Translation

Actually, it is not for 1000 days. It is just that 3 years times 365 days plus June 27 through June 30, 2008 equals 1098 days, and that is way too cumbersome to convert into a blog headline. Futhermore, our release date will not be determined until May or June of 2011. Therefore, 1000 Days sounded just about right, more or less. Having noted all that, we are humbled and thrilled (Pres. Uchtdorf would refer to the feeling as "joyfully overwhelmed") about having this marvelous opportunity to serve in La Mision Mexico Veracruz.

Con amor,
Pdte. y Hna. Pete and JoElla Hansen

Sunday, April 26, 2009



We went to Xalapa for a special interview with Leticia, the lady walking with Mom. They are walking down a very steep road from her very humble home chatting away in Spanish as they go. She was a wonderful sister. The second photo is her son who was baptized a year ago. He is walking down the road with Elder Moyar from Payson, UT and Elder Llanos, his Peruvian companion. I want to share with you Elder Moyar's story which took place a couple of weeks after Leticia´s baptism. The missionaries stopped by on Easter Sunday.

"We hadn’t eaten all day, and we were hoping to make it quick and get over to the house of the member with whom we’d planned to eat earlier, because we hadn’t been able to go for appointments and the meetings and everything that happens after church. So we got there REALLY hungry. They invited us in, we talked a bit, Jose’s boss [José is Leticia´s husband who was also baptized.] is on vacation so he hasn’t been paid in a while, they didn’t even have enough for them all to take the bus to church that day, they’d only been able to send their son, Alan. So, when she invited us to some tortas we were like, "No, sister, seriously, we’re good." But she never listens when we say that, and went ahead and used the last of their bread, cold beans because their gas ran out, and two pieces of ham to make us tortas.

"Then, we gave them The Lamb of God DVD and she wanted to watch it then and there. We were eating, so we were like, "Cool, put it in." But she couldn’t sit still! She was up and down and up and down, in and out of the little one-room apartment. Then she turned the microwave on and brought us some chicken and tortillas. "EAT, Elders!" So we ate, but she still just wouldn’t sit still!

"I ate two small tortas, one chicken-rib, and 6 or 7 tortillas and was as full as if I’d eaten a three-courser. Then, the movie got over and we were taking turns sharing our testimony. My companion ate the same, or less than I had, and there was still chicken and tortilla, but we couldn’t eat any more.

"Leticia, when we told her we were seriously too full to eat any more, got really emotional and bore us her testimony that God listens and answers our prayers. When she was getting up and down and first, she was going all over in the hall, to the door, thinking in a frenzy what she could possibly give us to eat. As Alan showed us later, they had nothing. But seriously nothing. There were empty glasses, a dish of salsa, and a thumb-sized chunk of cheese in the fridge. But, thinking and praying she remembered the left over chicken from the day before that was still in the microwave. [Yikes! Day-old chicken stored in the microwave?] Warming it up and serving us she prayed and prayed that God would bless the food so that it would fill us, she didn’t care if she had to be hungry the next day, she wanted to treat us well.

"Then, after having served us, when she started getting up and pacing all around again, she told us, that when she was there sitting on the mattress watching the movie, and when we started to eat, she was sure she’d seen out of the corner of her eye, a dove come down above and behind us. But so sure that she thought maybe a bird had seriously flown down the hall, (the building’s missing a few walls.) She was sure though, as she was telling us, and I’m sure too, that her Heavenly Father was telling her she could relax and enjoy the movie, He was going to take care of everything.

"It’s sort of silly, but I really felt it when I thought about how Christ, seeing a group of hungry people prayed that His Heavenly Father would bless the bread and fishes to fill them all, and the prayer was answered, there was even extra afterward. Leticia had made the same request to the same loving Father in Heaven and He’d answered in the same way, smaller scale, but Elder Llanos and I ate until we were full and there was still chicken and tortillas left over afterward.

"It was a really good Easter."

1 comment:

Linda Doll said...

Oh the wonderful stories you share! To see such pure and simple faith rewarded touches my heart on so many levels . . .