The Mayor of Roch

I'm so sorry my P-Days are getting all mixed up! Next week it will finally be on Monday again :) Today we are going to the temple as a zone! I haven't been to the temple since I think May so I am really excited to go back. We will also be having a testimony meeting as a zone afterwards, so that will be sweet. Excited to be back in the house of the Lord.

I'm glad you all had a great Thanksgiving and ate a lot. My Thanksgiving trickled into like 4 days because everyone had left overs and so they just decided to have us over for dinner to eat all of it. 

On Friday, Sister Paris and I decided to do some service and go give blood at Mayo. She had never given blood before, so she was pretty nervous. Mine went totally fine (I took my iron supplements mom!), but Sister Paris' didnt go so well! I'm not sure what happened but 5 nurses had to come in and help her and what not. Now her arm is completely bruised. Poor girl! They gave us a free shirt and water bottle though.

We do service with a lady named Anna at Salvation Army. She is the main cook. She grew up Amish, but left when she was 22 years old. We have been asking her questions and talking to her about it, and she said she would take us to go to the Amish community and check it out. We went on Saturday morning and it was so cool! They were all riding around in their horse and buggy and working and playing outside. Reminded me of Little House on the Praire. Her cousin owns a furniture store there, so we went and bought a couple of things. It was really cool to talk to Anna about her background and then share what we believe as well. 

Sunday night we had an exchange with the other sisters in our zone. I went to their area for the day! It was fun being able to go with them and help train them on some things. I really like being an STL and getting opportunities to work with other sisters.

This weekend the Rochester Stake is doing the annual "Wonder of the Nativity" event. It's a HUGE production. About 250 nativities from all around the world are displayed throughout the building, with live musical performances, food, and the whole building transformed into a winter wonderland. Our stake is pretty much the ultimate party planner, holy cow! I will be sure to take lots of pictures this weekend of all of it. We have been helping out a bunch this week already setting things up. They always cater in a dinner the night before with the mayor of Rochester and some other top people at the church to kick it off. About 3,000 people will he coming over the 2 days. It's going to be so amazing!! I can't wait!! 

Speaking of the mayor of Rochester... a lady in our ward is good friends with her, and she texted in her name a few weeks ago at Stake Conference. We talked to her about it, and we are now starting to teach her! Pretty cool, right? She has pretty set beliefs, so we are going to take it slow and gentle but it's cool. 

I'm so glad you got the picture of us last night! The Rutledge family is the best. They are amazing member missionaries and take great care of us :) Their 11 year old daughter even told the mom last night that she wants to serve a mission now because of us! Woohoo! I love being a missionary with all my heart.

Glad to hear you are doing so awesome, Elder Nissinen. Awesome job on taking over the area and being the only one to speak Spanish! That's hard! Good job for being the leader in your companionship and talking about things. It's hard to do and can be so awkward, but it is also really important. Ask Hermana Grey (I think that's her name, the blonde one in your district) if she remembers me from the CCM :) 

Love you guys so so much! We get to all talk to eachother in less than a month! I'm so excited. 

I don't like cats!!!

Have a wonderful week, pray that I will stay warm haha!

Love Hermana Nissinen

Felíz día de gracias!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope you all have fun plans for today. This morning us and some elders are making chocolate chip cookies to give to the Ronald McDonald house in Rochester! Then we have a lunch this afternoon, another dinner tonight, and then all of us missionaries are going to the mall to do some Black Friday shopping! It should be a fun day.

It's been an awesome week and a half! It's always kind of hard to push back p-day, so I'm really grateful that today is finally the day haha. Last Tuesday we had Zone Conference and I had to give a training on having member lessons. It went well. Afterwards, we all had to go to Walmart and get our flu shots! Well, unfortunately the flu shot made me pretty sick. I was out the next 2 days with a fever and I just felt miserable! NyQuil cured me and I felt much better and back to myself after that. It was really not very fun to be stuck inside sleeping. 

Guess what?! Remember Renee? She got baptized on Saturday! It was so special. Her family didn't even know about it until probably today when she is going to tell them. She asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. Renee couldn't stop smiling the whole entire day, and the next. We had Stake Conference, and Elder Alder of the 70 asked her to come up and share her testimony and she just had the biggest smile the whole time. I'm so proud of her and I love her so much♥️

RENEE GOT BAPTIZED!!! It was so so wonderful to see her enter into the waters of baptism. She asked me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost. I love Renee a lot. She is a really good friend. The next day, we had Stake Conference and she got asked to share her testimony. So cool!!

 

We met a new friend a couple weeks ago named Vivik. He is from India, and use to live in California where he took lessons from missionaries there. He is doing cancer research at Mayo. We knocked on his door, and have had 2 sweet lessons with him since. We are really excited to what is going to keep happening with him! There's tons of doctors in my ward that work for Mayo, so we have been bringing a couple with us to the lessons and they have been great fellowshippers for him. Members are the best!

Saturday night and Sunday were Stake Conference. The overarching theme of it all was member missionary work. It was so good! On Sunday, Elder Alder went up with our phone number and the zone leader's phone number. He asked everyone to pull out their phone, and said "Brothers and Sisters, who do you wish was sitting next to you right now but isn't?" Then he said our phone numbers over the pulpit and had everyone text in a name. We got just about 120 referrals. We made a Google Spreadsheet (my fav) and put all of the names together with the ward. So cool! We have lots of people to work with from that. It's very exciting. 

Sister Baker taught us how to paint!! We are finishing up the project in a couple of days. My painting is in the middle... lets just say I'm not Bob Ross 

Sister Baker paints all of the sister missionaries a picture. I asked her to paint me whatever she wanted to, and she painted me a Louisiana Swamp. I love it, and I love her!

Funny story: Saturday afternoon we had a lesson with a guy named Jessi and his girlfriend in their trailer home. Well, their house REEKS of smoke. Ash trays everywhere. We were there for about an hour, and right after that we had dinner with President and Sister Barney, President and Sister Ferrara of the mission presidency, and the zone leaders. We got in the car, and our hair and clothes and coats just smelled so so so bad of smoke. It was very apparent. We didn't have any time to go home and change or anything, so we went to dinner and stake conference smelling like that. So embarrassing! 

The Rochester Zone is having a competition with the Minneapolis Zone to see who can find more people in the month of November. They have 3 more teams than we do, but we are holding up! It makes it more fun to go out and tract honestly. 

Last night we had a sweet lesson with Rigoberto about the Word of Wisdom! We brought a member with us and it went so well. He is progressing just swell :) 

I'm learning how to drive in the snow. It's not very fun. Hopefully I get better.

My P-Day will be switched, again, next week to Wednesday. Our zone is going to the temple! Finally! Sorry my P-Days keep switching!

Be on the lookout next week for a letter of my 100 things I'm grateful for. Gotta keep up the Nissinen mission family tradition.

I'm so grateful for my family and friends♥️ Thank you for your support and everything. I am truly so blessed. I hope you all have a wonderful day. 

D&C 78:19 

"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more."

Feliz día de gracias,

Hermana Nissinen 

The Hebrew Chewout

Good morning!

I think it's safe to say that winter has finally hit Minnesota. It's been really cold this week and has snowed some more. I had to bring out my big winter coat! I couple days ago I wore 3 layers of tights when we were out tracking. Ahhh! Here's to a very long winter. 

The days have been flying by with Sister Paris. Her and I have a lot of fun together. We joke around with each other a lot and she is really easy to get along with. A couple days ago we went and got pho together! I had never had it before. It's pronounced "fu" lol. It's pretty good! I think you would like it dad ;) The shooting in Thousand Oaks and all the fires there are in Sister Paris' hometown. Her dad is a police officer, but her family is safe from everything! Keep them all in your prayers.

So we met a lot of cool people this week. Tracking kinda sucks more in the snow, but some people are nicer and let you in! Wednesday late afternoon we were in a nicer neighborhood knocking on a couple people's doors before dinner, and we knocked on this ladies door and she asked if we were the paper man because he was running late today. We were like "uhh no, haha sorry" and then just introduced ourselves. She wasn't interested. A couple houses later, I see the paper man ride up on his bike. He was just wearing a jacket, no hat, no gloves, and no scarf. It was ***FREEZING*** outside btw. So I yelled to him, "Aren't you cold?!?!" and he came up to us asking what we are doing. He asked if we could come over to his house in 45 minutes. We were heading out to Kasson for a blitz with the sisters there, so we weren't able to go right over but we said we could come the next day. So we went, brought a member, and Craig, the paper man, just chewed us out like I had never been chewed out before! Holy smokes! He was totally drunk and kept saying that we "shouldn't preach the Hebrew God if we aren't even Hebrew" in between all of his profanity. So sad! I am actually glad we had a brother from the ward there with us because I felt a lot safer haha. So no more Craig the paper man.

Story for Joe: Saturday when we were doing some stop-bys, a great dane came out of nowhere in someone's backyard and charged at me. I just stood there, literally saw my life flash before my eyes, while this ginormous dog just booked it at me. I stood there frozen and he didn't do anything to me! So don't move when they try to attack you!! 

I am really excited for this next week. We have a lot of appointments set up and we have zone conference tomorrow (I have to give a training, yay!) and an exchange with some sisters this week. It should be a good time. 

Thanks for all of the emails this week. I appreciate them a lot. Sorry I am so bad at writing everyone back. 

Keep praying and reading the Book of Mormon! Last night I got to teach Rigoberto about repentance. It was really cool. It really is the greatest gift that we have. 

Because Thanksgiving is next Thursday, President has changed our P-Day to that day. So I will be able to email you then. 

I love you, hope you have a great week.

xoxo, Hermana Nissinen

Hola Hola!

Happy November! Can't believe it's already here.

Hermana Hudman and I are pretty much twins!

Transfer weeks are always so much fun. Last week just flew by. We had transfers last Thursday and then MLC on Friday all up in Bloomington. I already told you who my companion is, but I just want to say that I love her so much already and how excited I am to be with her for her last transfer! Sister Paris is amazing. I won't go into details in this letter, but basically she grew up in LA and had a difficult childhood and left home completely when she was 16 years old. She had to financially support herself and everything. She lived with a couple different people and on the streets for a little bit and then she bought a motor home and lived by the beach by herself. She got her life together, started becoming active again and then went to BYU-Idaho with the help from her Bishop. She did a year there and decided to serve a mission. CRAZY, RIGHT. She is a huge example to me! If she can serve a full time mission without any support from home, anyone can. She has a killer testimony and is so knowledgeable in the scriptures. Haha man she is the best! As a "zebra" companionship, I just do everything that is in Spanish. It is a little tricky just having to do all that myself, so I'm going to involve the Spanish ward members more to help me out. There's not a lot of Spanish in this area, but of course now that's it's a zebra area we have had more Spanish lessons this past weekend than ever before! It's okay though, I'll figure it out. I still do an hour of language study everyday by myself and I still say all my prayers in Spanish so that's good. It's very interesting!

Dinner with Brother Braun at the Mall of America! 

Haha we looked homeless for a little bit. We had to wait for the Richfield Hermanas to come unlock their apartment so we hung out out front and some people thought we got kicked out Haha! 

Thursday after transfers the Elders took our car back to Rochester so we didn't have a car all day! We hung out at the mission home with Sister Barney and then got to go out to dinner with Brother Braun! It was great to catch up. I'm really grateful that he took time out of his weekend to take us out to dinner. We stayed the night with the Richfield Hermanas so I got to stay with Hermana Winterton! I miss her! She goes home next month so it was fun to see her again.

We had a Mission Leadership Conference all day Friday. I'm not sure if you know what that is or if Jacob or B or Kim had it in their missions but all of the Zone Leaders and the Sister Training Leaders come together with the mission presidency and council together about our zones and what things we can do to improve. I always learn a lot from them. President Barney is an inspired man for sure! We council together about the baptismal goal for the month and how to implement the things we talk about. It's a great experience. 

Sunday we had the broadcast from Salt Lake. It was neat. Before it started, I got the chance to accompany a couple ladies for a musical number in front of the whole stake! They asked me last Sunday if I could play for them, so I went to their practice but I didn't know if I would still be here the next week because of transfers, so I'm glad I was able to do it! I kinda miss playing 5 hours everyday like I was a year ago at school hahaha.

Daylight savings actually really sucks because it gets dark so early and people get so mad when we knock on their doors when it's dark! We are going to have to come up with creative stuff to do at night when we don't have lessons.

Sister Paris and I got threatened that the cops would come and we got kicked out of 2 apartment complexes this past weekend just for tracting in them. Darn. 

We also came up with eating goals for this transfer! We are determined to eat healthy, and since she is going home in 6 weeks it's crunch time, so we are doing it together! Week 1: no sweets alone and drink 80 ounces of water a day. Week 2: no soda (plus previous week). Week 3: no rolls (thanksgiving week lol). Week 4: no dairy alone. Week 5: no fried food. Week 6: SALAD WEEK. Hahaha we know this sounds ridiculous and pretty crazy but we want to give it a try! 

Rigoberto chose the date he wants to be baptized which is December 1st. We are so excited. He knows the importance of this decision and we emphasized the importance of prayer on Friday night. He got emotional when we read 2nd Nephi 4 with him. He's a great guy.

I'm really loving each day of my mission a lot. It's not always easy, but it is so fun. Friday night we tracted all night outside in the cold rain and didn't find a single person to teach but we had a lot of fun doing it. Like I always tell the other sisters in the mission, "If you aren't having fun doing the Lord's work, you're doing it wrong!" God doesn't want us to be sad and depressed while doing His work. He wants us to be happy. I'm truly happy.

Love you all, have a fabulous week. Be grateful for all the small things we have.

Love Hermana Nissinen 

-- 

Zebra'd in Rochester????

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! So so sorry I didn't write you a letter. Thank you so much for scenty things in the package. I love you! Also, thank you Dodo for the candle, and thank you SO MUCH Ninny for the awesome package. Wow, I have the best family.

I was a little bummed out when I saw that Joe's P-Day was on Monday this week. I'm excited for next week when we can email each other. This morning we proselyted for a couple hours and we get to have a night P-Day tonight so that will be lots of fun! We are going to a member's house in a huge neighborhood to hand out candy and scare little kids haha. We are also planning on going to a corn maze tonight with the other Rochester missionaries! It should be a good Halloween. 

I gotta start out with a crazy story. This world is just so small. Last Tuesday Hermana Hudman went and got our hair done by Sister Kadlec who is in another ward. By the way, I LOVE being back to blonde now. I missed it so so much! She did a great job, and all for free. I'm going to get her a gift card or candle or something. Anyways, so we're talking while she is doing my hair, and she said she is from Hillsboro. Yeah, HILLSBORO OREGON. We both freak out for a second, then we just start naming off people we know. She went to Hilhi. Long story short, she knows all of the Longs. Like, all of them. She is a Dowd. CRAZY RIGHT. While she was telling me all of these stories, she just started to get emotional and just hugged me. It was really cool honestly. She has had a hard life and recently got married again to a different guy and they have a mansion out in the country. It was just so cool. 

We had an exchange last week as well with the Roch 5 Sisters. I was with Sister Jackson here in this area and we just tracted pretty much all day! It was good. 

So, transfers are tomorrow. We found out on Monday what is all happening. We were both pretty shocked, but President is inspired so I know it's a good thing! So Hermana Hudman is leaving Rochester and going back up to Spanish in Lakeville. I will be staying in Rochester (woohoo!) and I will be with Sister Paris. She is an English sister, and this is her last transfer, so I will "kill" her! She was just in Winona and I was just her STL so we have already been comps for a day. I love her. She has an amazing story that I will tell you more about next week. So this is called a "Zebra" because it is a Spanish Sister and an English Sister together. This is not very common, but I'm really excited! I love Hermana Hudman and I am so super sad to see her go, but I'll still see her around sometimes and maybe one day we can be companions again. It has been an amazing transfer with her. It had gone by way too fast. But nonetheless, I GET TO STAY IN ROCH! So pumped. Best ward ever. I will for sure be here until December 13th, and there is a good chance I'll stay another one because Sister Paris goes home. I would love to spend Christmas here! 

It's been a really great week and a half. You wouldn't believe how good this ward is. So many of the members are involved in missionary work and in having us over for lessons it is incredible. I was getting a little overwhelmed with everyone's schedules and everything, so I made an Excel Spreadsheet that is shared with the WML and ward missionaries. It's so helpful. Haha my mission has actually taught me how to use technology, and how to use it the right way. 

Funny story from this week! Saturday afternoon, a light came on in the car about a low tire pressure. Not a good idea, but I just ignored it. Well we drove the rest of the day and Sunday morning to church just fine. After church we were talking with some people in the foyer and a guy walked in and showed a couple people a picture of our car and the tire, asking if it was their car. The he came up to us and I freaked out because it was our car! So about 6 men came out and helped us change our tire and put the spare on and told us what to do. They were so kind!! Hermana Hudman and I were pretty embarrassed, but it was funny. We went to Discount Tire Monday morning and they fixed it all up for us for free :) I'm grateful for people who take care of the sister missionaries who sometimes don't know how to do much. 

Keep reading the Book of Mormon and General Conference talks! I have been learning so many new things in my studies. Also, on the Young Adult section of Gospel Library there are magazines for Young Adults and little articles. I highly recommend reading them, they are really good. 

Really cute story. We were tracting and met this family from Sudan and the girls were in LOVE with our hair!! They couldn't keep their hands off of it. They want our hair so bad. They said they were going to dye their hair yellow for Halloween. So sweet. 

Sister Coons! We got to help her do some interior design in her new house. She is so sweet! 

I got a call last night from Ricardo from Minneapolis. I miss him SO MUCH. That was the first time I've heard from him since I've been in Rochester. We talked for like a half hour about everything! He has the priesthood and blesses the sacrament every week. I'm so grateful I have the privilege to know him.

I love you guys. You are all in my prayers❤ 

I hope you have a wonderful Halloween. 

Love Hermana Nissinen