A Time for Reflection (Last Letter)

Well.... This is the last time that I will be writing home.  I would like to thank all of you for the love and support that I have felt during these two years.  I love my mission!  I recommend it for all!  There is no way to express this time in words.  It has to be lived.  It is  difficult, but as we learned in Conference this weekend, sometimes the hard things make room for more happiness in our lives.  I know this to be true.  In the mission you learn so much, and you meet so many wonderful people that teach you valuable life lessons.

I can't believe how fast time flys.  It feels like a short time ago that I met Elder Price, Elder Jacobsen and Elder Haynie.  That we were passing through the MTC and just trying to learn Portuguese.  It goes by way too fast.  When I think of why the mission can't be longer, all that comes to mind is that we need these experiences to strengthen our real lives.  We need to use what we have learned and apply it back home to make ourselves and our families better.  I hope that during these two years I have become what the Lord needs me to become, and that I can continue serving after the mission.

I will be bringing home many fond memories from these two years, and I pray that Brasil can keep growing stronger.  I love the Brazilian people, and wish the best for them.  But we still have a week to work and make the most of this time! I love you all, and hope that you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Nielson

Time is Short

Elder Nielson sent the following pictures of a baptism last week and some sight seeing on P-day. He is working hard to get as much done as he can before he comes home in two weeks.

Here are the pictures:

Splits and Zone Conference

This week was great! I had a split with Elder Nielsen, and it was really funny to see peoples faces when they realized it was the same last name (almost).  We had some good laughs during the day, but it was a really productive day.  We got lots done, and I learned so much from him.  He is new in the mission (he is in his second transfer), but you can feel the Spirit he has when he teaches and testifies.

We are working to prepare our training for Zone Conference that will happen this week.  We will be talking about beginning with the end in mind (Stephen R Covey-ism). We will focus on planning what we will teach and which invitations we will extend to our investigators during the meetings.  It should be a pretty good experience.  And we are hoping to be able to pass all the information in a simple way so that it can be understood.

As of this week, I've officially been a missionary for 2 years now. Wow! I am just trying to keep my head to the grind stone until the end.  I don't want to leave regrets here in the mission.

I hope you all have a great week!  I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Nielson

Busy Week

This week was super busy, we had a new leadership training on Tuesday and the Mission Leadership Counsel on Wednesday.  They are really great experiences to grow and to learn more about how I can be a better missionary.  I realized that there are tons of things that I can be better at with teaching techniques and planning more effectively and other things. 

We were able to work a lot in our area this week as well. My new (and last) area is in Rio Jordão. It covers one of my old areas in Jordao Alto. So it is fun to see some of the members and investigators who knew me at the first of my mission before I could speak Portuguese. One member mentioned that I was pretty green when I was first serving there, and I was.

We are working with a large number of investigators, some who I knew before and whose circumstance have changed to clear the way for them to move forward in the gospel. We are really hopeful that we can mark many of them for baptism

The time is just flying by.  This week went by so fast.  The church has a bunch of talks and reflective questions that we are asked to study during our last transfer. They are designed to help us prepare for post mission life.  But I don't want it to end. My mission is so good. And there is so much to be learned and to be done yet. 

We don't have much time today. We got together with a bunch of other elders in our zone to play soccer. I just played goalie, but my knee is hurting. I think my soccer days are over. And this lan house isn't too good. I'm sorry we couldn't video chat, but we're heading out.  I love you guys, and I hope that you guys have a great week!

Love,
Elder Nielson

Photographic Post

We aren't getting any written reports, so I'm going to try and piece together the last couple of weeks from information received from video calls and from pictures that have been posted.

This is Elder Nielson's last P-Day in the office. He will have a new assignment for his last transfer, but he has not idea what it will be yet. He is hoping to be able to train a new missionary and is excited to focus solely on missionary work. He has loved his time serving as the executive secretary for the mission. He has learned a lot and gained some valuable experience. And he's had the greatest companions. 

Elder Nielson was scheduled to come  home this transfer, so he would be home in a couple of days, but he learned his visa doesn't expire until the first part of next year, and he was able to stay an extra transfer. So he will be home the middle part of October. We love that he loves his mission and the Brazilian people enough to stay as long as possible and serve. He feels that there are still things he needs to accomplish.

