Elder B had so many family and friends stop by to say goodbye at his farewell party! Our family is so blessed to have so much love and support from everyone! 

Getting Ready!

                It was a awesome night at the temple!

He had lots and lots of shots.  Some were pretty painful but better than getting super sick!

"B" is so excited for his mission in Ghana!!! 

ELDER NISSINEN IS HOME!!!!!

The Best Day Ever!!!

Welcome Home Elder Nissinen

  

             

             

Last letter! The Swan letter

The "Rancho" group (we all 3 served in California together and are going home on the same day)

Hey guys!

So you all have guessed - this week has been a wave of emotions, very bittersweet in every way. I´ve started throwing out a lot of junk that I never used, and after lunch I´m going shopping to bring some Brazilian stuff home. 

The "going home" group in front of the temple after the session

We definitely had a different week with it being the last of the transfer and in my mission. Wednesday was a Self-Reliance training that took up most of the day. We practiced how to do job interviews, brag about yourself, and start thinking about what you wanna do with the rest of your life. It actually helped out a lot getting that perspective back about work and studies. After that the whole group went to the Temple with President Del Guerso - what an experience!! He had the whole group in the Celestial Room and gave us all some council. I´m looking forward to get back in the Temple on the 24th for when B goes through. We got out of the temple at like 8, so to kill the rest of the time I went with Elder Jacobsen and Elder Morgan to a fancy pizza buffet that only is open for pizza at night. The waiters come around like every 30 seconds with a different kind of pizza - sweet or salty. Man it was good! 

A brazilian-style pizza buffet after the temple

Tonight we were invited by a family to have tacos and root beer, tomorrow I was invited to give a brief talk/testimony, Monday we get to travel to the areas we want in the mission and have a Family Home Evening with President and Sister Del Guerso, and then Tuesday we´re off.

To not takeaway anything from my homecoming talk, I want to bear my testimony about the power of a mission. It´s really hard putting it all into words. I know a mission has changed me and I´ll be forever grateful that the Lord calls young men and women to serve. Both California and Brazil have taught me so much. I´ve always had a testimony of the Church, but now that I´ve served and taught, I now know the why. It comes down to this: We have a Heavenly Father who loves and knows each of His children. I know that my mission was for me. 

I´m excited to see you all again this Wednesday. I might need some help with my English, or to at least be able to speak like a normal American haha. 

My prayers go out to Papa and Mama as well. 

See ya Wednesday,

Love Elder Nissinen

                                     Brazilian Grill with the President a couple weeks ago

                                               English Class - with cookies of course!

Gooooooooood morning USA!!!! Happy 4th everyone. I had to be reminded by a Brazilian this morning or else I would´ve forgotten - kinda embarrassing. But I got a good taste of American yesterday when one of our investigators just came back from Disneyland - she gave us a box of Whoppers! 

You´ll be excited for the stuff I´m bringing home for you guys. They give Americans a bigger weight limit for suitcases. I have to start packing this week and leave behind a bunch of stuff. 

We had another great and busy week in the 5th ward. The young woman that went to the English last a couple weeks ago we´ve been teaching. This morning we went over for a quick lesson to follow-up on her prayers and reading. SHE GOT AN ANSWER! We´ve got her marked for the 11th for her baptism. That´d be great to have a baptism on my last weekend as a missionary. We´ve been having a lot of success in this ward, and I believe that´s because of the unity between us 4 and the ward together. Honestly I haven´t seen anything like it in any other ward I´ve spent time in. 

The work in the office is going well. Having to be on top of lawyers and real estate is like pulling teeth sometimes, because we´ve been trying to close a couple apartments that the mission isn´t going to use any longer. I guess I´ll know what to look for when I´m looking for an apartment and have all the i´s dotted and t´s crossed. 

Thursday night we got a call from President, wanting to take us out to lunch the next day. Let me tell ya, we ate GREAT yesterday. He always takes out the missionaries in the office with their companions who are leaving that transfer. We went to Tordilhos, one of the most expensive Brazilian Grills they have here. It´s like Fogo do Chão style - MEAT!!! We had a great talk between the 5 of us there about President´s vision of things and he wanted us to pass that on. One of the things I´ve learned working close with President Del Guerso is how to make something out of what a lot of people imagine to be nothing. That´s how he became a math teacher and then a lawyer. 

