December 11, 2017 Baptism and a transfer!

Hello! This week was super good! It really payed off because we worked super hard and we did everything we could. The rain is always good haha its an escape from the hot weather. My toes are still really bad and its going to get worse now that I AM BEING TRANSFERED. I will leave on tuesday for the hottest area in the mission, and the most crazy haha. I am being transfered for Pirapora. I am excited to go and serve there. I have to take a five hour bus ride but I am excited. So I have no idea what i will be doing for christmas yet so sorry ha. But My new companion will be elder figereido. And I am excited to serve with him because he only has one more transfer than i do. So it will be super good! I am being positive about it ha. I am almost done packing all my things.

This week was super cool. I had some great experiences. For one Maria de lourdes was baptized and confirmed! It was amazing to see how happy she was and that she took the most important step in her life. We worked really hard with her because she had lots of problems this week and so we had to run to her house so many times and her house is way far away from our apartment and basically everything in the city. But it definitely payed off. I am so grateful for my companion elder graça too because he taught me so many things. Sometimes we didnt get along very well but we always made up and worked super hard. We are actually really great friends. He told me his experience about life and the mission and it made me think about my past life. And how I had it so much easier than he did. One thing that is sad is that he cant even write his mom. His mom doesnt know how to read or write and so he only gets to speak to her 6 or 7 times a year. Maybe more but he told me thats why he doesnt spend much time with emailing. It made me realize how blessed I am and how I shouldnt be prideful or complain. I need to be more humble and he taught me a lot about humility. This week was super good to learn and to just work hard. Friday we had a division with the zone leaders and it was very helpful. We were able to work in their area while it was pouring rain... Seriously the rain here is like the rain off jumanji.... hahaha. But yesterday we were teaching Valter and he uses the computer to watch a youtube video and pray. And we sat there with him to support him and watch him while he prays. I thought to myself.... How grateful i am to have the gospel in my life. The book of mormon. and prayer. Prayer is not something that you recite every day or every night. It is a conversation with our heavenly father and he really wants to hear you talk and talk with you. Prayer is so so so important and it is important that we pray every day. I love Alma 37:36-37 because it talks about how important prayer is and how we need to counsel with the lord in everything we do! 

 I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be here. I am happy to hear that camron killed it and will do so great in the field. and Chris has always been a stud to me. He is awesome and he will do even better. I am sorry to hear about Zack Vernon and his mom. They are both in my prayers and him serving a mission will help so much. Afonso will be hard to leave especially because I may not see him again but i will keep in contact with him and always talk to him. If I need anything more I will let you know before I get off. Love you!! 

Elder Bestenlehner

December 4, 2017

December 4, 2017

Hello - Elder Bestenlehner let me know that so far he has received 23 cards from all of you!  Thank you so much!!


Dear Friends and Family

My toes are doing better but they still need work hahaha. But thats ok. I work during the day anyways and I am learning to get used to it. But other than that I am doing super great and we are meeting lots of people to teach! Our investigators are doing great too. This week was super slow mainly because of the rain....

But this week was also super good too! We had a really hard time finding people to teach and talking to people on the streets mainly because it was pouring rain all week. And not just simple rain. I mean super super super strong rainfall ha. But it was so fun too. Because usually we dont get much rain here but all of a sudden it decided to rain here. It was funny because last night and saturday night was some of the strongest rainfalls i have ever seen. Saturday night we arrived at home early and decided to leave to place some books of mormon. So we left and began to find people when all of a sudden the rain came. We had to stand under a building and just watch. We watched the streets become rivers and cars that were parked become covered with water. The time was running out before we had to be home so we decided to run in the rain so we could make it home in time. We were literally running in rivers hahaha. We were helping remove things out of the road too because the rain carried lots of pieces of wood and other things. It was so fun and a super cool experience. I have pictures!

But before all that happened we were able to teach the restoration to Juliao. He is super awesome. We were trying to contact references during the whole day and nothing was working, and we were almost lost. But then we realized that we were in the front of his house and so we decided to visit him. And he let us in and so we taught the restoration, it was so amazing and you could feel the spirit. We invited him to read and to be baptized and he accepted! Also we visited maria lurdes and maristella this week and they want to be baptized soon too. Specifically maria who will be baptized saturday hopefully! 

