October 14, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 37

Querida Familia,

This week was better than last week. It seems like the mission just gets harder and harder, but the weird thing is that I love it! My companion and I are getting along really great. I'm just trying to teach him everything that will help him as a missionary. Like, there was this one guy that we taught this week that is really knowledegable on the bible and everything. He told us, after we invited him to go to church, that he does not believe in organized religion. People like this, that do not want to go to church, we never return to because there are other people who are willing to go to church and we have to find those Elect people. Everyone has told me to study Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel because it talks about the Attributes of Christ. So I've studied that a bit more this week. Hopefully trying to be more like Christ will help me be a better trainer.

Colin and Elder Thomas

We were super blessed this week. There were Elders in another area in Rio Verde that were teaching these two girls, Veronica and Veradiane (they had set a baptism date too) but the girls moved to our area a few days ago. So now we are teaching them. They're really interested in the church and they are about 23 years old. They always read the Book of Mormon and the other pamphlets we give them and they've been keeping their commitments as well.  We will continue to help them understand the importance of keeping all the Lord's commandments. On Sunday, we passed by their house and Veronica and her mom were ready to go, but Veradiane was gone out looking for her mom thinking she was not home. We could not get a hold of her so she missed church but Veronica and her mom went to church. We will work things out though.

I don't really have much else to say, so I'll tell you something funny/ not funny about Brazil. The dogs get treated like less than the dust of the earth haha. We'll be teaching a lesson with a family and they will be super nice to us and then the dog starts making noise and they yell at them. The only word the dogs know is "Sai!" which means "leave!". I feel bad for the dogs sometimes. We always laugh about why people even have dogs if they hate them so much haha. Elder Lee loves to cook, and the people always make different types of meat for us. He asks them what type of meat it is and they always say "E carne" which means it's meat haha. But what kind of meat, we don't know????

Thank you for all of your prayers. I'm still waiting for your packages. I think you guys sent about 5, but I have not seen them yet. Hopefully soon. Love you guys!

Elder Hanson