Week Seventy Two.

Hello there everyboday!!!

This week has been amazing. It has been a great new start for the end. But let me explain abit about where i am at right now. I am in the area Candeias, in the City Jadoatâo (which is right on the other side of recifie) Our area is right on the beach and you can see the beach from our house and smell the ocean air, I love it. There are a lot of building in our area, and one might think that this might be a challenge and hard. But this area truely is blassed. The ward is huge, there are a ton of members, and they are all super will to help. I would love to stay working here for a long time. And i am almost sad that i am only going to stay here for about a month. Sister Sampayo and I are kind of opening an area. There were sister and elders in this ward, but now there are 4 sisters, which is alot differnt for me, but its super great. But we are taking over what the Elders were doing here, their investigators and everything So this week we were a bit lost, but it was all good, wo still worked really hard. We dont live with the sisters in our area, but we eat lunch with them and everything. We live with 3 other Sisters in the zone, and live in their area, but its right on the side of our area. You can walk from one chaple to the other in about 20 mins. It truely is amazing!!! I love it all. I am just over filled with joy and excitment about the work here.

This week we have been working hard. We even had a nice day at the temple too that was nice and relaxing!!! But this week we have just been trying to invite everyone to be baptized. I love working with Sister Sampyo, we lived together and loved it, but working with her is amazing too. But we are now happyly preparing a lot of people to be baptized here in a little bit. It was amazing people who seemed to be eternal investigators we invited to be baptized and they all accepted. There were a ton of people and church that were visiting, I am just so happy with the work that is happening here.

I realized that now that i am heading onto the end of my mission I am truely able to apply EVERYTHING that i have learned here on the mission into reality. I feel now finally that i am becoming the missionary that i wanted to be and the one that the Lord has wanted me to become, it has just taken me a year and a half to do that. haha. But I am Truely greatful that i have this oportunity to serve our Lord. I am so excited about all the people who are now choosing to serve the Lord and the missions that are open. i just LOVE THE MISSION! And Excited to do this work!! I hope all is well with everyone!

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Seventy One.

Hello there everyone,

So guess what, today was transfer day, and guess who was transfered. I was. After serving 8 months in Várzea i left to go to my last area in my mission for my last transfer. When i found out the news i was pretty sad, because i wanted to finish my misison in the area i passed the most time, and where i knew the people. I was able to say good bye to a few people. Alot of the people in the ward were sad to see me go. But i know that the Lord really puts us where we need to go. I loved my time In Várzea and my time with Sister Menezes. We were able to learn alot of things together, and she because like my sister. Everything there will stay in my heart. My companions, the ward, the people, the experiences, the adventures, everything.

When i got to the transfer this morning i found out that i was going to be with Sister Sampyo, who i have already lived with her in my first area for 5 months, so i was pretty excited, we had a great time together. She´s from Argintina and is a blast. I am also living with 3 other Sisters, one of them is SIster Harris, my companion from the MTC. So we have quite an adventure in store for us this transfer. We are in a city right by the center of Recife, its on the beach. I dont know that much about the area right now, so i will let you guys know more next week.

The mission sure is like a the tides on the sand. THings come and go, but they all happen for a reason. There are the ups and downs, the friendships, and the conversions, and everything else that the mission has instore. But It all passes by super fast. I really can not believe that i am going into my last transfer, my last 6 weeks of my mission are starting now, and i still have so much to learn and do, but i have also learned more in this last year and few months then ever before. I truely love the mission for everything that it has instore for us. I am so eternaly greatful for our Heavenly Father that i have this oportunity to serve him, and be part of this great work. I know that he always blesses us in our lives and we can recieve the blessings from it, some times we cant see them but they are there.

Thank you for all of the support you guys give me and the missionary work. I hope everyone has a great week!

LOVE,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Seventy.

