Week 14!!!! Exchanges

Sister Hanson in front of the unfinished Indianapolis Indiana temple.

I got my package and it was great!!!! My legs are a lot warmer!!!!! I love my companion she is great!!! The weather is actually warm. No snow yet it has just been raining lots. I also have no clue what time I will be skyping you guys on Christmas. Sometime between 1 and 6 Pm. In your time zone that would be 11 to 4!

This week we went on exchanges and guess who I went on exchanges with?!? Sister Chidester!!! hahah we had lots of fun!!!! We were able to meet with Ashley again and invite her to church! It was a really good lesson and I could definitely feel the spirit and I could tell she could too!!! We showed her the He is the Gift video and that just brings the spirit so fast!!! That video is definitely a good tool to use to bring the spirit into peoples lives!!! I would encourage all of you to share it with your friends and with people you go and visit! Mom you could share it when you go and visit people in the ward!!!!

Nancy seems like she is ready to get baptized other than she has to get married. Sad:( we will just keep praying and hoping her fiance will marry her other than that she is doing great!!!! Patricia is still not coming to church. She does notice the difference when she has come to church and when she does not come to church!!! We started reading the Book of Mormon with her and she is really liking it!!! I hope one day she will come back we try to meet with her at least 2 times a week. She works a lot so hopefully her job will slow down enough for her to come to church!! 

This week we also had the branch party!!! It was fun and the branch sent us home with so much food! I think I might gain so much weight that you will not recognize me when I got home. NO haha I hopefully won't!! Well I love you all and hope your week is great!!!!! 

Love

Sister Hanson!

Ally's new companion Sister Barker from Layton Utah

Allyson found the Zombie Response Team's car

Week 13!!!! New transfer and new companion!

Allyson's District Christmas Picture

Well I don't want to disappoint everyone but I forgot to take my camera to the library so I will have some pictures next week! How is everyone doing? I am doing great in this branch! My new companion's name is Sister Barker!!!!! I already love her and she is already making Plymouth a great place to be!!!! I still have no clue where I will be skyping you, but at 1 o'clock we will be at a members house. She does not have internet. So I will tell you when i figure that out!

This week has been crazy! We said lots of goodbyes on Tuesday. I didn't say any goodbyes but Sister Chidester did and it was sad. Wednesday was good I got my new companion and we had a blast driving 2 hours north. We also had lunch with Sister Kelly!!!!! She is great I love her. She is the branch president's wife. Oh, and Sister Chidester is in South Bend so when we go on exchanges I will see her again because she is my Sister Training Leader. Ahahah and the other Sister Training Leader is Sister Barker's trainer. Ahahahhaahhah and we are going on exchanges with our trainers so we will have lots of fun!!!!

Allyson with her new companion Sister Barker from Layton, Utah
This picture was texted to her mom by one of the members

Alright, so this new week with Sister Barker is great!!!! We were able to teach Nancy and she is so far liking what we are teaching her! She told us that she is praying about what we are telling her and she feels good when she prays. She is feeling the spirit. I don't know if I told you but she is Pentecostal. That religion scares me. But she is doing wonderful. Now we have to work on getting her to church and getting her married or she cannot get baptized.

We are still trying to get Juliana to commit on a baptismal date. I hope she gets baptized soon!!!!!! She is so ready. We just need to get her mom on board with the whole thing. This week we also got a new investigator!! His name is Mike and he and his wife just had some twins. They are so cute! He was really interested in the Restoration so he committed himself to read it. I hope we can teach him more!!! He and his wife are Methodist. You might hear more about him and might not because he is new he could drop us but we are hoping for the best!!!! The work is moving and I am excited I get to be involved with it!!!!

Also this week I have really felt like a missionary!!! I can teach a lesson by myself and I have learned a lot about who I am and who I can become!!! I am so excited to see what is ahead!!!

I love you all!!!

Love,

Sister Hanson 

Week 12!!!!! Thanksgiving and Museum Fun!

I got some cowboy boots from a member!!!

This week was wild... Wow we did so many things and taught so many people. I have no clue where to start. Well if you didn't already know Transfers are on Wednesday. I will be staying in Plymouth for Christmas!!!

Well I guess I will start with Thanksgiving!!! We went to Sister Kline's house! She is fun. When we got there she had been slaving over the stove since 6 am. Wow she is awesome! The turkey was moist and we had pie! I love pie! We stayed there for a while then went back to our apartment and just lounged around until we had the mission-wide conference call, that was cool. I felt unified with the mission even though we were all over Indiana. 

Friday was fun! You know how we volunteer at the museum? Well on Friday they asked us if we could help them with their Christmas trains event. We were pretty much their crowd control! I met a lot of people and had lots of fun just doing random things for people! I have some pictures of it that I will show you soon! After the train event there was a parade with Santa and Mrs. Claus in it. That was fun. We stayed in the museum and watched the parade from the windows. Then Karen fed us some Noodles and beef on potatoes! Yummy! That is an Indiana specialty. There were also some ice sculptures outside. Then Santa came to the Museum after the parade and we got some pictures with him. If you go onto the Plymouth City Facebook page you will find me with Santa and also the district with Santa.

