10/23/2023 - Week 14 - Members show up

The full, honest truth, is that I don't think too much happened this week. Don't get me wrong, this week was awesome, but I don't have as many miraculous and crazy things to report from this week (had to happen eventually right?)

The highlights of this week were that we made 2 really promising friends who seem to have a real desire to come to Church and to learn about the Gospel! This never happens and we often end up just teaching a ton of people who don't know how to say no, but we found 2 people who have that desire to learn which is awesome!

The other highlight for the week was on Sunday we taught the Word of Wisdom (a law of health for those who don't know what the Word of Wisdom is -- email or message me if you're curious) to 5 people, including 2 children. Now the Word of Wisdom is not the hardest thing in the world to teach, but it is a very hard thing to accept for many people, so we were kinda scared to teach the lesson to 5 people yesterday. However, everything turned out great and all of our friends said they want to live the Word of Wisdom and change the necessary things in their life to live in harmony with the law given by God! One of these lessons was with Zach, our bounty-hunter friend who I find hilarious and just awesome overall. The entire lesson (and most other times we talk with him) he refers to me and Elder Carr exclusively as his "bro-pieces" which is awesome. Just wanted to mention that bit cuz it always makes me laugh. Also one of our new friends we taught the Word of Wisdom told me I looked biracial, so it's happened twice now so it can't be a coincidence (maybe I should invest in a 23 and me 🤔).

Luckily this week I have been feeling much better since the accident 2 weeks ago and I am mostly all good and recovered. The prayers that you all said for me must've been really faithful because I got better much faster than I expected!

As for the title, we had a lot of interaction with the members of the ward this week which is awesome. We got fed by members 4 days this week!!! Insane numbers being put up by the Cincy Ward! Brother Busken (the Stake Patriarch) as well as the Pelacios' (Spanish Group Leaders), the Derenthals, and Bro Shull all fed us dinner this week which was amazing! It may not seem like much to some of you, but being fed a meal by a member is so amazing because:1) Missionaries have no money and many of them eat cheap garbage most of the time. 2) It makes me feel appreciated in the ward when members make the sacrifice of time and money to assist us in our mission to gather Zion, whether it be through helping with lessons or helping fill our stomachs. We also did 5 hours of service this week with some of the Ward members. We did a bit of deforestation in front of the Church building to make it visible from the main road. We ended up clearing probably about a 10×50 ft of very thick wooded area and it was not easy, but kinda fun to watch Bro Blackwelder chainsaw down some massive trees and yell "timber!" as the trees are falling down (very late notice BTW, we just made sure to keep an eye on when he was cutting a big one so we could get out of the way in time). After our deforestation we helped an member of the Ward mover all her stuff to her new place, it was not easy and ended up taking over 3 hours 😬. I do love service though so it was all a good time to be helping people out when they have a need.

Spiritual Thought:
Life is full of distractions right? The world/society want to drag us in so many directions and focus on so many things at the same time it's hard to remember our real purpose here. 
It's not to make sure we get the groceries tonight.
It's not to make sure we get our haircut scheduled. 
It's not to watch your favorite sports team.
It's not even to make sure our work project gets done in time. 
It's to become more like Christ and to follow his example in all we do.
Now I'm not going to say that any of the other things I mentioned were bad and we shouldn't spend our time on them, because they all vary in importance, but they are all below the importance of us becoming more like Christ. I feel like often times we find ourselves putting greater importance on the many things in life (good, bad, and in-between) and we lose sight of the most important thing. 
Now I know it's not easy, but if we could all set aside even just 30 minutes in the morning to focus on studying the scriptures, pondering their meanings, reading General Conference talks, and just seeing what we can do to better emulate Christ in our own thoughts and actions, we will see a great change in our lives for the better. Christ's power strengthens us through the hard times and the easy times, he will make those other aspects of our life to work out for our good. 
We just need to keep our focus on Christ and his Doctrine and teachings, and by doing so we will be blessed in all things. (Some pretty cool scriptures if you're into that kind of thing: Psalms 1:1-3; Mosiah 1:7; Helaman 12:1)

Signing off,
Elder Hansen

Pics: 
1. Los Élderes Españoles, Los Pelacios, Elder Carr, y yo en Mi Cozumel
2,3,4. Ford's Garage with Bro Shull!!
5,6,7. Cincinnati District Shenanigans 
8. Mi Cozumel










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