🏔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