Monday, May 25, 2015

Hunting. Not for animals but for people.

It's Monday, it's Monday, it's mooooooooonday! You never think that you would actually be thankful for it to be a Monday but when your life changes you change so it is what it is. I. Am. So. Tired. Like I don't even think there is a word available to describe how tired and how busy I have been. It has literally been the busiest week of the transfer. Speaking of end of transfers.HALLELUJAH. I haven't waited for week six forever. Wilson he's an alright guy but holy cow he is a tough companion to get along with. And also I only have to spend half the week with him. Go exchanges!

So Monday I would have wrote more to talk but I was driving all day.  Left the apartment at 9, got a haircut, drove to Orlando, pit stop at 7-11 for a slurpee, drove by sea world and Disney world for the billionth time on my mission, got to the mission office and got a loaner car, got forced to drive to a anime store, practiced this new skill called patience that I have learned, drove to an Asian supermarket in downtown Orlando, almost bought a coconut, drove to apopka, played a round of catan, whooped all of them at catan, drove back to leesburg, had dinner with a member, taught a recent convert, went home and died. Busiest pday of my life. I was just blah by the time we got home because I was still sick and tired so it was terrible.

So Tuesday we had to get up early at 6 because we had a meeting at 7 with all the other missionaries in the ward and the ward membership clerk to discuss less actives. It's weird but I love working with less actives. I think it's because I know that I can't screw up. They've been baptized they aren't going anywhere. Wilson was being a baby about it I was sick and wanted to die but I still went. That's a difference between me and him. When he's sick we stay at the apartment when I'm sick I keep going. But anyways the meeting ended and we had a bit off time between that and lessons so I passed out on the church couch. They are comfortable. What was going to be a 30 minute recharge turned into a sickness sleep. 2 and a half hours. That's not cool! I guess I got permission from the nurse because she told me to rest because I didn't get approved to go to the doctor because I wasn't sick enough. But man oh man when I woke up everything hit the fan. I wake up and Wilson is stressed and irritable and being the cool headed person I am I get him all settled. Come to find out that the women in the family history center are ticked at the missionaries and had been yelling at Wilson. Good thing I wasn't awake. They blamed us because internet explorer wasn't working. There's the kicker. Internet explorer wasn't working. Can someone tell me the time that it actually ever worked? Well I guess that IE is used for family history because they have a custom web interface that they use with it and it wasn't working right so they had to get mad at somebody. They yelled at Wilson and the sisters. And that erks me because they didn't deserve it. So having my father and my brother having taught me a little bit about computers I diagnosed there problem. For dad and kyles interest and anyone else's the websites security certificate had expired and thus thrown up a warning screen. The website was still available they were just to uneducated in technology to read the full print on the warning screen. They blamed us still and I flat out told them if they wanted someone to blame they could blame salt lake because they didn't renew the certificate. Then they realized I was correct and were grumpy thus forward. People wonder sometimes missionaries don't want to work with members. It's because of stuff like that. After that we taught and then went to dinner.

Wednesday was a pretty typical day we had district meeting and I made Reese's peanut butter cookies. They were tasty. This next Wednesday is going to be cheesecake again this time there will be chocolate, caramel, and the ever popular Orange dreamsicle one. Two new recipes and one returning champ. It shall be good. Then we had the typical chipotle lunch for Wednesday's and then on the way back we stopped at hobby lobby and I bought a calligraphy set and it's super fun and turns out I'm super good at it so yea. Then we taught a lot of people and ate dinner at a less actives house and threw the hammer down. We just flat out asked them why they hadn't gone to church. We then got the typical answering. Too much work. Too tired. It's too long. And rather then telling them what to do we asked them and how are they going to change that. It makes them accountable and gets feelings rolling but overall we got them thinking. After dinner there was the long awaited baptismal interview for Fredrick. Fredrick due to some more complicated circumstances had to have a member from the mission presidency come down so we got that scheduled and rolling and he passed so that was good. We were a little concerned he wasn't going to pass but he did. Just goes to show you that you have got to have faith in order to get stuff done. Big thing I had to learn as I have been out here.

Thursday we just taught a lot sorry I don't have a novel about that one 😞

Friday was hunting day 😈. Not for animals but for people. Recently we got a list of less actives to go find to make sure they are there because the stake is preparing for hurricane season so they need to find out where people are and everything so this involves the missionaries to go do this. Originally there was going to be 10 for us and 10 for the sisters to go find. They chose names and they all ended up being in our area so we have 20 people. Wooooo that makes me happy.  I love less active work. So out of the ten we hunted for we have a confirmed address for 3 of them. One was laying on his couch in almost nothing. One was just barely leaving his house so we cornered him and the last is quite a story. So we go to find him and with my gps you can plug a bunch of addresses in and it'll sort through them and make you a path so we get down to the last one and the street numbers are completely off. There's no apartment complex there. Just a few house and it's supposed to be a large complex so we being missionaries are like darn let's move on to our next area of work. So we were in an area of our area where I haven't really been in too much. And I don't know much about it. So I was going to go the way we came originally but for some reason I decided ADVENTURE and went with the path I had never been to so driving driving and also boom apartment complex and we are like whoa. That's an apartment complex lets go there. So we go in and are trying to match everything and we find a match and we have no info on this guy. So we take a chance and knock. Door opens and the dude is in a towel and....................................................................................................and..................................................
.........................it was him! We knew this because he was like come on in elders! And most people don't do that. So he's super cool and he wanted tithing slips but we didn't have any so it gave us Chance to come back. Turns out the reason why he can't make it is because he has super bad Parkinson's and just can't sit still for more than 30 minutes. Unfortunate but cool we found. After that we went into the hood and met a guy name J-Rock. No joke.

