The Zone!!!

On Sunday morning right as we started picking up our investigators for church, we get a phone call from President del Guerso. After a little talk, he gave me my new assignment. I´m now the new Traveling Assistant to the President (slash) Referral Secretary. Which means I´m now gonna be working in the mission office!!! Totally threw me off about what was gonna happen with transfers.

I know I´ll be an AP, but also a Secretary, so i don´t know how it´ll all work. I have 4 transfers left, so there´s a good chance I´ll die in the office. Or, I´m hoping I can open an area and train for my last transfer. And Elder T.  is staying as Zone Leader and getting a Brazilian companion. Because Transfer Meeting is tomorrow, and all the new greenies show up that day, President asked me to report this afternoon to start working. So I hardly had any time to say anyone goodbye in the ward. I took advantage of it being Fast Sunday and announced it to the ward. It´s really hard saying goodbye. I´m still not used to it, even though I´ve gone through 6 areas and 14 companions already. It was probably the toughest ward I´ve served in so far. Even the members were flaking out in callings and going to church. But even though I didn´t have one baptism in Perdizes, we worked our tails off, fortifying the members and not giving up hope. 

Our zone had a lot of changes too. We only have 5 companionships in it, and now 3 of them will be training brand-new missionaries. It´ll be good to get some fresh blood in it. 

I think that means my P-day will be changing to Saturdays now that I´m a Secretary. I guess I´ll get the full ^Orientation Course^ this afternoon. But I´m pretty stoked. My companion will be Elder V, Chilean, and I know him pretty well already after him being my zone leader once. He´s an awesome missionary and has a heart of gold, and he´ll teach me a ton. And it´ll be good working closer to President.

I think I have some weird curse in Brazil. Every time I leave an area, almost immediately all the investigators I was teaching decide to get baptized. It happened in Ipe, Macedonia, and now in Perdizes it´s gonna happen again. I remember that after I left Macedonia, the Elders baptized for 3 weeks straight - ALL that I started teaching! haha We´ve got a baptism marked for this weekend! Isabelly has 9 years old and she´s ready to take the plunge. We´ve been working hard with her mom Juliana, but she´s got some major problems with drugs and chastity, so we´ve gotta push it back a bit. 

A family I grew to love!

A hamburger another member made for us last night

And we´re still teaching the Paraguayan family - in Spanish. Well, more like Elder T.  tea  ches and I bear testimony haha. And they understood me! We had so many people to pick up to bring to Church that we had so go on splits with our members to cover it all. We brought 5 people to church - 3 families! They all loved it. Romina is set for the 21st, Isabelly is this weekend, and we´ve been getting some great potentials from knocking doors (in Spanish). It´s good hard work, and it´s totally worth it. Looks like I´m the unofficial John the Baptist of the mission - crying repentance and preparing the way for someone to baptize with water and fire kind of a thing. 

Hope everyone has a great week. New transfers, new semesters, all good new starts. Give it all you got and love it. 

Church is true. Heavenly Father answers prayers.   Love Elder Nissinen

We´ve been getting some crazy cool lightning storms at night. I tried getting some quick-snap shots - turned out pretty legit.

La Curcaracha,

Well it´s day 7 in the field of battle against these darn cockroaches. After going on an all-out shopping spree with anything with a anti-cockroach sign on it, they went running! I think with one more week of warfare we´ll be completely free. 

This last week we were tracting in a little town in our area that has a lot of hispanics in it. Elder T. has been liking working there a lot. It´s also a more humble part of the area, so we´ve been having more success in getting in doors. We talked with a lady who didn´t really want much, and as we left, her neighbor yelled out to us and asked if we were Mormons. Her name is Romina, and she´s from Paraguay. Her mom had just arrived here this same week, and she was baptized just 9 months ago. The daughter Romina hasn´t been baptized yet. And get this: her brother is serving a mission in Uruguay. The family is awesome and lives with a bunch of people who want to know more too. The only problem: No one knows how to speak Portguese fluently. Sooooo.....I´ve been scratching my head a lot during these lessons trying to remember thing one from high school spanish classes. It´s like being a Greenie - for the third time! haha But we passed by Sunday morning to take them to church, and they were all ready to go! Our ward has a lot of Hispanics, so they were well-fellowshipped and loved it! During Sacrament Meeting, Romina asked me ^So when I get baptized?^ YES! 

We´re also working really hard with Juliana and Isabelly, the mom and daughter I wrote about last week. Only Isabelly went to church yesterday, and Juliana has been having some struggles getting away permenantly from her past life on the streets. The ward is still working really hard too with us on this family. If we can get the mom especially converted, it´ll make all the difference for the rest of the family. 

Saturday morning we had a service project with one of our investigators Adriano. His wife asked him to mount their TV onto the wall, plus move some other things on their wall around so it´d be all symetrical and perfectly-measured. It took us 3 hours to get it done, most of the time thinking between the three of us how we´d get it done, and I was honestly surprised how it turned out. We only had a tape measure and a cheesy power drill to work with! hahaha No level, no real straight-edge, nothin. And it passed the wife´s inspection, even better. I think Papa will be hiring me real soon haha

This is the last week of transfers. We find out Sunday night about what´s gonna go down in the zone. I have no clue what´s gonna happen, but we´ll just keep workin, workin, workin. I don´t know if this is a sin, maybe it is, but I definitely have pride in being a member of this Church. It´s totally true. We just need some more people to know about it! 

Love you all! I keep praying for you all everyday!

Love Elder Nissinen

I declare WAR!!!



All right. So we got into our apartment last night at 9:30. Turned on the lights and....about 5 or 7 or so COCKROACHES went scrambling for shelter. We´ve been having a little bug problem in our apartment as of late. No idea why. Our apartment is clean and we don´t have any food out. But the adrenaline went pumping and immediately the Hush Puppies shoes went to work smashing sending all those critters to the farest corners of Outer Darkness. Then when the smoke cleared I grabbed our RAID anti-bug spray can and went to work. This means WAR! I´m also making a special trip to the grocery store to load up on all the artillery I can get. This apartment ain´t big enough for more than us two.

 Maybe I´ve been studying too much of Captain Moroni?

 Down to the more nitty-gritty. Elder T. and I set a goal to baptize every week in February. Over the last couple weeks we´ve been doing more street contacts, and because of that we´ve seen a lot of success from it. More of our own investigators have been progressing towards getting baptized or getting dropped, and we had 6 investigators at church - just from our own companionship! A bunch of old investigators we had taught in December but were traveling have come back. So right now the real deal in Perdizes is February.

 It started off Wednesday. There´s a recent-convert family in the ward that has been going through some financial problems. There´s no men in the house, just the grandmother, her daughter, and 7 grandchildren. Not all have been baptized yet, but the ward has really focused on that family. On New Year´s Day, the daughter had another baby. And because of the financial situation, the Bishop and other members have been bringing the whole Johnson&Johnson aisle to help out. Another detail: the mom and one of the daughters aren´t baptized. Juliana and Isabelly are their names. Juliana´s been BEGGING us to come teach her and baptize her. Sooooooo, we went over Wednesday and marked them for baptism on the 7th! Great way to start our solid weekly-baptizing goal. We had two members come by with their cars and loaded up the whole family to come to church. They looked so happy! The whole ward´s been doing great with them.

 Speaking of Church, we had a great 3 hours yesterday. I wasn´t sure how it´d go when the bishop called us at 8:30 asking me to give a 10 minute talk (you know I´m not a big fan of on-the-spot), so I basically let the Spirit take care of this one. All the classes were taught by Returned Missionaries, and man you could see the Spirit goin to work on our investigators. Btw, the Lord needs more RMs!!!! The Bishop had also asked a Sister missionary in our ward to give a talk too. She went up first with a prepared talk and started talking about missionary work, how the members needed to help more, responsibility, etc. I didn´t see a lot of people paying attention. When it was my turn I felt impressed to talk about the sacrament and sacrifices. Basically I was just bearing my testimony. I felt really good about it, and basically thanked the members for being in the right place. I got a lot of compliments afterward. The Sister missionary looked a little ticked haha

 We got some good things comin. Interviews with President were chill. Because of some logistics in the zone, there´s a good chance I´ll be staying for one more transfer here. I´m hoping so, so I can stick around for our February streak.

 Well I hope it´s been a good week for you all. Great emails today from everyone. Too bad the Ducks are out. Last night I passed by a member´s house and he was watching the Seahawks game in portuguese. Turns out some people are really into it. You guys are awesome. Keep up the hard work, and I´ll keep praying for you all. Heavenly Father always hears our prayers and it always willing and wanting to forgive us. We all need it.

> Love Elder Nissinen

Happy Pday!! Feelin like a new Elder with a shorter haircut. We´ve been baking all week, but thanks to good ol Banana Boat I´m still unburnt and even whiter under the collar. Plus we´ve been chugging water like crazy! I thought I learned to love water after Soccer Condicioning Camp, but here there´s no way to go without it! I´m also on the lookout for the Brazilian-version of Otter Pops. If you think they´re cheap at home, it´s pocket change here - sounds like it´s for a Mormon Elder haha

We had a good week. Elder T. and I got some crazy rage where we just went out and contacted everyone we could on the streets. We even went into a few sketchy invaded apartments to knock doors haha. We didn´t have much luck, but we´re pretty happy with the work we´re doing. 

We´ve also been going into different parts of the area that I´ve rarely stepped in. Our area´s so big haha. We´ve got a part of town that´s 99 percent Bolivians and Peruans, sooooooo we´ve been working Elder T´s Spanish to contact and teach some lessons. I feel so gringo during those lessons haha. Kinda like a mental nightmare of Mrs. Paisley´s Spanish class - but who knew I´d actually use it in Brazil?! We have another part of town that´s mostly Japanese......we´re fresh out of Japanese-speakers......oh well. 

