couch potatoes

Hey hey good morning hi

"Hi friends"

Email today will definitely be short because 1) I'm tired today and am
probably just going to nap for p day (not in Rome anymore so I can't
just up and go see the colosseum ya feel) 2) we honestly didn't get
much done this week😬 (hence the title) it was a pretty slow week, but
that's not because of circumstance. I'll be straight about it...we
were pretty lazy. We got some good stuff done, but when it came down
to the whole "hey do we want to spend the last 30 minutes of today
outside doing finding or do we just want to go home a little early?",
we typically ended up going home a little early. And the thing is that
it was frustrating to both my spirit and my heart because I knew we
could be better but after a couple days of this lazy feeling hanging
over our heads we just got the feeling of "man, are we ever gonna get
out of this rut?" And it felt a little depressing at times to answer
with "I don't know."


BUT. There's light at the end of the tunnel and it's that Christ is
always willing to help us overcome not only sin, but anything that
will prevent us from being great instruments in his hands...including
laziness! We've really felt strongly about it these past couple days
and how we know we can do better and yesterday we actually had an
inspiring discussion during comp study during which we set some goals
and talked about what's been holding us back and what's our part to
overcome those things. We're both pretty close to the end of our
missions, and we want to use all the time we've got left to serve God
with all our heart, might, mind and strength. And it'll be hard to
remember these feelings and wants when it comes back to the "do we go
home early or not?", but nothing is impossible to God. If there's
anything I've learned during the mission it's that when we pray, God
answers. He's always right there and LITERALLY if we'll just take a
second or two and say a quick prayer asking for help to overcome
laziness or whatever our problem may be, he'll help us.

So we're really excited for this upcoming week!!

"Literally all of Malta looks like this..."

But also not, cause we're actually not going to be in our area, like, at all.

Yeahhhh so here's the thing. I'm going back to Palermo on Wednesday to
(hopefully --- it's a long story that I'll explain probably next week)
get my documents to be legit in Italy (which will also mean legit in
Malta...technically). After that, I'm flying straight to Rome on
Thursday to meet up with my comp and the other elders on the island
for zone conference, which will be taking place on Friday. We'll then
be flying back Friday night at an ungodly hour, and be home on
Saturday just in time for some lessons and people we need to see and
then GENERAL CONFERENCE. Conference is also going to take up all day
Sunday. Soooo...yeah this week is pretty much over already😭😭 but
we're still committed to doing all we can with the time we have! So
expect to hear some miracles next week:)

Highlights from this week include:

- WE SAW CLOUDSSSS ☁️ that's significant because typical Maltese
weather is sunshine and no clouds. It was still v hot and v humid BUT
the clouds saved us a day of dying in the sun.

- finding out that you can't actually take cold showers here. One day
I came back and was so sweaty that I thought "man a cold shower sounds
nice rn" and that's what I attempted but it was really just a lukewarm
shower because THERES NO COLD WATER. Malta is still hot, and I feel
like I'm never going to experience cold weather again😓😓

- my comp turned 21 and we celebrated by doing missionary work yayyyy.
Hahaha no we actually did do some fun stuff and some of the members in
our area wanted to go to dinner so we went to Burger King lol. So
fancy🎉

"Oh hey"

- Haley is still progressing really well and we're very excited for
her baptism coming up in two weeks!

- we spent some time also meeting and slowly sharing the gospel with
the homiest less active in the world. She's a policewoman and is a
guard in Valletta so we typically just stop by and talk for a little
bit and it's been really neat to see how sharing the gospel slowly is
changing her. It's almost imperceptible, but she's making leaps and
bounds really. She's awesome!

"Us and the homie less active policewoman I mentioned"

- eating Sunday lunch with my favorite British family in the world and
arguing half the time about the proper way to say things haha

- going to a catholic choir concert to support some members at a v
pretty but v far away church

- Maltese Independence Day! It's September 21st and it's a happy day here.

