Great news!!!

So there´s a perk to being in the Office around Transfer-time: you´re the first one to know what´s gonna happen. The Executive Secretary is the one who takes a look at the Transfer Board, checks up with President if there´s any hiccups, and makes the phonecalls Sunday night to each companionship that had a change. President called me just before lunch telling me that he was ready for me to look at it. To be honest, I was nervous as heck about where´d I would go. All this week President was passing by the office for meetings and stuff, with a question every now-and-then about possible leaders and companionships. Well I just got back from lunch, took a look at the board, and the verdict is....

I`M STAYING!!!! I didn´t say anything to President about what I would prefer, but I´m super happy that I´ll be ending my mission in the São Paulo 5th ward. I don´t know what secretary I´ll be (except Executive), but President will let me know later. The ward has been booming, we´ve been getting along great between us five secretaries, and between the office work and the field, it´s been a lot of fun. I´m really glad things won´t change a whole lot.

Here´s a good way to start off a letter: Last week I spent three days in the hospital. It started Sunday during Elders Quorum. Remember that Elder who had facial paralysis, and Carlo the neurosurgeon? They met up and got to talking about Elder C´s condition, and how Carlo wasn´t sure if he had something called Bell´s palsy (facial paralysis). One thing lead to another, and I ended up going with them both to one of the best hospitals in Brazil. Over the next couple days, they had Elder Corrêa go through some blood exans, CAT scans, shock exams, spine fluid extracts, and everything else to find out what was causing the unknown pain that he shouldn´t have had. We had swaps with the other elders at night to make sure the Elder staying with Elder C didn´t get stir-crazy being in a hospital with nothing to do. After all that, they found out that he has something called Ramsay Hunt syndrome of the 7th and 8th nerve. (fyi I had no idea what they were saying, so I had to look up all those words up in the dictionary. You know it´s not the kind of vocab you find in Preach My Gospel). In the end, Tuesday night we were liberated from the hospital just in time for my English class.

And it´s growing!! This last Tuesday was our first time with the two separate classes - and I think in total we had close to 30 in attendance - WOW! Because of the hospital, I didn´t have time to drop another cookie-bomb on the ward, but they´re all committed to bring more friends. I taught the basics class about how to introduce themselves. Remember the movie "Here Comes the Boom" when he´s teaching that citizenship class? Haha We had a ton of fun with it all.

Wednesday we had our Greenie Training Meeting where we got all the new missionaries to see how their training is going and if they´re all good to "leave their trainer´s nest " Elder L and I decided to do our part a little different than the normal training. We played Jeopardy! They don´t have it in Brazil, but we took the idea and did role-plays, scripture chases, a lot like Brother Maurer in Seminary. This group was super-competitive but no blood was shed and they learned a lot. 

Today we have a BAPTISM!!! Almir is a 28 year old young man who we´ve been teaching for about a month now, found through contacting him while in the elevador. We thought that after a while we were gonna have to drop him because he hadn´t gone to church, but it was Mother´s Day when we saw him in the back row in a suit and tie. And once he started reading the Book of Mormon, já era. We gotta start filling the font in a little bit. Man it doesn´t get better having a pday and a baptism on the same day. 

Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys! 

Another blessed week in the 5th ward. President threw us a curveball when he called Wednesday night about an emergency transfer. There was an Elder in the area nextdoor to ours who caught the craziest virus I´ve ever seen. Half of his face got paralyzed! So President moved some missionaries around and now Elder C.  has joined forces with the 5th. Since he´s come we´ve been getting one member to go on splits with us, so it´s like having 3 companionships in the area. We´re bombing our area!!! This weekend has the potential to have at least 2 baptisms with the people we´re teaching. 

I learned that the secret in Brazil to get some event going is COOKIES. Tuesday was the first time in my life that I formally taught English to a group of people. I didn´t believe it when once the class got going we had at least 15 people in the classroom. And everyone liked it!! Tuesday was the "Introduction to the Crash Course," where it´s gonna be a 5 week deal, and we´ll have the Basics class and the Conversation class. Tuesday it was just me teaching, so we had everyone together to get everyone pumped. We showed some motivational video in English, and then some role-plays about how to introduce yourself. At the end of it all, the people went nuts for the cookies we made. Mom, your cookie recipe was a hit! And throughout the week, we got a lot of people interested and commited to come to the class this Tuesday. We´re hoping close to 40 people between the two classes. The Bishop was stoked after the turnout of this last week.

Have you ever seen someone getting wheelchaired out of the Temple? Wednesday President took Elder L.  and I to the Temple because we weren´t able to go with our zone the week before. After the session a temple worker came up and asked me if I could keep on eye on an older guy while he went to go grab a wheelchair. He told me that the guy´s blood pressure went down a lot, and asked me to make sure he wouldn´t faint or nothing. The older man was sitting on a little bench with his back turned to me, so I just waited for a minute for the wheelchair. While the temple worker helped the older man into the chair, he turned so I could see his face - it was President Del Guerso!! They quickly rolled him out of the Temple to his car back home for him to take some medicine. An hour later he was back at the Mission Office laughing and messing around with us. Crazy right?

