FROM PH: Transfer Jitters

Transfer jitters.
Sent Date: Monday, September 29, 2014
Author: President Hansen
Dear Elders and Sisters,
I am so grateful to be serving in this mission with each of you. Every day. I notice new reasons to be grateful to be here with each of you. I often hear Missionaries who are worried about transfers, "what if?", "where?" "who will my companion be?" kind of questions. Other missionaries are worried about "what is happening at home", or "what will happen when I go home?".

While all these questions are common to all missionaries, we need to have faith and confidence that the Lord is watching over us and He will give us the experiences that we need in this life. This from Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes..."

Maybe we can find comfort in the words of the hymn: "I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord... I'll be what You want me to be." Many of you will have new responsibilities, or new companions, Let's just commit to ourselves to make this transfer the best one yet, the most obedient, happy, successful transfer of our mission. Let's remember, who the Lord calls, He qualifies.

I have been as surprised at some of the transfers as y'all, but I can tell you with all my heart that this is what the Lord wants for the mission at this time. I love the wisdom and the wonderful experience s that you expressed in your letters this week. Here are a few examples:

============This is a good lesson for all of us:
-----We found out that they weren't doing their family prayers. They seemed like "oh great, just more people to see where we aren't perfect and to ask us to do more" and the mood just wasn't all that great from what I saw, then at the end I added that they were doing a great jobat church, and that they set good examples. They lit up and were more willing to do what we'd asked them to do.

-----Last Tuesday at district meeting we restarted the mental diet that Sister Hansen gave us, and looking back over this past week, I can't really find anything that I dwelled on or that I let affect me. I noticed the first few days there were times where something would enter my mind that was negative and I had to make sure I let it out and replaced it with positive and confident thoughts, but as the week went on it got easier and I got happier. It was awesome! It really lifted my spirit and my mood. I'm usually always happy but after doing Sister Hansen’s diet I feel even better. I feel healthier too. It really was so great. So I'm not going to stop doing the mental diet. I love it.

============This was from our missionaries, Elder Heber C Kimble and Parley Pratt:
-----They have these preachers whose church is called consuming fire, and we walked up and we were still like 30 yards away when groups of people started cheering for my comp and I. We were kinda confused cuz there was students everywhere. and then a bunch swarmed up to us and were telling us about how they were just condemning everyone to hell and all kinds of stuff and asked what we believed and some people were like i don’t really know what y’all believe but you guys are so much nicer we want to learn what you believe but i got class right now and we got his contact information. Then the preachers came up to us and a big ol group of people were around us, and they just started trying to argue with us and yell at us and it was seriously crazy and we just kept our cool so well, which was super surprising cuz normally i don’t stay that calm when someone starts bashing us that hard, but anyways we ended up being there for like an hour and a half and there were so many groups of people who would walk by and watch and they would be like who is winning and all these other people would be like “the Mormons! They are way nicer,” ha ha and they were all taking videos and pictures. So we pretty much just preached Gods love and the atonement of Christ and how we aren’t perfect but that his grace is sufficient for all sinners if we just reach out and partake of it. They
were claiming perfection and that they had been saved so they don’t sin anymore and were just condemning everyone and us, …But seriously it was so cool and everything that happened ended up being for our benefit and benefit of the church. Afterwards we had groups of people just like clapping for us and talking to us and asking us all kinds of questions and saying how patient we are and how impressed they were and it was too good. Learned a lot that day!
===========Wow this is awesome!