had lots of people come up and pat me on the belly and say " you're getting a little fat now ain't ya??" I love it, it cracks me up.