Another week in paradise

Another week another tale. Seems to happen a lot especially when your in a new area. But hey I won't complain. 

So Monday we had an adventurous p day. First off we went to this place called the avenues in viera. And oh my goodness. It's a shopping center with a ton of good stores and places to eat. The closest thing I can compare it to is the gateway in SLC but that's not giving it enough credit. We then ate lunch with a bunch of missionaries and then road tripped to the river front to do some skate boarding. I'm not very good at skate boarding. Like I just decided later on to follow in a car bad. So later on a cop stops us and says he's received complaints of us hooping and howling. False. So now we're missionaries and hooligans. And then we went and emailed and then did some more boarding and I got better. 

Tuesday was good. Taught some less actives got a nickname from brother Nickerson. It's hughey. And members here call me elder handsome the first time I meet them. My reputation follows me. 

Wednesday we met another guy at Walmart. This guy is an alcoholic and he's not in our area like the last guy so passed him off to the other elders. After that I made some amazing looking tie dye cookies. They looked like unicorn poops. It was cool. 

Thursday everyone ate my unicorn poops and thought they were delicious. And after we all ate at Wendy's. And heads up don't get the cheese bacon fries. I felt lethargic and like an american. 

Friday we helped Nickerson with a few things and then later that night I went on exchanges to Melbourne with elder izatt

Saturday we had a three hour lesson with the first guy we met at Walmart Shaun. Turns out he's a drug addict. So we fought through that and then did the normal missionary deal. We then drove far away to eat at Golden Corral because why the heck not. 

Sunday was pretty normal. I wore suspenders and looked great while doing it. Ate food and played games at the schaefers

I love y'all. Have a good week. 

Adventure!!!!

So new area. Uh, that's a lot of change. I don't know where to even begin! So I am serving in the viera first ward. 

That's me I'm right there. Well not exactly but I'm there in that vicinity. That's right the beach is in my area. So is Patrick's AFB which we have ins to get in there. My area is full of rich people and it's a non tracting/ finding area. It's all through member work and it is so much nicer to be in viera. I love leesburg but I love viera even more! There's family's here, nice restaurants,nice stores,we have an absolutely terrific meal coordinator momma Schafer. I literally haven't had to eat dinner at home since I got here. It is so refreshing to have people that want to feed the missionaries. But anyways I'll go into that later. 

So Monday was the end of my victory tour throughout leesburg but that mainly happened at night. For most of the day it was low key. Took a nap. Shopped. Got a hair cut. Emailed y'all. Usual stuff. Later that night I said goodbye to the bishop and his family all of whom I really liked. And then after that I said goodbye to the hulseys whom I reactivated. That was hard. Mainly because they were my favorite family and also their little baby I have seen grow up. Little lily is only one day older than my mission. 

Tuesday was the big big day. So I loaded all of my crap into the car. Said goodbye to my awesome apartment. Said good bye to leesburg and then later on said goodbye to my companion. I was scared. Terrified more really. It was just so new. And also big church news. They are turning an area of the the church ranch into a community for the homeless. And guess who gets to build it. Missionaries. So some missionaries were given special transfer calls. I wasn't but back to the real deal. So I was one of the very last missionaries to receive assignment. Talk about a nail bitter but eventually I got placed in the viera first ward in cocoa zone with elder penfold. Lucked out on that one. Penfold is on his 21 month mark so he's dying soon. But he's cool I really like him. We get along great. We then ate dinner at a flippen mansion. With 7 bathrooms!!! Also fun fact pututau is my new ZL. 

Wednesday was a good day with readjusting. To a new area. Met a lot of really cool people and did some awesome missionary type of things. Saw a rocket launch. That was way cool. We actually watched it with some other elders at the mansion and man that was cool. It just looks like something really small and then it goes out of sight and the minutes later you hear the rumbling which is pretty cool. Later that night I met momma Schafer. 

Thursday was chill. Had district meeting. Ate lunch with the leadership of the zone. Fun stuff really. I also started learning ASL and now I can finger spell. I hope to find a ASL for dummies book and become a tool for that. 

Friday we helped clean the church with the Schaffer family. Man I had no idea how much work it is to clean the church. You actually have to vacuum the benches weekly. Like lift up the vacuum and put on there and vacuum. It really gives you an appreciation of what people do. And also we got chick fil a milkshakes afterwards. 