I heard the news last night about President Packer. I´m still feeling that urgency that even though we live in the "last days", we sure do have a lot of work and not a whole lot of time. 

I´ll keep praying for Papa that he keeps getting better. He gives me a lot of strength too and I love him and Mama very much.

Have a "bombing" and safe Fourth! Love you all lots

Elder Nissinen

Mirta's baptism!!!

Hey everyone! 

Everyone´s commented about how hot it´s getting at home - luckily for Brazil it´s the complete opposite. We´re heading into winter this time of year, and, keep calm, I actually had to bring out my coat this last week. Shocking, I know. But even though it´s getting cold outside, we´ve been contacting a lot of people whose hearts are warming up to the gospel. Tonight we have another baptism (Nubia), but after her our teaching pool´s gonna be a little dry. So starting last week we´ve been doing a lot more contacts on the street, bus, mall, etc for some new people. 

The English class has been having some good successes of getting people out of their homes and into the church building. We knocked on someone´s house Monday night, who didn´t seem very interested until we started talking about the ward´s weekly volleyball night and free English classes. The next day we took her and her friend to the chapel, did a quick tour of the building, and they stayed for the class. They loved it all, and are gonna be at church tomorrow. Most of the people attending these classes are not even active members, maybe one or two. Most are non-members or total less-actives. I think we´ll start seeing some baptisms coming out of it soon. Or maybe all this is because of the cookies I´m bringing.

President has been working on a special project with the Temple and Church Headquarters in Brazil - which are like a block from the Mission Office. A lot of people in Brazil have the idea that the Mormon Church is only for rich people - because every other brazilian religion is all about offerings, tithing, and sacrifices. So in their minds a good-looking church means that you´ve gotta pay a lot to get in. APOSTASY. So President has been going to a bunch of high schools and promoting tours of the church grounds and all it offers - Self Reliance Centers, Family History Centers, Temple Grounds, Language classes, etc. Tuesday we were invited to speak about it all to a high school board. They liked the idea alot, and that same afternoon, President took them all around the grounds. We gathered all the other Americans in the zone to put up all the american stuff we brought from home - shirts, keychains, pictures, stuff like that. When all the directors came in the room, we sung the National Anthem for them. They loved the whole tour, and in August the school will start doing "Field trips" to go on the same tour. Basically it´s like this: the Church has a bunch of resources, and we want more people to know about them. And with a whole school knowing and going into the church, there´s bound to be some fruits coming out of that too. 

I heard the news about passing gay marriage yesterday. There´s a certain urgency to spread the gospel as both the Lord and the adversary are hastening their works. I´m grateful and know the Church is true.  

Have a great week!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey everyone! 

The hard part about being in the office and living with 7 other elders is how EVERYONE reminds you about how long you´ve been on your mission, how many days are left, etc. This week was our Multizone Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, and the first part of the meeting is where all those who are leaving at the end of the transfer go up and bear testimony. NOT EASY! 

But pushing all that aside, our area is still growing and working wonders. Today Mirta, our Argentinian investigator, is getting baptized! She´s so excited, and even better, her son came from Italy to watch the baptism and come to church the next day. Even though we don´t understand all of her spanish, she bore a strong testimony that every time she prays, reads, goes to church, and has the lessons, she feels more and more certain that this is the right path. YES! 

Nubia, the cousin of a recent-convert, is also getting pumped for her baptism for the next Saturday. She´s cut coffee, reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day. We´ve had to adjust our schedule a little bit because of her work. So our lessons are everyotherday at 9am before she heads off to work. We´re preparing her recent-convert cousin to baptize her next weekend. 

Just work work work in the 5th ward for us. Time goes by fast!

Love you lots!

Elder Nissinen

Happy Pday Y´all!

We had a great last week! Let´s see if I can remember everything that happened.

The previous week we were planning a SUPER Leadership Council for all the ZL´s and STL´s for this last Monday. The Church has a property way out in the rural part of the mission, and usually they use it for campouts and youth camps. But our mission rented it out for a super-pday for the council. We all had to get up super early Monday morning for all of it to work out - 4AM! And it gets better, because of the worries of security and traveling super early, President had most all of the 14 Zone Leaders sleep at the back of the mission office in the inflatable mattresses we found - man it was packed! But the best part was being able to change into normal clothes after the morning meeting. We had a huge treasure hunt and some team-building acitivies. And lots and lots of pictures to send - fun time! 

