July 29, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 27

Dear Family,

This week was FREEZING!!!!!! Holy Cow, I had to use my giant Mr. Mac Missionary coat haha, which I thought I'd never use in Brazil. What the heck! It got down to 3 degrees Celsius, which is like 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Cray!! It could have snowed if there was any rain this week (which I don't know how Brazil is so Tropical, it seriously never rains here anymore). But now, it's super hot so things are back to normal lol.

This week was interesting. The people were basically dying because it was so cold lol so we didn't get around to teaching as much as usual. A lot of people's excuse this week was that it was too cold so they didn't want to let us in haha. And unfortunately we had to drop Alaupana (name change) and Ikiak (name change) as investigators because they didn't go to church 2 weeks in a row. Also, they don't have the desire to be baptized anymore which is super sad Alaupana said something happened to her dad this week and it made her lose the desire. I don't know why, but it was super sad.

Also, we tried to baptized Rayanne again but she was still super afraid of the water  :/ so she wasn't able to be baptized. She'll be baptized soon, she just needs to get over her fear of the water. It's alright though, everything will go good for her lol.

Anyway,  we found a guy this week that is Super Elect, Raimundo. He almost didn't go to church as well, but it was such a blessing that he went because this is what happened. He said that as soon as he entered the door of the church, all his doubts about religion went away. He said it was so weird and said that he has talked to many pastors and they've all asked him to be baptized but he's denied them all because he didn't feel right at their churches. But as soon as we asked him to be baptized, he said yes right away hahahahaha. It was so Awesome. Raimundo is like 20 years old.

Also, we found another man/woman this week haha. We were knocking on doors and feeling kind of depressed because we weren't having much success that day. And he/she answered the door and we were like, are you kidding me? Haha But he/she said that we could share a message with him and so we did. He said that he would go to church and he's actually super cool!!!! It made me think of Mormon, in the Book of Mormon when he felt sorrow for his people that were sinning, and he didn't judge them. That's how I felt as we were teaching him. At first, I judged, which is super wrong of me,  but as we were teaching, it completely changed. We really think that he has the desire to change his life. But we're not exactly sure if he's a boy or a girl (he's a transvestite? I think that's the word). But he's amazing and really awesome! His name is Ordnassela (name change), but his friends call him MaKayla (name change ~his alter ego haha). And he went to church and liked it a lot, so we're hoping and praying things work out for him.

Anyway! Tomorrow I'm headed to Goiania because we're doing splits........kind of haha. One of the Elders in my district has a bad internal infection, so he left to Goiania to get some medicine. His companion is our District leader and the other Elders in the area are the Zone Leaders and they're headed to Goiania as well because they have meetings there every week. I'll be with one of the Zone Leaders until Saturday and my companion will stay with the District Leader. I'm kind of nervous haha because on Thursday I'll be going to another city called Jatai, that's pretty close to Rio Verde. It'll be interesting!

I hope you guys have a great week in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone! Love you guys!!!!!!!!!! Tchau!

Elder Hanson