Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

Sister Ottesen and I were invited to a BBQ today by a member in our ward. There was tons of people there! And after everyone had eaten, we played a game of softball, which I was SO pumped to play! I miss softball! It felt good to put on some pants and get a little dirty! And I owe a big thanks to Sister O for letting me drag her out to the field and watch me while I played with everyone else. I was actually able to spend Memorial Day the same way that I would've if I were at home!

So we had zone conference this past week! It was bittersweet though. It was President and Sister Samuelian's last zone conference :( At the end of the meeting, President and Sister Samuelian each bore their testimony, and of course, everyone was crying! President talked about having a vision for your life, and Sister Samuelian talked about the desires of your heart. One of my favorite things that President Samuelian said was, "You were foreordained for eternal life. Go claim your prize!" I'M GOING TO MISS HIM SO MUCH!

So every week, we have family home evening with a part member family in the ward. The mom and the kids are members, but the dad, Anthony, isn't. But every week he comes to church and he participates in FHE every time because he loves being with is family, and wherever they are at, he wants to be there too. It's so precious! Anyways! For FHE we watched Johnny Lingo! (Don't worry it's on LDS.org, I'm not an apostate missionary). Anyways, remember the part where the two ladies are talking about how many cows their husbands bought them for? And the one lady says, "I myself am a four cow wife!" Well, after the movie, Anthony said, "My wife is EASILY worth 100 cows!" And then he pointed to each of his four daughters and said, "And She's worth 100 cows, and that one is worth 100 cows, she's definitely worth 100 cows, and I'll get 100 cows for her too. I am a rich man indeed!" It was so cute! He'll get baptized someday, haha.

Okay here's something funny! The other day we were visiting one of our members who lives in an assisted living facility. While we there, one of the staff came in for something, and then she turned to us and said, "Okay, this might be weird, but can I ask you guys a question?" Being missionaries and automatically assuming it was a gospel question, we readily agreed. Then she asked us, "Why does one of you have to get out of the car and back the driver up all the time?" When we explained to her that it was a way to prevent accidents she said, "Oh good! I thought it was a weird religious thing!" It was so funny, but in my head I just thought, "Wow, people really do think Mormons are weird!"

So the other day I read a talk given by President Thomas S. Monson at a BYU women's conference. He talked about how we need to stop waiting for tomorrow to happen, and to live each day in the moment. He said, "Find joy in the journey."

GUESS WHAT! We are having a mission conference with President Russell M. Nelson on Saturday! I'm pretty sure it's every missionary's dream to be serving and have an apostle come visit the mission! Our meeting with him is from 10-12 Saturday morning, but we are to be at the church building no later than 9 am because President Nelson wants to meet and shake very missionary's hand! GUYS. I am freaking out. This is insane. I can't even. In the words of President Samuelian, Russell M. Nelson is "one breath away from becoming the next prophet of the church." ..........AHHHHHH!!!!!

That is all for this week!

Love,

Sister Hanna  

HI.

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME! I know I say that just about every week, but really. This week = AWESOME! We got 7 new investigators this week! God was just throwing miracles at us left and right!

My favorite thing that happened this week happened on Friday. We were eating lunch and our district leader, Elder Gillespie, called us to see how our day was going. Just before he hung up he said, "Sisters, I promise you that if you will take courage and OYM (open your mouth) today, you will find a new investigator before the day is over." So that night, we OYMed the crap out of people! We talked to everyone that we crossed paths with. We were walking the neighborhood when we saw this guy sitting outside of his house, so of course, we stopped to talk to him. As soon as we started talking to him I heard in my head a voice that said, "This is him! This is your new investigator." He was so nice and friendly, and the more we talked, the more and more I felt that we had found "the one" that our district leader had "prophesied" about, haha. As we continued to talk to Terry, we learned that he has a ton of family in California that are LDS, and he can remember spending the summers with them when he was younger and going to primary and attending other church activities. AND! He remembers that he was always fascinated by the Book of Mormon! We asked Terry if we could come back and teach him more, and he readily agreed! We're seeing him on Thursday!

Sorry that the email is so short this week!

Mosiah 15:30-31 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Love,
Sister Hanna

PICTURES: Exchanges ~ Zone Training Meeting

Hello people!

Lots of good things happened this week! Here's my favorite: So sister Ottesen and I have been going through all of the contacts in our phone and trying to find new investigators out of former ones, and also just cleaning it out and trying to figure out who the heck all of the people are in our phone. We texted this one guy who's name we didn't recognize. He replied, asking us if we were sisters serving in Salt Lake. So we told him no and that we were in Monmouth, OR. When he replied, he expressed how happy he was that we had gotten into contact with him. He told us that about two years ago, he was attending the military academy at WOU in Monmouth when he was approached by two sister missionaries with whom he had had a very nice discussion with. After leaving Monmouth, he moved to Salt Lake where he then joined the church and has since been endowed in the Salt Lake City temple! How SWEET is that!!!!! He expressed to us how grateful he was for those two sisters and that he has been incredibly blessed since joining the church. We were able to give him the names of the sisters who were serving here at that time so he could try contacting them through Facebook. He told us that he would be ecstatic if he would be able to contact those sisters and thank them. This was such a neat experience to me! It proved that really no effort is ever wasted when it comes to sharing the gospel! You may not always get the result that you are hoping for when you share the gospel, but you are planting seeds that will be harvested in the future. It reminds me of a quote by President Monson, "The good you have done, the kind words you have spoken, the love you have shown to others, can never be fully measured."

