Gender Reveal

Hello, Sister Holli here... So, we found out the gender of our baby last week. So Zella and I sent off a letter to Auntie Taryn to share the fun news! I had Zella color a little picture, then I put PINK confetti in the envelope with my letter and an ultrasound picture with a little pink flower on it. Then came the waiting every so patiently to hear from Taryn this week... Well she had her companion video opening it:) I love her reaction. I also love how she holds the ultrasound upside down... haha.. She was really convinced it was going to be a boy, actually ALL of her family thought it was a boy too. She even told me, "I just can't see myself coming home to a niece, I just keep picturing a nephew." Well it looks like she will be happy about another niece anyway:)

So here is her letter from this week, and the fun video:)

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
This week has been a pretty amazing week!
The first exciting thing is that I found out what my sister is having!
I will attach a video so that y'all can be as surprised as I was! I am
so excited! I can't wait until it is born! Even though i won't be
there I know that I will love it so much!

This week I wrote 7 things about our investigator Bladimir...
#1 He drives a motorcycle
#2 He is my "Frem"! (This how he spelled friend!)
#3 We have to play mad gab with all the texts he sends us
#4 He always asks, "están molestando?" NO!!!!!
#5 He prayed for his friend Arturo!
#6 He really needs to cut his hair...
#7 He is Elect! We are going to baptize him this transfer!
Well, Bladimir has been doing really well and hopefully we can get him
baptized soon. It is just a lot of guilt from his past. He feels like
he isn't ready. He says that he loves coming to church and that we are
his only frems. For one of our lessons this week he rode his moto in
the rain, which is really dangerous! He could have told us that he
couldn't make it but he came anyway! He loves feeling peace when he is
around us! He came to church again on Sunday! He was able to
understand mostly everything that we do this time! He is so awesome!

Our next investigator is Boni! We haven't been able to see him for the
past week... we were supposed to see him last Monday but Hermana
Killian got really sick and we had to go home. Also his phone was
broken so there was no way for any of us to get a hold of him. Then we
planned to see him Saturday and at church on Sunday, but he got called
into work. Satan is really working! Can't he just take a day off?

We have an investigator named Jenny who used to be the Elder's, but
became ours because they could never find her husband home. Her
husband is a member of the church. She is totally prepared to hear the
gospel! It has been hard for us to see her because we could never find
her home. We finally were able to see her on Sunday and set up
appointments for this week. So we hope to be able to get all of the
lessons done so that she can be baptized of Feb 12!

The last investigator we are really working on is a little girl named
Lily. Her mom was a member a while back and both of her siblings are
baptized. She is nine years old. We went over last night to ask if we
could start teaching her and her mom actually asked us first! Cool
right?! We hope to reactivaste the family!

So it looks like we could possibly have 4 baptisms this transfer!
Which is amazing because I haven't had one yet! I am really excited
for all of these people!

This week I had my first exchange! I was with a Tongan sister named
Sister Hosea! She was super awesome! She really helped me with
contacting. She would contact people who said they only spoke Spanish
and then pass them off to me. I knew I didn't have a companion to fall
back on so I had to do it! It was amazing! The gift of tongues is
real!

2 really funny things! So we go to a Chinese restaurant every once and
a while with a recent convert, Humberto. So the first time we end my
fortune cookie said, "You will find good fortune in love!" WHAT!!!!! I
am a missionary! That will not happen! The second fortune is,
"Children's laughter, so beautiful to hear, soon will be a chance to
have them very near!" First love, then kids!  I feel like these
fortunes should go to my companion who will be going home soon! Not me
who has been out for a little over 2 months! OK, second funny thing!
Every person out here literally thinks that my name is Hermana! I went
to pick up my medication at the CVS pharmacy and she asked me for my
last name, so I pointed to my name tag and said Hansen. Finally she
said, "I am sorry, there is no prescription for Hermana Hansen." Ugh!
"No it is for Taryn Hansen..." I said. "Oh! You are picking it up for
someone!" I didn't want to argue so I said yes and gave her my fist
name. I then had to sign a paper saying that I was picking up this
prescription for Taryn Hansen... Who would name their child Hermana?
Funny right!