Saturday was pretty normal nothing but being busy with lessons exciting right? I mean it is a special day. It's a day we get ready for suuuuuuunday!

Sunday was pretty sundayish. Had 3 less active become re actived by attendance standards but Fredrick didn't come. We were ticked. He doesn't get it. He's getting baptized on Saturday. Why didn't he come?
We were so close to canceling his date. But decided other wise. After church we had a linger longer and Tyler showed us his brand new big knife. His brand new big knife that he then proceeded to cut himself with. This was no little cut. It sliced through his finger and nicked his other finger. He now no longer had a tip on his middle finger. It bled and bled and bled. But the little tip held on because he didn't get all of the flesh. At first he was like I don't need stitches but later on he was singing a different tune. Thank goodness for members who were nurses. After all that we went and did a blessing a visited mama chiodo. I missed her. She's so swell. Apparently the doctors are like you should not have survived and be as good as you are right now.  Go prayer and fasting. Woooo. Later that evening we went and saw the deanes and they were doing pretty rough but now they are doing really good.

So this was a long email sorry. But we had a impressive week. 23 total lessons. That's a lot. But it's been good. I talk to talk soon bye!


Sent from Elder Hanson's Ipad

Monday, May 18, 2015

Apopka adventures

So its been a week. its been a good week. Nothing monumental has happend but none the less it was a good week.

So monday was low key just a typical P-day.

Tuesday was hot. It gets hot when your car has no AC. And  also when its like 91 degrees outside so that'll do it.

Wednesday was a normal day again so meh.

Thursday we had ZTM and after that we had exchanges so i went to Apopka with elder stewart. And i was in the hood for the day. That was fun. Like really fun. JK it was terrifying. I also ate some authentic Venezuelan food and everyone was speaking spanish and i had no idea what was going on. I did catch a recipe for plantains tho and tried plantains for the first time and they were ok. Also gave a guy 18 dollars because he said that his tire blew out and he didnt have his wallet on him. Was he lying? Was he telling the truth? i dont know but i did what christ would do so that made me feel good. I then learned how to play chess for the first time and i lost. twice.

Friday i went back to leesburg and it was hot again because hey no AC. But i did buy Inncense and other stuff. Oh and i also got sick so everytime i swallow it feels like im swallowing nails. its nice. it really is.

Saturday was normal.

Sunday we had a minor Pizza party at our house and it was pretty chill.

Monday( today) we drove down to orlando and did a car swap while ours gets fixed and WE HAVE AC!!! also we visted an asian market and i bought some asian items but apparently they taste good but i cant even read them. And then we played catan AND I WON! WOOOOO GO ME!

So sorry that my life is super boring but i love yall!

Elder Hanson

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Punching armadillos in the face

So this week. Gah. GAH!! Like punch a armadillo in the flippen face. I
hope this next week gets better which it should so thank goodness.

Monday was pretty low key. We didn't have any miles for play but we
have wifi at the apartment so that was super handy. It stinks when you
live in the part of your area that has nothing fun going on. And we
just can't bike 9 miles down to the other end of the area just for
p-day. Miles are liquid gold. I wish that miles didn't exist. The
first thing I'll do off my mission is laugh at a vehicles odometer.

So Tuesday was by far the worst day this week. This Wilson came down
with something mainly because his tonsils are going out so we call
brother jozitis to inform him that we won't be over today and someone
else answers the phone. "Mike can't talk right now the paramedics are
here. Claire (his wife) has passed away." *click*. Talk about a punch
to the gut. So we rush over and calling people to meet us there. We
get there police are there and neighbors and she's in the other room.
He's sobbing but still as kind to us as ever. So we were there for two
hours. And then comes time for them to take her away. He said his
final goodbyes to her and the thing that kills me is that he stood up
out of his chair on his one leg. That was. Blah. One of my best
friends is hurting and I lost another friend. Bad day.

Wednesday was district meeting but we couldn't attend because Wilson
was still sick so we puttered around home that day so that he wouldn't
get anyone sick. Low key.

Thursday was again low key.

Friday was ok got a few things done like planning and ate some really
freaky meatloaf. Like it killed both of us and gave us weird dreams.
It tasted good tho.

Saturday we ain't lunch with clints sister and her husband because of
me being a tater boy. Reminisced about Idaho for quite a lot of time
and that was pretty cool to be able to talk about that.

Sunday we were expecting 3 new gators of us to come to church but none
of them did. That was a scream at the world event. But silver lining
we had 3 less actives come to church. Brother jozitis, inactive for 1
year. Sister Deane, inactive for over a year. And Lynn, inactive since
I baptized her.
Also we had a meeting with elder Clark so that was cool.

So here's for hoping for a better week.

Love elder handsome.