July 22, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 26

Dear Family,

WHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Six months into the mission tomorrow!! So crazy! I can't freaking believe it. It is honestly the weirdest feeling ever because it seems like I left for the MTC yesterday, but it seems like I haven't seen you guys in years haha. It's totes cray lolz.

Anyways! This week was super good!! WE HAD 3 BAPTISMS!!!! That's right shawty lol. We baptized Maria do Socorro, Lais, and Laiza this week and it was awesome. There's kind of a sad story about it - So the three girls, Lais, Laiza, and Rayanne chose me to baptize them and so I baptized Lais and Laiza. But when it was Rayanne's turn, she entered the water and got super afraid. I tried to baptize her three times but she just wouldn't go down under all the way :( She started crying and the Branch President's wife tried to calm her down but she still wouldn't do it. It was so sad! I felt so bad for her but we're going to try encourage her to be baptized this week because she still really wants to be baptized. The water was freezing and was a little high for her so she was super afraid. But she'll be baptized this week!

Baptism! Elder Di Giordano, Lais, Maria, Rayanne, Laiza, Elder Colin Hanson
Brazil Goiania Mission

It's hard to get people to come to church because they live so far away and Church starts at 9 in the morning, which is too early for a lot of people haha. People say that they'll come, but then end up not going. It's so frustrating. The goal for the mission is for each companionship to bring 10 investigators to church every week! I can't imagine having church at 7:30 in the morning like Cooper! That's insane! Haha

Anyways, we're teaching this guy named Joao Paulo who is super cool. He's a cousin of one of the members in the branch, so we teach Joao with that member. He is really cool and he's super interested in the Church. He has a problem with smoking, so we taught him about the Word of Wisdom this week. We also took his cigarettes away from him and destroyed them haha but he didn't care because he really wants to stop smoking. We also took coffee away from Maria do Socorro. Lol we went to her house one morning and we asked Lais if we could take their coffee and replace it with cevada (which is like coffee but doesn't have the bad substances in it) so it's okay to drink but it's awful haha! They didn't keep it a secret from the other people in their family though, like we were hoping :/

We're also teaching this lady and her son. They had missionaries teach them before but she was living with a guy at the time and she wasn't married, so the missionaries stopped teaching them. She has since separated from him and so we are teaching them now haha. They are super cool and they have a baptismal date for this Saturday. We're hoping that everything will go right and that they'll be baptized this week!.

By the way, I am playing the piano in Sacrament Meeting every week because no one in the branch knows how to play haha. You guys ask that every week and I keep forgetting to answer haha so.....yeah.

This week, we sort of like did these split type things with other missionaries in our zone. We went to the other side of the city (which is a long, long walk) and there's another huge Jesus Statue like the one in Rio De Janeiro. It's pretty sweet but I forgot my camera that day so I didn't get a picture :/ But I'll be sure to get a picture next time I go there, which should be this Wednesday.

Elder Colin Hanson

Nothing else happened. I'm loving the mission even though it's dang hard sometimes. Hope you guys have a great time in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone! Take some fudging pictures! Love you! Tchau!

Elder Hanson