Well right now my joy is very overwhelmed at this point. I received and email from Elder Mortensen. I shared with me this real joyful expression of love that has brought me me to tears and I would love to share it with you.
"Hi Elder Mortensen. Jeff told me that you are home from your mission. We often talk about you guys and how great you were. Jeff and I will be getting married on April 1st. Soon afterward, we will be getting baptized together. We are really excited to grow our eternal family and are very thankful for your contribution in my faith. You and Elder Hansen really made an impact on me. The most memorable thing that you guys did for me was invite us to The Sanders home. For the first time in my life, i was exposed to an eternal family and what it actually means to be an eternal family. Since that day, we have continually worked together to bring the holy spirit in our lives like we felt that night. After we left Florida (and settled in Seattle) Jeff and I started attending the Ward by our home and made them our family. I have a calling...the activities committee which I absolutely love. Jeff has become active in the church as well and has decided to be baptized with me. Thank you again for teaching me the gospel! Please let us both know how you are doing... "
I never knew if I would ever see or hear from them again but I always believed with all my heart that this Gospel was going to change their lives.
This past week has went really well for us and has continued to open new doors for the work of the Lord. It has been a week where the spirit has continually stayed strong and we are striving to continually have that spirit even stronger.
Monday we had a great Preparation day. We were able to get all of the cleaning and shopping done right at the start of the day. We then had and activity with some Ward members and played some soccer with their kids. The turn out was great and we had a lot of fun. That night we were able to have dinner with the Hearn and Mason families. It has been amazing to see how much of an impact the Hearn's have been for this less active family. It has propelled Sister Mason to come back to church and she now has a calling. Brother Mason is coming around and I feel will be right their with very shortly. I am truly grateful to be in such a great ward that is willing to sacrifice to help us and really go and find there neighbors. We then traveled and visited with the Byrd family. They are a part member family with a lot of potential that we have been trying to see for awhile. We are now going to be able to visit with them every week.
Tuesday we started off the day by biking down to see a few investigators that haven't been progressing very well. As we were visiting with some of them we were able to know if we should drop them or not. We were also able to do some tracting. After lunch we continued to tract and went near an appointment we had for later. We had a great time and were able to share our testimony and ask for referrals from 8 different people and talked with many others. We found Sandra and set up an appointment with her which we are looking forward to. We had our appointment with Rachel. She was able to read some of 3 Nephi 11 and we were really happy. We finished reading the chapter with her and answered the questions she had. We left her with Moroni 10 and will be inviting her out to General Conference this week. We had dinner with the Fairchild family. They have recently had some hard times and haven't been attending church but we were able to set up a continual date to visit with them every week, which will allow us to continue to bring the spirit into their home. We had a great Family Home Evening lesson with Sister Byrd and we discussed about temples and the importance of them.
Wednesday we went to visit Sandra but she was able to meet with us so we continued to tract near here home. After lunch we called a few of our referrals that we had received and had some really great luck. We talked with Paul Hawkins and he is really amazing. He shared with us that his family reads the Book of Mormon every night before they go to bed. He has read the Book of Mormon and knows that it is something that he must pursue. We were able to set up an appointment and are very excited for that. We had a great lesson with Kimberly Evans. She has been progressing really well in the church after her baptism and will soon I'm sure have a calling. We had dinner with the Bromgards which went well and then visited with the Johnny family. We are moving there Baptismal Date back to April 10th so we will be able to help them become more prepared.
Thursday we had a really great day of planning. We were able to get some great lesson plans set up and were also able to update all of the records that we needed to. We were able to discuss of those things that we thought that would help our those people we are focusing on and the spirit directed so beautifully. After lunch and planning the Monroeville Elders stopped by before their doctors appointment and we then traveled and gave Brother Tindle of the Toxy Branch a blessing. He has been at the hospital off and on. We then visited with Heather Hall which was great. We have been trying to see her since before Christmas and we were finally able to talk with her. We are now going to be able to meet here husband and hopefully be able to bring her back to church. We did some tracting until dinner time. We then traveled with the Monroeville Elders and visited with the Martyn family.
Friday was a very amazing day. The spirit was very strong as we were at Zone Conference and His Love could be felt by everyone so strongly. I learned a lot of great things and wrote day a lot of great things that came to me through His Spirit. After we traveled to the Kelly's family and had a great visit with them. They are still struggling since Sister Coker's death and we are helping them to continue to work their way back to church. After we tried to see a few members that live up near them.
Saturday was a really great day and the spirit continued to be around us. We started out the morning by doing some service with Brother Klug. It went really well and as we were there a less active member stopped by and we were also able to talk with her for quite a bit. After lunch we went to visit Keno and Valentine Johnny. We found out that Keno wasn't coming home until Tuesday now. We are still hoping for their Marriage to now be 27th of March. We then tracted near there home and talked with 5 people. It was amazing to see that by bearing simple testimony and asking for referrals that those people even though not interested they sincerely tried to think of someone for us to visit. We had dinner with the Hughes family and then traveled to the Adult session of Stake Conference. We found out that Paul wasn't going to be able to make it for stake conference so we will be setting up an appointment with him this week. As we were at conference I received a beautiful prompting which allowed us to set up a lesson plan on how we could better adjust to the needs of this Part member family we are hoping to teach.
Sunday went really well and the spirit continued to uplift and edify all of us as we attended Stake Conference. There were many beautiful messages shared and the Primary choir that sang was truly an amazing spirit felt group of songs. After we visited with Joe Haskins and talked with him about some of the struggles that he was having. He recently began to read the Book of Mormon that one of his friends had given him and he has really like it. We left him with commitments to remove distractions that he has in his home and he said that he would. The spirit and through the testimonies that were directed by him prepared Joe to make the commitment. We then visited with Brother Serrano which went really well. He has been reading a lot of different things within the Book of Mormon and we also helped him with some family history questions that he had. We traveled to Chickasaw for our dinner appointment with Kimberly Evans and her husband Danny. He is slowly but steadily being prepared for the Gospel since she was baptized but he isn't ready yet. We were able to talk with him and really were able to understand a lot of things of which he likes and really is looking forward to.
Love You
Elder Regan Hansen
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