Saturday was lots of fun! We went on spits with Sister Sherwood and visited some less actives and did her visiting teaching assignments! Then we went to the Richharts to eat dinner. We had such a fun time and just laughed a lot. We left and the other elders in our district told us that they got transfer calls...ahhh. We waited until 10:15 to get our call from President Cleveland. Longest wait of my life! Sister Chidester is going STL and I am staying in Plymouth. President said my companion will be fun and I am super excited about that!

This week I was really worried about Patricia because we haven't seen her at church for 2 weeks now. So I have been praying a lot for her. We decided we would visit her yesterday and she was there! Thank the Heavens. We talked with her for a while and it turns out she overslept and didn't want to show up to the church late. OH man I got a handful. She is doing great we send out a scripture of the day everyday. So that is how she studies. I will do it forever if I have to. We also stopped by Mckenzie this week and she told us that she is interested in coming to church!!!!! Yay! We left her with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She has 3 boys and two can come to Scouts so I think once we get them to Scouts they will start progressing! I am so excited that we finally found a family!!!!!! I hope I can help them come unto Christ!

This week has been great! I love you all a hope you had a wonderful week!

Love Sister Hanson!

Our district

The museum where we volunteer.

Here we are with Karin Rettinger

Exchanges!

Allyson with Sister Cutler in South Bend with their hot chocolate

So first off this week temperatures this week are crazy one day we will have below freezing weather the next day will be slightly warm and rainy. It has been raining for 2 days straight now so the ground is wildly wet and when ever you step on it you get pulled in like quick sand! I don't think we will get any tornado warnings now because I pretty sure that season is over. Correct me if I am wrong.

This week we had exchanges and it was so much fun! I went to South Bend with Sister Cutler! She is so cute and we had so much fun! I met so many wonderful people I hope I can serve in South Bend one day! We taught Mary and she is just so cool! I love her she has lots of kids like 4 or 5. Her husband is a less active that not many people have met before but she wants to do the right things for her kids so she is just prime! Although she has difficulty recognizing the spirit. I think once she can do that then she will be baptized and progress more. I also was able to teach my first black person. Her name is Laura and she has so much attitude and her husband is less active also. She wants to learn more so we talked about Lehi's vision. Love that story! Then we ate dinner with this lady who has such a crazy life and is just so positive all the time. Her husband is in jail and she doesn't get to see her granddaughter much but she doesn't let it get her down. I love doing exchanges I learn lots about myself and different ways to do missionary work.

Next transfer is coming up soon. They will be lots of missionaries leaving probably about 30 to 40. Lots of sisters will be leaving. So in the next two transfers we will be going from 255 missionaries to 200 missionaries. Crazy and they will also be closing lots of areas too.

We were able to teach Patty again this week! She just moved on Sunday so we had to get her new address and find it. She doesn't live too far away but her house is smaller now. She seems like she is doing well and even though she doesn't have lots of money she is always giving. Some people might look at her needing things for the holidays but she just wants to give. Wow she is an inspiration to me.

Nothing big really happened this week it was just a lot of little things. I love you all and hope everything is going well!

Sister Hanson!

P.S. sorry my letters are so short I just have no clue what to write anymore because these weeks seem to mesh together. Let me know if there is anything you want to hear about!

Week 10!! Snow has hit Indiana

Allyson's happy about the first snowfall of the year

Wow what a week it has been! It started out pretty normal. We tracted and taught and knocked on doors. But then BAM the weirdest week of my life hit on Thursday!

We haven't been able to get in contact with Nicholas for a few weeks. So on Thursday when we had some extra time and did not know what to do we stopped by his house. To our surprise he was there!!!! It was really cold outside and we couldn't go inside so we talked to him for just a minute and we found out that he has not been smoking for 3 weeks. Miracle right there!!!! We scheduled an appointment to visit him the next night. We were able to meet with Nicholas and he is doing well. We invited him to church and he says he will try to get off of work next week so he can come! Funny thing turns out he is related to Patricia. ahahhahahaha. This town is so small.

Here is where this night gets crazy. Not to mention the cold. We went back to our apartment because we are not allowed to be out at night. So we start doing our usual updating our map. Then Sister Sherwood calls and wants us to come over because she is going through some hard things. So we get ready leave our apartment and we close the door. Once the door is locked we realize we forgot the keys... AHHHHHHH We could not get into our apartment. So we go over to Sister Sherwood's house to get help and instead of us helping her she is helping us. I called the land lord (Bob) and he didn't answer. So we try to beak in. Nothing is working. We ultimately decided that we were going to stay at her house over night until we could get hold of the land lord. Bob decides he would call us right when we are about to sleep so we have to get up get ready and go back to our apartment. He tries all the keys he has and none of them worked! Oh man! So we go back to Sister Sherwood's ( we had to get permission to stay with her from our zone leaders) and stay there. I swear that night I slept on a rock that whole night. So far one of the most memorable nights of my life. He called us the next day at 6 am and said he got into our apartment through some other door that he never opens. He now has my key and is making another set of keys for himself. Needless to say this will not happen again haha.

