October 31, 2023 - 10th Email - Hospital (again) and a flat tire

 Happy Halloween!

This email's a doozy

This week has been super cold, down to the 40s from how hot it was last week it's pretty crazy

Today I get the whole day for pday so that's super fun

The week started with exchanges. It was kinda last minute but we did them with the Zone Leaders in our house so it worked out fine. I was with Elder Jensen and I was able to lead out in my area for the first time so it was pretty cool and awesome and stuff

But while we were driving we were off-road for a minute and we found the next day that we had driven over some pretty big bolt. That's definitely not gonna come back to haunt us later.

We have a friend named Juan who is super ready for baptism. We started teaching him and immediately he was just like "I want to change my life and get baptized" and he's been taking all the necessary steps and he'll be getting baptized this Sunday.

The girls that were supposed to get baptized but then their dogs attacked us are actually getting baptized tomorrow! It's weird in the middle of the week but it's the only day they could because they want their family to be able to be there. We're praying that this time nothing happens!

Wednesday was normal except we cleaned out the Hermanas' garage for service

Thursday we did exchanges again. We actually did a weird exchange where we gave our truck (which had low tire pressure, and we had to fill it up) to the Hermanas and we got their van and then we exchanged with Elders. I was with Elder Hudson on bike that day, it was pretty cool, I was actually able to ride this one since I could lower the seat more. His companion is finishing up his mission soon, so that's weird that he's done right as I'm starting. We ran into a random guy when we stopped at a gas station who was like "hey can you guys give me one of those books y'all have" and we gave water to a homeless guy and then kinda just biked around looking for more people to talk to. It was a cool day actually where we talked a lot. We pulled up at this apartment complex looking for a referral and we talked to this lady to ask if she knew this person's address and it turned out she was a member of our church but was just inactive and trying to come back and we were able to help her a little bit. Then we talked to this kid probably my age for like a half hour about what we do and life and stuff and he had some interesting beliefs but he accepted a Book of Mormon.

Then we got back to Elder Hudson's apartment and it was like nearly ten so I called Elder Gonzalez asking if he was on his way to pick me up and he said yeah but told me his foot swoll up like crazy that day from his injuries. We had to go to the hospital the next morning for him to get it checked out and the doctor said it wasn't infected he was just walking on it too much and he needed to rest. So we just stayed inside that day so he could rest his foot. Apparently Elder Gonzalez's mom ordered us pizza but it got sent to the address next door and we knocked like five times and they didn't answer and we couldn't find it

Honestly that day was a break that I needed really badly. I was able to rest, too.

Saturday was good, our friend Angel passed his baptism interview to get baptized on Sunday, and we got our truck back, and its tire pressure was still really bad and we started just going to the gas station every once in a while to fill the tire because we were so busy we had no time to take it into the shop. I think we found the nail that day too.

The Zone Leaders had a baptism for 3 people, which was awesome.

And our ward had trunk-or-treat, Elder Gonzalez and I were given lego dude costumes by Obispo's wife and we had a ton of friends come.

Then on Sunday we had a ton of friends come to sacrament meeting. The day was so stressful with Angel's baptism but it was super cool and his whole family was there.

Then bonus day yesterday, we did exchanges with the ZL's again but this time I was with Elder Steere and this exchange had been planned for a while because Elder Gonzalez needed to go down the hill again for a doctor's appointment. We didn't really have a lot of missionary work, we just did a lot of contacts (just going to people we're teaching and seeing if they're home) and most of them weren't.

