2/24/14

Dear Family and Friends,                                                       February 24, 2014

 

            Had another wonder week in Paradise, or is that Paragould. The Elders were without a car this last week, so they were with us a lot of the time. A couple of good stories from this past week. I love a good story and these were good stories.

Friday we were with the Elders driving around visiting the less active and investigators. We had about exhausted our visiting pool, since we were close to the Chapel we decided to stop in and check out the church. A couple of months ago the Branch President had given us the assignment to check on the church several times a week , or if it was really cold to check on it every day. It had been a few days so we decided to stop and check out the church. When we pulled into the church we noticed a car in the parking lot, with some one in it. As we were getting out of the car, we told the Elders we will check out the church while you go and check out the lady in the car. They later came into the church and we asked them how it went. They said the lady was crying. They asked her if there was anything they could do to help. She said no, she was just having some problems in her life and had pulled into the parking lot to have a good cry. They felt impressed to give her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read it. Then they came into the church. After we checked it all out we left to go, she was still in the parking lot and she was reading in the Book of Mormon. So far that is the end of the story , but I think that is not the whole end of the story. We will have to see.

       Mom here

     We have been having warm delightful sunshine and warmer temps. although the wind may still have nip to it.  The children are praying for more snow so that would be more school closures but since they already have to give up Spring break and any other days that would be a break from school, having school closures might not be a good idea right now.  The parents are praying that there not be any more snow or ice so the children can stay in school.  The missionaries are praying for good traveling weather especially after last week.

     The birthday cookies did their magic again.  We have a black man and his family that live in our Branch.  So far no one has been able to reach him or even meet him face to face.  He was just another less active who was listed on the Branch rolls.  This time we caught him home, we didn’t try to make an appointment we just showed up.  I had given up on the cookies because he was never home.  So after we visited with him and found out that he had six children living there, we came home and took over 1 ½  dozen cookies.  We were suddenly the families very best friends.  So now the Elders have their work cut out for them.  The father told us that they would be at church Sunday but as with most less active ,it is hard to come back to church after not going for a long time.  They were moved here after Katrinia and decided to stay.  The family got separated and they have been reunited recently.  Judy is progressing towards baptism.  When she was told about the Word of Wisdom, she had no problems because she doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink alcohol, doesn’t drink coffee ,then the but came, she does drink tea.  I was so surprised, she had a glass of tea that she had been drinking from, she picked up the cup looked at it and said “bye, bye I won’t be drinking you again”.I don’t remember what I was going to say.  Anyway we have just come back from visiting Judy.  We reviewed the First Vision with her and everything is ready for her baptism on the 9^th of March.  It is so exciting to see how truth and light has filled her spirit and she knows that the church is true.  She was ready before we arrived here she just needed someone to help her find the way.

     We are still teaching the Youth SS classes.  This last week I had four and Dad had five to teach.  I had to do some readjustments because the two boys are not great readers but we managed to have a discussion and that was what I was aiming for.  I wish that I had paid better attention when Bishop Walker was introduced the new Youth lessons.  It never even entered my head that we would be teaching the Youth at any time.   Apparently President La Vettar  has called one teacher but not another one and that could really cause some problems because the older youth are now used to more advanced lessons where we discuss in detail more then Dad does.   Dad has two more stories to tell you.        Dad Here

2^nd Story:  Saturday morning we where out at the church cleaning. We had taken the Elders with us. Some of the primary leaders were also there helping to clean.  The phone in the hall started to ring. Sister Hansen was close so she answered it. The person on the phone asked if the people from Idaho were there. She said she was one of those people from Idaho. It was a man that we had visited in December from Farm Credit Services here in Paragould. We had stopped in to see if they had one of those cool all year calendars that Farm Credit Services puts out. They did have them and we picked one up. I use it on the wall above my computer. Anyway the manager had asked us a lot of questions about what we were doing in Arkansas. What farming in Idaho was like? He wanted to talk to us again and invite us to the annual meeting tomorrow. He had lost our name and number from December, so he had called the LDS Church out at Purcell Road in hopes of contacting us. Amazing that Sister Hansen was the one that answered the phone. We stopped in today and visited a bit. Tomorrow we have a meeting in Jonesboro, and that is where their meeting is going to be held, so we are going to go their meeting also.

