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