Transfers!

Dear Family and friends

This week was super great! My last week with Elder Dedeco! So Transfers came this week and Elder Dedeco is leaving for Montes Claros! The hottest area in the mission haha, he is going to be a Zone Leader there! I am going to be staying here in Gutierrez and my new Companion will be Elder Graça! He is from Africa!! From what I have heard he is a super cool person but not a hard worker, I am going to use your advice and be exactly obedient in all things. I am excited though and I know that the Lord has plans for Elder Graça and I! This week was a little bit hard for us too because we honestly thought that Alfonso was going to be baptized but he didnt pass the interview. So we need to wait more time and he told us that he wants to make sure that he is completely ready for Baptism. Elder Dedeco wont see him be Baptized but thats ok! It was cool to actually have one of those missionary experiences where you think everything will be perfect and that all will work out fine but then all of a sudden everything falls. I honestly was sad for a hour because I wanted him to be baptized on sunday or saturday but I know that everything will work out in the end! 

We had a couple of Family Home Evenings this week to and it was super cool to feel the spirit. One of our other investigators, Italo, he was with me at one Family Home Evening and he honestly wanted to learn more and change his life!! It as amazing to testify of the power that the Atonement brings and that we can all be saved through our Savior Jesus Christ!! Elder dedeco and I also found a group of 5 teenagers, all boys, and when we were teaching them I could just imagine all of them in church as a quorum strong and ready to serve. It was super cool and I want to visit them again this week. It has been hard to contact Jorgina because she doesnt want to see us anymore. We are still praying for her though. Maristella wasnt in Church on Sunday but we set a date for her for Baptism on the 18 of november! I am going to visit her more with Elder Graça. We have another investigator named Valter and at first he didnt want to change at all and wasnt really open to many things, but then on sunday he told us he is reading the Book of Mormon and he believes that the parts he is reading are true! It is amazing to see the difference that the Book of Mormon makes in the lives of others!

Most of the week was just anxiety for Transfers ha, It is normal for everyone to be nervous the last week of the transfer! I am excited for more to come and I have so much faith that everything will be ok! I love you all and Hope  you all have a great week!! 

Thank you for sharing all of those things with me. I needed to hear those things especially since I am super nervous for this next transfer. Because I need to explain everything and take control on some things here because Elder Graça doesnt know the area.... But I have faith that the lord will help me with the language and with what will come. I am getting better though and learning more and more that I have my own experiences and I cant compare myself with others. I just want to feel the spirit so strongly every day and be guided by the spirit too. But I know that through exact obedience and my faith that miracles will happen. I am always praying for the family and I am so grateful for you all! I am happy to know that through my service here you will all be blessed. The people that will be living in my house are: Elder Graça, Elder Tenorio, and Elder Keim. And you dont need to do anything special with the notebook, it will be fine if you just send it here please ha! Thank you mom. Love you so much and if I need anything else I will let you know! LOVE YOU! oh and I dont have pictures right now but I will try and send some later haha I don't have batteries for my camera...

Love,

Elder Bestenlehner

Happy Feet happy missionary

This week was super good, and super spiritual for me. Our investigators are doing great. Alfonso lost contact with us for a couple of days and we were worried but he came to church on sunday and said that everything was ok. He will probably be baptized this week. Since transfers are the week after this week we want to baptize him because Elder dedeco and I started to teach him and found him. He is super awesome and already is gaining a testimony of the church! Maristella is doing good but it has been a hard week for her because a member of her family passed away and she is having some doubts about the priesthood authority in our church. We dont really get the chance to teach her much except for on sunday in church ha. We also met a new man called Valter this week. He is super old and is evangelical! But he is super nice and he likes it when we talk to him. He came to church and during the classes he shared his opinions, it was kind of awkward for everyone but everyone just loved him anyways. Jorgina is hard to reach now. We actually taught her yesterday because she let us in but I will talk about that later because its a funny story.