"Maltese independence dayyyy"

Annddd that's about it for this week. Enjoy conference peeps. Study
hard and prepare yourselves this week because I've got a feeling that
it'll be awesome!

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen

small but mighty

Orrajt!

That's how you say "hi" in Maltese and it's pronounced like the word

"alright". Y'all now know as much Maltese as I do😭🙌🏼🙌🏼

"P daayyy near the sea"

Anyways this week was pretty good. UNBELIEVABLY HOT AND HUMID (please

send me some ice or something cause I'm dyin) but really good,

actually. Recently in our finding we haven't been seeing a ton of

success, but we've done our best and God has blessed us in other ways

for that. We received three different referrals this week! And we both

know that's only because we've been working hard at doing our best.

For us it's kind of cool just to see how even when our finding hasn't

been the greatest, God is able to move his work forward anyways. He

just needs willing hands and changeable hearts.

So let me tell you about the referrals!

The first is Keith and we had the funniest phone call with him haha.

We'd called him twice before with no luck and couldn't find his

address, but this time he answered.

Keith: Hello?

Us: Hi Keith! We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter Day Saints. Some of our friends sent us your contact

information saying you'd like to know more about our message and we'd

like to meet with you. Is now a bad time to talk?

Keith: Well I'm on a glacier walk in Greenland right now...so...

(sounds of shoes on what sounds like snow and ice"

Us: Ah. Okay. We'll call you back later then.

Ahahahaha it was a lot funnier in the moment. We're looking forward to

meeting him when he comes back from his vacationing though.

"Why hello beautiful"

The next referral was Solomon who, unfortunately, hasn't been able to

meet with us and only answered his phone once before the number

stopped working. Not much to say there. The last referral though was

def one to remember. We got a call from a woman named Veronica saying

she'd like a Book of Mormon so we went on Friday to meet her and her

husband Daren at their house. Getting past the formalities, we got

down to the serious stuff and asked why they wanted a Book of Mormon.

They mention it's because they've been studying a lot of different

religions lately and they want to know the truth. We hypothetically

ask if God told them this book was true if they'd change their lives

and be baptized...and they said yes! We thought that was a really good

indicator of a sincere heart and real intent. Buuutttt as we went

through the lesson it felt a lot less like she was there to learn and

more to just slam on our beliefs. And despite our best attempts at

explaining doctrine clearly, at the end she told us that she knows the

only book we need is the Bible and that she thinks we've been deceived

by the devil. Greaaattt. But they're open to meeting again so we're

hoping and praying that God softens their hearts (but really just

hers...the husband was honestly v cool) and that they'll be more

prepared to accept our testimonies.

It did lead to an interesting discussion though between me and my comp

about how true our church is. She argued pretty fiercely and tried so

hard to prove all of what we were saying wrong through biblical

passages, but in the end, we came out of it even stronger in our

testimonies of Christ's restored church. How could this not be true?

Also...we've got an investigator on baptismal date now!!! Her name is

Haley, and she's the coolest 14 year old you'll ever meet. Her sister

Aicha (pronounced eye-shaa) was baptized a month or two ago, and since

then her little sister has been wanting to be baptized herself. And

she's made so many changes to her life too! She use to have a piercing

on her face, but she removed that and for her, that was like saying

"hey missionaries why don't you baptized me already huh? I'm ready!"

but we were a little slow on that one haha. We officially extended a

baptismal invitation though this week and she gladly accepted for the

14th of October. We're excited for her!

Other noteworthy things from the week:

- we are lunch with an older single sister in the branch who's going

back to England this week. She's been here for two years and is going

to miss it soooo much but it was nice to sit down and eat and talk

with sister Shaw.

- we had DDM and we have the sickest senior couple (the Thompson's) in

the whole dang world down here and they're from Australia! We have DDM

in their house and she always makes SO MUCH GOOD GOOD for lunch right

afterwards and imma just say that 6 months to sexy just got a lot

harder lol.