Buckle up for the last week of the transfer - it´s usually one of the craziest.

Sorry we didn´t take any pics of the 5 of us/  We´ll have some new ones this week.  Love you all!! Have a great week.

Elder Nissinen

Hey guys!!

Thursday morning as we were doing our exercises, Elder C. (one of the APs) comes up to me and asks, "Why didn´t you tell me where your brother´s going on his mission?" WHAT?!? Turns out the day before, Yule (from Macedonia) saw the news on Facebook and told the other Elders where B´s going. President gave me permission to look at the video Dad sent. GHANA!!!!! I´ll admit I did a quick search on LDS.org about the MTC, Temple, and mission info. It looks awesome!! There´s a bit of pride you get when you tell people your brother´s going to Africa. Load up on all the Lucky Charms and 2% milk you can. Proud of ya bro.

Carlo´s baptism last Saturday was great. His father-in-law baptized and confirmed him, and all us Elders got up to sing a musical number. The members have been noticing our hard work and just this last week we´ve been seeing them trusting us a lot more. 

For example, last night we had Family Home Evening with Flanizia and Mauricio (some solid investigators), and the Primary and Elder´s Quorum presidents´ family. Their 5 year old son got up and did the lesson on the First Vision - by himself!!! Recited James 1:5 and a good part of Joseph Smith´s words, and he said that´s his favorite story. The kid´s only 5! Just for kicks, Mauricio opened up to us a ton after discovering that Mormons can drink Coke. :] They´re a super solid family, the only problem is that they´re going to Disneyland and spend a month traveling the States. Dang it! But President is letting us use Skype to keep following-up with them while they´re traveling. 

The pizza sign... It means "Feel the power." It´s an inside joke between us because of the churches they have here. They try to show their "power" by curing, preaching, yelling, etc. hahaha 

Wednesday night I had one of those "What just happened?" epxeriences. I was on splits with a member, and we visited a referral from that English school I taught at a couple weeks ago. I called the night before to mark a quick visit, since they said they would only have 15-20 minutes to talk. So we got in the house, explained about ourselves, the Church, missionary work, and answered some questions. Afterwards the couple said, "Well we don´t know how much time you have, but we made this dinner for you guys." WHAT? We were both caught off by surprise, and we set up for tonight to go back and start teaching. Super nice family.

These are the paper roses we made for the Mothers in our ward.

Thank you for your emails and pictures. It was great seeing you all again on Mother´s Day. Congratulations again on the mission call.

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys! 

This week was pretty calm and has gone by really fast. Elder L. and I have been mixing up the days; we both woke up thinking today was Monday. But only in the Office can you have a pday and a.....

BAPTISM at the same time!!! Carlo is gonna be baptized tonight. He´s got a great story. For about 15 years he´s known the Church, and his wife is already a member. After a while she went less-active, and overtime, their marriage was struggling. This last October they about ready to call it quits, when Carlo realized that they were missing something in their relationship. That´s when he (the non-member) brought his wife (the less-active member) back to the Church. He works between several children´s hospitals, and even sacrifices sleep so he can go to Church Sunday morning. He´s already read the Book of Mormon (twice!) and pays his tithing. I could´ve sworn he was already a member when I came into the ward. In fact, we only taught him twice before he was interviewed by our District Leader - he´s so ready! And it was all member-missionary work. It was our Bishop who pulled him aside and challenged him to be baptized. God has been blessing our area so much!

So our mission has a lot of new leaders that have been assigned just over the last couple transfers, specifically new zone leaders. Tuesday we had a Mission Leadership Council, and President had a few things that he wanted to be certain that they were passed to the rest of the mission, so one of the AP´s and I decided to go on a "Surprise Exchange" the day after. Boy were the ZL´s shocked when we showed up out of nothing to their District Meeting - HA! The two Zone Leaders that I went with were both newly-assigned leaders and both Americans with language difficulties. But it went good and we were able to help get some investigators progessing in their area. 

I love this work. I know that God´s hand is in it and that He knows and hears all of His children. Serving a mission is the hands-down the best thing I´ve done. I love it and so grateful for it. 

I´m excited to talk with you guys tomorrow! Can´t believe it´s already here. 

Love Elder Nissinen

Hey guys!

More Pizza!!!!

Sorry for the last-minute notice on the switch. On Monday we had 14 missionaries leaving and all hanging out in the office, and everything was just crazy. I had interviews with President Del Guerso this week too, and we talked about the work in the office. About 6 months ago, pday for all the secretaries was Saturday, because a lot of the work we do in the office involves Church Headquarters, Real Estate places, and the Government - who all close on Saturdays. So President switched it all to Saturday! I´m actually pretty happy now because I´ll have a true Pday without having half the mission calling on Monday, my new workday. 

