When you´re on assignment with the President, you EAT A TON!!! We went out 2 twice that day. I thought you´d like these pics Mom - it´s a 60´s diner full of Elvis and Marylin Monroe stuff, a jukeboxes and all that Happy Days kind of jazz.  

Good morning everyone! 

It´s great to hear that you all had a great week! It looks like summer is about to start back in Oregon, but here (and I rarely say this) it´s actually starting to get a little colder. This last week I was doing an exchange with the furthest zone in the mission - and there was a little fog in the morning! It´s still pretty bipolar - hot like heck one day and pouring the next.

But like Barney Fife says, "Andy, even high school kids don´t talk about the weather."

This week completely blew by - probably because I spent the least amount of time in my area than any other week on my mission. Seriously. But that was because President came by the office and told us that by the end of that week, all the District Leaders in 5 zones need to be trained. PLUS we had 6 zones that President hadn´t interviewed either. So basically how it went down was like this: Elder L. started traveling doing exchanges that same Monday, and didn´t come back till Thursday. Meanwhile I was with another Elder training 3 of the zones during interviews, and left Thursday morning to go on exchanges. Basically whoever wasn´t  doing interviews was on exchange with some district leader so we could get them all done by Saturday. What´s happening in the mission is that a lot of leaders are leaving within the next couple months, and a majority of the leadership will be gone by that time. BUT MAN AM I EXHAUSTED!!! I went to the areas that are mostly covered with trees and swamp - AMAZING!! 

Tuesday as we were going to our District Meeting, guess who I saw?!? MAX!! (I mean Elder M.) His mission was doing some activity at the temple (my area) and it was perfect timing! He´s doing great - we didn´t even try speaking English to each other, portuguese was just easier. Because of timing with our missions, we´ll be going home around the same time, maybe a week or two difference. 

Drum roll everyone...............ELDER CHRISTOFFERSON IS COMING TO OUR MISSION!!!! Out of all the missions in the area (9) our mission was chosen to have a devotional with an APOSTLE!! We´re praying really really hard that the protests won´t give any problems like they did last year with Elder Nelson. He´ll be spending a few days doing conferences, but mainly he´s here for a Religious Freedom discussion between several religions of the area. The whole mission is pumped! It´s gonna be next Friday, exactly 3 days after the transfer, so there´s quite a few missionaries that are ticked that they can´t stay. Oh well. 

This week should be a little more calmer (unless President drops the bomb again haha). We just have a big group leaving next week and a Training for the New missionaries. Other than that it´ll be all catch-up on last week´s work. 

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD, the Fantastic Four´s on a roll! We´ve got two baptisms lined up for this weekend. Fabiana and Felipe. Here´s their story: We found them contacting a referral for someone who doesn´t live anymore in the place. She´s 27 and a single-mother of 3 children - all with different fathers. Her kids are 8 years, 2 years, and 5 months old. She works as a receptionist, and lives close to her mom who helps when she can to take care. It´s a hard situation. She went to General Conference a few weeks ago and LOVED it. The next week a member swung by to pick up the family, they came, and the kids LOVED it (so the mom LOVED it even more - even the kids were talking about Jesus the rest of the way home). But, like always, the week before the baptism happens the worst. Saturday night the 2 year old got a really bad infection on his face, so Fabiana wasn´t able to go to church because she was watching her kid at the hospital. With all the stress going on, Fabiana too got sick with nausea and low blood pressure, so she ended up spending some time Sunday being cared for at the hospital. Yesterday I went on a quick split with Brother Francisco, First Counselor to the Bishop to see what was going on. We felt inspired to give the son a blessing. He was planned to stay in the hospital until Tuesday or Wednesday. That same day, the Relief Society President and two other sisters kept in touch and brought her some dinner. 

This is what we got this morning in a text: "Good morning Elders. Thanks to God and to you Vichenzo has been released. We just arrived home. Thank you so much for your blessing."

THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!!!! The movie Meet the Mormons is arriving in Brazil, and a member gave us a sneak peak of it last night - it looks so good!!! Yes, this is the true Church! 