Entonces, es todo! Nos amo mucho! Nos vemos la próxima semana!

Notice Your Blessings

Remember if you would like to send Hermana Hansen a letter this is her address...

1305 Marshall St. #101

Redwood City, CA  94063

*She can also receive packages at this address

If you would like to send her an email her address is... taryn.hansen@myldsmail.net

Here is her letter from this past week!

This week has been a little harder than the past few weeks. And when I

say a little harder, I mean a lot harder. This week started out really

slow compared to last week. We would make plans for the day and they

would all go down the drain! There was no one to teach!

Right now we only have two progressing investigators. And only a few

other people that might be interested. What we would do all day to try

to find people to teach is go through our area book and our list of

less actives, but we still had no success. We went on many walks

trying to find people who might be interested and still could find no

one to teach! It was really discouraging.

Yesterday, when we marked down the last of our lessons this week we

noticed that even though it felt like a hard week we had taught 18

lessons! Which is amazing! It made me realize that we need to be

grateful for the blessings that we can't see. Even though we only

taught a few short lessons each day we were able to add those us to 18

people who we made happier that day. I learned that I should not be

discouraged if our day is not as successful as the day before, because

I am still doing the Lords work and I am still working as hard as I

can, so I will receive his blessings!

Last week right after emailing we went over to the Bojórquez families

house for dinner. They have his tradition of having the missionaries

eat jaboneros... I had to eat one! It is like I tad to, but they kept

saying that I had to. It was terrible! I didn't know hoe to eat it so

I ate it like a strawberry leaving the top off. Then they freaked out

that I didn't eat the whole thing and made me eat the other half!!!!!

It was nuts! It felt like I was on fire! But now I can officially say

that I have eaten a jabonero, and how many people can say that they

have done that?

We have a new investigator named Boni. He came to church this week and

said that he really liked it. I feel like we are going to get far with

him. He seems really prepared to receive the gospel in his life.

Update on Bladimir :) We had a lesson with him about the 10

commandments. He was wondering about the 4th commandment which is to

keep the sabbath day holy. He asked if he had to get work off on

Sunday and we explained that it is better if he did get Sunday's off

but it was ok if he didn't. He then stated, (in Spanish of course!)

"if the Lord says hat I need Sundays off I will te them off!" Amazing

right?! He is so amazing! We also taught him the law of chastity which

was pretty funny. Hermana Killian explained it short and simple...

then the most dreaded thing happened! He said, "como? No entiendo!"

Which means he didn't understand! She tried to explain it more and

thankfully the spirit helped him understand! We didn't know what we

were going to do if he didn't understand!

That is all folks! I love y'all so much and I encourage y'all to

continue doing what is right! Obedience to the gospel brings blessing!

Nos Vemos!

Hermana Hansen

Lots of Hard Work

Hola! Como Están?

This past week has been a ton of hard work! But it has all payed off! :)

We have a list of people who are less active and we have been stopping
by there houses ever since I have gotten here. Every single house that
we have knocked on has been either they aren't home or they don't live
there anymore. For some reason we have had a lot of success this week!

The first people that we were able to find are the 2 Maria's! A mother
and a daughter. They are less active and we shared a message with
them. We found out that a meme bee stops by every week to invite them
to church, but has had no success :( We are going to try and
re-activate them.

The next person that we found is a guy named Boni. He was not the
person we were looking for, but he was really interested. We found out
that his sister in Mexico is Mormon. We have had two brief lessons
with him and he wanted to come to church on Sunday, but he didn't end
up coming. We gave him a BOM and he said that he would read it. So
hopefully he does.

The last person on the list that we found was a cute family. I am not
sure of there last name but the mom's name is Fabiola. She went
inactive years ago and her nine year old daughter has not been
baptized. Lily knows a ton about religion she loved sitting and
talking to us and had a ton of insights! We hope to baptize her as
well!

