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

October 7, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 36

Dear Family,

Wellllllll, this week wasn't my favorite week of all time hahahahahaha.

I missed two sessions of General Conference. YES, TWO Sessions of Conference. So I literally have no ideas the new stats in the Church. Haha I'm so butthurt you guys don't even understand. I feel like I completely sinned and that I have to repent even though I didn't do anything wrong. We went to the first Saturday session, which is the one I enjoyed the most because we brought our investigator named Jose Carlos to that session. The other session I attended was the Sunday morning session yesterday and I couldn't even enjoy it because I was stressing out so bad about my investigators. It was awful! I literally couldn't tell you what happened during that session, besides President Monson's talk. His talk was by far my favorite! When he started talking about his wife and everything about her, I had tears in my eyes, and I've never cried over a talk in my life haha. Then I was thinking about all the hardships that I'm having on my mission, sometimes I feel so alone, and then he talked about how the Savior will NEVER leave you and I just felt the Spirit so strong, and teared up again haha. Besides that, I'm going to have to print the rest of the Conference talks off the internet :(.

The reason I missed the second afternoon Saturday session was because the rule of the mission is that if you don't have investigators at that session, you can't watch it. So we didn't watch that session :'(. The reason that we missed the afternoon session of conference yesterday was because My companion got super sick. He told me after the first session that he was feeling sick and so we started back home, and then he said that he was going to throw up, and he threw up on the side of the street :/. I felt so bad! I think what he has is food poisoning, because he doesn't feel like he has the flu or anything. I called President and Sister Kuceki, but they couldn't answer because they were at Conference.....so it was a just a big mess with who would be at Conference with my investigators. I'm still stressing out of my mind about it lol.

We did find many people this week who were LEGALLY married! Nobody is legally married, so we were so happy during the week. But then, as always, people just won't go to church! They always say that they're going to go until Sunday and something retarded gets in the way, so frustrating.

I really like my new companion! He's completely obedient, which I'm super happy about and he studies hard and everything. One thing that I've learned on my mission is to have unity in every companionship or you won't have success. So I'm just trying my best with everything. I'm his trainer so I try to teach him things that they don't teach in the MTC. I wish my trainer would have cared to teach me. I'm really just trying my best to help him with everything.

I really am loving my mission! I just read through my email and realize how negative it was but I truly LOVE IT! This week just sucked so hard haha. I'll try to be more positive in my other emails hahaha.

We're still trying to find new people. Guys, please pray that we may be able to find the people who are prepared to hear The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we may be able to bring people to Church.

Love you guys! Tchau!

Elder Hanson

September 30, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 35

Dear Family,
     Well...I was not transferred hahahahaha. I'm still in Rio Verde just trying to kill it like I always do! lol
Guess What? I'm TRAINING! HAHA. A gringo too! Elder Thomas is from Colorado and he just barely got to the mission on Wednesday. I had no idea that I was going to be training too. They called me like 3 hours before I had to go pick him up and told me that I was going to be training!. So Crazy! Elder Lobos was transferred though and now we have a Brazilian named Elder De Jesus living with us.

     Elder Thomas is cool. He is already speaking Portuguese better than I did when I got to the mission. He's not afraid to talk to anybody either. He got his Visa before he left on his mission so he went to the MTC in Sao Paulo. I think that it would have helped me with my Portuguese to have gone to the MTC in São Paulo, because they only speak Portuguese there haha. But he's learning about everything so quickly. I am trying to teach him everything that I know because I actually want to help him (unlike my trainer) because I never really was trained. I basically had to learn everything myself. He is trying to help me as well, because he knows that it's my first time being a trainer. But he's not afraid to say if he thinks that I could have done something better in our lessons haha so I think that it's a good companionship. He's not stressed out like crazy like I am, either haha. I think I was a straight up girl when I got to Brazil. I'm a little stressed out though, but I think everything will work out well.

     This week did not go too great. We had so many people say they would come to church and literally, nobody came. So Annoying! We passed by all of their houses Sunday morning and all of them weren't there or gave some lame excuse. I hate that so much! Why say that you are going if you aren't going to go?

     But we did see a miracle happen. So we were passing by one of the people's houses yesterday trying to get them to church and their neighbor passed by Elder Thomas and Elder Lins (an Elder in by district who helped us get people to go to church) and Elder Lins invited him to go to church and the guy actually went! So we passed by his house yesterday and he is super interested in the church now! He and his wife are legally married. They are interested and really want to hear the Prophet speak on Sunday. They are religious but starting to doubt the truthfulness of their church (his wife went on for an hour about tithing hahaha). That's one thing about Brazil, the people ALWAYS say the same thing at least three times before they let us start to speak. Whenever we knock on doors it's always like that haha. So she said like 3 times the exact same thing and we were just like "we understood you the first time." haha  But I LOVE the Brazilian people so much!!!

