November 24th 2008

Autumn in Spain

(Letter to Shelly)

Hey!

Well that’s good that everything went well there in Arizona! And Beth is coming to town, that good, how long is she going to stay?

Yes, thanksgiving is this week, but we’re just going to celebrate it when we go to Coruña and have district meeting, it should be a fun time!

The ankle is good, we can’t play soccer or anything, but otherwise I’d say it’s completely healed, I’m really grateful.

The work here has lit up quite a bit actually. Obviously it died when we were out for 2 weeks, and other reasons, but now it’s right back on its way up. We have a golden investigator, who asks questions and says things that are written in Preach My Gospel, and just is friends with all the members, and is a young guy who’s in the navy, and wants to find what church is true. But he’s moving to Madrid in December, so we’ll teach him everything and then he’ll get baptized there. Whatever, it’s all the same work! 

We got transfer calls this week, and I’m staying here through Christmas, but probably moving (in my opinion) in January, so feel free to send anything!

I get a decent amount of mail, so don’t worry about putting in anything in the high neighbor, it’s all good.

Well that’s all; hope you have a good thanksgiving!

Elder Hanson

(Letter to Mike)

Well hey, 

Ya the month is about to end, we’re just going to go to Coruña and have our district meeting and then after celebrate Thanksgiving together, since there

aren’t any Americans in the rama who would have us over for dinner. But again, no mail from Hulka, I’ll have to send him something.

The leaves! Yes the pic looked good, like a typical year of leaves! The nice thing is that here they still change color and fall off in the same season, so it does feel like late November, but it just bites because we’re out here alone, when all the Christmas stuff is going on, but I think we’ll have a good Christmas, we’ve already been invited to a few houses. We got transfer calls yesterday, and we’re good to stay until early January.

Wow the bathroom sounds good, you’ll have to send me some pics of everything, and speaking of pics, ill send you the card this week. I couldn’t send it before because I had to print some pics off for everyone in our district that was leaving.

Thanks for the letter about Michael Sanders, wow that’s just got to be tough.

As far as the ward letter, well I wouldn’t know what to say really, just that I was really blessed to have such great people that lived in my ward and taught me the gospel, and were examples to me of what I would like to be in my life. I am very grateful to have the chance to share what we have to others. I don’t know, i'll write some things down this week, and get back to you next week...(if that’s ok?)

Alright, things are going pretty good here! I wrote Shelly about the work a little bit, we’re really getting blessed out here!

Well tell everyone hello for me! Take care,

I hope all is well,

Elder Hanson

November 17, 2008

Hey,

Nobody told me about Hulka! That’s awesome! I’ll have to send him something for the congrats! Was he pretty excited? Tell him to send me some mail, and

I’ll get his address or something.

I’ll be honest I won’t miss the thanksgiving tradition of cleaning the leaves, but I miss the holiday like crazy! They obviously don’t celebrate it here, so they already have all the Christmas stuff up, and it is sad!

But in general, things here are pretty good, we are getting cold, and I mean cold, the humidity just chills it to the bone and wow makes things a lot colder. Yep it rains here almost once a day, if you ever look on the weather channel or something; you’ll see clouds over the northern western part of Spain guaranteed, every time we walk by a TV that has weather on, that’s all it ever shows. I like it though, at first it was a big adjustment, but now I think I sort of like it, I have a big umbrella that I use, not those little cheap ones, we have the big ones that are like canes with fabric on them, and that helps fight the weather a little. 

As far as work, yep well it’s coming along. We had a long week of ¨finding¨ even though we didn’t find too many people, we were on the street. What we do when we tract we go to big buildings that have like 12 floors with 4 doors on each floor, and knock. We get a ton done in a short amount of time because of how many pisos there are. Then if we can’t take knocking any longer we just go and do contacts and stop people on the street and try and talk to them. It is an amazingly hard thing to do. I have learned a ton about people, how they work, and all that from doing contacts. That is the thing that is most hated in the mission. A lot of missionaries like to just walk and pass everyone, because the people probably won’t stop to talk to you, ya, sure, but there are some that will talk, and some that might be interested, so until I find them, I am going to stop every person I can and find them. I don’t have a power, maybe I’m not as sensitive to the spirit as others to find people, and I can’t just look at one person and see that they are ready to receive the gospel, but the way I see it, I’ll just stop them all and find the prepared people out of the masses.

Referrals...ya they really don´t exist. Some people will give them, and they will be really good. I think I’ve only seen about 2 from members my whole mission, and they were to different elders, and they are teaching them right now. As far as advertisement, headquarter referrals, they are for other missions I guess, I’ve never seen one.

