The Peridizes Zone!!!

Elder O made me this awesome meal!!! Noodles, Rice and Chicken.  It was amazing!!!

Before I forget our next P-day won't be on Monday because  we´re going to the TEMPLE!!!! The last time I went was with Elder C. months ago. I hope I never take the Temple for granted.

It´s great that Pday is today too! Elder O.  and I are always pumped to get off to the LAN House as fast as we can. And we´re now another hour ahead thanks to Daylight Savings. Elder O. was telling me, where he lives they hardly ever switch the time, because he lives so close to the Equator. You´re not gonna believe this (I didn´t either), but yesterday President sent us all a text giving us PERIMISSION to SLEEP IN today until 7:30. What the heck!!! Even I took advantage of that, or tried, even though I couldn´t go back to sleep when I woke up at 6:30. Oh well haha

Things went a lot better this week. We´ve been really narrowing down our teaching pool with those who want to know the truth, and SHOW it (going to church, praying, reading). The rest have either dropped us or we dropped them after teaching them for so long without much progress. But with that said, we´ve got some quality people we´re teaching. One of them is Fernando. He´s the guy we brought to the church building to tour it around and play some pingpong. He grew up as a Jehova Witness but wasn´t baptized. We´re super tight with him. And....he came to church too!! I got a cool story with that:

A lesson learned on Sunday (of many). During the week, someone robbed the church building; jumped the high fence, broke the two thick masterlocks on the doors, and broke the window to get in. They took the speakers and microphones, and tried breaking the Bishopric´s security door. Thankfully no one was inside or hurt, but it made things kinda annoying on Sunday without being able to hear the speakers right. We were sitting towards the back near the side doors, and with little kids running around, opening and shutting the doors every 10 seconds, and not being able to hear the speakers, I was (to say the least) annoyed. I was mostly afraid of what Fernando would think, it being his first time. After the meeting, we asked him what he thought. His answer stunned me: Ît was perfect. I realized and learned that to those who no hardly anything of our faith, that there is still a distinct and perfect Spirit to be felt in His house, no matter how roughty the kids, or if we´re lacking the lastest sound system. None of that matters if there are those gathered in His name, attentively looking for that ^water of everlasting life.^  And they will feel it. The members afterward asked Fernando if he´s got a baptismal date soon. He said Not yet, but I will definitely soon. It was one of those spiritual fist-pumping moments.

This is a hard area, probably one of the hardest in the mission. Some have called this place Babylon if you believe it or not. But I´ve been growing and stretching so much with Elder O. We´re working our butts off, and we know Heavenly Father has and will continue to bless us, even with the small coincidences. Thank you too for your advice Dad that you sent me today.

I love you all very much. Have a great week! 

Love Elder Nissinen

Ping Pong Proselyting...

Boy things have been burning up here in Brazil. We left the apartment at 10, and it was already 91 degrees!! The whole week has been like that. Thank heavens we have a box fan for each of us to use at night to cool off. When we get home at night, after planning, it´s always a competition of who´s gonna be the one to take a shower first. In the summer it´s pretty common to take two even three showers a day to get all the sweat off. I definitely used some sunscreen to keep me alive haha.

A long week it was in Perdizes. We had a lot of good successes, and then almost all of it came burning down at the last moment on Saturday. But I´m grateful for the story Mom sent me about Gratitude. Elder O  is a great help. He´s super positive and hilarious, and we´ve been helping each other out a lot with all the crazy stresses in mission life. We had some really good spiritual experiences too.

Starting off on the less-spiritual side, I learned that our church building has a ping-pong table! We took one of our investigators to show him around the chapel, and then we all decided to hook up the table and go at it. After a bunch of smack-talk (it´s really fun to smack-talk in Portuguese btw), I learned an important lesson: don´t mess with Brazilians in ping-pong. Fun fact, they all hold the paddle the Japanese way. I held my own, but Elder O shoved my foot in my mouth. If we have time today after shopping and cleaning, we´re gonna go back to the chapel for a rematch. 

Me and Elder W with our MacD 

I also went on Exchanges with Elder W, a brand-new missionary with only 2 weeks here. A lot of the Americans now are going straight to the Brazil MTC without having to wait. And me with only a week or so in the huge downtown area, needless to say, we got a little ways off the beaten path, if you know what I mean. But we decided to celebrate (and get rid of our headaches from being lost), by getting some Big Macs for 15 dollars a piece. But it was worth it haha.