Tonight we have something called a Festa Junina (June Festival). Because it´s fall-time in June, it´s kinda like a Harvest Festival deal. Everyone gets dressed up in hick clothes, eat hot dogs and corn on the cob. In the 5th ward it´s a big deal, so we´re planning on having a bunch of non-members for us to contact and later teach. Pdays on Saturday are a blast!

This last week we also got 6 more Elders waiting for their visas to Portugal! Elder C.

(the one who has facial paralysis) got one of them, so technically we have 6 secretaries in the office, 3 of them who´s job is to pass referrals to other missions and areas. So we get a lot of referrals from the missionaries doing contacts in front of the temple.

The work is going great as always in the 5th ward. Next Saturday we have two more baptisms planned up, Mirta and Nubia. Mirta is an Argentinian lady who moved not too long ago into our area because of family problems. The Gospel touched her heart, went to church, received an answer that everything was true, and is super excited for her baptism. Nubia is Almir´s cousin, who got baptized less than a month ago. She also went to church for the first time last Sunday and loved it. There´s a phrase between us and the members that the ward is bombing!

Next week is Multizone Conferences - my last one. The trunkyness (kinda like senioritis) is knocking, knowing that all the missionaries leaving in the next transfer bear their testimonies - dang it. Scary.

Missions are the best! There´s so much to do here in the office, the mission, and in our area that all I have time to do when we get home is sleep, eat, and crash before thinking about anything else. 

This church is true! Love you all. Congratulations on graduation - go summer!

Love Elder Nissinen

Happy Pday once again!

Last week I was "officially released" as the Executive Secretary, and now my new assignment is......the Housing Secretary! So for the next 5 weeks now I´ll be handling all the contracts, bills, and maintenance of the 50 some odd houses/apartments the mission takes care of. I don´t think I´ve ever studied (let alone look or touch) a real contract, or even come close to paying a water bill, but it´s good practice for some "real world application." 

There´s some perks to being the Housing secretary too. Yesterday I decided to take a look at the stock of all the stuff that´s broken, working, and working not so well. A lot of the junk is box fan parts. One thing led to another, and I´m in a project to fix up the fans so the mission doesn´t have to buy any more new ones. I´m imagining that the Mission Office will be something like a Autoshop - but for fans! Don´t know how I got into this kind of hobby, but it´s a good break after dealing with lawyers and real estate people every now and then.

The 5th ward fire is still burning strong! Last Saturday we baptized Almir, and it was a double-baptism with a neighboring ward in our zone. Man Pdays don´t get better than that! The next day, Sunday, he was confirmed and then supported to receive the Aaronic Priesthood - BOOM! He even went out on splits with us this week AND we´re teaching his cousin who lives with him, who´s now marked for baptism on the 20th! We are LOVING this ward here and we´ve seen some great miracles.

 I´m sending this e-mail a little later today because we just came back from a SUPER PDAY. There´s a place called 25 de Março (March 25th) that´s like a huge Portobello Road FULL of people, shops, and salesmen. It´s a must-do in São Paulo - because everything´s super cheap; you just gotta know where to find it haha. I bought a cheap São Paulo futebol team watch (it´s probably a fake Chinese deal but who cares haha) and a legit tie. 

Thanks for the emails, and hope you all have a great pday too! The Church is true!

Love Elder Nissinen

Great news!!!

So there´s a perk to being in the Office around Transfer-time: you´re the first one to know what´s gonna happen. The Executive Secretary is the one who takes a look at the Transfer Board, checks up with President if there´s any hiccups, and makes the phonecalls Sunday night to each companionship that had a change. President called me just before lunch telling me that he was ready for me to look at it. To be honest, I was nervous as heck about where´d I would go. All this week President was passing by the office for meetings and stuff, with a question every now-and-then about possible leaders and companionships. Well I just got back from lunch, took a look at the board, and the verdict is....

I`M STAYING!!!! I didn´t say anything to President about what I would prefer, but I´m super happy that I´ll be ending my mission in the São Paulo 5th ward. I don´t know what secretary I´ll be (except Executive), but President will let me know later. The ward has been booming, we´ve been getting along great between us five secretaries, and between the office work and the field, it´s been a lot of fun. I´m really glad things won´t change a whole lot.

