11/27/2023 - Week 19 - Hunter's chubby evil twin

This week things started to ramp up a little bit (In a good way)

On last Monday we went to the Cincinnati Zoo (again) and they had their lights up for the holidays so it was a festive District activity. I also bought some brand new church shoes for 10$ and I felt like a real life hustler (Gary Vee has nothing on me).

On Tuesday we finally got regular service scheduled at a food pantry called "Be Concerned." Service was great and I look forward to going back tomorrow. I also think that their name is a little too passive aggressive (and is honestly just a command) for being a food pantry that helps the less fortunate people *survive*.

Wednesday we had our Zone Conference and Pie Social, it was amazing. More on ZC later (missionaries, you better read that part).

Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving! We spent pretty much all of our Thanksgiving with members! In the morning we went to the Marshes and made (and ate) tamales and peach empanadas! I felt like a real chef (or probably just an abuela) making some new foods I'd never made before. We had dinner with the Carpenter's and we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and chatted about a ton of stuff from sports to books to Walmart back to sports, it was a fun time.

On Friday I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube and met the first real basher of the area. This guy wasn't fun to bash though because he didn't want to have a discussion he pretty much only justified his claims by saying he went to Bible College. We tried to talk to him because he wasn't necessarily rude, but Elder Avery started to cut him off a ton and just made him mad so we left (not the best way to handle the situation - I also patched some things up at the end to make him less angry, he was still unyielding though and wouldn't see logic or reason). We ended off the day by going to the Lymans in the ward for dinner. They have a special needs son who I absolutely adore. He's super funny and LOVES the missionaries. The Lymans were awesome and gave us some authentic North Carolinian Cheer Wine (it's a soda Mom) to have. Apparently it's a big deal over there, I hope I got to it before Elder Anderson.

The rest of the week we had two lessons. The first one was with Autumn who has a lot of struggles in her life, but is a firm believer in Christ and wants to find the truth for herself. She was awesome asking us questions and really has a testimony of personal revelation and finding truth through prayer. The next lesson was with someone who I can't mention their name (He's Hunter's Chubby Evil Twin - my family will understand). Anyways, this guy was also a fashion disaster, wore a trench coat over a Hawaiian floral button up with Jeans and Knee-high boots, a red flag from the start. I don't want to get into too much detail but here's a bulleted summary of the conspiracy theories he was telling us about.

Stephen King - Kujo --> it's real, not a story

Devils --> are weak, control the government, can be physical or spirits.

Main focus of his rant:

Greek Mythology --> nothing he said about this made sense. He believes in it but literally knows less about it than the average Percy Jackson enjoyer

Asking "Do you understand" every couple of sentences

All God's are real --> pretty much, to him, all religions are correct and everything they teach happened simultaneously

Conspiracy Theories (yep more than one) - reptilians and physical demons

(He saw a demon face to face)

Asked us to not mention his name to anyone - for his safety from the demons

Thats was an adventure to say the least.

Anyways, spiritual thought time!

I feel like everyone is going to mention about gratitude, but I did that last week I'm pretty sure so I'm gonna switch it up. (I am still grateful for all of you though and love and miss you all - pls email if you wanna chat on Mondays 😉)

My spiritual thought comes from Zone Conference and my own studies and it's all about personal conversion. Let me start off by saying, conversion is an ongoing process. Right before Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane he told Peter, his head apostle, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32). Peter was an Apostle to the Lord and Christ tells him that when he is converted, he should strengthen others. This means that although Peter had been with Christ throughout His ministry, he was not fully converted. If Peter still needed to be fully converted to Christ as Christ's own apostle, I think it's fair to say we all need to constantly be continuously strengthening our testimony and becoming more converted to the Lord. We can do this through daily (or more often) prayer, study of the scriptures and their meanings, Church Attendance weekly, all these things we call the "primary answers" are the Primary or main way we can come closer to Christ in our conversion. So make sure to always keep the basics in sight and use those skills and hone them as you become more converted.

Bonus mini Spiritual Thought - for missionaries especially:

This week I read Jeremiah 1:6-9 and it really stood out to me. We read Jeremiah 1:5 all the time... it's Doctrinal Mastery for those of you who did all that. But Jeremiah 1:6-9 was very powerful to me because I feel like it answers one of my biggest questions about missionary work: "why do we have a ton of immature 18-22 year olds who have very little real world knowledge and probably aren't in any way doctrinal scholars to be our primary missionaries?" I've thought about this a lot because I'm still barely 18, before I left for Ohio I'd never lived away from my parents for a significant amount of time, I don't know what it's like to have a mortgage, or even an electrical bill for that matter. I don't know what real life is like so how am I supposed to help people who have very real problems in their lives that I know nothing about? But these verses hit me like a freight train (or a car making an illegal right turn...):

6 Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.

7 ¶ But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.

8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

9 Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.

I hope that these verses help any of you who are going though the same struggle I have and that it will be a sufficient answer to you.

I love you all and hope you are doing well!

Peace out,

Elder Hansen