I had lots of cool experiences this week. I was able to see the power of the restoration once again in the lives of others. Elder Dedeco and I were walking and a man who was drunk stopped us and said he needed help and that he had been searching for us. So we sat down with him and we started to share the restoration with him. It was so amazing because he really listened. When I explained what the book of mormon was and how it can help others he started to cry, and I bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and he said "Bacana" which means amazing in Portugues. After that Elder Dedeco invited him to be baptized and he accepted. He doesnt live in our area but it truly testified to me that the lord is preparing people for us. Another cool but funny experience that happened was that the other day we were walking and two ladies that were also drunk stopped us in front of a bar. One said "OH its the mormons!!" In portugues and we taught both of them. But it was so hard because it was in front of a bar and they were drunk ha, when we gave one of them a pamphlet, the other screamed at me and said "why didnt you give me one!?" It was funny but I told them that god loves them and that our savior jesus christ loves them too. We were there so to listen and talk to them about Christ. 

Sunday was super hard to teach and to visit people because Atletico and Cruzeiro were playing each other ha. In soccer. I am an Atleticano! I like Atletico! But so many others like Cruzeiro. It was funny because we started to teach Jorgina during the game because we couldnt really turn off all of the tvs ha. And you know how hard it is for me to avoid soccer, it is impossible. I started to say the last prayer and the game ended and Atletico beat Cruzeiro 3-1 and everyone started to scream and go crazy with fireworks and all sorts of things ha. So i hurried and ended the prayer because no one could hear me! It is crazy because it is truly real when they say that in brazil during the game everywhere is dead silent and no one is on the street. But when someone scores or when the game ends everyone goes crazy!!!! Atletico and Cruzeiro are the teams that live in Minas Gerais, the state that I am in, so ofcourse everyone went crazy ha. The language is coming along slowly, I am corrected over 100 times each week but I have faith it will come for sure. This is my last week with Elder Dedeco probably since transfers are on the 1 of november and he will leave since I am finishing training. But I love you all and eu sei que esta igreja é uma igreja verdadeira. Eu sei que meu salvador Jesus Cristo vive e que nosso pai celestial nos ama muito!! AMO VOCÊS! Tenham uma boa semana! 

Caden will do such a great job next sunday, I am excited to hear how it went.  I can't wait to hear where Camron is going! I love both of those guys ha. and michael but I havent heard from him in ages. Love you!! Thank you for everything you do for me. Miss you so much and I am always praying for you dad and our family! The one picture is of me and Elder dedeco. I bought a flag of Atletico for me and to play a prank on Elder Coutinho because he loves Cruzeiro and so we hung it up in his room and the second is this cool view that I saw at lunch the other day. Love you!

Elder Bestenlehner

A Painful end to a great week 10/16/17

So this week was really awesome and really painful haha. I will explain later. The language is coming really slow but I have faith and I understand a lot more so I am grateful for that. But First of all our Investigators are doing great, Alfonso is progressing and his baptism is this saturday. Maristella finally accepted to visit with us again because all she does is attend church, she has a fear of baptism. Jorgina is practically not wanting anything anymore. At one of our home evenings for elder coutinho she was there and I talked to her and tryed to regain her trust but when we tried to visit her the next day she would not accept us. But this week we worked really hard and found lots of new people and set some others with a date for baptism. We are hoping to have more baptisms soon but the next transfer is two weeks away and either I or Elder Dedeco will leave. 

This week we had a lot of family home evenings with members and it was so fun!! There was so much food and so much laughter. We had a home evening in the area of our sisters in our district and it was fun because the lady we visited was a boxer and so Elder Coutinho and I we boxed ha. The other Home evening we had was in the home of Rosalia and Alfonso was there too! It was so spiritual because Elder Coutinho bore his testimony since he is leaving for home this next transfer. And I made everyone laugh with something strange I did with my throat that sounds like a turkey. Alfonso was laughing so hard that he couldnt breathe. We also had a lot of opportunities to serve other people this week which was so awesome. We taught a lot of first lessons and we hope that the people we taught will read the Book of Mormon. Without the book of mormon, we cant teach very much. It was just a good week to work hard and help others. I also played soccer with some kids on friday because every friday night we share a message at the chapel for soccer. It was super fun!

