Hey everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love Elder Nissinen