We had a GREAT week!!! I got two experiences this week that I want to share

On Tuesday we had half of the group going home in the evening, and throughout the afternoon they were making sure all their luggage was under the weight limits. One Elder was going home by Azul, an airline owned by a member of the Church, and who also has a new contract with the Church to give more weight to missionaries going home. So I told the Elder to make sure everything was under 63kg (138lbs), and he packed his bags and went off to the airport. That night I get a phone call from the airport payphone from this Elder, nervous as heck because the airline lady wasn´t letting him take home anymore weight than any average flyer. He was super panicky, which made me panicked. The Elder´s minutes ran out at the payphone, so there was no way to call him back. And I had no idea what to do. So I went back to our room, knelt down and said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father to soften someone´s heart to let this Elder get home with his luggage. I went back to my computer desk, and less than a minute later the Elder calls back, still frantic, but gave me the number of someone I could talk to. I called the number, and it was a guy named Claudio, who works for Azul at the airport. I explained that we were from the Church and the situation, and Claudio accepted it and let the Elder pass with his luggage. And then Claudio asked me, "You know, I´ve always wanted to get to know your church better. Is there a chapel of yours close to where I live?" Claudio gave us his address, and we passed it to the missionaries of his area. The guy was super nice. And I know that that was an answer to my prayer. I KNOW God hears and answers the prayers of His children.  

From the left: Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), Rondônia (also Brazil), and Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and then me haha. That´s the office staff! 

And yesterday, man, it was so good to have a devotional with Elder Christofferson. You know you can actually FEEL it when an Apostle enters in a room? For many Brazilians in the chapel, it was the first time they had seen an Apostle up-close. One thing he said that stuck out was "You can learn a lot from people who´ve had to rely soley on faith in Jesus Christ." He´s super humble, and they way he talked you could tell every word was treated like coming from the Lord himself. It was great for the whole mission.

We had an English school contact me and the American AP here and invite us to go and do open up a panel for questions about the United States and our religion - all in English. It was something to help the Brazilians open up and to use their language skills they´ve been practicing. So we had to speak for two hours in just English! And afterwards, I was with a headache for the rest of the day, I swear! But we found some great people we´re gonna start working with next week once they get back out of town. English is hard

Hope you all have a great week!! This Church is TRUE!

Love Elder Nissinen 

Good moooooooooooooorning Oregon!!!

What. A. Week. Sorry my letter´s gonna be short today. We´ve got 15 missionaries going home and the whole office´s gone nuts with making sure everything´s all good to go. Transfers drops a bomb on everything you´re doing. But we saw a ton of blessings in our area. 

First off, Fabiana and Felipe got baptized this weekend!! The Assistants had a baptism planned for the same day, so we combined both wards for the service. THE PLACE WAS CROWDED!!! And both of them were super happy. The Sisters who do street contacts in front of the Temple have been helping us a lot with who we´re teaching. Plus the ward´s been seeing the fruits of us 4 working closer together. 

We had two birthdays this week of the Office Staff, so we took advantage of the opportunity to throw on a surprise Brazilian Barbeque for the two Saturday night. The South of Brazil is famous for their meat, so Elder L.  is #1 on the grill. The baptism was Saturday night, and right after the service, we ran off to Walmart across the street to get the stuff and start grilling. It was a great way to end a great transfer. 

I´m stoked for this Friday! Elder Chrisofferson´s gonna be visiting our mission!!!!! 

Thanks for the pictures, and glad to hear you´re all doing great. 

B, give me one more week to think about where I´m guessing you´ll go. Maybe Elder Christofferson will slip a hint haha Proud of ya bro!

Love you all!!!!!

Elder Nissinen 

When you´re on assignment with the President, you EAT A TON!!! We went out 2 twice that day. I thought you´d like these pics Mom - it´s a 60´s diner full of Elvis and Marylin Monroe stuff, a jukeboxes and all that Happy Days kind of jazz.  

Good morning everyone! 

It´s great to hear that you all had a great week! It looks like summer is about to start back in Oregon, but here (and I rarely say this) it´s actually starting to get a little colder. This last week I was doing an exchange with the furthest zone in the mission - and there was a little fog in the morning! It´s still pretty bipolar - hot like heck one day and pouring the next.

But like Barney Fife says, "Andy, even high school kids don´t talk about the weather."

