✊🏿LovestThouMe🫰

 Decided to switch it up today, if thou Lovest me feel free to hit me up in email.

Sorry I didn't get an email out last week. We were just a little busy for Pday so I didn't  get a chance to send one. We went to Mukdahan for last pday which was way chilll. We went with our investigator who was one date and we had a fun day. I was able to  get some fire fabrics for neckties so that's always fire.

This last week I was fortunate to exchange with the Goattttt,  Elder Tripoli. He's one of the few Filipinos left, and sadly he's going home this transfer so possibly one of my last times exchanging with a filipino. We had a pretty cool miracle as well. We decided to bike a few kilos out of nakhon phanom to go check out the University. Over at the University there's this crazy cool government building that I'll  put a photo of   later.  We decided to go and take a look at it. When we the top of the stairs one of the workers there was like "Hey Elders". Very confused we were like how do you know the elders. Turns out he was a Member in Sakon Nakhon before who moved to Nakhon Phanom for work a while back. We had a chance to exchange facebooks and pray with him before we go so hopefully we'll be seeing him again this next week.

Another cool thing is that for like the next 3 weeks there's a baptism scheduled in Nakhon Phanom and there was a lady of the other elders who got baptized this week. This area is truly soo blessed and I hope I have the opportunity to be here another transfer. We got transfers next week though so I'll guess we'll see.

Just want to end off with a lil Spiritual thought here

I'm not gonna write out the scriptures cuz I got to get to bed but this last week I've been reading about having Christ as our foundation.
Jesus's comparison of the wise man and the foolish man in 3 Nephi 14:24-28 (Or something like that) is of great importance for our lives. As Helaman answered in Helaman 5:12 We must build our foundations off of the Rock of our Redeemer who is Christ the Lord. One might wonder though how is it that we build our foundation upon Christ the Lord. I feel like there are a multiple of ways but one which stands out to me is from Alma 31:5. This verse highlights how the effect of the preaching of the word had more of an effect on the people than the sword. While there are many ways to receive the preaching of the word of God. One way we can start is through consistent, diligent study of the scriptures which are literally the word of God through prophets and Apostles.

"Do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way" "The way is prepared, and if we look we may live forever"

🍆Tortang Talong😋

 Hey everyone,

This week I had the opportunity to have a great dish called Tortang Talong from the Phillpines. a Filipino elder here made it and it's pretty good. Basically, you take an eggplant, boil it, and then put in some meat and vegetables and stuff. Then you fry it. I did not have the highest expectations as I have never had eggplant before, but it was honestly pretty good. 

This was pretty chill though. Not actually very cold even though it's supposed to be cold season, and we live right next to a river. This week was the first week we had church at our new building though. It was soo amazing. Our mission President, President Kanyaphan and his wife came out to be there for the opening of the building. Super blessed and miracle-filled Sunday. We ended up having 47 people in total, 13 of which were friends one of our 2 companionships are teaching. 

For this week I'm just to go through some of the people we had the chance to teach this last week. 

Our first amazing Poosonjai is P Gob. P Gob has a shop where he fixes devices. We've stopped by to teach him like every other day since I got here. We've recently got through all the lessons. Since he has started learning with the missionaries for the past month or so he has read up to Helaman in the BOM and he just finished reading Matthew in the Bible. He undesrtands so well and this we were blessed to help him have a goal to receive Baptism on February 1st. He is soo amazing and can't wait to see his faith grow more. 

Another person we've started teaching these last 2 weeks is named Yada. She's around 19 and she was one of the first referrals I called when I got to Nakhon Panom. We were able to take one of our new members who is 21 and they're now good friends. We've taught her online this past week as she lives around 30 minutes out of the city. She has read all the pamphlets we've given her, and has started reading the Book of Mormon. We were blessed this past Saturday tho because the Senior missionaries, Elder and Sister Stennet, have a car and were able to take us out to her house to visit this Saturday. We had a spiritually filled lesson. She shared how she felt we were an answer to her prayers, and then another miracle came when we found out she's thinking about trying to be a nurse. Sister Stennet used to be nurse and was able to share some insights and give her contact information if she needs help with anything. We were also to meet with Yada's family who is very Buddhist and not interested letting her come to church. However, they're fine with us teaching her. Please pray for Yada to be able to come to church in the future as it would be an amazing opportunity for her. 

