🎉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immediately and when his friend saw that the frang could speak Thai sprang over to talk to us, all anger completely rescinded by the presence of the frang.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

✊🏿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. 🫰🫰

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.