3^rd Story,  An older member of the Branch was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. He told about the time his wife and him had been asked to serve in the St Louis Missouri Temple, when it opened years ago. Then when the Memphis Temple was built they were asked to head up the baptistery here in the Memphis Temple She has since passed away and he misses his wife terribly. He is the Executive Secretary in the branch. He also volunteers down at the seniors center. We work with him every morning packaging the meals on wheels. Any way back to the story. When the St Louis Temple was having its open house, he was working as the head of parking. A bus load of protesters showed up at the temple from out of town to protest the temple. One of the protesters approached him as was saying disparaging things about the temple and how only members could go into the temples. Brother Mode told him that that wasn’t true during the open house and that anyone was welcome to go into the temple during the open house. Of course he would have to leave his anti-material outside and he would have to behave himself while in the temple, and he invited him to come and tour the temple. The man took him up on his offer. After he had toured the temple he came up to Brother Mode and told him he had seem what he wanted to see and he left. Over a year later Brother Mode was working at the recommend desk at the temple and the man that was previously a protester was there with his family to be sealed in the temple.

        Elder and Sister Hansen, Mom and Dad, Grammy Lou and Papa.

2/17/14

Dear Family and Friends                                                                        February 17, 2014

            What a busy week, we got to go to the temple last Monday, Tuesday started a week of driving the Sisters around, because they were without a car this past week. Wednesday Sister Hill was transferred out, “we are going to miss that girl”. The new Sister is Sister Mazeika, she is from Pleasant Grove, she is of Lithuanian descent. Her name means short person and she lives up to that, she is also very quiet, haven’t heard four words out of her in the back seat all week. Sister Hill screamed more than that, especially if I missed a turn, or turned left on a red light, or ran through a stop sign.

In this mission both missionaries don’t share driving. One member of each companionship is chosen by the mission as the designated driver and they do all the driving, for that companionship. For a sister, Sister Hill had amazing directional skills, Sister Cooke on the other hand does not. She is lost most of the time. This week will prove interesting as she drives the companionship around. From the day we left Weiser Sister Hansen made me the designated driver, she hasn’t driven once since we left home.  That is not exactly true, I took my turn driving on the way out.  I would much rather have Dad do the driving then he has no one else to blame for some of the crazy driving that we have to do.

Mom here: We had a Branch Valentine activity on Wed. night.  It was started on time and an hour later it was over.  I wanted to do this on a weekend but got outvoted so because it was a school night it only lasted an hour.  There were many happy parents who wanted to get their kids to bed or to finish their homework.  We had Valentine cards made then we put positive thoughts in side the card something about each person.  We tied the cards to three trees one for the adults, one for YMYW and one for the Primary. I put piles of pink, red and white paper, stickers, lace doilys  in the middle of each table with scissors so that everyone could make a valentine and then we had the cards judged.  We also had a table with that new craze rubber bands to make bracelets, necklaces, or key chains.  I think that table was the most popular.  We had cookies that the kids frosted with about 1-2inches of frosting and pink elephant punch for refreshments.  It was enough, kids went home full of sugar.

The Branch doesn’t have a good schedule for cleaning the church so Sat. we took the Sisters with us and gave that building a good cleaning.  Probably the best it has ever had.  The Sisters kept complaining that the girls bathroom didn’t smell good so I went exploring to find out the reason well I found the reason and took care of it.   I was so glad that we did because we had our new Stake President Pres.Burkheimer, the Stake Missionary coordinator, The Stake Executive  Sec.and the High Councilor for our Branch attend Church.  There will be some changes very soon since Sister La Vetter has been called to be the new stake YW Pres.  At least we won’t have to worry about it.

