September 24, 2018

Hey!! Wow so many things... hahaha this week was crazy and i dont know where to begin. But I am doing great and my toes are still the same thing haha but this time i have some pretty big news!! So Elder Jones and I are being transferred out of Ipatinga!!!! I was called to be a zone leader in Barroca, the area that is right next to Gutierrez. And Elder Jones was called to be a district leader in a place called Barreiro!! So things are going to get wild ha! But I am so excited and I am ready to serve the Lord! I am excited for this new challenge even though we are leaving an area where we just got here ha. But now Sisters are going to share a part of this area, or our area, with the elders! So it should be interesting! 

This week we were able to see one of the less active members we were visiting come to church! It was so cool to see him come to church and I hope he gains the desire to always come to church. But i am learning so much here and I am excited to learn even more right now as a Zone Leader!! But Eliton didnt come to church and that family we are teaching werent able to talk with us. But we did go on splits with the other elders in another city and it went super well! Some girl was super funny and thought my name was Angel... weird right ha?! But other than that we worked super hard and taught some people who have potential! Now we are going to pass on everything for the sisters!! But i think the hardest thing about missionary work is when someone doest want to pay attention to the message. We were teaching the plan of salvation, which is amazing, and Jessica just didnt pay that much attention. It made me sad but it made me realize how important that message is in our lives!! i love the plan of salvation! And I know that through Jesus Christ we can be saved and forgiven of our sins!!! 

Sorry  I dont have much time to write today, it is going to be busy ha i have to get on the bus at one oclock and then stay in a hotel in Belo Horizonte tonight! And tomorrow i am going to meet my new companion! His name is Elder Cerda! We are going to be zone leaders of the Contagem Zone!! It should be fun!! But hey can you send some music off of The singles ward or the return missionary. Its like those songs that are hymns but in a rock form haha I like them a lot and they help me! So if you can that would be great! And dont worry about the packages, i will get them here soon! I am going to have counsel with President and get everything ha! But I love you so much!! Thank you for everything you do!! I miss you a lot but i am super excited to be here! I want you to know that I love my savior Jesus Christ, he loves me so much too and I know that this is his work. He brought his true church once again upon the earth and we all can be a part of it! I know that General Conference will be amazing and that the prophet will guide us in these latter days!!   

All my love,

Elder Bestenlehner

September 18, 2018

Wow it looks like i missed a great stake conference at home! I loved the stake conference we had here a couple of weeks ago but that one you guys had recently sounds like it was amazing!! And its crazy how Jaden is already finishing his mission and that jace is going! They are all great missionaries and Jaden was a powerful missionary, his example has always helped me on the mission and i know that Jace will be the same way. But I am happy you had such great experiences this week, we had a cool experience too because this week was hard for us but on saturday we became a lot more excited! 

I am doing good! My toes are still the same and dont look like normal toes haha but i am grateful for my companions because they were able to give me a blessing and Elder Jones blessed me with the strength to do what I need to do even with the problem with my feet! It was awesome!! And we are working super hard. Success will come and I hope that we can help these people!! Our investigators basically ran from us this week. I was super mad about that hahaha We hardly taught any of them and we were suffering because of that. We wanted to teach Eliton a lot more but then on Saturday the lord showed us some great miracles! We went to one of the appointments that I had set on splits with the zone leaders and we got to their house and we were able to teach the whole family that lived there! Four people. The mom and dad and there three kids! But one of them only is four years old. But it was super awesome. They are members of the Seventh day adventist church but less active. The lesson we had with them was super cool and they said that they will read the book of mormon and at least try to know if these things are true. And i challenged them to be baptized when they come to know the truth and they accepted! We were super happy on how the lesson went and we are praying that next saturday they will have read the book of mormon and asked God if it is true!! And then during the night I called Eliton and he said that he would go to church and he did!! It was awesome, he came alone this time and even though he was the only one there, we were super happy that he came and felt the spirit!! I could definitely see how God helped us to be excited about the work and to remember that through him we can see miracles in our lives!! It was a good week to study too! I love 1 Nephi 14 when it talks about the two churches and how there are only two churches here on the earth. Sadly people do not understand that but we will help them! It is a powerful chapter so i invite you all to read it! 

That is so cool that BYU won and is winning a bunch! And Skyler Southam is a boss. I think its funny how when i left on the mission everyone started doing great in sports hahahaha. But sounds good also about the nametags, no rush at all! Thanks for everything that you do for me! I love you so much and i am grateful that i am here on the mission. I know that the lord will bless you all and I hope all of the blessings come to you all

September 10, 2018

This week we had our zone conference and dont worry about me haha i will be obedient forever and ever! And i will be focusing more and more on the mission for sure.But it was a good week. Despite being slow in the work, it was good! But I got everything you sent and i loved it all, i started to use the epsom salts this week so hopefully that will help. I have about four or five that are ingrown so on tuesday i am going to the foot doctor again! But other than that everything is great! 