Adriano unfortanately cancelled our lesson we were gonna have, but him and his wife came to church yesterday, and we´ve got a firm appointment with them tomorrow. We´re planning on bringing in the big guns. Yeah you know you always wish things would go a little better, but we can´t be too hard on ourselves. We´re working hard. We´re being obedient. Some of the biggest blessings I´m seeing is what´s happening with you guys. A lot of missionaries I know don´t have a really good family life.

Interviews with President are this week too. I´m getting ready for another Well do you have any problems? Are you obedient? Your family´s good? Good? Onto the people who aren´t hahaha 

And we´ve got one special incident that just might help us baptize this month. Frank. He got baptized just over 3 months ago right before I got in the area. He never got confirmed. The Sunday after his baptism was General Conference, and the only other time he went to church was Stake Conference. And I think the church has a policy that if someone´s not confirmed within 3 months, he´s gotta be rebaptized. Not sure how that all works. I don´t even know what you call him! A recently-baptized-new-investigating-convert? Plus we weren´t able to get ahold of him in the past because of the holidays and he´s only home late at night, and our nights are always packed. We´ll see what the APs have to say about our mysterious box here.

Thanks for the emails, GO DUCKS!!!! There´s another Oregonian in my mission and he got super trunky after I told him the Ducks were going to the BCS Championship haha. I´ll keep rootin for them! Congrats on all the archery, pingpong, piano, and school victories. You guys are awesome! Dad maybe you can have Mom do some of that Voodoo foot-rubbing stuff to help get that bug out haha. I´m glad the letters got to ya. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Nissinen  

Hey guys! 2014 is in the dust, and 2015 is gonna be great! There´s a lot of things I´ve learned in this past year. A lot of experiences I´ve never had before my mission that Heavenly Father is giving me so I can grow. And I´m seeing that the harder and happier I work, God still has a lot for me to learn. Because things were pretty slow this week in our area (practically a ghosttown), I had more time to think and do some reflecting. 

Fireworks from out appartment

So the go-to spot for people living in Sao Paulo during the holidays is the beach. EVERYONE goes to the beach. So I bet (or better, hope) the missionaries on the coast were doing some major contacting to pass off all the people that crowded the sand. Our numbers were really low (and with our area being not one of the easiest, even lower), and throughout the whole week everywhere we walked it looked like a Sunday morning going to church - dead silent haha. I think even the crazy pigeons did some migrating. But everyone´s back in town. School´s still out but all the adults are dreading having to go back to work. 

President did a crazy thing this last week that he´s letting everyone today watch the movie Malificent (the one with Angelina Jolie). Out of all movies.....haha I think Pres has got something up his sleeve with this one. But who can complain - it´s a movie! We hooked it up with some members, and today at noon we´re gonna have lunch and watch it on their big TV. Suh-Weet! Some rockin benefits when you´re in a richer area haha. From what we heard it´s pretty good. 

Elder T. and I playing some serious UNO!

Our New Year´s Eve was pretty chill too. People were already drinking and lightin off fireworks after lunch, so we tried visiting the few people that were home and contacting the few that weren´t drunk. Then we went to a member´s house who gave us dinner and we played UNO for a few hours with one of their sons. It got intense! Then we had to be home at 10:30 President´s orders, and we stayed up till midnight to check out all the fireworks from our apartment window. People were lighting off mortors from nearly every street corner we could see. I attached some pictures, but just imagine all the little white dots are those big fireworks. And they were CLOSE! Pretty funny to see everyone go nuts for the New Years - people dancing and singing from their apartment windows. And what happens the next day is even worse (for missionaries): everyone sleeps the whole day. I love the holidays  but I´m kinda glad they´re over so we can get back to work. 

Someone you guys should pray for this week: Adriano. He´s a husband of a member who´s been coming to church the last 3 weeks - and they´re legally married! We started teaching last week and he looks like a pretty solid soon-to-be convert. But he needs our prayers! He´s one of the most solid investigators we´ve got, plus Ramiro and Natalya are going to work out their documents this week so they can get married. 

Elder T. is at the back of the bus.

We´ve been fighting the trunky-ness in our zone the last couple weeks with the holidays. And we´ll see what Pres has to say about it on Wednesday with our Leadership council.  Most are missing home, and one or two in our small zone are going home in less than 3 months. I feel like I play the mediator between the mission leaders that push for numbers and the leaders that help the missionaries progress.   Honestly the only time I think about home is when I´m not busy. And you know that I always like to be busy with something. There´s a lot of people who depend and look up to me, and with these last 6 months or so there´s no room to be trunky or lazy. I pretty much just wanna burn out the rest of my mission by working hard and having fun serving other people. For me that´ll be my measure of success

Chocolate filled pizza crust!  Oh Yeah!!

I love you all a lot. GO DUCKS! Good luck on the first day back at school. Don´t worry. The Book of Mormon IS true. I challenged a deacon in my ward (who hasn´t read it all through yet) to see who can finish it first. And he´s already ahead of me haha.

Have a good week

Elder Nissinen 

My awesome Christmas package!!!

