A chosen baptism...and Exact Obedience brings JOY!

So the other day as we were getting ready and listening to music I started singing along to "If you could Hie to Kolob". There is not a translation in Spanish, so Hermana Ortega started singing along but with the words of "La oracion del Profeta". In this amazing moment of revelation, we discovered that the words of "La oracion del Profeta" totally work with the music of "If you could Hie to Kolob".

We thought our discovery was amazing, so we started singing it to EVERYONE. Members, investigators, people in the street, less actives...everyone. Until last week, when we were in Tuxtla and we visited Hermana I. and her family. We sang it for them, and when we finished, Hermono E. said, "That was pretty cool. It's like a pop version, right?" Oops. apparently we accidentally changed "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" into a punky pop version of the real thing. Yeah..we haven't sung it since.

This week was a week of revelation and escogidos. HERMANO H. FINALLY GOT BAPTISED! He's been ready for about 2 weeks. With the 5 church attendance rule, he had to wait. But, he finally did it! His story is beautiful. He's the most escogido escogido I've ever met. A recent convert in another stake invited him to go church with her, and he found it was exactly what he needed. He has been passing through some really hard times these last few years, and he was just filled when he went for the first time.

 So she sent him to his real ward, but they got the times confused. He arrived at 8am, and our service didn't start until 11! So he jumped in with Jardines at 9. Elder de Jesus found him waiting patiently outside and helped him out. Then at 12 he jumped in with our ward until 2!

Since then he has completed with all of his commitments, gained a strong testimony, and brought his dad and son to church with him. When he was finally baptised, he shared his testimony. He said, "I love my savior, Jesus Christ. I'm here to serve Him. I´m ready to serve you all, and I want to be a faithful member until the last day."

Alma 16: 16 And there was no inequality among them; the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming--
17 That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God.

I can totally see him as a bishop, or even a stake president.

This week was also amazing because I learned something that I hope I will be able to shape my mission and my life around...about exact obedience. My whole mission, it's something I have strived for, worked for, but never have been able to achieve. It's not big things, just little things; like staying a little too long in lunch or going to bed 5 minutes late. But, as we have learned, and as we have taught to all the missionaries in our zone, developing the Christ-like quality of exact obedience in the mission, is essencial to success and miracles in the mission, and for our whole lives. The mostly obedient missionaries will probably be the mostly obedient members, picking and choosing what commandments to follow, and in the end, not having joy, not reaching their full potential, and not reaching all that the celestial kingdom has in store for us. It's a dangerous route.

 10 baptisms for every companionship for this transfer 

because when we put our trust in god HE WORKS MIRACLES

 So I was a little discouraged about this, and I had a little extra time before our 8 o clock study started. I started reading a book President gave me, called "The Journey to the Veil." I read a chapter about how exact obedience is reached by following EVERY prompting, and I mean EVERY prompting from the Spirit. Then, once 8 o clock hit, I started reading in the Book of Mormon in Alma 27. I started thinking about how I could reach the same joy that Ammon felt when he found his friend and fellow missionary. 

Alma 17 Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the earth.

18 Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.

Suddenly, it hit me. Exceeding joy only comes from living righteously, which only comes from exact obedience.... which we can achieve only if we listen and follow and are exactly obedient to EVERY prompting of the spirit...and I mean every prompting. Exact obedience is less about what we should STOP doing, and more about what we should BE doing. When we do something disobedient, the Spirit will let us know. We should start listening to Him, and start doing what He wants us to do. Only when we try to follow the spirit exactly, can we reach obedience exactly.

 
So, I tried it, I put it in practice. And for the fist time in a long time, the Spirit guided my every word in all my lessons that day. We visited Hermano P., our old investigator who dropped us, told us he didn't believe in God and never wanted to see us again. I had NO IDEA what to teach him. How do you teach someone who claims to not believe in God?

I felt the prompting to pray. So I prayed in my head and heart. Then I felt the prompting, open your scriptures, and look to the left. SO I did, and my scriptures fell open to Alma 22. We randomly started reading 13-18. I honestly didn't know exactly what it said. I knew that it was the conversion of the dad of the King Lamoni but I didn't have any idea about the details. As it turns out, the king in the story is in the exact same situation as Hermono P. He really could relate to him. I was amazed at how similar their stories were.
 

