Haitian-ing the Work: January 3, 2017 - New Year, New Gators, New Car?

Hello People of Idaho! I hope that you are staying warm next to the cozy fireplace! I am not, though I wish I was!

So First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Second, I wish I had more time but we had to help one of the FM guys unload a truck so I have to be quick!

So last P-day we went to the Tesla Dealership and had fun there, the new Tesla is AWESOME!!!! I almost drove off in it but then I realized that would be stealing... and that's no bueno I hear. ;)

Anywho, we found and taught a lady this week and finally got a new investigator, her name is Rosemond and she said she is down to get Baptized and we said that we were down to baptize her so it looks like things should work out. Then on Friday is was SUUUUUUPER cold, like 50 degrees and I know that doesn't sound cold to you guys in the frozen tundra but to pansy little Elder Hansen, it was cold and I was on bike... I was on exchange with Elder Hatch and we ended up biking for 2 and a half hours... sooooo long and I was freezing the entire time. Funniest part of the night was when I went to bike through what seemed to me to be an open part in the fence so I was going at a fairly good speed with nothing to slow me down... except for the top part of the fence that was still there and made direct contact with my nose and face... yeah, it felt like it sounds, but I didn't break my nose so that is a benediksyon (blessings)! On Saturday we spent the whole day preparing the Stake Missionary report... so that was lame sauce... except that the Stake got 118 baptisms with 73% retention, so that's cool. On New Year's Eve we slept in the back yard in a tent and I fell asleep at 10:00 cuz I am lame, haha!

Then Sunday night we had a Miracle, we got a referral from the Creole Elders in Palm Beach and we went to teach him. His name is Sylvan and he studied with the missionaries in the Dominican Republic and loves the church! He told us that he would have already been a member if he hadn't of left the D.R. So that is awesome!

Then yesterday for Pros-Monday we taught an awesome, Member Referral family of four and they are all down to become Members! That was my week!

My last thought, the start of a new year is a time when everyone resolves to be better, but even right now I know that some of you have broken some of your new years resolutions and it is only the third! This is, however, to be expected. It is naive to expect to be perfect right away! I would like to invite you all to do 2 things, first out of your new resolutions, if you do indeed break them, I invite you to start of each week fresh before yourself and the Lord through the sacrament. No matter what your Resolution is, it is important to you and what is important to you is important to your Heavenly Father. As you do this you will be able to have your resolutions stick to you and you won't have to wait until 2018 to recommit yourself to be better. The second thing is I would invite you to read this talk attached to the bottom of the email, this is just an excerpt,

"You have moments when you want to be better than you have ever been. Those feelings may be triggered by seeing a person or a family living in a way that lifts your heart with a yearning to live that way, too.....Now your impressions will not have been quite like mine, but you have felt a tug, maybe many tugs, to be someone better. And what sets those yearnings apart from all your daydreams is that they were not about being richer, or smarter, or more attractive, but about being better. I am sure you have had such moments, not just from my experience, but because of what President David O. McKay once said. Listen very carefully:

Man is a spiritual being, a soul, and at some period of his life everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship to the Infinite. . . . There is something within him which urges him to rise above himself, to control his environment, to master the body and all things physical and live in a higher and more beautiful world. [David O. McKay, True to the Faith, comp. Llewelyn R. McKay (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), p. 244]

That pull upward is far beyond what you would call a desire for self-improvement. When I felt it, I knew I was being urged to live so far above myself that I could never do it on my own. President McKay had it right. You feel an urging to rise above your natural self. What you have felt is an urging from your Heavenly Father to accept this invitation:

O, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot. [Moroni 10:32–33]

That urge to rise above yourself is a recognition of your need for the Atonement to work in your life, and your need to be sure that it is working. After all you can do, after all your effort, you need confidence that the Atonement is working for you and on you."

Wow that was long... but it is good! And so is the rest of the talk!

I hope that you all have a wonderful start to the New Year!

-- Con Carino ("fondly" in Spanish)

Elder Hansen

Florida, Fort Lauderdale Mission

Haitian-ing the Work