Sister Rebecca Nelson: Week Thirteen.

Hello Everyone,

And a Merry late Christmas. Christmas here in Brazil, is very different. Sometimes it felt like a skipped over Christmas. One because its summer here, so it’s pretty warm and no frost or the rain of Seattle. Not many people have decorations. A few people have lights outside, but not very many. A few people also have Christmas trees inside, but they are all really small, not like the ones we have. But never the less it was good.

In Brazil they mainly celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Usually with a big dinner and then they party and stay up until midnight, and count down, like we do on New Years, because at midnight that’s when Santa comes. Christmas is then a recovery day from the night before, but then they usually have a big lunch. This is what my companion Sister Leite has told me. Because we always eat dinner in our house, we bought some stuff and made our own dinner. Of course rice, mayonnaise salad (potato salad), and we even had a small ham. Then one of the sisters made a desert too that was good.

Christmas Eve we went to this presentation show in the town square. I didn’t really know what it had to do with Christmas, and the other sisters said that they were confused with the story and didn’t understand it, they said it’s probably a north thing. It was like a voodoo nutcracker. But it was cool. They had a suspension set up over head with a pulley system and things would fly and float above us, angels and other people. They also had a lot of dancing on the main stage. One was cool they were dancing with fire. But after all of that we exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. We did it with us four sisters. I got a Gravatá shirt!

Our ward also had a Christmas party on Thursday night, they had talks and then a slide show, and even had Santa come, and then had a big dinner. The decorations there were really cool; I haven’t seen anything like it.

Something funny that wouldn’t happen at home is getting burned two days before Christmas. It was very slight. They always think that I’m going to get burned here and they say sometimes that I’m red, but I can’t see anything or feel anything, it’s mainly because I’m really white. But Christmas here was good, I ended Christmas with talking to my family on the phone, that was the best part.

It was hard to do work towards the end of the week because of Christmas, but this week we recommitted two of our investigators to baptism one this week the other next week. I was able to recite the first vision this week in a lesson. That was great! I felt sooo good after. It was to these three old ladies. Here in Gravatá there are mainly youth and old people. And none of the parents are married. It makes it hard to baptize them.

I finally bought my own fruit this week. The fruit here is really good. I got melons, mangos (they have tons of those), and even papaya. That’s what I’ve been eating from breakfast. It’s been great.

I hope that everyone’s Christmas was good. And I’m sure I will have stories to tell you next week because New Year’s here I have heard are crazy. Take care everyone.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Ward Christmas party with us for sisters who live together.

Our neighbor who lives below us has a turkey, we thought they were going to eat it for Christmas but they havent yet. Its loud and always gobbles, and you cant tell in this picture but its big.