I love you all! All of you sent awesome emails today - and you´ve grown a lot! Congrats on the Piano and Prom dates. And that video last week with the drone was awesome! 

Love Elder Nissinen

Hello folks!

We survived the first week of Interviews!!!! I never imagined how draining it would be to be giving 3-hour trainings twice a day! We´d been working hard on making it turn out well, even staying up a little to practice. How it´s been working is this: each zone is individually trained on the stuff President wants us to pass on. While we´re training, President takes each one and interviews for about 15-20 minutes, and there´s about 14 missionaries per zone. The hard part is timing everything so that when President gets done with a zone, we finish the training. This week I get to go to the farthest area in the mission - a small branch - where´s there´s pretty much nothing but jungle. SUH-WEET!

With balancing between training the mission and taking care of our area, this week was a little stressful. One of the two baptisms we had planned fell through, but we´re hoping she´ll be ready by the end of the month. Most days because of on-the-spot errands or meetings that we have, our study time is shot. It´s incredible how a little time in the scriptures a day can affect a lot. 

But it was all worth it after we had a BAPTISM!!! It was a complete fall-from-the-sky kind of investigator. She made contact with the Sisters in front of the Temple, already knew a little about the church, and easily accepted baptism and the Restoration! I think she even marked her own baptismal date hahaha. We had some good support from the ward, and yesterday she got confirmed. We´re gonna try to take her to the temple this week to get her started on her family history work. 

My first Brazilian Easter Egg

We also have another family that´s got great potential. Fabricia is a single-mom with three children, all of them with different fathers. So she´s been looking for something that is really there to help her family. She lives a little far from the church, especially with having an infant, so the members were great to help give her a ride. She felt a little hesitant in bringing her children, thinking that they´d be really roudy. But the best part was that she told us that on the way home, her ^roudy^ kids were talking about the Savior and all that they learned in Primary. She even asked us if they had this everyday! Her and her oldest (8 years old) are marked for the 25th to be baptized. 

Our burgers we made this week! 

Ever since General Conference, we´ve been feeling the work getting more challenging, even in the office. Remember that part in Andy Griffith when Barney Fife is Sheriff for the day and everything ends up going wrong - car accident, broken water pipes, etc - remember? It seems like everyday has its own set of broken water pipes between the whole mission. It´s a mental game for sure to keep things cool in the area, the office, the mission, and in your own head. 

But I´m so grateful that this church is true! And it is!

Have a great week!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hi there! 

So what´d yáll think of conference?!? I don´t know about you, but you can definitely hear their voices getting louder and louder, kinda like a big worldwide spiritual wakeup call. It´s kinda sad it being my last general conference as a missionary, and it´s kinda clear after about 10 separate talks on eternal marriage and families. I don´t think you´ll see very many people messing around on their phones during church too haha. But there´s no way to deny that they are prophets and apostles of God. All the sessions went by so fast. We were fortunate to have a room set up for just us 4 Americans in the zone to watch conference in English. It´s all live too, so it was between 1 and 3, then 5 to 7. Priesthood was shown at 9, but because of the time, we watched it the next morning from the office computers. I thought it was all super great! Personally Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, Elder Renlund, and Elder Eyering´s two talks hit home. The world is definitely in need of a lot more Christlike kindness. 

Thank you again for the birthday wishes! Saturday night while we were planning, I left our room to go grab a member list. I then saw two pizzas on the counter, and then all the missionaries in the office surprised me with a cake, box of chocolate, and a 3 liter bottle of glorious Coke. They totally surprised me. This morning I went and bought me a hollow chocolate egg as a little present.

This transfer the office staff has been having a contention problem. When new elders came in with the transfer, there were some hard feelings because of stuff done in the past between leaders, especially between the AP´s and the secretaries. President, one of the APs, and I talked and thought about it a lot this week. This AP and I stayed up one night until 1am discussing it. We decided to turn on the stress-release valve and get everyone on a super pday activity. Actually pday in the office is more of a myth because of the 179 missionaries that want their letters, packages, and supplies. So we decided to close the office and go to a public park that´s about a bus, subway, and train away (an hour). And what did we do? WE RODE BIKES!!! Man it was like California all over again! I almost ripped my pants because of the bike chain haha. Just imagine 7 elders in proselyting clothes on rented bikes! We got some great pics. It was a much-needed pday for all of us, and everyone was getting along great. President even gave us all money for lunch. 