Saturday was probably one of the hardest proselyting days of my mission. We´ve been working with some really good people, and they were marked and ready for baptism soon. But throughout the day, we passed by a few of them on the street. Many lied about appointments, broke commandments behind our backs, and to be honest we were pretty mad, if not disappointed. Right when close to nothing else could-ve gone worse, we decided to take 5, get some cold water, and pop a squat on a nearby parkbench to just talk. We both felt right to fast about all this. So right then and there we started our fast in prayer. We got up, chose someone to go visit, and started walking. A minute or two later we got a phonecall from the Relief Society president. She´d seen us praying and asked us why. We told her we were having a rough day, and she told us of how proud she was that we´re obedient and working hard, and that the Lord is proud of us too. I don´t know exactly how Heavenly Father answers our prayers, but a scripture that Elder O uses often comes to mind - of how by small and simple things, great things come to pass. That phone call was the best thing that happened that day. 

Thank you for your emails and prayers. Even though some weeks and days are harder or better than others, I´m grateful that Heavenly Father gives me these opportunities to grow. I rely on Him for so much.

Keep fighting and keep moving forward. Know where you face.

Love you all very much,             Elder Nissinen

            Pictures of my apartment 

My first Brazilian Companion

Happy Pday! It came really fast this week, and I´ve got a lot of changes to tell you guys.

Of course Monday was spent most of the day packing and saying good-bye to all the awesome members I met. I´m sending you some pictures of them all today. Tuesday I got to see all my last companions because they were getting transferred too. Elder B and Elder C are still doing awesome. A member pulled up in one of the fanciest cars in the church parking lot, and Elder Oliveira came out with the member. My first thought: ^Man this place is gonna be legit. So many things to tell you about the changes.

I think the best way to describe the difference between Perdizes and every other area I´ve served in is like this: Imagine serving in the poorest part of Cornelius for 4 months, and then get transferred right to the richest and heart of Portland, right in the smack center. And that´s where I´m at! It´s a HUGE area. We have to take two buses to get to church every week, and even with our area split with Sisters, it takes about 30 minutes by bus to go from side to side. The houses are few. In fact most buildings are apartments, so imagine in just one block how many people live. We have SO MUCH work to do here we are never resting, plus being a zone leader at the same time. 

My first Brazilian companion Elder O is amazing. He´s a convert of about 5 years now, and is the first member of his family as a member of the Church. He got kicked out of the house for joining, but then he came back and baptized most of his family. He´s an awesome teacher, super funny, and gets along great with everyone. Heavenly Father has really blessed me with some awesome companions.

This week we did a Contact challenge between our zone, between which companionship could do the most contacts in a week fromThursday to Sunday night. Our zone is really competitive, but it was hilarious throughout the week to see everyone smack-talking each other about talking to people on the street. Even between conference sessions our zone was out contacting to get the edge. I´ve never contacted so many people on my mission! Our area´s not the best for contacting because since so many people work in our area, few actually live in it, or even close to it! 

To put that to the test, Elder O challenged me to do a contact with the first person I saw, and then to see where he lived. Turns out the guy lived at least 3 hours by bus away from our area - and that´s common!! The center is way different than anything else. And if you think Portland is weird, wait till you check out São Paulo. Just so you believe me, there´s men that dress up like women, and they actually look like women (until they open their mouths and talk in their actual voices). Pretty weird. 

We live in an apartment with just me and Elder O. Sorry mom, but no oven in this one. And no gym either! But it´s okay. We got a great view of the city from our 12 story window. 

Conference was the BEST! And I was super grateful they hooked up a little TV in some room in the stake center to the English channel of conference. It was me, the rest of the American missionaries in the stake, and a couple members who were fluent in English. I wasn´t able to listen to Priesthood Session because of the time, but I downloaded all the conference already to listen again throughout the week. I thought it was really neat that they had a few 70 speak in their native languages. The members got a kick of it here that they got to hear a talk in their own language without someone doing a translation. I learned to be grateful for English after listening to the foreign talks. It´s so much different when you´re listening and watching the General Authority actually speaking. 

Crazy changes, but I know I´m learning and growing a lot because of it. It looks like you all had a great week. Keep truckin Glencoe! Love you all a ton!! Thank you for your emails today. I keep praying for you every day.