After days of grey gloomy days that were just plain down right cold we now are back to warm days and plenty of sunshine.  Everyone says that spring starts in Feb. there for awhile I was wondering how could that be since it was so cold.  But the one farmer in our Branch is going to plant potatoes starting today.  We would never think that this a good time but he is certain that spring has sprung.  We are suppose to have lots of rain this coming weekend so I hope this works out for him.

We went to a concert Sat. of the Paragould Jazz band and some professional players.  It was music from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and the 80’s.  They had singers, backup singers and a band teacher that was an act in it’s self.  This teacher came here 5 years ago and had 71 band students.  Now he has over 300 members in the band.  Of the incoming 7^th graders three out of every four students signed up for band.  I could see why the kids are flocking to band, right now it is the class that everyone wants to be a part of.  He works with the kids makes them feel like they can do anything.  I wish that his personal life was better but his professional life is doing very well.  The concert was so loud that I had to take Kleenex and stuff my ears so I could tolerate the sound.  It was good, two hours of good oldies.

The Seniors had a Sweethearts party and dance Fri. afternoon.  Dad just had to go and then he didn’t want to dance.  If he didn’t want to dance then why were we there?  He finally did dance two dances then we had to go but we could have been dancing more if he would have gotten up.  I think that he thought that there would be a lot people dancing but there were only a few and he didn’t want to make a spectacle of himself.  We so enjoy serving at the senior center, the people that we work with and the friends that we have made there.  They are so accepting and  welcoming, one lady asked us especially to pray for her son.

Okay my dears I need a nap.  What has happened to letters to your parents?  All of a sudden everyone but Evan has stopped writing.  The mailbox has been very empty and you should remember how excited you were when you received a letter, well it is the same for us.  Thank you Johnny and Emma for your Valentines card and Jill and Wanda thank you for the cards that you sent.

Take care and keep on trekking  that is what we are doing we just keep on going forward.

 

LOVE

Dad &Mom, Grammy & Papa, Elder & Sister Hansen    

Dad here again: To misquote from a song we heard the other night  at the concert,

“We are lost between two shores,

Weiser’s fine, but it ain’t home,

Paragould’s home, but it ain’t ours much more,

We are our selves, and no one else.”

Mom says you won’t know what song that’s from. I say, you will all know what song that is from. She says I need to give you the hint of Neil Diamond, I say they don’t need a hint they will know.

An other song that was sung on the program was by a sister member of the branch here. She sang “I Will Survive”, by Gloria Gaynor. When she was singing, one of the verses goes

“and so you’re back from outer space

I just walked in to find you here

With that sad look upon your face,

I should have changed that stupid lock,

I should have made you leave your  key.

If I had known for just one second

You’d be back to bother me”

When I heard her sing that verse, I said to my self “I know that verse” “Where do I know that verse from” For the life of me I couldn’t place where I had heard that verse. It bothered me the rest of the night. I finally called Evan and asked him where I knew that verse from. He said “It was from “Men in Black II” The bulldog riding with Will Smith sings that verse.   Evan is so smart.

2/10/14

Dear Family and Friends                                                                    February 10, 2014

            Today was our first time to have got to go to the Memphis Temple to do an endowment session. We went two weeks ago with the youth in the Paragould Branch to help them do baptisms for the dead. That was a really nice experience, we rode down to the temple with a member family. Today was an all missionary day at the temple. Monday’s the temple is usually closed, but every 6 weeks they open the temple for just the missionaries that are going home that week, which also includes their companions and sometimes their ride to the temple. Our District leader Elder Bluth came out two years ago with a set of missionaries that are going home this week, he got sick in the mission field and went home for six months and then came back on his mission. He received special permission to come to the temple to be with the missionaries he came out with, even though he has 6 months to go. We were his ride down to Memphis so we also got signed up to be in the temple. Since we were the only couple at the temple besides the mission president and his wife, we were asked to be the witness couple. It was one very full session, they brought in about eight extra chairs to accommodate everyone. The prayer circle only had 8 people in it, us, the mission president and his wife, a couple who where temple workers and two other members who were rides for the missionaries. I guess they don’t let the elders or the sisters participate in the prayer circle. Afraid the missionaries might take it as a sign, I suppose. We got to see the second new temple film. We saw the first new film when we were at the MTC last fall. I liked this one better.

