Week 82 - Grace

Hello All!

    It's been a busy, good, kinda stressful week in the great CCM!  We've had a lot going on, and time keeps flying by.  I hope you've all had a great week with lots of fun things going on!

    On Tuesday of this week, we had a zone conference, which was a lot of fun.  To be honest, I was super stressed about it, but it turned out great.  We also had a meeting with the Ward Mission Leaders in the stake which was good.  We've also gotten some good personal finding in (aka Tracting) and found a couple of promising potential investigators from that and some of our awesome members.  I think things are starting to pick up a bit! 

    Diana continues to do well!  We met with her a couple times this week, and taught her about the Plan of Salvation.  When we talked about the reasons we're here and the reasons for the Fall of Adam and Eve, I think a lot of questions were answered for Diana.  It's so great to see knowledge and the Spirit change people's attitudes.  She was at church again on Sunday, and I can't wait to see her progress in the next few weeks.

    We also met with Kate and her roommate, Mikaela, and were able to answer some questions they had.  I think they're going through a bit of a  rough patch right now with all sorts of different things going on in their lives and their family lives.  I hope we'll be able to help them.

    I just wanted to share a little bit about grace this week.  Grace is the help or strength given through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. (lds.org) Like I said, I was pretty stressed out for zone conference.  In the eternal scheme of things, I know that that's not a very important life event, but there were a bunch of things that added up to make it a bit of a stressful morning.  However, I knew that I had things I needed to do, things that were part of the calling I've received from the Lord.  I asked Elder Alpentista to give me a blessing just before the conference started.  Then, as it went on, and as I felt the Spirit and learned from him, I started to feel better and better.  The conference went really well, and I was so grateful for the help of my Heavenly Father in making that happen.  All of us are asked to do a lot of things by our Father in Heaven.  Sometimes, it seems impossible to do them all.  I testify that if we'll trust in Him, then He'll make it so we are able to do them.  If we didn't rely on Him, we wouldn't be able to do it, but the Atonement of Jesus Christ makes all of it possible.  

    I hope  you all have a fantastic week and have opportunities to feel the power of the Atonement in your lives.  Thank you all for your love and your support.  Good luck with everything!  Be good!  Have fun!

Love,

Elder Hafen

Week 81 - Happy MLK Day

Hello All!

    First, sorry if I'm pretty brief today.  We've got lots going on today, so we're pretty rushed with everything we're doing, including emails.  I hope you're all having great days, though, and appreciating a great man who did a lot of good in helping us all realize that we really are children of God, whether or not we look the same.

   It's been a great transfer week!  You might have seen it on my Facebook already, but my new companion is Elder Joshua Alpentista.  He's from Oshawa, Ontario (another Canadian) and is pretty awesome.  I've actually wanted to serve with Elder Alpentista for a while now, so this is pretty much a dream come true.  He's a super hard-working, obedient, and just really nice missionary, and the last couple of days serving with him have been great.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the time we have left, however long it may be.

    Not too much has happened lesson-wise in the last week or so.  It's been pretty crazy with everything going on, but we're looking forward to some awesome things the Lord has in store for us.  I don't know what they are yet, but I know they're going to be fantastic!

    One person I did want to tell you all about is Diana.  Diana is a member in our YSA Branch who is just starting to come back to church.  She's from Africa, and has experienced some things that no one should have to go through.  After her family came here when she was a young woman, they met the missionaries and joined the church, but she fell away in the meantime due to a bunch of different things.  However, she wants change in her life, and she's lucky enough to know where to find it.  Meeting with Diana has really helped me see that the gospel really does help individual people in personal ways.

    That's all I really want to share this week and all I really want to bear testimony of.  The gospel is either the only real way to live our lives, or a bunch of nice ideas for living a "good" life. (And some people would even debate that.)  I want you all to know that it is true.  Not only is it true, but it's the best and most important thing we could possibly have in our lives!  Just like all great things, we discover the greatness and the goodness of the gospel through doing the small things.  Every day.  Over and over.  As we consistently and diligently build our lives on the principles and commandments of Jesus Christ's gospel, it will turn us into something amazing, and something we could never be without it.  I know that's true with all my heart. 

    I hope you're all doing well and receiving all sorts of great blessings!  I love you all so much.  Be good!  Have fun!

Love,

Elder Hafen

Week 80 - Another One Bites the Dust

Hello All!  