We´ve also been seeing the first real fruits of our 4-way blitz. The Sister missionaries spend about 15 hours a week doing contacts in front of the temple and giving tours - kinda like the Sisters in Temple Square. This last week two of these contacts were GOLDEN! Monica and Nil. They´re both two older ladies who´re soaking in the church like a sponge! We met Nil Saturday between sessions of conference, and in 15 minutes she was ready to watch the last session. And she loved it! Both of them even set up their own baptisms, and hopefully this Sunday the 5th ward will have it´s first baptisms of the year. Thank you Heavenly Father!!!!! 

So what can I say? It was a pretty darn good week if you ask me. Tomorrow starts President´s interviews, so we´ll be traveling the mission giving trainings with President. 

THIS CHURCH IS TRUE - so STAY BY THE TREE!!!

Love you!

Elder Nissinen   

Good morning everyone! 

This last week has blown by so fast - the time in the office screams by, and with the 4 hours or so in proselyting, it goes even faster. And here we have another pday. Neither do I believe that I´m turning twenty this week...I don´t feel that old...

But thank you all for the birthday wishes and the in-tune audio clip haha. Both of my birthdays I´ve spent with the Apostles and Prophets - who else can say that? Plus it´ll be cool with easter. Cool fun fact in Brazil about Easter: Chocolate eggs are a big deal here - literally. Well it´s actually more like a big rip-off, but the eggs are HUGE! They´re about as big as soccer-balls, hollow, but everyone goes for what´s inside (other chocolate, toys, etc.) Brazil gets big bucks for them - $35 what it comes out to. I may just buy one just to see what the heck it´s worth. Maybe Mother Goose really does lay those golden eggs but migrates south in Spring. 

If you haven´t already, before you keep reading, go to helives.mormon.org and watch the video. Then share it. It´s short, but SUPER SUPER good and easy to share with people. It was released Friday night, and it´s been our main tool with member-missionary work, with general conference coming up. I´m so grateful that the God we worship is LIVING! There are so many religions that direct their worship towards the cross, the burial, and that Jesus Christ died and that´s it. But there´s so so so much more when you know the fact that he overcame all and lives today. And he does!  

So have you watched it yet? Like it, Tweet it, Pin it, whatever!

This four-way blitz is going really well in the 5th ward! The President´s keeping an eye on it kinda like an experiment, and we´ve been working out the kinks in it over this past week. You should see our whiteboard! It takes a lot of good planning and has to be an organized deal, but it helps in saving time in walking and it roots out the people who are attached more to getting to know the missionaries than to getting to know the Savior. 

Sorry for the short letter. I took a quick nap after having two meetings with President this morning. We´ve been planning our Leadership Meeting for this week and Interviews for the week after - we´re busy as heck! But we´re staying cool.

Have a great week! Thank you for the birthday wishes! Hope you have a spiritual-power-packed Easter and General Conference. 

Love Elder Nissinen

Here´s the low-down. We talked to the pizza guy, and we found out we´re the first and only ones that order with chocolate border. Must be a missionary thing! 

Hey family! 

The Temple was GREAT this morning! With my last areas it was always a race to get to the temple in the morning on time, but it´s a smooth sail from the mission office. I´m also in the same zone as Elder J.  (who started in Provo with me), who´s actually my zone leader now. 

This first week of the transfer went GREAT! We´ve got a great idea we´ve been working on for a while to help out our area. For a while now mission secretaries have been in this ward, and because they spend about 4 hours a day proselyting, the members hardly know them. We want to change that. So what we did is combine everything that the two companionships have (investigators, contacts, referrals, recent-converts, etc) and treat it as if it were one large companionship of four. But we switch ^companions^ for the day so that investigators and members get to know more missionaries. And sometimes people have different reactions to different missionaries. I´ve never heard of an area doing this - a four-way blitz, so it´s all in the trial run. But we´ve got our Ward Mission Leader and our Mission President liking the idea.