We were only able to have one lesson because as we were leaving that lesson we noticed the tire pressure had gone down to 11, and we heard a loud pop and then it was down to 4, and then 0 and we had a flat tire on the highway. We were laughing so hard as we quickly turned on our hazard lights and were able to pull over to a gas station we were actually right next to. We parked and looked at our handiwork and we were trying to figure out how to get started but this truck was really weird. A really nice guy came over and was able to help us. We couldn't actually figure out how to get the jack out of the truck because it had this spot where it goes and it was wedged in there pretty good. So this guy goes and gets his jack but it couldn't lift the truck high enough because it was meant for his van. Then another truck pulls up and it's these three dudes who were probably from a cartel or something cuz they were smoking and calling one of the guys "jefe" (boss) and they gave us logs they were using for firewood to try to lift the truck with the jack and honestly they were kind of a nuisance because they started arguing on how to help us properly. They did figure out how to get our jack out though. It was honestly a funny scene because one of them was definitely drunk and it was freezing cold outside. Eventually they gave up and left. So basically we were able to get the flat tire off because it was flat but we couldn't get the spare tire on because it was full of air. It's a normal tire and it's a little weird. We were gonne go empty it so it'd be flat and then put it on the truck and hobble over to the air pump but the hose to the air pump had been stolen not two days ago apparently so we couldn't do that and we had to lift the truck up more. The first guy who was helping us went home to get us a bigger jack and then it turned out he got the wrong one (it was broken) so he had to go back home again to get the right one. At this point we were just waiting inside the car it was so cold, and then the guy got back with the right jack and it took like two seconds to get the tire on. The whole thing took like two hours. Then we went back home.

And that's my week!

Elder Hanson

Pictures:

Horse

Exchange with Elder Hudson

A destroyed Mr. Potato Head

Angel's baptism (the guy on the right is our Obispo)

That UPS truck parked way too close to us for no reason

Elder Steere and I by our tire

Full moon while we were at the gas station

This was Elder Gonzalez and me at the trunk or treat with the lego hats

October 23, 2023 - 9th Email - Dogs jumpscare

 Hola!

This week felt so long but it also went by really fast which is weird

We started the week with meeting our bishop for the first time. He had been on vacation in Honduras for the last three weeks so it was cool to finally meet him lol

On Wednesday we had zone council at the church building, and we were going to dump ice water on the sister training leaders but we had left the buckets at home so we had to drive all the way back. We find two buckets in the garage and one of them was full of this liquid. I thought it was water so I went out and dumped it in the front lawn but it turns out it was brown paint and it just blended with the bucket color. Luckily our lawn is just rocks so I could flip the rocks over and you couldn't even tell. It's pretty messy though. And then after I tried cleaning it out we were told just to bring the other bucket and ignore that one.

Then that afternoon we did exchanges with bike elders who live in downtown Victorville. The guy I was with was Elder Parry. He's from New York. The bike was wayyyy too tall for me though, even with a lowered seat, so getting on it was really hard, but once I was on it it was fine. We were in a bit of a sketch area but it was still fun. Then Elder Parry's bike popped a tire and we had to go home. I made myself a hamburger and that was fun, and then we did some tracting around where he lives. That evening Brother Brad Wilcox talked to us about missionary work at our weekly missionwide zoom meeting and that was really cool.

Also while we were on exchanges Elder Gonzalez put someone we're teaching on date for baptism so that's really cool. He had an awesome experience where he received an answer to his prayer that he should get baptized.

Thursday we had house cleaning check. That was fun

Friday we had a lesson with a new guy who has been through a ton in his life and he's just really ready to get baptized, the first thing he told us when we met him was he wants to improve his life and he wanted to learn about the church and get baptized. He already knows so much and is really far in the Book of Mormon.

On Thursday and Friday I was able to give blessings and they were both really cool experiences. It's cool to see when you say exactly what somebody needed to hear.

Then Saturday was a wild day. We had a birthday party to go to. One of our guys on date has a younger brother who had a party that lasted until like 2 AM. We obviously weren't there the whole time, we only went to do missionary work anyway. We had to leave to do a lesson but we promised we'd be back later to help him with something. We went to the lesson and then quickly hopped over to a family who had two daughters that were supposed to get baptized yesterday but didn't actually end up getting baptized because of what happened when we went to their house. We usually go during the day and wait to be let in their yard but Saturday we just walked in after the sun was down and Elder Gonzalez got attacked by their two American bullies. They totally ignored me and went straight for him and they tore up one of the pant legs below the knee and gave him a few bites. He then hopped the chain-link fence and the top part of the fence punctured his legs really bad. He ended up in the neighbor's backyard and had to walk through his house to get back around. The fence was flattened and he was limping. He sat down on their bench and the family was helping wrap up his injury and where the fence had poked a hole in his leg there was blood everywhere. The bites weren't terrible. We immediately called the mission nurse after we left and she told us to go to urgent care. So we went to an urgent care (but not after making a quick stop home and missing our freeway exit) but for some reason even though we got there before the posted closing time the door was locked. We just went another 2 minutes over to the hospital. Then we realized "oh wait we promised we'd be over to the birthday party" so we did a quick exchange with the Zone Leaders so we (me and Elder Steere) could go over to that while Elder Gonzalez could stay at the hospital. We did what we needed to do and then just went home. Elder Gonzalez and Elder Jensen didn't get home until like 1 AM. I'm still surprised I didn't get attacked at all. I'm chillin.

