November 14, 2011- Another Brusque Week

Hey everyone!!

So this week was really cool! We had a kid in the branch who got baptized and more than 60 people went and more than 20 of them aren´t members of our faith. It was a really great experience and the Spirit was super strong, everybody loved it. We taught a fmaily of 4 for the first time the night before and when we invited them to the baptism they were super excited and showed up there the next day and loved the service. The work in Brusque is picking up each day, too. We have to be really creative how we work here because knocking door to door or just doing street contacts doesn´t bring a lot of fruits. English class is going really well tho and the people are really having a fun time and the last class they all acceptted a copy of the Book of Mormon. The weather has cooled down quite a bit again, it seems like this winter is never going to end which is actually a really big blessing. Hope everything goes well this week and that you give the kids some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

November 21, 2011- McDs is Here

Hey everyone!!

That’s so cool that Isaac is going to Alabama, he’s gonna love it there!!!  That mission takes in a lot of visa waiters, we have quite a few missionaries here who were reassigned there and they loved it.  This week in Brusque the first McDonalds here opened and the place is crowded like crazy all the time, the drive thru line is constantly about 2 miles long, seriously.  I don’t know why it’s so packed, all the other cities close by have one and the food is super expensive, it’s about 12 American dollars for a Big Mac.  We had a missionary activity with the branch here this week where we kicked off the holiday season by watching Joy to the World.  It went really and well and everyone is super excited to do missionary work this Christmas.  We had a Stake Conference in a brand new chapel about an hour away yesterday and it was super we had some bad news with a couple we are teaching.  They went to start their wedding papers this week and turns out that the lady still isn’t divorced from her first husband and it may take anywhere from 1-3 years to get the divorce… hopefully all goes well tho and we will see what happens.  Everything else is great tho!!! Hope all is well back home and you all have a great Thanksgiving!!!!  Give the little ones some loves for me!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

November 7, 2011- Tchau Inglês!

Hey Everyone!!

So it´s really weird having Elder Emerson gone. We grew really close and are great friends but I´m sure he´s doing great in his new area. My new companion is Elder Tomaz. He is from Brasilia which is the captial of Brasil. He´s a good guy, really nervous about things but I´m sure this time we will have together will be a good learning experience. One of the weirdest things has to be that I never speak English anymore, it will definitely help out with my Portuguese but who knows, Elder Tomaz talks sooo fast and mumbles everything together that not even the Brazilians know what he is saying haha he is super hard to understand. The branch in which we are serving is getting really excited tho because they are starting to plan a bunch of branch activities that they´ve never done before so I´m sure that will be great! We have to get on a bus tonight to go to another city for District meeting tomorrow so we will catch the bus at 6:40 and get there sometime tonight. Things are going well tho, everyday out here on the mission is such a blessing, not a sacrifice but a blessing. I love you all so much and hope you give the little ones some loves for me!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

October 31, 2011- What a Week!!

Hey Everyone!!

This week was soooo incredible!! The area where I am serving in, Brusque, is great becuase our branch is super strong and the city is super cool, but as for missionary work...it is pretty slow becuase everyone is German and super super Catholic. My companion Elder Emerson had never seen a baptism on his mission (he´s been out for 7 months) and we had been working so so hard to help somebody get baptized this last transfer and all of our friends who commited to be baptized all came out with marriage problems (they aren´t legally married). When we planned for this last week 2 weeks ago (if that makes any sense to you) we were determined to have a baptism so we marked that we would baptize somebody this last Sunday (yesterday) at 7pm, he only problem was that we didn´t know who we would baptize. So we just kept working super hard this week and then one of the students who attends our English Class who went to church 2 Sundays ago, let us go over and teach him and we did and invited him to be baptized and he acceptted!! We baptized him last night at 7pm just as we had planned 2 weeks earlier!! It really strengthened my testimony of how the Lord gives us trials to see how we will react and if we truly do have righteous desires and after a transfer full of hard work we were blessed! We then found out right after that my companion Elder Emerson is getting transfered this Wednesday. I LOVED serving with Elder Emerson, he is such a stud and we learned so much together this last transfer. My new companion is Elder Tomaz and he is coming straight from the MTC so this will be his first area so I´m really excited to have him here, I´m sure he will bring lots of energy and be ready to work hard. Yesterday at church they had the primary program in Sacrament meeting and the Spirit was incredibly strong, and when they sung Armies of Helaman both Elder Emerson and I were in tears. It´s so crazy to see how fast time fies by, it seems like we were just in the primary singing that song last year! Yesterday was quite a treat tho and I´m really excited to see what these next few transfers have in hold for us. Also I got a care package from the Las Flores YW this last week, that was super nice of them! It was everything that I could want from the USA haha. I hope everything is going well back home and give the little kids some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

October 24, 2011- Marriage, Please?