We honestly have quite a few more people we're teaching who came to church, but I want to just finish off with 2 more.

One is named Ping Pong. He is a middle-aged English teacher and he's so lit. Both of his sisters have been baptized, one in the last month. He has been learning with the Missionaries for a lil bit now, and he has a testimony of prayer and other things he's seen. He's also on the last step where if he feels ready he could be baptized this month. We're hoping we can help him prioritize scripture study and feel ready to enter into his first covenant with God.

Our last guy I want to talk about is P Dthou. Saturday Night at almost 9 pm we were heading to our bikes after just finishing a lesson at the walking street. As we got to our bikes to head back I was about to hop on but I saw this guy walking down the stairs so I figured I would start talking with him first. I greeted him and just chatted with him a bit and he started asking a bunch of questions about what we're doing here. I was able to give a lil rundown of missionaries and asked him if he's free tomorrow morning. He said he didn't have anything in particular because he recently left his job. I invited him to church and after a little hesitation he said he might go and we exchanged Facebooks. I wasn't too sure if he was seriously gonna pull up, but then when we got home he had already messaged on the Facebook and asked for the Church location. Sure enough, the next morning a little after the meeting had started he pulled up. This was really just such a cool miracle for me, and double bonus was sister kanyaphan talking with him and helping us get him to agree to a follow up appointment this week. He also told us he will be coming to English Class.

I love Nakhon Panom and I love all the amazing opportunites I've had on my mission so far. I hope you all had an amazing Holiday Season and Thank You for all the amazing people that reach out to me. 

For my spiritual Thought I'm gonna share a scripture I think we could all abide by.

Jacob 6:12

12. O be wise; what can I say more?

Some flics

🎄Merry Christmas🎁

 Merry Christmas everyone,  

I haven't been able to send an email in 2 weeks because we had the Dam Christmas Zone conference. haha and by that I mean we had Christmas at a Dam. I got to return to Khon Kaen after only being gone like a week. We had a great Zone conference on Wednesday. Wednesday was the first time since visa work that I got to see my MTC district. Sooo chill to be able to talk to all of them again and get flicked up. We had a super spiritual zone conference, followed up by a talent show. Honestly a lil better than I thought considering there weren't any props or things to use. The end of the day we had white elephant. Our max was 100 baht which made it a lil hard. I ended up just grabbing a piggie bank and then throwing in a bunch of the 25% and 50% baht coins. I got away with a pacoma tho which is like one of the little thai fabrics we wear around our waist. Then we finished off the night with a nativity. A lil scuffed because we were in a parking lot. 

Next day we had Zone Pday, sooo fire. We played a bunch of Ultimate Frisbee and I also got in a little spikeball. Sadly there was no basketball courts for this Pday, we did get to go to a Thai Buddhist temple tho before we went back to our areas. Sadly I might've gone to it like 3 weeks ago for our last pday in Khon Kaen haha

For a little more spiritual experience this week, we had a cool find with this guy named Conran. We were finding at the walking street and we said hi to this ฝรั่ง. We started up a conversation with him and he liked a lot of our beliefs. When we shared about the Book of Mormon with him, he talked about how his dad wasn't part of our church  but that he had always believed Joseph Smith was a prophet. He was very happy to see we don't really use crosses scripture or churches because, his words, "I like to focus more on the ascension of Jesus  Christ". He also doesn't believe that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the same person. After a great conversation with him we were able to meet up with him again the day after and teach him before he goes off to Laos. This was a super cool miracle and even though we are sending him to missionaries in the UK I hope he's able to change his life after this. He was very interested in making changes to his life. 

Overall, it's pretty weird I've been gone for a whole year and this is my 2nd Christmas as a missionary. I'm on the downward slope now though so by next year I'll be celebrating Christmas at home again. I've been super blessed to be back near my greenie area for Christmas time though, and thankfully here it's actually kinda cold and they have up a lot of Christmas  stuff. 

I love you all so much and I hope you all have an amazing Christmas. I'm so grateful for this time to Focus on the  Savior  and help others feel his love.