 Lets talk about Saturday.... So this week I found out that I have two ingrown toenails and it turns out that the smaller one was infected and was bleeding a lot and was hurting so much!! So I called Sister Fernandes and she told me to go to a lady in the area of Elder Coutinho. So I went with Elder Coutinho yesterday to the lady because no one was there Saturday. And she works with these kinds of things and so she had to remove it herself. The one on the right or the smaller one was more infected and a lot harder to pull out, it was at the very bottom of the nail. So she started to work on it and wow.... It hurt so bad. She was working on it for over ten minutes and so I had ten minutes of pure pain. I was grasping the side of the chair so hard and I started to sweat too. Ha it was terrible. The bigger one wasnt that bad. But she taught me more how to cut my nails and keep them safe ha. It was crazy. But this week I learned a lot about Patience and how not everyone will accept our messages. Its so hard because you just want everyone to be baptized and see the beauty of the gospel but since in the lords plan, people have agency, and so we have to accept that and juse love and serve. Love you all and I am so grateful to be on the mission here in Brazil. Sei que o evangelho de Jesus Cristo é verdadeiro e que o Livro de Mormon é essencial! 

Oh and I need you to get on Facebook and change things about my profile and stuff like pictures the name and put some pictures on my profile because some of the members here want the photos! If you can that will be amazing! And if I need anything else I will let you know! 

Elder Bestenlehner

October 9, 2017

Hey Mom!! Sorry I sent you a new one but it was hard to respond because of the pictures haha I loved the pictures though!! Mainly because we dont have anything like the trees and mountains here in Belo Horizonte, just a lot of houses, buildings, and hot weather ha. I am glad to hear that your week went well and that is so cool that Hailey had her baby!! I forgot she was going to be having a baby soon. Camrons call will come for sure haha but I definitely would not have lasted. I love brother Danley so much and he is one of the reasons I am out here too, he has inspired me with his love and his example in all things. Braelyn is still super cute and I loved all of the pictures ha.

This week was definitely hard and really slow. Mainly because Elder Dedeco, my companion, is having trouubles with his back so it was really hard for us to really work hard this week. But I still had some amazing experiences. For example, I was able to give him two blessings of healing and I did it all in portugues and it was so amazing. I love the opportunity I have to give blessings and bless the lives of others through the priesthood. Wednesday was a super cool day because we had splits with our zone leaders. I was with Elder Bishop, he will end his mission in December but it was awesome to work with him, he is from washington dc. But it was cool because we ended up teaching a family of 7 people the restoration and you could just feel the spirit so strong!! I was able to quote the first vision and it was amazing how the restoration brings the spirit and testifies to all people. It was even more cool when I found out that three of those seven people live in our area. So we are going to teach them this week!! One sad thing this week was that Jorgina doesnt want anything more from us. Apparently she heard a rumour from a friend that the missionaries just want to eat and not teach. So she has stopped coming to church and other things like that. We want to keep teaching her and are not going to give up! Our other investigator who is really strong is Alfronso. He will be baptized this saturday we hope!! He is awesome and he has told us that he wants to work in the church and be apart of what we do. He is a professional singer. Wow the other day he sang andre bocelli for us and it was so amazing. I have a video that I will send another week ha. And after that we taught a lesson about the gospel of jesus christ and the spirit was so strong during that too. I was able to testify about the holy ghost and about the gift of tongues because he asked about it. He will definitely be baptized, he just needs to obey a couple of commandments first!! Other than that this week was just a lot of walking and helping others which is totally ok, I was able to talk to some of the presidents sons friends at soccer on friday night about my past life with soccer and other cool things too. Sunday was super amazing too. I was fasting for help with the language and for our investigators and wow does fasting help. I bore my testimony in almost perfect portugues and it was so amazing. And in front of president fernandes also because he lives in our area!! Some of the counselors and leaders joked with me afterwards and said that I dont need to talk in church again because I basically gave a talk for my testimony. It is true sometimes I dont see that my portugues is really good or not but I definitely recognize the gift of tongues in my life and the miracles that my heavenly father has provided for me. I love to see how the gospel changes lives, I have heard so many stories in our ward already. So many people love the missionaries and tell us their experiences and it warms my heart and gives me energy to serve our heavenly father. Love you all and I am so grateful for all of you!!

