Helloooooo!

We had another fantastic week! Jill got baptized on Tuesday! It was awesome! You can literally see the change within her. Her face is always lit up and she seems so much happier. Sister Hart and I were able to perform a musical number at the baptism. Sister Hart sang and I accompanied her on the violin to 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.' Sister Hart was super nervous, but she did great! Although I think she regrets it because we've now been suckered into performing in sacrament in two weeks and at the next zone meeting 😂

So sister Hart and I were out walking the streets the other day, and we decided to go talk to this guy who was hanging out by the Little Caesars. That sounds a little sketchy, but it's all good. We're still alive. Anyway, this guy's name was Ahmad and it turns out that he was from Egypt! He was so cool! He's Muslim, so we mostly talked about his beliefs and about the similarities between our religions. We talked a little bit about modern day prophets and about the Book of Mormon. And he accepted a copy! He said that he would read our book if we read the Kiran (is that how you spell it? I have no idea). So we told him we would, and we did! We had a member Google an English translation and we read a few sentences from it. But here's the coolest part about this story; we happened to run into him on the day that he was returning back to Egypt, a place where he'll most likely never hear about the gospel again. It was no coincidence that we met him and gave him a Book of Mormon. That could've been his only chance to hear the restored gospel. God is great!

I also received a huge testimony builder for prayer this week. So the Manley family from LaPine is getting baptized this weekend, and I wanted to go back to Bend for the baptism SO bad. I even asked them if I could be a part of their baptismal program because that would up my chances for receiving permission to go 😂 I found this out last Monday, and we had zone conference last Thursday, so I knew that I would be able to ask President in person for permission. But still, my chances were pretty slim that I would be able to go. But! President always tells us that if we want something, and that something is a righteous desire, God will grant it to us. I have never prayed so hard in my entire life! I would just randomly hit the floor and start praying because I wanted to go to this baptism so bad. Well, Thursday came, and I asked President if I could go, and he said yes! Ahhhhhhhh! Prayer works!

That's all for this week! Love you all!

Love,
Sister Hanna

Hola!

This week was a bit less busy than last. Sister Hartvigsen was in bed sick for two days. Don't worry, she's fine now. We had zone training meeting on Friday! I love meetings! One of the Elders gave a training about the Christlike attribute of charity. He read Matthew 22:36-39, which is when Christ tells what the two greatest commandments are. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind...and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He talked about how without love for the people, nothing that missionaries do would even matter because this work is all about love. He brought up another truth as well, and this is something that I have never thought of. If we don't first love ourselves, we won't be able to love the people. When we love ourselves, it is easier to love others. Here is something that was said in our stake conference a couple of weeks ago; "If it's inappropriate to be unkind and cruel to others, it's inappropriate to do the same to ourselves. Never diminish your divine value." Why do we tend to beat ourselves up so much? We are told by church leaders to view others through God's eyes. We should do the same for ourselves.

We went on exchanges again this week! Before we exchanged, the four of us sisters went out to lunch at Baja Fresh. And of course, we prayed over our food before we ate it. And I really don't like praying in restaurants. I just think it's so awkward and so uncomfortable, and I have never liked it haha. But, after we had finished praying and we started eating, an old man came up to us and said that he saw us praying and thanked us for not being afraid to live our religion. LESSON LEARNED. I have a completely different attitude now. It just goes to show that someone is always watching, and that the example that each of us sets will always be witnessed by others. Romans 1:16 - "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ."

WE HAVE A BAPTISM TOMORROW! Jill Burrows is getting baptized! I am so excited for this woman to become a member of the church! Her road has been hard and she has had to overcome so many things. But she did it! I am so proud of her and I know that her Heavenly Father is as well. I love this gospel so much! I know that it was a gift given to us from God to help us live happier lives and to have happy families. I can't wait to see my Savior and my Heavenly Father again. "And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them..." 3 Nephi 19:25. I love this gospel!

Love,
Sister Hanna  

PICTURES: The District ~ Exchanges with Sister Summers ~ Frolicking in the Sunshine!