Elder Hansen

A Lonely Child

 Hello everyone,

Sorry for the long wait. My poor son is being abandoned already. I'm am on my way to Nakhon Panom and I'm leaving him to fight for himself in Khon Kaen. 

Haha, he has a stepdad  to look after him though, so he'll prolly survive.

These last two weeks have been pretty crazy. We've had a lot of different things happen but I don't have my journal so I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to remember haha

First thing, last Pday I didn't get the chance to send an email because we went vacationing with Sister Eggo. We rented a Song Teo (Which is like a big truck with a long back with two rows of seats to sit on) And then we went to this Buddhist Temple with this massive Buddha tha's on top of a mountain. The view was so pretty. After that we went to this resturauant with hammocks and a cool view of this massive lake. I'm gonna have a good opportunity to see it at the Dam next week when we have the Christmas Zone Conference next week. After that we went to the National Park that's got another crazy view with all these crazy rocks. One of them had a wild name, imma put it in Thai, หำตั้ง. If you wanna know view at your own discretion. Sadly was not able to climb it or it would've been a fire flick.  We finished off by coming back to the church and having our In Person district conference. 

Other than that nothing too crazy happened last week, we had some fire appointments with our investiagors. We've been blessed these past few weeks with some really good referrals that we've been able to teach at the church.

Since this was my last sunday I also had the opportunity to be a speaker. I invited all of our friends to come on time to hear me speak. Some told us it was too early and wouldn't be able to come but Saturday night I had a solid confirmation from 7 to 8 people that they would be free and be coming to church. The big moment, and Sadly came through with just 1.

At least one person got to hear my talk though 🥰

Then, this last week I finally got transfer news that I was moving. Had to have one final dinner with the members and friends. Khon Kaen has truly been such a blessed area. I'm so grateful for the 4 months that I was able to have here. Khon Kaen has a special place in my heart and it actually like feels weird to move now after being in the same place for so long. I've  been blessed to have some goated comps here, my son will have to carry on the area in my name  ✊🏿

Sorry I haven't written any fun stories, I'm a lil tired and can't do them what they deserve. 

For my Spiritual Thought tho I just want to talk about living in the moment. While I've been training I've been hit with some crazy nostalgia from when I was a greenie, helped me realize that I ain't gonna be here forever. I've like lowk already been in Thailand for a year and I got less than a year to make most of the time that I got. Really tho thats true for whatever point of our life that we're in. I'm only gonna have this opporunity for a little bit so better make the most of it. 

Hope that's like somewhat understandable🙏🙏 I'm a little tired.

Love you all so much, Thanks for supporting me,

Elder Hansen

Chlling

 Aight we been at it this week.

Had my sons first exchange which was pretty chill. Went to Chaiyaphum, I finally had a chance to exchange with Elder tupuo. I served around him back  when I was a greenie in Sakon Nakhon, crazy how far we come now. And, it was Thanksgiving!!!!!

But yea I'll give a quick rundown of our week and then imma have to go to bed.

Tuesday we had a baller Language Class. We got to meet Jew's new boyfriend Ten. He seems pretty chill. Some people were kind of busy this week since there's a massive festival happening here  in Khon Kaen this week. 

Wednesday was a pretty hard day. We had a lot of time for finding, but I was lowk kinda sick this whole week and it hit especially hard this day. We did meet this chill guy who will hopefully keep praying but we'll see how it goes. It's convient to stop by his barber shop on the way to church. Then we had the Thanksgiving activity. Only thing was that there was like nothing planned for it because they only decided to do it this last sunday. We still  had some investigators show up though, so it wasn't too bad. I was like dead tired when we got home though. 

Thursday was exchanges in Chaiyaphum during Thanksgiving. That was pretty fun. Running it with Elder Tupuo was lit. Got in a lot of finding, I was kinda still sick from the day before though. We did get to have some gas burgers for dinner so that was nice. 

