Good Stuff

Hey there family,
Well I found out that a young investigator I was teaching way back in Ijui was baptized shortly after I was transferred from there and he wants to serve a mission and get married in the temple (that´s what every missionary wants to hear isn´t it?) and after Guilhermie (who I had baptized in Ijui) started to go a bit inactive, this guy brought him back to Church. I´m happy.
So I guess I should have mentioned this earlier and I´m surprised I didn´t but I´ve been Senior companion for a while. This will be my third transfer as Senior and I´d just forgotten to say anything. 
This week we had a terrific training meeting with our mission President and lunch was good also. We taught a really spiritually powerful lesson to one of our investigator families this week. Unfortunately some neighbors did some talking and I think that our investigators got some cold feet and that´s why they didn´t show this week at Church. Still our group of investigators is pretty good and we´re going to work hard this week to add to it. My companion (Elder Santana) and I issued a training for this fifth Sunday. The Bishop and the members really seem like they want to help and give us some good references.
 My slacks are becoming dyed/bleached because of all the walking I´m doing in the sun. There´s usually not even a cloud in the sky.
 Mom: You can also tell Cemmy that I got her crocheted snowflakes. I´m only about thirty minutes by bus from the mission home.
Short post this week. Love you guys.

Tancredo Neves

Well, it´s been different. I´m serving in Tancredo Neves. (I´d misspelled the name of the town before) it´s part of Santa Maria or next to it and is part of the Santa Maria stake.   Everything is really developed here. Not everybody has a car here but there are always cars and motorcycles passing by and practically all the streets are asphalt. The houses are still all made of brick but a lot of them are a lot more high-end. They are still small but usually nicer than in the other areas I´ve served in and all the streets and things are cleaner. Today I went to the downtown area of Santa Maria. WOW. There´s a lot of stuff! It looks kind of like Seattle (of course it´s not as big). There was a lot of tall buildings and all kinds of stores and parks and things. It´s definitely the most developed part of my mission that I´ve seen so far. 

My companion is a nice cool guy. Our area really isn´t that big. Here in Santa Maria there´s seven wards and they will be building more chapels and things. Our ward shares a chapel with two other wards. The Chapel takes about a half hour to get to on foot (and a lot of people don´t have cars). They are going to build a chapel closer to us sometime. This is definitely the hardest area in terms of knocking doors. First day that I knocked doors here we knocked a hundred doors and two people let us in and three sort of let us leave a prayer at their front steps. The good news is that because of the work that was being done before I got transferred here, We already have a family (a mom and two girls), as well as a fifteen year old boy, and the girlfriend of a member on the horizon to be baptized. We´re working hard to knock doors to fill our time and we´re praying for results. We´re working with our ward to give us references and put a whole bunch of planning and effort in to missionary work. 

So we´re really working to make sure these baptisms work out and we need to get those references flowing so that by next month after baptisms we don´t end up out of luck for a long time. The sun is getting to a point where I feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. There´s all the organizations in our ward (it´s not that big of a ward).  It has primary teachers, youth and everything. There´s of course a lot of in-actives because of gossip or something. Lots of families who love the missionaries but won´t show up at Church.

I received a couple packages that you sent and I also got a few letters. My companion has the last name Santana but doesn´t play the guitar. He is, however, a relative to one of the early Brazilian converts who was featured in the recent Liahona. I know that in the Liahona here they take all the general stuff and then put specialized articles based on the country so it may not be a featured article in English. It´s cool because they started doing area authority messages that are especially for Brazilian in the Liahona as well.

Our apartment is an absolute pit. Thank goodness I´m out doing things most of the day.

Pray for me please. I know the Church is true and I will help the Lord bring to pass His work and His glory. Love you all. Good luck this week. 

MOVING ON!

Well I´m glad to hear from you and I´m thankful that you forwarded some things that my friends have been saying from facebook. I´ll end up writing to a lot of people when I get the time. Well the news dropped today that I´ll be transferred to Santa Maria in the Tranquedo Neves area. My new companion will be Elder Santana (I´ll make sure to ask him if he plays guitar) and it should be an exciting new area. I´m ready for new challenges and hoping for some success. I´ll miss a lot of people in this area but I´m looking forward to a bit of a change. I´m starting to really come along with my memorization and mastery of the scriptures. I need to become more humble and really better myself out here. I´m happy and I´m doing well.
Well we´ve been going with Juliano to Church and he´s been liking it. I hope that the rest of all the lessons on the commandments go well. I´m sure he´ll be baptized in this next transfer. Unfortunately, I´ll be far away when all that happens.

 

Wish me luck this week.
Love, Elder H.

 

Short but things are lookin up

Glad to hear from you.  I'm really starting to win some little battles.  The language keeps coming along and Juliano (an investigator of ours) came to Church.  We're teaching him all the commandments now.  I think it's going well.  Five other investigators gave me their word that they'd come this Sunday but they didn't.  Still, I'm excited about Jiliano.  About a week from now we're going to have a transfer.  I've been here for about four and a half months now.  Maybe I'll continue here or maybe I'll be transferred.  I'll only know next week.  I'm hoping to baptize Juliano, but at the same time, I might be needed somewhere else.  I'm praying and really trying to grow out here.  Thank you for all the help and support.

Not much happenin' but lots of pictures - 1/2/12

Hey Guys,

I love you all a whole bunch. The mission´s going well. I´m really learning some things and I´m really trying to change for the better. The language is coming along and I´m working harder and harder to better my work, my teaching skills and my organization. The work is going alright. I mean I´m not really having success lately with finding people/getting people to go to the Church but I just need to have faith and humble myself. It´ll all work out.

I´m making some great relationships with the members and Elders. In about two weeks we have our transfers.  By then I´ll have been here for four and a half months, I´m wondering if I can take knocking doors (FRUITLESSLY! GRR) for another transfer or if I´ll go somewhere else this transfer. I´ll only know the day before the transfer.

I know this area is great because there´s a lot of good people in it. I´m just not having success here. Who knows twenty years from now they could have a bunch of stakes here.  I think with how hot the sun is, it  makes me a little bit overwhelmed with the work sometimes. I´d really like an overcast day all the way from Shoreline.

Today I played soccer in a sandy field with a bunch of teens and younger kids. I´m still terrible at soccer. We´re going to try to teach a bunch of lessons to the kids and their families. (That´s if their parents will let us in)

Love, Elder Hanson

Pictures 01/02/12