3 days into the experiment and guess what - we´ve found 3 new families!!! FAMILIES!! And they´re pumped for the gospel!! One of them even came to church without being invited! Here´s a cool story about one of them:

A couple weeks ago we got a package from the US for someone named Nelson Dine. We don´t have an Elder D.  in our mission, so we sent an email to the other São Paulo missions to see if he exists. There used to be another mission in this office before us, so it happens a lot that we get mail for other people. Everyone replied saying that Elder Nelson D.  isn´t in their missions. Kinda weird. We double-checked the address that was on the box, and it was for another house on our street. Kinda weird, because we´re the only place around here that gets constant mail from the States. But we checked out the house, knocked, and who answered? Nelson D. ! This guy has a son in Connecticut doing some study work. But the guy let us in and wanted to hear our message! He even asked to read some our material and wants us to teach his daughter. So far the test results are lookin good! 

Picture with Elder Costa (one of the area seventies) 

 Wednesday we had an interview with Elder Costa - great meeting! The day before President called us: [Elder I want you all to clean the office from top to bottom. If there´s one piece of paper in a wastebasket, throw the bag out and put a new one in.] So Tuesday we spent the whole day (literally - until 11:30 at night) throwing out a bunch of junk missionaries left behind. It really wasn´t that dirty - it´s a big office haha.

My new companion Elder L.

Elder L. and I are getting along great. He looks pure American, and he already speaks great in English. This past week he asked me to pray a couple times in English - man how embarrassing it was. He´s a hard-worker and it´s a blast. 

Great pictures of Seattle! Good luck on all your finals, projects, sylabusses, and work. I´m always praying for you every day. 

Love you all very much!

Elder Nissinen  

NOTICE: This email message is fo

Hey everyone!!

Do you know something? This church is TRUE!!!!! Our mission had a great experience with a General Authority, Elder Costa. It was a straight 4 hour meeting, and it was pure Spirit going on. Everyone got to shake his hand. He trained on nearly everything - our purpose, member/missionary work, planning. No one wanted him to go when it was over. You know when you can feel the priesthood that an Authority has, like you know God gave him that calling? It´s like when an Apostle comes. But the best part (and kinda freaky part), is that he´ll be meeting with all of the Office Staff on Wednesday and interviewing us. It´s the end of the transfer, and all the missionaries that are leaving pass by and spend some time at the office making sure their suitcases aren´t too heavy. So most of the time they leave a bunch of junk behind that doesn´t get thrown out. Looks like over the next couple days until Wednesday we´ll be doing some down-and-dirty Spring cleaning. 

Speaking of transfers, I´m officially the Executive Secretary (aka Office Boss) of all us here. Elder V.  has a special assignment the President gave him, and he´ll spend his last transfer in an area really far away as a Zone Leader. He trained me and helped me a lot, I just hope I know what I´m doing haha. So my new companion is.........Elder L. ! He looks American, but he´s from the South, Porto Alegre. I don´t know a whole lot about him. He came here this morning with all the craziness of the other missionaries that are leaving, but he´s the new Referral Secretary and a Traveling Assistant like me. 

Let me tell ya, transfers are NUTS!!!! How it works here is that we (or I) call each companionship thats having a change and let them know personally. So imagine with 50 companionships that have missionaries moving around - it gets complicated pretty quick. Not to mention the drama when they hear the news. Most of the elders answer pretty calm with no emotion. But the Sisters (oh boy).....How do you help a Sister stop crying? Some Sisters get pretty attached to their areas and companions, so when you have to break the news.....well.....all you can do is reassure them that´s where the Lord wants them to be. I guess haha. New experiences in the office.

We´re having a rough time with our investigators. The work´s going slowly, but Saturday we taught a lesson with a lady attending institute. She was invited by some friends, and she´s already been reading the Book of Mormon - and she´s in 2 Nephi! Her parents are totally against the Church, so we´re only able to teach her on Saturdays after Institute, and sometimes on Sundays. But there´s some good potential.

