1/1/2024 - Week 24 - New Year - New Me - Blackout Year

I know the title of this Email is about the New Year, but I'm just gonna talk about the last week (as always).

On Christmas Day we had dinner with the Senior Couple in our Ward - the Hansen's (Probably distant cousins) - and their kids and grandkids. The only notable part other than some delicious food is that one of their granddaughters (probably like 5 or 6) absolutely slingshotted a little fake, plastic camara right at Elder Simpson's face and made the most direct contact on possibly the most accurate throw ever thrown (would make Patrick Mahomes jealous). Elder Simpson is a-ok but it was super funny in the moment. 

We also had two exchanges this week. One was with the Miamisburg Elders and one with the Middletown Elders! Nothing crazy happened there, I just had to go into leader mode and help some newer missionaries adjust to missionary life and teach them how to learn and teach the doctrine (even though I'm pretty sure I barely know how to do that myself). 

We had a younger couple in the Ward invite us over for dinner and they probably made enough food for one child to eat and we somehow portioned it for the two of them and the three of us Elders. I wish I could say it was a Jesus feeding the 5000 experience, but we just went hungry until 9 pm. 💀

We also taught one of our friends (who will go unnamed for now) who completely demolished and eviscerated her spine up in her neck and had surgery on it a little bit back to repair it as much as they could. So needless to say, she is in a ton of pain, but she still wants to meet with us and learn more about the Gospel - which is awesome! What's slightly less awesome is that in the middle of our lesson with her we all witnessed a drug deal. Only problem, the drug dealer was this lady's son, and the person buying the weed was our friend. 🫠👍

Spiritual Miracle of the week:

Our friend Helen was baptized on Saturday this week! Now, let me tell you the absolute journey it was to get there. Helen was taught by missionaries in Indiana, she is an older lady and is an absolute sweetheart, but right before she could get baptized, she moved to Dayton! The unfortunate downside to this move is that we had to re-teach her all of the discussions needed for baptism, but since she knew it all, it was super easy. So we put her on date a few weeks ago and got everything prepped for her baptism: who would be giving the prayers, the talks, what refreshments we would have, etc. THE DAY BEFORE THE BAPTISM we get a call from Helen and she is not feeling good and she says she might have to postpone the baptism. So we hustle over to her place and we talk to her and see what is going on. She talked about how she is switching medication and it is making her throw up constantly and she wasn't able to eat anything. Overall, she just was not doing well. Luckily our ward came in clutch and we had a nurse and a 911 operator in the ward call her and tell her that she should probably go to the ER. Elder Simpson and I gave her a priesthood blessing of healing with the promise that she would have the strength to be healed and baptized the next day. Fast forward to later that night and our senior couple - the Hansens - drove her to the ER and they were told she would be there overnight (meaning her baptism would be postponed). This is where the miracle happened. At 1 am, Helen was discharged from the ER and at 8 am, 3 hours before her baptism, we got a text from Helen that said: "let's party on". And the Baptism was awesome! It was difficult for her to actually go under the water, but with the help of Elder Simpson and Elder Barker and everyone's held breath, she was baptized!

(Last funny side note: Elder Barker got Helen to start using the phrases "bussin, bussin" and "mondo" and she knows what they mean now).

That's all folks,
Parker Hansen

pics:
Helen's Baptism & my beautiful penmanship
Elder Barker chowing down on some Carribean Jerk Hot Wings
The Disgusting Dayton air (idk what the green is... maybe the bat signal)









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