This week completely blew by - probably because I spent the least amount of time in my area than any other week on my mission. Seriously. But that was because President came by the office and told us that by the end of that week, all the District Leaders in 5 zones need to be trained. PLUS we had 6 zones that President hadn´t interviewed either. So basically how it went down was like this: Elder L. started traveling doing exchanges that same Monday, and didn´t come back till Thursday. Meanwhile I was with another Elder training 3 of the zones during interviews, and left Thursday morning to go on exchanges. Basically whoever wasn´t  doing interviews was on exchange with some district leader so we could get them all done by Saturday. What´s happening in the mission is that a lot of leaders are leaving within the next couple months, and a majority of the leadership will be gone by that time. BUT MAN AM I EXHAUSTED!!! I went to the areas that are mostly covered with trees and swamp - AMAZING!! 

Tuesday as we were going to our District Meeting, guess who I saw?!? MAX!! (I mean Elder M.) His mission was doing some activity at the temple (my area) and it was perfect timing! He´s doing great - we didn´t even try speaking English to each other, portuguese was just easier. Because of timing with our missions, we´ll be going home around the same time, maybe a week or two difference. 

Drum roll everyone...............ELDER CHRISTOFFERSON IS COMING TO OUR MISSION!!!! Out of all the missions in the area (9) our mission was chosen to have a devotional with an APOSTLE!! We´re praying really really hard that the protests won´t give any problems like they did last year with Elder Nelson. He´ll be spending a few days doing conferences, but mainly he´s here for a Religious Freedom discussion between several religions of the area. The whole mission is pumped! It´s gonna be next Friday, exactly 3 days after the transfer, so there´s quite a few missionaries that are ticked that they can´t stay. Oh well. 

This week should be a little more calmer (unless President drops the bomb again haha). We just have a big group leaving next week and a Training for the New missionaries. Other than that it´ll be all catch-up on last week´s work. 

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD, the Fantastic Four´s on a roll! We´ve got two baptisms lined up for this weekend. Fabiana and Felipe. Here´s their story: We found them contacting a referral for someone who doesn´t live anymore in the place. She´s 27 and a single-mother of 3 children - all with different fathers. Her kids are 8 years, 2 years, and 5 months old. She works as a receptionist, and lives close to her mom who helps when she can to take care. It´s a hard situation. She went to General Conference a few weeks ago and LOVED it. The next week a member swung by to pick up the family, they came, and the kids LOVED it (so the mom LOVED it even more - even the kids were talking about Jesus the rest of the way home). But, like always, the week before the baptism happens the worst. Saturday night the 2 year old got a really bad infection on his face, so Fabiana wasn´t able to go to church because she was watching her kid at the hospital. With all the stress going on, Fabiana too got sick with nausea and low blood pressure, so she ended up spending some time Sunday being cared for at the hospital. Yesterday I went on a quick split with Brother Francisco, First Counselor to the Bishop to see what was going on. We felt inspired to give the son a blessing. He was planned to stay in the hospital until Tuesday or Wednesday. That same day, the Relief Society President and two other sisters kept in touch and brought her some dinner. 

This is what we got this morning in a text: "Good morning Elders. Thanks to God and to you Vichenzo has been released. We just arrived home. Thank you so much for your blessing."

THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!!!! The movie Meet the Mormons is arriving in Brazil, and a member gave us a sneak peak of it last night - it looks so good!!! Yes, this is the true Church! 

I love you all! All of you sent awesome emails today - and you´ve grown a lot! Congrats on the Piano and Prom dates. And that video last week with the drone was awesome! 

Love Elder Nissinen

Hello folks!

We survived the first week of Interviews!!!! I never imagined how draining it would be to be giving 3-hour trainings twice a day! We´d been working hard on making it turn out well, even staying up a little to practice. How it´s been working is this: each zone is individually trained on the stuff President wants us to pass on. While we´re training, President takes each one and interviews for about 15-20 minutes, and there´s about 14 missionaries per zone. The hard part is timing everything so that when President gets done with a zone, we finish the training. This week I get to go to the farthest area in the mission - a small branch - where´s there´s pretty much nothing but jungle. SUH-WEET!

With balancing between training the mission and taking care of our area, this week was a little stressful. One of the two baptisms we had planned fell through, but we´re hoping she´ll be ready by the end of the month. Most days because of on-the-spot errands or meetings that we have, our study time is shot. It´s incredible how a little time in the scriptures a day can affect a lot. 

But it was all worth it after we had a BAPTISM!!! It was a complete fall-from-the-sky kind of investigator. She made contact with the Sisters in front of the Temple, already knew a little about the church, and easily accepted baptism and the Restoration! I think she even marked her own baptismal date hahaha. We had some good support from the ward, and yesterday she got confirmed. We´re gonna try to take her to the temple this week to get her started on her family history work. 

My first Brazilian Easter Egg

We also have another family that´s got great potential. Fabricia is a single-mom with three children, all of them with different fathers. So she´s been looking for something that is really there to help her family. She lives a little far from the church, especially with having an infant, so the members were great to help give her a ride. She felt a little hesitant in bringing her children, thinking that they´d be really roudy. But the best part was that she told us that on the way home, her ^roudy^ kids were talking about the Savior and all that they learned in Primary. She even asked us if they had this everyday! Her and her oldest (8 years old) are marked for the 25th to be baptized. 

