Week 102 - South Minneapolis - The End

The End.  Kinda...

Really though. It's been a long time. This period of my life has felt like both the longest and the shortest two year stretch I've ever experienced. I can't believe it's over. I can't believe I'll see you next week. I'll be a bit of a headcase for a little while after I get back so I hope you anticipate that. 

Brief update on Bettey for you. She's doing good. She broke up with her boyfriend and quit her job this week. Two major stumbling blocks have been cleared out of the way for us. The frustrating thing is that even with not having to work, she still didn't make it to church. That bummed us out a bit. We officially are teaching her daughter Trinity now though, and they have a goal of being baptized together. We hope that can happen soon. Maybe not on June 15th like we had talked about, but soon. I think Bettey will come around, it's just going to take some patience and love. 

My last Zone Conference was on Thursday. It was bittersweet. I got to see a lot of my missionary friends, for likely the last time, and was able to learn a lot. We mostly focused on how we can better serve and work with members in our missionary work, something that will have a reversed significance for me very soon. 

Now on to some nostalgic stuff to close out my final email. 

The week has caused me to do a lot of thinking, observing, and reflecting. I'm realizing now, more than ever, that a lot of the things that have happened to me on a day-to-day basis during my mission, are unlikely to happen anymore. I'll share a few examples. 

Friday evening we went over to visit a family, the husband of which we had taught in the last few weeks. He wasn't home but his wife was, so were their 8 and 7 year old sons. We started to talk with this woman and she really opened up about her frustrations with most of the organized religions out there. Elder Sharp was able to bear strong testimony and teach, using the Book of Mormon, while I kicked a soccer ball around with her son. It was probably 68 degrees and the sun was just setting, one of those beautiful, Minnesota spring days that almost make the horrible winters worth it. 

On Saturday we stopped by a guy we'd tracted out a few weeks ago. He had a nice little family and said we could come back and chat sometime. We were in the neighborhood so we decided to give it a try. We ended up having a really good conversation for about the next 40 minutes about all sorts of things. He had no shortage of questions, "why do we need the Book of Mormon if we already have the Bible," "what do you believe about baptism?" The list went on and on. His questions were good-natured and humble. The weather was perfect and sunny and his son was outside playing as we talked with this man about the things in life that really matter. 

I'm going to miss experiences like these. You can't really duplicate them in the real world, at least not in the same context. I'm going to miss my mission. Other, and less...spiritual, aspects of missionary work were impressed on my mind as well, two more examples.

Last night we had several appointments cancel on us so we ended up just powering through a whole lot of tracting. Story of my life the last two years. At one particular door we knocked, this little black kid popped his head up and looked through the window on the door. We asked if we could talk to his parents to which he replied "Yeah...hey dad, those guys from the Kingdom Hall are here, they have their Kingdom Hall books." We both couldn't help but laugh and smile. His dad was, unfortunately, not interested. 

This morning we were shopping at Target. As we passed by the makeup section on our way to check out, a lady flagged us down and asked if we could call somebody over to help her with some makeup related question. As has happened many times before, I had to explain that we were not employees, but missionaries. She replied with an embarrassed and sheepish grin and apologized for the mix up. 

I don't think things like that happen as real person in the real world. It'll be an adjustment. Missions are weird. I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

I'm thankful for the experiences I've been able to have and the people I've been able to meet. I'm thankful for both the good times I've enjoyed and the struggles I've endured. I'm thankful for all of you who have supported me so consistently over the past two years. Last of all, I'm thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and the lessons he has been able to teach me as I have let him. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands continues to roll forth, I've seen that prophecy continue to be fulfilled these two years. I know it is true. 

I love you all, very much. 

See you next week. 

-Elder Hafen

Week 101 - South Minnepolis

It snowed in May! 

Not very much though. Only a few inches and it didn't even stick the duration of the day, still though, pretty frustrating for us to have snow on May 3rd. I think we've finally gotten past winter weather, it is a beautiful day today. It should be the rest of this week. 