Happy Valentine's Day (A Day late, oh well)

You would think that there was no way that missionaries have dates on Valentine's day. False! Sister Hart and I had a date last night! We ate with the Potter's! They're this super cute couple and they're so hilarious. They made dinner all fancy for us and they even gave us little Valentine's treats. We drank sparkling cider out of fancy glasses and they had Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing softly in the background haha. It was great!

This past week has been SO good! We were so busy all week and we never had to stop and ask ourselves, "what do we do now?" Best. Feeling. Ever! We went tracting a lot this week. I've started to keep a list of all the funny/weird/sad stuff that happens to us while we're knocking on doors. So on Thursday, the first door we knocked on was a disaster. It's something that we laugh about now, but in the moment, it was ridiculous. We knocked on this lady's door and introduced ourselves, and right off the bat this lady was not interested. Which that was nothing new that happens to us all the time, but we at least try and get to know the person a bit, ask about their beliefs, that way we at least leave a good impression and possibly plant a seed. So we asked her what some of her religious beliefs were and her first response was that she was a Christian. Cool, so are Mormons...(there are TONS of people who believe that Mormons aren't Christians). Well, we continued to carry on the conversation, and it quickly turned into a bashing session. This lady was so disrespectful and rude to us that we walked away from her on the verge of tears. She flat out said that we were brainwashed and that we didn't believe in Christ and that the whole of the LDS church has been deceived by the adversary. At first I was angry at the lady, but then I just felt so sad because she was turning away something so amazing, and she wouldn't even give it a chance. As we were walking away from that house, this scripture came to my mind: "Now when our hearts we depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: 'Go amongst thy brethren and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.'" -Alma 26:27. The promise in that scripture is so real! For the next few days, Sister Hart and I returned to that same neighborhood and we were able to talk to SO many people who were nice and willing to talk to us! None of them turned into new investigators, but that doesn't matter, because we were able to teach and testify of Christ, and in doing so we were successful. Okay so here's the funny part about that lady; she told us that she would pray for our freedom from this religion that has bound us! She told us that we're still young so there's hope for us and for our freedom! People crack me up! Another guy that we ran into while we were tracting said something so funny! We asked him if he had ever met missionaries before and he said, "Ya, but it was post-rager so I was super hungover." #collegestudents. It was so funny! We also met another guy named Harry. He's a geology major at the university, so he started asking us all these questions about the church's standpoint was on a bunch of different sciency things. He asked us what the church's view was on evolution, and also what their view was on stem cell reproduction from jellyfish used in humans...or something really weird like that. We had no idea what to tell the dude. After all of that weird stuff, we told him about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. As soon as I handed him the book he took it and shoved it into his face and started to intensely smell it! It was SO weird haha. Tracting is probably the worst/funnest thing to do as a missionary.

So I can't remember if I've ever talked about Kendra before! We found her while we were trying to contact a former investigator. She is super sweet and is already very close to God. We taught her the first lesson on Saturday and she accepted the challenge to be baptized on March 26th! She told us that she feels like God sent her two angels and that she's finally at a point in her life where she's ready to receive what God has for her. Kendra is super awesome, and we are super excited for her!

Being a missionary is so awesome! I'm so happy that I decided to serve. It has changed my life and will forever be grateful that God called me here to Oregon. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Hanna

Here's the message we have been sharing since it was Valentine's Day.

1 John 4:7-12    

Email from Rory Baxter

Happy Valentine's Day!

We got the treat to have the girls here for dinner last night. They were so cute when they sent a message to say they had an "epic dinner fail" and asked if they could come to our house for dinner. Of course I told them no way! LOL - OF COURSE we always welcome the chance to have the girls here with us! We had a yummy dinner of baked tatoes and meatloaf that my Caiden helped prep (he is hoping to go to culinary school after his mission - I love having him in the kitchen!) We also surprised them with a valentine treat - all the little kids helped Ceana (my RM) to make choc dipped strawberries. It was the perfect treat.

It always thrills me so much when the girls/elders choose to be here with us. They add so much to our home when they are here.

Hopefully they will tell you all about our NW regional conference today. It was pretty amazing, so many good things.

Hope you have had a fabulous day! Sending tons of hugs!

Rory

Hey people!

