Elder Colin Ronald Hanson: December 30, 2013, Brazil Goiania Mission, Uberlandia Week 48

Dear Family,

Hey guys!!!!!! Lol this week was super funny hahahahaha. I loved talking with you guys on Skype and seeing all of you on Christmas! It was honestly so hard to say goodbye. I was thinking this time around that I wasn´t going to cry but then I started bearing my testimony and for some reason I just lost it haha. Irmã Paula was bawling as well haha you guys couldn´t see her in the background, but she totally started crying. It was so good! I don´t remember if I said thank you for the packages but thank you, thank you, thank you so much!!! You have no idea what those packages mean to me.

Colin and his companion on Skype

Merry Christmas Colin

Sooooooo....... my birthday. Yeah..... haha one of the most interesting birthdays of my life. It was great. I think it´s just the greatest present ever to be throwing up all day because of food poisoning! Haha yeah I haven´t thrown up since I was like 8? It´s the worst feeling ever(especially when you ate Swedish fish the night before and that´s what you see in your vomit the next morning haha. So Elder Neeley, Elder Loureiro, and me all got sick that day and we were just dying haha with diarrhea and vomiting all day. I got the worst bit of the diarrhea, and Elder Loureiro got the worst bit with the vomiting lolz for days. Everyone thinks that it was because of the mayonnaise that they put on the salad on Christmas. Our lunch also fell through on my birthday so I ended up eating one apple for lunch. It was my favorite birthday that I´ve ever had haha. I had no appetite either to eat anything and we still had to work that day. But I´m over it and I´m fine now with my stomach and everything haha. It was so funny. Of course, this would only happen on my birthday. IT WAS JUST FOOD POISONING. Don´t worry about anything.

Me after totally destroying the banheiro, feeling like total dump on my barfday.

This week we had 4 investigators and 1 less active who went to church. It was good! Usually there should be a lot more, but the members were really happy with it, because usually they don´t have a ton of investigators there. We had Arley, who is this 18 year old, who I told you about that will be baptized on Saturday! We had two kids, and their mom, Elisangela (but Elisangela had to work on sunday) has a baptismal date on the 18th, and an elderly lady named Flora, who went to church for the first time yesterday and she LOVED it. We went and visited her after church and she had a lot of family over. There was this other lady there that was thinking that our church was just another church that the pastors just scream and preach the entire time, and Flora was like defending it and everything. She invited her to come to church with her the next week! Haha it was awesome. The lady actually accepted the offer at the end, so we´ll see what happens lol. But Flora told us the other day that we had a countenance that´s different from everybody else´s. She told us that she has so much trust in us. I think it was because of the blessing I gave her the other day. She has super bad back problems, and so a member asked us to give Flora a blessing. I gave one to her, and ever since then, she has been loving our visits and gained a lot of trust in us. It´s amazing to see the power of a Priesthood Blessing and how it helps people according to their faith. I´m really excited for her and she´ll be a great investigator.

Other than that, we didn´t do anything for my birthday (which I´m fine with! Don´t worry about me haha) and Christmas was awesome. Love you guys so much and thank you for all your support! Os amo demais!