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

Week Fifty Three.

Hello there everyone,

Another week has come and gone and here I am writing you guys again. This week has been very rewarding, but the rewards came after a ton of hard work! The start of the week was pretty hard. It is differently entering into summer here and we had a few days of super-hot sun with walking a ton and some of our areas are really far away. I forgot to use sunscreen, so I got pretty nice sunburn too! So because of all that we were both pretty pooped the rest of the week, I was finally able to rest a bit today. But we have really been wanting some baptisms in our area especially because this week is the last week of the transfer period, so we are trying to push through. We have been praying a lot and trying to put in a lot of sacrifice. Because of that we were able to find some miracles this week too.

We were challenged to invite people to be baptized at least once every day, and because of that we were able to get 3 baptism commitments!!! 2 for this week and one for the week after. We were truly blessed. There is an ex-pastor that we have been trying to teach who has been going to church for over 5 months, but in a different ward! It is always super hard to find him in his house. But we were passing by there and decided to try, and sure enough he was in there. We still hadn´t invited anyone to be baptized that day so we decided to invite him. And sure enough he accepted! And will be baptized this week. We were so excited. We then received a reference that the elders gave to us. We called him met with him the following day. He is dating a girl in another area and has been going to church for at least 2 months now, and wants to be baptized before the 4th, we were like: we can make that happen, how does next week sound! (This was the day following the other baptismal commitment) So we were pretty excited. He has a ton off questions and is more gospel literate than a lot of members that I know. The other was at church where a member said his nephew wanted to be baptized! So we set his baptismal date for next week. What a week of miracles we are so excited! We really tried to do everything that we could this week, and because of that we were able to finally commit some investigators to baptism, and we were able to meet all of our goals.

This Sunday Our mission president came and visited our ward, we were not advised beforehand, and were in a state of panic. Our investigators were visiting other wards and we didn’t have investigators in our ward. So we snuck out and started calling everyone. WE had some investigators that lived super close and we went to their houses to get them to come to church, but none of them were home. We then started inviting everyone that we knew in the street to come to church. But sadly enough no one came; we realized we just had to face the truth. But the president met with us after wards and really just wanted to know how the ward and the area was doing, so it was all good.

But this week was very hard, but I think it has been the week that I have seen the Lord’s hand and received more  blessings than anytime previously in my mission. I am very grateful to be here serving the Lord. Thank you everyone for all your support and your prayers. Next week is transfers so we will see if anything changes, until then, I hope everyone has a great week.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Fifty Two.

Hey there everyone, 

This week was again pretty uneventful, but there was general conference this weekend, so it threw a mix into things, which was pretty great. But this week, we were finally working back to normal speed from my companion being sick, which was great. But it was a pretty normal week. We were just trying to get back into the swing of things from not visiting people in about 2 weeks, so we were just trying to get out there and visit people. The Elders even came to our area to try and help us find new people. But we are really trying to push for getting some baptisms here in this area, my companion and I are really trying, so we are going to work really hard these next two weeks.

But this week was general conference. It was pretty interesting this time because we had to go to the stake center, but the stake center is a bit far away and its super hard to ride a metro bus into that area. We went there for the first session and just stayed until the second session finished. On Saturday not many people were there. It was mainly the missionaries and some of the people that lived close by. But we were all shocked about the age change for the missionaries, especially for the sisters. But between the sessions some of the elders had a baptism. Right before it started they asked if my companion and I could sing a special number. I said sure. But I was dreading it a bit, because I knew that my companion does not sing, so it would be mainly...ME. Well she said she would, we quickly picked a song and went up there to sing. When we started I was the only one singing, she started to chicken out, but joined in on the second verse. I was so nervous; I have never sung a solo in front of people, until then, ha-ha. But I thought it went well. After the last session ended (which was 7pm here) the elders took us to the bus stop because it wasn’t in the safest part of town. Well right in front of the bus stop was a huge fire and we were all being smoked out, couldn’t see or breath very well. We gave up waiting for the bus (which only passes once an hour, and one passed right by us without stopping) and called a taxi. It was quite a night.

Sunday was a lot more relaxed and had a bunch more people attend conference. However it was Election Day here in Brazil, and everyone here is required to vote, so everyone goes crazy. There was little paper fliers ALL over the ground. When we got home at night after conference everyone was celebrating the winners of the election. There were people drinking in the street and it was like one huge party with fireworks and a ton of honking horns and everything, so we went right into our house. But conference was great yesterday; a lot more people were there too. During the break I went and played with a lot of the little kids that were there; it was pretty fun. But that is pretty much my week. This week we are going to continue to work hard and make things here in this area. Hope all is well with everyone else. Until next time.

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Fifty Two... ONE YEAR!

Hello there everyone,

So this week I have a bit more time to write, but unfortunately I still don't have that much to say. My companion was still on recovery and still a bit sick. Some of the days we were able to leave but we were working at less than half speed and only visiting the most important people. So work this week was pretty slow. But I have faith, and I know that it will get better. :)

This week both my companion and I, sister Rodriguez completed one year on our missions. I cannot believe how fast the time has passed. Time has just flown by, like really I do not know where a year has gone. It is super crazy. We were both excited and sad at the same time completing a year, because we don't want it to be over in 6 months. But it was good, I made a cake for us and we celebrated a bit.

Not much has happened in the last little while since I have emailed you. We went to the temple and brought with us a less active member that we are reactivating. She and her little son loved it, we played around with them for a while too on the temple grounds. The temple in Recife has such a calming spirit to it. The city is super loud and even smelly, but the moment you walk in the gate it all goes away, seriously (all but the occasional siren). I love going to the temple here. I stayed in there for a long time this time when I went in. 

Other than that we were able to make a few visits here and there and the other half of the time my companion was resting and I was studying or catching up on stuff that needed to get done. We helped do a blitz in another area, where we went with members inviting less actives to the ward conference. I went with this lady who had served a mission a little bit ago, and it was way nice talking to her. 

Yesterday we were able to watch the woman's session of conference. It's weird here because they broadcast it live, so it was actually super late at night. It ended at 10pm, so everyone watched it the next day. We have to get on a bus to go to the stake center to watch all of conference. All of the Brazilians say it's fun because everyone stays there and its super fun. II really enjoyed President Eryings talk. 

That is about it for me, I hope that everyone is doing well. Send my best wishes to everyone.

Love.
Sister Rebecca Nelson