🎄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. 🫰🫰

DeathAndSadness

 Hey everyone,

Imma start off with news I just learned yesterday. The mother of the king of Thailand died Sunday morning. As you could guess I have been devastated, and as it appears so is the rest of the country cuz we will be having a 3 month mourning period. Which means the second biggest holiday here ลอย กระทง (Loy Gratong), with all of its pretty lights and boats will not be happening. So I guess I will have to wait til I come back on vacation to see it cuz the first year i was in the mtc. 

Aside from that though I've had an amazing last 2 weeks

We've had

-Exchanges in Chaiyaphum

-District Pday

-Exchanges in Khon Kaen

-District Council In-Person

-Mexican Food

And finallly Baptisms!!!

Yea so basically 2 weeks ago we went to Chaiyaphum to do exchanges. I exchanged with my DL Elder Fowles, one of my old comps, he's a goat. We basically just had a full day of finding but we got to end off with a lil bit of sports finding which was chill cuz I lowk haven't gotta hoop in a sec. 

Then next week we had District Pday. I didn't know what to do but i figured Pickleball would be fun so i looked it up in google maps and turns out we got pickleball in Khon Kaen. So we rented out a court and got to play with the District, soooo fun. But my skills arent quite what they used to be which is a lil sad 😢

Then Tuesday we did our second set of exchanges and this time I went with elder Redd. We got to teach some goated lessons and then we finished off the day at the resturaunt by our house with a bunch of members and friends from English Class. 

Wednesday was also lit cuz we had in person district council. Soo fire cuz now the ZLs have to come as well so we had 8 elders. After council we went and did some service for a member too, ngl we were using some of the more interesting tools I've seen for yardwork like kitchen knives but they kinda worked.

Finish of wednesday night was lit, we did exchanges with the ZLs. I got the chance to find with Elder Huber and we talked to some good people. Def learned a lot of things abt finding just from the little 1 hour sesh we had. Then we met up with our new member นิว right after and got mexican food. Omyyy idk how i didnt think to search up mexican resturaunts in khon kaen before. Big city eassan is the life, I haven't had a burrito ij so long and it was so good.

Finaleeee was this Sunday. Sister ไก่ (Gai) and จ๊ะจ๋า (JaJa) got baptized this Sunday. They've been investigators for a while now and lately have shown a lot more interest. I'm so glad I got to have the chance to teach them and I'm excited to see them continue to progress as members. This is prolly my first investigators that I felt like we got to teach a decent amount before helping them be baptized which was wayy cool. 

Love you all so much

Spiritual Thought this week is my thoughts from a talk called Unselfish Service

Its a talk from President Oaks where he discusses service in a few different aspects. He shares a story abt President hinckley that he shared from his mission that I liked. He talks about how he was talking to his dad about how he was frustrated and discouraged and thought he was wasting his time. His dad told him to "Forget himself and go to work". After that he recommitted to focusing on the people and prayed for the Lord to help lose himself in the work.

We all have shortcomings but its doesn't really matter how much success we have ourselves. We can't do this work alone and as long as we're focused on others we're whats needed.

Second Birthday🎉

 Hello,

Sorry I haven't emailed in a sec haha I just didn't find the time last week with zone pday. So far though this transfers been great. 

Some highlights have been

-Zone Pday

-Zone Conference

-General Conference

-Miracles

Sooo we'll start off with the fun part, zone pday is always just lit. Got to play some ball finally, honestly not my best performance but I'll take any basketball i can get. Then we had chair soccer and interviews. We ended off the day with the finding activity and I finally got my splits with Elder Stauffer 🔥🔥 For Background we we're supposed to do splits a few conferences ago but I was at the hospital and we didn't make it back to do them. Finally got it and it was great. We we're able to teach a few different some mini lessons on the BOM. We ended the night with a crazy miracle where we met this guy named Ert who definitely needed some comfort. We walked by and started talking to him and he pulls out a BOM and then just starts crying. I guess he learned with the Missionaries like a year ago, his lifes kinda messed up right now so we were able to share some words of comfort for him.

Zone conference was firee this transfer too. ZL's clutched with some actual gas food. We had mac and cheese and chicken nuggets for lunch pday, and then had Mcdonalds for lunch conference but like actually a lot, like a burger, chicken sandwich, large fry, large drink, and ice cream. The actual trainings were like all amazing. We watched a cool video of one of the first members in Europe named Francesca or something. All the trainings had great invitations and I'm excited to try some of them this transfer. Had to do a musical number with the district tho which is not ideal🤮 I'm def not the most blessed when it comes to singing whether it be Thai or English. 

Then Later on Saturday and Sunday I finally got the chance to listen to General Conference a week late haha. It was great tho and i loved a lot of the talks. Hoping some of our investigators had a good experience with conference.

Speaking of investigators, this week we got blessed by our friends that came to church. We had 13 pull up to conference at different points Sunday. Which 7 of them was their first day. 3 of them were people we talked to a month ago while finding at the walking street and at that time they said they weren't free but would go to church next month when they were. Well, it's next month and they showed up!! Thennn we had 4 other people come because 1 of them was visiting from Laos and wanted to go to church but not a Catholic one. Soo, she found our church in google and then had her friends take her. We'll see if we can stay in contact with them but so cool that they showed up. 

Finally, after both sessions of general conference, not necessarily cuz of conference but one of our investigators comes up to me and says her and her daughter want to be baptized. They also want to be baptized before either of us move so we're going to be reviewing a lot with them these coming weeks since a lot of the stuff they learned was a little less than a year ago. 

Overall its just crazy to me that we're coming up on 3 weeks of the transfer this Thursday. I still love Khon Kaen and I'm excited to help our investigators continue to progress. 

I love you all a bunch of hope you have the best week 🫶

I'll try and make more of an effort to respond to emails this coming pday 🫡🫡

Oh yea and last thing I had my birthday 🥳🥳 We had cake after English Class and it was sooo อรอ่ย 

Oh yea whoops, as with the title this is actually my second birthday as a missionary since i had one in Home MTC. As of my end date right now I will end with 3 birthdays as a missionary.