Love Elder Nissinen

A good captain always goes down with his ship,


So so so many things happened this week. Not gonna lie, some things were stressin both Elder B and I with a bunch of appointments and baptisms lined up. But Heavenly Father´s hand was in everything that happened this week.

At the beginning of last week we were planning on having 6 people baptized this Saturday. Throughout the week, people started talking about not being prepared enough, or they hadn´t kicked their Word of Wisdom addictions yet, but we both prayed a ton this week that before the transfer was over, that we could have at least one person baptized, but if it´s the Lord´s will, we´d wait. We both felt that we´d focus more on the people who had the most likely-est chance of baptism. 

Out of all that, Jessica came out of the crowd of investigators. She was found through the Bishop´s 2nd counselor, Gilberto. She had some doubts in the beginning, but after going to Church the first time, the Spirit did the rest. She´s not married but has two younger girls. We got pretty freaked out when the girls were fighting chicken pox all this last week, but come a couple days before Saturday, they were perfect! It was great seeing the ward support her. She said that a huge weight was taken off her shoulders, she felt so great. Gilberto baptized her, and the day after I did the confirmation. 

Sunday night was a roller coaster too. We had the ward activity, the CTM&M (Member-Missionary Training Center), and it hit off so well. All the returned missionaries dressed up in their original tags, while the rest of the ward wore little FUTURE MISSIONARY tags. There were about 10 RM´s who had returned recently, so they each split off into `companionships` and we did a rotation between the ward. And then, to top it all off, (Mom, you´d be proud) I baked cookies for the whole ward! Took some creativity and bought all the stuff the day before and put M&M´s. The ward LOVED them!! All of the sisters had me translate the recipe. Your cookies are going global Mom! We had so many people there wanting to help out with the activity, and the work´s really gonna acelerate here!

The only thing.....President called me right before the activity. Looks like I´m followin the same path that I did in California - I´m going ZONE LEADER!!!! Which means, I´m being transferred. Tomorrow´s the swaps. All I know is that I´m going to Perdizes (the other side of the mission, and it´s a lot richer area too), my companion is gonna be Elder O  (a Brazilian!!). I´m pretty stoked but sad at the same time. I told the ward after the activity, and man was it hard to say goodbye. I´ve spent the most time in Macedonia than all the other areas on my whole mission. Elder B is a little afraid, having only 3 weeks in the area, and now with a Brazilian companion that he´s getting. But it´ll be good for him too. Tonight after packing I´m gonna go visit some other members to say goodbye (and to give them the cookie recipe). I think the hardest thing about a mission is saying goodbye. But it´ll be a great experience in this new area, new companions, new everything. I´m excited to see what the Lord has in store for me to learn with all this. 

A mission´s amazing. I´ve learned so much already, and I´ve changed so much too. A mission wants you to be a better person, and it makes you that. 

Loev you all a ton. Got some good pics comin today. The LAN house is going on a lunch break in about 15 minutes, but I´ll be back if you want to chat. Take some good notes of General Conference. It´s gonna be awesome!

Love Elder Nissinen

What a week. Another one of those rollercoaster weeks with some really cool miracles and some crashes and burns.

But first off, remember that multi-zone activity where our zone won, and President promised us breakfast? We had that today. Man, President lives in a really nice place, on the richer side of town. The better-off people live in penthouses in complexes, and President fed both zones with an awesome breakfast. We also chilled for a few hours playing basketball in the complex´s sport court. Everyone took pictures, and President will be putting them up soon. I´ve got a few to send of it all too today.

Elder B.  and I are doing really well. This is the last week of the transfer, and chances are I´ll be heading out. Out of us four I´m the one with the most time in the area, so this week Elder B is gonna be acting as senior companion to help him get to know the area and investigators better. It´ll also help him with his shyness and Portuguese too. But, if the Lord does want me to stay for one more transfer, I´m not complaining haha. It´s definitely one of my favorite areas. 

After emailing last Monday, Yule and us 4 went and did the Ice Bucket Challenge. Yule´s got the video, and he said he should have it on today. If he doesn´t, Rosie can give him a hard time haha. 

I don't know why I wore jeans knowing I'm going to get wet!

We have a bunch of great investigators, and those who´ve already been to Church love it. We have a few lined up for baptism this weekend, but some have been on-and-off with commitments, and others have told us they don´t feel quite ready yet.