Our burgers we made this week! 

Ever since General Conference, we´ve been feeling the work getting more challenging, even in the office. Remember that part in Andy Griffith when Barney Fife is Sheriff for the day and everything ends up going wrong - car accident, broken water pipes, etc - remember? It seems like everyday has its own set of broken water pipes between the whole mission. It´s a mental game for sure to keep things cool in the area, the office, the mission, and in your own head. 

But I´m so grateful that this church is true! And it is!

Have a great week!

Love Elder Nissinen

Hi there! 

So what´d yáll think of conference?!? I don´t know about you, but you can definitely hear their voices getting louder and louder, kinda like a big worldwide spiritual wakeup call. It´s kinda sad it being my last general conference as a missionary, and it´s kinda clear after about 10 separate talks on eternal marriage and families. I don´t think you´ll see very many people messing around on their phones during church too haha. But there´s no way to deny that they are prophets and apostles of God. All the sessions went by so fast. We were fortunate to have a room set up for just us 4 Americans in the zone to watch conference in English. It´s all live too, so it was between 1 and 3, then 5 to 7. Priesthood was shown at 9, but because of the time, we watched it the next morning from the office computers. I thought it was all super great! Personally Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, Elder Renlund, and Elder Eyering´s two talks hit home. The world is definitely in need of a lot more Christlike kindness. 

Thank you again for the birthday wishes! Saturday night while we were planning, I left our room to go grab a member list. I then saw two pizzas on the counter, and then all the missionaries in the office surprised me with a cake, box of chocolate, and a 3 liter bottle of glorious Coke. They totally surprised me. This morning I went and bought me a hollow chocolate egg as a little present.

This transfer the office staff has been having a contention problem. When new elders came in with the transfer, there were some hard feelings because of stuff done in the past between leaders, especially between the AP´s and the secretaries. President, one of the APs, and I talked and thought about it a lot this week. This AP and I stayed up one night until 1am discussing it. We decided to turn on the stress-release valve and get everyone on a super pday activity. Actually pday in the office is more of a myth because of the 179 missionaries that want their letters, packages, and supplies. So we decided to close the office and go to a public park that´s about a bus, subway, and train away (an hour). And what did we do? WE RODE BIKES!!! Man it was like California all over again! I almost ripped my pants because of the bike chain haha. Just imagine 7 elders in proselyting clothes on rented bikes! We got some great pics. It was a much-needed pday for all of us, and everyone was getting along great. President even gave us all money for lunch. 

We´ve also been seeing the first real fruits of our 4-way blitz. The Sister missionaries spend about 15 hours a week doing contacts in front of the temple and giving tours - kinda like the Sisters in Temple Square. This last week two of these contacts were GOLDEN! Monica and Nil. They´re both two older ladies who´re soaking in the church like a sponge! We met Nil Saturday between sessions of conference, and in 15 minutes she was ready to watch the last session. And she loved it! Both of them even set up their own baptisms, and hopefully this Sunday the 5th ward will have it´s first baptisms of the year. Thank you Heavenly Father!!!!! 

So what can I say? It was a pretty darn good week if you ask me. Tomorrow starts President´s interviews, so we´ll be traveling the mission giving trainings with President. 

THIS CHURCH IS TRUE - so STAY BY THE TREE!!!

Love you!

Elder Nissinen   

Good morning everyone! 

This last week has blown by so fast - the time in the office screams by, and with the 4 hours or so in proselyting, it goes even faster. And here we have another pday. Neither do I believe that I´m turning twenty this week...I don´t feel that old...

But thank you all for the birthday wishes and the in-tune audio clip haha. Both of my birthdays I´ve spent with the Apostles and Prophets - who else can say that? Plus it´ll be cool with easter. Cool fun fact in Brazil about Easter: Chocolate eggs are a big deal here - literally. Well it´s actually more like a big rip-off, but the eggs are HUGE! They´re about as big as soccer-balls, hollow, but everyone goes for what´s inside (other chocolate, toys, etc.) Brazil gets big bucks for them - $35 what it comes out to. I may just buy one just to see what the heck it´s worth. Maybe Mother Goose really does lay those golden eggs but migrates south in Spring. 

If you haven´t already, before you keep reading, go to helives.mormon.org and watch the video. Then share it. It´s short, but SUPER SUPER good and easy to share with people. It was released Friday night, and it´s been our main tool with member-missionary work, with general conference coming up. I´m so grateful that the God we worship is LIVING! There are so many religions that direct their worship towards the cross, the burial, and that Jesus Christ died and that´s it. But there´s so so so much more when you know the fact that he overcame all and lives today. And he does!  

So have you watched it yet? Like it, Tweet it, Pin it, whatever!

