Choir Practice for a 70

Well ya'll, this week was 7 months! And even after 7 months I still have experiences like this....

*Explaining Alma 32*

"All of our faith starts as a little seed. But as we pray and keep the commandments, eventually your faith will grow into a great big CAT."

Sometimes, words just don't happen the way you want them to, okay?

I got the music fine. We have a mission tour on Sept 13 and a 70 is coming so that's what I'm preparing the choir for. We have our first practice today! I'm sups excited. I'll be "directing" during the practices, but I'm pretty much the only missionary that plays the piano, so I'll be accompanying :) They'll just learn it and be on their own. It's not really a choir.... there's only like 35 American missionaries total and they won't even all be in it, so it's more of like a small group.  

[Note from Mission Office after watching them practice:

Wow!!  I can't see to write cause I am still emotional, that song is beautiful and she is more amazing than I first suspected!!  The music will lift our spirits and motivate us to be better disciples of our Savior!  Thanks again!!!]

Side note: one perk of doing double church duty is you get 2 pieces of bread on fast sunday. *fist bump*

WE FOUND PEANUT BUTTER YA'LL. It's also about $15 per jar, so that didn't happen.

This week Sister Jensen and I read an amazing talk from Elder Bednar in this month's Liahona about accepting God's will and timing. He shared an experience of a young faithful couple who had just been married, and 3 weeks later the husband found out he had cancer. At the close of a visit from Elder Bednar, the young man asked for a priesthood blessing. They started talking about faith, and Elder Bednar asked the question "Do you have the faith not to be healed?" 

 

Do we have the faith to accept the Lord's plan for us, whether it looks mortally appealing or not? It's one thing to have faith in the good things, but another to have faith in the scary ones. May we all prepare ourselves if we are ever asked to exercise the faith to "not be healed". Also, go read that talk. 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Sister Hansen

Also, if you're sending another package soon, and it happens to be big enough to fit a cereal box, I definitely would not oppose to a box of Maple Brown Sugar Life. Yeah that would be pretty saihan. 

[Note to Dad] I was having a very interesting conversation with Elder Maynes (DIC president) this week about the English program here.

When the mission first opened, missionaries spent HOURS of their week in the English library preparing their lessons. Then in 2010 the program had been upgraded and improved, but still not perfect. The last couple years, each missionary has a flash drive with all the lessons they need on it. That is what I have been working on this whole summer, is upgrading and revamping those PowerPoints, which is something that I've enjoyed doing my whole life. Interesting to look at the Lord's timing to see exactly when I would be the most useful on my mission. I believe I was saved until this time, and working on these lessons is one of the big reasons. Pretty cool.