The Zone!!!

On Sunday morning right as we started picking up our investigators for church, we get a phone call from President del Guerso. After a little talk, he gave me my new assignment. I´m now the new Traveling Assistant to the President (slash) Referral Secretary. Which means I´m now gonna be working in the mission office!!! Totally threw me off about what was gonna happen with transfers.

I know I´ll be an AP, but also a Secretary, so i don´t know how it´ll all work. I have 4 transfers left, so there´s a good chance I´ll die in the office. Or, I´m hoping I can open an area and train for my last transfer. And Elder T.  is staying as Zone Leader and getting a Brazilian companion. Because Transfer Meeting is tomorrow, and all the new greenies show up that day, President asked me to report this afternoon to start working. So I hardly had any time to say anyone goodbye in the ward. I took advantage of it being Fast Sunday and announced it to the ward. It´s really hard saying goodbye. I´m still not used to it, even though I´ve gone through 6 areas and 14 companions already. It was probably the toughest ward I´ve served in so far. Even the members were flaking out in callings and going to church. But even though I didn´t have one baptism in Perdizes, we worked our tails off, fortifying the members and not giving up hope. 

Our zone had a lot of changes too. We only have 5 companionships in it, and now 3 of them will be training brand-new missionaries. It´ll be good to get some fresh blood in it. 

I think that means my P-day will be changing to Saturdays now that I´m a Secretary. I guess I´ll get the full ^Orientation Course^ this afternoon. But I´m pretty stoked. My companion will be Elder V, Chilean, and I know him pretty well already after him being my zone leader once. He´s an awesome missionary and has a heart of gold, and he´ll teach me a ton. And it´ll be good working closer to President.

I think I have some weird curse in Brazil. Every time I leave an area, almost immediately all the investigators I was teaching decide to get baptized. It happened in Ipe, Macedonia, and now in Perdizes it´s gonna happen again. I remember that after I left Macedonia, the Elders baptized for 3 weeks straight - ALL that I started teaching! haha We´ve got a baptism marked for this weekend! Isabelly has 9 years old and she´s ready to take the plunge. We´ve been working hard with her mom Juliana, but she´s got some major problems with drugs and chastity, so we´ve gotta push it back a bit. 

A family I grew to love!

A hamburger another member made for us last night

And we´re still teaching the Paraguayan family - in Spanish. Well, more like Elder T.  tea  ches and I bear testimony haha. And they understood me! We had so many people to pick up to bring to Church that we had so go on splits with our members to cover it all. We brought 5 people to church - 3 families! They all loved it. Romina is set for the 21st, Isabelly is this weekend, and we´ve been getting some great potentials from knocking doors (in Spanish). It´s good hard work, and it´s totally worth it. Looks like I´m the unofficial John the Baptist of the mission - crying repentance and preparing the way for someone to baptize with water and fire kind of a thing. 

Hope everyone has a great week. New transfers, new semesters, all good new starts. Give it all you got and love it. 

Church is true. Heavenly Father answers prayers.   Love Elder Nissinen

We´ve been getting some crazy cool lightning storms at night. I tried getting some quick-snap shots - turned out pretty legit.