This week was a bit of a slow one. We had A LOT of appointments fall through, which gave us the chance to completely rely on the spirit for what we needed to do. It was really neat to see the spirit work with us, and there were many places and people we were led to that we otherwise wouldn't have been if those appointments didn't cancel. We had a lot of opportunities to meet people who weren't necessarily interested in the gospel, but who were very nice and willing to talk to us! It was great!

We had stake conference this weekend, and President Samuelian spoke at the Sunday session! Sometimes I forget that he knows other people besides the missionaries. So it was really cool to see him interact with the members after the session. He has blessed and touched so many lives here in Oregon.

So, Dutch Brothers Coffee is a huge thing here in Oregon. Everybody rants and raves about it. So, sister Hart and I decided to see what all the fuss was about, so we decided to grab some hot chocolate from the place. IT WAS SO GOOD. We figured we're both now true Oregonians since we have fallen prey to the Dutch Bros corporation.

Something that I have been studying recently is the New Testament. I've been reading it along with the seminary manual, and it is SO helpful! There is so much symbolism and parallels in the New Testament, it just blows my mind! One of my favorite stories is in Mark, and it's about the story of when Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and also heals the woman with the issue of blood in the process. Jairus, who was highly respected, came to Christ and begged him to heal his daughter. While on His way there, the woman with the issue of blood reached out and touched His garment, and she was healed. Jesus stopped to talk to her and told her that because of her faith, she was made whole. Jesus then went to the house of Jairus and raised his daughter from  the dead. Jairus was socially respected, the woman was an outcast. The two miracles together show that the Savior's compassion and power to heal are extended to all, regardless of social standing. I love Jesus! The Atonement is real and it works for everyone! There are some people who believe that they have done things that they can never be forgiven of, but that is a lie! Not one of us can fall far enough to be out of reach from His love. I love this church, I love this gospel, and I love my Savior!

Love,
Sister Hanna

PICTURES: Sister Hart was sad because I got two packages and she didn't get anything. Don't mind my face ~ Our tiny district

Text from Jeffries

Had dinner with these two beauties! We love the missionaries!

Sister Jeffries

Stake Conference

Posted by a member on Facebook

Email from Goldie Burton

We had your lovely daughter for dinner tonight! We are happy to have Sister Hanna in our ward.  She is such a sweet lady.  She is doing well and is always cheerful.  Thanks for letting her serve.

Hello!

This past week was great! We had interviews with President Samuelian on Tuesday, which are always great. He told us that while he had been preparing and praying about what to tell the missionaries, the thought that kept coming over and over again to his mind was tell us all that the Savior is coming, and he's coming soon. It was really intense! Then during my interview, he asked me how I felt when he told us that the Savior is coming. So I told him that it made me anxious and a little bit afraid. (Which is dumb because it never used to scare me. Satan is a bum). And what he said to me next changed my whole perspective on the subject. He told me that my mission is the one chance that I have to show the Savior that I am not afraid. MIND BLOWN! I love President Samuelian, he's the best.

So this last week, Sister Hartvigsen and I had a ton of opportunities to talk to lots of people. We have been going through our potential and former investigator lists, so we've been doing a lot of contacting. In my previous experiences with doing this, it's mostly just been a lot of slammed doors in our faces. But this week was different! Almost every door we knocked on, the people were so nice and friendly and willing to talk to us! And even though most of them weren't interested, it was so nice to be able to talk to someone who didn't think we were crazy. It really helped me to feel the love that God has for all of His children.

So Sister Hartvigsen has this really great analogy. The Sorting Hat from Harry Potter is like the Final Judgement. Gryffindor is the Celestial Kingdom, Ravenclaw is Terrestrial, Hufflepuff is the Telestial kingdom, and Slytherin is Outer Darkness. HAHA! When you're a missionary, you really have to think of creative ways to entertain yourself...She also came up with a joke about hot dogs. How does one hot dog speak to another hot dog? FRANKLY! It is so lame but I can't stop laughing.

So something funny that happened this week. We were leaving a members home after she had fed us dinner and we were outside when we yelled to her back to her "love you!" But then there was this guy across the street who heard us and yelled back, "are you talking to me?" So of course we yelled, "yes, we love you too!" He laughed. We laughed. It was a good time haha.

Well that's about it for this week! Love you!

Love,
Sister Hanna

P.S. Ponder this...The Lord is more loving than you think He is.