"Blessings! they continue to flow. my most recent blessing: My mission here can continue! I was really worried this week and the last about my future here in rio as a missionary, due to some legal complications back in the states. Ive spent a lot of time on my knees and had several sleepless nights, but the lord has blessed me with more time here in the work.
More about the work: we had to put off Oniedas baptism again... ahhhh!! Its been difficult to reach her, shes really sick so shes been spending a lot of time in Caxias, we´re being understanding but really... get in the water already!
yesterday we met with those pastors that have been talking smack about the Book of Mormon. Theyre actually pretty nice guys! theyre church is pretty new, and i think theyre genuinely trying to follow christ. When we arrived, however, we quickly noticed that they had an attack plan for us! it was a bit intimidating, the only preparation we had was a quick prayer! they had all their scriptures ready for us, but the one thing they didnt have was the spirit. We were guided by the spirit and carefully calmly explained every point of attack they had. after answering one of their questions concerning authority, one of the pastors was ready with another question when the other pastor stopped him! He wanted to hear more about the book of mormon. the tables changed! instead of rebuttaling and defending our honor, we were now teaching them! it was incredible to see the spirit work inside this learned pastor. it reminded us not only that we can only teach thorugh the spirit, but that no one is out of the reach of change. after we bore testimony of its validity, the pastor asked how much the book of mormon costs! we of course gave him a free one and we´re going to return more to talk about our meesage. such an incredible turn around! im pretty sure my jaw was still dragging on the floor when we left. i dont know how much will come from this, but im just glad it was a positive experience!
Sacrament meeting was pretty cool too! we had a lot of investigators attend church, and the entire meeting was focused on missionary work. I spoke on baptism, it was a bit choppy since im not entirely fluent, but they got the message! then my compaion talked about establishing Zion and retaining the lost sheep. after the meeting the bishop handed out paper for everyone to write a refrence for us to teach, the works gonna pick up speed real quick! Next saturday we´re having a ´´festa´´ in the chapel, theres gonna be lots of food and even more investigators, so excited to be a part of this work!
in other news we fixed our hot water this morning! after 2 months of cold showers, we decided we´ve had enough haha we actually knocked out all of our plumbing for a bit but im happy to report that ´´all things have been restoredto their proper frame´´ hahah it was a good week!
ps i hear my moms spreading my emails to some new people? If so, write me some time! id love to know what everyones up to! also no photos this week for these reasons:
1 forgot the camera at the house...
2 its been really difficult to get good photos! ive had a lot of requests for some pics but im not serving in the nicest area, let alone the nicest city haha robberies are common and if im running around taking pictures im marked as a tourist.
3 mission rules. we can only takes pictures on pday, and on pdays we can only stay in our area, so dont expect pics of me with the critsos haha and since we´re a walking mission only, we use all our time on pdays to walk from place to place buying the stuff we need.
im gonna try my best to get you guys better photos. until next week!"
-Elder Kelland Hansen
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