I'm feeling incredibly e-mail lazy and not motivated to write too descriptively today. We'll be talking almost face to face on Sunday and then the Monday following that we'll literally talk face-to-face. You might have to forgive my lack of descriptive effort. I won't leave you entirely without an update on my week though. 

Bettey! She didn't come to church... She is still moving forward though. We taught both her and her daughter Trinity last night with the Bishop and had a great, though brief, lesson. Bettey didn't outright commit to live the Word of Wisdom yet, but we're moving in that direction. She's had several faith promoting experiences happen to her in the last few weeks that have really helped her and increased her desire to meet with us. We might have to go visit Bettey when we come back though Minneapolis, you guys would like her. 

We tracted out a family this week that had a chicken coop in their front yard...in very densely populated South Minneapolis. The scoop is that we had just stopped by a member whom we thought was inactive. Turns out he was actually deceased. He'd apparently died of alcohol poisoning about 6 months ago. And thus we see that the Word of Wisdom is inspired (also, I wish I could say that that was the first time I'd stopped by a less-active member who we discovered was no longer living, it happened in Eau Claire too). We decided to knock a few doors around his address after that. So back to the chicken coop stuff. It was awesome, but also really out of place, apparently this family raises chickens to have their own supply of eggs. As we approached the door, six chickens rounded the corner and clucked their way over to us. I was just worried that they might jump up and kick me. Chickens can be mean sometimes. Thankfully they didn't and we escaped unscathed. 

We had Missionary Leadership Council earlier in the week, Tuesday to be exact. I gave my going home testimony with another missionary I came out with, Elder Carter. I was also able to wax nostalgic with several of the other Zone Leaders who attended, 4 of which I have been companions with. President Clements is a great man. I learn that more and more with each meeting I get to participate in with him. As I've mentioned before, I'm going to miss working so closely with him. 

Not much else to say, lots of people that flaked out last week, several more we found that might have some potential. 

I'll talk to you all on Sunday.

Love

-Elder Hafen

Week 100 - South Minneapolis

Travel plans.  So...those came this week, Thursday afternoon. What the heck eh? It's just weird to even believe I'm at the point in my life of almost being home from my full-time mission. In spite of the potential trunkiness that the arrival of my aptly titled "trunky papers" could have caused, the week was both too busy, and too beautiful to keep me too distracted, well... almost too beautiful.

So, if I've discovered anything about Minnesota it's that you can never really predict it. I think the attached pictures will testify of this concept. On Monday it snowed, a lot actually. The official tally was something like 6 inches. It was a continuation of the really wet late April snow I described last week. The days progressively warmed up, culminating in Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today being around 75 degrees with beautiful sunshine and birds singing all around us. It looks like two years has not yet helped me to understand this state and her strange and mysterious ways.

Bettey is doing awesome. We taught her twice and both lessons were amazing. I mentioned last week about how she had a pretty significant concern about Marijuana and how she said we'd need to "win her over" on that particular point of doctrine. The Holy Ghost did that for us. When we saw her on Tuesday she explained, through tear-stained eyes, how a few days following our Word of Wisdom lesson she was walking to work and thinking about the things we had taught. She received a confirmation that she knew it was true, it was so powerful that she started to cry as she walked. She said "I don't know how I know it, I just do." This was a big step for us. The hurdle now will be for her to actually follow through and live the Word of Wisdom, the groundwork of testimony is in place though. We taught her again on Saturday and explained how we keep the Sabbath Day holy. Without us even suggesting it, Bettey piped up saying "I'm going to put in for Sundays off from now on." Apparently if she lets them know 2 weeks beforehand she can have whatever days off she'd like. Our only hope is that her boss is enthusiastic about her going to church as she is. In any case, Bettey is on fire, we hope to keep it that way.

We had lunch downtown this week with one of the ward members here, Brother Jackson, and his coworker Matt. Brother Jackson has been having church related conversations with Matt for a few months now and even called us up one time and put us on speaker so we could answer one of Matt's questions. Brother Jackson set it up for us to meet Matt in person over lunch and following that we have an appointment to teach him at the Jackson's home tomorrow night. Matt is a really smart guy and recently diagnosed with a disease pretty comparable to ALS so he's been doing a lot of soul searching lately. He used to be a Naval fighter pilot and is only in his early thirties, so the diagnosis was a bit of a shock to him and his family. We're praying for him and hopeful that something can come from tomorrow night. I'll keep you posted.

