Exchanges!

Picture of Allyson and Sister Lowry by Indy right before exchanges! IUPUI is pretty much in Indy. You walk off of campus and you are downtown.

As you can tell by the titles I went on exchanges! I bet you cannot guess where. I went on campus to IUPUI (Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis)! Wow that was a change from regular missionary work! I bet you cannot guess who I went with. You guessed it my trainer. Sister Chidester. hahaha She just follows me everywhere. It was a good experience for me. I know you can't believe it but sometimes it is scary to talk to just a random person especially when you are talking to them about the gospel. It was a lot of fun I learned a lot about myself and where my testimony is!

This week we also were listening to a talk on Sunday and we got inspired to help the members get more involved with missionary work! So every dinner appointment we have we will be handing out a book mark we made that has steps/rules to make their homes more missionary oriented. So I am pretty excited for that. Hopefully that will get the ball rolling in the ward!

We have had a lot of finding miracles this week! Last night we were going to go inside but instead we decided to stop by some people we talked to on friday! They let us in their house. No one in Indiana does that.. hahaha. Then we taught them the restoration! Gave each a BOM and they are going to read it! Can you say grace!

I love you all and missionary work is fun! We have been having lots of grace happening to us lately and it is because of our faith! "Miracles are wrought by faith". "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". Have a good week!

Love Sister Hanson

Picture of Allyson and her companion Sister Lowry

The weather is great!

Allyson with Sister Lowry

So today I woke up and all the trees and flowers are in bloom! You walk outside and you feel the great humid weather! Oh wow I love this weather! It is pretty much the real first day of spring here!

The work is going in Plainfield! We picked up a new investigator named Darcy! She is the sister of one of the recent converts! She likes coming to church and her mom is already a member! She seems to trust us and we hope to start teaching her soon!

This week we also taught a lady named Pamela! She is great! She was taught a while ago! She knows a lot about the church! And she wants to be baptized! So we set a date for May 16th! Her son is a member and he helps us a lot! Now we just need to get her to church!

We had Why I Believe last night! Why I Believe is when a bunch of converts come and pretty much tell their conversion story/testimony! Those are the best because we see President Cleveland there!

But we are really close to the city so we see lots of missionaries there too. We do fun stuff here in Plainfield and the ward is really good at feeding us most nights! And all I have to say is being on a mission is the best thing I have ever done! It gets hard but there are those moments that make it all worth it! Feeling the spirit and helping people come closer to Christ also makes me smile! What makes you smile?

Love Sister Hanson

Painting the bathroom

CONFERENCE!!!!

Allyson with her companion Sister Lowry 

Wow don't you just love General Conference! I love General Conference! It is exactly what I needed! Let me tell you about my favorite couple of talks! More like I will just give you a bunch of quotes to think about! ahaha

 I love what Linda K Burton said " Seek to complete rather than compete". There are a lot of things in this world that we can compete with and never measure up to. The only thing we need to do in this life is compete with ourselves to complete ourselves!

I also love what L. Whitney Clayton said "We become the substance of our faith!". That is so true! Whatever we believe and put our trust in is what we become! I find myself becoming what I have faith in and what I think about! If you have dreams and have faith they can become accomplished if you have faith that they will!

Just one more that I really loved was Joseph A Sitati. He talked about our divine nature! We have the potential to become like God! Wow. We cannot comprehend what God has in store for us but I know we all the Divine Nature to become better everyday. That is all we strive for in this life and in the next life to come we will gain all that Heavenly Father has in store for us! It is important to have an eternal perspective because if we don't we can loose sight of all that is important!

Vicky was able to make it to a session of general conference!  She loved it! She came to a member's home and loved it! She loves dogs a lot and probably payed more attention to them than to the prophet. But she came and felt the spirit and that is all that matters!

We got 2 more people on baptismal Date! Miracle from Heaven! In these next 3 months our mission has a goal to have 120 baptisms! Crazy right! Well I know we can all do it! I am so excited to be part of that! Oh and in other news the temple is getting so close to being finished! Ahhhhh I am so excited!