It´s gonna be a lot of work, but a great transfer. The Church is TRUE - it´s a LIVING CHURCH, and you can FEEL it.

Love you all,

Elder Nissinen

Hey everyone! Glad to hear everyone had a great week.

I thought that things would slow down a little after having multizone conferences, leadership councils, and training meetings for the new missionaries - BUT NO! Ha! This week we´re having a Mission Tour with Elder Costa, President of the Brazil Area. It´ll be this Thursday. But the freaky part comes after the fireside. We found out this last weekend that the following week, he´ll be passing by the Mission Office to inspect everything and interview all the staff. Yikes!

Lunch with the Greenies!!!

We had a pretty good week. Wednesday we met with all the missionaries who are being trained to see how they´re doing and give them some extra training. Elder V.

 and I took the group who´s finishing up their training, so we spent a lot of the time doing role-plays and answering their questions. It may be weird to say, but I like giving missionary trainings. Nine months ago and I was receiving that same training - It feels totally different being on the other side. Like you feel old haha.

The day after was our Mission Leadership Council with all the ZL´s and the Sister Training Leaders. We were thinking of how we can get the leaders excited, especially for the 5 Baptisms in March that we´re doing. Remember the Free Throw competition a while ago, and our zone won? We decided to do that again, but we divided the leaders into groups. And, we added soccer to help out the Brazilians. I´ll see if I can send you a cut version of it. Great upset. We even got a video of President Del Guerso trying his luck at it. 

About the area, nobody ended up coming to church yesterday. In fact we were dropped, so we´re down to a grand-daddy total of one investigator that we´re teaching (Mauricio). But we´re praying a TON to find a family of five. It´s gonna happen. After sitting in the office until 5, we´re itching to get out and work. The members are really cool. I don´t know if I told you, but about 80 percent live in the same apartment complex. I don´t know why the doormen aren´t baptized yet. 

Yesterday was International Women´s Day (didn´t even know that existed). It´s almost just like Mother´s Day. So us 4 Elders in the ward got together and made little bags with chocolate in them. The sisters LOVED IT!!! 

Congratulations Mr GLENCOE!!! Your hard work really paid off. Plus you guys got a new truck (kinda jealous). You´re awesome

Love you guys so much. Have a great week

Elder Nissinen

My Days Are Numbered...

Half the Mission!

Hey everyone!!

We survived Multizone Conference!!!! I´m sooooooo glad that´s done with. Pretty much everything normal that goes on in the office goes on hold because of all the stuff that´s gotta happen with it. It´s crazy because all the missionaries seem to ask for everything all at once during this week. While all the other missionaries are outside doing contacts, teaching, and sweating, here´s the kind of whales the secretaries wrestle:

A missionary asked for a map of his area, which includes a lake and acres and acres of nothing in the middle. So me and another secretary spent 7 hours printing and taping together pieces of Google Maps in a giant 6ft by 6ft puzzle. Yeah I know it doesn´t appear that exciting haha. But basically we stayed up until midnight for three nights straight making sure the whole meeting would go together.

The Conference was two days, Wednesday and Thursday, and you come to definitely appreciate the tranquility of just coming in to a meeting, sitting down, and enjoying the Spirit. On the logistical side you´re thinking about how much time you have left, if everything is on time, and if the air conditioning in the chapel is working right haha. It was eye-opening and a lot of work, but it was fun to see the whole mission. We´re also getting ready for a mission tour upcoming week with President Costa, the Area President of Brazil. It should be really good too. 

The first day the Special Projects Department of the Church was meeting about building the first Visitors Center in South America, during the conference

About our investigators, we´re still working with them. Unfortunately no one came to church yesterday, but we´re not giving up. The hardest part is simply setting up the appointment. Everyone works and studies, and studies and works. But the members are great and it´s a great area because of that. 

