FELIZ. ANO. NOVO. (HAPPY. NEW. YEAR.)

Hey Everybody!!

Well, I hope that everybody had a good Christmas! This week was kinda slower for missionary work because everybody is traveling, but it was still a pretty good week! We have a HUGE area here in Petrolina. So we always have things to do!! We have a lot of people to teach, but this week no one was home.  i hope they return soon! 

Christmas went really well, i was able to skype with my family. It sure was nice to see and be able to talk to them and see that all is going well with them! 

Yesterday, I turned 20 years old so my companion and I made another cake! 

Well that's about it for the week! I hope that everybody has a Happy New Year!! Thanks for everything! Talk to you guys next week. Oh yeah we found this lizard in out house..

Much Love, 
Elder Nickerson

FELIZ. NATAL. SKYPE.

Hey Everybody!!

I don't have much time today, But this past week went really well. We ended up going to Salvador for our Christmas meeting and it was really good. Here in our area they ended up taking out two elders, so now only me and my companion are in the house and our area doubled in size.  So now we have plenty of work to do. 

This week I was also able to talk to my family!  It is such a great Christmas present to be able to see their faces and spend an hour with them.  I can't believe I will only have one more time talking to them before I am home.  9 months is going to go by pretty fast.  It already feels bitter sweet.  I am grown to love this area and the love the people here.  But more than that I love the Lord and the gospel.  I wouldn't change this experience for anything in the world.  I am grateful I still have 9 more months to serve the Lord and the wonderful people here.

This week I was able to make myself a birthday cake and a cheesecake.  It was great to have American food and to share it with my companion.  Sunday is my birthday and I have one more cake to make.  I was able to receive some Christmas packages from my mom.  It is always nice getting a little something from home, especially in the month that is Christmas and my birthday.  

On Christmas morning I was able to Skype with my family and there is nothing better than that.  It is something that all missionaries really look forward to.  It builds up and builds up.  It is always hard saying goodbye, but it means I am one step closer to the finish line. Some members in the ward had a nice Sunday lunch for us.  It is great to celebrate the birth of our Savior and all that he did for us.  

I am so grateful for the gospel in my life. I am so grateful for eternal families and that I was able to spend some time talking to my mine this Christmas. I am so lucky to have the family I do and I am so grateful for all their love and support. They sure made this Christmas special for me.


I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!  

Love,
Elder Nickerson

CHEGOU.

Hey everybody!!

Well, it has been a good week.

First off our fridge finally arrived after 4 or 5 weeks without a fridge.... but the store sent the wrong one!!!  Inside our house is 220 and the fridge is only 110. The store won't exchange it. So we have to buy a converter.

This week we were able to baptize José, my companion's first baptism. He was excited!!! And so was I. I also made pancakes and hash browns this week.   They didn't turn out how my mom cooks them, but it was good to taste a little food from home!

I can't believe that Christmas is already arriving here. I'm excited to be able to Skype home. Next Monday we won't be able to email home because the mission moved our P-Day to Christmas day. So it will be a little different next week but it will be good.

Well, that's about it for the week. Tonight we are heading to Salvador and will travel on a bus all night to arrive there tomorrow morning.  We have transfers and our Christmas Conference. My companion and I will stay one more transfer together.

Well, I hope that everything is well with you guys. If I can't send another email before Christmas, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Feliz Natal para todos e feliz ano novo. Tchau até o proximo. (Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year. Bye till next time.)

Remember the true meaning of Christmas. Talk to you guys later bye!

Love,

Elder Nickerson

BANANAS. HE. ATE. THEM. ALL.

Hey Everybody!!

Well, I didn't think it could keep getting hotter but it does! This week has been good. When we wake up in the mornings it's 85 or 90 degrees at 6:30 in the morning and at lunch time it's 100 degrees in our apartment.

It hasn't rained since I got here and the river in the middle of the city is drying up!! One day I put my thermometer in the sun and it hit 130 degrees!!

This week has went really fast!! We received new cards that we give to people and it has a site to watch a video that talks of Jesus Christ. (natal.mormon.org) Here is the site if you guys want to watch it...haha, it's in Portuguese so not sure if you guys will understand it, buts it's cool.

Makes us remember our Savior and what he did for each of us! And because of him, what we can become and that we can live forever with our families.

I sure am grateful for this and what he did for each of us! This week we were able to put some baptism dates on a few people and they accepted and one has it for this Saturday so I hope everything works out!!