            In two days it is transfers in the Memphis part of the mission. Out of our District Sister Hill is being transferred out. We are so going to miss her, she came to Paragould the day that we did. She and her companion Sister Cooke have become very dear to us. They are kind of on the nutty side, but so delightful. I think Sister Hill spent most of today crying. She will leave a big hole in our lives.

            Yesterday, at church Danny Van Fleet spoke in Sacrament Meeting along with Elder Freestone. Last week Brother Van Fleet was called and set apart in the Elders Quorum Presidency as second counselor. We are so glad we were able to get to know him. We are still reading the Book of Mormon with Sister Judy Dunn while we are waiting for her Baptismal day on March the Ninth. We are up to the part where Alma just blessed his three sons.

            I’m now half way through the Book of Ezekiel. Every time I read another chapter in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, or Ezekiel I think how can the Lord tell Israel again in another way that the are an unfaithful and stiffnecked people, but each chapter I have to say: “Well he did it again” then I read the next chapter: “Well he did it again” It is amazing to me who many different ways the Lord can say the very same thing.

            This is Mom:  It was so good to be in the temple again.  A person doesn’t realize how much we can miss not being in the temple.  We will go again in March before we leave for home.  I’m not sure if we will take anyone with us or not.  Elder Bluth had a lot friends that he was saying good-by to and Elder Freestone just stood by as a good Elder does waiting for his companion.  Since we didn’t stop in Memphis for lunch we were very hungry by the time we reached Paragould.  We had plenty of left-overs so we shared with the Elders.

            The weather has not been nice and so much for warm temperatures.  The mission President sent all the missionaries straight home because of another impending storm.  He has already put a ban on driving after the last snow storm.  Now that the ice has melted and the snow is starting to disappear we are to have more snow and the missionaries will have another ban put on them.  They don’t say anything to us so we are out and about most of the time.

            We are suppose to have a Valentine activity on Wed. night.  But if we have snow then no one will come because they are all afraid to drive on any amount of snow.  We have already postponed the activity from last Fri. because of the weather so we will see how Wed. works.  I will be very glad when the activity is over and I can think of something else.

             It is so unbelievable that we only have about six more weeks left of our mission.  I though that Oct. would never get over with and now the time is flying by so fast.  I have to start thinking about packing up and sending lots of things home.

            Well Elder Bluth needs to use the computer to start getting ready for college.  Since everything has to be in by this month.  They are playing Dad a game of rummy while they are waiting for me to get done.

            We did laugh our heads off reading of Ryan’s driving and scaring Grant and Reagan.  We also have to laugh at Katieisms and Porterisms .  Don’t forget to write it is a sad day when the mailbox is empty most of the time.  We love emails and letters

                                                Love to you all

                        Dad and Mom, Papa and Grammy, Elder and Sister Hansen

 

2/3/14

Dear Family and Friends                                                                    February 3, 2014

            I have finished Psalms and gone through Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. I now know why they put those last two books in the Old Testament, it is because by the time you wade through them, you rejoice that you are finally in Isaiah, at least it makes a little sense. I’m still pushing to be done with the Old Testament by Valentines Day. I am sorry I haven’t written more letters, this rush reading of the 4 Standard Works in 5 months has taken a lot of time. Elder Bluth our District Leader is a few days behind me in his reading and I have to keep ahead of him. As I finish a book, I give him my synopsis or my slant of the book and then as he reads it he says: “I think you are right.” Like when I read the Book of Job, I commented: “I think that Job was a real person and he really did exist. However I think the book was written in the form of a production that was preformed on a stage to an audience of Jews of that time. There was a narrator and people took the different parts of those involved in the story.” When he got done reading it, he said: “I think you are right.” Now maybe he just says that to appease me, but it does feel good to have someone that agrees with you.

