Hello family and friends! 

This has definitely been the craziest, wildest, and overall most challenging week of my mission. The stuff that happens is nuts! Tomorrow also marks 2 months...

Since it's all dirt, mud sticks around for days after hard rains...

Wednesday we had a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, rain storm! Of course, me and Elder Liongitau were miles away from the apartment, so we got stuck in it. We were so soaked! The only way I can properly describe it is we were wetter and muddier than Joe's wettest and muddiest soccer game. Head to toe! I dumped 4 shoe fulls of water out that night. Oh yeah, it was also lights out when we got back too, and my battery powered fan had died, so it was HOT!  That sure didn't help my cold. T he rain felt good I guess, but you feel like you just jumped in a lake, so it's not really refreshing in any way. All your clothes and stuff just gets wrecked. 

Dogs and rain.... But it wasn't raining dogs though!

Kids like rats here I guess. They buy and sell them, don't really know what else they do with them....

Thursday rolled around, and we had a great zone training meeting at the stake center, where we met the new fresh elders from the MTC. It feels so nice not being brand new anymore! You're not looked upon as a baby. Our district sang "Come To Zion....Remixed". We had been practicing it for a few weeks prior too. Somehow I was chosen to sing soprano, and everyone laughed when it was my turn to sing the 2nd verse like a girl. Oh well.

We like to goof around!

That night, while walking back to the apartment, I fell into a  3 foot ditch.I wasn't really looking where I was going, and it was dark out. It hurt pretty bad, not gonna lie! My nametag got all scratched up, pants scuffed, and my left arm got a beating. Ironically, I was singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" right before it happened! So I stood back up, shook myself off, and kept singing! Oh yeah, we also had lights off that night too.... so no fan again...

The bad crash in the ditch. My knuckles, forearm, and elbow.

Everyone in our little area here speaks Ga. So I unfortunately don't know any Twi. I know just a few things in Ga. People go absolutely NUTS when you say something in Ga. They love when you do their culture. Kids will repeatedly ask me to say something in Ga to them, they literally all go nuts.  I don't really know what the men do for work. Everything is really random as for working from what I know. Kids go to school usually 5 days a week. They go for a while then they have a break for a week or something. I don't really know much on that either. School's go for 2 sessions. Like a group will go 6 am to 1 pm, then another group will go 2 to 7 or something like that.

Friday we went on exchanges, so I was with Elder Fayeampah in his area. It was also his birthday that day, so we ate a fun breakfast and had a great dinner and party that night. Thanks Aunt Ninnie for the balloons! We had fun messing around with those. 

This is what we had for breakfast on Elder Fayeampah's birthday!

 So good!

Elder Fayeampah is 25 years old now... old man! 

This was a super fun night.

 Yeah I finally got my haircut Saturday night. The guy litterally spent 45 minutes on it. Like my hair was President's lawn or something. I was getting impatient almost. Looks good though.  There's a good chance I'm going to be training. I'm a bit nervous on that, just handling the phone and baptismal records and all.  Knowing the area is really hard too.  No street names or anything.  So I'm working now to prepare for that.  I feel like there are many aspects I am ready for, but lots I'm not ready for. Training right after you've been trained is a challenge. We'll see what goes down in the coming weeks. We got 2 solid baptisms this weekend, so I'm stoked for that.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. A teenage girl hugged and kissed me on the cheek last week. A friend of an investigator that we see a lot. She hadn't seen me in a few days so apparently she needed to kiss me. Ugh.

Saturday was suppose to be a baptism for Fayeampah and Berguson's candidate, but he didn't show up, which is typical on baptism or confirmation day. So we were bummed out about that. Then, while we were sitting outside the church.... President Heid showed up! He wanted to come to the baptism. He ended up doing a personal interview in his truck to all of us, after which we all piled in and showed him our areas. He didn't have time though to drive around Sangonaa area, which was so nice! President asked Elder Berguson and Fayeampah the names of every road in their area... I don't know a single name of any road in our area! They don't really have names...? So we scraped by on that one by our teeth! 

Saturday was also the hottest day I think I've been here yet. Incredible how hot it gets! 

I just realized the weather here in Teshie! It's been high 90's all week! Whoa! . It is lights off right now, so we hung around the apartment after sports for a few hours until something opened. Elder Liongitau and I decided we'd just go to this cafe  (the one with my bathroom experience). Luckily it's generator operated, otherwise we'd have to come tomorrow.