Saturday. I ate like a king. Lunch at chilis and then dinner at this really good Chinese place. The Chinese place was way fancy. Like the member threw down a hundred to feed us. That what happens when you get fed by an ex mission president. Like all these members are like. You want desert too? Oh mah gosh I love it. Saturday we also had a really cool miracle. So my new apartment stinks so we went to go purchase smelly good stuff at Walmart. So we walk in and this guy shouts after us Latter Day Saints! So we go talk to him. Turns out he's had the lessons before and he wants to be baptized so we talk and do the normal thing and when it's time to go we say a prayer with them and then he starts sobbing. I have always taken the gospel for granted but seeing a man have it in his hands and then loose it and find it again and be so overjoyed by it that is truly amazing. He doesn't live in our area and he isn't our gator anymore but I don't care. He found what is the very best for him and were part of that. 

Sunday I met a lot of people and did missionary work. Met a little girl in our ward and we ate dinner at there house and I am now wrapped around her finger because that's elder Hanson. If there's a little girl and she befriends me I melt. Again I can't have a house full of girls when I'm married because I would become a pushover papa. Also played this game monopoly deal. New favorite card game. If you can find it please send it to me. 

Overall I'm loving my new area. It's the best. Also go and join Orlando Florida missionary moms page on Facebook. And you can see my face. 

Farewell, Hanson 

Big News!

Judging by the title there's big news. Big news is that I realized
that I have under a year and a half left. Jk that's not big news. The
big news is that I am being transferred. That's right. This old horse
has spent enough time in the leesburg and now it's time to leave. I'm
scared but it's understandable after spending more than a quarter of
my mission in one single area. I'm optimistic of my future in my new
area. I have a list of things that need to be done and the lord has
things that need to be done by me and my new companion and I will
gladly do them.

So Monday we were party crashers and crashed a district pday of a nearby
district. Well we didn't crash it. We were invited by majority of the
district because we are so much darn fun. And also well because it was
taking place within our area. It was good. Played some volleyball
which I have come to love and also gotten a lot better at then when I
had started playing it everyday. The one problem with playing
volleyball in the summer in Florida is the horrific heat and humidity
and little air flow. The wind really only blows right before a storm
comes through which is at least once a day. Monday we also ate dinner
with a less active member family and I don't get why people get so
hung up on the fact that someone offended them. I understand the
social aspect of church but clearly that isn't something that you
should be focusing on while your in church on a Sunday. I flat out
laid down why they need to be back and church and it's amazing when
the lord gives you something to say how much power can come out with
it.

Tuesday I stayed up late to make cheesecakes and I am proud of them.
Here's one of em.That is the double layer, chocolate chip brown sugar pumpkin cheesecake. I messed with the recipe last minute and it turned out to be a really really good idea because it made the cheesecake a lot better. I also made my usual orange dreamscicle cheesecake and that has now been dubbed the conversion cheese cake. More on that story later. The final one i made completely from scratch. Crust and all. It was a normal New York cheese cake and then i topped it with multiple berries and it turned out really good as well. Baking has turned into more of a sources of enjoyment and also a slight obsession. My tools now consist of a mixer, a sick apron, a cake pan, a spring form cake pan, and a cake holder. I might have to start a bakery for my career. 

Wednesday everyone ate my delicious cheese cake and enjoyed themselves. I have formed a tradition with cheesecake. The cheesecake usually comes out for either of these two occasions. Its president interviews or the last district meeting of the transfer and it was the last district meeting of the transfer so walah! Wednesday was pretty low key nothing really amazing happened. I took a stellar nap on the way back from District Meeting and it made me oh so very happy. There's just something about sneaking in a good nap from time to time that provides me great joy.

Thursday was a normal Thursday.

Friday was also normal.

Saturday we ate so good ole barbecue with the bransons (clints sister) and just had a good ole time. After lunch we started doing the good ole missionary things and all of the sudden on the car screen it says " Incoming Call: President Berry". Thats the call that you get on Saturdays before transfer if your moving up or your training. So the phone call goes on and we find out the Elder Peay is training and thus it means i'm OUT! I greatly enjoyed that call because afterwards i was screaming at the top of my lungs in the car out of joy and happiness. granted i am going to miss the people in ole Leesburg but man i need a change of surroundings. So we did the usual Saturday thing and i began the goodbye train. Which of course is kind of depressing.