     We had to drop a lot of people this week because they didn't go to church. It's sad, but there's not much you can do after you have done your part and the people still don't change. Everyone has to do their part. Naiviv (name change) was one of the people we had to drop this week and so that was pretty sad. She just doesn't have any desire to change at all.

     So this is super random, but this morning I got out of bed to pray and I felt something on the back of my neck. So I smacked it because I thought it was a mosquito. But then I got up and went to the bathroom and I felt it again when I walked in. I smacked it again and a huge cockroach fell on my shoulder! I literally almost started crying it scared me so bad haha. It's Elder Lee's fault haha because he sleeps on the top bunk and last night he said he saw 2 cockroaches in his bed and he said they fell to the floor when he tried to kill them. But I guess they did not fall to the floor, they fell on me! It's all his fault haha!

     Nothing much else happened this week. I'm really excited to train Elder Thomas and everything will go great. Love you guys so much! Tchau!

Elder Hanson

September 23, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 34

Dear Family,

Hey Guys! This week passed by SO SLOWLY. It literally feels like a month ago since I've written you guys haha. So much crap happened this week.

First off, the baptism with Rairanne didn't  go as planned. This time, Elder Di Giordano tried to baptize her and she entered the water, but her gosh dang foot came out of the water! At the same time, water got in her nose, so she got super scared to go under again. Then, two days later, the zone leaders called me and said they would talk to her and encourage her. So they came and talked to her and basically tried to get her in the baptismal font, but she wouldn't stop crying. I felt so freaking bad! Especially for her grandma because she had to deal with her crying so much. It was so dumb! In short, Rairanne wasn't baptized :(.

Rairanne's "Almost" Baptism 

Also, Elder Di Giordano finished his mission and went home on Friday :( . It was super sad saying goodbye to him as well! I literally almost cried (but I didn't lol). When he went home, they put this other Elder in my zone with me because his companion went home on Friday as well. His name is Elder Coradeghini (from Argentina) but he was only my companion for just a few days  because this morning we took him back to his area in Rio Verde. I'm not really sure why our Leaders did it this way. So right now I'm in a Trio with the other 2 Elders in my house, Elder Lobos (Lobo means wolf in Portuguese haha so we call him Elder Wolf) and Elder Lee. I'm pretty sure this means that I'll be transferred today :///////////. I'm kind of freaking out haha because I really don't want to be transferred. Also, they put me as Senior companion with Elder Coradeghini and that's also why I think I'll be transferred. We'll see what happens though! Usually people stay in a area for 3 to 4 months and I've been in Rio Verde since fudging April.

Colin and Elder Coradeghini

Colin's District

Nothing really is happening with Naivi (name change) She isn't progressing at all. We tell her to read the Book of Mormon ever time we visit and teach her, but she won't do it. Although- she came to Church yesterday, but only for Relief Society because she didn't want to be in the same room as her cousin. We passed by her house yesterday to talk to her and she told us that there's an Assembly of God Church (which is like a huge Evangelical Church in Brazil) that is close by her house and she said that she wants to go to that Church away from her cousin. I told her "But Our Church is not the church of your cousin, it's The Church of Jesus Christ. Do you want to attend the Church that is The Church of Jesus Christ, or the church of the world?" She didn't really know what to say haha, but I hope the Spirit will guide her in the right direction. As we were talking with Vivian, her cousin came into the house and it was super awkward lol, so Elder Coradeghini and I just  left.

We also went to a Rodizios Restaurant last Pday! It was so freaking good, it wasn't even funny lol!! It was three million times better than Rodizio in Utah. It was so dang expensive as well but we wanted to celebrate!

Elders from Rio Verde Zone

Colin and Elder Di Goirdino

Colin and Jesus

Rodizio!

Rodizio ! (ignore the beer sign  haha)

Other than that, nothing else much happened. I'll end by sharing my favorite chapter in The Book of Mormon, Ether Chapter 12, it talks a lot about faith and Miracles.  I especially love Ether verse 6, "And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". Ether Verse 12,  "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith". And Ether verse 27, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them". I love the Book of Mormon so much! I know that it is true and it has helped me a lot in my life. Everyone just needs to read it and it will change their life forever.

Colin and Raimundo (one of Colin's converts)

Love you guys! Thinking and praying about you all the time! OS amo DEMAIS!

Elder Hanson

September 16, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 33

Dear Family,

Sorry I emailed your email to everybody last week haha. I didn't mean to do that. I just want to send my emails that I send you guys, to my close friends that are on their missions so they know what's happening here in Brazil. Sorry! I'm super retarded when it comes to things like this haha.