My last regularly scheduled (non-exit) interview with President was on Wednesday. I am consistently amazed at how smart and competent that man really is. One of the many things I will miss from my mission will be the handful of times I have been able to talk with President Clements one-on-one, primarily about missionary related stuff, but not exclusively. In the case of this last interview it was mostly related to post-mission life in general and how in a few weeks I have to face the decisions relating to that (school, career, marriage, etc.). I consider his advice invaluable. I'm going to miss receiving it as much as I have while on my mission.

Elder Sharp's birthday was on Tuesday. Happy Birthday Elder Sharp! (even though he won't be reading this...)

We tracted out a 92 year old Dutch beekeeper on Sunday afternoon and had a good conversation in which he explained about bees and how they do their whole shin-dig. I have had so many conversations like that while out tracting on my mission, not necessarily about bees, just anything random and interesting. I'm going to miss that. I don't anticipate tracting very much while at the U. Life moves on though.

I'm excited to see you over Skype in two Sundays. Maybe we'll have things to talk about :)

Love

-Elder Hafen

Week 99 - South Minneapolis

So, first off, the Elder Davidson thing, it never happened. We now refer to him as "the companion that never was." President called us on Tuesday night and let us know that because one of the Hmong missionaries was in the hospital and was going to have to go home for medical reasons, the ripple effect was that Elder Davidson wouldn't be with us. I'm fine with that, we don't have to figure out how to make three missionaries in our apartment work out after all. We now have an extra mattress brought to us by the Assistants in anticipation of Elder Davidson clogging up our apartment though. What a white elephant eh? I will almost certainly finish out my mission with Elder Sharp.

So this week was really weird, in some ways frustrating, mostly due to the fact that it snowed 6 inches worth of wet, heavy, and just annoying snow on April 18th. April 18th! Last year we had a day in March where it reached the 80's! It didn't snow after March 15th and the average temperature throughout April was probably in the high 60's. We haven't cracked 60 even once yet. Just... it's Minnesota, you can never quite figure this place out. Really though, it wasn't as bad as I'm whining it up to be. Due to the storm the cars in the mission ended up being grounded so we had to go shovel. We shoveled on Thursday for a good four hours. My back was sore. 

An interesting, albeit fruitless (or maybe not, planting seeds, ya know), experience happened as we were shoveling. We rounded a corner down this particular street and saw a guy working on his car in the blizzard. We stopped to help him out. Apparently the plastic underbody guard on his wife's car (a pretty non-essential part) had detached slightly, causing it to scrape against the road surface. It was acting as a makeshift snowplow and piling a ton of snow under the car to the point that it couldn't move anymore. We helped this guy jack the car up, clear the snow out, then peel the plastic piece off so he could drive again. The details of us helping him aren't really that exciting, the fact that he was from England (and sounded like it) and his wife was from Scotland (and really sounded like it) was the crazy part. When we offered to teach his family the gospel (because, c'mon, we're missionaries) he declined saying that he was a "humanist." Of course. My question is what the heck is an English-Scottish married couple doing in Edina, Minnesota? I asked him but I remember not really being able to hear his response. Looks like I'll never know...

So Bettey... she's doing good. Could be better though. We have really great fellowshippers for her in the Relief Society and they are doing an awesome job working with her. Our newly emerging problems are that she just got a job washing dishes at this restaurant and is working a lot now, and that she has some hangups on the Word of Wisdom (marijuana especially, ugh). She's a very animated lady and definitely likes us coming over, but I'm not so sure on if she's committed enough to make her Baptism date on the 15th of June. We'll see though, we're trying to get back in with her in the next couple of days and keep her focused. She hasn't made it to church the past two weeks though and that is a definite problem. That's where we stand with Bettey.

