🎉Happy Mothers Day 🎉

 สวัสดีครับพี่น้องทั้งหลาย

Happy Mothers day to everyone out there especially my amazing mom. This is email is especially for her since I think she is one of the few people who reads these haha. Shoutout to the people who respond to me though, even if I don't respond to them sometimes I always love hearing from you and read them.

This week has been pretty crazy. We've had zone conference, zone activity, and a temple trip but I'll try and not talk too long this week. 

First thing is about a week and a half now we've had a zone challenge between the districts where we have to give out a BOM everyday at some point. Anyone who doesn't gets a tally and whoever gets the most tallies has to do a punishment. Only problem is my district is the one who lost the challenge 🤦

It's actually been really good though. Just the other day we were visiting our member who owns a restaurant and as we were talking to them these two drunk guys were on the brink of getting into a fist fight. After they separated and went their separate ways, being the peace makers we are trying to follow President Oaks recommendation we began a conversation with one of the guys. And lil did we know the power of the white man here in Thailand took effect immediately and when his friend saw that the frang could speak Thai sprang over to talk to us, all anger completely rescinded by the presence of the frang. We were able to help them see the error of their ways and hug/handshake it out. Once we were finished though we didn't even think about giving them a book of mormon until after we were done talking with our member family. We were walking out and I realized we still hadn't given out our BOM for the challenge so obviously we had to zoom back to give it to one of them. I didn't get to talk to the one that we gave it to very much but I guess it turns out that he was actually pretty interested in learning more so we'll see if it's just his drunken state or if we'll be able to set up an appointment with them this week. 

Sadly though this week we only had about 3 days to get work done in our area cuz we were off to Roi Et Thursday. Zone conference was sooooo amazing tho. 

Zone pday we didn't quite make it in time for basketball which was a bit of an L but other than that it was super fun. I got to do the finding activity with the absolutely GOAT Elder Morgan. Who I also forgot is my mission nephew since he's elder Saunders kid. Actual Zone Conference was really good though, the trainings really seemed centered on the importance of the BOM both in the aspect of missionary work and in making it central of our personal conversion continuing forward. Best of all was when we were going back we got to have a taxi take us back from zone conference so that we could be home in time for the temple trip.

Speaking of the temple we actually had a really scary start to it. We got back around 7:30pm friday night and we were planning to wake up at around 12pm so that we could go open the church for the members at 1am and be off to Bangkok by 2 am. And to put this in perspective we have been planning this for over a month and there have been a lot of things leading up to this. And being the absolute idiot that I am for some reason I only set one alarm when we went to bed. Which genuinely makes no sense because when I wake up every day I have 2 just in case. Not to mention that we lowk coulda just not gone to bed cuz I only got like an hour sleep anyways. But to say the least, we did not wake up to the alarm. Thankfully though we have the actual just most goated members and one of the members who lived closed to our house stopped by at like 1:05-1:10 banging on our window. So we were able to get up make it over to the church and we still made it out at 2am as planned with all our members. It was a bit of a nerve racking beginning seeing as we could've woken up at like 5 am and just screwed the entire thing. Thankfully God was looking out for us though. 

We made it to the temple and it was such a great experience. Weo and Ammy were able to get their Endowements done after hitting a year and brother Nui, Sister Plun Pid, and Yai Dtham nong were able to do baptisms for the first time. Yai who is a really old lady wasn't planning on getting in the water, but when we got there she decided she was going to and dang she just be such an absolute trooper. I baptized her once and was like alright were good now and she was like "Thats it??" She was down to do even more but I think one is more comfortable. Also while we were at the temple I got a chance to see elder and sister corbett who were some members from Pak Chong the area I moved from last transfer. They're super amazing so it was really fun. 

Lastly this Pday was bit of a letdown cuz basically the one thing I needed to do was to go to this Fabric place that's like 13 kilos out of Chaiyaphum to buy some fabric for the suit that I'm going to be getting down in a lil bit here. However, in my foolishness, I didn't think to call them because they're frickin google maps said they were open. However, Lo and behold when we get there they were in fact on vacation and won't be open until thursday. So basically wasted a whole hour of Pday on a ridiculously long bike ride and I didn't even get the fabric I need so still trying to decide if we gonna do that again.