Friday had a lil travel back and then some finding before we had sports night at 6:00. Saturday we had some service at our Branch President's house which is always good. Also teaching his son a little bit before he's baptized in February. Don't think it's technically required but it's good for him and there's another kid that does need to learn with the sisters so it works out well to have him learning with us as well to motivate this other kid. We also got to teach P Ging for the first time. We went to her house with Brother boy and had lunch. Then read through the introduction of the BOM and were able to answer some of her  questions and also teach like a full Restoration Lesson. Normally that's kinda hard to do on a first teaching but she had a really good christian background. 

Sunday, Sadly none of our investigators were really free or just didn't come. Last second  P ging messaged us and let us know how she had urgent business come up but that she will def make  it next week. As for everyone else, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

Today was just a chill Pday  of some Sizzler, Swensons, Silk Market shopping, and finishing off with some basketball finding at a park. Overall pretty lit, next week should be chill though cuz we're gonna be renting a SongTeo with the Chaiyaphum elders and Sisters here and are gonna go to some cool places. 

Thats about it, Love you all So much. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving and our now getting in the Christmas Spirit. 

Udon's Litt

 What's up everyone,

This week was pretty lit. Sorry I haven't sent an email in a sec. Last week was zone conference so we didn't have a Pday on Monday and I was lowk fried after Zone Pday. 

Elders Clark's first weeks have been pretty packed since the fire. We still haven't had all the damage cleaned. We're finally having them come in tomorrow hopefully 🙏🙏

Guess we'll see for sure. These past 2 weeks have been pretty fun though. 2 Sundays ago we had some of our friends come to church for the first time which was pretty awesome. In follow up to that we went and watched her son UK play some basketball at 5pm. It reminded of me of when my I used to go watch my brother play basketall because I can distinctly recall this one time that my brothers team was playing against another team when they were only like 10 or 11 and they just had these 2 kids that were insanely tall. Not even that good at basketball but when your that tall at that age it doesn't make too much of a difference. My uncle's nickname of the Twin Towers seemed pretty fitting. Fast-Forward to now and I'm watching these short 10-11 year old thai kids playing against this 10-11 year old kid that is legit a good 2 or 3 inches taller than me. Actually not even a game, it was legit just a slaughter. They also had this chick that wasn't quite as tall as he was, but she was also a good head taller than anyone on their team so needless to say that game wasn't nearly as interesting.

Then following this crazy sequence, we saw an ELEPHANT. I guess some guy was just walking his elephant in the middle of thialand. I haven't seen an elephant in a hot sec, but now I guess it was summoned since elder clarks only been here a lil. 

Then that Monday we had my first wild goose chase of the mission. I get a call Sunday night from some Edlers in bangkok asking me if we could meet with one of their French investigators while he's vacationing in Khon Kaen cuz he only just met with missionaries again and he wanted to meet up while he was gone too. Sooooo, I give Benny a call and I'm like "Yo whats up this is the missionaries in Khon Kaen, we heard you want to meet up." He didn't have the most perfect English so he had trouble describing how we could meet up but we ended up settling on Mcdonalds. Keep in mind there are only 3 Mcdonalds in Khon Kaen. I ruled out one of them and I thought I understood his description of the one by him so we set the time for 11. Then 11 the next day we go and he's not there so I call him again (Keep in mind he only has a number or I could just have him send me a location) He says he's in front of the Mcdonalds right now. So I figure, well there's only one other mcdonalds in Khon kaen that it could be so lets head there. By the time we get there he's figured out how the messaging works but he's not at this mcdonalds either. I ask him to send me the name of his hotel. I get the photo of the hotel he's at and it's a frickin hotel in Pattaya. Bro was litteraly at a beachside Mcdonalds in Jong Kaen, Pattaya. Buttttt like idk how the frick Jong kaen got confused with Khon Kaen like bruh just say your going to freakin Pattaya and you can see the ocean. Sooo yea, that wasted a good hour and a half of our time biking around the city trying to meet this guy but at least we got Mcdees for lunch. 

And then, Finally, we had Zone Conference. It was soooo fun. I gotta play a bunch of basketball and I alos got to play a lil bit of spikeball because my ZL has got a net. It's actually way too fun. I'm a lil rusty though. Follow that up with our finding activity and I got to go with our AP Elder Elliot. I gotta exchange with him back when I was in Kalasin. We had an amazing lesson about God's love for us and challenges in our life with this guy named Sugar. We went neighborhood finding and just happened upon his house. He'd been to the church like  8 or 9 years ago but he hadn't really learned with the missionaries. After our lesson he said he would pray and he was interested in giong to church that Sunday as well. 