The food is great. No problems eating anything now.

I'm always sweating especially with the spicy food!

We woke up at 5 am to go buy shoes in Accra for Liongitau, but every tro tro was packed, so it never happened. He has 3 pair of shoes  but 2 of them got wrecked cause that's just what happens out here. I'm probably going to give him some money.

Sunday rolled around and we had 2 great investigators show up. Somehow we lost track of time, so we looked at our watches and realized church was starting in 5 minutes... yikes! While jumping on my bike, I split my new pants clean down the center. So I quickly changed and we made it church in just 3 minutes! Record time for sure, but we weren't late...!  Both of those 2 investigators are being baptized this Saturday. We have 2 or 3 more that are close to baptism, but getting them to attend church without us coming to pick them up is still a never-ending struggle.  Our branch had their Primary Program Sunday! It was absolutely hilarious. The kids were super funny. They acted out the 10 virgins skit.  I was laughing my head off all sacrament long. Super cute and hilarious.  A girl got up in the beginning, 8 years old, and rehearsed the Articles of Faith without a single mess up. I couldn't read it as well as she did. It was incredible!

To sum it all up, this really was a week of trials. I told President that there were so many things that happened to me this week that I could have just thrown the jersey in and gave up for the day. But as for me, it's all about the attitude and how you handle situations. Like Gordon B. Hickley's father said, "Forget yourself and go to work!" I'm grateful for the opportunities I have to better myself and help others come closer to Jesus Christ. I'm working hard right now to memorize the area and where the members live, because the odds are I'm going to be training in 5 weeks. Elder Liongitau is helping with that a lot. 

I've been wanting to do a shot like this since I left home. Finally a good day for it!

Great to hear from everyone this week, like always! Lots of pictures to come your way, as you can imagine from the eventful week I've had. Thanks for your all your love and support! And thanks to those in the ward for their letters too. Have a great week everyone! 

There is one quote shared from a poem we read during Zone Conference that stood out to me: 

"No matter what we go through, when we feel we can't take more,

Just stop and think about Jesus Christ, He's been there before."

Love Elder Nissinen

This little baby suddenly fell asleep by me. Pretty funny, sucking his thumb the whole time. 

Dear Family and Friends.

Hello! I'm beaming with happiness today for several reasons. Yes, I did receive my packages! They are totally amazing and way too much, so Elder Liongitau is certainly receiving a bunch of it!  I honestly don't need anything! I have what I need. I enjoy using up what I already have and being humble with it. I felt great with the 3 packages today of course, but everyone was looking at me with 3 packages in my hand like I'm a spoiled rich kid. I'm giving Liongitau half.   I don't need ties either.... Tell Ninnie  thank you but no more ties! And don't give me things to hand out to the kids here either. It ruins our image that we are trying to make. People beg for money, so giving them stuff only helps their mindset of us having everything to give away. I'm a missionary, not an american on vacation.   From everyone at home perspective, it's nice giving poor kids stuff. And it certainly is. But I can't give kids stuff. I don't feel good about doing that. Literally everyone stares at us when we walk by, so I don't want more attention. Feel free to send whatever, but I don't really need anything. Snacks are fine and american cash is great, because it doesn't cost you much and it's worth a bit here. A package or two every transfer, which is 6 weeks, is just fine for me. 

 It's P-day too of course, so I'm happy to hear from home. I'm sure people in the cafe think I'm nuts because I laugh at all the pictures and letters. Funny stuff! 

Like I said, I'm no longer a bright-greenie! I'm now a shady-greenie. I'm staying here in Sangonaa with Elder Liongitau. Missionaries stay here for quite a while. Elder Liongitau has been here all 6 months. In fact, all 4 of us in the district have been here our whole missions. So forget transfers. Which is fine, because I'm totally loving it and our area. I've said it before, but you guys just wouldn't believe the number of people in our area. Tens of thousands. It's a blast finding new people, playing with the kids, teaching, and just having a good ol' time laughing at the random stuff you see. 

The Sangonaa Studs. 

As you can assume, I've already learned a ton in just the 6 weeks I've been here. Time really does fly when you're a missionary, dedicating your time and energy to OTHERS. Pretty amazing when you think about it, huh?