That's about it for our week though. Super happy to be serving here in Chaiyaphum. Got a great comp, great district, and amazing area so not too much to complain about.

Hope this wasn't too much but I love you all

And especially love you mom. 

Praying all of you will have an amazing week

Elder Hansen

here some flics 

Chaiyaphum🤘

 Whats up

Yea this last week we had transfers and what do you know I stayed in Chaiyaphum. Wooo, i dont move again after 3 weeks. This last week was super great and one of my best transfers at feeling like we're carrying on our momentum. 

Main things from this week

Absolutely massive parade, one guy even told us it was the longest in the whole world but sadly I think that one isn't quite true. It was big tho and they've just got a ridiculous amount of these trucks packed up with speakers blasting the loudest earrape music ever. Like genuinely its horrible music that just shakes your body. Honestly tho its kinda lame cuz a ton of people our just drinking and partying at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Not to mention there's still plenty of kids around and stuff so needless to day i lost respect for the parade quickly but on the brightside of grandma and her sister dances with their neighborhood and walk the whole way. 

Another cool thing was we had dinner with our friends from Ghana this week and they made us peanut soup. It was actually super good and i guess we got that stuff in Utah according to my comp so imma have to find some it. We had a good lesson with them too and hopefully Emmanuel will make progress as he reads the book of mormon.

Loved to see the kids at church again this week and we're hoping to see a lot of families at are english class this week next especially since our mission made a new announcement and now we got english class saturday from 1 to 2:30pm. 

Special announcement to ลูกผม (my kid) is going to Sakon Nakhon. Super lit transfers overall

Heres some flics

🔥SongKran🔥

 What's up everyone,

Sorry for a bit of delay in emails. We've just been really swamped here and our Pday was week was Songkran so pretty crazy and I didn't really have time to write an email. 

Basically being here in Chaiyaphum has been super awesome. Elder Freedman is the Branch President and we've definitely got plenty of work to do. We've seen some really cool miracles here these past few weeks though so I'm excited to keep it going if I stay here next transfer. I'll go over some of the main people we're teaching and helping and then I'll talk a lil bit more about Songkran.

Our first amazing group of investigators is actually this group of kids in a neighborhood that Elder Freedman and Elder Pan. The original one's they were teaching were BaiBoon, DewDur, and Cyndia. Then my second sunday here they were able to come to church and BaiBoon's brother Bo was able to come to. They're all about 9 years old and Bo is 12. They are some of the sweetest kids ever though and like all of them live with their Grandmas who are also really nice. They're making lots of progress though and hopefully they'll be able to get baptized sometime next transfer. It was so funny, they came to our english class this last week as well and when we asked them "What historical figure would they want to have dinner with?" Bai Boon responded with "Jesus Christ" in Thai, and then DewDur said Heavenly Father. They're super funny and we got big hopes for them.

The next cool miracle has been these 3 guys from Ghana. Still not sure how well they'll be able to progress but they're really dope. It was actually really funny we invited them to go out with dinner us 2 weeks ago and right before this Elder freedman was like "Are you sure we're not gonna be paying for dinner?" To be honest I didn't think about it, but comes time after we had a great spiritual discussion with them and they take up their stuff and leave. Now totally understand it's just a culture thing and it wasn't much at all so we were happy to do it. Buttttt, it was pretty funny. Luckily this week they are supposed to be providing with some Authentic African food which is supposed to be Gasss so I guess I'll see how it is. 

Another miracle from this week was a referral and his daughter. His name's Tong. They came to church and they enjoyed Sacrament meeting a lot. They weren't able to stay for 2nd hour, but they said they would be coming back next week. And they said they would be coming with food to share when we eat together as well so Littttt. 