Thanks for sharing all of those things with me mom. It really helped me and I am super excited the day when I become fluent in portugues, I know that heavenly father with help me and that I will help his children through his blessings. Sou grato por este evangelho de Jesus Cristo, e a oportunidade eu tenho ser um missionário. Estou animado a servir meu salvador Jesus Cristo e ajudar outras pessoas em todas as lugares!! Eu te amo mãe!! LOVE YOU

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_XLj-cBnNCkdzRVTHRKblBmVWs/view

A link to Andrew's latest video. It is on Google drive so I think you will need a google account.

October 2, 2017 100 days!!

Hey mom!! I dont think I want to stay dry hahah did you know that here in belo horizonte it hasnt rained for 135 days.... and friday it finally rained!! I will talk about that later haha. I am definitely feeling better and i know that the blessing that dad gave me helped me so much! And we are waiting for a while to have the baptims because we want to be able to confirm them the next day and we couldnt do that with conference this last weekend. But other than that things are going super great here!! I loved conference so much.. I will talk about that in a second ha but Wow was it powerful. And I love what you shared with me, Elder Eryings talk and Elder Andersons talk were some of my favorites for sure. Elder Anderson´s talk blew my mind. This week was really good though!! Full of fun times and good experiences. Lets talk about friday! Friday was amazing because of the rain haha. But since it had not rained in 135 days in Belo Horizonte, we were basically dying because of the heat. It is so hot every day, and so when it started to pour down, we couldnt help but dance with joy ha. You need to watch the video I will send because it is funny and truly what we did for about an hour. But other than that we had lots of splits this week too. I was with Elder Coutinho for most of the week besides saturday and sunday. I was helping the other elders with their area because they are having a difficult time. But Saturday was awesome, we had an activity for the youth in our ward, we wanted to provide a mini mtc for them. We were so excited to help all of them, but our joy was killed when only one showed up because of the rain. It turned out ok though because we helped him learn a lot more things and just had fun!! And then we watched conference which was absolutely amazing. Wow I really loved one talk where he spoke about using the glasses of the gospel. And how when we use our glasses of the gospel we see things in different ways and we are a lot more happier. I really loved that and I plan on using my glasses for the gospel for the rest of my life. And did you notice how most of the talks given were about service and the book of mormon. It was amazing and I absolutely love the book of mormon. I liked the question that was asked, "Where would your life be without the book of mormon." And I thought about it for a while and the correct answer that I came up with was lost. I am so grateful for the book of mormon in my life. Wow I love to read it every day and it helps me to have joy and strengthens me in times of weakness. I am so grateful that I have the book of mormon in my life and I am excited to help others see the significance too. Our investigators are doing great and Alfonso came to conference on sunday!! It was perfect because conference sunday was the best possible conference for an investigator, I was absolutely shocked. But what shocked me even more was that he told us he will be baptized and he wants a calling in the church. How amazing!!! We still need to help him with a couple of things beforehand but I am so excited for him. Jorgina didnt come to any of the sessions but I think it is because she is taking care of her sister, we dont know for sure. And how powerful was the talk that Elder Anderson gave. He confirmed the truthfulness of all the other talks in conference and added his own testimony to make it perfect. Wow I love the gospel. It was a great week to feel the spirit. When I saw the conference center I couldnt help but feel a little sad I wasnt with my family, but It made me even more happy when I got to talk to many people about the beauty of temple square. I definitely felt the spirit so strongly this weekend and I hope all of you did too!!! I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week. O evangelho de Jesus Cristo é verdadeiro e O Livro de Mormon é a palavra de Deus. Sei que essas coisas são verdadeiras com todo meu coração!!!Thank you for sharing everything you shared with me mom. Especially about the last part with the man who told me that. I already love all of the people here and I want to be here more than anything in the world. The only problem is that my portugues stops me from reaching full potential but I know that heavenly father will help me. Like Elder Erying said, "Buscai-me em cada pensamento, não duvideis, não temeis." Doubt not, fear not. I have so much faith and my portugues gets better every day. I am truly so Blessed and I am so grateful to have a great mom like you and an amazing family!! I am excited to discover more reasons of why I am here in brazil but I know i am here for a purpose. oh and I have a couple questions and concerns. How long do I need to use my retainers? and My credit card that you gave me doesnt work in atms haha so thats about it! If I need to tell you anything else I will. Love you!!!