Then last night was a super spiritual experience too. Last night was a devotional for christmas for all of the wards in our stake. We were there waiting and ready to support Afonso, our recent convert because we was going to sing in front of everyone! But then the rain came again and elder tenorio and i decided to help people enter the church because the rain was horrific. We decided to sacrifice our clothes and dryness too haha but it was so worth. I loved the opportunity I had to help people stay dry and enter the church because I really saw the blessings of service. It was amazing. And we were able to help afonsos uncle and aunt enter the chuch because they wanted to see him and they werent members. They were able to see him sing and watch the devotional. But we missed afonso sing because we were still helping. But I know he did great, and it turns out that his aunt and uncle loved the church and want to learn more. Service is the best way to make someones day and talk about our church! and we have the opportunity to serve every day this month. Seja a luz do mundo!!

Nov 27, 2017

 I hope your week was super awesome!! My week was super slow but it was really rewarding because I learned a lot of small things this week. The small things are what helps us become greater. My toes are the same haha but they are getting a little bit better too, I still need to ask for a blessing because I always forget. That is so cool that mitch came out there for the weekend. How is he? He doesnt email me much hahaha neither does chris. Halli is the only faithful sister in the family besides you and dad. Thank you for always caring about me and sharing things that I need to hear. It really helps me. 

This week was super good but also really hard. We didnt have much success this week and the greater part of our investigators with a date for baptism fell through and so we dont have many people to teach. But we also found some people to teach and we just decided to be missionaries this week and do our part. We have an investigator whose name is Maria Lurdes and she is progressing a lot! She wants to be baptized but she needs to come to church more. She came to church yesterday and absolutely loved it. She is a bit more older and she tends to forget things often haha. But it was awesome to just teach her about the gospel and make those long walks up the giant hills just to make her day and the days of other people. Maristella is doing good too. She wants us to teach the law of chastity to her and to her boyfriend again so they can make a plan for marriage. We hope that she takes this next step for baptism. We have an appointment with her on Wednesday. Valter, the pastor, is progressing too! He came to church yesterday and he is changing his heart ha he is super cold inside and so it is best to just love him and teach with Charity. We are also teaching the son of rosalia. He has a huge problem with drugs and beer. He is super addicted and we are trying to help him because we want him to have the gospel. He is so addicted that it is to the point where he sells things in home just to get drugs. We decided to fast for him and for our other investigators so that we could see miracles in our work. We had six investigators in sacrament meeting yesterday and it was so amazing to see our ward just packed with people. Elder Graça and I want to have one more baptism before the transfer ends and so we are working hard with our investigators and doing all that we can. And we know that the lord will do the rest. This week I had the opportunity to teach a very old lady who was 90 years old. Actually we were walking in the street and Elder Graça told me to talk to her and her daughter. They were on a balcony and so I started to talk to them and they let us in. She told us that she always loved to receive the missionaries. She began to tell me all about her life while elder graça spoke with her daughter. When she finished, i gave her a book of mormon and she smiled and began to thank me so much for my kindness to her. I realized that night that maybe nothing will come out of that visit and maybe she wont be baptized or be an investigator. But I realized that she needed the missionaries that specific night and she needed our love. I realized that we are truly representatives of our savior jesus christ and we can make lots of visits like that just to make someones day. I also learned that you have to be able to get along with your companion because if you dont, you wont be able to teach and you wont feel the spirit. But everything between me and elder graça is good! He is awesome and I am learning so much from him. I also helped with a baptism that the other elders had and it was amazing to just see how baptism helps people to become clean and to start a new life. I know that this is the right path and that the book of mormon is so important. Without the book of mormon, we would not have the church restored on the earth. I am also really grateful for Joseph Smith who decided to ask our heavenly father one simple question, that turned into the most amazing experience. Leia o livro de mormon, pergunte se ele é verdadeiro. Nosso pai celestial vai responder para você. I LOVE YOU ALL!