The language, another interesting point. My companion and I are both very young in the mission, and we need to learn this language, so we have some things we do. We don’t speak any English from 9:30 (the start of companion study) to 2:00. Then we eat lunch, and at 3 we have Spanish study. At 4 we leave, and do contacts, usually we'll have lessons at night, so we'll be speaking Spanish most of the night. With all that combined, my Spanish has really become much better. It’s not like I learned a ton of new words, but my ability to think in the language is improving a lot. That and being a missionary, having the gift of tongues, it’s pretty nice.

Tell Shelly hello and congrats to Stacy!

Keep me updated on the car business, that’s got to be tough. I pray for it

All the time.

Thanks for the mail,

Love, your son,

Elder Hanson

November 10th 2008

Hey,

 

Thanks for the info! It sure is interesting! But being here in Europe, it is almost a joke hearing about all of this!

 

Obama...well that was just nice to hear about let me tell you that! Everyone that sees us, and that sees that we are Americans brings it up, it is really getting annoying.

 

We’ve been out on the street though, a nice change from all of the past. We had greenie feet all over again, but hey we’re getting some things done!

 

We’ve been traveling non-stop! I wrote you from Coruña last week, and then we spent p day there, went to the aquarium that is on the coast, and had a really good time! It is really cool to just look out there along the coast, I wish that I could serve there sort of, but I still like Ferrol. Anyway, then we came back to Ferrol, worked until Thursday night, then we went to Coruña again, spent the night there to have District Meeting with President the next day, and interviews and all that good stuff. They checked our ankles and stuff out, and we’re pretty good! So then we came back to Ferrol that night, but had to leave early the next morning to go to Santiago (a famous tourist city) for a mini Zone Conference with a general Authority there, his name was Elder Weidmen, he’s from Switzerland. So that was great, I was able to talk with him for a little bit. He shook my hand and asked me if I was from Sweden, as I am, and we talked pretty normally for a bit, and about the accident, but it was just a great experience to talk with a member of the 70 like it was nothing.

 

Then we came back to Ferrol, worked that night, and then yesterday morning, we took a bus back to Santiago with our branch to have a meeting for the district as a whole including the members. That was also really great. Then we had to come back and work last night, and now here I am! I am a little mixed up, but we should have a normal week this week I hope so we’ll see!

 

All the Christmas activities are starting up (because they don’t have thanksgiving, but I can tell it is going to be strange to be out here with just my companion for the holiday season, but I’m still way excited for the days to come!

 

Oh ya and my month mark was yesterday, big number 7.

 

Well it sounds like the car business is nuts. I am very curious to see what will happen. Feel free to let me in on that information. But Easter is working at the cu? Detailing or what? Is he going to school?

 

Thanks for everything!

 

Take Care!

 

-Elder Hanson

November 6, 2008

Hello,

 

Thanks for the email, but yes things are much better, I’m actually walking without my crutch, so that is good. I have a good brace on, and I’ve been pretty good. Obviously I haven’t been walking a whole lot, but it’s getting better.

 

That letter I sent to you; wow! It was just something that I had to get out, because sitting up there in the 2 man apartment, I was about to go nuts, plus I thought you could relate a little bit because you’d been on a mission.

 

Well that is good that the week was good. We had a Halloween celebration; we ate all the candy from the package Shelly sent, and played chess for a little. I liked it.

 

Things seem pretty good with the ward, with Chris Patch in there as EQP, that’s pretty good.

 

Well this week we should be off to do some actual work!

 

How is work and all that going with the gas prices down? Tell me the update on the election...

 

And Hulka? Mission call sometime or what?

 

 

Thanks for everything! Have a good week!

 

-Elder Brett Hanson

 

October 27, 2008

Thank you thank you thank you for the package!

It could not have been any better timed!!! Wow it came at a very boring time in the week when it really helped me! Thanks for all the decorations, and the pictures and everything! And the candy, sadly most of it is gone by now!

But actually I have a question. This is a request for something; it’s the white baptismal pants, and a white tie. I didn’t bring them; because I thought it would be easier to just ask for them, but it is looking like that might not be the best course of action out here. I might need them sooner than I thought too. I haven’t seen a baptismal service, but I’m hoping to have one sometime soon. So I don’t know how much of a stretch it would be to send some size 33 pants out and a white tie along with it soon? I feel dumb for taking so long to ask for it, but I hope to use them soon.

Nice story with the blog though! It sounds awesome! Send some pics of all of it in the daytime if you want. By the way I’m working on sending my pics home soon. Thanks for getting the other ones so fast to me!

Thanks for everything! I hope that all is going well!

Take care

-Elder Hanson