The zone!!!
Elder B and I are gonna keep praying and working hard so these people can make the right choice. The best choices in life are usually some of the hardest. I think that´s why it´s so important that when the Spirit prompts us to do something, we need to act on it and not push it off. Satan these days is increasing in strength. But I´m super super super excited for General Conference in less than two weeks. Our Stake Center´s gonna be in remodeling during the conference, so we may have to go to another stake center if we want to watch the sessions in English (they usually got it hooked up just for the American missionaries). 

The Lord has blessed us with a really cool kid we´re teaching. His name is Nilo. We found him through some member-friends of his that work at the same Pet Shop as he does. Actually the owners of the shop are members too, and they always have a Book of Mormon ready to hand out. The members aren´t apart of our area, but they referred Nilo to us. He´s super smart and diving into the scriptures. In the last couple weeks he´s read all the way past Lehi´s dream, and in that chapter, that´s when Nilo decided he wants to be baptized - Ka POW! And....he came to Church yesterday all by himself!! These investigators are true examples of faith, because they SHOW it. His member friends surprised all of us by taking him to Young Mens and Sunday School, even though they´re not in our ward! 

We got some good things coming. This week´s gonna be packed with appointments and the crazy things that only 4 lost Americans can do in a foreign country haha. But Heavenly Father has blessed us so much - we can´t stop thanking Him, even during the rough days. 

Love you all a ton. Thanks for the emails again. Congratulations on the wins and the great-looking Captain Crimson flag. 

Love Elder Nissinen 

What an awesome week we had! A lot of errands with getting Elder B and Elder W all settled in and zone conference, but Elder B and I hit the pavement hard this week. 

Elder B is a great guy. He´s spent 8 months in the Las Vegas West mission waiting for the visa. He´s 19 from Iowa, close to Des Moines. We´ve gotten along great this week. Portuguese is a little hard for him to understand, and the first week is always the hardest, like mentally draining. He even fell asleep a couple times during lessons! haha The crazy thing is, is that on the first impression people think he´s Brazilian!!! I guess if you´re dark-haired with a tan you can pass off. I have no chance haha. This last week I´ve really noticed how far my Portuguese has gone since 5 months ago. 

Wednesday we had our Multi-Zone Conference with President Del Guerso. It was pretty much an all-day event, and by the time we got home with traffic, it was like 7:30pm. The mission´s getting really pumped up for all the good stuff that´s been happening. In August our mission reached our goal with 104 baptisms - in a month! I remember the most baptisms we had in California was 33 in a month. We also had a little inter-zone competition of basketball shots. The AP´s put a point system depending on where you shot (1 for layup, 3 for free-throw, etc) Each zone chose 3 people to shoot, and whoever had the most points would eat breakfast at President´s house. We were the last group to go, and all the zones didn´t get more than 3. All the zones chose the Americans in their group to shoot (because most Brasilians can´t shoot for squat haha). I was first, went up for a free throw. The shot looked beautiful, and it must´ve bounced around the rim 5 times before bouncing out. Man I was ticked. But Elder B and another Elder goy us with 4.  I think the Mission posted some pictures of it you can check it out.

The rest of the week we´ve been runnning around teaching, teaching, and teaching our awesome investigators. Luis and his family have been doing great with the Word of Wisdom, and they´re progressively decreasing their cigarettes and coffee. The members have been doing great in supporting. We´ve also got a fun activity planned at the end of the month called the CTM&M (Missionary and Member). If it goes well, I´m thinking about trying to do the same thing with all us RM´s when we come home. The ward´s getting pretty pumped with us 4.

Nothin but good things are happening. Thank heavens I haven´t gotten burnt yet, even when I spend the whole day with sunscreen. It´s pretty expensive here, so in the next package if you could put in a bottle or two that´d be great for when summer comes.

Love you all a ton! Thanks for the great emails. Congratulations Captain Crimson and the rest of the family! You´re all super awesome. I´m having a blast and we´re tearin it up here in JMAC. Be prepared next week for some ASL Ice Bucket Challenge pics for our pday activity today with Yule :) 

Have a great week,              Elder Nissinen

The famous chocolate pizza!!!