This four-way blitz is going really well in the 5th ward! The President´s keeping an eye on it kinda like an experiment, and we´ve been working out the kinks in it over this past week. You should see our whiteboard! It takes a lot of good planning and has to be an organized deal, but it helps in saving time in walking and it roots out the people who are attached more to getting to know the missionaries than to getting to know the Savior. 

Sorry for the short letter. I took a quick nap after having two meetings with President this morning. We´ve been planning our Leadership Meeting for this week and Interviews for the week after - we´re busy as heck! But we´re staying cool.

Have a great week! Thank you for the birthday wishes! Hope you have a spiritual-power-packed Easter and General Conference. 

Love Elder Nissinen

Here´s the low-down. We talked to the pizza guy, and we found out we´re the first and only ones that order with chocolate border. Must be a missionary thing! 

Hey family! 

The Temple was GREAT this morning! With my last areas it was always a race to get to the temple in the morning on time, but it´s a smooth sail from the mission office. I´m also in the same zone as Elder J.  (who started in Provo with me), who´s actually my zone leader now. 

This first week of the transfer went GREAT! We´ve got a great idea we´ve been working on for a while to help out our area. For a while now mission secretaries have been in this ward, and because they spend about 4 hours a day proselyting, the members hardly know them. We want to change that. So what we did is combine everything that the two companionships have (investigators, contacts, referrals, recent-converts, etc) and treat it as if it were one large companionship of four. But we switch ^companions^ for the day so that investigators and members get to know more missionaries. And sometimes people have different reactions to different missionaries. I´ve never heard of an area doing this - a four-way blitz, so it´s all in the trial run. But we´ve got our Ward Mission Leader and our Mission President liking the idea.

3 days into the experiment and guess what - we´ve found 3 new families!!! FAMILIES!! And they´re pumped for the gospel!! One of them even came to church without being invited! Here´s a cool story about one of them:

A couple weeks ago we got a package from the US for someone named Nelson Dine. We don´t have an Elder D.  in our mission, so we sent an email to the other São Paulo missions to see if he exists. There used to be another mission in this office before us, so it happens a lot that we get mail for other people. Everyone replied saying that Elder Nelson D.  isn´t in their missions. Kinda weird. We double-checked the address that was on the box, and it was for another house on our street. Kinda weird, because we´re the only place around here that gets constant mail from the States. But we checked out the house, knocked, and who answered? Nelson D. ! This guy has a son in Connecticut doing some study work. But the guy let us in and wanted to hear our message! He even asked to read some our material and wants us to teach his daughter. So far the test results are lookin good! 

Picture with Elder Costa (one of the area seventies) 

 Wednesday we had an interview with Elder Costa - great meeting! The day before President called us: [Elder I want you all to clean the office from top to bottom. If there´s one piece of paper in a wastebasket, throw the bag out and put a new one in.] So Tuesday we spent the whole day (literally - until 11:30 at night) throwing out a bunch of junk missionaries left behind. It really wasn´t that dirty - it´s a big office haha.

My new companion Elder L.

Elder L. and I are getting along great. He looks pure American, and he already speaks great in English. This past week he asked me to pray a couple times in English - man how embarrassing it was. He´s a hard-worker and it´s a blast. 

Great pictures of Seattle! Good luck on all your finals, projects, sylabusses, and work. I´m always praying for you every day. 

Love you all very much!

Elder Nissinen  

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Hey everyone!!

Do you know something? This church is TRUE!!!!! Our mission had a great experience with a General Authority, Elder Costa. It was a straight 4 hour meeting, and it was pure Spirit going on. Everyone got to shake his hand. He trained on nearly everything - our purpose, member/missionary work, planning. No one wanted him to go when it was over. You know when you can feel the priesthood that an Authority has, like you know God gave him that calling? It´s like when an Apostle comes. But the best part (and kinda freaky part), is that he´ll be meeting with all of the Office Staff on Wednesday and interviewing us. It´s the end of the transfer, and all the missionaries that are leaving pass by and spend some time at the office making sure their suitcases aren´t too heavy. So most of the time they leave a bunch of junk behind that doesn´t get thrown out. Looks like over the next couple days until Wednesday we´ll be doing some down-and-dirty Spring cleaning. 

Speaking of transfers, I´m officially the Executive Secretary (aka Office Boss) of all us here. Elder V.  has a special assignment the President gave him, and he´ll spend his last transfer in an area really far away as a Zone Leader. He trained me and helped me a lot, I just hope I know what I´m doing haha. So my new companion is.........Elder L. ! He looks American, but he´s from the South, Porto Alegre. I don´t know a whole lot about him. He came here this morning with all the craziness of the other missionaries that are leaving, but he´s the new Referral Secretary and a Traveling Assistant like me. 

