February 24th, 2025 - 79th Email - I went on the defense guys

 Hey

Week 2 in rialto was pretty wild, met some cool people, had a referral called "infinite videos" (turns out thats the name of bro's youtube channel) and another referal called "un dia sin inmigrantes" (one day without immigrants) who ended up being incredibly solid and came to church the next day and then came to a devotional in redlands and loved it and we goin back on friday

Uhhhh

I taught about the atonement using math so that was pretty cool

Monday was a chill pday we just did normal junk

Tuesday we were supposed to have volleyball night but nobody showed up so we played basketball with our friend on date

So this kid was supposed to get baptized on sunday but there were some problems the first being he needed permission to get baptized because bro is 17 but his cousin that lives in florida has custody over him and he lives with his brother so we have to get that and also bro works hecka and couldnt come to church plus the devotional on sunday had a choir practice before it and basically the entire ward was part of the choir and we couldnt get anyone to come so we just decided

Aight

After lots of thought we are tryna push yo baptism

And it was chillin lol so he gettin baptized this week instead

And two other friends too that have been taught for a while are also getting baptized so thats soups cool

Friday we went on an exchange it was chill with one of the zl's (theyre in different companionships) and i went to the zl's area so it was cool

Saturday we had a fun ward activity for valentines day (a week late lol) with good food and it was chillin

But we got a call saying they were takin our truck away because some bike elders in redlands were strugglin hardcore because the missionaries that picked em up had a rav4 which had like no space for bikes so we got their rav4 now we got hecka nerfed

Also we got hecka ant infestation in our bathroom and we really didnt feel like going to the store so we asked meta ai on facebook what gets rid of ants and one of the things it said was cinnamon so naturally we dumped cinnamon all over our bathroom and it smelled really good but we couldnt use the toilet in a regular fashion so that was rather cumbersome so we ended up caving and taking an emergency walmart run and bought stuff that gets rid of bugs so you can call me the exterminator and now theres significantly less ants but every once in a while one pops up again on our toilet

Sunday was cool we had a seventy visit our ward and he gave a great talk and i bailed out my bishop by playing piano in sacrament meeting cuz our regular pianist didnt pull up and bro was boutta play the hymns on a speaker so i clutched up frfr and had to play a new hymn which isnt on paper so we had to put the sheet music on my phone and a member tried to scroll through it while i was playing but it ended up being me scrolling on his phone while he was holding it lol and i was just playing with my right hand with my left hand reached over my right arm so that was hawkward and i hope it sounded good the seventy thanked me for playing the piano lol

Then that same guy went to the devotional in redlands that was for spanish congregations all over the mission so i saw and talked to members from all of my past areas and they were so happy to see me and i was happy to see them it was pretty epic gaming all around plus we got friends there so it was super cool

Yeah that was my week

Congratulations for reading

Elder Hanson

Pickchas

-limo at a gas station

-circular basketball court

Hey

February 17th, 2025 - 78th Email - When it rains it pours

 Hey

Another week and another transfer

Someone roped me back into society im out of borrego springs and back in the city

Right next to san bernardino is the lovely suburb of rialto

Its literally just like san bernardino but with very little industrial areas and just entirely houses

Which you know after living in a pretty desolate place for four months is kinda refreshing

My new comp is elder barlow hes from south jordan utah (this is now 6/10 companions from utah, 7 if you count elder pizarro but he only lived in utah for like a year and a half before coming out) and he is super cool i actually served with him when he first came out on his mission and its cool to see how much hes grown since especially with his spanish

Anyway

Ima miss borrego springs so much as much as i rag on it being the middle of nowhere that little branch has a very special place in my heart and being there you really just felt that sense of identity lol theyre the teeny salton sea branch and theyre proud of it and the area will continue to grow for sure

Monday we did our second weekly noche de hogar (family home evening) and we played the very popular game loteria (mexcian bingo) and we brought some frends so it was really good and we also got yelled at by some guy because we knocked on his door (we got an english class referral from his house) and he went all like "im going to have to ask you to leave and never come back" and he goes on about a story where missionaries went up to his dads house and his dad was climbing a tree and the missionaries were like "hey you wanna hear a message" and the guy was like "no im working" and the missionaries were like "itll only take a couple minutes" and then thats literally the whole story the guy was upset that the missionaries couldnt be patient while his dad was working and so he got all mad at us and kept saying "you guys did this" and "you guys did that" and "that was the worst thing you guys did" and i was like

