this is how we do

hello my droogs!

this week was an adventure, especially in terms of contacting.  for one, we met this girl on the street who is seriously GOLDEN.  her dad is from nigeria and moved to kazakh and she's a sprinter and is so cool and funny and real and everything with her just clicked.  we met her on wednesday and then she came to english the next day and also took a book of mormon and we had such a good chat with her and it was just so happy.  so real.  i love that.  and i really hope she wants to hear more.  for another, yesterday we contacted a woman who was super open and listened to like half the first lesson until we realized she was drunk.  hahahah.  we also contacted this man who was from england, and it was all super miraculous and he was so open and stoked to talk to us and proud that we were doing the work of the Lord...until he realized we were Mormons...and proceeded to tell us we were doing the work of the devil and to chew us out using swear words we can actually understand.  haha.  it was an adventure!  big ups to everyone serving in america.  maybe everyone here is muslim and super set in their religion, buuut they don't have a bunch of preset ideas about a book they've never tested or read so everything is okay.  y'all english speakers are champions.  lucky we live kazakhstan.  for real though, the people here are wonderful.  things on the street are always crazy and funny and weird, but they're also really great a lot of the times.  i'm so grateful we get to contact here!

the 3 heads of garlic, featuring Korean food

we also had our last meeting with President and Sister Williams this week before the mission splits.  it was actually super super good.  remind me to tell you allll about President when i get home.  he is such a good man.  he wants so badly to do the work of the Lord with everything he can.  he makes me laugh so hard though.  he's a little bit like chris traeger.

he gets us stoked on life and missionary work but more importantly, i know he's called of God and that he loves and receives revelation for us.  he also gave us each a super awkward bro hug yesterday.  good mission adventures all around.

we'd been at an activity at the church with an investigator that night and then we walked her home and it just happened to start downpouring. #life

yesterday was another miracle of a day but we'll have to talk about it another time.  mostly though, i'm learning so much about what it means to be a missionary and a leader and a follower of Christ in general, and i just have to say that i'm not perfect.  hahahah for real sometimes when i write home i feel so dumb because i really am learning so much and i want to share these things with you but also i don't know how to do it in a way that doesn't sound lame and preachy and ingenuine and also my social skills are diminishing.  life is hard.  but really everything is imperfect and so happy and i love and pray for you all always.  the church is true and Heavenly Father loves us and Jesus Christ is our Savior.  this church is His own church again on the earth and the thing i love the most about that is that no one just has to believe the words of the people around them.  they can know for themselves!  and i know that when we seek the Lord with a sincere heart and with willingness to give it a shot instead of just uprooting everything with doubt, we get answers.  and it's the best.

i love you!!  i pray for you!  i hope you enjoy otter pop season!  have a happy week!!

that sign says "i love you" :)

sister hansen

p.s. one time this week we hadn't opened the windows in our room yet and it's super hot and it was only 6:15am and all i'd done so far was pray and i was super sweaty.  oooorah!

p.p.s. *sister e (who we may or may not have tracked down a number for us so we could call before she goes home this week...) talking about how she speaks in english now (she doesn't speak english) because her comp doesn't speak russian* "my companion...her ears...sister, how you say?...her ears...are...died"

KAZAKHSTAN NEI