The Week of Christmas

Allyson, President Cleveland, and Sister Fenn

Well I had a wonderful week!!! How about all of you? Skyping with the family was wonderful! I miss you all!!! This Christmas was definitely filled with Christ's Spirit! I got to go caroling at an old folks home! It was wonderful! I am glad I got to share that with all those people! They were so grateful that we came to sing to them! I know that by doing service we can all feel the Spirit of Christ! 

There are times in our lives where Heavenly Father will bring us low so that he can bring us higher than we were before. There is a quote I have on my planner that says "God didn't create us to be sad, he created us to have joy" - Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Sometimes we have to experience disappointment to be brought to have that joy. This week I experienced little pieces of Joy.

One of those was meeting Loraine. We met with her and she is a wonderful person. She went to the temple open house and really wants to be baptized but there are things in her life holding her back from being baptized! I wish I could do something for her so that she can make it to the temple. But I know that God is putting her through this so that she can love the church even more.

Another little Christmas Eve miracle. We went tracting and met a woman named Virginia. She immediately invited us into her house. She told us stories of her life and we testified of Jesus Christ and his power. We left her with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet to read! I am excited to go back over and talk to her more! I hope she can understand the importance of the temple and how families can be together forever.

One thing that I realized this week is that none of us can do anything without God! None of the miracles would happen if we did not believe in God and Jesus Christ. This is God's work, not my work. I know that if we are trying to fulfill God's purpose " To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" Moses 1:39. We can do that just by doing our part of sharing the gospel with everyone we talk to! Turning to him is the best thing we can do! Then we need to act!

Sister Hanson

Sisters Hanson and Fenn

A Wedding, Baptism, and Transfers!!!

Pictures of the baptism! Susan with the red hair and that is her husband Tom.

Ahhhh so many things happened this week! I don't even know where to begin!!!! First off I got transferred to Greenwood 1st!!!! My new companion is Sister Fenn. She is wonderful. We are both now STLs (Sister Training Leaders). Pretty much just Zone Leaders for sisters. So we get to go on lots of exchanges!

This week was bitter sweet. I had to leave Indy 1st ward. Which is now the ward right next to mine. So I did not go very far. haha. When we got here, the sisters already had Susan on date to be baptized but before that she needed to get married to Tom. We helped out with the wedding! Then we helped out with the baptism! We also taught her the rest of the lessons! So as you can tell we were very busy this week! But it was a week full of miracles!!! She was also baptized in freezing cold water. That would just be terrifying to me.

We also met this wonderful investigator named Rebecca! She is getting close to being baptized! She has known about the church since she was a teenager. Now she has 2 kids. So she has been studying for a while. She told us that she has read the Book of Mormon all the way through. Which so amazing. She knows it is true! So exciting. I hope we get to help her to baptism! She still has to see if her husband is okay with her being baptized. So many complications but I have faith that everything will work out for the best!

We are also teaching a girl named Kellie. Her parents won't let her get baptized until she is 18. Next December!!!! She has known the church is true forever. So we will just teach her once a week. She goes to Seminary every morning! So I have come to the miracle ward!!!!

This ward has really seen many many missionary miracles from the past sister missionaries and I hope we can keep that missionary spirit alive. They are so missionary focused. They have extra meetings every month just for missionary work!

Love,

Sister Hanson

Sister Hanson and Sister Fenn!

Transfers Again. The Week We Walked.

Allyson and Sister Sowards

Well, it is sad to say, but I am moving areas again. So will my companion. It is sad. But I had so much fun this week! We literally got to walk everywhere this week. Our car was in the shop for various reasons. And as we all know the work goes on even when we don't have a car. And another plus this week was that the weather was AMAZING. It was in the 60s-70s on Saturday and Sunday.

Ronn. He is doing great! We taught him yesterday for our last time. It was a great lesson. We shared our favorite scriptures with him. And president always says that if you read the Book of Mormon with your investigators that they will tell you their concerns. And guess what happened he brought up his concern. Since he can't come to church because of his chemo treatments he said that he feels left out. We had some wonderful members at that lesson that helped him resolve the concern and they are going to help him feel more involved. He has a strong desire to come to church. Which is wonderful! I am excited for the day that he will go to church. He has been waiting all his life to be a member.

I felt the prompting that I needed to study the scriptures and why they are so important. Lately I have been reading the stories about Alma and Ammon on their missions. All I have to say is that they were wonderful missionaries. This relates to why the scriptures are so important because in their teaching patterns they first testify. Then they go straight to the scriptures and teach. I have found myself trying to incorporate more scriptures in my teaching. The scriptures are so important when we are teaching and looking for answers. Without the scriptures in our lives we would not know any thing pertaining to our salvation because the scriptures hold all the words of God! That is why they are so precious!