Well

That wasnt us lol

We're completely different dudes

But bro wouldnt listen to reason kinda L interaction lowkey

Uhhhh

Tuesday we did some stuff that first half of the week was lowkey a blur but we were running around doing a ton of visits and lessons and we were late to a couple lol but its okay the friends that came to the fhe on monday were super interested (and they even came to church on sunday! I followed their information before i left the area) and we had a great lesson with em

Wednesday was sad cuz we found out who was leaving (me) and we went around and said bye to everybody and our member was begging us to ride in her tesla so we did lol and it was pretty cool ngl

Took me forever to pack too cuz we had morning lessons and were in and out of the house all day and i have so many blankets now it was really hard to stuff all of my bedding in a bag lol

Then thursday was actually transfers and elder taylor was also transfered from the english area so we drove up together it was pretty chill but it rained like the entire way up (even down in the desert) (1 hr 40 min drive) and we were riding in a truck and i was naturally the most intelligent being in the world and put my bag with all my bedding in the truck bed so we get to the mission office and all my stuff is absolutely soaked which is like ok whatever ill just dry it when we get to my new apartment

Transfers was pretty good tho im really excited for my new area and im around some other really dope missionaries

We live with the missionaries in the samoan speaking ward which has an area that goes outside of the mission which is kinda crazy it stretches out to nearly LA (that part is in the arcadia mission) and goes down south pretty deep into the riverside mission and all the way to yucaipa in the east (which is still our mission) its just a really weird area

Im also district leader again

Anyway so we get to our apartment complex (and the turn into our apartment complex is like super tight i totally passed it like twice already) and elder barlow was there waiting for me and elder nelson to pull up and bro goes "oh yeah our dryer is broken" and my honest reaction to that information was something along the lines of  because my sheets were soaking wet but then he brought up an important piece of lore that we actually live in the same apartment complex as the zone leaders (there are 8 missionaries in total in these apartments) so i took my wet sheets to wash over at their place and it was chill luckily my blankets didnt get wet cuz they were wrapped inside my sheets in the bag so they had some cushion from the water

We hopefully have a baptism coming up this week our friend daniel is cool and wants to get baptized so it should be chill hes pretty young idk how old he is lol but yeah

Anyway it kept raining super hard like all day the roads were flooded really bad and i wore my puffer jacket and that thing is pretty big so when we visited this one friend to introduce ourselves the lady was like "what are you doing out there its pouring" and she said she was busy so we went back the next day and it wasnt raining the next day so i didnt wear my puffer and she was like "are you the same guy as yesterday" (i mean i guess it was pretty dark) and i was like yeah and she said "i thought you were fatter" and i was like lol it was probably the jacket

Anyway at first i thought it was just because of the rain but drivers here are absolutely terrible any day of the week we got in a car accident on sunday and 1 near-accident and witnessed like 5 other near accidents all in my first 4 days of being here

The accident wasnt that bad we were driving home from a baptism (which was really good btw even tho i was messing up on the piano fr lol) and we were about to take a turn like right next to our house (not even a minute away) and so it was kinda frustrating but nothin bad happened to the car a part was pushed out a little bit next to the front left wheel bht we dont really have to worry about it because the mission department will take care of all the legal stuff so everything should be all good

My ward is cool its called the rialto 4th ward (we call it r4) and the people in the ward are kind of funny i translated a talk at church for a guy from fiji (no i dont speak fijian he spoke in english lol) and i also led the music and we sang ill go where you want me to go for the closing hymn and bro stopped playing after we sung the 3rd verse and we were all super confused and i turned around and looked at him like "why did you stop" and bro just raised his hands like "thats it" and then the bishop had to be like "the chorus" for him to realize the song wasnt over so that was awkward lol

Our ward mission leader is from brazil and when i said i was from orlando he was like "holy cow theres a lot of brazilians in orlando id love to move to Florida" and i was like yup there sure are lol hes super cool and speaks spanish with a portuguese accent which lowkey makes it sound like hes speaking french

Alright that was my week lol

Picture time!

-the damage

-us in the rain

-cool tree

-me and chris (hes in the salton sea branch)

Alright thats the file limit lol ill send some other ones next time because i got a couple more see you guys next week

February 10th, 2025 - 77th Email - I got sick

Hey

So ive been in borrego for 4 months now and we boutta see if im dippin or nah

Transfers really do be this week and im honestly expecting to get transfered cuz this has been my third transfer here and it seems to be how the cookies been crumblin with me going 3 transfers in every area so we'll see when we find out who leavin on wednesday which is wild

Anyway

This week was lowkey weird because i got sick

I woke up last monday with a pretty sore throat but i was chillin until tuesday when i woke up like dying

It was your average stuffy nose and cough but it had me dyin for like four days

I slept a lot which was kinda W but we still worked

And we exchanged with some of the boys in the district on wednesday just for fun i went with elder carwin down here hes a pretty cool guy

I was still dying tho even on the exchange but its ok i survived

But thursday and friday i was pretty sick and just needed to nap so on thursday i got to sleep during zone council (skipping meetings is kinda a w) and then friday was our deep cleaning day of the house anyway so that was fun

Our recent convert Karla's son got surgery and he's been recovering

Monday we also had our first fhe since last summer which was super cool for the branch lots of people showed up for the 1st weekly salton sea branch noche de hogar and we're hoping the second one is just as good

The branch was super happy about us starting it up again so i think thisll be really good, had like 15ish show

Also our most progressing friend got back from mexicali after 2 weeks of being out of commission because bro had an unexpected job opportunity and had to go back and then he ate some bad shrimp and went to the hospital and so hes feeling better and was able to come back and we chillin and he learning and hungry for more so this is epic

Also a guy we met a while back because elder harris rang this giant bell sitting outside his house and was super chill but then his mom didnt let us back even tho bro is like 22 like a month ago reinvited us back and they want to come to fhe and they are really interested so thats cool

Not really much else lol getting sick does things to ya and im pooped

Talk to you guys next week probably from a different location

No pics this week oops lol i was too sick ig

February 3rd, 2025 - 76th Email - I want it to rain again

 So this week was interestin

We started by doing hecka contacting monday evening wasnt anything special

Uhhhh

Tuesday we had a guy show us his collection of roosters that he sells for fighting in mexico which is pretty funny it was super cool too he was telling us what makes a good rooster and the breeding ones were super expensive so that was neat and they were super chill with people too its just amongst each other i guess theyre naturally disposed to fight so theyre kept in their own cages each but the female chickens were chill to just roam around together

Then later that evening we were chillin with an older lady and she was telling us kinda her life story and we gave her a blessing (lowkey really needed it) but shes been a member for a couple years and it seemed like every time she tried to come to church something bad would happen literally like it was insane for the last four weeks we've been tryna get her to church and she finally came and it was awesome we got her a ride from a member and she loved being there for the first time in a while

Wednesday we had a referral but it didnt have an address (well it did but it didnt exist) so we went knocking around on the street trying to find someone but we couldnt lol but this other lady Irene answered the door and was lowkey interested and shes super cool and studies a lot of the scriptures ans stuff and is eating up what we're teaching her it was super cool

Then that night we went to our friend angel's place and he was changing the oil in his car so we helped him out (well elder harris did the dirty stuff) and it was pretty chill we were there pretty late but its ok he learned a great deal

Ok there was some goof lol

We went to the temple on friday (which was awesome btw i always love going to the temple) and then we had president interviews on thursday

Now we normally have zone council on thursday

But they decided to put zone council on a different day than pres interviews so they said we'd do it tuesday

And then they said nevermind we'll do it wednesday

And so we were like great three days in a row of being out of our area lol

But then they just put zone council to the same day as interviews so it wasnt as bad but idk why they changed it in the first place lol

Interviews went well and we took a good nap afterwards

Like i said temple was awesome

Ended up having a lot of time out of the area cuz of that

Saturday i exchanged with my district leader's companion and went up to palm desert to hang out with elder luna it was a good day cleaned this guy's windows and had some good lessons got ice cream it was a good exchange elder luna is a dawg

Sunday was pretty awesome we had 8 nonmembers at church and 32 people there in total which is an all time high for the spanish branch attendance

Although class was kinda rowdy none of the kids paid attention lol

After church was good too we went to borrego to see a baptism and it was really special and i took a fat nap on the drive there

Gave more blessings that evening and elder ogden (who we live with) spent a lot of time baking 25 layers of cake for a zone challenge that we did and we ended up eating it for pday

Anyway that was basically my week it was really good and lot of fun stuff happened go to the temple often because its great

Pics!

-i dont think anyone lives there

-mountains

-elder harris under a car

-temple