Week Sixteen:
"Progress has decided to take a nap... not much sucess this week! The first few days we actually backtracked, we had to cut many families that weren´t progressing. One of these being Oneida, the wife of Álvaro. We devoted so much time to her but she never committed to baptism. It was funny seeing her though sitting with her husband the next sunday in church, i dont think she quite gets the big picture!

Another family was really hard to cut, Maria Do Ceu and Sérgio have been investigators for 15 years! Missionaries have always found refuge in their home, theyre even on the ward lunch schedule for the missionaries. theyre a sweet old couple, but devout to the catholic faith. it was difficult explaining to them that we couldnt visit them more and the work must continue. Maria replied, ´´i understand, now what would you like to have for lunch tomorrow?`` its very difficult to cut investigators who have become your close friends!

the second half of the week was even slower. i figured out that my feet arent made for walking... i have pretty bad tendonitis on both feet, and its really put a dent in the work. At first i thought that my feet were just sore and theyd work themselvers out, until one morning i literally couldn´t put weight on them. the walk to the doctors wasnt the funnest experience. Doc says my feet are unnaturally flat and theres not much i can do to change it. so instead of work my companion and i sat in our house. We tried our best to be productive, but its amazing how distracted the mind can get when its not at work! we ate all of my precious american junk food, discussed deep doctrine, and for really the first time we swapped stories about pre mission life. he wouldnt believe half of mine! i guess in retrospect ive had a pretty crazy life so far, im grateful for all my crazy adventures!

I hope i didnt sound like i was putting down my companion in my last letter, i love the guy and we´ve developed a great companionship, neither him or i was transfered do 6 more weeks of work!

I was able to study a ton this week due to my feet. how ture are the words of Nephi- my soul delighteth in the scriptures(2 Ne 4:15)! I really enjoyed studying Alma 5 (coinciedence that My sister shared the same scriptures in her farewell talk?). I counted 47 questions that alma asks in the chapter, and i asked myself the same questions. it was a great exercise, i was able to evaluate my faith; i complimented myself on my strong points and made goals to strenghten the areas in which i am lacking. i encourage everyone to do the same exercise!

I forgot about one experience i had that i forgot to mention the in week prior. One of our recent converts called us one night and told us that she wanted nothing to do with the church. we were baffled, shes one of our strongest members! as we walked to her house, we talked about what we planned to say. my companion had the idea to simply bare our testimonies, rather than address whatever personal demons she was facing. we arrived, sat down, and dove right in. we testified of our personal conviction that The Book of Mormon is true, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and the the Church of Jesus Christ is indeed his church here on the earth. We reminded her that great things are expected of us since we are members of said church. we reminded her as well that if shes having a lack of faith, that the only way to regain that faith was through prayer. she was a bit suprised by our approach, we invited her to pray that night and she accepted. the next morning she called us and told us to come back over, we accepted, not knowing what to expect.  she told she didnt recieve an immediate answer to her prayer, but that she had a dream during the night. during the dream, one of her co workers was making fun of my compaion and i. the sister then ´´rebuked`` her, telling her that we were sent from god, and that we represent the only true chruch on the earth. she then realted that she woke up, feeling the spirit of god wrapped around her like a blanket. she knew that the church is true, and now were even teaching her boyfriend the discussions. it was a blesssing to bring this once uncertain sister come back to christ!"

Week Fifteen:
"This week was awesome! this last week was one of the final parts of the twelve week training program that i am undergoing with my trainer. This week was my turn to be the senior companion, meaning that i got to make all the decisions, lead and plan all of our lessons, and many more responibilites. It was pretty difficult at time deciding who to visit, what to teach, where to procelyte, etc. But I think i did pretty good! My knowledge and my confidednce in my knowledge increased, and im overall a better missionary this week. i learned as well that its definitely a lot easier to lead than to follow!

I realised i havent shared much about my trainer during these twelve weeks... thats because there isnt much to share! hes a hard worker, which is exactly what i prayed for while in the CTM. Our personalities however, are almost exactly opposite. I struggled to biuld a strong relationship with him, its been hard partially because we never speak a word of english(not an exaggeration, not a single word of english since ive arrived in rio), but as well hes more interested in talking about the work or the gospel than swapping stories. During my first weeks out in the field, it felt like he wasnt concerned about making friends or getting to know our investigators, whereas i was trying to make friends a little too much! Missionary work requires the right balance, of course you need to have a good relationship with all people you contact, but with your investigators a little firmness is needed. We´ve been learning a lot from eachother, ive learned how to be more firm when the occasion arises, and hes opened up to be a little more charismatic. it was hard at the beginning, trying to get to know someone who didnt really want to get to know me, but as we worked together i realised some of the things he liked, opinions and other characteristics that he had that i didnt my best to relate to. after work and prayer on both of our parts, we have a great relationship, contantly perfecting our teaching strategies and bettering ourselves as missionaries.

We had an interesting experience this week. We´ve been teaching a man named Edilson for over a month now, and its been hard to get him to progress. during our lessons, hes always spoken about how he feels he was some purpose here in Nilópolis. During our last lessons with him we were really emphasizing the importance of church attendance, but then for about two weeks he dropped off the map. When we went to his house to see what the situation was we found something not quite expected... he started his own church! He transformed his house into a mini chapel, bought himself a new suit and a big preachers bible. his body language was completely different, he greeted us his ´´children`` and was constantly looking a little behind us, as if angels were putting ´´bunny ears`` with their two fingers behind our heads. he even had a little congregation(mostly comprised of family members). apparently we didnt a great job on explaining the importance of church service, we only forgot to mention that it was OUR church that he needs to attend. we decided to attend thier little service, just of pure curosity of what would happen. Pastor Edilson comenced the meeting...using the same scriptures we use to teach him the weeks prior! truely baffling. we then had the opportunity to share some scriptures of our own, so we were cheeky and shared some scriptures about authority to preach and baptize. the people didnt quite understand, but after the meeting my companion and i had a good laugh about the change of events. Im not sure where to go from here though its gonna be heart wrentching to tell Brother Edilson and his flock of sheep that their pastor has absolutely no authority... o the life of a missionary!"

-Elder Kelland Hansen