First Week of Training

What's up, everyone!?

So this week I went to Recife Wednesday and I got my son!  His name is Elder Dornelles.  His is from Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and the biggest shock to me is that he is 26 years old.  I was imagining someone in the range of 18 or 22, but it is cool.  He got his call one week before he turned 26, so he barely was able to come. He was a member of the Assebleia de Deus before he converted.  He still has some things that he says that just sound like it. Just now I looked to the side and he was in Youtube trying to listen to music.  I had to tell him that we can't do that, and he looked horrified, like nobody had told him this yet.  But he likes to work, so it will be good.

We stayed in Paulista and Elder Plentz went to Bom Conselho. 

Elder Dornelles really likes cats.  Like really likes them.  We were walking home from lunch yesterday and there was a little kitten walking around, and he started saying, "Oh look how cute it is. We need to bring it home and take care of it."  I told him that we can't, because we cant have pets.  But he grabbed it anyway and was trying to think of some way to keep it or bring it to a member.  But it would take over an hour to go to the house of any member and leave the cat there.  So I had to tell him that we can't waste an hour on a cat.  We were already really late, and I think this left him a little unhappy.

But he is learning really fast, and he is excited to work and to magnify his calling.  He is always looking for time to talk with people in the streets.  It is really good.

Wednesday I was able to see Elder Jacklin there.  He was training again, and his new comp was Elder Dornelles' comp in the CTM.  It's a pretty small world! haha.

I hope everything is going well with you guys. Have a great week!

Love
Elder Nielson

Transfer!

We had a transfer today...  But we still don't know what's going to happen.  President Houseman called me last night and called me as a Trainer.  So at least I know that I will be training a new elder.  But the APs are still trying to send out all the information and logistics.  So we don't know who will stay in Paulista and who will go.

This week was pretty normal.  We were able to mark a baptismal date for 2 people.  One is the granddaughter of a member here.  We had already received authorization to baptized her, but we never had the chance to talk with her mom.  But we got the chance and she filled out the baptism document and signed it. We hope in the future to help her mom be baptized too.  And the other is a niece of the same member.  This girl's mom came to her saying that she wanted her kids to be baptized in our church. So we started teaching everything to C---- (granddaughter) and K---- (niece) and this week we will start teaching the nephew J------.  So we will have some good work to do with this family.

But it was a pretty fast week.  I had a split with Elder Dal'evedove who is from my group too.  We came to Recife together.  And I also included a picture of how Elder Plentz fell asleep this week! haha.

But I hope everything is going well, I love you all so much!

Elder Nielson

Batismosssssss!!!!!

Ola!!!

I am happy to report that everything went well this week, and N-------, B--------, and P---- were baptized and confirmed!  We are so happy for them.  They grew so much during the last few weeks that we have know them.  It is incredible to see.  They have so much faith and trust in the Lord.  Even N------- who initially didn't feel the need to be baptized.  A woman from the Catholic church passed by to give her their "sacrament"  and heard that she was going to the Mormon church.  The woman told her, "Now you can't go to two churches.  You are going to have to choose -- the Catholic church or the Mormons?"  N------- said, "Well then I would like to stay with the Mormons."  The woman grabbed her stuff and left, telling N------- that she couldn't return there.

This family is amazing!  I cant wait to see how everything goes with them.  

The baptism was really cool.  It took about 5 minutes for N------- go around back and enter the water.  We thought that we would have to use more than one person to baptize her because she is a little frail.  But she entered the water, and our LMA Sabastião baptized her on the first try.  She was a Champ!!!  It was cool to get to baptized P----.  When I was going to pull him out of the water, his feet lifted off the ground and I was stuck holding him their for a little bit.  But he quickly put his feet on the ground and stood up.  And after the baptism, when they were eating cake, we sang "Sou Um Filho de Deus"  or "I Am a Child of God"  to them, and played the guitar.

I will send a bunch of pictures to you guys.

I hope that all is well back home, Love you guys!!!

Elder Nielson

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