We received a referral this week for a woman named Patricia. She has
three children and seemed really interested. She and her husband were
really nice and listened to what we had to say. We have a return
appointment on Wednesday! I am really excited!

This week we decided to help Arturo with his family history. We tried
doing it by ourselves with no success. We came back when people were
working and they had no success! We are still going to dig some more.

I tried sushi for my first time! We didn't have a dinner set up and so
Hermana Killian suggested sushi. I said yes only so that I could tell
Taci that I tried sushi! It is actually really good. I suggest if you
don't like fish get ones with crab, it is cooked and less fishy
tasting!

Friday we did a ton of work! We taught a total of 7 lessons! Two
people we taught were people that we had contacted the day before.
Jose, which we don't know if it will go anywhere, and Watson. He is
this cute old man from Fiji! He has a hard time remembering things and
won't give us his number so we also don't know how far things will go
with them.

One thing that we found out this week is that Bladimir is spelled with
a V and that it is his middle name. His real name is Ramon! He says
that Ramon is ugly! We taught him the plan of salvation and he started
crying when we told him that he could see his grandma again! He also
came to church yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were so excited! The only
problem we encountered was taking the sacrament. In the Catholic
Church you have to earn the taking of the sacrament and he felt like
he hadn't earned it. We finally convinced him to take it. We had a
short lesson afterwards about the Sacrament. Also after our lesson
with him he said the closing prayer for his first time by himself! We
were really surprised because it was amazing! We wanted to ask him if
he had been practicing but we didn't. His baptism date is set for Feb.
24. We are going to try to push that so it can be a little sooner, but
we didn't feel like we should push them then.

This has been my week this week. Le amo mucho! Adiós por un otro semana!

The Real Deal, Service, Bladimir's Baptism, and Maggots!

Hola mi familia y amigos!

This week I had my very first contacting! I was so proud of myself when I gained the confidence to say hello to a lady walking her dog! I was then really sad when she turned her head away and walked a little faster just to get away from us... :( It is hard sometimes to realize that the gospel you love and want to share with others is not wanting to be accepted on the other end.

I had my first service opportunity this week at the Saint Anthony's Catholic Church! We got to serve food to the poor people that live around here. It was so much fun to talk to all the Hispanics in Spanish and have there eyes widen, and asking "you know Spanish?" It did turn down hill after they tried to have a full on conversation with me, and I had know idea what they were saying. To all those people learning Spanish, smiling and nodding usually works.

John, The Real Deal! Who is this you might ask! He is a Jazz singer, who is apparently famous! We met him while trying to contact a family. He was so nice and gave us all of his CD's. It made both me and my companion sad that we can't listen to them. I will have to send them home and have my family tell me if they are any good. We hope to be able to find him again and teach him that we can be with his wife again! We are probably going to pass him onto the English Elders though.

After being in California for over two weeks now I finally got to go to the beach! We went for Language study and played eye-spy in Spanish! It was so beautiful, but so cold!

Bladimir finally set his baptismal date! He is scheduled to be baptized on January 28th. We just need him to come to church. We was going to yesterday, but didn't end up coming :( We hope that we can get him prepared in time. I am so excited for him to feel happy again and have all of his sins washed away! If he is baptized he will be my first baptism. And another cool thing is that I will have taught him all the lessons!

This week I was fasting for Arturo because he has not been able to come to church because of his job. I fasted that he would be able to this week and somehow he was able to ! We were coming in the building for Sacrament Meeting and he was standing right in front of us! It surprised us so much! I was so happy! It just goes to show that fasting does work! I love this gospel so much!.

