Hey guys! 2014 is in the dust, and 2015 is gonna be great! There´s a lot of things I´ve learned in this past year. A lot of experiences I´ve never had before my mission that Heavenly Father is giving me so I can grow. And I´m seeing that the harder and happier I work, God still has a lot for me to learn. Because things were pretty slow this week in our area (practically a ghosttown), I had more time to think and do some reflecting. 

Fireworks from out appartment

So the go-to spot for people living in Sao Paulo during the holidays is the beach. EVERYONE goes to the beach. So I bet (or better, hope) the missionaries on the coast were doing some major contacting to pass off all the people that crowded the sand. Our numbers were really low (and with our area being not one of the easiest, even lower), and throughout the whole week everywhere we walked it looked like a Sunday morning going to church - dead silent haha. I think even the crazy pigeons did some migrating. But everyone´s back in town. School´s still out but all the adults are dreading having to go back to work. 

President did a crazy thing this last week that he´s letting everyone today watch the movie Malificent (the one with Angelina Jolie). Out of all movies.....haha I think Pres has got something up his sleeve with this one. But who can complain - it´s a movie! We hooked it up with some members, and today at noon we´re gonna have lunch and watch it on their big TV. Suh-Weet! Some rockin benefits when you´re in a richer area haha. From what we heard it´s pretty good. 

Elder T. and I playing some serious UNO!

Our New Year´s Eve was pretty chill too. People were already drinking and lightin off fireworks after lunch, so we tried visiting the few people that were home and contacting the few that weren´t drunk. Then we went to a member´s house who gave us dinner and we played UNO for a few hours with one of their sons. It got intense! Then we had to be home at 10:30 President´s orders, and we stayed up till midnight to check out all the fireworks from our apartment window. People were lighting off mortors from nearly every street corner we could see. I attached some pictures, but just imagine all the little white dots are those big fireworks. And they were CLOSE! Pretty funny to see everyone go nuts for the New Years - people dancing and singing from their apartment windows. And what happens the next day is even worse (for missionaries): everyone sleeps the whole day. I love the holidays  but I´m kinda glad they´re over so we can get back to work. 

Someone you guys should pray for this week: Adriano. He´s a husband of a member who´s been coming to church the last 3 weeks - and they´re legally married! We started teaching last week and he looks like a pretty solid soon-to-be convert. But he needs our prayers! He´s one of the most solid investigators we´ve got, plus Ramiro and Natalya are going to work out their documents this week so they can get married. 

Elder T. is at the back of the bus.

We´ve been fighting the trunky-ness in our zone the last couple weeks with the holidays. And we´ll see what Pres has to say about it on Wednesday with our Leadership council.  Most are missing home, and one or two in our small zone are going home in less than 3 months. I feel like I play the mediator between the mission leaders that push for numbers and the leaders that help the missionaries progress.   Honestly the only time I think about home is when I´m not busy. And you know that I always like to be busy with something. There´s a lot of people who depend and look up to me, and with these last 6 months or so there´s no room to be trunky or lazy. I pretty much just wanna burn out the rest of my mission by working hard and having fun serving other people. For me that´ll be my measure of success

Chocolate filled pizza crust!  Oh Yeah!!

I love you all a lot. GO DUCKS! Good luck on the first day back at school. Don´t worry. The Book of Mormon IS true. I challenged a deacon in my ward (who hasn´t read it all through yet) to see who can finish it first. And he´s already ahead of me haha.

Have a good week

Elder Nissinen