Juliana is doing great we continue to teach her lessons weekly. We have yet to get her on a baptismal date. She comes to church and she seems to like it okay but she is a 10 year old. What can you expect. She always makes us things and gives them to us. Haha I love her!

Transfers are in 2 weeks on December 3 and from what I know from interviews with President Cleveland I am staying in Plymouth! Well I love you all!

Sister Hanson

Week 9!!! Dinner

Fall in Indiana

This week has been a weird week. Nothing went as planned and we had to go to Mishawaka for Stake Conference. To top off this week we also had two days where we had double dinners!!!!! ahhhhhh Crazy.

Well I have no clue where to start. We had double dinner appointment one day and we ate with some really fantastic people. During the dinners I was just praying I could make it through because the first dinner I almost threw up. So this week I learned the importance of prayer and how if we rely on Heavenly Father to get us through. We can get through anything.

We had Stake Conference this week. It was so wonderful! President Cleveland came and spoke at the adult session and you know what he announced. That we will be getting iPads in about 1 month! Beside the fact they talked about family history and how everyone can be involved with it. I really love family history and finding those cool hidden gems about families. So this week you guys should all do some family history together! They also just put a big emphasis on families and how important they are. The cool thing about that is that our mission has a big focus on families and wants each unit in the mission (companionship) to find a family to teach. We haven't found one yet but we pray everyday that we will. It is cool to see that we get a lot more people opening their doors to us lately. We have been getting the members more involved in missionary work this past transfer. And because of that we have had more doors opened to us they may not lead anywhere but we are able to plant some seeds and copies of the Book of Mormon!

This week we also taught Juliana! She has been coming to church lately and we know she is close to baptism. Hopefully her mom will give us the okay to put her on a baptismal date soon! We taught her the story of Meshack, Shadrack, and Aben-digo. Cool story! They are just the best examples of faith in the Lord. They were willing to give up their lives because they only worshiped God! I hope one day I can have that much faith to give up my life for God. Go read this story in Daniel chapter 3. I love the part where they were in the furnace and Christ was with them. The king was all confused and they were able to come out unharmed. Moral of the story is put God first and everything will work out in the end.

Patricia is doing well since she has been baptized. Now she just needs to be confirmed. longest process ever here in Plymouth but it is definitely worth it. I don't know if I had already explained this or not but here it goes. In Plymouth they baptize people on Sundays because everyone is far away and they want to make sure people get support. So she will be getting confirmed on Sunday.

Well I love all of you and hope you have a wonderful week! Book of Mormon stories and Bible stories are great!

Sister Hanson

Week 8! Time Flies!

Patricia's baptism

Wow this week has just flown by. Yesterday we had interviews with the mission president so that is why I am emailing today! I don't even know where to begin! There are so many things that happened this week.... 

First off we were preparing for a baptism! Patricia's Baptism and she was so excited! We visited her everyday this week before her baptism to help her and answer questions she had! Wow. it is cool to see what God can do in people's lives when they are searching for him! She had her baptismal interview and when she came out she had a few tears and I knew she was ready for baptism! Her baptism went off without a hitch and she was just glowing when she came out even though the water was freezing she loved it anyway! The Branch presidency gave her a quad! She was so excited!

This week we got a new investigator! Her Name is Ashley and she is around our age! She has a four year old son! She is so cool she has been through a lot but she is still strong. She wants to find a church that will fit her and so she decided to try out "Mormons". We taught her the restoration and the Book of Mormon and she is liking it so far! We are meeting with her today so hopefully we can get her on a baptismal date! But I can definitely tell she is sincere because her mom started talking to us and her mom talks a lot. But she wanted to hear the lesson so she told her mom we were going somewhere else so that we could actually talk!

Coolest little miracle this week. We were planning for the next day on Sunday. This potential  investigator popped into my head and so I just say oh let's go visit her! Even though on her record it says to visit after 6 but I just brushed it off. So she is the last person on the list that we have to visit so we go to her house thinking she won't be there. Surprise she was! She told us today was the only day she had off of work because they had a training! We taught her about the Book of Mormon! She told us how the picture of Christ coming to the Americas reminded her of school in Mexico and the story of the white god that came to them for a time and left and never came back. After we left I couldn't believe that had just happened! The Spirit works! Wow I just need to listen to the Spirit more!

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week! Shout out to Michele Hudson and Joni Thomas. Happy Birthday both of you!

Love Sister Hanson

Patricia with her family

The corn is gone..