I snapped a quick one of us in the LAN house

That´s right. As of tomorrow, our area Jardim Macedonia will be taken over by 4 AMERICANS. Which means, they´re splitting our area! President called us Wednesday and told us the news. With the new program for American visa-waiters spending two weeks in the Brazil MTC, President needed somewhere to put some Americans. Our ward is the only ward in the stake without two companionships, so President made it official that we´re going from 2 Americans (which is rare enough) to 4! Elder B. and I are gonna be splitting, me with one and him with the other American. I still get to be District Leader too. They´re both super fresh here. All I know is their names: my companion is Elder B. and Elder B.  is Elder W's. We´ve been laughing to ourselves the last few days thinking about how it´s gonna be with us 4. We already get enough heads turned with just us two. Tomorrow morning we pick them up, eat lunch with the President, and head back to Macedônia. From what I´ve heard, they´ve already been out for about a year. We´re both pretty excited. This area´s been really needing it. Lately we´ve just been booking it to and from appointments across our area. And it´s about a 45 minute walk from one side to the other. The ward is pretty pumped too, but they don´t know that we´re getting two Americans yet haha. 

The only problem we´ve been having with this change is getting everything together and organized in our house so it won´t be too cramped with us 4. It´s great for both of us, but we´ve been arranging and rearranging everything to fit. President ordered two closet dressers and another bunkbed, and they came Friday morning during Weekly Planning. The night before we were planning to spend the whole day putting it all together. Turns out in Brazil it works different: The moving company drops off the boxes, and within 3-5 days a guy from the company comes and puts it all together. We were about to start opening everything when our neighbor member told us - thank heavens! The guy came this morning, powertools and everything to slap it all together. He just finished an hour ago. I´ll send pictures next week of how the house looks after we get done arranging it all. 

But in spite of all the craziness trying to get ready for the newbies tomorrow, we´ve been BUSY like heck. Heavenly Father has blessed us a lot. Here´s the cream of the crop in Macedonia as respects to investigators:

Luis, Adriane, and Eder: Father, mother, and son-in-law. We found them by just doing a street contact in front of their house. They´ve come to church twice already, and yesterday they came on their own!! They love church and the Book of Mormon, and they´ve got a date for the 27th. The whole ward is super pumped for them!

Marcos: Another street contact. Actually we found him while contacting someone we street-contacted a few days before. He´s an older guy and pretty lonely. He´s got some bad knee problems too, and he can only make it to the top of the flight of stairs that lead to the road. He told us he´d be all ready, shaved, and in nice clothes Sunday morning for us to pick him up from the road. When we passed by in a member´s car he beamed! And he looked great!! Loved church too! We´re also helping him kick his coffee and smoking addictions. He´s got a date for the 27th too.

We´re planning on having a giant baptismal service on the 27th, and we´ve got a few more investigators lined up for that date too. A couple members yesterday bore their testimonies on conversion right to the investigators we had at church - it was awesome!! We´ve got a growing force of member-missionaries helping us out, and we´re dividing and conquering to keep up. This work is so awesome. I´ve never been more exhausted, and I love it. 

Honestly it felt pretty weird speaking in English yesterday over the Facebook thing that Yule´s got. He´s a tight guy, and getting prepped to serve his mission soon. He loves to hang out with us taking selfies after sacrament meeting haha.

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. Not too many Kodak moments, but my mind is already thinking of plenty with the Fantastic 4 Americans.

Love you guys a lot. Glad to hear the first week of school went great. Keep it up! Go Tide!

Love Elder Nissinen

The package came!!!

Hey everyone! 

First thing, I GOT THE PACKAGE!!! Last Pday we went over to the Mission Office to sign some visa stuff, and it was there! It arrived last Saturday, so all in all it takes about a month solid for a package to get here. And apparently the letters take even longer to get to the States. Good thing we got email.

Ward fish

But thank you guys so much for the package! It made my week for sure. Ninnie really knows how to stuff a package: tons of pictures, letters, and candy haha. Tell her thank you thank you thank you from me. I know it wasn´t easy or cheap, but it meant a lot. The whole family is awesome; I´m so grateful for sure an awesome family. I hope you all had a great week.