Overall it's been a pretty fire first weeks of the transfer. Hopefully we can keep up with all of our refferals and new members. Today I gotta play some more pickleball and yea pickleball is way too fun, definitely gotta enjoy it while I got it here in Khon Kaen. Also got some gas unlimited sushi for thanksgiving today since we gonna be gone on exchanges this thursday.

Sorry for the 2 week dump, but I love all you a bunch. 

My spiritual thought for this week is a statement from Zone Conference that stuck with me. 

One of the things commented on in a Training I think by president or Sister Kanyaphan was that "If your friend is sitting with a missionary they're sitting alone." Cuz sometimes we have friends come in late or other things where usually one of us will end up going over and sitting with them cuz we don't want them to sit alone. Which is better than them sitting alone, but like in the long run we gonna move and then who are they gonna be able to sit by then. Soo, even for investigators who come late, if we can find a way to set up a member for them that's def the way to go. 👍

I love you all so much though and I hope you all keep up on your Daily prayers and scripture study. I know heavenly father directs us as we look to him in our struggles. 

Lights, Training, Explosion 💣💥

 Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't wrote in a sec. I haven't had a lot of time. Cause I've been busy.

To start out, though, thankfully, we were able to have ลอย กระทง.  The second biggest holiday in Thailand there were so many lights, it was so cool. Khon kaen is one of the biggest places for this holiday so I was super happy. I got to see it at least once before I go home. Not.\n Sure exactly why we were allowed to celebrate cause we're still mourning the Queen, but I'm a little bit happier that we were able to have some fun.

 Before this holiday, we also had Halloween, we did a Halloween activity at the church and it was super fun. We had a bunch of games set up and we had a lot of people that can do church for the first time, super fun. We also had some costume contest and gave out gifts for the winners.

Kind of crazy that my 2 transfers without a right have come to an end. Luckily, we are able to go out with a Bang and we had fun Halloween activity and ลอยกระทง. 

Skip forward a little bit and we found out transfer news. Lo and behold, elder Wright was moving, and I was training, Yay. I'm also training at the same time as elder Giles from the West and elder runia. They were both in my m Tc district. And now we're all trainers at the same time. This also means that I got to see them at the mission home. Cause I haven't seen both of them at the same time in almost a year. 

My son's name is elder Clark. He's from Texas and he graduated in the year 2025. I'm officially old which is so weird.  His tie is already pretty good. So we're gonna have a lot of fun this transfer. Oh I almost forgot. We also got sisters in the area, so now it's a 4 missionary area, which is way better. The work will hopefully go smoother.

 We had their first Sunday yesterday. And then to finish off to start off. I guess my son's first P. Day my fan exploded.  I truly did end off this week with a Bang. Basically, outer Clark didn't have a adapter from the m Tc show.He also had his phone plugged into the charger.That was charging my fan and I guess it overloaded because at two am it exploded.  As you might have guessed, I was absolutely stunned. Probably the most surprised I've ever been in my life. I hopped out of bed and woke elder clark up. I barely grabbed the fan and pulled it off. The bed so that it wouldn't keep exploding and set it more of the bed on fire. While elder clark looks for a fire extinguisher that sadly, we didn't have.I grabbed a pot and after using the bum gun to put out the fan.I started making trips water on the bed. At this point the room was absolutely filled with smoke.It was so black that you couldn't even tell the light was on.I have a very deeper understanding for the midst of darkness that lehi described when describing the tree of life because I truly could not see the light at all. Now the bed had already burned quite a bit. But thankfully, the biggest worries were over. We've had quite an eventful day of cleaning, but thankfully, the senior missionaries came down and saved us by getting us mattresses and helping us clean. 

Thank you for all of your prayers of protection for the missionaries cause I truly felt them last night🙏🙏🙏

 I love all of you so much. And I am so grateful for everyone that reaches out to me. I'm sorry for anyone I couldn't respond to today but we were a little pressed on time. 

I'll try to reach out next week but bye bye for now. 🫰🫰