Brasil Week 32

Hi people!

So there was much craziness this week, and looking back over it, it seems like we hardly were able to work at all for all the running around we did. But Fátima got baptized, and that was simply amazing. She invited her whole family to the baptism (husband, son, daughter, son-in-law) and they made it to sacrament meeting as well. They don't live in our area so we can't start teaching them, but we're going to pass all the references and it'll be awesome. Fátima is so excited about the gospel; she wants her whole family to hear our message and invites literally everyone in her beauty salon to start receiving missionary visits, too. Her children are in their 20s and she wants them to have batter lves and reach their full potential, so teaching about the temple is going to bless them all so much. The baptism itself was a fantastic experience: when Fátima entered the water, she just started crying. She whispered something to Elder Paiva, but he says he didn't understand what it was. When she left the water, I just held her for a few minutes while she cried on my shoulder. She told me that this was what she needed to leave behind all the mistakes and problems of her past life and start new. She told her whole family about the importance of the covenant she had just made. Her whole countenance changed when she left the font. It was simly brilliant.

The only hiccup was that I had made a cake (Fátima's birthday was also yesterday) and left it in the fridge of the chapel, but unfortunately the blessed children of the other ward found it and ate the whole thing. The chapel has had some security problems lately and the bisop told us the just lock things in his office in the future. I was a little bummed, as was Fátima, but no one got more upset than the elders, who just wanted cake. 

In all, it was a fantastic day. In short, the rest of our week we had a bunch of meetings (Elder Holland was NOT at the sisters' conference, but he spoke with our president the night before). But we're going to have a lot of miracles this week. Transfers are coming up, but I think that for once I will be able to stay in this area more than six weeks and just keep working.

Thanks so much for the love and support! Love you all and see you soon!

Sister Anna Nielsen

Photos (I told you I'd send some):

Everyone at the baptism! From left to right: Elder Paiva (Recife), Daciane, Fátima, Dariane, Cesar, Elder Cerda (Chile), me, Sister Boulangger. Elder Paiva and Elder Cerda are the zone leaders; they split the area with us. The two girls were baptized by the elders at the same time. Cesar got baptised with his whole family at the beginning of this year and is preparing to leave on his mission soon.

The district! From left to right: Elder Solano (California), Elder Rosa (Goiânia), my companion, me, Elder Ribeiro (Minas Gerais?), Elder Guribalde (Peru)

August 18, 2014 - Brasil Week 31

Hi everyone!

First off, I'm sorry that I haven't sent any photos in a while. The reason is this: we're not actually allowed to carry our cameras with us while we work, because of risk of theft and everything, so the truth is that I haven't actually taken any pictures since arriving here in Eliana. There's not much of interest that isn't outside of our house, but I'll see what I can do this week.

We do have one great, elect lady who will be baptized this week! Fatima, who's a hairstylist who lives on the road next to our house. She came to church for the second time this week and loved it (she was taking notes during the sacrament meeting talks and showed me afterwards. She'd written a bunch of stuff like "How to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life", "repent daily", and "show God that I'm willing to make true changes") It was just amazing to see how she got more out of sacrament meeting than perhaps some of the lifelong members, just because she listens. We will to everything to get her ready for her baptismal date of this Saturday.

Besides this, not a lot of interesting stuff going on. Work is normal; we're coming out of winter into a rainy spring. As a mission, we have a sisters'-only conference this Wednesday, and ther's a wild rumor flying around that Elder Holland will be there, because he's coming to Santos this week. But we'll see who will really be there. 

Mom, thanks so much for all the family history stories; people absolutely love the My Family booklet when I show it to them. Dad, I need a few more stories from your side of the family, but I've already put some stories I remember about Grampy and Granny and their parents.

Sorry I'm boring; love you all, and you can expect photos next week!

Sister Nielsen

August 11, 2014 - Brasil Week 30

Hey everyone!

30 weeks here... can you believe how much time that is! But don't worry; I still have a lot of time left to see miracles.

Speaking of miracles, we manages to bring six people to church this week, which was truly the hand of God working in our area. The elders brought five more people, which in a ward this small, seemed that the non-members accounted for almost half of the attendance there.