Well, another transfer has come and gone ....already!  I feel like I was leaving East Calgary about a blink ago, and now my time with Elder Macmichael is coming to an end.  He's being transferred up to Calgary, so I'll be getting a new companion on Thursday.  It's been a fun time serving with him, and I'm anxious to see who the Lord wants me to serve with next.  I'm sorry, but you'll all have to wait in suspense a little bit longer than me, but I'll let you know what's going on next week for sure!

    This week was pretty fun.  I got to meet Beth for the first time, which was quite the experience.  Beth is one of the roommates of Jacki, one of our investigators who I'll talk about more in a second.  She's pretty passionate about her beliefs, but it's sometimes hard to tell what those beliefs are.  Anyway, we had some really good conversations with her this week that I hope helped her to think about things a little differently.  She's a really respectful and genuine person, and I hope the truth comes into her heart one of these days.

    Jacki is actually in Calgary at the hospital right now.  She had a bit of a sledding accident a couple weeks back, and broke one of her vertebrae. (I hope that's the right singular.)  It's been a big trial for her, and she's suffered a lot of anxiety and disappointment because of it.  Anyway, we went to see her on the day she was going up to Calgary, and gave her a blessing.  We'd talked to her about them before, but she hadn't accepted one yet, but she did that day.  It was a really cool blessing, and what made it cooler was that they came to take her away probably 30 seconds after we finished.  The Lord's hand was definitely in it, and I'm hoping that experience will help Jacki accept the gospel more in her life.

    It was probably the same for all of you, but this Sunday we had a great lesson in the third hour of church from the life of President Ezra Taft Benson.  His life was so inspiring, and he accomplished so much as a church leader, as well as in every other aspect of his life.  I think the biggest reason for all of that was because he followed the first and great commandment, to love the Lord with all his heart.  He showed that in everything he did, and he saw what happened when he did what the Lord asked.  President Benson said, “When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.”  That's so true.  I've seen many examples of that on my mission, and I plan on doing that better now and for the rest of my life.  It might take some serious courage to put the Lord first, but it's more than worth any risk or sacrifice.

    I hope you all have a great week.  Thank you for your support and love.  It means so much.  I love you all!  Be good!  Have fun!

Love,

Elder Hafen

Week 79 - Happy Yoo Near!

Hello All!

    I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve, and that 2015 is treating you well so far!  It's crazy to think that another year has passed, and that time just keeps getting faster and faster.

    We had a pretty exciting New Year's surprise.  Ready?.....We're starting Facebook proselyting!  Yeah, I was pretty surprised too.  So, from now on, you'll be seeing me on Facebook again. (Unless you're not my Facebook friend, in which case, you should definitely send me a friend request.)  However, I won't be on Facebook as a quote on quote normal person.  I'll be on there as a missionary, striving to fulfill my purpose to "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  So if you want to keep in touch with me a little more personally, please send me an email at tanner.hafen@myldsmail.net.  If you want to talk the gospel, though, Facebook message me by all means!  It's gonna be awesome!

    We were pretty busy with some administrative stuff this week, but we did have a really awesome lesson with some members of our YSA Branch.  They had some questions and concerns, and it was great to be able to talk with them and relate with them.  I think it was an edifying experience for all of us.

    I've been gaining a lot of new knowledge and insights on the gospel lately, and it's been a really cool experience to listen to the whisperings of the Spirit teaching me things I've needed to learn.  Something that has been especially emphasized to me is the fact that each and every one of us really are eternal beings with divine potential.  We are literal spiritual children of God!  He wants us to become like Him!  However, it's up to us if that happens.  That's why we're here as strangers in this wicked world.  That's why we're here for only a short time as well, as it says in

Alma 42:8 "Now behold, it was not expedient that man should be reclaimed from this temporal death, for that would destroy the great plan of happiness." 

That scripture really helped me to realize a little bit more just how important our time is here.  We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we came here, and we knew it would be a huge trial of faith, but isn't it such a strong testimony to how worth it we knew it would be that we chose to come anyway? (I hope that made sense.)  I hope we all make the most of the time we've been given here and in every calling and situation the Lord puts us in.

    I love you all so much.  I hope you have a fantastic week.  Thank you so much for your examples and love and prayers.  Be good!  Have fun!

Love ya!

Elder Hafen