September 24, 2008

Thanks for the mail!

Here’s the thing. I’ll send the card home from last transfer, and then ill send the one with the movies on it home a little later on once you send me mine back.

The other thing is I need that journal paper that is from the distribution center...you know the ones with the lines and the dates? I keep forgetting to tell you, but I’m running out! I don’t know when you could send it, but I sure could use it!

Glad to hear about Morgan, (Morgan turned 12 and went for her Bishops interview, and to get a temple recommend to do Baptisms for the dead next week!) but everything else...sorry. Things are tough everywhere. Here in Spain things are on the downside, and everyone’s complaining. I don’t know what to say sometimes other than the message that we share is much more than our money; that things like family and our real happiness don’t depend on money.

But in other news:

Things are going pretty well. I am actually writing you today from A Coruña, a bigger city about 45 minutes away from Ferrol. We came down last night, and we are here for a few days doing some of my companion’s residency things, so I feel kind of strange walking around, lost in a big city, but it’s kind of fun too. 

This week in Ferrol has been pretty good. We found some new investigators, and we set a baptismal date with a guy who has been investigating the church for years. He needs to stop smoking, that is always a tough one, but he’s pretty motivated, and there seems to be a lot of hope. We’re pretty blessed.

The other thing that we are so blessed in is our eating appointments here. We are fed almost everyday! It’s something that is extremely rare out here in Spain, but in Ferrol, there are a lot of members, and only 2 Elders, so we are spoiled. The only downside is that I still can’t cook, and I don’t really have to learn anything right now, maybe in the future...

Thanks for everything! Take care!

Elder Hanson

Well, it's good to hear that Michael is doing well, I have been thinking of him this week. I love newt's article! (For those of you who don't know, Newt is Nate, his brother)  I'm glad to hear his article got in the Salt Lake Tribune. But tell that kid to write...

Glad to hear that Morgan had a happy birthday! And that my letter to her took 11 days to get to the states...wow that's a little more than it was back in Logroño. I think this new city is too far away from the rest of the world, but it is an awesome city.

Have you seen it on a map? (And that's why I added the map above)It's on the west northern part of Spain, and it's a pretty good looking city. I am happy to be here taking all these pictures and all that. 

(Personal message to Mom and Dad) Quick question, did you see, or take off those videos of the MTC, and the CCM on my first memory card that I sent to you a while back? I don't want to delete them if you haven't...but if you just left them on to let me look at them, that is cool too.

I have a card that I am going to send home pretty soon, but I want to know the answer to this question before I do it. I also will be sending home a little package pretty soon; it is just a bunch of papers and my first planners, and some pictures from the CCM. I also will put in the CD of pictures from first transfer in it. So I don't know how much that will cost, or how long it's going to take to get to the states, but I am just trying to cut down on all the things that I have here with me, I am finding that this is the secret to packing, so I am going to send home this soon. I have some cool little tourist things from Logroño, and some stickers that I want to save. So I don't know if you want to just put it in my room or somewhere for the next year and 7 months.

But thank you for sending the pictures, they will be used almost everyday, so thank you, thank you.

Guess what, we are teaching this girl that just got baptized in a less active family all the follow up lessons, and she has a cat whose name is Lucifer. (Our cat's name is Lucy-Fur. Brett came up with it and it stuck!) It's awesome, so I am showing her pictures of the cat, we all thought it was funny.

But the work here has picked up a little. We had 4 people in church, and 2 less active families, so we saw some of the fruits of our labor here; I just hope it keeps going.

Zone Conference was pretty good, I saw a ton of people from my MTC group, and that was really great. It was in a city called Santiago, it is a little more south of us, and is probably the biggest tourist city in the mission. It has this big catholic cathedral, so we went and checked it out yesterday, it was pretty cool, but I didn't get any pics... next time.

Sorry to hear about the work. More banks are going under? I thought things might be getting better? The exchange rate turned around, so I thought things were headed in a little better direction, but they'll get there sometime.

Get Quang there in the CU! And tell everyone hello for me!

Take care, thanks for everything!

Elder Hanson

September 7th 2008

Ya wow that is a bunch of stuff! 

I can't believe that thing about Michael, so what's the deal? How dangerous is everything else? This is pretty crazy...(Our friends Michael Sanders was diagnosed with Lymphoma a few weeks ago.)

I don't really know the Jenny lady, but that is still sad. Especially because she´s probably related to that missionary that is related to Virginia, and grandma knew. He had a bunch of death in the family right before he went on the mission, so he had some hard times, I felt really  bad. (Mike's cousin Jenny passed away a little over a week ago.)

But I wrote Morgan a letter the other day, tell me when she gets it!

The political scene...that is very interesting, I'm really curious to see how it turns out.

Otherwise this new city is pretty crazy, it's the furthest spot away from anyone, and it's just me and my companion, who is from Logan and has been out here for almost a year. His name is Elder Olds. 

But the thing is he's been sick all this week, so it's been a little slow. I've been doing a lot of study time in the piso. It's a really nice piso, it's less than 8 years old, but is really cheap because it's so far out here in the middle of nowhere. But it was terrible, more trash, old food, old papers, "piso finds" were waiting here for me when I got here than I could ever imagine. So I've spent a lot of time just cleaning this place, and trying to make it the nicest piso I can, because everyone says it is the nicest in the mission.

but beyond that I've had a pretty hard week. Not many teaching appointments, and a lot of sitting. I just don't feel that good. So I hope in the coming days things will pick up a little and we can get to work.

the branch here is really strong, everything is very nice, so I'm glad that this is here, we just need to work!

but send everyone my hello, 

I hope all stays well.

Elder Hanson