While in his third year of law school, Mr. Nielson, who was already fluent in Spanish, decided to learn Portuguese. He enrolled in night classes, and when an internship opportunity in São Paulo arose a few months later, he leapt on it.
“Then, while I was here, I started looking for jobs and made some contacts,” he said. A year later, in May 2018, he returned to the city as a legal associate, and has been in Brazil ever since.
For the couple’s first proper date, Mr. Nielson suggested a museum outing. “I didn’t want to do something that would be perceived as boring,” he said. “But I also know she’s sort of a homebody and prefers staying in, so I said, if you don’t find it to be too boring, we could just watch a movie and order food, and she just said, ‘Well, people think that’s boring, but I don’t care.’”
“It wasn’t really the first date,” he added. “It was at least the 10th, or whatever.”
On Nov. 6, the couple was married at a public notary office in São Paulo, and later, had a celebration of their marriage, with a blessing from Ms. Almeida’s father, who is a bishop in São Paulo of the Latter-day Saints church. In December, the couple plan a reception in Salt Lake City near Bountiful, Utah, where Mr. Nielson’s family lives.
Just a few weeks after the couple’s romance commenced, Ms. Almeida blurted out her feelings to Mr. Nielson. “We went to get ice cream, and we were talking about how he decided to study law, and he was also talking about his family and what his family meant to him, and I just realized that I was in love with him,” she said. “And then I told him that at the end of our date, and he was shocked.”
“I was pretty surprised and taken aback, because of how soon it was, but I thought about it for a split second, and then said it back,” he said. “Now she always reminds me that she loved me first. But I’m like, ‘You’re like one second ahead. Congratulations!’”