A family here also gave us bananas and mangos, they are really good. One day when we were walking home with the bananas a guy that stays on the street asked us for a few bananas so we gave him around 10. Haha and the next day we were walking where we gave him the bananas ha and there were a ton of banana peels on the ground.  He ate them all!!

Well that's about it for the week. This month is flying past.  I can't believe it's almost Christmas!!!!

I hope all is well with you guys, talk to you guys soon.

Love,
Elder Nickerson

https://www.mormon.org/Christmas

https://www.lds.org/topics/christmas?lang=eng

HOTTER. EVERY. DAY.

Well, this week has went well.  My companion and I have been very blessed and have found many people to teach.

This past Sunday was Stake Conference and we were able to have a couple family discussions and two of them accepted baptism dates. I hope they keep progressing!!

I am really enjoying this new area!! Summer here is still just starting and it just keeps getting hotter and hotter. We have been without a fridge for 2 weeks now but it should arrive either today or tomorrow, so we are excited for a new fridge!

We have been getting cold water from our neighbor!!

That's about it for the week. Hope all is going well with you guys. Talk to you guys later. Bye

Love, Elder Nickerson

Good advice then. Good advice now.

 

This is a wonderful time to be living here on earth. Our opportunities are limitless. While there are some things wrong in the world today, there are many things right, such as teachers who teach, ministers who minister, marriages that make it, parents who sacrifice, and friends who help.

 

We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues.

RIGHT. PLACE. RIGHT. TIME.

Well everybody, this week has been good.

We have been able to find 11 new people to teach and 2 families to teach, so we have been very blessed to have found all these people.

Yesterday, we taught The Plan of Salvation to a family and I felt the Spirit really strong.  After we got done, he said, I always thought and knew that our lives just didn't here, and that there has to be life after death! It is was really cool to be able to talk with him and teach him what we know.

Our area here in Petrolina is very very hot night and day. The temperature never goes hardly under 90 degrees. The other morning it was 104 degrees before lunch time, haha, it gets very hot here. The city hasn't had rain for a long time and the river that runs in the city is starting to go dry.  I hope we get some rain here soon.

Yesterday, we went on a split with a member and when we were finished we sat outside his apartment and talked for a minute.  While we were talking, we heard a girl yelling and we looked up and there were two guys on a bike trying to rob her. They were pulling her hair and yanking her bag. So we took of running to help her and when they saw us coming they jumped on the bike and took off. They ended up stealing her flip flops, but that was it. I know we were  suppose to be there at that moment to help her.

I can't believe how fast time is going here in the field. I'm grateful to be a missionary and help our Savior. Well that's about it for the week. I hope all is well with you guys. Talk to you guys later.

Com Amor,

Èlder Nickerson

 

 

PETROLINA.

Hey everybody!

Well, a lot has happened this week. I ended up getting transferred to a city called Petrolina. It is about 7 or 8 hours from Salvador. We caught an oni-bus and spent the night traveling. I also ended up getting my new companion, Elder Saldanha, he is from Rio Grande do Sul, and from the city of Santa Maria. He has just under 3 weeks in the mission, so I will be training him here. 

We are both new in our area so we have to open it.  The last elders that were here didn't write any addresses of people or anything, so we have to start with all new contacts.  We have been making a ton of contacts trying to find some people to teach. 

Here in Petrolina it is hottest part of our mission and this time of year is the hottest here in Brasil. At 10:00 in the morning last week it was already 95 degrees inside the house.  And at night time it doesn't hardly cool down. It is very hot here.  No words to describe how hot it is. It reminds me of the sand dunes. There is a lot of sand here. 

Petrolina is no longer part of the Bahia, we are now in a different state.There are a lot of people here lighter skinned. And there is a lot of wealthy people. The city is also a lot cleaner then the other cities I have been through.  

There is also a chapel here and a lot of youth and returned missionaries that like to help the missionaries. So I'm excited I get to be here! 

Well, that's about it for the week. Time is passing faster and faster here in the field. I'm grateful to be a missionary for our Savior and help people have the gospel in their lives. I hope all is well with you guys. Thanks for everything. Talk to you guys later bye.

Com Amor, 
Elder Nickerson!

TIME. TO. TRAIN.

Hey Everybody!

Well, today will be my last day here in Santo Amaro! I will be transferred tomorrow, as well as my companion will also leave.

I also found out that I will be training a new missionary from the CTM. Ha, I don't know if he will be American or Brazilian. Hope it all goes well.

This week went by really fast. It's going to be sad to leave this area, but exciting to get to know a new area.

Sorry, we don't have much time to write today, we have a lot of people to say goodbye to.

Hope all is well with you guys. Thanks for all the support and talk to you guys later.