Then we got a call from Elder Gonzalez saying that the girls couldn't get baptized. I'll keep it brief saying that some stuff happened where the kids had actually all left and were like an hour drive away. So Sunday morning was stressful. We left our house really early to make sure everything was okay and they were still going to church. Some of the kids had gotten back already and were all ready to go to church, surprisingly. But the other kids weren't, including one of the girls who was getting baptized. And we wanted them both to get baptized together. So that didn't happen because she didn't get back in time. We pushed the baptism to next week. If everything goes to plan, we'll have at least 3 baptisms next Sunday. So that'll be cool.

The problem was because we left the house so early I didn't have time to eat breakfast. I had showered and my companion was like "let's go" and because of church and we had a meeting after that lasted like an hour and a half and then we went to CVS for Elder Gonzalez's antibiotics and so I didn't end up eating anything until like 1:30 PM and I was really hungry. We stayed in the rest of the day so Elder Gonzalez could rest. We did a phone lesson and it went really well, though.

I'm not discouraged though! I'm seeing miracles constantly and hearing so many great things other companionships are doing. We've had so many people in my zone out of commission for sickness or injury and we're still getting so much work done. It's been awesome to see how much we can do when we let the Holy Ghost guide.

Also today we had a cool pumpkin carving activity

And and and I reach a 200 day duolingo streak tomorrow

Pday next week is Tuesday cuz Halloween so that's when my email will be

Okay see you guys next week!

Elder Hanson

Pictures!

-route 66 picture

-Elder Parry exchange

-the paint on the ground

-Elder Gonzalez at the hospital

-just us driving

High Dessert Zone Conference - Victorville, The Hesperia and Apple Valley Zones

 Pictures from Elder Hanson's first Zone Conference.

Sharing his testimony

With President Pinnock

October 16th, 2023 - 8th Email - Zone Conference

 Hola!

A bit happened this week.

We had my first zone conference on Tuesday, so that was cool. The Hesperia and Apple Valley zones were there with us. It was cool because I got to meet friends and previous companions of people in the Victorville zone. I played the piano, and Elder Gonzalez was the chorister, so it turned into a group effort by our zone to teach him how to lead music. We got hot dogs and had classes on how to be good missionaries and stuff, and we all bore our testimonies and it was really cool. It was also cool when everyone that was finishing their mission this transfer bore their testimonies. I was thinking the other day about "can I really do two more years of this" but I saw them bear their testimonies and how they said 24 months ago wasn't that long ago and I really felt like yeah, I've already been out two months, I can do another 22.

Overall though this week didn't have much crazy happen. We just had a lot of really good lessons, some people we're teaching can be frustrating sometimes, but I'm learning to love the people and see them as Christ does, as God's children.

Oh yeah Elder Gonzalez had to go to the doctor on Thursday, we drove down to Redlands and it was honestly just a break for me, I took a nap in the waiting room, and the drive is actually really pretty with epic mountains. The weirdest part was how green the Inland Empire (San Bernardino) is compared to the High Desert (where I am) lol

(The mission is split into 3 areas, High Desert, Inland Empire, and Low Desert)

And don't worry about Elder Gonzalez, he's chillin

Probably the goofiest thing that happened this week was about my mission debit card. So basically we're given money every two weeks to buy food. But when we got to the mission (two weeks ago) everybody had visa cards when we were all supposed to have mastercards. So they couldn't actually give us any money. So we called and were told that the money would be put on our companion's card and he'd just have the money for both of us until we got our cards. So all was fine and dandy until everyone actually got their mastercards, except for me. So we call the office and he's like "yeah I'm sorry but you were the only one who didn't get a new debit card" and he would keep putting my money in Elder Gonzalez's card. This was last week. Then what happened this week was we went shopping and his card declined, which we were surprised by because we hadn't spent much money at all for me (because my groceries were paid for by a random couple the first week and I bought like two things the second week) and so we called the office again and apparently my money actually hasn't been put into Elder Gonzalez's card and the money problem goes all the way up to Salt Lake because the cards have just been not working for people all over the mission, people being given money at the wrong time and then they took it back, it's just all a little goofy and has been an issue for a little bit.