- had an activity this week with the ysa and the youth in the branch

where we wrote cards to all the families or individuals in the branch

and then played a game where you stick a contraption in your mouth

that prevents you from closing your lips and then you've got to read

cards to your teammates until they correctly guess what it is you're

trying to say and I don't have pictures of it but there's a screenshot

from a video my comp took lol. Enjoy✌🏼

"Oh hello ugly (pic from the activity night as promised)"

- had a munch and mingle after church in mosta (gimme two seconds and

I'll explain what that means) and got to eat lots of food and talk

with all the cool members and I'm loving it

- had my first Maltese lesson and wanted to pass out cause this

language is so difficult🙂

- we helped a woman come to church who hasn't been to church in

something like 5 months and it was a v positive experience for her AND

for us:)

Annddd now for church. So! There's just one branch in all of Malta,

but there's two meetinghouses. One is down south in fgura (pronounced

fff-gu-rah...that's where I'm at) and it's for the members who live

down there. There's not enough though that come though to be it's own

branch (we had two members in church yesterday...not including

missionaries, the branch president, and an investigator...yeah it's

pretty small). Church down in the south goes from 9 to 10:30 and then

we travel from there up to Mosta where the other meetinghouse is for

Sunday school and an additional sacrament meeting with everyone else.

Okayyy now that that's out of the way...

So in church yesterday we had the relief society president come down

from the north to speak to us and she gave a talk about being small

but mighty. She related experiences from her life about being in small

branches (she's from England but lived in wales for most of her life)

and how oftentimes it's easy for us to look around and question how

this will ever grow. And it's difficult. It's hard to stay strong in

tiny branches. But the lord works miracles when the members of his

church remain faithful. It's also easy to sometimes think "I'm just

one person. What can I do?" But she reminded us that although in our

own eyes we may be small, in the eyes of the Lord, we are mighty. And

that's all thanks to him. I thought it was a really inspiring talk and

thought I'd share just a bit of that with you.

Annddd that's it for today folks. And thank you all for the birthday

wishes! It meant a lot to me on the big day, so thank you!

Have a great week homies

May the glory be to God

"The main street in Valletta, the capital of Malta. Pretttyyyy"

Anziano Hansen

currrvveeeballll x2 (but more curvy this time)

Yeah so remember when I got transferred to Palermo 3 and panicked
because it was a branch working solely with English speakers and I
wanted MORE THAN ANYTHING to work with/speak with Italians? Yeah. That
was pretty rough but alsssooo one of the greatest areas of my mission.
I'm hoping the same thing will happen here cause guess what? I was
transferred again! And this time to an entirely different country!

wat🙂

"Wednesday night gelato before I leave early Thursday morning"

Yup. For those of you who don't know, the Italy Rome mission consists
of mainland Italy from about the city of Perugia and down, the islands
of Sicily and Sardegna, as well as the island nation of Malta.

And I've been transferred to Malta.

Photo source: http://josephbraude.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/malta-country.jpg

Things that are new about Malta

- the LANGUAGE. Maltese is unbelievably hard but I've done this once
and I'll do it again. I'm struggling though trying to get used to the
fact that (practically) no one here speaks Italian. lol the other day
we were in a store buying something and at the end I said thank you
(in English) and then asked "come si dice grazie in Maltese?" (How do
you say thank you in Maltese?) and I didn't even realize that I'd
asked it in Italian. Luckily for me though, most people here speak
English as a second language so I can get by.

"Name of the church in Maltese ft. my new comp...does it look like Arabic? Yeah it does. Basically if you can speak this language, you can learn Arabic in no time. It's so hard thoð"

- people drive on the wrong side of the road and I've come close to
being run over so many times that I've lost count.