Sunday me and elder peay did the sunday thing and everyone was rather sad that i was actually heading out and then they were shocked that i had been here for so long. And then the whole joke of "we were going to move your records here!" started coming up. After church we had a baptism of two young kids and peay baptized and i confirmed them. I was on a spiritual high and it was a really good confirmation and there were a lot of promises in there that were prompted by the spirit. After all was said and done and we were taking it all down the first counselor attacks and critiqued the confirmation. He said that i was wrong for saying what i said in the blessing. Well excuse me sir for following the promptings of the spirit. Thats one thing that has really made me realize the whole statement about the church is perfect the people arent. Its so frustrating with some of these ward members that you deal with as a missionary and they try to tell you how you should do your work when they have no authority on the matter. They don't hold those keys. gah! Ok rant over. So i said my goodbyes to my converts and all that jazz and to the people that i have reactivated and they all said pretty much the same thing but it really makes your realize that you are doing something right with the area you're in. it really helps you to keep on trucking through the gospel.

So you wont find out about what area i'm in until next week. Tell ya then! BYE!

Elder Hanson

4th of July and DISEASES!!!!

So brief explanation on the title. Just because it says diseases
doesn't mean that I have contracted a disease. I'm healthy as a horse.
But other than that. I. Am. Tired. I'm tired. Just plain tired. I
don't want to talk about how tired I am but man I am tired. I'm really
starting to get tired with this area. We're still teaching lessons but
it is just slowing and it's tough to find the new people that are
actually worth our time. But nonetheless I shall continue.

So Monday was low key. I took a nap and it was legit. It rained like
most days in the summer.  By the way I am so sick of the rain. Geez
what is Florida under the leaky pipe in heaven?! Weather report oh hey
look it's supposed to be hot, muggy, and Rainy today. Shocker. But
then I ate food. Speaking of food so many people are feeding us it's
awesome! It makes me happy.

Tuesday was usual missionary stuff.

Wednesday I had elder Chidister here with me. That was cool. We ended
up doing service in the rain cuz well were awesome!

Thursday we had ZTM and pres. Berry showed up and that was a tad bit
stressful but we did good and afterwards we went to chilis and that
was pretty delicious.

Friday was normal.

Saturday was the 4th of July and we actually spent most of the day
driving because of a couple of baptismal interviews one in leesburg
and one in apopka. After we just hung around a little afterwards since
we didn't have to be in by ten.

Sunday was normal. Got exposed to mersa prolly. We gave a blessing to
this lady who is 58 but looks 93. She looks terrible and obviously
doesn't take care of her self at all. So after the blessing we drove
to the hospital and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I think I'm
going to survive but whatever I love my mission!

Sorry not too many exciting things have happened this week. I might
have something exciting next week.

Elda Hanson

New couch

Oh hey look it's Monday. Again. It's really weird some Monday's come super quick others take ages to get here. This one was somewhere in between. It's been quite the week. Moving furniture. Find less
actives. Getting a lot of new investigators. Driving around a lot. Typical missionary experiences. Oh getting rained on. That happens on a daily.

So Monday was our district Pday and I made a homemade chocolate mousse cake. It turned out alright. Everyone said it was good but I thought it was ok. The sisters and ourselves met a guy at the post office while we were waiting to lead them to the westerns and he drove around in a Jesus PT cruiser and gave us all free Jesus shirts. That was
awesome. We played volleyball in like 100 degree weather with humidity and no breeze and we also had a member there who is actually an Olympic certified volleyball instructor so I learned so cool tricks. Then me and elder Paey went and played pool and I beat him. Then later that night we totally rearranged our office and now it's super sweet.

Tuesday was pretty standard. Missionary work happened. We managed to find and talk to a former who still is reading the Book of Mormon. And he also showed up to Book of Mormon class which was pretty awesome. Now we just need to get em in the font.

Wednesday we had the usual district meeting and that was good. The westerns drove us to that and then they feed us Steak 'n Shake afterwards which was a free meal and I was happy about that. Then tried to buy half price donuts at dunkin but failed because they had like no donuts left. That's what I like about the east. Dunkin donuts. And firehouse subs. Both delicious and everywhere down here.

