March 26, 2012- Conference Prep

Hey Everyone!!

This week went super well!! Our friend João Pedro got baptized on Saturday and his mom who has been less-active in the church came to the baptismal service and to church on Sunday so we are hoping to be able to help her get back on track to receiving the blessings that come from activity in the gospel!! We had another lady, Ana and her son, Miguel, come to church yesterday, too and they loved it!! They want to get baptized but Ana has to work a lot on Sunday so a member in the ward is going to help her find a new job this week and perhaps she will get baptized in the coming weeks. Everybody here is getting really excited for General Conference! It seems like there has been given a lot of emphasis on preparing ourselves spiritually for this great conference. Everything is still going great and we are enjoying each day that we get to serve with all of our might!! I love you all and hope you give the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

April 2, 2012- Conference is the Best!

Hey everyone!!

Conference was SO incredible this weekend!! One of our friends investigating the church, Abilio, attended all of the sessions and was awe-struck at the end and told me that ‘everybody in the world needs to watch at least one of these conferences to understand what the Church is about’.  I loved all the talks and especially Elder Hallstrom’s when he talked about the importance of being active in the gospel AND in the church.  It was a great week and weekend tho and we are all pretty charged up to go out and work even harder now!!  We are going to spend a lot of time this week looking for new people to teach and bring this beautiful message to and hopefully we can help them enter the waters of baptism like so many of the speakers at conference talked about!!  I love you all and wish you a Happy Easter and that we may all remember just exactly what the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, means for each and every one of us.  Give the little ones some loves for me!!!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

March 19, 2012- The Winter Wind Blows

Hey Everyone!!

This week went really well out here and the weather is already starting to cool down for the winter season! I always thought that a Brasilian Summer would be really brutal but it was definitely the coolest Summer I´ve ever experienced. This week we had a handful of people accept the invite to be baptized and one of them, João Pedro, will be baptized this Satruday so we are really excited for him! Our English class out here is going super well, too, it´s consistently bringing 20 people every class and a few people are gaining interest in the church. Everything else is going great and everyone here is just getting ready for Easter which means we are going to get lots of chocolate in the coming days!! I love you all and hope you ive the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

March 12, 2012- Transfers

Hey everyone!!

  This week flew by, but it was another super busy and great week! I went to go and get my new companion from the mission office on Wednesday. His name is Elder Correia and he is from Rio de Janeiro (he says he doesn´t remember and Elder Neilson (Skylar) passing thru his ward tho) and he´s a great missionary full of desire to work hard and be obedient so I´m really excited to be with him! My last companion, Elder Banner, went to get his new companion on Wednesday, too, but his companion sisn´t show up and will get here this week so Pres Fernandes had him spend this last week was us here in our area. It was actually a lot of fun having 3 missionaries at all of our appointments, and whatnot but he is leaving tomorrow so we will be back to 2. In our house we have 2 other Elders who live with us and one of them is from Argentina so it´s fun to practice Spanish with him and he likes to practice his English with me. Also we have a mission conference with Elder Godoy of the 70 this week so it should be a great expereince!! I love you all and hope and pray you are all happy and safe!!! Give the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson

March 5, 2012- Storm Watch

Hey Everyone!!

  This was the last week of our transfer and it went really well!! We had quite an eventful week that kept us really busy which is always a blessing. I got to go on a division in one of the more ghetto areas of our mission and it was a great experience to see how humble of circumstances that some people in this world have. It was a great day and it really made me appreciate the blessings which I have in my life. Also on Wednesday night we went out to make some visits with a member. We parked his car and went to make the visits and as we were making our way back to the car, all of a sudden out of nowhere the sky fell on us! It literally just started to pour down rain without even a sprinkle of warning, I´ve never seen anything like this in my life! We had to take shelter under a bus stop but we were still getting pounded by the rain because the winds were exceeding 100 KPH. After about 10 minutes we made a dash to the members car and got completely soaked from head to toe. It was a super crazy storm to where all the cars on the road were going about 5mph due to the fact that we couldn´t see out of the windsheild! We still went and made another visit before going home and as we were going home we saw all the destruction that had taken place and nobody in the city had power. We drove to our apartment tho and our apartment and a few more houses on our street were the only places with power in the entire city!! We got inside our apartments and saw how our things got a little bit wet because we left the windows open, but it was a cool experience! We found out last night that my companion, Elder Banner, is getting transfered this week and I still don´t know who my new companion is but I´ll find out soon!! I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!! Give the little ones some loves for me!!!

Love,

Elder Michael J. Neilson