- people actually say "no thanks, I'm not interested" when they're
rejecting us. What? As much as I love Italians, usually they just walk
away or shut the door saying "no no no no no no no no no no no no
siamo cattolici" and that is a little disappointing. So when people
actually said no kindly, I was more than surprised.

- THE FESTIVALS. Holy goodness I thought Italy was crazy but noooo.
Apparently Malta is the party capital of Europe and EACH city has its
own day for what they call their feast, so wherever you go there's
always a party somewhere nearby...and fireworks, too. Man oh man we've
had fireworks literally nonstop since I've gotten here and while it
makes it hard to sleep I love it. I'd def be okay though if they
wouldn't do so many at midday.

- lots and lots of people from the United Kingdom. Besides the native
Maltese, we've got a lot of members here from somewhere in the U.K.
and I LOVE all of them.

- there are some other things as well but I'm a little all over the
place rn soooo I'll just stop the list here

As much as I love Malta though, I really miss Italy. And just like
when I was called to Palermo 3, I've been struggling with accepting
this as the will of the Lord. In the end, I know he wants me to be
here but my heart aches to go back to Italy. I also know that in the
long run, God is going to help me love this place and I'll never want
to leave. But right here and now, I'm still sad. I love Malta! But
I've spent the last 18 months of my life loving and serving the people
of Italy. They've literally become a part of me I've loved them so
dang much. Yes, they're unbelievably frustrating at times but they're
also some of the kindest most genuine people I've known. Soooo
basically I'm having an internal struggle rn over what's stronger: my
love of Italy, or my love for serving God? Because as Elder Bednar
said during this last general conference, it's really not about where
we're assigned to labor but just the fact that we're called to serve
that means something. And that's definitely been the first big lesson
God has taught me from being here: it's not where I serve but HOW I
serve him that matters. It's not about lifting where I want to, but
faithfully lifting where I stand. It's been humbling, and I'm still
working on it. But God is good, and life is beautiful.

Anyways! This past week literally flew by. We spent p day in Rome
again so I could say goodbye to the group of missionaries that was
heading home. I'm going to miss them!

"Saying goodbye to the sisters from my MTC group"

We also spent the remainder of my time in Ladispoli saying goodbye to
as many people as possible. It's really hard to do just one transfer
in a city and then leave. I really really REALLY loved the ward there.
I'll definitely keep in touch with them though SO there's nothing to
worry about.

"Saying goodbye to two of the awesome recent converts in Ladispoli"

Thursday morning we wake up to rain in Ladispoli (the rain thing
becomes more pertinent later just be patient) and get to the main
train station in Rome so I could meet up with the other elder coming
down with me, Anziano Boscan, who's also from my same group. We get
down to Malta and WOW ITS SO HOT HERE. We were finally getting some
nicer weather up north and I was thinking "yay we're having fall now
wooo!" And then I came down here where it's still 85 degrees and 90%
humidity most days. Gosh dang it😭😭 buutttt Friday we had a giant
rainstorm come through...the same one that I had in Ladispoli on
Thursday morning😂 it was so bad actually that we couldn't leave the
house. We live in a hilly area and the streets outside literally
turned into rivers. Hahaha it was fun. We've done some finding while
I've been here and found a potential family! I'll keep you updated on
them. We also taught some recent converts and less actives who are all
awesome. Aanndddd I blessed the sacrament in Maltese on Sunday which
was literally THE HARDEST thing I've ever done on my mission haha. But
hey! I've learned one language already. I can definitely learn one
more!

Despite my heart being in Italy still, God is working really hard to
make sure I like it here haha. I think I'll get used to it quicker
than I'd imagine :)

"#nofilter #butforreals"

"Tiny boats lol"

Aanndddd that's about it. So! Have a good week errybody.

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen

🍋🍋🍋🍋

Mornin, homies.

This past week was really good! No, we weren't able to get a ton of people to meet with us, but we got a lot of cool contacts and were able to hand off a few referrals. We were also able to set up some good stuff for this upcoming week, so we're looking forward to that as well.