I love you all! Make the scriptures important this week!

Love

Sister Hanson

Sister Sowards, Ronn and Allyson

The Work

Originally sent from Allyson November 16, 2015


I guess I will start off by telling you some funny things! When ever we go to teach the Chin people in their homes and they have little children they have this one funny cartoon they play for their children. It is in English but it sounds like it was made by a different country! It is on the Chu chu channel and they only do lots of rhyming! ahah I think my English might be worse after this too because we always talk in broken English with them. And I have a baby voice when I explain words.

Ronn! We taught Ronn yesterday! He is doing great! He is currently in the book of Jacob!  We bring member couples to the lessons so that he can get to know the ward members so when he gets better and comes to church he will know lots of people! We taught him about the Word of Wisdom and he accepted it like butter on a pancake! haha. He pretty much was already living it! So that made it really easy for him.

Debbie!!! Debbie is now my mi-maw! As they say in the south!!! She is from Mississippi! She is currently still in Rehab for her tragic fall but she is slowly relearning to walk!!! She loves when we come over to teach her because she learns something new every time! She is currently in 2 Nephi! The sad thing that happened to her was that her mom died this week. She cannot make it to her funeral. But hopefully she will be okay! We are going to see her tomorrow! We also bring lots of members with us to her lessons so that she can get to know them!!! I love her. OH and she says when she gets her sewing machine here she is going to make me a "bible case". I am pretty excited!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful week! the computer will not upload photos this week so sorry!

Love Sister Hanson

Indianapolis in December...

Our matching outfits! getting ready for Star Wars

This week was crazy!!!!! Up date on the weather. There is still no snow. haha. I am okay with that. Hopefully we don't have a bad winter! Life is all good in Indianapolis!!! We are teaching lots of Chin as well as English people!!!

Last week we got a new investigator!! Her name is Whitney! We taught her the restoration!!! She accepted it!!!! She had looked up stuff about the church before the lesson and she was telling us all kinds of stuff. She was trying to prove to her husband that we are just normal people!!! haha Love her! She and her family should be coming next week to church!!! I am so excited!

Ronn!! We put him on baptismal date this week. March 12th. He is still going though his chemo treatments but he is still reading the Book of Mormon!! This week we taught him the law of chastity!!! He seemed uncomfortable with it at the beginning but we had some great members with us to help him not feel as uncomfortable!!! The Spirit was there and it was strong! I don't know if I will be here for his baptism but I am excited for him to be baptized!

This week at church was the most interesting week I have ever had. We had a Chin preacher come to church and he bore his testimony but it was more like he introduced himself. haha. Then we had another Chin family come to church with us and they don't understand English very well. We had a 16 year old (only Chin member) boy translate for them! Then this older lady who has had brain surgery spoke for like 20 minutes. haha She is so sweet! Love it!

I love all of you! This week has been wonderful!!!! Let your light shine!!!!

Love Sister Hanson

Taking a picture as we walk places!

Thanksmas!!!!!

Here is a picture from our exchanges. We were all matching so we took a picture!!!

Well Happy Thanksmas to everyone. It seemed right as we got done eating Thanksgiving dinner the kids at the home we were at started to put up the tree... hahah and we had Christmas music going the whole day of Thanksgiving!!! So therefore Thanksgiving is now called Thanksmas!!! But besides my weird ideas. This week was great!!!! Had a wonderful Thanksgiving with a wonderful family in the ward!!! Oh and before we had Thanksgiving dinner we had a breakfast with the STL's! That was fun. We went to Bob Evans!!!

This week was wonderful! We taught Ronn! This week you will be happy to hear that he is praying about a baptismal date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has been reading in Mosiah and is still trying to understand the story of the Lamanites and Nephites. So he always has questions about that when we come to teach him!!!! This week we taught him about the Sabbath day! Each time we teach him I think he can recognize the Spirit better. I have loved teaching him and hopefully he can be baptized before I go home so I can attend the baptism!!!!

Debbie. She is still in Mississippi. So we have not really talked to her yet. I hope she is still reading the Book of Mormon and doing the things we have taught her. We probably will send missionaries her way this week if she does not come back. She got to her mom's funeral so that is good!!!

I also went on exchanges this week and it was good. Our morning started out horrible then we had to get an oil change. So we were just trying to recover from that. But we had faith and went tracting because that is what we needed to do get the spirit. So we did just that! We met a guy who really needed to talk to us. He used to live in Florida and had learned from missionaries there. But he must have not felt the spirit while they taught him or something. because he was very standoffish at first and by the end he wanted us to bring him a Book of Mormon. The Spirit was there. I have learned from that, that if you don't have the Spirit you need to work and by working you will get the spirit!!!

Well, I love all of you!!!

Love Sister Hanson

Thanksgiving Breakfast at Bob Evans!!