I got sick Mom.....

..... of my sidebag. Empty it weighs like 10 pounds. So I got a scripture case. That's all we use out here. Scriptures and a few pamphlets. No need for anything else really. I will send a picture next week of it. No, backpacks, believe it or not, aren't allowed. It's so lame because there are tons of great backpacks here and it's much more convenient than a dumb sidebag, but we can't. It's ok, I have a killer scripture bag that works just fine. 

One Transfer Down.... A bunch to Go!

We are two weeks away from our baptismal date. We have 4 investigators who are progressing well enough to be ready for baptism. Only two showed up to church though. I'm establishing myself better with people, clearing the way to them opening up their problems and personal feelings. When that happens, it's a piece of cake to use the gospel as answers. 

Last Tuesday President assigned every person in the mission to deep clean their apartment for 4 hours. He wanted us to clean every square inch of it! Like behind the fridge and everything. We clean ours pretty good every Monday morning, but we found tons of things that haven't been even touched in ages. I listen to a talk every morning when I'm cleaning, eating, and washing. It's really nice. 

I had 2 girls propose to me last week...... yikes.

We had a massive downpour the other day, so we all just camped in our apartment until it stopped. Because all the homes and most of our area is just dirt, it creates a lot of mud and flooding. The ground can only soak up so much. Even just the few hours it rained, you could see flooding beginning to happen. 

While at the mission home today, there was a scale. It said I weighed 135 pounds. I left at 146. I don't think it is right, but all the elders said it was, since they use it to weigh luggage. I still think it's wrong though. I'm never hungry. The food is just fine! I feel just fine too. Not a problem in the world for me Mom!   I sprayed my net with special insecticide spray the other day. We do it every conference. Thought you might like to know that. Also, I don't really know the holidays other than Christmas, but there is one next month I think.  I don't know what it is.  No, there is no Halloween or Thanksgiving here.  Trick or treating wouldn't even be possible here. There aren't even doors to knock

on.  I've only knocked on 2 so far.  It's so fun feeling like you're camping all the time.

We pounded fufu and stirred banku this week! You have to do it yourself to appreciate the work behind it. It's not easy! 

You pound fufu and stir/drive banku. Fufu blistered my hands. 

 Thanks for the emails, pictures, and Kevin O'Leary quote. Took me a few times to understand who the heck it was though... Great to hear Rosie and Jacob had a great time at Homecoming. Rosie, Kevin is cool, but you're not allowed to boyfriend/girlfriend like Jacob yet. Hard to believe Jacob has girlfriend, in a nice way. Joe your pretty lucky to be a Nissinen boy with his own room. Sheesh, me and Jacob will never have that. Be sure to deck it out and get a good speaker system in it. 

Have a great week! Be positive and a proud member of the Church. We can't really control the things that happen in our lives, but we can certainly control our attitude. So have a good attitude! 

Pretty cool idea huh? 

Love Elder Nissinen 

Hello family and friends! 

Zone Soccer Jerseys for when we play other zones. I'm in Christianborg Stake and Christianborg Zone

I got so lucky they spelled my name right. So many Elders got their names way messed up. Super funny

I should probably start by saying something about Conference. It was awesome! We were lucky enough to watch both morning sessions live at the Stake Center near the Temple, about 30 minutes away. We couldn't watch the later sessions because they were too late in the evening for us, due to the 7 hour time change or whatever. But I felt really lucky that we could watch what we did. Conference is much better when you are a missionary, just throwin' that out for ya! You focus, actually take notes by choice, and don't have to be yelled at to sit up. The 3 new apostles are great too. I am excited when they have the talks online so I can print them out and study them. 

  Benjamin, the 17 year old member who goes out with us all the time.

There are 3 groups that meet at our building - Teshie 1 and Teshie 2 wards, and our branch, Sangonaa Branch. They combined all 3 this Sunday so that everyone could have time to make it to Conference, so there was like 250 people total in a relatively small building! 

   Right after Saturday Morning Session. We took lots of pictures. New and improved Elder Nissinen: No sideburns, and how about the pants?! 

