9/18/2023 - Week Nine - Elder Hansen's Biracial?

This week has been an absolute blast! So many crazy things have happened so close together I'm scrambling to make sure I remember it all. I'm gonna have to briefly recap some crazy stories so hopefully that isn't a huge disaster for y'all to try and decipher.

So last Tuesday we were quarantined for a day because I was ever so slightly sick and our Mission Medical rep is very careful. So we spent that day making a ton of calls and playing Monopoly (which does not take any skill or strategy in 2 player games so it was a little annoying to lose on bad dice roles).

Wednesday was much more normal. We had 3 lessons with members which is awesome! We also stopped a guy on the sidewalk while we were parked to invite him to church (which I found very awkward to do, but I did it anyway) and this guy went into a legit 15 minute rant in a very thick Bulgarian accent that I could barely understand. Some of the finer points he hit in said rant were: reincarnation (always a good one), liars and businessmen running churches, misinformation campaigns and politics, and lastly how our minds are a "Bad Program." Needless to say, I left that lecture much more confused than before. The worst part was, he was talking the whole time and we had no chance to politely cut his rant short so we were sort of stuck.

Thursday we had the member lesson we dreaded the most, the Burketts. Sister Burkett is the ward librarian, but we'd never seen her husband at church so we wanted to get to know them and see if we could help her husband get to church as well as just get to know them in general. So when we scheduled a time with her to meet with her and her husband she pulled out two cards and handed them to us that pretty much just said her husband had memory issues. So we were kinda confused why she couldn't just say it, but had to hand us the cards, I honestly don't know. She made a huge fuss about it saying that he could really say or do anything while we were over there like he was mad in the brain. So, obviously we were kinds tense going into this lesson. But we get there, and as we got through the lesson Bro Burkett was completely normal, didn't have any issues with memory or time. It was weird, he honestly had a better memory than Sister Burkett at some points during the lesson, so we left that one real confused. Maybe we just caught him on a good day. Sister Burkett also had a staff like Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter (pics at the end).

On Friday we met probably the wildest and awesomest guy I've ever met. His name is Zach and he has met with Missionaries before so he knows a ton about the church. Some background on Zach, he is Boxer (but loves all forms of combat/martial arts) as well as a bounty hunter, so this guy is ripped and just overall menacing. He really wants to be baptized with his daughters so we are trying to teach them the lessons whenever we can. Zach also loves the Book of Mormon. He gets hyped when he hears about it, reads it, thinks about it probably. It's awesome. We started to read some scriptures with him and he stood up and started to get pumped (fist pumping, yelling, etc.). It was a great atmosphere for sure. He also showed us a Book of Mormon that he bought which is translated to modern slang through ChatGPT. He let us read some of it and it's surprisingly funny and yet still kinda has all the same meaning to the stories (not perfect of course, but really funny).

Saturday was definitely the best day of the week. We had another lesson with our friend Makiya that Doneshiah was at as well (best case) and the lesson was super good of course. But the best part was after the lesson Elder Carr asked Doneshiah and Makiya if he is balding (which he is) and they were all polite saying "nooooo" "it's not that bad" stuff like that. But after that they turned to me and said they had a question they were meaning to ask me. Then they asked me if I am mixed/Biracial because of the killer waves that are my hair. I told them that I'm about as white as you can get, but that was probably the most flattering question I've ever had anyone ask me, seriously. 

Sunday was real low-key. We had 3 friends at church and gave a church tour to LeeSha and her daughter which was cool. We found out that José from the Spanish Group in our ward is getting baptized on Friday which is amazing because it will be their first convert baptism in the Spanish group since it's inception (shoutout to Eldér Donaldson and Glade)!

If anyone wants to know about the more sketchy things that happened this week, email me separately and I'll fill you in. I don't want my mom to worry so I'm leaving it out of the main email (you're welcome mom).

Spiritual time:
In the start of Alma chapter 50, Captain Moroni and the Nephites have just won a major battle against the Lamanites and driven them away. What does Captain Moroni choose to do? Party? Dance? Celebrate? No. He starts making fortifications and defenses around all of the Nephite cities so they will be protected from future attacks. Now you may be thinking "Elder, that's great and all... but why does this matter to me?" And to that I have to say, that's a little selfish of you, but it's where I'm going next. Moroni's preparations for future attacks after a major victory teaches us that we need to continually prepare for our battles with Satan, where he constantly tries to target our weak points and exploit them through trials, temptations, and afflictions of all sorts. My invitation to all of you is to pray and ask Heavenly Father what part of your testimony you need to strengthen and how you can do that in your lives. I know that as you do this and strengthen your testimony in Jesus Christ, you will be able to face more difficult challenges than you ever have before, but do it with confidence you can and will get through them.

Anyways, I love you all and love all the letters and messages I've been getting from you guys. I love to hear from you, and apparently there's been some sort of an issue with my email to where I'm not getting all the emails sent to me. So if you've sent me an email and haven't gotten a response from me yet, for whatever reason I haven't gotten the message so I'd appreciate it if you tried sending it again or sent another message, whatever you feel like!

Til next Monday,
Elder Parker Hansen

Pictures:
1. Tiny Monopoly 
2. The Cincinnati District... again
3. Malfoy's Staff/cane thingy
4. Some deer
5. Sunset at French Park
6. I don't remember taking this picture 🫥








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