Haitian-ing the Work: October 12, 2015

Kijan nou ye? (How are you?)

Well, this week has been kind of crazy, it has really flown by! First off, Thank You to Grandma Shields and Eileen and Russ for the awesome packages this week! They were awesome! And Happy birthday to Natalie and Natalie :) You're both a year older than you were 3 days ago!

Last Tuesday night we had a devotional by Linda K Barton, the General Relief Society President and she taught about modern day prophets and how we as missionaries have the same call and responsibilities as the Apostles do, to preach to the world the truths of the gospel and invite them to be converted unto Christ! It was pretty awesome!

Wednesday was literally one of my favorite days at the MTC! We had the opportunity to teach 2 native Ayisian in Ayiti (Haitians in Haiti) via Skype! It took like an hour for us to get connected with them because the power over there is spotty and so is the Internet but once we got connected it was literally the coolest!!! Their names were FanFan (Fawnfawn) and Tousen (Twosehn) and they were seriously so cool! We were supposed to teach them but they ended up teaching us! They would get so excited when we understood them or we when talked back to them. They would be grinning from ear to ear. They also had super cool accents! Also on Wednesday Elder Petry and I had a lot of Zone leader things we had to take care of but other than that it was a totally normal day.

On Thursday we had 8 hours of "infield training" which was a lot of review but helped prepare us for working with members. The food these last few days has progressively become worse. I think they know that I am leaving so they are choosing my "Favorite" dishes... Anyway, we had class on Thursday and had the opportunity to Skype with Nephtalie, who is a Haitian from Ft. Lauderdale. Honestly talking with Haitians is the coolest thing ever, I'm so pumped to leave!

Oh I forgot, we had to teach Elder Batezzatto, the Italian, some English. He didn't know the pronunciation difference between the word 'Sheet' and 'S***' so we had to help him with that. We all had a good laugh about it. He's a super awesome kid and has had to learn English and then learn french from English! He's amazing!

In class we are learning a lot about Haitian Culture and about different places around the mission. It's pretty cool. Again we are super excited to go!

On Sunday, we took a bunch of pictures and had a departure devotional for all the missionaries leaving this week. It was good I think, I fell asleep for most of it but everyone said it was pretty good.

Today all of the missionaries heading to France shipped out so it's just the Creoles and one missionary going to Halifax left. It was sad saying good by but we are ready to go as well.

Okay my final thought, in Moroni chapter 7:45-47 it says " And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things,believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

Becoming Christlike is what we all should be striving for in our lives. If we have charity we become like Christ. Charity, however is a lot more than imparting of our physical substance to the poor. Charity and selflessness go along one with another. The natural man is selfish and is therefore not very charitable, but if we follow the council that Moroni gives us in Chapter 7 and work on the characteristics given in verse 45, we can have charity and like Moroni says, "...whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him."

I testify that this is true. Christ came to Earth to set the example for us to follow, and if we follow it, we will receive many blessings in the life to come.

(M' rann temwayaj ke sa se vre. Kris te vini Tè pou montre nou egzanp la ke nou dwe swiv, epi si nou swiv li, n'ap resevwa anpil benediksyon nan pwochen lavi a.)

I hope that you are all doing well and I am keeping you in my prayers.

-- Bondye avek ou jistan n'a wè (God with you until I see you)

Elder Hansen

Florida, Fort Lauderdale Mission

Haitian-ing the Work