Haitian-ing the Work: January 30, 2017 - I'm thinking that we are going to have a Early Spring Here...

Greetings from the Balmy Beaches of Boynton,

First of all, I want to tell you about my super cool, Zone Activity that we had last P-day. To start off we played a game that we named, "Mafioso Levity Throwdown Ball" (Those were the first 3 words I saw in the dictionary). Basically it's ultimate Frisbee in the gym, with a volleyball and you have to get it in the hoop... So that was fun! THEN we did something of my own creating called "Speed NOT Dating". It was devised in order for everyone in the zone to meet everyone else. So it was like speed dating wherein you had really quick interactions with a lot of people, but there was absolutely no dating involved. Everyone seemed to have a good time!

Then we gave a comp study to the Portuguese Sisters and the I went on Exchange with Elder Kraus in Camino Gardens! We had a good time and this Venezuelan lady made us Arepas (cornmeal patties) so that was boss!

Then on Wednesday we had a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast and it was great! Much of the training was about why we are missionaries and how we can continue to be missionaries throughout our lives or in our various circumstances. There actually were some pretty big changes made to missionary life: The Key Indicators are now going to be only Baptism, Confirmation, Dates, Investigators at Sacrament, and New Investigators. Our schedule has been changed as well. We now have the flexibility to plan for our day in the morning and decide when we want to have studies. That means when we get home, we can be done for the day and actually have time to write in our journal (yay!). If we want, we can go to bed an hour early as well. Also P-day is 2 hours longer, so that is pretty nuts! We'll know the specific changes for our mission on Tomorrow after we have Zone Conference.

On Thursday we were all on bikes cuz somebody wrecked a car... sooooo that was un-fun. I was on a bike for 3 days this week! That's is unheard of! Haha, JK it was good to be back on a bike. We had dinner at the church and then I did a baptismal interview for Marc from Saint Marques.

On Friday we did service for the Papenfuss' and put up a fence for them. If you have ever been asked, "How many missionaries does it take to put up a fence?", the answer is "at least 4 plus an old man". Then we knocked some Puertas (doors) and got some Haitian food and then we contacted some pretty cool 'formers'!

On Saturday we did service for the Hansen's and helped them move, so that was fun. Then we hastily prepared and gave a comp study to the Delray Sisters. It went okay, then we went back to teach the 'formers' we had contacted and they were less cool the second time.

Then on Sunday we had Natacha and Christlie, Sylvan and Peter and Ivan and Mackendy at church so it was a pretty good turn out. I had to translate in front of the congregation for this Haitian girl who wasn't confident in her Creole and anyway... it was rough, I'll tell you that! That was about it for the week, no baptisms and pretty slow on the teaching side of things but we got people to church so that is good!

My last thought, "Now, we see that the man had become as God, knowing good and evil.... And thus we see, that there was a time granted unto man to repent, yea, a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God." (Alma 42:3-4)

In this, Alma is discussing The Fall of Adam because of his transgression in partaking of the forbidden fruit. God sent us here to Earth so that we could become like Him and in order for us to truly know good from evil we had to go through the clinical experience of mortality. Only through our experience can we truly know good and evil and because of that, we all fall into temptation. So God created a plan so that we would be able to be redeemed from spiritual and physical death. It begins with faith in Christ as the only begotten Son of God and in his infinite Atonement, which leads us to repent and change and commit to be better. Once we do so we are baptized by someone ordained of God through the laying on of hands and the subsequent receiving of the Gift of the Holy Ghost to help us be able to Endure to the End as faithful Disciples of Christ. As we continue on the Path of Endurance we must continue to grow our Faith through Repentance and the Partaking of the Sacrament so that we can always remember He in whom we place our Faith. And if we do so we will always have the Spirit to be with us so that we can one day live with our Families Forever.

-- Kenbe Djanm (Hold Strong)

Elder Hansen

Florida, Fort Lauderdale Mission
Haitian-ing the Work