To make things even more exciting, I got 12 kids to come to church with us! All of them it was their first time! Kids 6-11. Only a few are really able to be taught, but it was a lot of fun having little girls and boys holding your hand on the way to church. Just imagine 2 non-africans in white shirts and ties with 13 other people following them to church!  Elder Liongitau was with our main investigator, Joseph, a 21 year old guy, so I was left to deal with the little kids in all their needs and different directions. I felt a lot like a father, weird huh?

The kids I took to church! Every one of them is a nonmember and first time coming to our church. They were so fun to be with. They got dressed themselves and waited for us to come by. A few like me. One kissed my cheek the other night and ran away. 

Things are going just fine for me and Elder Liongitau. We are finding plenty of people to teach, so many that it becomes hectic to remember everyone we contacted for the day. It's way too easy to find a new investigator haha. But getting them to come to church is and always will be the challenge. We are continuing our approach to solving this problem by biking to them and physically taking them with us. We are getting more member-present lessons too. 

        We were standing on a bridge called London Bridge. Really cool area because it is so open.

There is one thing that frustrates me and I can't seem to get a good way to solve it: kids and adults begging for money and drunks pestering you. It's hard to deal with. You know people need money usually, and you want to give, but people have a hard time understanding that a white Ghana missionary doesn't have much money to live off of already. I have no problem giving a boy money, but there are tons of others, and I would be broke if I gave to all, so I have to say no most of the time. We still give our money away to those who are hungry, but it's a challenge dealing with it. The drunks are pretty bothersome. Lots of drunks we run into. We attract them?

I went on exchanges with Elder Fayeampah, one of the elders in our apartment. He's hard to get along with because he only 3 hours away from his home and is 25 years old, so the rest of us in the apartment are 18 and 19, and a super long ways away from our homes! I was worried it would be a rough day. But he was hilarious, super cool, down-to-earth, and our relationship now is nothing but fun. Goes to show when you really focus on YOU trying to understand THEM, THEY begin to like YOU. YOU have to focus on OTHERS so OTHERS will like YOU. 

We are having a lot of fun. Everything is getting hotter, but it doesn't stop us from working hard and playing hard. 

Kids coming from school are always a thrill to talk to. I was teaching them a handshake I think. 

If you want something fun to look at and see what I eat a lot. google these things:  FanMilk, fanIce, FanChoco. I eat at least one FanChoco every day except Sunday. Phenomenal snack. Frozen!  Water comes in satchels, or pouches here. We all drink from them. Bite off a corner and drink! Really cheap too. Nobody buys bottled water...too expensive. Guys go around with a horn and a bike with a cooler attached to it, selling those things. They are everywhere. They also have muffins, like little corn muffins that we get along with a FanChoco or FanIce. Great snack in the middle of the day. 1 cedi for the FanChoco, 50 pesewas for the muffin. They also have FanYogo, which is like frozen yogurt. I had it in the MTC once and it was gross, but it tastes great now. Same with FanIce. FanChoco is so good. The FanMilk company does great here. See the pictures of the guys on the bikes? You just yell "Hey FanIce!" and they'll come to wherever you're at! I so love it.

To answer some questions from home:  Do members feed you dinner?  Do they have a food calendar to feed the Elders?

Haha yeah right! the church is so different here. Rarely get fed by people. If they are cooking they'll give you something, but it's spur of the moment. Never plan on a free meal! No calendar. The church is really simple here. We don't even have meetings before church. We've had one meeting with the branch mission leader so far. It's just different. We do our own thing. They call on people randomly for fast Sunday!   Everyone shows up late too. They sing songs before church starts. I teach Sunday school. Young women teach themselves. Seminary is in the evening a few nights a week. There is always something happening at the church building.   I usually have at least one little girl or boy on my lap during sacrament or playing with my stuff.  The chorister gets really into it, like she dances almost. Funny. Half of sacrament meeting is in a different language, so I have no idea what's going on half the time! Kids are running around everywhere and other churches blast their music with their dumb bands, so we can't hear the speaker often. Music is played everywhere, every moment. You can always hear music from at least one source. All day, all night. Good music too!   Check out Stone Boy. He's a popular artist here. My favorite song is called Shake Body! Sometimes I want to break out in dance moves but I'm supposed to represent Jesus Christ, so I try to hold it back as much as possible. But sometimes you gotta shake it a little bit. People are dancing all the time. Like it's different here. Nobody is embarrassed about their dancing ability. They dance because they want to, nobody really watches you dance.