Okay last little cool thing since I've come over to this area was this one day we had a little extra time to find. Elder Freedman was wondering where we should go find and I picked out 2 spots and then he said we should go hit the neighborhoods on the East I had pointed out. As we were biking over there we went past the Walking Street and there was this drink truck up. Total flashback for me, my first day in Chaiyaphum I was pretty confident I could remember my way back to the Chaiyaphum Elders house since I had been there on exchanges so much. Needless to say my memory wasn't quite as good as I thought and I got us to walking street and then once we reached there I couldn't seem to figure out which direction the house was. I didn't see this as too much of a problem figuring as I would just borrow Toog Toog driver's phone and give Elder Freedman a call. Turns out tho, the Toog toog driver's phone was broke haha. Sooooo, I had to go over to this random Drink Truck and ask to borrow their phone so that I would be able to get back to  the house. My last words were I told them I would take a visit over and get a drink another day. FastForward to this last week as we were biking over and I saw the Drink Truck again. I called Elder Freedman over and we were able to have a good little conversation with them and also have some freakin gooodddd coconut smoothies. They're progressing right now tho and even tho they're a pretty average find it was a cool miracle for me.

Last but definitely not least, Songkran was LIttttt. Sadly we didn't really have anyone to play with, but we just walked around and played with random people and it was fun. For anyone who doesn't know what Songkran is it is the Thailand New Year. They don't actually have it as their New Year anymore, but they wash away the old year by having an absolutely massive water fight. Everyone just stops work for like 3 days and then any time after 1 or 2 pm you just get buckets of water thrown on you. Sadly it doesn't make for the most effective missionary work but it is super fun. As me and Elder Freedman were walking tho we stopped and played with these people who took pictures of us and a video as well. Come to find out later in the week and the video has got millions of views and exploded in Chaiyaphum cuz there aren't like any Frangs playing here. 

Overall tho Chaiyaphum has great things going for it tho and I'm super excited to see how things work out if I'm here next transfer. I'll let you all know about transfer news next week but I love you all. 

My spiritual thought today is something I really like but it's combination of quotes from  A talk given by J.B. Haws called Wrestling with Comparions.

To paraphrase tho, he shares a quote by C.S. Lewis which explains how Humility isn't thinking less of ourselves, but thinking less about ourselves. He then shares and ends with a thought I really like of a mom who would tell her daughter that she can worry about how she looks before she leaves the house, but the second she walks at that door the greatest thing she can do is stop thinking about herself and start thinking about others. I love this combination because before this I had never thought of Humility in this way. When we're trying to think about "Oh am I being to cocky" or start worrying about our accomplishments look we miss the bigger picture which is we really want ot be humble we should stop thinking about how hard were trying to be humble in the first place and maybe start trying to think of the ways we can lift others a little bit more in our everydays lives. 

Love you all so much tho and thanks for reading my longer email. 

Elder Hansen

Here some flics

My time comes Early😭

 Wassup everyone,

No actually I am not coming home early haha, however I got some unfortunate news this last week. In case you haven't noticed last email I was informing you all of transfers where I got to move to this beautiful new area called Pak Chong. Well, that was 2 weeks ago and this last week at zone conference I found out the news that when I got back I would need to pack and head out to Chaiyaphum. Soooo, basically  the Thai Elder in Chaiyaphum has got to do the draft and they're just going to keep him in bangkok even if he doesn't get drafted to be a soldier. This means I will now have my fastest area of 2 weeks and my shortest time with a comp too😢 Sad to be leaving for sure, especially since I haven't even got to go to Khao Yai which is the big national park. I am fortunate to be comps with elder  Freedman in Chaiyaphum, he's the Branch President and he is an absolute Goat. Def gonna learn a lot these next 4 weeks.

Now that I've shared the real crazy news I'll finish out the rest of the stuff that's happened these last 2 weeks. 

First was exchanges in 🔥Buriram🔥

This is an area that I served for 1 transfer in last July. I was super fortunate to go back and do exchanges with the ZLs there as they  have made Buriram the ZL area. I got the chance to see all of the YSA and to visit some members I haven't seen in a sec. Then to finish off the exchange we got to watch the Elder Kearon Devotional!!!! 

He came to Thailand and originally all the missionaries in Thailand were going to come together to hear from him. Sadly, his wife is having some pretty bad health problems so they ended up just having to have one meeting for members and missionaries and broadcasting it to everyone. Super fun tho that we got to have watch party in Buriram tho. Miss that place a lot and there was much Nostalgia. Also crazy how fast places change because they have a new church now and lets jus say it is wayyyyyyyy Boujier. 