Oh, and Elder M. , Elder J, and I all talked with President, and he changed our arrival home date to July 14th because of BYU. And I´m not even looking at a calendar. It´s freaks me out. The even scarier part is.....today I have to order my flight.....I DONT WANNA GO HOME JUST YET!! haha

I love you all. Keep praying that more of the people in our area will go in the Temple they pass in front of everyday. `Cuz that´s where they need to GO!!! And we can help!!!

Have a great week! I have an awesome family. They´re all the best! 

Love Elder Nissinen 

THANK YOU it´s PDAY!!!

Life is getting crazier and crazier in the office. We´ve got one big thing going on this upcoming week that we´ve gotta plan out: Multi-Zone Conference. Here it´s almost a whole-day event, and since the mission is so spread-out, we´ve gotta do it twice to split everyone. It´s gonna be a Shark-week on steroids! But to keep us alive we´ve got Pizza and Brazilian Coca-Cola, so I think we´ll make it haha.

I´m loving this area more and more, even though we´re not able to spend as much time out in proselyting. It´s seriously the Salt Lake of Brazil here. We´ve got the Temple, Chapel, and the Church Headquarters all next to each other, and everyone in the ward works for one of the three. And a lot of the original members (and their descendents) of the Church in Brazil live in our area.

A funny <adventure> in the office. Wednesday one of the email accounts of the mission shut down, so I called Salt Lake to have them figure it out. I had to explain the problem - in english!! And I was stuttering. You know it´s embarrassing when the lady on the other end starts laughing.....

Yesterday we had lunch with a family, and it was my first time meeting them. So you know we go through all the get-to-know-you stuff. I said I was from Oregon, he asked me if I was from Hillsboro. Turns out the dad´s last companion on his mission was Mark S. The member was blown away having a retrospective moment during the whole lunch. So if you see him around, tell him that an Elder M. says hey. Small world!

It looks like this area is gonna be a testing ground of all the stuff I´ve learned in all my areas. Since there´re no doors to knock, we throw tracting out. And the people on the streets are in a dead-powerwalk, and Perdizes taught me how to street contact in 3 seconds. And the members here are GOLDEN, so I´ve gotta summon my Cucamonga skills in member-missionar work to the max. 

We´ve also got a thing starting next month called The March 5. It´s a challenge in the mission which companionship can baptize 5 people in one month. Elder V. and I are already planning on reaching it. It just fits our ward name: SP Ward 5, March 5. It´s got a nice ring to it. 

We only had one investigator at church today. The other ones flaked out last minute, but the one´s got some good potential. Saturday night we had a lesson with one of our recent-converts, and during the lesson a friend that lives with him came in and listened. When we invited him to church for the next day, he told us that he didn´t have any good clothes to wear. Our Ward Mission Leader was with us during the lesson. He then proposed, If he brought him a white shirt, slacks, and shoes, he would go. He agreed, and when church started, he was beaming in his new clothes. He liked church, made some friends, and we have a lesson with him tonight. Keep your fingers crossed! 

The Lord is acelerating His work, because the Office sure is haha. Love you all. Have a great week. Let me know any news on BYU stuff about B. I´ve got my fingers crossed!

Love Elder Nissinen

The German´s Restaurant.  We went there on an all-day Leadership meeting on the other side of the mission

Hey everyone!

We had an awesome week this last week. We´ve been working NONSTOP to keep this place up and running. Sometimes we get a hard time from the other missionaries that we got it easy with our air conditioning (a true luxury in Brazil), and the lady that comes to clean once a week, so we get a hard time for that. But the last few days we´ve hardly spent any time in the office because of the million errands we´ve got. I´m absolutely loving the work here. 

This week my testimony about Priesthood keys skyrocketed! Wednesday night I get a phone call from President, asking me to set up an interview with another elder in the mission for the next morning. After the interview, President pulled me and Elder V.  aside and explained that the elder needed to be emergency-transfered to another area, and he asked us which area we thought he should go. It was like one of those experiences where an Apostle and a Seventy are making mission call assignments. We gave our ideas, and then President del Guerso switched a few people on his Transfer Board. We all felt right about the swap. It´s awesome working closer to the Mission President. It´s super cool seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that I took for granted when I started the mission.