Man it´s hot here!!! I don´t know what kicked in after Christmas, but sheesh it´s been a constant sweat nonstop. There´s days I walk into the apartment thinking I lost at least 3 pounds in pure sweat. Luckily we´ve got a cycle of cold water we get from our fridge that we´re chugging. But man it´s hot! haha

Sorry again for not letting yáll know sooner about our Temple Trip. We found out  morning, but hopefully you got an email from one of the members in our ward. Today was a really good day in the temple. It was a good time to just think about how 2014 went, how do I want to make the most of 2015. The Church is totally true.

It was awesome chatting with all you guys on Christmas. No lags or slow internet. The only complaint was that the 40 minutes went by way fast. And you guys have all grown a ton! I didn´t even recognize Joe´s voice. If he keeps growing, he´ll blaze by us both B! 

Christmas in Brazil was a blast. My favorite member families all invited us over on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and since we´re in a well-to-do area, we got some sweet stuff. After Ninnie´s and some other people´s presents, I´m well-stocked on soap, deodorant, toothbrushes, and floss haha. A member gave us each a speaker in a Guaraná soda can. Thank you guys for the awesome gifts.

In terms of proselyting this week, things were pretty slow. No one stays around for the holidays in this part of Sao Paulo, unless they don´t have family, money, or they have to work. A lot of our members are out of town too until next week. But we worked well with those who did stick around, and we got a family marked for baptism who also went to Church! Their names are Pedro, Dioneira, and Andreia. They called the Church to get a Christmas DVD, we got the text message, and they´re stoked about the gospel. January is already looking pretty wet with our baptisms.

Remember when we had to go through all that headache to get my visa papers legalized, registered, notorized, etc.? Well turns out the government in Brazil gives that same kind of headache. We´ve been working with Ramiro and Natalya (the couple we took to the temple and want to get married), and after we took them to the Register Office, turns out the documents Ramiro has aren´t ^legalized^ enough. He´s from Bolivia, so after running around a bunch of government buildings this last week, we didn´t have a lot of luck. He may have to request some documents from Bolivia and have the Consulate people take a look at them before we can get a date set. But Ramiro and Natalya are super cool! After all the headache they took us out for pizza! It´s just a waiting game for us. 

After the Storm...

I haven´t had the best luck with umbrellas in Brazil. In two days I broke two, both of them that members let me borrow. I know I have the poncho we bought at Remingtons, but whenever I even try it on, I look like Batman or some Destroying Angel. People are already freaked out enough when some gringo goes up to do a street contact. Anyways, we took an unexpected ^bath^ one day coming home. We were SOAKED!!! Like EVERYTHING!! And Brazil´s irrigation runs right into the streets like big fat rivers. Elder T. and I tried avoiding it all and hopping between the high ground as best we could, but it didn´t even matter after 5 minutes haha. 

Well those are some of our adventures this past week. Working and Singin in the Rain and Sweat. Happy 2015!!! The Church is true!!! 

Love Elder Nissinen

My Precioussssssss Panettone!  The best baked good in Brazil!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! WOOHOOO It´s almost here! 

So I didn´t know this, but there are a few things that are different about how Brazilians celebrate Christmas than how we do things in the States. First, is that Christmas Eve is just a big of a party (if not bigger) as Christmas Day. So we got invited to a member´s house for Wendesday night. Lots of Panettonne :) Another thing is that Santa Claus doesn´t put the presents under the tree or by the fireplace. In Brazil he puts them on the foot of the kids´ beds! Imagine Saint Nick creepin in every kids´ bedroom! I remember that Santa at home always locked all the kids´ bedroom doors so they couldn´t find their presents until after Mom and Dad woke up haha. 

We´ll be spending Christmas Day with a family for lunch and Skype. The father is actually American (born in Portland OR), served a mission in Brazil, and came back and married a Brazilian. I´m guessing it´ll be around 3-4 my time (I think that´s around 9-10-in Oregon). Should be good! 

A lot of things to tell you guys today, since last Monday I hardly knew anything about how transfers were gonna go down, who´s my new companion, etc. Wednesday was the Mission Chritsmas Party, and it was a BLAST!! All 192 missionaries got together in Ibiuna, one of the places most west in the mission, and probably one of the most rural. I got some pictures of it all - it was so GREEN! It´s like the jungle of Brazil kind of a thing. The Church owns a camp/park there. The President let us change into our pday clothes, play volleyball, soccer, football, whatever. We gave our little skits from each of the zones, and then...? The President announced what movie we were gonna watch......and it was.......not Frozen :( I think it was some movie about Maleficent?) But the presentations took longer than everyone thought, so we didn´t watch any movie anyways. Turns out Frozen will have to wait just a little longer. 