This week has been one of gratitude, for a lot of things, and Heavenly Father blessed both Elder B. and I a lot. We´ve been teaching a lot of people, and committing them to come to Church for yesterday. We were planning on having at least 6 investigators come. And guess how many? 11! Two families and a lot of members brought their friends. The chapel and classrooms were really full yesterday! And many said they´d be coming back for sure this Sunday. I honestly have no idea how it happened, or what we did to have this kind of success, but in my nightly prayer yesterday I got down on my knees and thanked Heavenly Father so much for His tender mercies. There´s so much to be grateful for.   

                              

                                      Teaching some math skills

And I love working with the members. Allan the 8 year old got interviewed yesterday by the Bishop, and he´s all set to be baptized. We just gotta choose a date! Tonight we´ll be going over, marking a date, teaching the 10 Commandments (WITH hand signals), and giving his mom Luciana the recipe for Mom´s cookies so we can make them next week or sometime really soon. The best thing that happened with that family was when yesterday the less-active mom came to church!! She looked so happy!! She passed us on the way home as we were walking, sitting in the back of a truck with Allan. They waved at us and looked so happy. The Gospel is so awesome.

8 year old Allen and his CTR shield!!!

That reminds me. Remember when I told you about the nonmember who did not drink but did not want to throw out his wine bottles? He´s not the only guy! We met a less-active with the same thing. And, same thing, no pictures of the family. We proposed the idea of switching out the bottles for pictures, and then I threw the icing on the cake: Mom´s homemade cookies. She took the bait, and is totally willing to throw them out. We´ll be following up with some fresh cookies soon haha. Never thought that American cookies would influence someone´s salvation haha.

You´ve all asked about schools here. Since the seasons are switched, kids are in school almost all year long except for a couple months during Christmastime (and the World Cup every 4 years). They have school at 3 different times a day, and the kids choose which one they go to: early morning until noonish, afternoonish, and evening until nighttime. 

Our supermarket!!! 

About the elections. Things are just nuts when it comes to politics. A lot of people don´t trust the system. How it works is this: everyone above 18 is mandated to vote - no choice. If you don´t then your opportunities go down if you want to go to college, leave the country, or work somewhere in the goverment - it´s declined automatically if you don´t. You register by going to a government building, and then on the day you vote (October 5th), you go to the nearest pre-assigned public school to vote. You punch in the number code of the candidate, or you can choose to vote for no one. What I hear that happens is that if you choose to vote for no one, the government puts your vote over to the person that´s in the lead. Kids 16 and 17 can vote if they want, but it´s not mandatory. Oh, and the open TV channels, for one hour a day, they play advertisements of all the candidates (it´s law), so pretty much you just sit and watch political ads if you wanna watch TV. Pretty different than the States huh? haha

So many great things happened this week. I´m really grateful for the many blessings that my loving Heavenly Father has given me. Thank you guys for everything. I love you all so much. Crazy to think you´re all in high school already. Have a great first week of school!! Go Tide!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys! I can´t believe summer is just about over. Things are flying over here in Brazil. This last week has been a really good one for both Elder B. and me. We´ve been figuring out how we can work better together, and Heavenly Father really blessed us this week. It´s a start of a new transfer, and I think things will go real well for us both.

We got two new Greenies in my district, Elder G. and Sister G. The Elder is from Capo Verde in Africa, and he speaks both Portuguese and Creole - crazy!! Sister G. is from Columbia. Both are superstars already. I love working with new missionaries. They have that new fire that it´s impossible not to see. We had a great District Meeting on Tuesday getting to know everyone and talking about how we want this transfer to go. Now that everyone that was progressing is baptized, we´re going back to ground zero to pick up some new and quality investigators. 

Wednesday we taught Alan and Luciana. Luciana´s the less-active mom and Alan is the 8 year old that goes to church with his grandparents every week. This week we taught about the Word of Wisdom. When you walk into their house, there´s a little stand with wine and whiskey bottles. We brought it up about why her and her husband have them there. You know what she said? She doesn´t drink, and her husband´s stopped for at least 7 months. We´ll let´s throw them out! I said. The only reason they have them there is for decoration. I didn´t say this to them, but I will tonight during our lesson: in all the things I see in their house, there isn´t one picture of their family together. I made them the promise that if they throw their bottles out, I´ll buy them a 3.3L bottle of Coke (they have that here believe it or not) and make them a big batch of Mom´s homemade cookies. I think it was the cookies that sealed the deal haha. And we´re gonna follow-up tonight to see if they did it or not.