Thursday we got ourselves a new couch from brother jozitis old house which was cool and then we got his old scale and all of his food. So now we got two couches and the new one reclines and makes me happy. I've already fallen asleep in it before.

Friday we planned and ate at the Chinese/ Japanese buffet and as usually I got sick from it. I still don't understand why all these old people eat at this place. It's ok but you can't tell that some of it is not very high quality. Yet these old geezers are attracted to it. Must be the savings.

Saturday we talked to soooooo many people. Majority of which were less actives but a few were part member families so that worked out pretty well. I also got a surprise picture and a surprise package. Both of which I was not expecting but I greatly enjoyed both of them so thank you for that!

Sunday was cool. I met the worlds best spoons played. He was on the jay Leno show a few years back and he now lives in the ward.  I was asked to bless the sacrament because there wasn't really anyone else to do it. And doing it as a priest I did t really realize the immense meaning behind the sacrament and doing it every week I just kinda took it for granted. But this time after not doing it for a ward in well over a year it finally hit me. Here I am a disciple of Jesus Christ wearing his name on my chest, doing his work, and keeping his commandments, breaking bread. Something he did personally for his
apostles over two thousand years ago. It was cool because for a moment in my head I saw it. I saw the bread and table of the last super and I saw the bread being broken. And then I was back. At that moment I received one of the single most powerful witnesses of Christ in my life. I felt his love and the happiness that he feels for me. You forget those things over time. But it's always amazing to be reminded of it time and time again.

Love you, Elder Hanson

The so called "prophet"

Whew. What a week. I feel like I end up saying that a lot of the time which is kind of weird but hey it's the definition of missionary work. But man this week to be honest kinda sucked. Lost 3 gators, didn't sleep very good at all this week therefor I end up falling asleep at random times throughout the day. Can't meet with our golden gators and
just chewing through our potentials who not all of them want the gospel. And driving on sand roads just sucks!

Monday was low key pday had to go do exchanges and I ended up staying in leesburg. I just can't get out of this town no matter how hard I try. But I had one of the ZL come up here with me. Fun fact both of the ZLs right now are my ex DLs. But for the most it was low key.

Tuesday oh boy Tuesday. So I had one of the ZLs with me so that immediately adds quite a bit of stress into my day and just makes me want to explode. So there's a standard rule with exchanges. Whenever you are in your area on exchanges all of your appointments are going to go up in flames. Guess what happened. All of my appointments pretty much went up in flames and that was the day that we lost 3 gators and had a bible bash. The bash was just flat out annoying because they were just getting preachy. They were the brothers of a gator and oh man they were just gah. You had an intelligent brother and a stupid brother. Intelligent brother was a "prophet" but brought actually brought up good points but was quoting out of psalms which no one does that. Stupid brother on the other hand was just quoting nonsense
and honestly asked if Christ was a Christian. Yea. His own brother was like your not making any sense while he was babbling. We had an RM with us and when we were done and get in the car were all like. What. Just. Happened? It was just weird.

Wednesday just was kinda meh I guess.

Thursday we had district meeting and I made some cookies and also come to find out that they change the app that we use to record our lessons and crap and it's different and I'm trying to adjust. It's way better this way but they don't even tell us it just happens. Also Thursday we sat down with the westerns and worked through all of our less actives come to find out we have we have like 150 active members and like 370 less actives. I got a lot of work to do.

Friday was the last day I got to see bro jozitis. I'm super bummed. His wife died like two months ago and he's moving up to New Hampshire. He is my favorite member and he's was so close to going to the temple and just gah! There goes like 3 weekly lessons.

Saturday is a silver lining day so we ended up getting 2 new gators a mom and a son. The son is like 12 and super cool and she wants me to teach her how to read music so I'm going to dig into that one. And try but it's gunna be cool.

Sunday I was asked by a less active family I know if I would baptize their two younger kids. Man I was flattered it's awesome to be a missionary and I totally baked a chocolate mousse cake and I'm super duper proud of that one and it looks pretty tasty.

We'll be good and don't get into trouble and I'll do the same. Love ya.

Elder Hanson

Word of Wisdom and the Cops

After being on my mission for 6 and 1/2 months i feel like i need one of those i love Mondays shirts. It just feels true at this point of my life now. Pretty sure once i get home i will feel 100% against Mondays which is pretty standard for being a normal human being. But hey i had a roller coaster week which was an interesting roller coaster week at that.