It was great catching up on old times with old companions and other mission buddies, getting some good sun (actually too much - my neck has been burnt since Wednesday haha). The last part before the busses took us back on the 2 hour trip to our areas was the Transfer. Elder O is now in Osasco, not too far from here, and I´ll still see him at Leadership meetings and stuff. We worked really well together. Thank you again for sending the money to buy Elder O his shoes. Tuesday night, and it was the only time I´ve ever seen him cry. They fit him perfect, and he chucked his old shoes that the holes had gotten so big that little gravel rocks were getting inside. I´ll miss him a lot. Between Sunday and Wednesday we were visiting all the members he made friends with, and he was really a friend to everyone. Great example to me. The funny thing is, the night before I opened my suitcase to double-check the size while Elder O was taking a shower. Then I got a phone call, talked for a minute, and went to bed, forgetting my suitcase was wide open with a bright-orange shoe box sticking out. When I woke up to do my pushups, I thought for sure he already saw it, but after he got out of the shower he was so tired that he went straight to bed - phew!! You should´ve seen his face! You could tell that he was questioning himself if it was real or a dream haha

You can see the floor through the bottom of his shoes.  

And now, my new companion is...........Elder T. ! Not American, Not Brazilian, he´s.....from Peru! He´s got just over a year on the mission, but he´s been in Brazil for 5 years now. He´s got a really cool story. His mother died when he was 19 (5 years ago), and his stepfather wasn´t treating him very good, so he packed up and moved to Manaus, Brazil - alone! Got a job working on Honda motorcycles, and made a living for himself there. Not too long after, the elders got in touch with him, he accepted the gospel, and waited for his Brazilian citizenship to get finished. He´s definitely a miracle-missionary, like definitely against all odds he wouldn´t be here. He´s a straight-forward and serious guy. Hard worker. We´ve been getting some good work done in the last couple days since he´s got here. 

I´m super pumped for Christmas! It´ll be great talking with you. Tell Ninnie I´m loving all the Christmas stuff she´s sent me, especially the 25 Missionary Stories I´m reading every day. 

I love you all!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!

Elder Nissinen

Good morning! 

So we got the phone call yesterday right in a middle of a lesson. And....I think this is the first time where I´ve actually called it right, but Elder O was transferred. But the Assistants are doing transfers different this time. We don´t know where Elder O´s going, who´s his new companion, who´s my new companion. Nada. But we´ll all find out Wednesday at the MISSION CHRISTMAS PARTY!!! 

The whole mission is stoked for it! It´s been in the works for a while now. It starts Wednesday morning at 6am where our zone gets picked up by a van on a 2 hour drive to where the party´s at. I promise I´ll get some good pics of all the activities and my mission buddies. The President asked us that we don´t schedule any appointments that day, so looks like there´s gonna be a lot of great stuff (maybe the movie Frozen?). Our zone organized an annonymous gift exchange between us. And we´re gonna be doing a Mini-mission-musical in front of the whole mission. Wish us luck!

This last week I went on an exchange where I stayed in the area and Elder O went out, which gave me the chance to be a sneaky Santa and check out the shoe stores in our area. Our area is located right in the smack middle of Sao Paulo, and we´ve got street fairs, fancy clothing stores, and even a few malls. The hardest part was looking for a pair that would last at least 8 more months. But we found them!! I haven´t given them yet to Elder O. The only place that I could hide them without him accidently finding them is my suitcase, and I´m planning on giving them to him tomorrow night. He´ll be so surprised!! I feel so much better giving than receiving, especially to someone who needs it.

We had an AWESOME experience this week with Ramiro and Natalya. They´ve been coming to Church every week and loving it. This Thursday we all drove to the Temple to show them around the garden and the Waiting Room. The traffic was rough, and we probably spent more time in the car than outside, but it was all worth it. We showed them around the inside as much as we could, and then we asked them as a couple to say a prayer together about them getting married. We watched them read the Proclomation on the Family, talking with their stepkids they brought. The best part was what they said afterwards: Our greatest goals are to get married, be baptized, and then get sealed in a year - in that order. BOOM!! We´ve got it marked on the calendar to go to the Registration Office to schedule their marriage in January. I´m hoping it´s gonna be something like when the Hicks in California got married and baptized on the same day. It´ll be so awesome. I love teaching families!!!! And I love Portuguese!!!

We´ve come to love the members and make some great friendships with them. They offer to give us rides home so we don´t have to spend more money on the bus, ask when they can do splits with us, and (despite our consistent refusal) command us to be the first ones to serve ourselves at meals. One Irmã wants our suits to be in tip-top shape for this Sunday´s Christmas program, so she´s paying to have our suits dry-cleaned this week. It´s super humbling and wonderful to be spending Christmas with so many loving people. 

Oh, before I forget, I´ll be finding out at what time the members can have me and my new comp over to Skype on Christmas Day. President is letting us talk for 40 minutes this year. 

Elder O has been like a Big Brother to me and a great friend. My first Brazilian comp too! He works a ton and plays hard too. We´ll be having one last round of ping pong to determine if the US or Brazil is better haha.

Love you all! Merry Christmas (I´m trying to say that as much as I can to everyone!), eat another Mickey Bar and use all your FastPasses. Tell Ninnie again THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for her Christmas package that I just started to open this last week. I Love it!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hi guys! You´ll all get this after you get off the ship, so I hope it was a great start to the vacation. 

We had a really good week ourselves. I´m pretty sure it was all because of our planning. Mission life is so much easier and more successful when you take just a few minutes to sit down, think about what you want to happen, talk about it, and then do it. Rather than run around the whole day doing street contacts. Missionary work is so much more than the numbers we report. 