Next is a lit story of how we got to know this great family and I got free CinnamonRoll/CinnamonBread typebeat. 

Me and elder Baltimore were doing finding by this big market in Pak Chong. We prayed and I had Elder Baltimore lead us to where he thought would be best. He decided we would go to  the wet market so  we started off walking. When we were going down one of the alleys there was this old Pa I was talking to who was def not having it. After a few  attempts of my go to conversation starters to no avail I figured he was not interested. However, his daughter/Relative came out who sells bread and other goodies and we started talking to her. She was super nice and ended up giving us one of her goodies for free😋 Then she called her son out to talk to us. He's around 13-14 but he spoke great English. We invited  them to English class and they totally said they would go. I may have also dropped in our conversation how it was super cool she has an oven and maybe some point we would need her help making Cinnamon rolls.

Fast Forward to Tuesday, they come and she gives me this loaf of cinnamon roll bread that she either made herself or bought and it was Gas. They also brought like 4 or 5 other relatives that are visiting so our english class was popping. We had a fun class and I think they enjoyed it. The really good thing was  the finisher about Easter. We watched a video about Easter and it just invited the spirit so well.  We got the chance to explain about Palm Sunday and why Easter is important. I felt like  most people at English were really locked in for the video. I have hope that it'll start a desire for them to learn more.🙏🙏

Finalllyyyy, 

We had zone conference. This was one of the better zone conferences I've had on my mission for sure. Every training was super applicable and the spirit was super strong. For our zone finding activity I got to exchange with an Elder from my district named Elder Nelson. He's a goat and we saw some super cool miracles. 

Final thing of Zone Conference was on our way their actually I got new Basketball Shoes, Yayyyyyy

They're a pair of GT-Cuts like Academy version or some biz like that. They're soooo nice tho and 10x better than the other shoes  I  destroyed. Imma be balling now hopefully

Spiritual Thought

My spiritual thought this week is a cool scripture Elder Kearon shared that I had actually just shared that morning so I was surprised to hear it from his Devo the same day. 

It's Alma 7:11-12

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities

I know he understands our pains and because  he understands all our infirmities we can always find comfort from him.

Love you all and sorry  for a bit of a long one 🫶

Here some flics

🏔To The Mountains🏔

 Hey everyone,

Sending this a little later in the week because we had transfers. I'll just start of with the main transfer news, I'm moving 😭😭

Have to say goodbye to my beautiful spot on the river. My new area is going to be Pak Chong and from what I hear it has MOUNTAINS, yayy. It also has only been open for a year and they just got a new church building. 

These last 2 weeks have been super hectic tho as we've been trying to finish up the last things transfers. One cool miracle we saw last week was we decided to do some หมูบ้าน (Neighborhood) finding where we walk/bike through and talk to anyone that's out. When we got to the end of the first one we started talking to this Pa who was a straightchiller. Him and his wife were saying that there son has coached up some elders before for muay thai. Then not too long after, he showed up after just finishing work. He has a wife and 2 kids. He said before he talked with the elders but he wanted to see them again but he wasn't super free then. Now that English Class is on Tuesdays tho he wants to take his kifs and we were able to leave him with a BOM and explain a lil about it. Hopefully they'll have time to show up to church in the near future 🤞

Last Sunday was super fortunate to have แม่บอม Ma Bom come to church. We've visited and taught her for a week or 2 now and last week she said she couldn't find the church so she went home. She was able to come to all of Sacrament meeting tho and said she'll try and make it for at least the sacrament every Sunday. 

Last thing was this monday I decided I wanted to give a bunch if New members we have pictures of the temple and Jesus to have in their homes so I went over to the trusty DiY and got picture frames for supwr cheap and then we went and got the photos printed which was surprisingly more expensive then the frames haha. They turned out pretty good but i was kind of hustling last second tuesday to get all of them done haha. 