We´ve been busting out butts a ton with the less time we have to work in our area. Since I got here we´ve been passing by a house of a referral a member gave us. Until Saturday we haven´t had any luck. But we passed by, and both the mom and son were home and super-receptive. We started talking about our purpose as missionaries, the gospel, and then we invited them to come to church with us the next day. Yeah, why not? I´ve always wanted to go inside that church.^ was how she responded. Totally took me off by surprise. We went by their house a little earlier, and they were happy, ready, and excited. They could only stay for sacrament meeting, but we set up an appointment for later this week. A great miracle!!!

Sorry for the short letter. We got a bunch of pictures I´m sending to you. Loving it here. My companion is awesome, the ward is amazing, and the church is true!

Our little barbeque on Saturday

Hope you all have a great week!            Love Elder Nissinen

                                                    Our little barbecue on Saturday!

We got money from a member, so we had the other elders go buy the stuff on their p-day and we had a sick barbecue  - Brazilian style! 

My new companion Elder V. 

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it!!!,

Hey everyone! This week has been one of the most CRAZIEST I´ve had on my mission - so many things happening at the same time. But I LOVE my new assignment. So my ~title~ is the Executive Secretary in-training Traveling Assistant. So me and my companion have the load of taking care of Referrals, Batismal Records, Visas, Mission Numbers, Transfers, Organizing Meetings, Supplies, and all the other little things that go with being a secretary PLUS being an AP and working with the other two Assistants, PLUS having our own area to work in. So many things to fill you all in on this week.

The Office!

My companion is Elder V,  from Chile. He´s 26 and goes home in April (one more transfer after this one). He already has 6 months working in the office, so he knows all the ropes and is teaching me a ton. I´ve already known him from him being my zone leader back in Macedonia, so we´re already great friends and we work great together. We live in the Office and there´s 6 of us in total. Me, Elder V. , the Financial and House Secretaries, and the two other APs. The whole group is hilarious! Most of the time we´re telling stories of the dorkiest things missionaries have done haha. Or we´re eating pizza every other night. There´s a legendary pizzaria that everyone´s talked about. The big deal is that they fill the crust with chocolate (like Nutella) so it´s like the size of your fist!! It´s AMAZING (and slightly addicting haha). But don´t worry. Even though I´m passing more time in an office chair in front of a screen, we´ve been doing some insane workouts in the morning. Have you heard of Insanity Workouts? It´s like P90X but....well...insane. Like 5 out of the 6 of us do it almost everyday. After the first day, my calves were so painfully sore. It felt great!! The great thing about living in the office is that you have everything you could need. And missionaries leave behind a bunch of junk too, since all the elders spend their last night at the Office. 

This week we were running nonstop! Transfers first off throw everything off. Everyone has to get switched around in the system, and on top of that we had 8 new missionaries arrive Tuesday morning. They looked so fresh! haha And on Thursday and Friday we had Mission Leadership Councils with all the zones, which took up both days completely. But I like being busy, and we always have something to do. I even have my own cell phone as a secretary! 

The bedroom!

And I LOVE my new area too. It´s Ala 5 (Ward 5), and it´s the ward that covers the Temple!! So everywhere we go, we´re always in sight of the temple. It´s awesome! And because our area also has the Church Headquarters for Brazil, we have a bunch of the church leadership (like the Temple President, Ex-Mission Presidents). The members here are GOLDEN!!! It´s been a while since I last heard a member asking us what they can do to help! [Fist Pump]. We work in the office from 10 to 5 everyday (except for Saturdays, Sundays, and Pdays), so we don´t have as much time to work in the area, but we´re milking every second. It´s pretty cool to do a street contact and not have to explain where the church is located. Yeah it´s that big white building there. Yeah, the really nice one with the golden angel on top.^ 

There´s so many things to tell you all about the area, the office, all the cool changes. Isabelly got baptized on Saturday (HALLELUJAH!). 

Oh and just to clarify, my Pday is still Mondays. I got it mixed up with the other secretaries; their pday is Saturday, ours is Monday.

Have a great week!! 

Love Elder Nissinen

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.