            This last Friday we had a special church meeting. Four General Authorities were at the Memphis Stake Center and they held a Ward & Stake Council Meeting that was broadcast to 85 locations in the South. All Branch, Ward and Stake Councils and all missionaries were invited to attend. Elder L.Tom Perry, President Rasband of the Seventy, Elder Zwick and a new Seventy from England were in attendance. We drove 20 miles to Jonesboro, Arkansas to watch it. We took the Sister Missionaries with us. They are so funny, as they rode in the back seat on the way down they got talking about how hard they strive to follow all the mission rules and how hard it will be to be released at the end of their missions when they return home. They could imagine themselves confessing to their moms: “Mom I’m so sorry, I left my area this afternoon, I don’t know what came over me, I just started to drive and before I knew it I was is Salt Lake. I went without my companion, I shopped for hours, I met a boy and talked with him, alone. I didn’t share my testimony or get any discussions taught. I didn’t get any call backs or referrals. I’m so sorry mom, it will never happen again. Will you please forgive me.” It is just fun to be around the missionaries, they are so good, as we talk to people of other faiths, their young people don’t really care that much about their church, they are not a moral force for good in the world.

            We are trying very hard not to get sick, The sisters and elders have been very sick, some of our investigators and some of the members have been very sick. We keep our distance, wash our hands and faces a lot. This morning we woke up to a blanket of white snow on the ground. Schools will be closed, so will the Seniors Center, so no volunteering this morning. Really miss meeting with those old people each morning, we have really come to enjoy being around them.

            Took a couple of days this past week to work on taxes. Angela sent me a Microsoft Money printout for 2013, I’ve gone through it and made necessary adjustments and have the “F Schedule” mostly filled out. I think the accountants can take it from there. It looks as if it was my best year so far. I’m going to have to come up with a lot of money to pay the taxes this year.

It is my turn to write:  Dad gets up very early each morning and on Mon. he will start to write then gets sleepy so he will go back to bed for a short nap.  Today we will have to be quick since the library will also be closed because of all the closures and the Sisters and Elders will need to use our computers for their letters home.

     We had a snow storm that turned to sleet and then icy rain.  I pray that we won’t be without power.  This apartment warms up in the sun but without power it would be very cold.  There is an ice glazing on most things and it hasn’t warmed up enough yet to start dripping water off of the eves of the roof.  So much for a warm Arkansas so warm that we will not need a coat.  We will have to check out the church sometime this morning to make sure that the water is still running.  We are now the building supervisors as of last Fri. night.  It is probably a good thing that we are leaving in about 7 weeks that will finally push Pres La Vetter to get some teachers and some one to check the building besides us.  The only time that teaching is hard is when we have less actives that are coming back or investigators that are coming for the first time.  We need to be with them, not in the Sunday school class.  Dad will go with the less actives or investigators and I teach the class.

         Our one little investigator has been so sick with this wretched flu that she thought that if she could be dead for three days she would get better.  Oh yes she would get better that is a rather permanent solution.  She and her husband have been so sick, I still say that if Elder Bluth would have stayed home when he first started getting sick, Judy and Lloyd probably would not have gotten so sick.  I don’t know how to convince the Elders and Sisters that no one wants the flu so please stay home until you are on the mend. Oh well some times they listen other times they go out any ways sicker  then sick.

     It will be hard to leave here.  We have formed attachments to so many of the members of the Branch and to so many of the seniors at the senior center.  The old adage is true, you love the ones that you serve.  We have been told many times that we need to stay, that the Branch needs us we give them stability.  But our family doesn’t even live anywhere close.  Dad wants to get back to the farm and we both want to get back to our

 family.  We are now going to revisit everyone that we have visited before.  These last few weeks will be full which is good for us.  It does make grocery shopping maybe a little harder because I don’t want to have a lot of food and cleaning supplies left over to decide what to do with.

     Well my dears, I do need to clean our apartment.  This is the day although for us it really doesn’t matter when we clean and do laundry.  Have a happy and great week.

                                                        Love

                                  Dad and Mom, Papa and Grammy, Elder and Sister Hansen