In the Hispanic Culture they have a tradition every year on New Years Eve to eat 12 grapes. And with these 12 grapes you make 12 wishes for the new year. Here are mine!
#1 I wish to find good in everyone I meet
#2 I wish for a nephew
#3 I wish for Bladimir to be my first baptism
#4 I wish to read the BOM all the way through in Spanish
#5 I wish to maintain my weight (Hispanics feed us way too much!)
#6 I wish to not get stressed while driving
#7 I wish to baptize someone from Guatemala
#8 I wish to like spicy food
#9 I wish to be transferred to Greenfield
#10 I wish all my family will be safe
#11 I wish to meet someone from Costa Rica
#12 I wish to learn how to roll my 'rr's

The last thing you all have been waiting for... MAGGOTS! We had just gotten home from grocery shopping today, and we were putting stuff away in the cupboards. We had moved aside a container of oatmeal when we saw something fall! Maggots! Maggots were in the oatmeal! So disgusting! They were then on the counter! And in the cupboards! It was disgusting! We then had a cleaning out of our whole kitchen! Ugh! I hate maggots! GROSS! On the bright side I made Cincinnati Chili (after we cleaned our whole kitchen, of course!)

That is all for this week! I love you all and wish you a happy new year!

Rio, Bladimir, and CHRISTMAS!

I have been a huge slacker! It is hard to keep up on everything you need to do during the Holidays. It is just such a busy time:) This is the email Taryn sent us last Monday, the day after Christmas. We got to skype with her and it was so much fun to talk to her! In her letter she talks about some exciting news that we told her while we were video chatting. The secret is out... We are expecting! So Taryn will be gaining a niece or nephew this coming June! It was so fun to tell her the good news:)

So here is her letter, and hopefully I will get her coming letters on here quicker  in the weeks to come!

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

This week has been a fabulous week full of miracles!

First of all we lost our phone on Monday night... We lost it within an hour time span. We had it before dinner, but didn't have it after dinner. We looked everywhere and called everyone but it was no where to be found. We spent all day Tuesday with out a phone which was pretty hard. Finally we were able to go up to the mission office on Wednesday to get a new phone. Elder Cole set us up with a new phone and put the same number on it. Instantly after handing the new phone over to us we started to get really weird texts from people! We had to keep texting them back and saying that they had the wrong number! Then we started getting calls from some lady who said she was stranded on the street with the car and that we needed to give the phone to some guy named Rio... We tried to tell her that this was not Rio's phone, but she wouldn't listen. She told us to give his phone back because apparently we stole his phone. It was really scary for the first two days we had our phone because we didn't know who we were going to hear at the other end of the phone call! Rio apparently stole our phone somehow and was able to give all of these people his "new number". Rio is totally our new bud!

The biggest miracle that happened this week was when we went to go and get an oil change. We were doing language study while waiting for our car when a person came and sat next to us. His name is Bladimir. We started to talk to him and eventually it got around to talking about the gospel, of course! He had a ton of questions and he said that we could come and teach him. We taught him the next day, and continued to have a ton of questions. We totally think that Heavenly Father has been preparing him to hear the gospel. It is no coincidence that we decided to go and get our oil changed that day and that he would be there too. We gave him a church tour on Saturday with a member, and it turned out that he went through the same experiences that Bladimir is going through right now! Hermano Bojorquiz said that we were inspired to bring him to the church tour! I think it is amazing how our Heavenly Father just puts thoughts into our brain that we don't think are inspired but turn out to be!

Christmas was this week as well! On Friday we had a Christmas party with the whole mission! We were able to go and have this fabulous and fun talent show! Then we watched a  movie! Guess what movie! "Forever Strong!" I was so surprised that was one of the choices! It was so fun to watch it with a ton of missionaries who laugh at everything!

We made cookies on Christmas Eve with Arturo, A recent convert!. We delivered them around to families in the ward and also some in-active families! It was a ton of fun to be able to bring light the light of Christ to others!

We began our Christmas by getting together with the Tongan and Samoan sisters and opening all of our presents together! It was fun to do it in front of other people! We had church and Arturo was able to come! He usually works on Sundays but he didn't yesterday! The only sad thing was that Bladimir, who we invited didn't come. We think it might take some time for him to feel comfortable enough to come. One of the best things about Christmas was that I got to speak with my family over Skype! I also found out a secret which I cannot reveal at this time! It was fun to see everyone! We also went Christmas Caroling later in the day! It was so much fun!

I love you all so much and hopefully next week I will have a ton more miracles to share with you!

California Necklace I gave her...

New Kitty Socks

Missionary Christmas Morning!