Our area is doing great! It was hard this week for us but we found some great people to teach! It seems like everyone good that we find are super busy and so it has been hard to find someone we can really teach. But Eliton has progressed a lot and we just need to teach him the commandments right now! He has already come to church two times now so lets hope he has the desire to enter the waters of baptism! I would love to see that because he is awesome! We taught two people this week who seem like they have potential! One is a lady named michelle! And the other is a man named Antonio! They are both super awesome and said that they would ask god about the book of mormon. I was grateful to see how open they were to ask god and read the book of mormon, i have seen so many people here that wont read the book of mormon because they "only believe in the bible" hahaha. But we did a contact this week with a family and i was the one who talked first off.... ha then the husband started railing on us about Joseph having fifty wives or how the book of mormon doesnt make sense and doesnt exist. It seems like he has a lot of knowledge about history. But it was funny because i told him that i wasnt there to talk about history facts. I was talking to him about my personal testimony! After that i was upset at him for not listening more but Elder Jones helped me out and we had a great lesson with Eliton about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We also found a family that seems pretty good too! We are going to visit them again tonight! I am grateful for the gospel in my life. And i wish that others could see how important it is in their lives too. I know that we will find Gods elects because they cant hide forever ha! 

  They told me that Afonsos package got to the mission office. So you can tell him to go and get that! And thats super awesome about Mitch! He looks great! He is awesome.  But now that President has made new rules and talked to us, I could see that he is really called of God and these changes will be hard but will be great!!! I am excited! He really teaches by the spirit and changed things that needed to be changed. I am always praying for you all and i have less time now, actually exactly two hours so i will send christophers letter here in a second! LOVE YOU! 

Sept 3, 2018

I am glad that you are doing well and that everyone is great! I wanted to cry when you told 

me that you went to the real game against la galaxy because i would love to see real salt lake 

win that way! But thats ok I knew things like this would happen on the mission! I am glad that

 Chris loved it and that was a great compliment! I miss soccer, i havent been able to play at

 all. But thats ok!!! The Lord said that it would never be easy. I think its funny how when we

 are members of the true church of Christ, God wants us to stay strong so he sends challenges

 to help us become more like him. But that is awesome that Brittan and Brant saw each other!

 I dont think i will ever see anyone that I know. But thats because I am here in Brazil and no 

one got called to Brasil or my same mission ha. 

This week was actually pretty good but super hard in the begginning. We taught a lady and her mom but at the end of the lesson they just started to say that what will save us is Gods Love and that we dont need to go to church or know that Christs church is true. It was actually really sad but lets see if she accepts another lesson so that we can teach her about the purpose of life! But after that our two investigators Francis lanie and her mom Juscelene called us and told us to not come back... so that was super hard too! But we worked hard that same day and we found two people who have potential! Eliton and his sister Maria! I am excited to teach them more because actually the only investigator that came to church was Eliton and during testimony meeting we found out that he is related to one of the members in the ward. But pray for us and for him so that we can help him and find more families to teach! I was grateful for the opportunity we had to fast to have someone at church and the Lord blessed us when we took him to visit the church. It was very hard here in the hot weather but that is what makes it better, because you know for sure what you are doing and why you are fasting! This crazy lady started to follow us through out the week and she wanted us to come to her house and teach her but she lives alone and its hard to talk to her because she talks a lot. We definitely showed her kindness but it was weird when she followed us around ha so we had to lose her by walking faster... And that is about it what happened during my week! We are hoping that we can find more people. I have so much Faith that we will find these people, its hard because there are so many churches here in Ipatinga, its actually in the guiness world record book for the amount of churches. But I love this work because we can see miracles and help so many people. Even if we dont have that much success in numbers. I love the gospel so much and i just want to learn more and be ready for when we all go back to live with our father again!!! 

My toes are doing ok ha! I dont like to complain because i can still work with them. Actually one of the braces came off so i will have to call her and get that fixed. The smaller toe nails are basically all ingrowing but that is ok! It isnt hard to walk with them most of the time, it usually starts hurting at night. But I would rather lose the toes than not help others!! I am glad you are all doing well and having fun! I love you so much and miss you all but I know that I am needed here in Brasil for 9 more months. And so I will work as hard as i can so that I can find out why i am needed!! Dont worry to much about me. I am doing fine and I know that the lord will bless me! Tell Grandma and Grandpa I told them Congrats! and Happy Anniversary!! 

 LOVE YOU!