Overall, last weeks been pretty good. It is a little surreal tho. I'm sitting a nice 5 transfers left so this could be my second last area which is kinda sad. Def gotta make the most of the time here🔥

Moroni 9:6

6 And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God

Love 

Elder Hansen

Heres some flics

Firree Sunday

 Hello

I'm going to keep it pretty short today because I just sent an email a few days ago. The Visa work was awesome. I got to see the GOAT brother Jakkarat. Then had an awesome pday with my MTC district. Super nice to finallly get the chance to go to the Temple again. Then Wednesday night we travelled back from Bangkok and got to Mukdahan Thursday morning just in time to take a van back to Nakhon Phanom and start the  work day. We were a lil tired but overall not a bad day.

Sunday this week was amazing. Our newest member  Ping Pong is going to be our seminary teacher. We were able to havee a Relief Society, Elders Quorum, Primary, and Young Womens Class. With the Young womens and Relief Sociiety being taught by two of our new members. They taught so well and it's just so amazing to see the progress of the Nakhon Phanom branch.

Imma end  with the spiritual thought from 2 Nephi 28:7 which talks about Eating, drinking, and being merry cuz tomorrow we die. It's kinda sad to think that some people have this perspective and therefore lose out on the amazing opportunity our life is. I think I love the Elder Oogway quote best which says, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the Present." Let's all try and make the most of this time we have in life🥰

I'm Still Alive 😬

Hey everyone, it has been brought to my attention that I haven't wrote an email in a long time. I did not realize it had been long but I guess that's what happens when your lost in the work. I'm still in Nakhon Phanom though, the work is great and it's just such a blessed place to be. 

I'll try and give some details from this last month. 

Firrrrrssstt, I'll start of with TRANSFERS. Yea soo, elder hiltscher moved to Khumpawapi. That was pretty surprising.I stayed in Nakhon Phanom and my new comp is Elder Gao. He's 1 transfer below me so it has been absolutely blessed. We've been working hard and we're gonna have a great transfer. He is from Canada but he's chinese and he speaks really good chinese. Basically I'm going to be an expert in Chinese by the end of this transfer. 

Beginning of this transfer started off amazing with the Baptism of Golf. He is an investigator we have been teaching since a lil before I came to Nakhon Phanom. He is a great guy who just really understands the doctrine we've shared with him. He has a super nice wife they're planning to have a family in the near future. He's 28 years old and has a phone fix shop. It's been super convient for us to basically stop by and teach a lil bit every other day. He has been working to overcome coffee this past month and after going a month without coffee he felt ready to enter the wates.

Bing Bonp has also been a amazing miracle. He's been learning with the  elders since I got here too. As we've continued teaching we've seen his testimony grow and he has  seen some amazing small miracles in his life. He's the life of our Game's Night as well as he always shows up to Friday Nights Games Night with a Pluthera of Games to play together. He was baptized just this last Sunday. Both of his sisters have been baptized in the past  year and he was the last of his siblings. 

Another cool thing, Last week we had zone conference and we were  lucky to have it in Nakhon Phanom. Zone Pday was  a lil more scuffed than normal but we were able to end off the day with a baptim of Nong Ai and President Kanyaphan was the person who baptized her. This was followed up by a finding activity which basically means our whole zone switched comps and from 6--9 went out finding. We're hoping to get a decent amount of dots from  their efforts 😁

Last thing of this week is I get the chance to do exchanges with Elder Runia to extend my Visa. Yayyy 12 hour bus ride to Bangkok. It's pretty fun tho, and I got the chance to do a little bit of finding in Mukdahan when I was there too. Elder Gao is exchanging with Elder Borden untiil  we get done with Visa work. For anyone who doesn't know Mukdahan is an area we just opened 2 weeks ago so it's  pretty fun to  do a lil bit of finding there. 

Maybe final thing was the Stennets were here this last sunday because  of being here for zone conference aready. We got to do some visits with them which is always an amazing opportunity.Randomly during one of our visits we also got to see a elephant randomly so that was pretty wild.  We got to visit this investigator named Yada who is actually a goat but is struggling with some family factors if she is baptized.

Please Keep Her In you Prayers this week

 Oh and last thing, forgot to say we got to meet one of the people who ran for like Prime Minister of Thailand or something like that.

and here are some photos