September 21, 2015

Still alive!

And only 11 months to go! shoot that´s going by fast...two more months and I´ll be in the single digits...but rest assured I´m making the best of my time, making hay while the sun shines! 

And woah, you guys are old! 47 and 53! But yes! Do the 80´s party! Clothes and everthing. I can just picture you guys walking out in a cloud of fake smoke with a solid 80´s song on in the background. I don´t know what else you could do to make it an 80´s party besides music, dress, and people of your age, but I think that would be sweet. Gotta throw in a dancefloor though, with some good 80´s love ballads. 

 Also, please send me contact solution with every package! I´m back to wearing glasses again and I hate it. Always fogged up, I´m blind all day because of the rain, and they´re always falling off my face. 

And nope, I didn´t get sick! I´m becoming resistant, my body is conquering Honduras! I´m putting on weight too. And we have a gym close by that we hit a few times a week so I´m improving there. Now I just need to get rid of all the weird things wrong with the skin on my legs and arms. 

and no, there´s no AC here. Just fans. It´s not bad, it really doesn´t even bother me anymore. And no, no other rules. Just that when the power goes out we have to book it back to the apartment. The city has been having serious power and water shortages recently so that´s been a struggle. We really don´t have problems-my buddy Gillens has been robbed like 10 times and almost got kidnapped but I haven´t had a single thing happen to me. Just got lucky I guess. Or I just look scrawny and malnourished and poor and they all can tell I don´t have any money. 

Yup, young men´s law of chastity stuff. Always awkward. Just gotta be real open about it, so that there´s no shame or desire to hide the sin when a problem pops up. 

 And that´s a really cool experience with your grandpa and all. That´s something I´ve never felt, I´ve never had a loved one die. But I do feel the security, and that´s a huge strength. I don´t have to worry. 

Tell Orrin hi for me, and that I want to see a picture of his girl in Flag.

Also tell Chenel hi for me. That was really depressing reading that, how sad would that be. I just wanna get married haha. Also, you guys are great for helping out Chenel so much. Are the other ward members doing pretty good at helping her out? 

And yeah, in BYU? I wasn´t quite the party animal but yeah, there were several times that we stayed out all night. Not that I reccomend it because midterms are gonna come real quick, but, I wouldn´t be too worried. Sarah´s really good at keeping me updated and with lots of pictures! And yes, get in touch with BYU please! BYU student wards can be a ton of fun. 

How´s seminary? what are the struggles? What goes well? 

And grammie´s a glutton for punishment. I wrote a letter to them today actually, should get to them in a couple weeks. And the stokes side? Everyone pretty excited about Devin´s wedding? 

Anyway, quick update! Had my first zone meeting this week, and it went really well. I´m very comfortable as a zone leader. Weak things have become strong. And then afterwards we had to deal with problems with the sister missionaries and it ended up being a huge cryfest. And my freaking comp is whipping out scriptures about charity and how we need to follow the example of Christ and I´m just trying to do my best to give practical advice because I can pretty much gurantee you that the last thing a hysterical, crying sister missionary wants to hear is how she needs to be more christlike. Long story short, if you girls want to serve a mission, you better be 100% sure you really want to do it!

We found a really cool investigator this week-we were out knockin doors, which we almost never have to do, and he invited us in, we get to chatting, and then he whips out two church books someone gave him and tells us how much these books have helped him. Then he tells us that he was about to get baptized a long time ago but chickened out. And he also had a profound spiritual experience when praying to know if joseph smith was a prophet, and his mother had the chance to travel to the united states and had the most spiritual experience of her life visiting the Smith Family log home in Palmyra. And he´d been praying that God would send the missionaries to his house. The lord is preparing people, we just have to open our mouths and find them! 

That´s about all I got for you all. Working hard, eating well, and learning alot. The section on leadership in the Ezra Taft Benson manual is my inspiration lately. I was reading that today and it was like ¨freak, that´s exactly what I do!¨It was like learning something I already knew. Basically my examples in leadership (and life in general) are you two-I really didn´t have to learn anything cause I´d already been taught it my whole life. And everytime I want to do something good in the zone my comp shoots it down and makes up something like ¨oh, president said one time in a meeting that...¨ and all kinds of foolishness. He gets jealous I think. He´s jealous of my good relationships with the other missionaries. Things have only gotten worse with him. Wish me luck! I know everybody is the way they are for a reason but there´s still no excuse for rudeness. Actually it´s not even rudeness, its the whole holier-than-thou false piety that drives me up the wall. Jesus loves him but at the same time he had some pretty strong words for the pharisees. We actually have pretty good lessons but its still not the same. Our lessons with my previous comp were excellent-cause we had an incredible amount of unity. It makes a big difference. 

I don´t have time to respond individually but I´m proud of you all! I´m proud of Sarah for adjusting to Provo so well (but take it easy!), of Kate for being an all around success and socialite, of Curtis for being a good kid and reading a land remembered and just being a Hansen, and I´m proud of Sterling for playing football and being a winner all around and I´m hoping he doesn´t get too markham woods'ish and that he can make time to go surf every now and then. And I´m proud of all of you for your spiritual growth and church activity! The ward needs you all, and you all need the ward! 

How´s the new bishopric doing? 

I heard BYU lost, that´s too bad. Was it a good game? who do they have next? Did they make the top 25 after the loss?

 

Anyways, have a great week. I love you all and your letters and updates are a huge strength to me. Happy birthdays, and keep me posted!

 

 

walking a dog. Did divisions with sandoval and their landlords left a dog behind and we had to take it to its new home. Walking a dog in honduras is awful because every dog in town knows there´s new meat on the street and wants to kill the poor dog we were walking. We had to fend off like 4 packs of dogs, it was the worst. I no longer have any kind of sentimental feelings towards dogs that aren´t skip. I rocked so many dogs that day. Almost killed one I think, Sandoval and I both hit the same dog with rocks at the same time and it set to crying and staggering back to its house, and I didn´t even feel bad. (actually, I did a little bit, but hey, gotta defend yourself)

also, happy mexican independence day