January 28, 2013

Well I wasn´t transferred but my companion was. I now have a new companion named Elder Mattias (as in the Apostle Matthias who replaced Judas Iscariot). He´s a lot of fun and a good teacher. He´s got another year left of his mission. I found out that one of the guys I baptized at the start of my mission - Valnei - is snow the councilor to the branch president in São Borja. Marçelo and Kelly are also a family which I taught (I was transferred before I got to baptize them) who are really active. We´re teaching a guy named Ciçero here (the same guy who we´ve been teaching a while). I gave him doctrine and covenants last week and he already read it (ALL OF IT!). Ofcouse I think he read it so fast that it mostly just left him with questions. His baptism is coming up!    

It´s a real tragedy what happened to that nightclub. I heard that it was really tiny and so when the fire happened and everyone tried to get out at the same time it just didn´t work. The body gaurds also didn´t let people leave at first because there were some who hadn´t payed yet. Because of the fire, the Church is helping out and our zone conference was moved from today to later in the week. 

Elder Hollandsworth is my District Leader. We´ll see how it all goes tommorow in district meeting.

Tell Tyler I hope he´s feeling better and that I want him to have a happy birthday. Tell Rick I´m proud of him!

January 21, 2013

Ivy? Well it seems like there´s some real freedom with names going on here. No one from the family will be able to criticize me when I name my kids after lesser known Bible characters (Asher here we come) or if I give one of my daughters a Brazilian name (Like Ana Paula). Of course my wife will have a say in all this too.

So we were teaching a guy a few weeks ago who was really interested but then he didn´t want to continue. The cool thing is that this same guy found us on the street this weekend and came up to say that we were right. Then we spoke with him a bit more and we marked his baptismal date. 

We´re also finding a few other people and we´re trying to reactivate some others. 

I have no clue if I´ll be transferred or not. I found out today later this afternoon.
Because I´ll be coming home on April 9th, I need to know

January 14, 2013

Well you never know where Rick could go. I heard about a guy who baptized two hundred in Utah last year. So if Rick's blessing says he´s going to baptize many it doesn't mean he has to leave the country. If he went to Brazil that´d be cool though! So my companion is here more time in the area and I think he´ll be transferred this next week but I might stay another transfer. We don´t know yet.

It sounds like you guys are having fun now that the van is having problems. With Rick having to bum rides from you guys it´s like he´s in the seminary car again. 

I´m going to try to have a good successful week. Pray for us and I´ll pray for you guys to have a successful week too.

--

Well there´s a week left in the transfer. I don´t know if I´ll be transferred at the end of the transfer or in the next one. Dad told me about Rick´s Patriarchal blessing. That´s exciting!

This week we didn´t really find anyone knew or anything. It was sort of cool though, because we and the members went around to the inactive men in the branch to distribute this years manual and then we invited them out to this next Sunday.

It´s hard working with in-actives but there´s not as many in the branch as some other wards and branches I´ve been through. 

Not too much to talk about this week. I love you guys. 

- Elder Hanson

December 24, 2012

Well, that investigator who was really interested is now no longer interested. We think he started to doubt some things and instead of letting us respond his questions he just backed out. We have other investigators though. The husband of an inactive member is starting to go and we´re reactivating the family. About two weeks ago this same man and his family went to Church. Things aren´t going too terrifically but I´m happy and I´m sure the holidays will be great here. There´s a member family that´s going to make dinner for us. 

After Christmas I´m going to fast a bit and we´ll try and find some other investigators because we need new ones. 

Nothing really new. The members are terrific here. We got a watermelon from a member family yesterday. It was a really good watermelon!

December 18, 2012

Well Sunday we had an Investigator. He´s the same one who came the Sunday before. He´s real interested and we have a lesson with him today. After Church we had lunch at a member family house and they had already prepared a cake for me and everything. Yesterday was a Zone Conference with a Secret Santa sort of activity afterwards. So today is p-day and that is why I didn´t write yesterday. 

Well since today is P-day we went to the Super-Market to buy some things and we saw our Investigator Ciçero just happened to be passing by in the street. We talked for him a moment and it´s good because we joked and are developing a friendly climate. We are going to visit him today at six. The cool thing is that he´s already expressed interest in doing divisions/splits with us. Of course, he´ll have to learn more and be baptized before that. Ciçero´s brother is married and was investigating the Church before I got here. Unfortunately, when the Elders and members of the Church spoke about marriage this couple just sort of stopped going to Church and disappeared. If everything goes right with Ciçero, we can maybe teach a lesson with him to his brother and his sister in law.

I don´t think I´ll be able to use a webcam this year. <insert angry scream from Devin's mother> The problem is that none of the members have one. I´ll make sure to give you guys a number on P-day that you guys will call on the next day (Christmas!) and you should buy a phone card like the last times. 

Love, Elder H

December 10 - with pictures!

Well mom,

I haven´t gotten your package yet but I might get it this week at District Meeting. We´ve had a new investigator come to Church every week for the last three weeks. The thing is that the first one who came two weeks ago is traveling and the investigator who came last week had a work emergency but I think we´ll have all three investigators and some others next week. we invited a bunch of people this week who didn´t end up coming but the investigator who did come ... well he´s new. He just sort of showed up at the Church on saturday and they happened to be having an activity (he thought it was always open and felt like checking it out) we invited him to come on sunday and he did. He seems really interested and we´ll see where it all goes. There´s a non member family who makes us lunch on P-day and they accept the messages but they are always in a hurry after lunch so we haven´t taught them much yet. 

As an early Christmas Present we took a bunch of pictures.  

A teaching pool

Hey Everybody,

Well, this weekend we invited a woman that we've been visiting and reactivating and her husband is frequenting and investigating the Church. The same man who visited last week didn't make it this week but he should be at Church with his wife next week. We managed to get a lot of semi active people to come this week. Another great thing is that I just found out that there's a nice lady who wants to hear our messages and be baptized (I haven't met her yet) that we're going to start teaching this week.

We usually just eat something at home on P-day but we have some investigators who make lunch for us on P-day so we shared a message with them today it's going well.

There's a ton of Christmas decorations in the center of town. I'll make sure to take pictures. There's no snow... It's sooooo hot today. I feel like I'm melting. The funny thing is that my companion is kind of chubby but he's from a place that's usually even hotter and so he barely even sweats. I, on the other hand, suffer in this heat.

One of the ladies in the ward was talking about how her daughter was taking the disscussions but she (the lady) would hide herself inside the house and didn't want to hear. Then she said how she was going through a lot of problems and heard one of the Elders talking and said it just sounded right and she entered in the main room and starting listening to the message. Now she's baptized and happy. It's nice to hear some good stories from time to time.

The branch is small but we're fighting to make a difference here. I'm trying to work as hard as I ever have.

I know that this Church is true.

As for whether or not Rick should head out before I get home or not, I'd say that's up to him. One thing that's funny is that the mission passes by fast and that after the first while there's not really any homesickness. I think that when I get home it'll be a lot different but I don't think Rick will percieve it too much if he's out working hard. But it's all up to him.

- Elder Hanson