This is a picture of our Branch President and his family.

Com Amor,

Elder Nickerson

 

Missionaries share one thing and one thing only - the gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Like Nephi, "We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins" (2 Nephi 25:26).

It may seem strange to focus so much of our lives on Jesus Christ, but the wisdom of the gospel applies to everything from the purpose of life to how we approach our work, how we relate to others, even how we take care of our bodies.

The teachings of Jesus Christ have more power to bring lasting happiness than all the success and pleasure the world can offer. Every message Mormon missionaries share revolves around Him and how His Atonement and ordinances allow us to return to live with our Father in Heaven and our families in heaven.

GRATEFUL. TO. BE. A. MISSIONARY.

We just got back from the beach. It was really cool but really really hot. 

This week has been good for us here. I hope that everybody had a Happy Halloween. 

This week has been kinda crazy!  One day this week my companion and I left our house and had a group of people a few houses down from our house gathered together. I guess our neighbor lived alone and she died and ended up staying in her house for 3 or 4 days dead. When we were walking by, they were putting her body in the truck and she was really over-weight, so we ended up helping lift her in the truck.  It was weird to see a body that went rotten. It stunk so bad. I felt bad for her. There was also a guy in shock, I think from seeing her. It was kinda a crazy experience. 

This week we were able to find a few new people to teach and they accepted baptism dates. That is always cool. This is the last week in the transfer here and I have been here for 5 transfers, so I think I have a pretty high chance that I will get transferred. 

That's about it for the week. It's crazy time keeps passing faster and faster. I sure am grateful for the chance I have to be a missionary. I hope you guys are all well. Talk to you guys later.

Much Love, Elder Nickerson

JOHNNY. HE'S. ON. THE. WALL.

Hey Everybody!!  

Well this has been a good week.

First off we had a meeting in Feira De Santana and we got to listen to Elder Jairo Mazzagardi from the Quorum of the Seventy. It was really good. I really enjoyed what he taught us. He talked to me a little and he knew a lot of cities and places in Idaho.

We were also able to get our mail and I got some things from my family, haha, and I got this fake deer head to put on the wall, it's funny!!  

Today we don't have much time. We are going to another city to have a p day with our zone, so we will be leaving here soon. 

That's about it for the week. We have some investorgators that are doing well and keep progressing, so hopefully soon we can baptise them. 

The weather here is still getting hotter, summer is arriving. 

This picture is a coconut that I got and had to cut the outside to get the coconut out. 

Well talk to you guys later. I'm grateful to be here and spread the gospel. Hope all is well with you guys. Thanks for all. 

Love, Elder Nickerson

Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all they foes - D&C 121:7-8

ONE. OF. THEM. WAS. HOLDING. A. PISTOL.

Well this week has been good! 

This past week we ended up doing a split with our zone leaders and I ended up going to a city called Feira de Santana.  We spent the day working there. It was cool to work in another city. 

We had kind of a cool experience while I was there. We were heading to our last appointment of the day, and we were heading down this street that didn't have much activity of people.  My companion and I were talking and we heard something weird and out of the trees and bushes two guys appeared.  One of them was holding a pistol and they told us to give them our money, cell phones, everything we had....

So we started to give them our things while we talked to them and told them that, "We are missionaries of the Church" and when they saw that we were missionaries and didn't have much money, they both looked at each other, and they gave us everything back but 4 reis. 

Before they left from us we gave them cards with a picture of Jesus Christ and invited them to go to church haha. I sure am glad that Heavenly Father watches over and protects us each and every day.

This past week we were able to put 4 baptisms dates on our investigators, so I hope they keep progressing. This is a picture of a big grasshopper that we found in our house and one of our investigators and a family that are members here in Santo Amaro. Well that's about it for the week. 

Sorry don't have much more time, hope all is well with you guys.

Talk to you next week. Love Elder Nickerson

EXTRAORDINARY. ROLE. OF. CHRIST.

Well, this week flew by. The weeks always fly by now.

Today we woke up at 5:30 and rode bicycles to a waterfall here close to Santo Amaro. It was fun!!! It was great to do something different.

Today is a holiday for all the kids here in Brasil and there were a lot of people. We didn't stay very long at the waterfall.

This week has been good for us. We have a few people getting closer to baptism.   I hope they keep progressing. Not a lot has happened this week.  We have just put our heads down and went to work. 

I hope that everybody had a good week. Talk to you guys later.

Much Love,
Elder Nickerson

"The more we understand the extraordinary role of Christ in our lives, the more conscious we become of our purpose."