"District photo"

Highlights of the week include...

- a lemonade stand we did yesterday in an attempt to talk to people about how Christ is the living water haha. It definitely wasn't the easiest thing we've done, but then again, we're missionaries and finding people is never the easiest thing. It was a lot of fun though! We met Davide, a 16 year old who's excited to play ping pong with us (and hopefully learn about the gospel, too☺🙏🏼) as well as Piero, a family man who wants to know how to have a better life.

- Finding a new favorite gelato flavor: peach! Ohhhh goodness it was so good. My favorite gelateria is still back in Reggio Calabria, but Palermo has a few good ones haha.

"New favorite gelato combination: peach and coconut"

- Doing a pass of the lesson with the zone leaders for Bernardo. Unfortunately, we won't be able to continue teaching him as he's in their area of the city. Fortunately, the lesson went well and he's excited to meet with them just as much as he was to meet with us! And it's Anziano Campbell who'll be teaching him anyway. I've known him for awhile, and he'll do just fine! I'm looking forward to hearing how they do with him.

- Jerry! It's been forever since we've been able to meet with him again. A few weeks back I mentioned that we'd gone over to his house and met his two non-member sisters. They're so cool! We were finally able to meet with him again and got him committed to reading the Book of Mormon once more. He's a great guy!

- Oh yeah I almost forgot that last week, we went hiking up to some caves as well as a WWII bunker out in a city nearby. It was really cool!

"We also went to see a WWII bunker"

"How we had to get into the bunker"

"Part of the view from inside"

"View from one of the windows in the bunker"

"Hiking to the caves"

"We were trying to get through to spaces like this"

"Inside!"

On the more spiritual side of things...

- I was reminded of how joyous this work was. Lately, it's been really hard for me to get excited about doing missionary work (finding and stuffs like that). It's so much easier to just go get gelato haha. But thinking back to the MTC, I remember a talk we watched where he said something along the lines of how our extremity is God's opportunity. I love that! Because as soon as we reach what we would deem our limits, God steps in and provides whatever it is we need as long as we're committed to just giving our all. When I reached those points this week, God always stepped in and made the work joyous. I'm so grateful for that!

- I gave a talk in church on Sunday about obedience, and as I studied for it, I was struck once again by how important the small things are. If we'll just do that, we can always be strong in the gospel. It's not about how good we are at the big things like not killing, not lying to get a million dollars, stuff like that. It's actually about how diligent we are in daily scripture study, how committed we are to personal prayer every morning and evening. That's what God wants. He wants the other stuff too, obviously, but meaningful obedience that changes lives begins with the fundamentals.

All in all, it's been a good week! Never the easiest, but far from the hardest and exactly what I needed. Work hard this week at the small things, homies. God will bless you for it.

Spread the love!

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen

A fresh start

Mornin everyone

So! This week was actually another really hard one, but it's definitely on its way up. Here's the thing...this last week, we lost all our work! Yay! Three people moved away and we need to pass off one person to some other elders because we found out that he doesn't actually live in our area. Oh man. Isn't that just the greatest?😂😭 so, all in all, it's been a week full of finding, and it's been great!

"Just me and homeboy"

Here's the thing about Palermo: if you don't want to do finding, the city is big enough and there's enough things to do that you can always be doing something else even though it may not be the most productive. This week though during our weekly planning session, we were able to address that need and get over it. A big part to moving off of the plateaus on which we currently find ourselves is simply acknowledging that we've stopped, acknowledging that there's still progress to be made, and then committing -- and I mean REALLY committing -- to making that progress happen. We've got ourselves a nice fresh start ahead of us☺

From Zone Conference the previous week

The Fourth of July this past week was so fun!! We had tons of food with the senior couple as well as all the other missionaries in the zone. Here's the picture that we took!

