Aloha Main-landers!
It's a party down here in Key West! Elder Te Hira and I are having a great time down here in the Islands! I will give you the highlights of the week. This past Wednesday we taught a member referral family that lives on the military base that is from Peru! They are really awesome and we had a great lesson with them! Then on Saturday we had a Fish Fry for our Branch Activity. President Rengiil, the Branch President, spearfished a bunch of Hogfish and Grouper and we helped fillet it and fry it. We fried fish for about 3 hours in preparation for the activity! It was a blast though. The entire Stake Presidency came down and President Garns, the new Mission President and his wife came down too! We had tons of fun, lots of food and games! On Sunday our Buddhist investigator, Marada, came to church and we had a member present lesson with him and President Garns! It went really great! One of my favorite lessons that I have ever taught! After Church we had our interviews with President since we are so far away from the rest of the mission, and those were great. It's too bad I only have 1 transfer with President Garns because we get along great!
That was about it for the week, the rest of the time included a lot of biking and no one home but we are starting to see some success here in Key West, or as the Haitians say "Ki Wes".
Now for my last thought:
"And now it came to pass that when the king had made an end of these sayings, and all the people were assembled together, they took their swords, and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man’s blood, and they did bury them up deep in the earth. And this they did, it being in their view a testimony to God, and also to men, that they never would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood; and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands." (Alma 24:17-18)
In connection with this scripture, I also came across this quote in the "Lectures on Faith" that I believe correlates, “Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation;"
Neal A Maxwell said, "If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do."
Therefore in order for us to grow and develop, God will ask us to give up the things that are hardest for us to give up, but how often do we do that? Someone once said, "If you were accused of being a Mormon would there be enough evidence to convict you?" It takes discipline, humility and trust in a Heavenly Father in order for us to sacrifice the things requisite for our own perfecting.
In the words of Elder Jörg Klebingat, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your spiritual confidence before God? Do you have a personal witness that your current offering as a Latter-day Saint is sufficient to inherit eternal life?"
It is my hope that we will all be able to find things that we, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's, can sacrifice in order to grow the faith necessary for our own salvation!
-- Love
Elder Hansen
Florida, Fort Lauderdale Mission
Haitian-ing the Work
At the Fish Fry! Elder Hansen hard at work,
while Elder Te Hira fans the food to keep the flies away :)
President Garns at the Fish Fry
The sticker on his shirt says, "I climbed the tower!"
Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum
That's some tower, he's almost higher than the palm trees!
Their view from the "tower" at the Museum. Paradise!
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