We picked up this new investigator on Saturday. A Cuban man named Armando. It was an interesting lesson. He told us all about how much he hates the Catholic Church, how he still thinks we practice polygamy, and how he doesn't want to pay any money to any church because he doesn't think God would ask people to do that. Maybe not a lot of potential with him but it was still fun. If you picture any stereotype about Cuba and apply it to a person, you pretty much have a good insight to what Armando is like, right down to the Castro-esque beard and smell of cigar smoke wafting through his house. He's related to some members that live up in the Blaine Ward (North Suburbs of St. Paul) though, so maybe there is more potential than we realize. 

A recent-convert guy moved into our Ward last week. His name is Rockman. Rockman is from the Congo (central Africa) and is living here on political asylum. Apparently he was a human rights lawyer back in Africa but due to his actually wanting to help people and not see their basic human rights infringed upon, he is wanted by his government and would be killed if he returns. His family should be joining him here in the US in the next few weeks. When that happens we should be able to teach his whole family and hopefully see them baptized. He told us that his wife has already agreed to be baptized and we talked to her for a minute over Skype during the lesson we had with him. She only speaks French though, so that's the small hurdle we have to bridge when they get here. 

Not too much else going on with our investigators. We're really just trying to find more people to teach and that means a lot of stopping by members and a lot of pounding the doors. I'm realizing that in some ways I'm really going to miss that, spending my days knocking doors. It's weird to think of how much my perception on doing missionary things like tracting has changed over the course of two years. It sure has. A lot. But I guess that's to be expected. 

I love you family, talk to you next week.

-Elder Hafen

Week 98 - South Minneapolis

Transfer number 17.  17 is my last transfer. I can't believe it's here. Also given the fact that my release date has been moved up a week, this means I will be home 5 weeks from today. I'm really trying not to think about that though.

In immediate news, transfers happened. I'm going to Thunder Bay. 

Haha. Got you good. I'm actually staying here in Minneapolis with Elder Sharp. Three in a row. We're getting a triplet though, Elder Davidson is his name. It should be fun to figure out how to make three missionaries in one apartment work out. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited. Mostly it's just a very strange feeling to know that I won't be getting anymore transfer calls. 

Our area really picked up this week in that we were able to actually get in and teach Bettey, who I might have mentioned last week. Bettey called the mission office and wanted to know where the church nearest to her was located. She has a sister who lives in Texas and is a member. She has talked with Bettey at some length about the church. On Sunday Bettey came to General Conference and really enjoyed it, she also stayed for the potluck we had after the Sunday morning session. We taught her twice with the Relief Society President during the week and both lessons went fantastic. Currently we have a baptism date set for June 15 and Bettey seems pretty committed to it. She's got a funny personality and loves to joke with us. Teaching her really brightened up the week.

Speaking of the week being "brightened," the weather really didn't help out with that. This has been one of the worst weather weeks of my mission, especially given the context of it being mid April. A huge storm blew in on Wednesday night that dumped about 7 inches of snow on the Twin Cities. The days following that brought with them a few more inches, culminating yesterday with the weather being just warm enough to not snow, but with rain cold enough to make you wish you'd never been born. The freezing rain lasted most of the day and we really enjoyed tracting in it. Not exactly... We were, however, thankful that we weren't on bike. Weeks like last week make me really thankful to be in a car area. 

We taught Kristen and Elias again. Same story. Really nice, fed us dinner, had a good lesson, but not really open to changing their views on a lot of things. They'll be really busy with Elias finishing up his semester of dental school really soon, so I doubt we'll be able to see them again very quickly. I love them though...they'd definitely be my friends if I were a normal person. Maybe I'll facebook them...

We attempted to teach a lesson to a seemingly normal lady this week on Thursday. "Attempted" being the operative word. In the course of our time being in her home some stuff happened that led to her really rudely and bi-polarly kicking out our joint teacher, leaving us temporarily trapped inside the house with her without the rule of three. Fortunately this only lasted a few minutes before we could politely explain our rule and leave. It was bizarre. This is another story you can add to the "stuff we want Elder Hafen to tell us about when he gets home" file. 