We're working with a bunch of people who are really elect. One of them, Francisco, we thought was a less-active, until he told us that he'd never actually been baptized. It was a funny story: the first time, he gave us a bunch of referals and we went to contact them. One family looked at us oddly and asked "When did you talk with Francisco?" and we said "Oh, about 5 minutes ago." And they looked horrified and said "O Senhor Francisco died three years ago" and we freaked out. But turns out that this Francisco is his son and has a lot of interest in the Church. 

We're also teaching the sweetest lady ever, Nana, who wants to change her life. We have to get her married and she needs to quit smoking, two things she is entirely willing to do. I think she may be the most elect person I've taught so far here.

Another miracle happened this week: the family of Alex and Cynthia, who are the children of the family we live with, marked their wedding date and also their batism date with the missionaries in Parque Pinheiros. So we're doing what we can to help out long distance.

Hope everyone has an awesome week and i will too!

Sister Nielsen

August 4, 2014 - Brasil Week 29

So we settled in this week and had a great deal of disappointments and also interesting experiences. Sadly, the super elect family live in Parque Pinheiros (really far, though still in the mission) and they have to get married there and also get baptized in that ward. So I passed their info to the missionaries there and we did everything to get them as ready for marriage and baptism as possible. It was really good but also kinda sad.

This week was challenging because, as usual, our greatest difficulty is getting people to church. Here, everyone promises and promises but Sunday morning, they come up with some excuse as to why they can't go. It happens so consistently and predictably that you can tell Satan is working with them, every time. So we've come up with a lot of tools and techniques to prevent this kind of situation and put them into practice with all our investigators Saturday. Sadly, it didn't work this time, but we can at least be certain that we literally did everything to get them there. We have a ton of great investigators who progress in every way except the church attendance thingie, so if we can just get them there we will be baptizing until the end of time.

We also went to the temple this week, which was fantastic. The temple here in São Paulo is gorgeous. We also ate way too much churrasco!

Thanks so much for the photos and stories and have a great week1

Sister Nielsen

July 28, 2014 - Brasil Week 28

Hey people!

Be patient with my spelling errors; I'm writing on a keyboard with no letters and I'm guessing a lot.

So I got transferred to a ward called Jardim Eliana and the first thing I noted about this area is that it is MINISCULE. Like, we can cross our area in four minutes. I timed us. This freaked me out a bit, because I was so sure that the missionaries before us had burned the area pretty well (meaning they'd already talked to everyone), but turns out this isn't the case at all. There wasn't a lot in the Area Book, so we quickly found all the investigators of the sisters and have been doing lots of finding as well. We've found a ton of really interesting people who have a lot of interest and I have great expectations for this area now. I hope I can stay here a good long while and just work. This ward is recently divided and very small (sacrament meeting attendance is so low that it looks like a branch) so there's a lot of work to be done here. I'm really excited. We live with the second counselor and his family, and his daughter and her husband and child really want to get married and get baptized. They came to church for the first time this week and loved it. We have a ton of other people who will come next Sunday, too. Seriously, almost half the attendance in church this Sunday was investigators and recent converts. The zone leaders had two baptisms and two confirmations, so this ward has a great deal of momentum. We kind of hit the ground running, for which I am glad.

My new companion is Sister Boulangger, from Peru (if you're counting, this is my fourth hispanic companion in a row. She still speaks a lot of Spanish, but up til now I haven't had any problem understanding.

Today is not actually our p-day, because we'll be going to the temple tomorrow, which I'm really excited for. My last zone was going to go the 29th and my new zone had already gone, so I wasn't sure if I'd get the chance.

As for family history, thanks so much for everything! I now have photos of everyone except Mabel Purnecy Pearce, if you could rustle up one for me. Mom, those short histories you sent for Burton and Mabel were perfect; send some more for other members and get those translated soon. I'm printing off the stuff about Amy Wwodward and Ester Allen, so that should help too. About the birthplaces of all my siblings: O can't remember who was born in Utah and who in Boston; could you send those to me?