Another cool little miracle happened on Saturday. There´s a Sister in our ward that´s been a widow for about 4 years. Ever since her husband´s passing, she´s given money to the missionaries for lunch instead of having them over at their house. She gave us money this week, and we got the idea to set up a lesson to share a message with her. We came over on Saturday to get to know her and help her out anyway we can. Turns out that in all the time she´s given money to missionaries, not one missionary has shared a message with her - 4 years!!! Her two neighbors were over as well, two little girls that have always come to Church with her too. Turns out neither of them have been baptized yet. We taught them all the Restoration, and got permission from one of the girl´s parents to baptize her! We´re also gonna start teaching the other girl´s aunt that lives with her. It´s been a goldmine that missionaries have passed by for years!! Again, it´s working with the members that´s one of the greatest things. The Sister and one of the girls asked for a priesthood blessing too. The nonmember aunt was there during the blessings, and the Spirit was definitely there. The only thing that wasn´t perfect was that they all weren´t able to get to Church yesterday. If we have time tonight we´re gonna stop by to follow-up.

Something that´s been going on here in Brazil is that it´s Election Time! It´s pretty different here; there´s posters of tons of different people for different positions (like State and Federal Deputy), with cars going around all day with speakers talking about the candidates and their pledges. I don´t know when the actual election is, but I´ve heard that it´s all done electronic, that people punch in the number of the candidate for the position. With that I´ve also heard there´s a lot of fraud because it´s all electronic. It happens every four years. I´ll have to ask some more members about how it all works.

Thanks for the emails today! Your new school schedules look great. I can´t believe they´ve got another Seminary teacher at Glencoe! That´s awesome!! Congratulations Joe on making JV2, you´ll love it! Rip it up this last week of summer. Love you all. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Love Elder Nissinen

Elder B and I in our cool Brazil hats!!

Holy cow our week was FILLED with some awesome adventures. But before I get too deep into the stories,

I´m staying!! Both Elder B.  and I are stickin around another transfer here in Macedonia. I was super glad when the Zone Leaders told us the good news. I´ll still be a District Leader here, but the rest of my district has really changed - both the Elder and Sister companionships will be training, and they´re getting their greenies tomorrow morning!  It´s so cool to see the new missionaries within their first few days in the field. I remember it being a ^deer in the headlights^ kind of a reaction for me haha. 

Wednesday I went on exchanges with my Zone Leaders in their area. We traded Tuesday night, and then Wednesday morning we got a phone call from Elder B.  and the other Zone Leader in Macedonia: they ran out of water. The couple of days before were really hot, so to ration the water, the government shut everyone´s water off. Imagine!!! It wasn´t long before the water where I was at for the day was off too. NO WATER!! And I had clothes in the washer too! And, like Heavenly Father always does, our prayers were answered with a crazy ton of rain that day on Exchanges. Elder R.  and I got SOAKED! But the next morning on Thursday when we woke up, we were super grateful to have water again - it´s no picnic haha

NO WATER! (except to flush)

Friday and Saturday were our crazy days. Why? WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!! My first one in Brazil!! Everything went smoothly for her baptism Saturday night, the interview went great, no problems. And, the rest of the zone had baptisms planned too - 10 in total! So I was running around doing Interviews in the other missionaries´ areas both of those days. Baptismal interviews are pretty special, when someone who´s really new to the Church, and doesn´t know a whole lot, but can look you in the eye and tell you they know that the Church is true. That´s spiritual power right there. 

Isabel chose me to baptize her, because her returning less-active boyfriend has to have a few more talks with the Bishop. Lesson learned: I don´t know why, but Brazilian water heaters work wonders. After filling the font, it seriously felt like bath water, it was so warm. I got a little nervous after Isabel chose to wear the dress baptismal suit (you know I´ve had bad experiences with dresses and baptisms), but I´m super super grateful that it only took one time! It was an awesome baptism and quite a few members came to support. 

The zone!

Elder B. did the confirmation yesterday and did a great job too. The night before while I was writing in my journal, I could hear him practicing outloud in Portuguese the words he needed to say. 

Things are going pretty well here, and I´m loving it a lot. Still no package yet, I called the Office this morning, but I´m sure it´ll be here soon. Thanks for the great emails today. I love you guys so much, and your´re always in my prayers.

                                     Love Elder Nissinen

My chocolate pastel!!!

Hey guys!! 