Here´s a good way to start off a letter: Last week I spent three days in the hospital. It started Sunday during Elders Quorum. Remember that Elder who had facial paralysis, and Carlo the neurosurgeon? They met up and got to talking about Elder C´s condition, and how Carlo wasn´t sure if he had something called Bell´s palsy (facial paralysis). One thing lead to another, and I ended up going with them both to one of the best hospitals in Brazil. Over the next couple days, they had Elder Corrêa go through some blood exans, CAT scans, shock exams, spine fluid extracts, and everything else to find out what was causing the unknown pain that he shouldn´t have had. We had swaps with the other elders at night to make sure the Elder staying with Elder C didn´t get stir-crazy being in a hospital with nothing to do. After all that, they found out that he has something called Ramsay Hunt syndrome of the 7th and 8th nerve. (fyi I had no idea what they were saying, so I had to look up all those words up in the dictionary. You know it´s not the kind of vocab you find in Preach My Gospel). In the end, Tuesday night we were liberated from the hospital just in time for my English class.

And it´s growing!! This last Tuesday was our first time with the two separate classes - and I think in total we had close to 30 in attendance - WOW! Because of the hospital, I didn´t have time to drop another cookie-bomb on the ward, but they´re all committed to bring more friends. I taught the basics class about how to introduce themselves. Remember the movie "Here Comes the Boom" when he´s teaching that citizenship class? Haha We had a ton of fun with it all.

Wednesday we had our Greenie Training Meeting where we got all the new missionaries to see how their training is going and if they´re all good to "leave their trainer´s nest " Elder L and I decided to do our part a little different than the normal training. We played Jeopardy! They don´t have it in Brazil, but we took the idea and did role-plays, scripture chases, a lot like Brother Maurer in Seminary. This group was super-competitive but no blood was shed and they learned a lot. 

Today we have a BAPTISM!!! Almir is a 28 year old young man who we´ve been teaching for about a month now, found through contacting him while in the elevador. We thought that after a while we were gonna have to drop him because he hadn´t gone to church, but it was Mother´s Day when we saw him in the back row in a suit and tie. And once he started reading the Book of Mormon, já era. We gotta start filling the font in a little bit. Man it doesn´t get better having a pday and a baptism on the same day. 

Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys! 

Another blessed week in the 5th ward. President threw us a curveball when he called Wednesday night about an emergency transfer. There was an Elder in the area nextdoor to ours who caught the craziest virus I´ve ever seen. Half of his face got paralyzed! So President moved some missionaries around and now Elder C.  has joined forces with the 5th. Since he´s come we´ve been getting one member to go on splits with us, so it´s like having 3 companionships in the area. We´re bombing our area!!! This weekend has the potential to have at least 2 baptisms with the people we´re teaching. 

I learned that the secret in Brazil to get some event going is COOKIES. Tuesday was the first time in my life that I formally taught English to a group of people. I didn´t believe it when once the class got going we had at least 15 people in the classroom. And everyone liked it!! Tuesday was the "Introduction to the Crash Course," where it´s gonna be a 5 week deal, and we´ll have the Basics class and the Conversation class. Tuesday it was just me teaching, so we had everyone together to get everyone pumped. We showed some motivational video in English, and then some role-plays about how to introduce yourself. At the end of it all, the people went nuts for the cookies we made. Mom, your cookie recipe was a hit! And throughout the week, we got a lot of people interested and commited to come to the class this Tuesday. We´re hoping close to 40 people between the two classes. The Bishop was stoked after the turnout of this last week.

Have you ever seen someone getting wheelchaired out of the Temple? Wednesday President took Elder L.  and I to the Temple because we weren´t able to go with our zone the week before. After the session a temple worker came up and asked me if I could keep on eye on an older guy while he went to go grab a wheelchair. He told me that the guy´s blood pressure went down a lot, and asked me to make sure he wouldn´t faint or nothing. The older man was sitting on a little bench with his back turned to me, so I just waited for a minute for the wheelchair. While the temple worker helped the older man into the chair, he turned so I could see his face - it was President Del Guerso!! They quickly rolled him out of the Temple to his car back home for him to take some medicine. An hour later he was back at the Mission Office laughing and messing around with us. Crazy right?