On Sunday a baby blessing happened for one of the members here that used to be in the Dinkytown Ward, I actually taught a lesson with him back in Dinkytown all those months ago. In the circle for the blessing was another guy that used to be in that ward, Chris is his name. I met Chris on what would have been the first full day of my mission. In the time I've been out he has been married, had a child, and changed wards twice. I talked to him for a minute, he said that I've "filled out." Sounds like dad might win that bet we made... After our coordination meeting later in the day I walked out to the foyer to see two people who looked very familiar. I realized that they were both returned missionaries from this mission that I knew, decently well actually. One of them commented that I look "a lot older." I like that a bit better than "filled out." In short, Sunday was a nostalgic day. I can't believe how many people I've gotten to know and work with. It's truly been a blessing and an adventure. 

Not much else to say this week, should have more good news on Bettey coming up, at least we hope. 

I love you.

-Elder Hafen

Week 97 - South Minneapolis

Well. It was a good week. Conference is always good, especially since I actually pay attention to it now unlike when I was in High School. 

This April's conference was bittersweet. I feel like I'm becoming a bit of a headcase with the many emotions that mash their way around my head as I wrap up the last month or so of my mission. The consistent feeling that I experienced though was one of fullness. As I listened to the Prophet, the Apostles, and the other terrific speakers tell us what we needed to hear I couldn't help but feel more whole. I think that was the point. 

Elder Holland gave what I consider to be a flawless performance. Watching his talk made me feel the same way I did when I watched Roy Halladay pitch a complete game no-hitter in the NLDS against the Reds the playoffs before I left. Everything he said was spotless and applicable. An honest seeker of truth and light wouldn't be able to watch him and not feel the spirit. At many times in my life I have felt like the man from the biblical story Elder Holland cited. "Lord I believe. Help thou my unbelief." All of us can relate to how he felt. We have to hold on to the ground we have gained, and not be discouraged by what we have not yet gained. 

Elder Christofferson was powerful as well. What does it mean to be redeemed? It's a good question with many different answers that could be applied. I particularly loved his quoting of "Les Miserables." I'm excited to see the new movie version of that when I come home. My other takeaway line was how he described the reasons that the Savior didn't just give us his teachings, he set up a church. So many people feel like it is adequate to just be spiritual but not go to church. We need both the inner relationship with God through living the gospel, and the outer relationship by going to church. 

President Monson's story was hilarious. I could just picture him as an 8 year old (actually...not really, but I tried) with matches in his hand starting up an inadvertent grass fire. It was a great story with far reaching application for us all. All of us have started a grass fire or two in our lives, the key for us is to know how to put them out, and to not start them again in the future. 

Admit it, you were all thinking about me during Sister Wixom's talk. :) 

In area news it was a bit of a rough week. One good thing was that we met with Heidi again. Her sister is actually getting baptized very soon, up in the Anoka Ward. Heidi has a million questions and likes to talk, usually in constructive ways though. She also has been reading out of the Book of Mormon so as she continues to do that I have hope that she will progress. She, and a ton of other people have mentioned to us about this Bible series on the History channel 

We met a really cool lady on Monday who has some very rambunctious kids. Her name was Nyra. Nyra was very excited to have us come back and meet with her and her family later this week. We had about a 35 minute conversation with her at the door in which she explained that she had a friend from the St. Paul Ward take her to church. She really enjoyed her experience but hadn't since been back. Hopefully I'll have more good news on her and her family next Monday. 

I did an exchange with Elder Crozier, of Roosevelt, Utah, on Thursday. He's the kid Kyna knows. I like Elder Crozier a lot. He's a soft-spoken but powerful cowboy and has more life experience than most of the missionaries out here, myself included. I also learned from Elder Crozier that "lasso" and "roundup" are not true cowboyin' words and that he gets pretty ticked when he hears wannabe cowboys say stuff like that. We had a good time together. 

Well fam. I hope you enjoyed conference as much as I did. I love you and pray for you.

-Elder Hafen

Week 96 - South Minneapolis

Spring?  Not really. It's still apparently in the 20's today, although it does feel warmer than that. Mercifully  the snow has finally almost melted, I can't tell you how much I hate getting out of the passenger side of the car into a four foot snowbank. But hey, at least we have a car...

