October 31st, 2016 - Week 12

We got an email from the family in Ogden Griffin and his companion are staying with and today is Griffin's P-Day. I'll update this as I get letters from him.

Letter from Brother and Sister Montgomery:

We are the Montgomerys. Elder Hansen along with his new companion Elder Waite are now living in our basement apartment.  We know Elder Hansen is waiting for his visa.  We live in the Coldwater Stake in North Ogden, and have been truly blessed to provide a home for the missionaries for over 6 years.  We have a small farm homesteaded by my husband's ancestors.  I'm attaching a photo of your son with his new companion at the entrance to their apartment, and a few of the yard surrounding the house. We have tried to provide a beautiful,  peaceful surrounding in and around our home.  We truly love the missionaries! 

With love,  Sister Dianne Montgomery

Griffin's letter:
Yeah it's pretty good here. We got someone to commit to baptism yesterday. I'm definitely excited for Halloween. Tonight the zone is getting together and we're watching a movie. I'll ask president Allred if they can come up on my birthday, that day is also p-day. I'm also in north Ogden right now. I'm pretty good we actually have two baptisms, but the other still needs to do some stuff so she's not on date. Overall it's good, the sisters who had this area before us weren't very organized, so we've been doing a lot of stuff to get to know the area. We've had a few doors shut in our face's, a made apple cider, helped someone move, walked our whole area in the rain, and got to go to cafe rio with a member. Yeah it's really nice we practically never pay for anything because the members are always offering to pay for meals. So what's been going on out in the world?

Elder Griffin Hansen

October 27th, 2016 - Week 11

I got this email late last night. It sounds like he is doing good.

Hey mom I'm doing great in Logan. Yesterday I helped give two
blessings, they also gave me an iPad. Going into the future. I've been
doing language study a lot and just been getting to know the area, the
people here treat the missionaries like royalty. But I still am
longing to got to Mongolia as soon as possible. 🇲🇳 When tell people
that I speak Mongolian they're always really confused and say,
"there's a Mongolian speaking mission here?!" Then they look at my
name tag and are either amazed by it or they see sorry for me. And
it's really a blessing when they feel sorry because they treat me
really well, like yesterday this high council member bought me a milk
shake after I told about the language.

Elder Griffin Hansen

October 22nd - Week 10

So we received this email from Griffin earlier this week:

So today was our last day in the ELC. I said goodbye to my students today, I did an evaluation based on a video they made of me teaching, I'll send you a video of it when I get a chance. Then the ELC coordinators had a ceremony and gave us our certificates at the end of day. Then we get back at 3:45 pm to the MTC, so we get out of the van and go check. We check the mail, I look in the mail box and there's a bunch of paper in it. It wasn't too surprising because we haven't been able to check the mail all day. So I look at the mail pass out personal letters to people and then I look at the bottom of the pile and me and three other people got letters. And it turns out that my visa hasn't come in, so I'm being reassigned to Logan, Utah with my companion until my visa comes in. But I still have hope because we leave for Mongolia on the 25, and I have until the 24 to get my visa, and if I get in Logan, then I still just have to go through a transfer or two. I'm not to worried about it, it's just really hard on the district. And it worries that my language skills my not improve past that.

Elder Griffin Hansen

As of this morning Griffin still has not received his visa. I'll update this when I get more information.

These were students in his English class

Here are a bunch of pictures from Griffin that he just sent me:

October 18th- Surprise Letter!

We got a surprise email from Griffin this afternoon. He found out who his sponsor is. I think that, being who his sponsor is, he will gain some really great experiences and be able to serve the people of Mongolia to the best of his abilities. The people of Mongolia will be extremely appreciative of the service he is providing.

Yeah, so my sponsor is the Church, so I get to teach people in Chapels, and I get to travel the whole country. But it's going to be hard because the people I will teach will have a pretty low level of education, so they will know very little to no English. But I started at the ELC (English Language Center on BYU campus) stuff yesterday, and I taught a class about how to tell a doctor what's afflicting you (I have a headache, stomachache, etc.).

Elder Griffin Hansen

These are some pictures of us at the ELC this week.

October 17th, 2016 - Week 9

So Griffin's PDay was changed to Saturday. We only got a little bit from him. If you are planning on sending him a letter while he is at the MTC, make sure you get it done this week. He is getting ready to travel to Mongolia really soon!

These are some pictures of our district and stuff. The one is just how we're going to dress in Mongolia. Yesterday we got our flight plans. That is actually how they speak in Mongolia.


Elder Griffin Hansen

Here is a video of Griffin speaking a little Mongolian:

October 11th, 2016 - Week 8

I'll add more to this if I get anymore:

Honestly this week took a complete 180. This week has been super good and super fun. We're about to commit one of our investigators to baptism, and she's actually a Mongolian person, and we're the only ones that have gotten this far with her. So that means we're actually making success with a real Mongolian person. I was also chosen to be the new district leader of my district, so I've gotten that happening. That's so sad that Cameron went home, but if it's for the best then it was probably better that he went back home. Next week we go into the ELC, so I'm excited for that. We're supposed to get our travel plans by the end of this week. I got my Mongolian name tag last week I'll send you a picture of it soon. That's funny that something ate one of the chicken. Yeah I saw Uncle Chris earlier this week, that was pretty cool. Honestly this last week has been so nice, and so chill.

It's going pretty good here. It's getting to the point where I have too much food and stuff so I need to let it thin out. Tell Nancy and Grandma and Grandpa Hansen thanks for sending the packages

Elder Griffin Hansen

October 4th, 2016 - Week 7

Here's this weeks email:

I'm not feeling to sick anymore, I went to the clinic and I just had a sinus infection, so they gave me some sudophed. Conference was awesome, I wasn't in the choir, but I knew a lot of the missionaries in it. This week has probably been one the hardest in my life. Our lessons haven't been that good and the language has definitely been harder than usual. But we talk to one of the teachers and he helped us out a lot, so we think that we're going to do a lot better this week. Where are they at right now in the New Testament?

Elder Hansen