Thursday we had a Mission Leadership Council. This time it was totally different. The President had 3 different sessions and divided the mission into the 3 divisions. We went into the Stake President´s council room and for 3 hours we talked about how each zone was doing, problems, concerns, ideas, and we discussed it all like a council. The small group council was a lot better than in the past. I don´t know why, but for some wacky reason I like meetings haha. In the council we changed some things that weren´t working out real well for us, like Exchanges that we were doing weekly.

Friday we got to have our first meeting with our new Ward Missionaries. They´re so pumped!! We gave a little training about our purpose as disciples of Christ, and by the end we had our calenders filled for next week with splits. One ward missionary gave us a ride home afterward, and he was handing out passalong cards to people on the street through his window! 

Oh, before I forget, since the end of the 6 week Transfer is the same week as Christmas, President moved the Transfer a week early. So, which means that this Sunday night we´ll find out who´s going and staying. Elder O's convinced that he´ll be leaving (he´s got more than 4 months in Perdizes), so he called the Assistants, begging them so he won´t be transferred. 

I don´t know what happened this weekend, but someone threw some spiritual gasoline and lit our area up - it´s a good thing! We had one lady come up to us and asked us to visit her nieces. We taught the whole family, and they´ve all committed to come to church this upcoming weekend. They look solid. Another guy came up to us and asked us where our church is, etc. We called him Saturday night to see if he was still going, and he said yes! We marked a meeting spot to show him the chapel, loved it all, and he´s hooked to know more. Do you remember Ramiro and Natalya? They´re the couple we met at Stake Conference that wanted to be baptized and married. We taught the Law of Chastity to them this weekend, and we marked Saturday morning to go to the Government place (forgot the name in english) to get their marriage all organized. AND we scheduled to take them on a tour of the Temple for this Thursday. OH, and one more miracle. We´ve been teaching this lady named Marcia. She wants to be baptized so much, but her husband´s in jail and they´re not married, so she´s been waiting until he gets released. ]Her two kids were invited by the Primary to go on a little Temple Trip of the garden and stuff. We had no idea this was happening. We visited them that same afternoon, and they said they LOVED the temple!!! Her 9 year old daughter said that she felt so good inside like she never wanted to leave. And the 7 year old son said that the fountain looked cool, the water was cold, and that the toy in his Happy Meal at McDonalds afterward was cool too haha. 

Time is going by crazy!! We´ve really seen a difference in this area. Before I got here, the members weren´t even giving the missionaries water if they passed by. Now we´ve got some great friendships with the members and they´re willing to help! 

The Church is True!

Have a supercalifragilisticexpialadocious week!

Love Elder Nissinen

Who needs turkey when you have the temple!

We got rain!! I know it´s a negative thing back in Oregon, but here it was a HUGE blessing. Makes me appreciate the buttload of rain we get at home. Got a cool story with the rain this week.

December? All ready? Doesn´t really feel like December without some ice or snow, instead of sunscreen and umbrellas, but we´ve got Ninnie´s door decoration in our apartment and 5 MoTab albums to bring the Christmas spirit in.

Well, this last Thanksgiving was THE most different I´ve ever experienced. We had a Multi=Zone Conference for most of the day. There were quite a few American senior couple missionaries that got up and bore their testimonies, thanking us on behalf of our families. Really powerful to see guys who served missions 40 plus years ago bear their testimonies on their love of Brasil and the people. What made our Thanksgiving Top was what happened after the conference. 

For about 4 weeks now Elder O and I have been planning a Temple Trip with some recent-converts. It started after we discovered that many of them, who´ve been members for over a year, had NEVER been to the Temple - and it´s 30 minutes away by bus! We got all the info about their ancestors, etc. Bishop interviewed them all. And we got some brothers to help bring everyone that night. We had at least 8 converts there for the first time!! And 17 names to baptize and confirm! If you want to see what the Spirit of Elijah looks like, you should´ve seen their faces! Elder O. and I were honored to be the baptizers that night. And what a workout too!! We easily did 100 names baptized and confirmed. The Spirit was so strong - and it was Elder O´s first time doing baptisms for the dead, ever! He got really excited to get his own family history done. I´m secretly wishing that someone in our family will go to Finland and get a bunch more records and stuff. So, who needs Turkey on Thanksgiving when you´ve got the Temple?

I went on a few exchanges this week. That was when it first started to rain. Hard. Elder W. and I booked it to a member´s house, who thought we were gonna die from pneumonia haha. So she had us dry all our clothes and drink a cup of homemade juice before heading back out. While in my area, Elder O.  stayed out in the rain doing street contacts and jumping in puddles. He´s really gonna need some new shoes after letting that water soak in his shoes - man it stinks haha

We found a cool investigator this week. Elena was in front of her aparment building with her toddler son when we decided to do a street contact like normal. For some reason we told her that she won´t be happy if she´s smoking. Later when we returned for an appointment, she told us that when she tried going up her stairs to her apartment, she could hardly breathe. She then tried smoking another cigarette, and she felt like throwing up. She hasn´t been smoking since, and we committed her to baptism for later this month. BOOM! 