Hello there everyone,

So this week has been a bit crazy. This week started the festivities of Carnaval, the biggest drinking, partying, ect. holiday in Brazil. So we have been having to come home early this wek to advoid anything and to avoid all the parties in the streets. (here they like to have their parties in the streets and everyone is drunk). And we are about half way through it, but tomorrow will be the worse day. But we will see what happens. really its been pretty tranquil, because most of the action happens down town, so everyone leaves our area to go there. But in the midst of all that we had a miracle happen a baptism. And everything this week seemed like it wa working against us to have this baptism. Everyone wanted to dismark it, move the date and gave every excuse in the book. All of it really did make sence, it was during the holiday, everyone was traveling, all the youth (the baptism was a Young Woman) were at EFY and everything seemed to go wrong. But Sister Menezes and I knew in our hearts that we wanted and needed to make this baptism work this week. We said a prayer one day and went out to solve all the problems and we could really see the Lords hand in our work, everything feel acording to plan. We got to the baptism and had some members who were a big help and helped us alot with the baptism, it was great.

In all this confussion Sister Menezes and I knew that it would be hard to work at the end of the week, so we set out strong at the begining of the week to try and accomplish our goals, and we were able to do it. WE were able to get our goals compleate at the beging of the week, because sure enough at the end of the week everything fell through and was hard to work like we wanted to. But all in all it was a great week. This week is the last week of this transfer. Trasfers are next Monday, so we will see for my last transfer if i will stay here or go to another area, we will see. But thank you everyone for your support and your love. Untill next week.

Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Sixty Nine.

Hello there everyone,

So another week has passed by and we are now in February, and we all know hos fast February passes, it just flies right by. But this week was a great week. Sister Menezes and I were working really hard this week. This transfer gave us a new spark in our work and we have just been trying to blow things over here and working really hard. We have been really into setting goals and these types of things. So this week we had an interesting experiences, somethings earlier in the week kept falling through and we were not were we wanted to be, so we were praying alot and trying to excersie our faith. Then on Friday after lunch we decided to make contacts. In an hour we knocked 6 doors, for of them net us in and we were able to teach 4 lessons and find 7 new people to teach. We were truely greatful for the Lord and his helping hand in this work. Its funny to think sometimes that we are trying to sacrifice evrything that we have to do his will and his work, but yet even after all that, we need his help still, to get us through the day. But I am truely greatful the mercy and grace that he has for us.

This week we were then able to find alot of new people to teach. We are always trying to find new people and do our best in this work. We are really trying to live this missionary motto: help other come unto Christ. Sister Menezes work amazingly together because we are very similar, but sometimes thats a bad thing, because when one isn磘 bold the other one isn磘 either, when one doesn磘 want to take a leap, the other stayes behind too, haha. So we have been working on that to be bold and brave these weeks.We found a quote the other week from Emma Smith that we are using ``Do Something Extraordinary!创 That is our goal and that is what we are trying to do each and every day.

Thank you everyone for your support and your love. This missionary work is something that is growing and will continue to grow and i am greatful to be a part of it. I love the mission and I love my Savior and i know that he loves each and everyone of us. I hope that everyone has a great week.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Sixty Eight.

Hello there everyone,

I hope that everyone had a great week. Today i am compleating 1 year and 4 months on the misison. I can´t believe it. And I cant believe how fast it has gone by, and also how fast it is quickly coming to an end too. This week we had a kin of motivational training with the president. He came and spoke with our zone and really gave us animation to baptize and do this work. Now we are ready to get out there, we are just waiting for the investigators to follow us, haha.

This week we had a few cool things happen with some action from the ward as they were helping us and we were helping them. One afternoon we went out with the young Womans President to make visits to the less active memnbers. And guess what one of the young woman came back to church. She just needed a push and is even going to all the activities. We went to a recent converts house who has become less active and we dont know why, because he has great potentiol, and the Bishop showed up to help us with the visit and was able to give some great advice to him. Another day we went to an activity that the youth had to give the message, we were able to bring and investigator and a less active, so it was pretty great.