But again I haven't needed to spend much so hopefully I get the money eventually

For a spiritual thought, throughout this week we met families that were struggling a lot, with really difficult problems, and I was thinking about how grateful I am that I have the restored gospel in my life, that I know there's life after death and how reading the scriptures and keeping the commandments brings so many blessings into our lives.

Pictures

-a black widow

-drive pics

-a plane at night that looked really sick in person but less so on camera

-we won cleanest car at zone conference

October 9, 2023 - 7th Email - Tracting from 9 to 9

 Hola!

This week was eventful, but also a lot of the same every day. Just teaching and finding new people, and most of our lessons getting canceled.

On Wednesday we had dinner twice, once with a member and once with a nonmember. I was pretty full.

Oh wait yeah our truck broke down twice this week, and we had to jumpstart it. Luckily it was just in the driveway. So basically in our cars we have this thing called a "tiwi" which just monitors our speed and stuff, and we have to turn it on by putting a card in it every time we get in the car. But for some reason the tiwi wasn't shutting off when we took the card out and it used up all our truck's battery. We called the mission office and they told us to just unplug the tiwi. Don't worry, we still follow the rules.

Even though a lot of our lessons canceled, that's just missionary work. We had a lot of great lessons too, including inviting this one guy to be baptized, and he really wants to. It's great to see people's progression even in just the week I've been here.

But yeah Friday we had like eleven lessons planned and it was supposed to be super busy but over half canceled lol

Also something that's sad is my zone ran out of Spanish Books of Mormon and we just have a huge pile of English ones that we can't hand out to people who don't speak English, when we got restocked on Wednesday we only got the kid ones lol so right now we're surviving on a singular Spanish regular Book of Mormon we can hand out

Okay, about the title of the email.

My mission does this thing the Saturday after General Conference called Thanks Day, where we just spend the entire day finding. (Finding is just when we give a person a Book of Mormon and invite them to do something and set a return appointment). And we did it from 9 am to 9:11:30 pm specifically. I'll explain that in a second. It was a crazy day and we met a ton of people. My zone alone found 71 people. Unfortunately no Spanish :( but it's already gotten me much more comfortable talking to people and I know I couldn't've gotten through that day without the Holy Ghost helping me. We did a lot of exchanges where I went with different missionaries than my companion and I was able to learn a lot, it was a ton of fun actually. But I feel like I need a whole month to recharge before I can tract again.

Spiritual Thought:

So President Pinnock set up a goal of baptisms this month, and he told us the insane goal of 113 baptisms. He said the number just came to his head and he immediately searched the scriptures for something. He found D&C 11:3, which says

"Behold, the field is white already to harvest; therefore, whoso desireth to reap let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God."

And I know this verse was about missionary work. It's been kinda funny how this number has just been popping up everywhere throughout the week. That's why President suggested we stay out an extra eleven and a half minutes on Saturday. He wants us to always have that goal in mind. And I know because of the insane finding day we had on Saturday we'll hit that goal. Even without Thanks Day, last week was the biggest finding week in the whole year in the whole mission. And the 71 people we found was just in our zone. Another zone found 85. Others were in the 40s. Everyone is working hard and pushing others and there's a real excitement going around and it's pretty awesome.

Also I met the ward yesterday at church so that was fun

Ok bye

Elder Hanson

Pictures!

Some cool views, plus an epic picture from Saturday evening with Elder Gonzalez, a big light tower I don't know what it is but it looks cool, 7up

September 29th, 2023 - He made it to his mission

 On September 29th, 2023 Conner flew to his mission in San Bernardino, California. He was assigned to work in Victorville and his companion is Elder Brandon Gonzalez

Unfortunately his last name was misspelled

Some pictures from the Mexico CCM