Here is a picture of the latest baptism (two Saturdays ago). I don't remember her name, but she is a great lady, and as you can see, she had a lot of support at her baptism. Elder Nielson said she lives in a pretty rough part of town with drug dealers and gangs. But she is known as someone you don't mess with, and because of that, the missionaries were more safe in her area than in other parts of the city. She put the word out that they were not to be hassled, so they felt very safe. Also, because of the kinds of activities going on in that area, besides drug activity, here is very little other crime because they avoid doing things that will bring the police in to confiscate the drugs. But this new sister could be the means of bringing many people to a knowledge of the gospel and to the waters of baptism.

Elder Nielson and his companions have several good investigators they are working with.

The highlight of this week is that President Russell M. Nelson is in Brazil for a Regional Conference. On Friday, he had a meeting with just the missionaries in Brazil. Elder Nielson's mission participated via video feed from Brasilia. President Nelson taught the missionaries more effective ways to teach with the Book of Mormon. Trevor thought it was excellent... that rather than starting an investigator out with "I, Nephi, being born of goodly parents...", it may be more effective to have them study about Christ's teachings in the Americas in 3rd Nephi. He reminded them to teach with joy.

Today the missionaries get to listen to the prophet speak in Sao Paulo. 

Apparently one of the favorite things for the office staff to do is to steal Sister Houseman's phone and leave random pictures for her to discover later. She sent us several. Here are a few:

The last couple of weeks have been filled with traveling to mission apartments, hanging white boards and cork boards for them. Also, as they will be receiving 20 new missionaries, they have had to open up new apartments. So they have scheduled with cleaners to go in and clean the apartments.

Fun with Food:

 

The office elders accompanied Sister Chambers to a market on P-Day and she kindly bought them all McDonalds.

We Bought a Zoo!

I just sent a google photo link that you can see the pictures from this week! We went to the zoo today for P-Day for something different to do. It was fun. Amazing what monkey's can do with their tails. Very cool acrobatics. We do wear our missionary clothes when we go to public places on P-Day.

But this week was awesome!  We had Zone Conference, and we learned lots about how to be better missionaries.  This Zone Conference we learned that we need to be like bees, and search for and take good care of God´s children.  We are so happy with the progress of our investigators.

B------ will be baptized tonight.  She has been coming to church on her own for 4 months now.  We found her through A-----, her "son in law".  I knew him from when I was in Paulista, and he is dating B------´s daughter.  So one thing led to another. We started teaching her, and she started to keep her commitments, and she is super excited.  She knows lots of members, and the Relief Society president is in constant contact with her.  We know that there is still lots of work to be done with the rest of her family. We are excited to get it done!

B------ is excited to go to the temple, so we are hoping that she can go soon.  When we taught about temples and baptisms for the dead, she had a great comprehension and instantly wanted to go to the temple.  She is in contact with the stake family history director, and they are working for her to be able to bring a family name to the temple the first time. It's really a huge miracle.  Because of one connection, we found someone that was prepared to hear the gospel, and through that one person, God will be able to do a great work.  Not only is there lots of work that she will be able to do with her children, but also with her loved ones that have already passed!

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Nielson

P.S. This isn't B------'s baptism. This is V-----'s baptism from last Saturday. I'll share pictures of B------'s baptism next week.

Great Week

Hey!

Recap from last Saturday:

I always forget to talk about what happened at the end of last week.  L---- was baptized!  It was a huge miracle!  She was the first person that we met in the "Predinhos" --  a less active member that lives there told us where she lives and told us the missionaries talked to her many years ago, and that maybe she would like to hear our message again.  We have been working with her ever since.  There were times where we had to leave for a while because she wasn't really progressing, but she found friends and really started moving forward. She was able to quit drinking, and she took this important step in her life.  The bishop baptized her, and it was a great experience for him as well. The next step is to bring all of our recent converts to the temple.

This week we were able to go to the Federal Police to renew some visas and get lots of things done in the office as well.  Things are going well.  Next week is zone conference, so we have been preparing for that a bit this week as well.

V-----´s baptism is tonight.  He is excited, and so is his dad, I----.  He is the man who kept putting off his baptismal date for various reasons. But his girlfriend was baptized last week and I think that made him more committed. It should be a good baptism, I'll tell you about it next week.

My goal before I come home is to find and baptize a whole family. What a blessing that would be!

I hope you all are having a great week, Love you guys!

Elder Nielson