We also got another new investigator this week! He was a referral from one of the ward members, and he had no problem inviting us into his home! His name is Arnold, and we're going back over tonight to teach him the Restoration.

This past Tuesday was also our ward talent show! It was so fun! One of the best acts was a comedy bit by brother McCallister. Brother McCallister has no legs due to an accident he was in when he was
little. You all should google this guy, his name is Kacey McCallister and he's an incredible motivational speaker and he does amateur wheel chair racing. He's awesome! But anyways, he did a stand up comedy act where he pretty much made fun of himself for having no legs. But the best act by far was by Bishop Duncan! Bishop Duncan, as he describes it, is a "closet Elvis impersonator." You would never guess it, but he does an Elvis impersonation that is crazy good! It was hilarious, and I got it all on video!

Here's a cool quote I found the other day; "Real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!" -Neal A. Maxwell.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Hanna

PICTURES: I asked for a tag picture with her in the background. This is what I got, lol
 

Visitors from home!

Uncle John & Aunt Shary were passing through Oregon and took a one hour detour to say hi!

Dearest family and friends!

What a great time this past week has been! Sister Hartvigsen was transferred to LaPine! That makes her the 4th sister to serve in both Monmouth and LaPine! It takes a special kind, haha. So I'm so super excited for her! My new companion is Sister Ottesen. She's been out for three months, she has 8 brother and 2 sisters, and she's from...you got it! Utah! We spent most of this past week visiting members and introducing them to Sister Ottesen.

We saw a lot of miracles this week! First off, we got a new investigator! Her name is Erika. So how we found her...we basically followed her to a park (like stalkers) and then talked to her as we swung on the swings. We talked about the afterlife and about the Book Of Mormon. And here's the best part! She asked for a copy before I even offered her one! Then she gave us her phone number and said to call her next week so she has some time to read. It's incredible how God leads us to the people who are prepared to receive the gospel!

Another miracle this week; we were trying to find the house of a less active member, but the street they lived on, I had no idea where it was. And we are without a GPS as well. So we decided to say a prayer, and during the prayer I saw in my head a certain neighborhood in Independence. So we drove there, and the street we were looking for was in that neighborhood! We were able to stop in on this less active family and invite them to the ward talent show that is going on this week. Global Positioning System? More like God's Positioning System!

So earlier this week, I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, so I was doing a lot of praying. During one particular prayer for help, I was praying for comfort and confidence, and immediately in my head I heard to the words to a scripture in Psalms. "Be still, and know that I am God." It was such a huge comfort to me! I know that God listens to and answers our prayers! I love that we have been promised by our Father in Heaven that we will never be left alone or comfortless. John 14:18, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." I love this gospel, I love my Savior, and I love being a missionary!

Love,
Sister Hanna

PICTURES: Sister Hart struggling to pack and me not helping her, lol, ~ My new companion, Sister Ottesen ~ Birthday cookies from Grandpa & Grandma ~ Mother's Day dinner

Mother's Day Skype

Dad was sitting in San Antonio, waiting to conference in...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Happy May 2nd!

First off, thanks to everybody for the birthday wishes! 21 doesn't feel any different than 20! Woo! In the words of one of the Monmouth members, "Welcome to more adult responsibilities!"

This last week was good! Sister Hartvigsen and I have been working hard to find new people to teach. Over the weekend, we felt prompted to tract an apartment complex in Independence. And guess what?! We found a new investigator! Her name is Olivia. We talked to her outside of her apartment, and she was telling us about how she has so many questions that she can't seem to find the answers to. In my head I was like, "OLIVIA WE HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS!!!!" I had to bite my tongue to keep from fire hosing her with answers and information. Didn't want to scare her away haha. But! We set up an appointment to go back and see her on Tuesday. So yay!

Sad news, Sister Hartvigsen is getting transferred 😭 We knew it was coming though, she's been in Monmouth for 7 1/2 months! We don't know where she's going yet, and I don't know who my new companion is yet, but we find out tomorrow at the transfer meeting. Exciting stuff!

Speaking about transfers, you always find out what's happening the Saturday before the Tuesday transfer. If you're just being transferred, you get a call from your district leader, but if you're getting a calling, you get a call from President. So basically, that entire Saturday is just you and your companion flying by the seat of your pants, freaking out about whether or not you'll get a call from President. And any time the phone rings, you immediately drop what you're doing and scramble to answer the phone. It's a very stressful day haha. But anyways, 4 o'clock rolls around on Saturday afternoon and we get a phone call from President Samuelian. But we couldn't answer it because we were in a lesson. So we finished the lesson and tried calling President back, but he didn't answer. So we wait for about another hour for him to call us back and he never does. So we try calling him again and he answers. Here's what he said: "Sisters, I'm so sorry, but I called you on accident." Biggest coincidence of my life that we get butt dialed by the mission president on transfer call day! It was hilarious 😂

Thank you everybody for all of your love and support! Love and miss all of you!

Love,
Sister Hanna

PICTURES: Her birthday gifts from home: Birkenstocks & her favorite quote from conference, framed. She said she feels like a true Oregonian now that she owns Birkenstocks ~ Birthday celebration! I contacted the members from her ward and sent one of her favorite recipes from home: Tomato Cream Pasta! This is at Angie Milburn house ~ A Nutella cheesecake made by Ceana (a member in her ward)