October 15, 2018

But my first zone conference as a zone leader was so  awesome!! It was such a great conference and President shared some great things! He talked about how we can understand each other more and listen to others opinions! It was super cool and our trainings went well too!! We were able to help the missionaries learn how to use the area book and how to study the best way!! But I also loved how the spirit tells us what we need to say and when we need to say it! It was cool and Elder Cerda and I learned a lot about working together to help other missionaries! 

But this week was definitely a challenge for us... We had lots of hard moments and for three days straight all of our Appointments fell through. Because of safety reasons Arthur and Vitoria had to stay longer with their dad and so we havent been able to teach them. So we are sending the missionaries who work there to teach them when they can. It was a hard week and it definitely tested my faith. Many times I thought what i am doing wrong and how are others succeeding without working that hard when we are working as hard as we can and nothing is going right. It was sad to see how much the people rejected the gospel. We did have some good moments this week that made us feel a lot better! We taught a mom and her daughter and we are going to teach this week a family of four! we havent been able to find them at home yet but we are hoping that this week it goes ok! But I bore my testimony on how we can all use the gospel in our lives. When we show our faith in Jesus Christ and in his Atonement we can repent of everything we have done wrong and feel the joy that Alma felt as he repented of his sins. We can show our love for the savior by being baptized and being completely washed from our sins and receive the holy ghost. Who is willing to stay with us until the end so that we can have eternal life. I love the gospel so much and that is how we can serve God and do what is right. Our love for the savior and his gospel is what helps us to serve faithfully and stay strong in the gospel. It is our motivation to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we have faith that this week we will find Gods elects and help other missionaries to do the same!! God really does care for each one of us, we just need to recognize that he cares for each one of us in different ways. 

But i am sure things with my health will get better and I have been trying to stay focused just like the savior wants me too! It is going good so far and I hope to help more of Gods children!! I love you  and thanks for always being there for me and helping me out. I know that the mission isnt easy at all and i wouldnt want it to be. Because i want to come back stronger than ever!

David's email-

 

 It was super sad for us when we couldn't teach and I just remembered how much the world and the people of the world can wound us by their actions, just like Elder Andersen said. But I have to remind myself that my wounds can be healed if i strive to be like Christ in all moments and find others who are willing to accept the gospel. I was able to bless our area yesterday and I felt comforted by the spirit that the work will go forward and that things will get better. We had a hard time with Arthur and Vitoria because they are still away because of safety reasons, but we know that the lord will bless them and we are sending missionaries that live there to go and teach them! But I know that the lord will provide miracles in our lives and President told me in my interview that the lord is preparing a great work for me to do! So that is why i must continue!! I love the gospel and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. I love that all of you pray for me and help me in this mission. I love the mission because i can do the lords work. It is hard but your prayers strengthen me and give me the strength to go on. I love Jaden and Jace and tell them I said Hi too! And tell the others also that said Hi to me! I love them all and I know that Jaden will find a job, He is awesome and the Lord will bless him! Love you so much! I also Know this church was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and I know that this is Christs Church here on the earth. I love the prophet and his apostles and I know that they have been called of God! I know that this gospel is perfect and to trade worldy things for this gospel would be the worst thing that anyone could ever do.

October 8, 2018

This week was super hard for us because here in Brasil they were focused on politics and they had voting for their new president sunday morning.... so everything went wrong hahaha but not everything actually. We had some great lessons and in the end we got to listen to General Conference. I was so excited that after lunch i was practically running to the chapel!!! I love General Conference and I know that all of the talks were given to us by the lord through his servants! 

This week we had training and it was super cool! We talked a lot about how we need to better our studies so that we can teach by the spirit. President gave a great training about faith and working hard to call gods elects. I actually wanted to send some quotes that i loved in General conference!! "Our trials and difficulties can lead us to our true conversion if we dont harden our hearts or stiffen our necks"-Elder Christofferson "The lord desires to sweep away any darkness that encoulds you and fill it with his love and his joy. Draw near to god and he will draw near to you." I loved Elder Uchtdorfs talk about this because it is so true. Many people think that God will just come to them but we need to come to him first off! "Let us not burden our remembrance with sadness and regret. Now is the day to sacrifice your pride and be a peacemaker" -Elder Holland "No one is pre-ordained to fail. All have potential for the eternal love that God offers."-Elder Gay "Atonement is the plan, not the back up plan." -Elder Carpenter I also loved the many other talks that spoke about being Shepherds and gathering gods sheep!! I loved this General Conference and it was amazing to see how God´s love was shown to everyone. I loved Elder Andersens talk about wounds and how we were meant to have wounds, but we were also born to come out stronger than when we were wounded!! I love this gospel so much and I love that God has called Prophets, Apostles and Seventies to help us on our Covenant Path. This gospel is true and I know that Christ loves me so much and Loves everyone in the world. That is why he restored this gospel here on the earth today. This is HIS church! 

