Feliz dia dos Pais!!!...???

Ola!!!

I had a little panic attack yesterday when I realized it was Fathers Day.  But then I started to think,  "Wait, it's August.  Fathers Day is in June..."  But happy Brazilian Fathers Day, Dad!!!

This week we had Zone Conference, and it was really great. I learned a ton, and we got to see some familiar faces from earlier on in the mission.  Elder Haynie and Elder Jacklin are in my zone again, so it was great to see them.

B-------- and P---- are going strong and progressing to be baptized on Saturday!  Also B--------'s mom went to church last week and really liked it,. We explained a bit about how her baptism in the wasn't the same as how Christ was baptized, and she accepted to be baptized Saturday too!

We are working with them, but as you can see in the pictures, they were super receptive when we taught the Word of Wisdom.  They had very few problems with this commandment, and willingly gave us the little coffe and black tea that they had at home.  They went to church yesterday, and again they loved it.  We are so excited for them!

But other than this, it was a pretty normal week.  And it should be another great week of work this week.  I hope that all is well back home, and that you are all doing well!

Love,

Elder Nielson

It Was A Great Week!

This week was kind of busy.  We had a divisão on Thursday, and I went to Abreu e Lima and stayed there with Elder Stobbe.  We were working like normal during the day, and when it was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, we started searching for an address.  We come to a fork in the road and didn't know if we should go right or climb the hill to our left.  When I looked at the top of the hill, I saw a woman waving to us.  I quickly recognized that she was Jaciane´s sister (our recent convert's sister).  So we went there and started talking to her, and that's when we realized that it was the address we were searching for.  I had sent the reference to the elders almost a month ago, and Elder Stobbe got the address last Monday.  It was pretty crazy how perfectly the timing worked out.  So I got to introduce them all to the Elders in their area.  Jaciane´s brother was there too.  So it was great to see Gilmar again.

We also have 2 people preparing to be baptized on August 18th.  Bernardete and Pedro.  Mother and son.  We talked with them last Saturday because Bernardete asked for The Book of Mormon on the church website.  We brought one to her and taught her, her son (Pedro), and her mom (Nazeré).  When we returned, they had read what we had left, and they loved it.  So they accepted the invitation to be baptized.  She called us early Sunday morning to make sure that we would pass by to give them a ride to church.  We went there in the VW bus of our ward mission leader, and they really like church.  So things are looking pretty good with them.

We also had in total 7 investigators at church.  It was so cool.  One is Aaron and he is 7, but he will turn 8 in October and he wants to be baptized.  He lives with his grandma, who is a member, but because he doesn't live with his mom, he will be a mission baptism.  Ellem is the niece of our quorem president, and she bore testimony at church which was really cool.  Fabio and Luciana are a couple that we are working with to get married so they can be baptized.  And Bernardete, Pedro, and Nazeré.

It was really a great Sunday with so many people at church.  

Saturday we helped Irmã Katia paint part of her house.  it was really fun. She and her fiance (Emerson) are really funny.  I put some pictures of the project for ya'll to see.

I hope you guys have a great week, and that all is well back home!

Elder Nielson

Great Week!!

This week was just great!  It was a week of good work.  We didn't have a baptism, and we don't have anyone marked with a baptismal date, but it was a week that we found tons of people with tons of potential to progress and be baptized.  We worked well with members and worked with some new members that helped us to find new investigators,. We also found a family of less actives that we think we can help to return.  We entered their house, and they were in shock, just staring at us.  I think it had been a while since they had had the missionaries in their house.  It was a sweet experience, and we are going to help them to return.

This week one member named Katia bought 10 liters of chocolate Ice Cream for our lunch with her.  We couldn't eat very much, so we passed by several times during the week to snack on the ice cream.  The factory that it came from gave the flavor a name...  "Africano"  or "African"  We thought that was a funny name for an ice cream.

The pics are a little bit of a throw back.  They are from my last week in my old house.  We were doing some deep cleaning in the kitchen and moved everything into our family room to clean.  We had to leave it all out overnight so that the floor could dry.  But I wanted to cook some boiled eggs, so I cooked boiled eggs in he middle of our living room.  I

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Nielson

P.S.  The shovel in my hand is our dust pan, so don't think I'm weird for having a shovel to clean.  You taught me better than that mom. ;)

Paulista

Ola todos!!!

Wednesday I left early in the morning to my new area.  Paulista is a little north of Recife, and it is a really cool area.  I still haven't had time to take some pictures of the city, but it has a kind of European feel.  It's the only city in Pernambuco that I have seen that uses the same type of brick that we use.  

It is a massive area!!!  It has about 10 cities, and it is all walking.  We usually walk about an hour and a half to get anywhere.  But it is way cool.  The members here are awesome.  I have already recieved more references than ever before, and they want to help us baptize everyone.  They called a new Ward Mission Leader, really good!  Elder Plentz already told me a lot about this Ex-Bispo Sabatião.  And he was called Sunday.  He is really cool, and he drives a Volkswagen bus, and picks up our investigators.  So we should get some people to the chapel.

I'm jealous that you are all in Canada. Oh how I miss Canada.  But where I am in Paulista has a little feel of Canada.  The house has some of the some colorings that grandma's house has, and it is significantly cooler here.  There is a lot of wind, so if you just open the windows it is really pleasant and cool.  So sometimes when I wake up, it just feels like Canada. 