You´re all gonna have a blast these next couple weeks on the cruise!! Have a great time!! If I had to choose between a cruise or staying on the mission for two weeks......well......hope I don´t offend yáll, but I´d definitely stay here :). There´s just too much work here than go on vacations! 

Thanks for the Barney Fife snippet Mom!! Love you all!

Load up on Mickey Ears and Roy Rogers, take lots of pics, and have a magical time!

Love Elder Nissinen

No no, I haven´t been contaminated. Elder C. is one of the Assistants to the President.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!! It kinda sucks that they don´t do anything in Brazil for it, but I think they save it for an even bigger Christmas. I´ve heard that Brazilians celebrate Christmas for two days (Eve and the actual Christmas). President del Guerso is planning something HUGE for the mission to celebrate. And I´ve heard a rumor that we may be watching the movie Frozen! Keep it on the DL though.

December starts next week (already!), and I´ve started rolling out the Christmas music and the whole ball of wax. And even better news, I GOT NINNIE´S PACKAGE!!!! Don´t worry, I´ve only opened the letters and I´ll wait till December 14th. I was so surprised and grateful that it came already. 

Elder O. and I decided that we´re gonna give Christ really good present this year, and we committed ourselves to baptizing 5 people in December. It´s gonna be a big challenge for sure, but the same day that we talked about it, we met a bunch of really interested people that the members introduced to us. We´ve got at least 3 quality families that we´ve started teaching! Hallelujah!

Getting back to the title of the email, I did my first exchange with an Assistant. They´re the Elders that are over the entire mission and work close with the President. Elder C. is the most craziest missionary I´ve ever met. When we walked out of our apartment onto the street, he yelled HALLELUJAH!! GLORY TO GOD!! and started doing street contacts. I wasn´t sure to laugh my head off or to be embarrased. And throughout the day things just got more hilarious. We knocked on two people´s door at the same time, and ended up telling one of them that we´d be back in 10 minutes after sharing a message with his neighbor. But his attitude is super contagious, and I was mostly laughing the whole exchange.

Stake Conference was this weekend - it was SOOOOOO AWESOME!!!! President Del Guerso spoke at each session, and invited us to the Priesthood Leadership session. The whole thing was on To The Rescue, Conversion, and Teaching. To be honest it was probably the best stake conference I´ve been to about missionary work. A random couple came in during the conference, and afterward came up to us and said they wanted to be taught, married, and baptized. AND they livein our area! BOOM! Elder O. doesn´t believe in Santa (he believes it´s all commercialized), but I think after seeing these miracles, he´s started to believe haha.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving this weekend! I´m so very very grateful for my family and the Gospel which has changed my life in more ways than I can count. I´m seeing so many blessings out here in the mission field that I should´ve been more grateful for back home, and I thank Heavenly Father for every day that I´m out here. I wouldn´t be anywhere else!

P.S. Elder O and I are doing good.  We´ve been working out the kinks in our companionship this last week. To let you in on a secret, I´m thinking of buying him a new pair of shoes for Christmas. His pair isn´t very good, and is already falling apart after 3 months. Can I use the $100 as my present to get him some?

Thank for you all that you all do. 

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey everyone!

Time has gone by super fast. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away (can´t believe it). Unfortunately Brazil doesn't  have that holiday. So they jump right to Christmas! It´s sunny, clear, and already the stores have Christmas decorations. Because the prices for presents gets jacked way high in December, we´ve got people already doing their Christmas shopping! In the middle of November!! Because of the paradise-y weather, the song Melekeliki Maka has been stuck in my head. I´ll have to check around if they´ve got a Portuguese version of that song...

Well, in response to last week´s meltdown, I took the time Wednesday morning to study a bit about stress and what the heck´s been going on in my head. At length I came to the conclusion: DON`T TRY TO CONTROL THE THINGS YOU CAN`T. I can´t force my investigators to be baptized, I can´t control the missionaries in my zone to be more obedient, neither can I be the Ward Mission Leader, Executive Secretary, and Bishop on top of all that at the same time. Phew. So, I took the day and we worked, worked, worked, and I had fun with it.

We´ve been doing some ^Spring Cleaning in our teaching pool too this last week. We started off the week with 15 groups of people (families, single investigators, etc.), and as of yesterday we´re down to 6. A lot dropped us for crazy reasons (Don´t want to pray because they know they´ll get an answer, They don´t want our money, or They´d rather be a model), so we´re gonna be syched and pumped for some good finding. We´ve been slacking on our street contacts, so we´re gonna have to put the Perdizes wagon in overdrive. 

Cool story this week. One of the investigators we have is Pereira, an old investigator that was dropped four years ago, but we started reteaching last week. He´s one of those older guys that you can´t help but love. He repeats everything he says at least 3 times, but it´s profound. Our first lesson with him was 3 hours long the previous week. On Thursday we asked him if he believed the Book of Mormon is true. He said he knew it was true from the beginning, but he asked God for a confirmation, that if two missionaries gave him another Book of Mormon, without asking, that he would have all surety that it is true. We gave him a Book on our first visit without knowing, and he told us that this last week. 