 I'm not going to share EVERYTHING I see. There is lots of violence here. Not in a dangerous way, but the culture is aggressive. Kids punch each other, boys and girls, and roll around in the sand and dirt all the time. You want to break it up or hope an adult does it for you, but it's different here. People solve their own problems here. No need for courts or lawsuits. 

I don't know what the hardest thing is really. The weather is rough on my skin. 

Me right now. This is my favorite shirt. 5 cedi! 

I love the children and the work the most. They pick me up when I'm feeling down. They smile at you. The work is great. Serving others all day is a blast.   I love my mission. It's not as hard as you think, at least for me. I love it. Everything I've learned, even in just the 5 weeks of being in the field, has helped me in some way. I know much more about the gospel than I did before, I really like studying the scriptures, and being able to talk to people all day is great. Ghana is a much different culture of course, but I love so many aspects of life here that just can't be done at home for one reason or the other. It will continue to change and mold me (like clay huh?) to the person I need to become.

Thanks again for the package! 

That beef jerky is amazing. Nothing is better than american beef. Sad to hear about the bunk bed going down. Rosie, thanks for cleaning the truck out. Have Jarrett ride in the truck bed next time. Hope Jacob and Rosie have fun at homecoming! Joe, keep cleaning out those cars. I miss detailing. Thanks for the great emails. Keep up the good work everybody!  Oh yeah, something else to tell you: We are probably going to be calling home, not skyping. That's the way they did it for mothers day at least. and it isn't much time either. It's not important to know now, but thought I'd let you all know so no hopes are broken at the last moment.

P.S. If Rosie and Joe get bored, have them handwash there clothes for fun. Or next time they complain about clothes, have them do it our way: handwash in a bucket, and dry on a line.  

Love Elder Nissinen

Super fun little boy we see a lot. I feel so bad for him. He falls a lot when he walks because he is so cross-eyed. Great kid.

Dear Family, friends, and whoever else: 

This has been another great week here in Teshie. The normal missionary life is sinking in along with the culture, so I'm feeling pretty good right now. 

I smacked the side of a truck thing the other day on my bike! 

The work is going good. We are finding many wonderful investigators that are totally loving the gospel message we share. Finding people to teach here is like the easiest thing to do. Tracting doesn't exist here! I am always amazed at how easy it is to find those to teach. People just come up to us all the time. The only problem with lessons is their lack of english, or our lack of Ga. Many people speak "small small" english, and some know very little. Even those who are "fluent" still struggle. I honestly feel like I am communicating to a 4 or 5 year old sometimes. It's a challenge!  We are working on getting more members in our lessons to help with translation though. 

I had no idea conference is this weekend. I guess that means I'm not watching it! I will have to wait until it is online and go print it out or something. 

Our second issue is still getting people to come to church. For the first few weeks when we invited them to come, they said they would and never showed up. It always bugs the heck out of me when we say "So will you come to church with us this Sunday?" and they respond "By God's Grace" or "Yes, God willing I will". What do you mean?! God wants you to come to church with us, I promise!!! So after a few weeks of people lying to us, they are finally seeing that we aren't joking about them coming to church, so they have began to come now. I flat-out told an older man yesterday after church that he needs to stop lying to us and the Lord and come to churhc, or just say no and don't come. He appreciated the advice. One method that I think we will use more on Sunday mornings is to leave church an hour or so early and go pick up investigators or less actives and walk with them to church! It works!! 

Many lessons, many investigators, many kids, much fun. We walk a ton out here. Lots and lots of walking. 

This ones for you Ro!

There's also been a few cultural practices I've seen this week that if you didn't know better, you'd think they were mentally handicapped. Saw some prayer ritual with old ladies dancing the other day. 

We got our subsistance money Tuesday! It feels so good to get money. Only problem is budgeting. 

I teach the youth sunday school class in our branch each week. It's fun, but the girls will ask you alllllll week long if you are going to be teaching them Sunday.  Yeah the young women like me. They run and hug you, but you just don't feed it and carry on. Some girls want my phone number. Good grief.

These puppies are 3 weeks old. I asked how much they were, and the guy said 20 cedis. Which is like 5 bucks.