Great to hear you all had an awesome and fun time last week. 

I don´t know how it happened, but somehow the missionary work over the last few days has EXPLODED!!! We haven´t been busier! It started on Friday, and we´ve seriously had every hour blocked ever since - we´ve even been forced to do splits with the members just to cover enough ground! We´ve been teaching a lot of less-actives, and Heavenly Father has blessed us so much.

Where do I start? Elder B. and I did a contact a while back on the street, and an appointment fell through, so we decided to go contact it. Turns out the lady was home and ready for the gospel. I really felt the Spirit during that lesson - she accepted a baptismal date too! Her name is Flor, and she wasn´t able to make it to Church yesterday, but we´re sure gonna follow-up with her soon so Satan does´t even have a chance. 

Our biggest miracle was a less-active family that´s been starting to come back to Church a couple weeks ago. We made a visit, and we spent over 2 hours just talking, bearing testimony, and getting them excited about the gospel. We read Alma´s conversion story in Alma 36 - man it was powerful! We´ve been teaching one of the son´s girlfriends (Isabel), and she accepted baptism for this Saturday!! My first one!! Keep your fingers crossed that all will go well!! 

We´re really picking up the work in this area, and I´ve never been so tired! Haha but it´s one of the best feelings in the world; being exhausted in the Lord´s service. I´m kinda nervous about transfers this week. I really really really hope I stay in this ward - there´s just too many things to do here! 

Thanks for all your great emails and support. Thanks for the pictures too! I checked the Mission Office today - the package hasn´t shown up yet. Oh, by the way, you´re all still doing the reading right? Page 180 today!

I know Heavenly Father is watching out for us and hearing our prayers. I love you very much. Have an awesome week

Love, Elder Nissinen

Eating Subway at the mall today.

Elder B. and I at the LAN House. Be honest, do my cheeks look chubbier? haha If so, you don´t have to post this one on the website

Hey family!! 

Another wintry week here in São Paulo, meaning about a high of 25 degrees Celsius (about 78 Farenheit). And Heavenly Father has answered my prayers by keeping me safe from sunburns! Winters here in general are all over the place; it can be ^freezing^ (about 45 more or less) when you wake up, and then by noon it´s scorchin up in the high 80´s. Can´t wait to see what Summer brings in a couple months! 

After hitting a low spot a couple weeks ago, we´ve slowly been picking things up with some more prepared investigators, found none other than by members themselves!! A week ago we had a Family Home Evening with an active family who invited some nonmember friends. The activity went well, and when we casually mentioned prophets during the spiritual thought, the nonmember got super interested. We marked the appointment for the next day, and BOOM! We had a 2 hour discussion on the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. Lots of great questions. The only problem is that she and her husband aren´t married yet. We haven´t talked to Morgana (the investigator) in a couple days (she didn´t come to church unfortunately), but we´ve got another lesson with her tonight. From what we´ve heard from the active family, she talked it over with her ^boyfriend^ (they´ve been together for 6 years now with 2 kids), and they want to get married! Cross your fingers! 

Lunch on Exchanges with all-Brazilians. They´ve gotta teach me how to cook this stuff!! It´s like a big stew over rice.  It's awesome and I love it!

Something super awesome happened this week too. A recent-convert family that was baptized just over a year ago went to the Temple to get sealed. They bore their testimonies yesterday, and it was super powerful. The whole ward supported them. Baptisms are great, but the Temple is the real prize of the whole Restored Gospel package. THAT´s what we´re really workin for. 

Again I was converted to member-missionary work. I think that´s one of the biggest lessons I´ve been learning throughout my whole mission. Yesterday we went on Splits twice with members, both were Returned Missionaries. They helped us out so much!!! Not only with the language, but with finding out investigator´s needs and then using the Spirit. I think the only thing that´ll help me adjust to home life will be helping out the missionaries back home haha. 

Happy Birthday Joe!! You´re such an awesome brother. Hope you got my letter I sent a few weeks ago. If it hasn´t shown up yet it should soon. 

We´re sure to see a bunch of miracles this week. A lot of our planners is already full with appointments. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement. I know this work, His work, will keep moving forward. Love you very much, and have an awesome fun week with High Adventure and a Girls Week Out! 

Love Elder Nissinen

Our weekly pday activity. So far Elder B.'s got me beat 4-2 games, but we´ll see how it goes down today