Buckle up for the last week of the transfer - it´s usually one of the craziest.

Sorry we didn´t take any pics of the 5 of us/  We´ll have some new ones this week.  Love you all!! Have a great week.

Elder Nissinen

Hey guys!!

Thursday morning as we were doing our exercises, Elder C. (one of the APs) comes up to me and asks, "Why didn´t you tell me where your brother´s going on his mission?" WHAT?!? Turns out the day before, Yule (from Macedonia) saw the news on Facebook and told the other Elders where B´s going. President gave me permission to look at the video Dad sent. GHANA!!!!! I´ll admit I did a quick search on LDS.org about the MTC, Temple, and mission info. It looks awesome!! There´s a bit of pride you get when you tell people your brother´s going to Africa. Load up on all the Lucky Charms and 2% milk you can. Proud of ya bro.

Carlo´s baptism last Saturday was great. His father-in-law baptized and confirmed him, and all us Elders got up to sing a musical number. The members have been noticing our hard work and just this last week we´ve been seeing them trusting us a lot more. 

For example, last night we had Family Home Evening with Flanizia and Mauricio (some solid investigators), and the Primary and Elder´s Quorum presidents´ family. Their 5 year old son got up and did the lesson on the First Vision - by himself!!! Recited James 1:5 and a good part of Joseph Smith´s words, and he said that´s his favorite story. The kid´s only 5! Just for kicks, Mauricio opened up to us a ton after discovering that Mormons can drink Coke. :] They´re a super solid family, the only problem is that they´re going to Disneyland and spend a month traveling the States. Dang it! But President is letting us use Skype to keep following-up with them while they´re traveling. 

The pizza sign... It means "Feel the power." It´s an inside joke between us because of the churches they have here. They try to show their "power" by curing, preaching, yelling, etc. hahaha 

Wednesday night I had one of those "What just happened?" epxeriences. I was on splits with a member, and we visited a referral from that English school I taught at a couple weeks ago. I called the night before to mark a quick visit, since they said they would only have 15-20 minutes to talk. So we got in the house, explained about ourselves, the Church, missionary work, and answered some questions. Afterwards the couple said, "Well we don´t know how much time you have, but we made this dinner for you guys." WHAT? We were both caught off by surprise, and we set up for tonight to go back and start teaching. Super nice family.

These are the paper roses we made for the Mothers in our ward.

Thank you for your emails and pictures. It was great seeing you all again on Mother´s Day. Congratulations again on the mission call.

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys! 

This week was pretty calm and has gone by really fast. Elder L. and I have been mixing up the days; we both woke up thinking today was Monday. But only in the Office can you have a pday and a.....

BAPTISM at the same time!!! Carlo is gonna be baptized tonight. He´s got a great story. For about 15 years he´s known the Church, and his wife is already a member. After a while she went less-active, and overtime, their marriage was struggling. This last October they about ready to call it quits, when Carlo realized that they were missing something in their relationship. That´s when he (the non-member) brought his wife (the less-active member) back to the Church. He works between several children´s hospitals, and even sacrifices sleep so he can go to Church Sunday morning. He´s already read the Book of Mormon (twice!) and pays his tithing. I could´ve sworn he was already a member when I came into the ward. In fact, we only taught him twice before he was interviewed by our District Leader - he´s so ready! And it was all member-missionary work. It was our Bishop who pulled him aside and challenged him to be baptized. God has been blessing our area so much!

So our mission has a lot of new leaders that have been assigned just over the last couple transfers, specifically new zone leaders. Tuesday we had a Mission Leadership Council, and President had a few things that he wanted to be certain that they were passed to the rest of the mission, so one of the AP´s and I decided to go on a "Surprise Exchange" the day after. Boy were the ZL´s shocked when we showed up out of nothing to their District Meeting - HA! The two Zone Leaders that I went with were both newly-assigned leaders and both Americans with language difficulties. But it went good and we were able to help get some investigators progessing in their area. 

I love this work. I know that God´s hand is in it and that He knows and hears all of His children. Serving a mission is the hands-down the best thing I´ve done. I love it and so grateful for it. 

I´m excited to talk with you guys tomorrow! Can´t believe it´s already here. 

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys!

More Pizza!!!!

Sorry for the last-minute notice on the switch. On Monday we had 14 missionaries leaving and all hanging out in the office, and everything was just crazy. I had interviews with President Del Guerso this week too, and we talked about the work in the office. About 6 months ago, pday for all the secretaries was Saturday, because a lot of the work we do in the office involves Church Headquarters, Real Estate places, and the Government - who all close on Saturdays. So President switched it all to Saturday! I´m actually pretty happy now because I´ll have a true Pday without having half the mission calling on Monday, my new workday. 

We had a GREAT week!!! I got two experiences this week that I want to share

On Tuesday we had half of the group going home in the evening, and throughout the afternoon they were making sure all their luggage was under the weight limits. One Elder was going home by Azul, an airline owned by a member of the Church, and who also has a new contract with the Church to give more weight to missionaries going home. So I told the Elder to make sure everything was under 63kg (138lbs), and he packed his bags and went off to the airport. That night I get a phone call from the airport payphone from this Elder, nervous as heck because the airline lady wasn´t letting him take home anymore weight than any average flyer. He was super panicky, which made me panicked. The Elder´s minutes ran out at the payphone, so there was no way to call him back. And I had no idea what to do. So I went back to our room, knelt down and said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father to soften someone´s heart to let this Elder get home with his luggage. I went back to my computer desk, and less than a minute later the Elder calls back, still frantic, but gave me the number of someone I could talk to. I called the number, and it was a guy named Claudio, who works for Azul at the airport. I explained that we were from the Church and the situation, and Claudio accepted it and let the Elder pass with his luggage. And then Claudio asked me, "You know, I´ve always wanted to get to know your church better. Is there a chapel of yours close to where I live?" Claudio gave us his address, and we passed it to the missionaries of his area. The guy was super nice. And I know that that was an answer to my prayer. I KNOW God hears and answers the prayers of His children.  

From the left: Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), Rondônia (also Brazil), and Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and then me haha. That´s the office staff! 

And yesterday, man, it was so good to have a devotional with Elder Christofferson. You know you can actually FEEL it when an Apostle enters in a room? For many Brazilians in the chapel, it was the first time they had seen an Apostle up-close. One thing he said that stuck out was "You can learn a lot from people who´ve had to rely soley on faith in Jesus Christ." He´s super humble, and they way he talked you could tell every word was treated like coming from the Lord himself. It was great for the whole mission.

We had an English school contact me and the American AP here and invite us to go and do open up a panel for questions about the United States and our religion - all in English. It was something to help the Brazilians open up and to use their language skills they´ve been practicing. So we had to speak for two hours in just English! And afterwards, I was with a headache for the rest of the day, I swear! But we found some great people we´re gonna start working with next week once they get back out of town. English is hard

Hope you all have a great week!! This Church is TRUE!

Love Elder Nissinen 

Good moooooooooooooorning Oregon!!!

What. A. Week. Sorry my letter´s gonna be short today. We´ve got 15 missionaries going home and the whole office´s gone nuts with making sure everything´s all good to go. Transfers drops a bomb on everything you´re doing. But we saw a ton of blessings in our area. 

First off, Fabiana and Felipe got baptized this weekend!! The Assistants had a baptism planned for the same day, so we combined both wards for the service. THE PLACE WAS CROWDED!!! And both of them were super happy. The Sisters who do street contacts in front of the Temple have been helping us a lot with who we´re teaching. Plus the ward´s been seeing the fruits of us 4 working closer together. 

We had two birthdays this week of the Office Staff, so we took advantage of the opportunity to throw on a surprise Brazilian Barbeque for the two Saturday night. The South of Brazil is famous for their meat, so Elder L.  is #1 on the grill. The baptism was Saturday night, and right after the service, we ran off to Walmart across the street to get the stuff and start grilling. It was a great way to end a great transfer. 

I´m stoked for this Friday! Elder Chrisofferson´s gonna be visiting our mission!!!!! 

Thanks for the pictures, and glad to hear you´re all doing great. 

B, give me one more week to think about where I´m guessing you´ll go. Maybe Elder Christofferson will slip a hint haha Proud of ya bro!

Love you all!!!!!

Elder Nissinen 

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