To answer a few of Dad's Questions: 

1. My companion is doing great. We work well together. Both of us love sweets and playing with the kids. 

2. I haven't taken a warm shower since I left home. Usually it's nice because it's so darn hot here, but 6:30am is a hard one to dive into cold water.

3. Yeah our apartment of 4 is fun. If somebody else is cooking it usually means you can eat free food. They have a lot of fun music I wish I had. I heard some Boyz II Men the other day and just about died! I miss the music. 

4. Members and people are great. They all flip when you say something in Ga. There's about 4 kind of people from what I have seen: Kids, women (nearly all are overweight, it's gotta be genetic, because they all work hard), men (all skinny and never home in the daytime) and what I call the Ghanaian gangsters. Guys love Michael Jordan here too. See Bulls shirts and fake jordan logos printed all over shirts. People call me chinese sometimes, and it really annoys me. Like really? Not even close. I love the people though. They just are fun to be around. 

5. As far as finances go, everyone lives the same pretty much. We stay a bit away from those we teach, so we are in a nicer gated community. I thought our apartment was really poor the first few days, but it's much nicer than I thought! Thought you might like to know that eggs aren't refrigerated here. Cooks the same, tastes the same. Never have been sick!

Wednesday night we ran out of water. Our poly-tank that holds it was empty. We had no water for drinking, showering, cooking, washing, or brushing teeth! We didn't know when it would come back on either. There's a part in the white handbook that says "Wash daily, if possible." I know why that's there now! Instantly made me appreciate running water. Suddenly everything I wanted to do stopped because it required water, which we didn't have. Luckily we got water the next morning though, so no big deal. Just a great way for me to have gratitude for running water. I could care less about electricity, water is way more important. Appreciate your sink, dishwasher, and heated shower!   The Bread is amazing here. Cheap too. Costs 3-5 cedis for a loaf. We eat a ton of bread! Go through a loaf in about 4 days. Washing clothes is getting more "fun". My knuckles have cuts on them now from the rubbing. It will bleed next time.  The people have very little here.  Kids don't have shoes that fit them. I want to buy them some, but for several reasons I just can't.   Well, you see they pretty much live life hard every day, so there used to it? It is still sad of course, but it's their life, all of them. You just give service when you can and wipe kids' tears away and make them feel appreciated.

Just walking a little girl home.  I love the kids!!!

Transfers are next week. This is week 5 in the field. I wish to stay here until Christmas.  I hope you are all doing well and working hard. Jacob, keep it up with Storm.  Yeah I've heard about BYU and the Ducks a little, so that's too bad they are not any good. At least Joe's team wins. 

I got the package today! So awesome receiving those things. I can't wait to dive into that beef jerky! Don't have that here! Thank you for that. 

We ride our bikes to the chapel and walk all day. It's getting hotter and hotter out here. After our little 6 minute bike ride, we are soaked in sweat.

Love and miss you all. Rock on!

Elder Nissinen

Cute girl picture for the week. This is how all women carry their babies - with some cloth and the baby on their back. Looks uncomfortable to me, but babies sleep all time, so I guess it works.

Dear Family and Friends.

Hey!! Great to hear from everyone again. Hope school is going well and everyone is having fun. Joe keep kicking butt! Rosie keep being a good friend, service opportunities are everywhere, you just need the "service goggles" as I say first. Jacob, BYU sounds sooo fun! Keep being a hungry hound dog. 

First of all...... it's my one month mark! Crazy how fast time goes by when you are a full-time servant busy doing work all day long. Weeks fly by. This week was a week of milestones for me personally. In short, I am becoming more and more "Africanized" as Pres. Heid calls it. I'm getting into the norm of missionary life in Ghana. 

Yes, I got my haircut! 19 year old kid cut it. Did a phenomenal job on it really, considering it was his first time cutting a white mans hair. he spent probably 30-40 minutes on it.

