Hermana Hansen in Houston TX

The Hermanas :)

Sister Missionary - Daytime

Halfway there, Livin on a prayer!

Hello my favorite people,

First off, lemme just say how much I LOVE YOU ALL. I can feel your prayers and thoughts strengthening me. Thank you, thank you!

First off, let's start with some unhappy news. This morning was the first time I cried in the shower. I usually wait until the lights are out and I'm in my bed to let it out, but for some reason I just couldn't hold it together! And I'm not one to sugar coat things, and this is HARD. Maybe it hit me that I'm already halfway done with the MTC, and that in THREE weeks I'll be in Costa Rica, or maybe it was the fact that it's been three weeks away from my favorite people...whatever it was, I'm glad that I got over it.

Fun fact about Sister Missionaries: since we can only hug girls, we LOVE hugging. Maybe it's just my District or just my teacher, but us girls love hugging. It's hilarious and awesome. Also, we have another teacher named Hermana Guerrero and holy cow she's THE BEST! Honestly I'm so #blessed with the best teachers. Both of them truly CARE about us missionaries, and our success. It's amazing. Jason told me that it's the only time that teachers truly care and want you to succeed, and he is SO RIGHT! They are so willing to help with anything and it's such a blessing!

Speaking of teachers, my comp and I met with Bro Santillan this week on Wednesday(?) night I think. He just basically asked and talked to us about our lives and how we are doing. Hermana Haroldsen and I took 45 minutes talking with him....oops. OF COURSE I bawled my eyes out because missionary work is hard and I'm also a baby. But he was totally cool about it and gave some of the BEST advice. You can really tell that he cares about and prays for us each day. It was funny because he took my comp and I, and the other Hermanas to "coach" us and the other Elders in the District were so bugged that they didn't get time! He just said that the Hermanas are more important :) lol

Something really awesome happened this week: I CAN ROLL MY R'S. Emily Hansen, the girl who took four years of Spanish in school can finally roll her R's!!!! It makes me so happy. I definitely have to practice a ton, but I'm making progress! I will always love the word "tierra" because that's when I rolled my r's for the first time. Little progress is the best.

So we had a lesson with one of our investigators, Hely, on Friday. It's called TRC and it's a legit, non-member investigator. The other two investigators we teach are our teachers. Anyways, we got to have a member in our lesson on Friday!! It was SO HELPFUL! We were stumbling through teaching the Restoration, and I totally told Hely that Joseph Smith was a young boy who was 40 years old. Yeah the member quickly corrected me. lol Hey, the MTC is the place to learn, right?

Okay I'm gonna tell a story and I don't wanna come off vain. So keep that in mind as I tell you all this: so this week, I obviously can't remember which day because they all run together, I decided to be brave and wear my hair tucked into a headband. My comp told me that I looked like a greek goddess. I'll send a picture of it, so it will make sense. ANYWAYS. So I wear my hair like that one day, and all the sudden the next day I see three other Hermanas in my building wearing the same hairstyle. Then, the next day I see like five other sisters in the cafeteria with the same hairstyle. I'm not trying to sound vain, but can someone say trend-setter? lol

So I had a thought this week...I've been thinking a lot about name tags. With so many missionaries around you, so you see all the name tags. Wearing a name tag is honestly the BEST. However, it does come with a price. We don't get much sleep, we don't get to see our families or friends, and we always stay with a companion, which can be a pain at some points. HOWEVER, I'm a disciple of CHRIST! I get to wear His name on my heart each day and represent Him! It's pretty amazing! I've learned this week that because I'm a disciple of Christ, I must walk a bit of the path that He had to walk. I believe that is why a mission is hard a points! It doesn't come without a price!

I love you all. I'm super tired, but SUPER happy. Have a great week everyone!

Hermana Hansen