Let me tell ya, transfers are NUTS!!!! How it works here is that we (or I) call each companionship thats having a change and let them know personally. So imagine with 50 companionships that have missionaries moving around - it gets complicated pretty quick. Not to mention the drama when they hear the news. Most of the elders answer pretty calm with no emotion. But the Sisters (oh boy).....How do you help a Sister stop crying? Some Sisters get pretty attached to their areas and companions, so when you have to break the news.....well.....all you can do is reassure them that´s where the Lord wants them to be. I guess haha. New experiences in the office.

We´re having a rough time with our investigators. The work´s going slowly, but Saturday we taught a lesson with a lady attending institute. She was invited by some friends, and she´s already been reading the Book of Mormon - and she´s in 2 Nephi! Her parents are totally against the Church, so we´re only able to teach her on Saturdays after Institute, and sometimes on Sundays. But there´s some good potential.

It´s gonna be a lot of work, but a great transfer. The Church is TRUE - it´s a LIVING CHURCH, and you can FEEL it.

Love you all,

Elder Nissinen

Hey everyone! Glad to hear everyone had a great week.

I thought that things would slow down a little after having multizone conferences, leadership councils, and training meetings for the new missionaries - BUT NO! Ha! This week we´re having a Mission Tour with Elder Costa, President of the Brazil Area. It´ll be this Thursday. But the freaky part comes after the fireside. We found out this last weekend that the following week, he´ll be passing by the Mission Office to inspect everything and interview all the staff. Yikes!

Lunch with the Greenies!!!

We had a pretty good week. Wednesday we met with all the missionaries who are being trained to see how they´re doing and give them some extra training. Elder V.

 and I took the group who´s finishing up their training, so we spent a lot of the time doing role-plays and answering their questions. It may be weird to say, but I like giving missionary trainings. Nine months ago and I was receiving that same training - It feels totally different being on the other side. Like you feel old haha.

The day after was our Mission Leadership Council with all the ZL´s and the Sister Training Leaders. We were thinking of how we can get the leaders excited, especially for the 5 Baptisms in March that we´re doing. Remember the Free Throw competition a while ago, and our zone won? We decided to do that again, but we divided the leaders into groups. And, we added soccer to help out the Brazilians. I´ll see if I can send you a cut version of it. Great upset. We even got a video of President Del Guerso trying his luck at it. 

About the area, nobody ended up coming to church yesterday. In fact we were dropped, so we´re down to a grand-daddy total of one investigator that we´re teaching (Mauricio). But we´re praying a TON to find a family of five. It´s gonna happen. After sitting in the office until 5, we´re itching to get out and work. The members are really cool. I don´t know if I told you, but about 80 percent live in the same apartment complex. I don´t know why the doormen aren´t baptized yet. 

Yesterday was International Women´s Day (didn´t even know that existed). It´s almost just like Mother´s Day. So us 4 Elders in the ward got together and made little bags with chocolate in them. The sisters LOVED IT!!! 

Congratulations Mr GLENCOE!!! Your hard work really paid off. Plus you guys got a new truck (kinda jealous). You´re awesome

Love you guys so much. Have a great week

Elder Nissinen

My Days Are Numbered...

Half the Mission!

Hey everyone!!

We survived Multizone Conference!!!! I´m sooooooo glad that´s done with. Pretty much everything normal that goes on in the office goes on hold because of all the stuff that´s gotta happen with it. It´s crazy because all the missionaries seem to ask for everything all at once during this week. While all the other missionaries are outside doing contacts, teaching, and sweating, here´s the kind of whales the secretaries wrestle:

A missionary asked for a map of his area, which includes a lake and acres and acres of nothing in the middle. So me and another secretary spent 7 hours printing and taping together pieces of Google Maps in a giant 6ft by 6ft puzzle. Yeah I know it doesn´t appear that exciting haha. But basically we stayed up until midnight for three nights straight making sure the whole meeting would go together.

The Conference was two days, Wednesday and Thursday, and you come to definitely appreciate the tranquility of just coming in to a meeting, sitting down, and enjoying the Spirit. On the logistical side you´re thinking about how much time you have left, if everything is on time, and if the air conditioning in the chapel is working right haha. It was eye-opening and a lot of work, but it was fun to see the whole mission. We´re also getting ready for a mission tour upcoming week with President Costa, the Area President of Brazil. It should be really good too. 

The first day the Special Projects Department of the Church was meeting about building the first Visitors Center in South America, during the conference

About our investigators, we´re still working with them. Unfortunately no one came to church yesterday, but we´re not giving up. The hardest part is simply setting up the appointment. Everyone works and studies, and studies and works. But the members are great and it´s a great area because of that. 

Oh, and Elder M. , Elder J, and I all talked with President, and he changed our arrival home date to July 14th because of BYU. And I´m not even looking at a calendar. It´s freaks me out. The even scarier part is.....today I have to order my flight.....I DONT WANNA GO HOME JUST YET!! haha

I love you all. Keep praying that more of the people in our area will go in the Temple they pass in front of everyday. `Cuz that´s where they need to GO!!! And we can help!!!