Besides that, like I said, we just ended up doing quite a bit of finding. It's been fun to get back into the groove of it! We did a scambio (an....exchange? That's what they're called in English, right?) with the Bagheria anziani this weekend and it was a lot of fun! Saturday night, anziano Oswald and I bought €13 worth of chicken and fries and on top of it, the guy threw in some arancine for free.

"SO MUCH FOOD

"Under all those fries on the bottom is an entire chicken lol"

You'll have to look up what those are because I don't know how to describe them to you haha. In the end though, it ended up being wayyyyy to much food for the both of us and we felt sick, but it was worth it.

"Stuffs"

"More stuffs"

We also had a member talk in church the other day about peace in adversity. I really like that topic, because it's not peace FROM adversity, but peace IN adversity. When Christ said

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

he didn't mean to say that we won't have tribulation, but does promise us that in the midst of our afflictions, we will have joy and grace. And that's beautiful! One of my favorite quotes of all time as it (kind of) relates to this is by President Eyring (I think...I could be wrong!), who said (I could also be wrong on the quote...sorry I'm not on point today) "it's not to only weather the storms, but to choose the right while they rage."

(From October 2005 General Conference.

Talk: Spiritual Preparedness:Start Early and Be Steady)

With Christ, that's possible. And it's not only possible, it's joyful! And that's a beautiful message☺

Have a great week tutti!

VVB!

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen

hbd america 🇺🇸

So! Good morning! And happy Fourth of July to each of you! All of you

in America...PLEASE celebrate a ton for me. I promise I'll be there

next year👍🏼☺

"Anziano Friedman!"

Anyways, the email today is going to be pretty short. We've got a lot

of stuff going on! We're meeting up with all the other missionaries in

the zone to have a barbecue at the senior couples house, and it's

going to be so fun haha. I feel bad though for my Australian companion

who doesn't yet understand the beauty of the Fourth of July. Poor kid.

He'll learn quickly haha.

"The elders in the district waiting for the tram this morning"

"I just thought it was a pretty day:)"

Besides being busy today, there's not much that happened this past

week. It was actually pretty hard...one of the harder weeks of my

mission. But there's light at the end of the tunnel, and it's best

summed up in a quote I was reminded of that my sister sent me at the

beginning of the mission.

Your mindset is a definition of your faith in Christ.

"Anziano Vance!"

And that changed everything. I admit, I was having a hard time being

positive. A lot of things fell through and we definitely didn't use

our time as best we could've. That just got us even more down. But I

started studying a little bit about positive attitudes as well as the

atonement, and one of the greatest things I learned is that if we

really want it, Christ can not only help us to become clean, but he

can help us be stronger and create within us the desires we need to

get ourselves out of the slums. And what a blessing that is!

"Anziano Young!"

If we're really talking about freedom and liberty today, we can't

really talk about it without also mentioning Christ, who liberated and

freed us all. How grateful I am for him and his life and for the time

I have to represent him!

"Anziano Battaglia!"

Other small highlights from the week include

- playing soccer last night with some Italian teenagers in the parking

lot of the church for finding haha. We got one of the kids numbers

awhile ago and we invited him to come play last night, and he did!

That was fun :)

- zone conference and alllll the homies! We had a combined zone

conference with the Catania zone and I saw so many friends haha. I've

been in southern Italy a long time now, and the majority of the

missionaries I know are down here. It was so fun!

- trying to jump a fence and completely landing on my side on the

pavement hahaha. Luckily, no one saw it.

- doing a district blitz in Bagheria this past Monday

"Anziano Alexander!"

And that's about it! In closing, here's one last quote:

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that [we] can change [our]

circumstances by changing [our] attitudes of mind”

It's not our adversities or our challenges that define us, but how we

respond to them. And we can always choose to respond with positivity

and hope and faith!

"Anziano Peterson!"

Have a great week everyone :) and happy Fourth of July again!

VVB

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen