July 11, 2011- Another Fast Week

Hey everyone!!

This week was definitely anything but normal! We got a call on Tuesday telling us that we needed to pick up another missionary and be a companionship of 3 for a few days. We literally had to have the guy sleep in our kitchen (although our kitchen, bathroom, and study room are actually the same little room) too because our house is so small!! It was an experience tho. We had a few super good people ready to get baptized this next week too but then they got anti-Mormon stuff from their relatives, it was such a bust but we are still working with them and praying for them. Our new President is pretty great too, he is trying to really make us the best missionaries that we can be so I´m excited to see what happens in the next few months. It got warm here for 2 days too!! but now it´s freezing cold again, apparently this is one of the coldest winters EVER here on the island and I believe it. The Portuguese is really coming along now too, I love speaking Portuguese it´s such a rad language. Hopefully you guys are all enjoying the sun back home and go swimming in the ocean, it can be a killer seeing beautiful beaches all day and not being able to go into the water!! Give the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

July 4, 2011-U S A

Hey everyone!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!!!!!! All of the American missionaries are celebrating today so it´s pretty fun. Brasil is an amazing country but so is the United States!! This last week went really well, frozen but well. It is funny how when the weather gets cold out here how everybody just sits in their houses and does nothing, they don´t even answer the door. Attendance at church gets cut almost in half when the weather is super cold too and yesterday was the coldest day that I´ve experienced ou in Brasil. Luckily the island doesn´t get any snow bu we have other areas in our mission where it is snowing right now. We finally met our new mission president this last week too, President Fernandes. He was like a tornado haha the guy has sooooo much energy and it´s great, he is eally focusing on cleaning up the mission and sending home all the lazy Elders. He should be a great President tho and I´m really excited to work with him. This last week was pretty cool too because we saw a wild tucan, like the tucan from the Fruit Loops box, it was pretty cool, my companion got some pictures for us. We have seen some really good progress from a lot of our investigators and the members are really starting to embrace them and we are getting them involved with the missionary work. We have this one couple, Robson and Eline, and their kids and they could be soooo solid. They really want to get baptized but they aren´t legally married yet. The wife says she doesn´t know ifshe wants to marry the guy either because she says that she doesn´t trust him. The guy struggles a lot with immorality and drugs, it´s super sad the see what these things can do to a family. Hopefully we can help them turn to the gospel to overcome these problems. Also we have been eating a ton of fish lately. During the winter it seems like they eat fish almost everyday. I´m actually starting to really like it, altho it can make you feel really funny at times. We had grilled bananas for dessert last night too and they were incredible!! All you do is cook the bananas on the grill until all the skin turns brownish black and then you cut it open, put some cinnamon sugar on them, let them sit on the grill for another minute or two and then eat them, you gotta try it sometime! I love you all so much and I hope you are getting plenty of sun this summer!!!! Give the kids some loves for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson