Good morning! 

Felicidades, Joe! You made it out of the CCM! I hope you have safe travels today to Yakima. I'm so proud of you. Tell your Mission President tonight that you will work as hard as you can and that you will do whatever he needs you to do. I hope you will love your trainer. He is probably pretty nervous right now to train you, but literally just have fun with everything! It's perfectly fine to not know everything right now :) Soak it up while you can! 

It has been a crazy week. The Sister AP's came down to Rochester Monday night and did an exchange with us on Tuesday! They do one with all the STL's every transfer now. I was with Sister Musser who is super cool. She goes home in 2 weeks, and she is a convert of just 3 years. I learned so much from her. Tuesday morning we had a cool opportunity. 28 high school students in a world religion class came to our church building for a tour! So all of us Rochester missionaries got to go and help out. We also held a Q&A in the chapel. They asked some pretty funny questions. They were confused about baptisms for the dead (understandable), the Book of Mormon play, and just what we do as missionaries. It was really great! We also left out a lot of copies of the Book of Mormon and everyone took one so that was cool.

Wednesday we had interviews with President Barney. There's some stuff that has to get changed around with the Spanish missionaries in the mission, so unfortunately he said Hermana Hudman and I ("the dream team") will have to get split up, UNLESS we figure out a way to keep us together in this area. I was so sad when he told me that. Number 1, I don't want to leave this place at all. And 2, I want to stay with Hermana Hudman!! So we actually fasted yesterday that we would figure something out haha. Pray that something will happen so that we can stay together!! 

At our weekly service at Salvation Army, there was a fight! A lot of the people that come through there just have really hard lives. I honestly can't even imagine it. It's just so sad. I'm so grateful for the way I was raised and for the family that I have!

Well, Rigoberto's interview was Friday night, but the problem is is that it didn't happen. He didn't show up. His wife called us before and she said he wasn't home from work and hadn't heard from him, so we tried and tried for 2 hours to get a hold of him and nothing happened. We stopped by his apartment last night and he was home! We talked to him, and we think that Saturday will be too soon for his baptism, so we are going to keep teaching him and praying for him! We don't know when his baptism will be, but he is making the correct steps now. We are proud of him. 

President banned Pokemon cards and Magic cards because they were too much of a distraction (thank goodness), so today for P-Day some of the elders are bringing their cards and we are going to burn them! I can't wait! Haha it will be fun.

Last night as Hermana Hudman were out tracking, it was pretty much completely dark outside. (It gets dark so early now, its the worst!) I went up to knock on an older, kind of run-down house, opened up the screen door, and went in for a knock when my arm went in further than it should have. lol I like fell into the house. The door was completely open! I just looked on the inside and thought someone was going to jump out at me. Haha scarier than any 13th Door or Fright Town haunted house I've ever been in! You don't even know how fast I ran away from that house. I don't know why I got so scared, but holy cow, it scared the schnikees out of me. 

We got to help a lady in our ward write her talk for church yesterday. It was on the Plan of Salvation. Hahaha I won't put everything in here, but man it was pretty funny. I'll be sure to tell you more at some later time!

One of my goals for this week is "TB4US." Think before you speak! I've learned to speak quieter on my mission, but now I just need to learn to think before I talk, haha just in informal situations. I even wrote it in sharpie on the inside of my finger so I would remember!

I've been doing President Nelson's challenges as well. I seriously love the Book of Mormon. It's been a real blessing to me to read it daily and to mark every time it talks of Jesus Christ. Goes to show that it really is another testament of Him. 

Love you all! I pray for you everyday. Joe, kick butt in Yakima! Say hola to Hermana Grey and Hermana Snow when you get there :) You've got this! Make it to Sunday! Good luck this week with work and school and everything.

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Nissinen