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