Sorry I don´t have any pictures this week. I´m looking for a good spot to take the Christmas Card picture Mom asked. When does she need it? Thank you for the hilarious Barney Fife snippet. I laughed right out loud, and I think Elder O.  thinks I´m crazy (along with the rest of my past companions haha). We´ll keep going, day by day, and I know the Lord will bless us with success. After some good reflection this last week, I decided to change the nickname of this area from Babylon to the Garden of Gethsemane for me. It´s been a hard but wonderful challenge.

I love you all very much. Congratulations B on the ACT score. Keep your head up. 

Love Elder Nissinen 

Hey Guys,

First lesson learned on last Pday (taken from one of Dad´s quotes): If you don´t do it, don´t do it. Learned that lesson pretty well when I had the crazy idea to cut my own hair. It wasn´t too too too bad, buuuuuut, two weeks is the difference between a good haircut and a bad one, right? I think in the space of two years, every Elder goes through at least one bad haircut haha.

Transfers have come in.......we´re both staying!!! I was relieved. We´re both stoked to stay, because we´re really hoping to see the fruits of our hard work after these last 6 weeks. This area has really been the Refiner´s fire for both of us. There´s many reasons God has His missionaries go out in two-by-two, especially that when you have those hard days, weeks, or months, you´re not alone in it. There´s a good amount of stress on the mission, that comes from just about every source you can think of. Saturday was one of those days. I had already started my fast that afternoon, I was tired, nothing was on-time that day, and we felt alone. We both had our own emotional breakdown. When we came home that night, I asked Elder Oliveira to give me a Preisthood Blessing of Comfort and Counsel. There´s a special feeling and power when you feel a Preisthood holder´s hands on your head, and I really felt the Spirit. In the end, I knew that everything that we´ve been going through has been helping and preparing us for the future.  We stay positive, selfless, happy, and obedient, and things will all work out soon. Thank you for your prayers. 

Love you tons,

Elder Nissinen

My package arrived!!!  Thanks Aunt Ninnie!!!

Hey guys! 

Let me just start off by saying that I´m still not used to this whole starting-a-fast-on- deal. After 18 years of having it , Brazil throws me a curveball hahaha. Actually I didn´t realize it was fast s until Preisthood Opening Exercises haha. I´m planning on making it up next Sunday. 

I love reading your guys´ letters! Winter already?!? We´re on the last week of transfers too, and the next one will run into Christmas. I´m really really hoping to stay with Elder O for at least one more. 

We had Mission Leadership Council this week too, and it was great talking with Elder M, Elder J, and Elder C. Turns out we´ll all be going home the same transfer! I sent a picture of us four. 

As for the English, we´ve been having a sort of competition with the Sisters that we split the ward with. One of them has been out for 11 months, and knows quite a bit of English. Elder O and I love to pull pranks on the Sisters. But this week this Sister came up to Elder O with a new phrase she learned that week: Go to Hell. What´s even funnier is that Elder O understood it perfectly without me having to translate. You would´ve had to have been there. I´ve been thinking of some real good sentences to teach my comp in revenge haha.

Yesterday I bore my testimony about courage in Sacrament Meeting. This last week I had a really good experience with that. one of our District Leaders had a baptismal interview for me to do. The lady was scheduled to be baptized for the next day, . Btw, I love doing interviews. It´s like seeing a person´s spiritual progress in a snapshot. We started it off with prayer, I got to know her briefly, and then starting asking her the questions. Soon I realized that this lady didn´t really have a testimony, but that she was ultimately being baptized for the two young men teaching her. She hadn´t read much of the Book of Mormon, none of it in the past two weeks, neither had she prayed about it. In a kind way I stopped the interview and explained to her that it´d be better for her to have a little more time to prep herself and grow her testimony. She didn´t have a problem with that, and she committed herself to study and pray more. After the interview I explained what had happened to the District Leader, with her not being able to be baptized that weekend. As we walked back to his apartment to trade back, he didn´t say a word to me. I shook it off, knowing that if I had passed her, she would´ve been baptized without a true testimony. I felt Heavenly Father was pleased.

I thought the incident would be over. Later that afternoon I get a phone call from President del Guerso. The District Leader had called him, complaining to him that she hadn´t passed. He asked me why I didn´t pass her. To be honest I was pretty nervous when I explained what happened. In the end he told me congratulations, and today in our weekly emails, President told me thank you that I didn´t pass her and that the Lord was proud of my trust in Him.

There are many times when our courage to stand for what´s right is tested. Heavenly Father has saved us for these times to when we need to show that courage. In this great war, we already know who´s gonna win. The real question is which side will we find ourselves fighting on when it´s over. 

Thank you for your wonderful examples. Stand firm. And even when blessings don´t appear in the way you hope, they come. Just hold on a little longer. There´s a lot of help and happiness ahead. 

I love you all. Have a great week!     Love Elder Nissinen