It was a weird week, some good moments, some frustrating moments, but thankfully no drunken investigator moments. 

On Monday we stopped by and visited a part member family, they were very warm and receptive. I don't know if any of you have heard of Jack Weyland (I'm pretty sure KK used to read his books), he's a moderately well known Mormon author, but it turns out that the member lady of this family is his daughter. She's married to a Catholic guy who works at the Metrodome and was at game seven of the 91' World Series (so jealous...even though I don't think I was born quite yet when that game was played) and they have a twelve year old son who likes Legos. Nuff' said. We were able to share a brief message out of the Book of Mormon with them and hopefully will be able to see them again soon. The surprising thing to me about the whole situation is that they've lived here in Minneapolis for years, but somehow nobody in the ward knows them. Part member families like this are a key component of the real growth of the church. We're trying to do our part to make the ward here aware of families like these. 

Tuesday I did an exchange with one of the other international members of our zone, Elder Lee, from South Korea. Seoul to be exact. We taught Raymond together, the Plan of Salvation. Raymond had literally (not really, but close) a million questions for us about it, which was good. We learn by questioning. The lesson ended up taking a lot longer than we had planned because of that, but overall it was a good thing because it started to click for him by the end. He still is unclear on some doctrines, but we're getting there. Elder Lee is also amazing at Ping-Pong. To practice it when he was back in Korea he would repeatedly bounce the ball off the side of the paddle. I have a video of him doing it. It's pretty impressive. I also asked him to explain the "Gangnam Style" video to me from his unique Korean perspective. I was satisfied with his answer. 

Wednesday I did another exchange, this time with Elder Bollinger, who works in the same ward as me and Sharp, just in the north part of the boundaries. We tracted into a J-Dub guy together, his name is Marvel. He opened the door with an accoustic guitar around his neck like he was ready to serenade us, then jumped into telling us why it was wrong to participate in war or government. I should start a website called "conversationsivehadwithjdubs." That site would be a winner. You'd all read it. Minneapolis is a crazy place.

Thursday we saw Brother Cadotte again. I sure wish he'd make it to church. He has no real excuse to not be there other than laziness. He wants to live all the commandments and set a good example for his family but I think that when the alarm goes off Sunday morning, that desire is forgotten. Maybe things will change soon, otherwise we might have to back off from him for a while. 

A very positive thing happened on Saturday in the form of a really cool member referral we received from this less-active lady named Linda who I believe I've mentioned before. Linda is doing really well right now and invited her friend Kelly over to take the lessons from us. It's a great situation. We get to teach Kelly (and really, teach Linda too, she definitely needs testimony reinforcing) over at Linda's house and she has a built in fellowshipper. Kelly was very interested and had a lot of great questions for us, specifically regarding prophets and what a prophet's role would be. Thankfully we were able to answer most of those questions to her satisfaction which helped us build up some trust. We should be having dinner and a lesson with them again this week. 

On Sunday we helped to teach the combined fifth Sunday class. The new Bishop here enlisted us to teach for about 15 minutes on the atonement. Judging from the numerous compliments we received from the members, I think we did a pretty good job (although I'm sure we didn't do as good as Mom did). The rest of Sunday was filled with random tracting and a few member stopbys. An interesting moment was when we visited this less-active dude named Adam. In our conversation at the door he related to us about how he served a mission in South Australia back in the early 90's, but that now, since circumstances in his life have changed, his perspective on the world and Christianity have changed. He was pretty cryptic about it, at different points he expressed how he both had, and didn't have a testimony. I was confused. Another interesting fact was that somehow in spite of being born in Australia and bouncing between living in a bunch of different cities in Utah and the US at large (his dad was an airline pilot), he graduated from Pine View High School in St. George, Utah. Thankfully I didn't hold that against him...although I still hate the black on maroon color scheme. He told us we could come over again and talk in more detail, I hope he comes through on that claim. 

What a week, right? General Conference number four approaches...

Well, Happy Easter/April Fools Day. I love you all and am glad you are doing well. Tell DeeDee I love her and am praying for her.

Love

-Elder Hafen