The Life and Times of Warren Hansen

I got bit by a dog this week. Normally it’s really easy to tell which dogs want to bite you because they bark a ton but the second you bend down to pick up a rock they run away. The dog that bit me was walking down the road, minding its own business. Then it bit me in the thigh and just continued on its way. Fortunately, it didn’t break the skin, he just punched a hole in my pants and bruised my leg. So fun. Yesterday we had three of the people we are teaching come to church and they all loved it! It’s always so interesting that despite all of our worrying about […]

The 25 of May is a patriotic holiday in Argentina. Everyone eats a soup called Locro to commemorate what the Army that liberated them from Spain ate. Locro is a soup comprised of 5 parts pumpkin, 3 parts beans, and 1 part meat scrapes. Everyone gets together with their extended family and makes a giant cauldron of it to piece at during the weekend. As a side note, Locro does eactly what you’d expect to your stomach from a soup overwhelmingly comprised of fibrous vegetables😬 All week our weather app has been describing the weather as “freezing drizzle”. We’ve spent the week drinking hot mate while bundled up in jackets. I also bought an artisenal […]

Today we went on an adventure to the north of Jujuy. It’s a super touristy spot that looks a lot like Southern Utah. We went on a little hike to admire the famed “Seven-color Hill”. I thought it was pretty underwhelming, but fortunately there was an awesome old church from 1642 nearby that was way cooler.  It was about 40 degrees this week, which isn’t terribly cold, but when you’re outside walking around in it for 6 hours, your face gets pretty numb.  Despite the cold, the Lord has been blessing us for our efforts. We have been able to find so many awesome people to teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help […]

This week we got to go to the open-house of the new temple in Salta. We got on a van early in the morning, and then spent the morning on the temple grounds, greeting visitors and enjoying the atmosphere. Here’s a link to a church article with pictures of the inside of the temple. Elder Eyre explains temples to the people who we are teaching with a simple story: A king has an especially fancy pearl. He made a really nice box to hold the pearl and to help show it off. However, no matter how nice the box is, its purpose is still to bring attention to the pearl. The temple’s purpose, despite being […]

It’s autumn here and it has been really cold, at least for me. I’ve gained a new found appreciation for insulation in housing from how chilly it has been inside of our apartment.  One afternoon this week we went to visit people who live a little bit further away from where we normally work. We had questionable success, but we were able to see some of the cool scenery that Jujuy is famous for.  The Salta, Argentina temple was announced in 2018 and recently finished construction. The church is having an open house for the next couple of weeks and we’ve been inviting everyone we talk to to go and see it.  It has been […]

This week was very busy for a lot of different reasons. The first was that we had a big conference with my zone and 3 others, comprising a total of around 80 missionaries. Over the past several weeks, Elder Eyre and I have been conducting interviews with the missionaries in our zone to prepare a presentation on the things we need to improve on and our plans to do so. Despite mixed responses to some of our brilliant plans, I learned a lot about working efficiently on big projects and about presenting to groups. On Sunday our friend Cecilia got baptized! We have been helping her learn about the gospel for the past month or […]

I didn’t come on the mission for the right reasons. I came for good reasons, but they weren’t the right ones. I thought it would be cool to go learn another language, live in another country for two years, and to share the gospel, although my desire to share the gospel was a little bit lower than it should have been.  As I have given up my will to the Lord’s will, and put my whole heart, might, mind, and soul into serving, I have been changed. Before my mission, God was important to me, but I wasn’t living in the way I needed to or giving the importance that I needed to to my […]

I got robbed again this week! At least it was in person this time… We were teaching a lesson at someone’s door and a very drunk dude who was walking up the street stopped and stood by us. We were continuing with our lesson when the drunk guy grabbed my water bottle out of my bag and then stumbled off. It wasn’t worth getting into a fight with drunk guy over a cheap water bottle so we just went on teaching our lesson🤷 On the broad spectrum of encounters with drunk people, I would consider this experience a win. The traditional meal times are really interesting. It’s like the meal schedule that the hobbits follow […]

So much happened this week, and so little of it was working in our area like we needed to.  On Tuesday we helped the 30 missionaries in our zone get vaccinated against rabies and the flu. We had to leave that early to go help another missionary with Dengue Fever navigate the hospital system. On Wednesday we went back to the hospital with the same missionary, then we waited most of the day to have interviews with the Mission President. We visited with other missionaries and leaders throughout the day. Elder Eyre and I then had a 3-hour bus ride to the mission offices in Salta for a series of leadership meetings. Thursday we attended […]

We’ve been working our tails off this week. Our area includes the main downtown, but almost all of our work is done on a lower shelf, closer to the banks of the river that runs through San Salvador. It makes a very abrupt distinction between the wealthier people and the poorer people. You can look up from the lower neighborhoods where we are working and see the nice buildings downtown. It’s a really weird mix. There are also a lot of awesome views of the mountains because San Salvador is situated in foothills of the Andes Mountains. Some of them even have snow caps right now! It was awesome to be able to share so […]