Again this week we were trying to work very hard, and of course things fell through. I notice a trend in the mission, it is like a rollercoaster. You always have your ups and your downs. Sometimes when you are working your hardest you see the least amount of results, but with pacients and hard work you can always get back up. Somehting i have really come to learn on the misison (and the Presidents traing cme to comfirm this this week) is that in our hardest times we need to be our strongest, and we can never loose our animation, we always need to keep our heads held high with a smile on to continue the work. But i am truely blessed to have Sister Menezes with me to do this work. We have set alot of goals and are compleating them as the weeks go by. We have a few people that we are trying to get ready for baptism this up coming month, so we will see.

Yesterday and a block party for Carnival right infront of our house, there were huge trailors of speakers on the street and everything, it was crazy. But we decided to avoid it and go home early (from the advice of the members). BUt we are keeping things safe and well conected with the spirit. I am continuing to work hard and loving the work. Untill next week.

Love Sister Nelson

Week Sixty Seven.

Hello there everyone.

So this week was pretty good. We worked really hard this week, didnt see many results of the work, but you know that is alright, we keep our heads up high. So as Sister Menezes and i are going to stay together for another transfer we decided to make a ton of goals this transfer, so every week we are going to focus one something new to better our work. So we started this week and things have been getting alot better. On the mission they always tell us: find, teach, baptize. So this week we spend alot of time finding ei contacts, with a bunch of people and were able to teach some of them too, so we found new people to teach. We do this every week, but this week we upped our goal by atleast doubling it! And we were able to compleate our goal. So we worked really hard this week and were able to compleate all of our goals. But when we got to church on Sunday we didnt have any investigators, or even less actives or recent converts. I think that everyone went on vacation this week or something. So douring the gospel principles class it was the teacher and us! And that was it. It was a bit weird. BUt we keep our heads up and our hope held high.

But that is about it for my week. Wasnt that interesting, we just worked a ton. I now have holes in all of my shoes, and am just hoping they will hold up for about 3 months, haha. But everything is good hear. I am happy and loving this work. I love working with my companion SIster Menezes. We are just trying to work our hardest and our best. We are trueling trying to live the mission of angels here in Brazil! Love everyone and hope you guys have a great week.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Sixty Six.

Hello there everyone,

So today was transfer day, and guess what... nothing happened. I was thinking that i would leave Várzea this transfer but i am staying. I feel a bit weird just because this is only my second area, i passed 7 months in my first area, and already have 7 months in this area. But on the other hand i love the ward and the people here, and i love my companion Sister Menezes, so in many ways i am still happy that i am staying, just weird that i am still in my second area. But everything happens for a reason. And me and Sister Menezes are working very well together, so there is no reason to really change anything. I am truly blessed to get to work with her. But a lot of the members didn't want me to leave, and many were super happy when they found out that i was staying. 

But this week was pretty in the normal. We were running around a lot trying to help some of the people here, who really needed help in somethings. So we were busy with that and busy with trying to do our normal everyday stuff. But other then that there is nothing that out of the ordinary that happened this week. One things that was pretty cool was last night. The stake relief society president is in the ward here and was giving a training and wanted my help translating a video that was in English for the training. So i helped out,  no problem. After wards a lot of people came up and complemented me on how well i speak. everyone was super impressed. I felt pretty good. But i would hope at this point in my mission that i would be speaking well, haha. 

But i really don't have any good stories to tell this week or anything that cool. But Sister Menezes and i are just continuing to work super hard each and every day. I am grateful that i have the opportunity to learn every day with her. She really is amazing. She helps me become a better person. But we have a lot of goals for this transfer and we are going to try and put all of these things in practice. 

But thank you everyone for all of your support and all the love that you have given me. I hope that everyone has a great week.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

PS - I believe you guys can start a count down, i have about 11 more weeks until I can see everyone's bright smiling faces