Have a great week! I have an awesome family. They´re all the best! 

Love Elder Nissinen 

THANK YOU it´s PDAY!!!

Life is getting crazier and crazier in the office. We´ve got one big thing going on this upcoming week that we´ve gotta plan out: Multi-Zone Conference. Here it´s almost a whole-day event, and since the mission is so spread-out, we´ve gotta do it twice to split everyone. It´s gonna be a Shark-week on steroids! But to keep us alive we´ve got Pizza and Brazilian Coca-Cola, so I think we´ll make it haha.

I´m loving this area more and more, even though we´re not able to spend as much time out in proselyting. It´s seriously the Salt Lake of Brazil here. We´ve got the Temple, Chapel, and the Church Headquarters all next to each other, and everyone in the ward works for one of the three. And a lot of the original members (and their descendents) of the Church in Brazil live in our area.

A funny <adventure> in the office. Wednesday one of the email accounts of the mission shut down, so I called Salt Lake to have them figure it out. I had to explain the problem - in english!! And I was stuttering. You know it´s embarrassing when the lady on the other end starts laughing.....

Yesterday we had lunch with a family, and it was my first time meeting them. So you know we go through all the get-to-know-you stuff. I said I was from Oregon, he asked me if I was from Hillsboro. Turns out the dad´s last companion on his mission was Mark S. The member was blown away having a retrospective moment during the whole lunch. So if you see him around, tell him that an Elder M. says hey. Small world!

It looks like this area is gonna be a testing ground of all the stuff I´ve learned in all my areas. Since there´re no doors to knock, we throw tracting out. And the people on the streets are in a dead-powerwalk, and Perdizes taught me how to street contact in 3 seconds. And the members here are GOLDEN, so I´ve gotta summon my Cucamonga skills in member-missionar work to the max. 

We´ve also got a thing starting next month called The March 5. It´s a challenge in the mission which companionship can baptize 5 people in one month. Elder V. and I are already planning on reaching it. It just fits our ward name: SP Ward 5, March 5. It´s got a nice ring to it. 

We only had one investigator at church today. The other ones flaked out last minute, but the one´s got some good potential. Saturday night we had a lesson with one of our recent-converts, and during the lesson a friend that lives with him came in and listened. When we invited him to church for the next day, he told us that he didn´t have any good clothes to wear. Our Ward Mission Leader was with us during the lesson. He then proposed, If he brought him a white shirt, slacks, and shoes, he would go. He agreed, and when church started, he was beaming in his new clothes. He liked church, made some friends, and we have a lesson with him tonight. Keep your fingers crossed! 

The Lord is acelerating His work, because the Office sure is haha. Love you all. Have a great week. Let me know any news on BYU stuff about B. I´ve got my fingers crossed!

Love Elder Nissinen

The German´s Restaurant.  We went there on an all-day Leadership meeting on the other side of the mission

Hey everyone!

We had an awesome week this last week. We´ve been working NONSTOP to keep this place up and running. Sometimes we get a hard time from the other missionaries that we got it easy with our air conditioning (a true luxury in Brazil), and the lady that comes to clean once a week, so we get a hard time for that. But the last few days we´ve hardly spent any time in the office because of the million errands we´ve got. I´m absolutely loving the work here. 

This week my testimony about Priesthood keys skyrocketed! Wednesday night I get a phone call from President, asking me to set up an interview with another elder in the mission for the next morning. After the interview, President pulled me and Elder V.  aside and explained that the elder needed to be emergency-transfered to another area, and he asked us which area we thought he should go. It was like one of those experiences where an Apostle and a Seventy are making mission call assignments. We gave our ideas, and then President del Guerso switched a few people on his Transfer Board. We all felt right about the swap. It´s awesome working closer to the Mission President. It´s super cool seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that I took for granted when I started the mission.

We´ve been busting out butts a ton with the less time we have to work in our area. Since I got here we´ve been passing by a house of a referral a member gave us. Until Saturday we haven´t had any luck. But we passed by, and both the mom and son were home and super-receptive. We started talking about our purpose as missionaries, the gospel, and then we invited them to come to church with us the next day. Yeah, why not? I´ve always wanted to go inside that church.^ was how she responded. Totally took me off by surprise. We went by their house a little earlier, and they were happy, ready, and excited. They could only stay for sacrament meeting, but we set up an appointment for later this week. A great miracle!!!

Sorry for the short letter. We got a bunch of pictures I´m sending to you. Loving it here. My companion is awesome, the ward is amazing, and the church is true!

Our little barbeque on Saturday

Hope you all have a great week!            Love Elder Nissinen

                                                    Our little barbecue on Saturday!

We got money from a member, so we had the other elders go buy the stuff on their p-day and we had a sick barbecue  - Brazilian style!