Anyway! This week was better than last week. Yesterday, we got Raianne to commit to be baptized this Thursday! It's gonna be on Thursday because we're pretty sure that Elder Di Giordano will leave for home on Friday and Raianne wants to be baptized while Elder Di Giordano is still here! Hopefully, she's over her fear of water haha.

We did divisions on Wednesday, but I stayed in my area this week. We honestly do divisions so much here lol. But it was good this time, because I didn't have to leave my area. We just knocked on a lot of doors and on one street we found a bunch of people to teach and they all wanted to go to church! It was actually really cool. What's annoying, is a lot of people commit to go to church and still won't go :/. On that one street, we found 9 new people who said they would go, and only 2 actually came to Church :(. We went to this one lady's house who loved our lesson and said that she really wanted to go to Church. So we went back to her house to confirm that she would go and she was there cleaning a bunch of stuff. Her husband got super mad at us for no reason and was like "Can't you see that my Woman is cleaning?" (That's what Brazilian men call their wives hahahahaha). Then he told us to leave!! Super strange, but anyway, she didn't go to church :/.

We went and visited  Naivi (name change) at her house the other day and she is doing a ton better! She told us that she realized that a lot of people have much worse problems than she does. She is about ready to pop haha so she wasn't able to go to church yesterday.  Keep praying for her and her baby.

Our Zone was number one in the mission this month with 31 baptisms! So we got to have a water balloon fight this morning haha.

Elder Lee, Elder Lobos, Colin, Elder Di Giordano

Rio Verde Zone, Brazil Goiania Mission

Elder Pontes, Colin, Elder Lins
Brazil Goiania Mission

Other than that, I realized that on September 12, it's been a year since I got my Mission call to Goiania Brazil!!! Crazy how time flies. Anyway!!!! Love you guys so much! I pray for you constantly, still. Tchau!

Elder Hanson

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

September 2, 2013 ~ Goiania Brazil Mission, Rio Verde ~ Week 31

Dear Family,

Well, this week blew CHUNKS so hard!!!!! It was actually going super well until yesterday. We stayed in one area to find new people to teach and we had a ton of success there. We found five families that we taught and they all said that they would go to church! But then Sunday came around and not one of the families went to church. We do everything we can to teach them the importance of going to Church to learn about Jesus Christ and to feel the Spirit, but they don't get it. It's soooooo frustrating, it's not even funny. I honestly can't stand it.!!!! Flavia was so right when she said that in Brazilian culture,  it's all about 'there is always tomorrow right?' Haha it's so annoying sometimes.

We also had to kind of drop Solrac (name change) as an investigator this week because he didn't go to church again yesterday. Like I told you guys last week, if something happens in his life, he just shuts down and can't do anything else until he solves that problem. This is what happened again this week, he had another family problem and so he couldn't go to church. We stopped by his house on Sunday and he kind of got frustrated with us because we told  him how critical it is to go to church, and how we get sad when he doesn't go. We just told him to call us when he decides that he really wants the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his life. It's so sad because I honestly can see him being a great leader in the branch.

We did have a MIRACLE happen this week! We taught this lady named Naivi (name change) who is a referral from one of the members in our branch. She has some problems in her life. She's 32 years old, she's pregnant and so she lives with her brothers and sister. When she found out she was pregnant, she became super depressed. She is so nice that it's difficult to see someone like her struggle with this. We taught her a while back but she never was able to go to church because she gets extremely depressed all the time. But this week, one of the members asked us missionaries to give her a blessing. So we went over to her house and gave her a Priesthood blessing. It was very cool because she had never heard or seen a blessing before, or anything like it. She was crying and I could tell that she felt the Spirit super strong!!!!!! Boa Noticia (Good News), SHE CAME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY! It was so Awesome and I think the Priesthood Blessing helped a ton. We invited her to be baptized yesterday and she accepted.!  Pray for her and pray for her cousin, that she will help her. Pray that everything will work out for her.

Also, we're teaching this lady named Anirak (name change) who doesn't live in Rio Verde haha. I don't remember if I already talked about her to you guys, but she lives with her boyfriend, who is a member, in Quirionopolis Brazil. We teach them because they're always in Rio Verde working with a member of our branch. So we're teaching her and they are going to get married either this week or next week and then she'll be able to be baptized as well. The weird thing about it is that she is 18 years old and he's like 32 :/. Hahaha  THE thing is that this is completely normal here in Brazil. We see it ALL THE TIME.

Other than that, there's not much else to say lol. I hope you guys are doing great and I'm so happy that Travis is planning on going on a mission! I hope Noah and Erik had a good first week at school and that everything is going great. Love you guys! Have an amazing week! I'm praying for you always!

Elder Hanson