The only bad thing is that the last Elder that was here didn't want to do any paper work, and also didn't explain anything to Elder Plentz, so he doesn't know too much of the area, or the investigators.  So it is almost like opening an area.  He also didn't like to clean the house, so when I got here Wednesday, we cleaned for a bit, and then cleaned everything really good today.  

I really don't have too much more to say. I am just trying to figure out the area, but I am pretty excited.  

Oh yeah, one Irmã bought us a really big hamburger and sent it to our house, so we took some picutres with it.  It was really good.  I thought I could eat half of it, but I couldnt handle it...

I also made a cover for my Preach my Gospel that turned out really cool. Putting contact paper covers on things is a Brazilian thing to do.

I hope you all have a great week, and that your all doing well!  Love you Guys!!

Elder Nielson

Transfers!!!

Hello everyone!

Today we received our transfers.  I will be moving to a new area called Paulista.  Sounds like the area is really big. That means a lot of walking, so I'm excited.  But it is in the city, so I am not super excited for that.  Just kidding, it will be great. I just want some nature to see. haha!  

And my new companion will be Elder Plentz. I am super excited!  He was in one of my districts when I was in Jordão.  And he is a great missionary.  He is from  Rio Grande Do Sul.  He will be a great comp, and we can be way productive. He has about 6 months in the mission, so I will be the senior comp there, but I am super excited.  We will be able to get some good work done together.

It should be fun trying to lug three big bags all the way to Paulista.  It is a little far from here.  I leave tomorrow morning.  So we will have a bar-b-que this week (it didn't end up happening last week) and tonight I will be up late packing my bags with Elder Barreto (who was transferred to the interior). 

Elder Phipps will stay here with Elder Graça.  I don't know too much about him, but it should be good.  The last two transfers were pretty good, but I still had issues to deal with that were difficult to understand and were outside my control. It was frustrating at times, but I feel I did my best. I will have to admit that it will be nice to have a change.  Elder Phipps is a good man, and he and Elder Graça should do well together here.

We don't have pictures this week, because we are in the really sketch lan house again, so we should have lots of photos next week.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Nielson

P.S.  France won the World Cup, and so everything should calm down a bit.  But everyone thinks that we are from Belgium because they beat Brasil in the World Cup.

P.S.S. A couple of older pictures from Zone Conference. We got our birthday treats!

Conferência de Zona

OOOOLLLLAAAAA!

This week we had Zone Conference, and it was pretty great!  I got to see lots of old friends from other areas and districts.  Elder Jacklin, Elder Gomes, Elder Jacobsen (my mtc comp).  So I included some pictures for you all.

President gave a talk with a  really cool principle. He talked about his job when he was 12 years old.  They would cut down a forest, and his job was to plant 1,000 little trees every day.  He talked about how annoying it was to kneel down a thousand times every day, the pain that it gave him, and how a lot of people gave up and went home.  But he stayed for 3 months and finished the job.  He planted 90,000 new trees.  But when he looked over the area he worked, he felt sad because the trees were all really little, and it didn't even look like he had done anything all summer.

But years later, he went to his parent's house, and grabbed a four-wheeler, and he and his son went riding.  At a certain point he stopped, and they were in the middle of thousands of really big, strong trees.  He realized that this was the same area that he had planted 30 years earlier.  He realized that at the time he couldn't see the success, but 30 years later, he could, and he finally felt successful.

He likened it to missionary work, and how we are going to have lots of situations where we plant a seed or a sprout, but can't always stay around to see the fruits. It was really cool to see and hear, and I am starting to look at missionary work in a whole new way. "Am I really planting new trees everywhere that I go?"  So some new goals will be set so that I can always be planting, and not just focus on reaping the benefits.  

But other than this, this week was pretty normal.  Brasil lost in the world cup, so things should be back to normal now. It was a fun experience. We would work in our apartments when games were going on, and we could tell what was happening just from the roar of the people outside. We could sense what was going on the whole time. And they would shoot off fireworks when a goal was scored. It was cool to experience.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Elder Nielson

P.S. The beach picture was the view from one member's house the other day. Pretty nice.

Semana boa

This week was pretty great. 

I'll start with last Monday.  We went to our family night, and it was a family night normal.  Everyone came late, and we started at about 8:15p.  They gave the message really fast, and we were surprised.  They called everyone into the kitchen to have the "snack".  And they explained that they knew it was my birthday, so they marked the family night on Monday instead of Sunday.  They sang "parabens" to me and cut a piece of the corn cake and gave it to me.  They were all talking, and I heard one person say that I needed to give the cake to someone.  I was confused, so I turned and pretended to give the cake to Elder Phipps.  Everyone laughed and said no no no.  So when he pretended to take a bite, I pulled it away and took a bite.  Everyone stopped and looked at me.  So I got even more confused.  They then explained that the tradition here is that you receive the first piece of cake and give it to someone that you think is a great person.  So I gave it to Irmã Valeria (that lady that was trying to kiss my head when I skyped home).  Because she always pulls us in off the street and sits us down and feeds us.  She is really great!  So I took a picture of the first piece of cake they gave me that I ate....

We also made hamburgers for lunch one day, and they turned out pretty good.  You'd be proud of me mom and dad, haha.  But other than this, this week was pretty normal.  We had interviews with president on Thursday, and the work is just going forward like normal.  

I hope that you all have a great day and a great week.  Brasil is going to play in the world cup today, so it will be a P-day in house.  We will probably cook up something to eat and relax today.  Maybe I can grab some more reading in Jesus the Christ.  

Chau 

Elder Nielson