Hello All!
First off, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope it was a wonderful
holiday for all of you with lots of friends and family and realizing how
blessed you really are. Oh, and Pumpkin Pie. That's pretty good too.
We weren't deprived of a good ol' American Thanksgiving, as one of our
YSA members made us up a very delicious one. I've now had 4
Thanksgivings on my mission. Jealous much? Haha, it's been a great
week. I'd also like to send my love to my Great Uncle Denny's family.
His funeral was this past week, and I know this isn't an easy time.
Well, it's transfers, and I'm off again. I suppose I shouldn't have
been expecting anything different, since I'm always in my areas for
three transfers. I'm pretty sad to go, though. This has been a really
awesome area, and I will miss it, and especially the people here, a
lot. I've learned so much here. My testimony has been strengthened.
My conversion to the Savior has deepened. I think I've grown quite a
bit.
Some surprising
news from this week: Lana wasn't baptized. It's a bit of a long story,
so I'll try not to leave you in suspense too long. (She should still be
baptized.) We had a lesson scheduled with Lana on Tuesday evening. It
was going to be our last lesson before the baptismal interview. We went
by, and she wasn't there. On the door was a card from her, thanking us
and the members who have fellowshipped her for everything we've done
for her. She explained in the card that her family had not been too
excited to hear that she was getting baptized, and because of that
persecution, she had made sure she wouldn't be there for our lesson. We
assume she told her family that she had decided not to get baptized to
get them to back off. We were a little disappointed, as you can
probably imagine. We tried getting in touch with Lana a couple times,
with not luck. Finally, on Friday night, we caught her at home. We
arranged to come back on Saturday night, and she explained everything
then. It's kind of hard for Lana to express things verbally, so she had
written us a letter talking about what had happened and why she'd done
what she'd done. We were hoping her family would be understanding or
even supportive, but they weren't...at all. They had all turned on
Lana, and done and said some pretty nasty things. Lana was in no way
resentful towards the church, and she still wanted to be baptized but
everything was really hard on her. We had a really great discussion
with her, and recommitted her to baptism on the 13th of December, her
birthday. :) She came to church on Sunday, and I think everything
should go according to plan this time. (knock on wood.) Lana is great.
And I'm grateful for the chance I had to know her.
We
also had a couple of potential investigators just show up at church on
Sunday. It was kinda cool. We'll hope things work out with them.
I
wanted to write today about the blessing of each other. D&C 18:15
is a scripture a lot of people use for missionary work, and something
interesting about it stood out to me. The verse says, "And if it so be
that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this
people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your
joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" How great shall be your joy with them.
This life was never meant to be one we went through on our own, and the
next one isn't either. I hope and pray that I will be able to see and
be with and have joy with each and every one of you, and each and every
one of the people the Lord has blessed me to know on my mission. I'm
trying to be better about loving everyone right now, and I encourage you
all to do the same. There is so much to love in every single person.
Are we not all children of God, with the very real potential to become
like him?
I love you all so much! I hope you have a fantastic day, and that your week is great, too. Be good! Have fun!
Merry Christmas!
Elder Hafen
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