I actually think the changes wont change anything in the mission field. It will just mean that we have more time for Proselyting!! And I think the changes made are awesome and its what the world needs. Our homes are what are important and the home should be a place that is just a little bit less sacred than the temple! or even the same! I think that is a great idea by the way. Womens conference must have been awesome! I like what President Nelson is doing and he is really the prophet here on the earth. I love him so much for sacrificing his time for the church of Jesus Christ! But other than that I hope the lord blesses Afonso and I know that he is such a great guy. The Lord will help him, the members need to realize how important ministering is here. But anyways if i need anything more i will let you know. But i love you so much!!! Thank you for everything. This week i will check my stuff to see what more i need of clothes and those type of things. LOVE YOU!

Elder Bestenlehner's email to his dad this week  - I really wanted to share this with you.

 I am doing great and this week was super awesome, slow, but amazing because of General Conference!! The new changes made are inspired by the lord. I was so happy when they said that we would be focusing more on the home. Because here in Brasil they need to focus more on the home. I am so grateful that you and mom made the home a place of worship and a place where the spirit could be!! I was able to do a division this week and i talked with the district leader about his needs and what he was having a hard time with. It was a couple of problems in his district so i gave him a couple of counsels that helped him resolve his problems. It was super cool. In General Conference they talked a lot about how we will have trials and difficulties in our lives. I was amazed to see how much they talked about it but how much they told us to never give up and to continue firm on the covenant path. I love that phrase!! The covenant path is the only way to go. I think i have the greatest desire to stay on that path and do everything i can to be as a shepherd and help others to stay by my side. I loved General Conference and I know that the lord blessed me to have his spirit with me during the sessions. I was so happy that i ran to the chapel just to see and watch the prophets speak to us. Arthur and Vitoria are doing good and are reading the book of mormon, they are out of town right now for safety reasons but they watched small parts of conference and we will probably see them today!! I am excited to teach them more about the book of mormon and the gospel. I also liked what President Nelson said about the name of the church. So many people need to know that this is the lords church and we all need to respect the savior and not disapoint him! I love the church of Jesus Christ because it is where we can become more like the savior. We were able to teach a lady named Aparecida this week and she looks like she has a lot of potential. I hope she reads the book of mormon and decides to come to church this next time. I was able to watch conference in English upstairs in the chapel with Elder Holt so it was cool to be able to hear in our native language! I love this gospel and I know that the spirit really testifies to our hearts. I am praying that the spirit is always with me and I know that the lord will provide!! Even though the work was slow this week we are hoping that here in two weeks Arthur and Vitoria will be baptized!!

October 1, 2018

 I am doing great! This week was super awesome! It was the first week of the transfer so we had a lot of time to work in our area and find great people to teach! This next week will be harder because we have lots of meetings and splits! But i am super excited!! Oh and my companion is from Chile and he has one year and one month on the mission! He is such a hard worker and I am loving being his companion! We had a great week and it was funny because i actually went to Elder Jones area to do a baptismal interview for him and his new companion, it was super funny! But It is going great! 

This week we were able to find some great people to teach and i was able to meet some of the greatest investigators ever!! Arthur and Vitoria are investigators that elder cerda and elder morais taught because of a reference from a member but they are so awesome!! They are 14 and 16 years old and they go to seminary every day!!! They know everything about the gospel that we teach and are just waiting for their mom to let them be baptized! So pray for them and pray for their mom! We also are teaching a sweet old lady named Eva and she came to church this week! She is super cool and is searching for the right church to join! Also we taught a couple of other people who are super great and have potential to progress!! Their names are Eduardo, Du du, and Igor! We were able to teach lots of people this week and it was just a great week to be a missionary! On sunday a lady from the ward was able to cut my toenails and it was super painful, but she is wanting to help me with this problem so i am super excited!!! But on sunday i was able to see all the members that i know from Gutierrez and it was so awesome!! I was super happy to see all of them and they were all happy too! I love it when you can see others that helped you so much and you helped them!! But things are going great and we are working hard!! I love the gospel and i love how we can all recognize that only through the atonement of Jesus Christ is how we can be saved!! 

That is so awesome about Jace and Jaden, and Broc and Brooklyn! They are all awesome people and I know that those leaving will be great missionaries!! This week was kind of hard for me too because a lot of my recent converts are not going to church and i became worried because of the small amount of people I helped to be baptized are slowly getting away from the church.... I dont know what to do!! But I hope that the lord will bless them. I just hope that I can help at least a couple of people stay strong in the church! But we can force anyone to do anything. I just hope they know that it is the best thing they can have in their lives!! Love you tons and I am doing pretty great!! I hope everything is well at home and I love you so much!!! 

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!