 My first milestone happened on Tuesday, but the story begins Monday. Bear with me on the length of the story: 

There is a chop-bar that some member lady owns or something, so she gives missionaries free meals. Well that's awesome, except it is only fufu and banku. My companion and the other elders in the apartment like it a lot, so I'm always reluctant on going, because if you don't eat everything, they will be very upset, and so you have to give it to the other elders to help you out. Well Monday night they were tired of helping me out because I can hardly eat any fufu, and so my only resort was to ask for a plastic bag to "take it home and eat it later". I stuffed it in the bag and threw it on the side of the road while we were going home. Frustrated at the world basically, impatient at myself, and a bit hungry, I prayed and asked for some help. So Tuesday the Zone Leaders went out with us for the day. Of course, for breakfast, they wanted to go to the chop bar. Again reluctant, I joined with no choice. We started eating, and before I knew it, I ate all the fufu!!!! First time!!! Just twelve hours ago I couldn't eat jack-squat, and now I downed the whole thing!  I was so happy at my achievement, I nearly cried. It was monumental for me, though it sounds silly. Since then, fufu is fine. Banku has a sour flavor, so it's not as easy, and you have to swallow a bit quicker than you can with fufu, but I'm getting much better. Prayers are answered! Foods that were gross in the MTC taste good now. Foods that weren't sweet enough are sweet now. Thought those of you at home would enjoy a story about the food, since you're all curious about that. 

Monumental first ball of fufu! Fufu is gooooood! Now I'm working on finishing the soup and chicken too. I just get too full honestly. I can't eat as much as before. 

Banku at the apartment for breakfast. They don't have fufu for breakfast where we are at. Banku helps you swallow better. Fufu you can savor... not banku! 

Second milestone: 

I got my first baptism Saturday! His name is Clifford, middle-aged man. I never knew him really. See he was suppose to be baptized before I came, but they postponed it. My companion told me I was going to baptize him, so I did. It was a bit strange baptizing basically a stranger, but it was a significant event on his part. He's a really serious guy though... I'm really excited when I have baptisms of my own next month with people I taught and found. It'll be really significant then. Next month we are planning on at least 3 baptisms... possibly 4 or 5. 

Clifford, the very serious man I baptized. We nailed it first time! Didn't mess up on the name or anything! 

Me and Elder Liongitau are working hard in resolving our differences. I'm working on humbling myself in all situations and looking inward to better our companionship. I don't always need to be right or know what is going on. Many great attributes I'm trying to attain out here.... 

The work is also going sweet. Members are becoming friends, and church attendance is slowly on the rise. 

To answer a few questions about technology here: 

No iPads to missionaries. I gave mine to President when I arrived here, and will get it back in two years... Most people have phones, but they are basic nokia things like what we have. Sometimes a smartphone. When it's lights out, it's generators out too, so generators are all over the place. I mean, you have to still blast the music even though it's lights out, duh! 

I'm cooking on my own more. If you want something to eat, you pretty much have to cook it! Eggs, fruit, bread, and Indomie. Indomie is the same as Top Raman, so I bought a fat pack of 40 of them the other day. Such a good investment. 

Just because it's lights out, doesn't stop the people from doing the things they need to do. This iron works off of coals. I was amazed. Looked at it, studied it, played with it for a good 5 minutes. They are so resourceful!

There is a nice lady named Theodora who "altered my trousers" aka hemmed my pants for free! Five pair! 

They use handcrank sewing machines here. I've only seen just a few electronic ones. 

Fun thought for you all. I get asked the funniest questions sometimes. Here are some good ones: 

Do you have oranges in America?

Is America cold? 

I have a friend named so-and-so in America. Do you know him?

                  Speaking of that question, there is a funny story about a recent convert we go and visit that I think you would like. He is an old man named John Smith. He LOVES that he has a white last name. He tells the story all the time. Supposedly his great-great-great-great grandfather was white, so that's why his last name is Smith. Well the other day he asked me if I could take him home to the U.S. and help find his relatives, or that he wants to go to the U.S. and look himself and find his ancestry. SO FUNNY! He has no idea that there are like 10.2 million Smiths out there. I told him about familysearch.com, but i don't even think that will help him in his case. 

Like I said, we are near the ocean. So we went down to see for ourselves: Absolutely amazing scene! The ocean is right along a huge cliff, where everyone lives. It was so cool to see. 

I just love the people here. The people love life. I say it in my head nearly everyday. They just have a love of life, regardless of the things they lack. Low quality living, high quality people.

Keep being rockstars and choosing the right. Remember that people are watching you no matter what. Don't forget to reach out to those in need. Like the scriptures say, as I am losing myself in the service of the Lord, I am finding myself just as equally. 

Have a wonderful week! Thanks for the letters, stories, pictures, and support. Love and miss you all, 

Elder Nissinen