Haitian-ing the Work: May 17, 2016 - O Babylon, O Babylon I bid Thee Farewell! I'm going to the Shores of Miami to Dwell!

Alo fanmi mwen! Sak pase la? (Hello my family! What's happening?)

This week went fairly quickly so I will give you some of the highlights. Firstly, I am transferring to Miami Shores and my new companion will be Elder Celestin! He is Haitian (awesome) and we are going to have a blast! Anyway this week we were able to get 2 new investigators Si-Plaix and Jeneor (See-play and Jenn-yore) they are both super cool! We met Si-Plaix a couple weeks ago when we were biking home and he called out to us and flagged us down. He told us that he used to go to the Mormon church in Haiti! So of course we assumed he was a member but this week we knocked into him again and we started talking and it turns out he is not a member, so we were able to teach him this week. A problem that we are facing this week however is that all of the Haitians are headed to Georgia to follow the crops which means that all our Haitian members are leaving and all of our investigators and potential investigators too. They have been busing them north all week and Belle Glade is beginning to become empty. This week I also had a few accidents. On Thursday, I accidentally hit my face while working out and got some pretty new lips, but hey, I fit in a lot better in Belle Glade haha..... Also a little bit of trivia about Belle Glade, there is broken glass EVERYWHERE! On the Wednesday I got 2 flat tires in the same day from broken glass, but 2 hours and 3 patches later my bike is as good as.... well not quite as good as when I got it. Other than that everything else this week was pretty routine.

My Last Thought for the Day is Titled "Heirs to the Kingdom" (They have titles now I guess). In the interest of time I will attempt to be brief, but I will only attempt.

As children of God and posterity of a Heavenly Father we are much like Princes and Princesses, heirs to a kingdom. What is different however is that we are heirs to the Kingdom of God. This makes us Kings-in-training as we go about gaining experiences in this life. If we all always remember 'who we are and what we can become' there would be very little sin in the world. Neal A Maxwell says, "How much sin occurs because people momentarily forget who they really are?" This is applicable to all of us. In the words of Mufasa, to his son Simba, "You have forgotten who you are, therefore you have forgotten me." When we forget who we truly are, we forget our Father in Heaven. But there is a way to find our 'True Nature'. In this last General conference President Uchtdorf gave us this wise counsel, "Sometimes I think we misunderstand obedience. We may see obedience as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Or we may pound the metaphorical hammer of obedience against the iron anvil of the commandments in an effort to shape those we love,through constant heating and repeated battering, into holier, heavenly matter... But perhaps there is a different metaphor that can explain why we obey the commandments of God. Maybe obedience is not so much the process of bending, twisting, and pounding our souls into something we are not. Instead, it is the process by which we discover what we truly are made of. We are created by the Almighty God. He is our Heavenly Father. We are literally His spirit children. We are made of supernal material most precious and highly refined, and thus we carry within ourselves the substance of divinity. Here on earth, however, our thoughts and actions become encumbered with that which is corrupt, unholy, and impure. The dust and filth of the world stain our souls, making it difficult to recognize and remember our birthright and purpose. But all this cannot change who we truly are. The fundamental divinity of our nature remains. And the moment we choose to incline our hearts to our beloved Savior and set foot upon the path of discipleship, something miraculous happens. The love of God fills our hearts, the light of truth fills our minds, we start to lose the desire to sin, and we do not want to walk any longer in darkness. We come to see obedience not as a punishment but as a liberating path to our divine destiny. And gradually, the corruption, dust, and limitations of this earth begin to fall away. Eventually, the priceless, eternal spirit of the heavenly being within us is revealed, and a radiance of goodness becomes our nature."

I testify that through obedience we are able to discover our true nature as Heirs to the Kingdom of God and we are able to shine with a "radiance of goodness" which is our divine nature as children of an Almighty God.

Sorry that got a little long again, but I know that this is true. I hope that we may all be able to be better today that we were yesterday in remembering who we really are.

I love you all and wish you all the best!

-- M'ap pale ave'w pita (speak with you later)

Elder Hansen

Florida, Fort Lauderdale Mission

Haitian-ing the Work

My beautiful Lips (Bel pobouch mwen yo)

The ultimate duck face! We can't stop laughing at this one!

Elders Oldroyd, Scutt, Hansen, Wride, Brown and Sorenson in Belle Glade

His little buddy Saria. She told him that they can be friends because they have the same color of skin! She also said told him that his eyes are the color of the ocean. It's a good thing she's only 5!