Thanks so much; love you all

Sister Anna Nielsen

July 21, 2014 - Brasil Week 27

Hey everyone! 

So I got transferred.... again. This always seems to happened, but just once I want to stay somewhere longer than 6 weeks! My companion is also leaving, so life should be interesting for the next missionaries to come.

But this week was great. We had five investigators in sacrament meeting (finally!) and we taught and dropped a lot of interesting people. It's common that a lot of people, for one c]reason or another, can't make it to sacrament meeting, and in that situation there's not much we can do with them. But it's always sad.

Juliana wasn't able to come to church for the third week, though she comes to other activities. I really hope the next sisters can follow up with her, because she's really elect: I think it's just her circumstances that are holding her back. We're also teaching a less-active/non-member family, who are awesome: the older son Rodrigo is coming back to church, Raul (who is 12) is getting ready to get baptized, and we're also teaching Rodrigo's girlfriend, Erika. I love this girl to death. She used to be a Jehovah's Witness but didn't agree with much and left, and she has a LOT of interest in this church. And she always comes! I think she'll get batized soon too, and Rodrigo will be able to baptize both her and Raul.

I really am sad to leave this area. Sorry, I won't know until tomorrow where I'll be going or with whom, but it should be a really interesting new transfer. I'm excited! Thanks for all the support!

Dad, thanks for all the stories! Since I have so little time on the computer, I'm not sure I'll be able to print them out, but I want to. At least I can print the pictures! Keep the info coming, and soon I'll be able to ask for specific dates, stories, etc that I'm lacking. Dad, can you give me the full names and birthdates (and birthplaces) of all your siblings? That wouçld help a lot.

Love you all!

Sister Anna Nielsen

July 14, 2014 - Brasil, Week 26

Fist off, I'm sorry that these letters are getting so boring. But there is one great cause for celebration: the World Cup finally ended!!! Yep, after all that time staying in our house, we can fianlly leave an work normally again. Our numbers, as you can imagine, weren't that great for this week. We did get one person to church, but our cell phone credits also ran out so we weren't able to teach or commit people by phone in the way I would have liked. But this week will be better!

Yeah, as you can guess, everyone was pretty bummed about the loss to Germany. But (and this I cannot understand) everyone STILL cheered for Germany during the final because they thought it would be more tolerable than having Argentina win on Brazilian soil. Sister Angulo is pretty sad that Argentina didn't win, but I'm secretly glad, because now there won't be people trying to murder her in this coming week.

On a slightly more spiritual note, thanks so much for all the photos and stories and information about our family that everyone has sent! I've been able to print out the photos here and I spend some of our time indoors translating family stories into Portuguese, so my booklet is getting really pretty. But I need more! Send me more, please! Dad, I especially need more about you family (I do remember the names of all your brothers and sisters, but I still need their birthdates and place of birth, as well as Granny's info, Grampy's info (and a photo of him, please!) and all the great grandparents. Mom, I need a photo of you and additional photos and stories and stuff. So far I only have a photo of myself, dad, Granny, and William and Rosa Ling.

Sorry that I am so lame and boring, but I promise that we are doing the Lord's work here! I will have a lot to tell you this next week when I see you all again.

Love,

Sister Nielsen

July 7, 2014 - Brasil, Week 25

Hi everyone!

So we got the chance to meet our new mission president, President Dalton, and he is fantastic. He has an extremely inspired vision for the direction he wants to take with this mission. He outlined some stuff for us this week in a conference about how he wants us to focus on the temple as we teach. We have another conference on Wednesday and also interviews this next week, which I'm really looking forward to.

One of the new rules he gave to us is that now everyone needs to leave the mission knowing at least two languages, so now we have to speak entirely English one day and entirely Portuguese the next. My companion whippd out some surprisingly good English skills and that the English and Portuguese days are going great. But seeing as she's from Argentina and I want to learn Spanish, we're having a Spanish day every third day as well, with poor results on my part. But it'll work out somehow.

Time is really short today because it's not my p-day, so I'll write more next week. Love you all!

Sister Nielsen