Hey everyone!!

This week was another good week out here in Germany! We got to teach a bunch of lessons and meets a bunch of new people. We ran into this guy who is an American Brasilian. He was born in Brasil but moved to the states and lived in Louisiana for almost all of his life. He served in the US army over in Vietnam and showed us some pictures of him in uniform and with Pres. Regan. It was pretty cool talking to him and we met his son-in-law who is from South Africa and has been here for 6 months and still doesn´t speak a lick of Portuguese, just goes to show how real the Gift of Tongues is with missionaries. We had quite a few people who were scheduled to be baptized this week and the coming weeks and we found out this last week that basically all of them but one is not legally married and have no desire to get legally married since it is so complicated to get married here...kind of frustrating but we are gonna help them out and see what we can do. Hopefully everything is great back home and give the little ones some loves for me!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

October 17, 2011- Kids Day

Hey Everyone!!

This last week went really really well and we are pretty physically spent but ready for this next week!! This last Wednesday was ´Kids´ Day´ in Brasil, like everybody gets work and school off to just play for a day. Everybody asked us if we have Kids´ Day in the states and they were super shocked when we said we didn´t, but honestly, it´s just another day for the people here to be lazy...they are great people but incredibly lazy haha. We had an activity at the church tho and we had a Family of 6 (not members) who went and they really really liked it. We had a bunch of people totally lined up to come to church this Sunday too so my comp and I showed up at church 30 minutes early so we could greet everyone. We walk into church and everybody is already there and we are super confused and checking our watches. So finally we ask somebody what´s going on and they said that it was daylights saving time...not good. It thru off everything for our investigatrs and most of them didn´t even know the time changed so we were only able to bring 2 to church. Rosa, who I told you about last time, and her husband Eduardo were there tho and they really loved it so that was good. They came up to me right before Sacrament meeting and said that one of the speakers didn´t show up and they needed me to give a talk on Exaltation...in Portuguese...fun stuff haha but it went well and I enjoyed getting a few mintues to talk. Everything is going well here tho and things should just keep getting better!!! Love you all and give the kids some loves!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

October 10, 2011

Hey everyone!!

This last week was super super busy which was really good because we thought it was gonna be really slow due to Oktoberfest. They have decorated the city with giant ducks tho, it´s kind of weird so I´m gonna have to take a picture with one so that you can see. The weather got SUPER hot for one day , too, like it probably hit 90s and now it has cooled down again, but it was good to have that day because it really helped me appreciate the winter. I met this guy yesterday at church who served here in the Brasil Floripa mission when James Barnett was here and he knows him super well so that was funny, his name is Pereira. We have this one lady named Rosa and her husband Eduardo who we are teaching and we love them so much, some of our favorite people that we meet with. Eduardo is totally out of it and he always goes into the kitchen to smoke ´cigarettes´ half way thru the lesson, but Rosa is a rock, she refers to us by our first names tho haha (we forgot that we even told her our first names). She has been reading the Book of Mormon lately and we asked her if she prayed to know whther the book is true or not and she said, ´I really believe that the book is true but I´m scared to pray and ask God because then that means that the Catholic church isn´t true`...we are going to check on her this Wednesday so hopefully she gained some courage! Everything is going great out here tho, I´m truly starting to realize just how great of a blessing every day on the mission is, it´s incredible. I love you all and give the little ones some loves for me!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

October 3, 2011

Hey everyone!!

So this week was really against the norm of an average missionary week but it was still really good. We didn´t get to work at all on Monday or Tuesday because we had to travel far away to a city for a zone conference with our mission president, and then on Saturday and Sunday we had to travel to another city to watch conference (although we missed the 2 Saturday sessions which was a bust). Priesthood session was super super good!! Elder Holland´s talk was incredible! I didn´t get to listen to his actual voice because we had to watch it in Portuguese, but it was still great and so true about we are in a constant fight of good vs. evil everyday. We can´t just stay in the middle of the two, we must pick the Lord´s side of the devil´s. Work here in our area is going to be a bit slower this month, too. It´s October now and Brusque is a town that is almost all Germans which means...Octoberfest...should be interesting. Also all of the banks and mail services here (in all of Santa Catarina) are on strike so ya, if you´ve sent me a letter recently then it will probably take a while for it to get here becuase once they finally do get back to work they will be crazy crazy backed up. But Conference really made this week great! We are so lujcky to have a living Prophet and also Apostles on the earth today to help lead and guide us. The gospel brings us so much happiness and there is nothing that can compensate for it! I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!! Give the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

ps. Our Presdient made a rule about a month back that we couldn´t email anybody but immediate family on P-day but this week he told us that he is changing the rule to where we CAN email anybody we want on P-day, but we only have an hour to do it. So anybody can feel free to email me and I will try to at least respond back a little bit!