Well I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Here are some pictures to make you feel loved! 

Love Sister Hanson

This picture is for her sister Katie!!

Life!

Originally written on March 30, 2015

Allyson with Sister Lowry on a carousel at the Children's Center  

Life as a missionary is wild, surprising, challenging, and refreshing. Even though we have the same schedule everyday we experience the softest and loudest of feelings. We have ups and downs and there is no knowing when your plans will change. Some days we go out and have no success and other days we have the most. Life as a missionary is a hard but wonderful thing.

I don't have much to say this week. But I think that paragraph that I wrote kinda explains the week I had. It was a great but challenging week. We had lots of ups and downs. We had some investigators drop us. But it is okay. I have learned that the Lord prepares people and I have realized that those people are not ready yet. They have a long way to go and so do I.

Vicky is doing well. She is getting more and more ready for baptism! She still has some hurdles to get over but I know she has the right desires and she has friends in the ward which makes it even better! She will stay when the missionaries leave.

I have been reading the New Testament and it is great! You all should read about it! Especially with Easter coming! I love learning about Christ and all the things he did. The more I learn about him the better person I become. One of my favorite chapters is John 15! Go read it! It talks about the Atonement! 

I love being a missionary and love sharing the gospel. It has an impact on everything I do and how I want to live my life! Oh, and Women's Conference was wonderful! The family is the key to everything in this life! Without my family I would not be the person I am today! I love what Cheryl A. Esplin said " See it. Share it. Live it. Defend it." I will defend this gospel with everything I have in me!

I love you all! Have a grand week!

Pictures will be provided next week!

Love Sister Hanson

Spring is almost here!

Our tags and these hearts that change color in the sun

This week was great! We had a lot of stuff happen. We went to Strides again and helped on Tuesday. We threw hay and I took a allergy pill thinking that would help me. But it didn't help much. I was stacking it and took me a day to breathe the right way again! So I guess I should probably stay away from hay. Even though my dream as a child was to grow up on a farm... ahaha I love farms and things like that. Oh and the weather was good here for like a week then it went cold again! Hopefully it will warm up soon. So we can just walk everywhere!

Okay, some miracles this week. Vicky came to church again and she loved it! She is progressing well! We got her excited for the temple that is coming by doing some family history with her. We also got her on baptismal date this week! She wants to get baptized on May 9th. But she is so ready so I think we will try to move it up to sometime in April! We also taught her the Word of Wisdom this week. She drinks coffee and tea so we will have to help her with that. But she does not smoke and everyone in Indiana and their dog smokes. Hahaha Hopefully, I get to be here for a least one more transfer to help her to baptism and she is making lots of friends in the ward! That is very important! Be friends with everyone! (my advice this week)

Next miracle. We went to a less active's house and talked to her 12 year old daughter Alexis! Alexis goes to church with her grandma in Martinsville (Scary town). She loves the church. So we talked to her about the BOM! She told us that she has always wanted to know if it was true. She has always relied on her grandma's testimony and now she is on the road to gaining her own. The hard thing is getting her to come to Plainfield ward with her mom. Her mom has no interest in religion even though she is LDS. Alexis has not been baptized so we committed her to be baptized on May 9th also. I don't know what it is with that day but it is the best day ever! (Day before Mother's Day!)

Oh and now some fun facts. Emily a girl that just came home from her mission! Came out with us and she is so great! She went to a California mission speaking Spanish. She gets so excited when she sees Spanish people in Plainfield because she loves speaking Spanish. Her GPS was still in Spanish when she came out with us. She is a great teacher and was a blessing that day! I hope when I get home I can go out with the missionaries!

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Allyson

A cool abstract photo of us missionaries in Plainfield

5 Miracles (If only I could be 17)

Selfie with President Cleveland

Well everyone I got to go to church this week! yayayayay! I love church with all my heart! I have had the busiest week of my life to date! We were just go go go this week! There are lots of people to visit and talk to. The snow has been melting and things have been warming up a bit! So that is always nice!

