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

Week Sixty Five.

Happy New Year to Everybody!

I hope that everyone had a great new year. As we can see the world didn't end, nothing exploded (except for fireworks) and we are here for a fresh new start in the year 2014. New Years for missionaries isn't that exciting, because we were able to have a good time. One of the irmas at church invited us to her house to have dinner with her and her family new years eve. We then went to our house and waited until midnight. We almost ended up falling asleep, but we were able to stay awake luckily enough. Because we live on the top floor of the apartment building we were able to see quite a few fireworks, but two streets in front of us they were having there own little show, see we watched that and then uneventfully went to bed, but there were parties going on all night long so it was a bit hard to sleep. Then New years day, because it was a Holiday everyone was a parties and drinking so we stuck with the safe route and visited Less Actives, So it made for a pretty good day. 

Unfortunately I don't have that much to tell for this week, because we were trying to get off of a holiday and it was a bit hard working and getting in the hang of things. One day we ended up walking in circles trying to visit people, another we went to another area to make contacts. But i do have stories to tell about the animals in our area...

So first off since we have been in the new year it has been raining almost everyday for at least little bit. So when the rain come here the frogs come out, and sometimes there not just frogs but toads too!!! So this story I am about to tell you all happened in one day. We were walking to lunch and we saw a huge toad that was dead and it was laying on its back and everything it was pretty gross. We then went into this area that always has a bit of wild life, I've seen monkeys there twice. But there is a swap there and the members said that there is alligator that live there too, so we went there trying to look for alligator. But we didn't find any. Then as we left lunch the irma went there and said very calmly, oh look there´s an alligator there. I Saw an ALLIGATOR!!! It was pretty cool, but it was sleeping, and still pretty young and small. But they caught one there the day before 2M. But as we were leaving that area a man was trying to heard the houses in the street with a motorcycle, the first time that I've seen that. I then didn't look to see where they were. Me and Sister Menezes then looked back and saw that these ponies were all running right at us!!!! So we ran and hid behind this super small tree (like it would really do anything) but luckily they went another way. Then at night we were walking home, close to were we saw the dead toad earlier, and i almost stepped right on one!! I didn't see it, and it almost hopped on my foot. So i jumped to the other side of my companion screaming. and he people at the bus stop right in front us were laughing. It was super funny. But they were cool about it. But wow didn't it scare me. haha.

So that was mainly my adventures for this week. This week is the last week in this transfer so who knows if i will be transferred next week or not. But we were able to make great goals for this last week, and we are going to work super hard with all that we have. Some council that someone gave me was to live the mission of Angels my last little time while I have on the mission. I have a bit less then 3 months left, and i cant believe how fast that it has gone by, it really is flying right by. So i am going to make the best of what i can this last little while i have and work my hardest. I am very grateful for the help that the Lord gives me while i am hear on my mission, and the support that everyone give me. Love you guys, and hope everyone has an amazing week.

Love,

Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Sixty Four.

Hello there everyone!

I hope that everyone had a great week, and that everyone had a great Christmas as well! Our week here in the mission was pretty great! We had an amazing Christmas here with everyone too. Here in Brazil they celebrate Christmas more on Christmas Eve and have a feast at midnight, well because we had an housr to be in our house we obvously couldnt stay untill midnight. But there were some families that invited us to their houses. We spent the morning with on member, who takes good care of us, and we made her Christmas better. But then in the evening we had two dinners! So we went running from one house to the next to try and get home in time. and we were absoulutly stuffed! The next day (Christmas) we had a zone meeting, but we had more of a Christmas party. One dressed up as Santa, and actually scared me. But we did secret santa, and traded our presents. And each pair made something to eat. But i think we were all stuffed from the night before we didnt really want to eat anything. I made chocolate chip cookies. They dont hav cookies here (or chocolate chip), so i got creative. We then went to an amazing members house and had a feast for lunch with a huge turkey and everything. I then got to talk on the phone with my wonderful family for the last time on my mission. My companion talked to her family for the first time. I got to talk to them for a bit too. But Christmas here really was great. We got alot of oportunities to share messages about Christmas and Christ to all of these families, who have people who arent members.

The day after Christmas we got to go to the temple! We tried do seomething before hand but it well through, so we went to the temple early and were able to sit in the garden for awhile, and it was beautiful! And i got sunburned, haha, the day after christmas! But i loved going to the temple. The temple here is in a busy part of the city. But right when you walk in the huge gate the noise goes away (even the smell goes away too, haha) it truely is amazing! It is very peacful and beautiful there!

BUt this week we were also preparing for a baptism! Two steop-sisters of a recent convert. They were amazing. They were super excited for their baptism, but also very nervous. They kept asking what they needed to do, and how they wer going to get baptized and everything. And when their interveiw came, they about died of embressment. But they were fine. The baptism went great! And they were super happy too. The next day they were wearing more modest clothes and everything. everything went great Sunday they were confirmed. And one of our recent converts blessed the sacrament for the first time! He was pretty nevous too. He tried doing it memorized but on the third try just read the card. And we found out that another Recent convert who is 9 years old, payed his tithing. It was sooo cute! We were beaming with excitement knowing all of these things.

So those were the high points of our week. And it was great. I hope that everyone has an amazing New Years, and Week. I will talk to you guys next year!!

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson