September 9, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 32

Dear Family,

Hey guys! This week was a little bit better than last week haha. Not much though!!! We struggled teaching lessons this week! It was so weird, we literally knocked on like a thousand doors this week and only a few people let us in to teach them. The adversary is so DUMB!!!

However, we did have a cool experience the other night. We were struggling with finding people that would keep their commitments and go to Church. My companion and I were feeling like total butt heads, until our district leader, Elder Eastwood called us and told us to pray with real faith, to find an Elect Family to teach. So Elder Di Giordano prayed and then I prayed with total Faith... A few doors later, we found an awesome family! The mom told us that she had already gone to church a few times, but then she had to travel to a different state in Brazil, so she lost contact with the missionaries. But NOW we're here to teach them!  The only problem is that they're not married :(. She was super excited about going to church and she came on Sunday, but her boyfriend didn't. This was a super cool experience in praying in Faith for something specific (To find an Elect Family)  and then finding this family right after that.

Bad news with Naiviv (name change) :(. We went to teach her on Tuesday, and it was actually a really great lesson! I think we helped her a lot. But that night her sister was getting frustrated with her and then something happened that wasn't good. Anyway, for right now, She can't get baptized. So crazy! Things like this make me so frustrated because as missionaries, we are here to help people and bring people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's so sad that something like this would happen, preventing her from being baptized, for now. It sucks!!!

We had interviews with President Kuceki this week! Honestly, I feel so much better about EVERYTHING!!!! I freaking love President Kuceki!!! He is making some changes in the mission. He took out everything we were teaching that wasn't in Preach My Gospel. Like there were a few things that President Prieto added to help the missionaries with their teaching. But President Kuceki believes that everything we need to teach in our lessons, is in Preach My Gospel. Which is really true! Preach My Gospel is an inspired work, written by the General Authorities, and so it's basically considered scripture. This makes total sense why he is making these changes. But it was kind of a struggle for me this week haha because we weren't allowed to use the things that President Preito made for us, but I'll get used to it for sure.

Other than this, nothing else happened this week. Raianne is still afraid of the water.  Anorak (name change) should be married this week and that means she'll be able to be baptized this Saturday. Elder Di Giordano will end his mission next week :( and I think that I'll be transferred at that time as well. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple weeks. I'm sad and excited at the same time.

Love you guys! I finally got your photos from Independence Day haha. I still need G's, and HAIR GEL por favor!!!!!! Tchau!

Elder Hanson