All you Need is Love

As we arise each morning, let us determine to respond with love and kindness to whatever might come our way.” --President Thomas S. Monson (Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself)

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all doing well or at least on the up and up.  It is the beginning of the week and let us all resolve to have it be better than the last.  We have a restart button every day, if we so choose!
I am doing well here in Millville!  Transfer calls this week!  Any guesses?  Ee I can literally see any of three possibilities happen!  One, both Sister Hyatt and I staying.  Two, I stay and Sister Hyatt be transferred because for a lot of missionaries, President likes to change things up for their last transfer.  But she has only had one transfer here and two one stop transfers?  I don't know.  Three, she stays and I leave because it would be the longest place I have served at the end of Sent from my iPad
Anything is possible!  I think the two weeks before transfers I pray the most for President and the Assistants.  The pressure is on and so many people's futures in their hands.  Really it is the Lord's hands but they are the ones who act or put it into motion.  Nonetheless, I believe that a lot of changes will be made to the two zones we cover as Sister Training Leaders than last transfer.

I hope your goals are going well!  This week I was reading an article and in it, President Monson listed off smaller aspects of love: kindness, patience, selflessness, understanding, and forgiveness. If we want an overarching goal of love then maybe work on these smaller aspects first and then we can better become more loving.

I believe that charity is one of the greatest attributes anyone can attain.  If you ask any missionary, I bet they would say that that is the most important attribute for a missionary and his/ her service.

You've heard of the 5 love languages, right?  Physical affection, Words of Affirmation, Service, Quality Time, and Gifts.

What love language does Christ show towards others?

What love language does Christ respond most to?

This week! We had a lesson with Brother Green (David Green). It has probably been awhile since I have talked about him because it's been so hard to teach him!  When he first started coming to church with his girlfriend and daughter, I thought we had a member already.  The missionaries started calling him Brother Green from the start!  His girlfriend grew up as a member but is slowly starting to make her way back after on and off periods of coming and not. Their daughter, Raven, is 8 and not baptized yet.  They were talking to us yesterday of planning her baptism for the end of October.  Anyway, we lost touch with Brother Green because he was working pretty much every day and had stopped coming (they all had) but then he lost his job and in a deep depressive state.  Then one problem after another with their car!  Yikes!  We talked with him from time to time if we saw him outside on his porch.  A brother from the ward helped fixed up the car 2 weeks ago and now they have no excuse.  Now they set up for us to come every Tuesday!  It is a request from the ward we teach Raven anyway, but it is great to have Brother Green be a part of it.  Hopefully soon, he will accept a baptismal date for himself.  He is a stellar guy!

But... We spoke with his wife yesterday and he ended up in the hospital due to low blood sugar or something drastic.

Met a couple "famous singers" this week on the streets of Millville!  The first guy is Chris Feddi.  When we found out he raps, we made a deal- we sing for you, you rap for us.  We sang and then he said he didn't know what to rap for us on the spot and that nothing is really religious (nice and respectful) but he did let us listen to a recording of him rapping something he wrote about and for his mother.  It was pretty sweet!

The next guy is in a religious family traveling group.  We also made the same deal but he then just said he would harmonize with us.  And so he did.

Speaking of famous people, we are somewhat famous on the streets of Bridgeton because we volunteer at the soup kitchen each week.  Some of the people that go there say hi to us when we walk around!

Sister Moore (older lady from another Ward) came teaching with us.  She wanted to show Danny Lewis a visual with play dough that would help him understand the apostasy and need for a restoration better.  You have a bag with a ball of white play dough in it.  You try to mix it with red but you can't because the plastic bag protects it.  The white play dough represents the gospel of Jesus Christ and the plastic bag represents the priesthood.  However, when Christ and the Apostles died, God took the plastic bag away.  The different color play doughs represent pollution which when combined with the gospel of Jesus Christ distorts the true and original Gospel.  One color could represent politics in the church and another color could represent paying money for forgiveness.  Regardless, no matter how much you mix in, you know the white is still there but you can't see it any more.  Then you break up the colorful play dough into different balls which then represent all the different churches, some big and some small; some prettier than others because some churches do it for looks.  Then she takes out a clean, white ball of play dough in a plastic bag to talk about Joseph Smith and the Restoration.

Selena didn't come to church but her 7 year old sister wanted to come again!  She is so cute and I wish she had a better family to grow up in.  I want to take her under my wing and be her sister.  She sat by Sister Hyatt in sacrament meeting and Sister Hyatt told me she colored.  As she colored, one of the speakers started to cry.  Mariah asked why she was crying.  Sister Hyatt told her because she was talking about her family, that they are special to her and how much she loves them.  She didn't even think she was paying attention!  Just goes to prove that kids are catching things even when we don't think they are.  All in all, I hope she remembers the Sister Missionaries in the future.

Too many people were sitting by themselves last Sunday and we tried to cure that by making assignments/ inviting people to change it up, including ourselves.  We told Danny Lewis to sit by Peggy Parton (they've known each other for years and she has come with us a few times and she always sits by herself).  Anyway, he called us later on yesterday and asked us if he had done something wrong; he thought us asking him to do this was a punishment.  Oh Danny boy!

Still there were a few people that needed buddies to sit by so hopefully next week and weeks thereafter, we will continue to improve.  We took note of individuals not at church and either texted or called them.  In Power of Everyday Missionaries, it says we usually count and make note of those that are at church but we should change that- we need to ask ourselves "who wasn't at church today that should have been?"  

President Thomas S. Monson award for scouting!  Our ward did this and had an awards fireside last night.  We had to read a couple articles, memorize the 13th article of faith (that was easy!), and do a couple merit badges.  At the fireside, they watched part of the 100th anniversary celebration.  It was High School Musical meet General Conference!  My favorite part was the song about "make, you earned your eagle.... But they gave the badge to me."  I figured you'd like that too mom!

Joke: there is a lion hunting for food.  He sees one man sitting under a tree reading a book pleasantly in the savannah.  He also spots another man sitting under a tree in the opposite direction who is writing a novel.  The lion is only hungry enough to eat one of the men.  Which one does he choose?

'Actually, love is the very essence of the gospel, and Jesus Christ is our Exemplar. His life was a legacy of love.' (Love—the Essence of the Gospel)

God is love!

I love you all!  I want you to know that I love my Savior and my Father is Heaven!  Words cannot express all my love!  I guess that is why there are more ways to share that love with the other love languages and not just words of affirmation.

Have a grand week!

Love, 

Sister Hanson