So Monday i wrote you and i ate food and i slept and it was glorious. One doesn't realize how amazing naps are until you cant take them anymore not even on Sundays like naps are amazing. Who ever invented the idea of a nap should get the Nobel prize in like every field. Later that night we drove down to eustis and did exchanges. Pretty low key. And also turns out that its is pretty darn difficult to find a bible in the south for a good price. Who knew.

Tuesday since we had exchanges in effect its a pretty safe thing to say that all of your plans while being on exchanges will go horrifically and terribly wrong  So a lot of our plans fell through and elder Cannon just felt kinda sick that day and also heres incident number #1 with the cops this past week. So since our plans fell apart we went to go see a less active and we see a cop car outside. No biggie its the projects that's not anything out of the ordinary. So we climb up to the top floor of the complex because its a general rule if you after to go anywhere in a large complex its totally going to be on the top floor. *knock knock* A cop opens the door......WHAT! OK i deal with the cops down here and most the time its ok but this time it just threw me for a loop. Like they wouldn't let us speak to her. Later come to find out she had surgery so an ambulance prolly came by and that's why cops were there but it was good in the end. That night i made some homemade cinnamon cake with icing and halfway through mixing i realized "shoot i don't have a bread pan and its way to late to go buy one". SO what do i do? i made my own. Well i at least tried to make my own. It ended up working but man it looked like a Macgyver tornado came through. I took a brownie pan and wax paper and two butter knives and made a bread pan. I rolled the wax paper into one big roll and stuck it in the pan and then pour in my batter and use the knives as a brace so that the batter didn't leak out. Well it worked and nobody died.yet.

Wednesday was normal. I gave a training in district meeting and shared my huckleberry taffy with everyone who got a question right. Went good and then we ate delicious Chipotle and got rained on. Pretty typical Florida. This is also the day where we realized that 4 of our gators were barely out of our area. Talk about a punch to the gut. So our pool got annihilated. But by the end of the week we were able to rebuild it mostly.

Thursday was low key.

Friday we planned forever because that's what missionaries do. You plan for what your about to plan about. It was a pretty decent planning session and also after that i found all of the old seminary videos so ive been really watching those on my iPad at the end of the day. Theres something that not everyone can say.

Saturday. OH Saturday. So it was a normal Saturday of teaching and crap but the night is where prolly one of my favorite mission stories has been born. So after all the lessons and meeting the westerns gave us five bucks to go buy some ice cream from McDonald's so we go and i get my Oreo mcflurry and paey orders a Caramel frappe and its completely separate from all the coffee drinks. So we get our stuff and i try some of his and he trys some of mine and  taste coffee in his. Its a taste that cant be mistaken whatsoever so i tell paey and hes like nah it doesn't mate. so we get in the car and hes like you know what if it does. So then on our way home we call a member who were pretty tight with and find out the ingredients. BOOM it had coffee. So at this point im calling him a sinner and quoting  going to hell scriptures and after a lot of silence i pipe up and inform Paey that the westerns helped him sin and he started to punch me so that was the end of that.

Sunday was wild. so its the end of Sunday and were heading back and i did something and all of the sudden i got my 2nd incident with the cops this past week. So Florida traffic laws are incredibly complicated and not very clear. So apparently i had entered a do not enter so i could turn around right as a cop was in the other one. He saw me. I saw him. All of the sudden i see his tag scanner turn on and the way is perfectly clear for him to turn but he aint so naturally in my head im thinking crap. So i do my maneuver and just immediately go into the median. He pulls up. "wow you must be one of the smarter ones" Heck yes im smart my school grades might not of shown it but im smart. Turns out what i did was illegal. And goes through and he sees that my license is from Idaho. You can tell hes building up the speech of how i need to get a new license and blah blah blah but then i tell him that were missionaries and he cools down and now all of the sudden he wants to get done a little bit quicker. I'm a Mormon not a meth head im not that scary. So i got off with a written warning and paey thinks that this is amazing because hes never been pulled over before. After we get going i turn to paey and tell him when you break the Word of Wisdom your companion suffers. So moral of this story is dont break the word of wisdom.

Well thats all. Be Good!

Elder Hanson