My apartment has a gym! I have my own bathroom! It is true! We have a great apartment! And to tell you the truth it is actually not too loud where we live!

This week we picked up 5 new investigators! I am so excited about that! One in particular that are my favorite are Veronica and Eric! These people are great! We met them while stopping by less active houses and we started talking to Veronica and she asked us if we wanted to come in! So we did and taught her about family history! She seemed kind of interested! So we set a return appointment! We went over to help her set up an account on Sunday! Her husband was there and he started asking us questions! We were able to teach them about the BOM! Wow that was powerful. I got to bear my testimony about it and because I was able to do that my own testimony grew of the importance the BOM has in my life! I read the BOM because it helps me understand God a lot better! I helps me know how merciful he is! He will always be there for us no matter what. We talked a lot about how our church is different from others! They are Nazarene. I have never heard of that religion in my life before but I guess it is the closest one to our religion. haha They are great! We are going back over on Tuesday! To teach Veronica! I am so excited!

Also we taught Vicky this week! She is as great as ever! We taught her the restoration and

asked her if she would be baptized. She said she had to think about it. But she is on the right track. She has already been baptized once in a baptist church but she wants to make sure she is making the right decision. She is so much fun but has lots of things to do before she can make that commitment. But we learned her daughter is a Mormon. Hahahaha Funny things. Everyone is related to a Mormon somehow.

Well those are just some miracles this week! Love you guys lots.

Love Sister Hanson

Allisonville street! My name almost!

Plainfield Indiana!

Allyson in her new area and with her new companion Sister Lowry

Welcome to Plainfield Indiana! I am with Sister Lowry. She has been our for 3 months and she is a wonderful missionary! She is from Richfield Utah! So I would tell you about the ward but church got cancelled on Sunday. Just my luck right! haha It was because of the snow! We got about 1 foot yesterday! Church seems to be cancelled all the time, every where I go! We were able to still have the sacrament! A family got permission to do the sacrament in their home and they wanted us to come and partake also! It was good I could definitely feel the spirit! But so far Plainfield is a great place and there is so much work here to do. We have a pretty big area and lots and lots of ward members to help us! Oh and let me tell you about my apartment! I get my own Bathroom! I get my own walk in closet! Wow this place is just great! There is lots of things to do here!

Okay to go on I am senior companion and I get to drive the car now! I have been driving a lot now! Crazy! I got to brush up on my skills! I drive a red car also so I really got to watch my speed. And there are cops everywhere! Since I am down in the south I get to go to the Louisville temple! Wooooooooo! I am so excited We will probably go this transfer too! Oh my address is:

4345 Trenton BLVD

Plainfield, IN 46168

So this week we taught one of our new investigators Vikki! The sisters that were here before me and met her in the Walmart bathroom and taught her a lesson right then and there. Haha. She is great we met her at Arby's and taught her about the BOM! She
loved it and and she wants to know if it is true! We also found out she has met with missionaries before! and at one time she had a BOM! She has the right desires and she wants to come to church but works on Sundays so she can't right now so hopefully she can come soon!

It is soooooo cool here I have been able to teach a lot here! It is great the ward members that I met yesterday are great! There are so many members around us that want to help too! Oh and guess what! We have a normal sized chapel! We have a gym and there are missionaries everywhere! OH and I get up and work out everyday at 5:45 because we have a gym  in our apartment complex! Wooooooo! Everything is just bigger in the city! I love it but it will be so hard to get to know everyone! Our ward mission leader is great too! The funny thing is he served his mission in Indiana and he served in the ward that I am in now!

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! Oh and one more thing we had like a mini Women's conference here in Plainfield with a bunch of stakes combined. And we went to this one class where she talked a lot about what our purpose here on life is. We all have a different purpose here in life so I encourage you all to take a look at your patriarchal blessings this week and think about why God sent you here to the earth at this time and for what purpose!

Love Sister Hanson

Allyson's new district