We are not perfect. We are never going to be able to be exactly obedient alone. But if we concentrate on following every prompting of the spirit, we will be able to reach it, and experience EXCEEDING JOY. I invite you all to pay very close attention, and follow every prompting from the Spirit you receive...no matter how weird it may be.

Hermana Hansen

 

 

 

How Not to Budget Your Monthly Mission Money :-)

The life of a poor and unwise missionary.....

I imagine that all missionaries come to a point in their mission when they have literally 4 pesos to their name.... but usually people are wise and learn from their mistake the first time.... well this is my second time casi pesoless (almost moneyless) in the mission. 

Fool me once shame on you... fool me twice... shame on me. QUE PENA (what a shame). Ya, well, I'm not kidding I literally have 4 pesos right now. And we don't get our monthly money until next p-day! This happened one other time with Hermana Martinez.  But, it wasn't really our fault because we ended up having to pay for a new stove. 

This time it was just bad planning... I didn't take into account that as senior companion I have to pay for the light, got an eye infection, and my companion has this addiction where she has to buy a new pen at like every papeleria (stationary store) that we pass.

Also, we were lazy and took a lot of colectivos (buses / taxis). So now we are left moneyless for one week, with no money for combis (that means we will be walking a whole lot more), and only with oatmeal, water, hot sauce and a little bit of knock off nutella. Whatever, it's food We can survive. Triste Hermanas. (Sad Sisters)

But, not to worry, we are pro at casually getting members to feed us. For example, last night we went to the house of a less active. Just as we were about to leave, I asked for water, to which she of course replied yes. 

When she opened the fridge, it reminded her of the all natural mango smoothie she had just made, and asked if we wanted some. So we sat down, started to drink our smoothie. I noticed that we had to be back in our house in 5 minutes. So I said, "Oh look at the time! I didn't realize how late it was! Sorry Hermana, is there any way we could take our smoothies to go?" 

So of course she filled an entire tupperware full of smoothie, decided it was way too dark for us to be out walking alone, and since she just happens to be one of the 4 members in our ward who has a car, drove us to our house. Now we will have delicious mango smoothies for breakfast for 3 days!! Ah, the life of a missionary.

We have been working a lot with our recent convert, Hermano J. And he wants to serve a mission!! It's kind of the coolest thing ever, because he says he's been praying every night about whether he should serve a mission or not. 

So he was in our Principles del Evangelio clase (gospel principles class), and we asked what hymn everyone wanted to sing. He just typed in a random number, 169 or something. The hymn was about missionary work! It's called "Predicad al mundo" o algo asi (or something like that).  (english LDS hymn is "go forth with faith" #263)

He took that to be his answer!! He's now super stoked and wants to prepare to leave in a year! And he just got baptized last week! He is such a great example to me! The gospel really has changed his life.

So this week we had 103 people attend church. THAT'S RIGHT. 103. WE BROKE 100!!!!!!!! I'm the happiest girl in THE WORLD. Hermana Juarez and I also did really well with our numbers... which means we worked UN BUEN (a lot). We had the highest number of lessons we've ever had in a week, and just had a lot of success.

We are convinced its because we made a goal to try to be more obedient. It's not like we're disobedient... it's just little things. Like personal study for 5 min over the scheduled time...not completely following the spirit...leaving our house at 12:05 instead of 12. Little things.

But we've really been making an effort to be EXACTLY OBEDIENT. We are nowhere near perfect, but we are working on it. And I really can see how the Lord is blessing us. Imagine how much the Lord can bless us if we do EXACTLY what he says. 

Faith in action is obedience. I never realized that until I came on my mission. But the truth is every single commandment has a specific blessing that God is OBLIGATED to give us. He has to! It's a promise.

La verdad (the truth), when we keep his commandments we are actually more free than we would be if we don't, because the Lord is on our side. 

I challenge you all to find a commandment that you are struggling with, and work to be exactly obedient to this commandment. I PROMISE THE LORD WILL BLESS YOU UN BUEN (a lot). 

I love you all!!! 

Hermana Hansen

Enjoy more photos from Hermana Hansen's week...

Mama C will keep these cute Hermanas fed!

 

 Hermana Hansen sharing her CTR stickers she brought from the US