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

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

What a great week in Rochester! I have so many things to talk about so I hope this letter isn't too too long.

Monday night was the start of bike week. We had dinner with a member at the mall, and we had a lesson at 7 that night. We got home and quickly grabbed all of our bike stuff and started riding to their house. I had never been there before, so I had the phone in my hand with the directions. Well we started biking, and Hermana Hudman's bike went nuts. A few days before, the Elders had tightened her brake super tight or something and so she wasn't able to turn it. Her front tire was also completely flat. I jumped on her bike and started going, but about halfway there I couldn't go any further. It was so much work hahaha. We finally got to the lesson, only 25 minutes late (lol), and we looked like a wreck. After the lesson, the guy took our bikes in his garage and fixed them all up for us. SO NICE. They also took a pic of us and sent it to you so that was so sweet of them! It was a huge miracle for our first night of bike week. After a couple flat tires and a super ghetto fender on my bike, our bikes held up pretty well the rest of the week.

To bike to the church, you have to go up with super long, pretty steep hill. We decided to bike to district council on Tuesday. Man was it rough. Going up the hill, Hermana Hudman was crying and I have never said so many prayers in my life, but we did it! We got up without dismounting. It was so hard but we were really happy once we got up there. You're right Joe, we CAN do hard things! 

Pic of me biking one morning to the church. We decided to bike there for exercise, and we brought our skirts and dresses and makeup and hair stuff in our backpacks
so we could get ready at the church!

Tuesday afternoon we went to Winona (don't worry, we drove with the Zone Leaders) for our blitz with the sisters there. It was fun! Sister Paris and I were companions for the day.  We had dinner and taught 3 lessons. The Winona sisters just have 2 beds and 1 couch, so Hermana Hudman and I thought that we could share the couch for the night so neither of us would have to sleep on the floor. Her head was on one side of the couch and my head was on the other with our feet right next to each other's heads. Every single time I rolled, she woke up, and every single time she rolled, I woke up. I also woke up to her cuddling my feet haha. It was the worst night of sleep I've ever had!! We probably got like 2 hours total haha. It kinda wore us out for the rest of the week, but we continued to work hard.

Sister Paris and I delivering food!

It has also been pretty darn cold this week. It's been in the high 20's/low 30's so we have been bundled up! You wouldn't believe it, but yesterday it snowed ALL DAY. Yep, October 14th. It's going to be a looooong winter. Everyone was so upset and I was just so excited haha. We biked all night in it. 

Our little snowman that we made after church!

There a guy named Rigoberto who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (😉) but his wife and kids are. We have only taught him a couple of times, but missionaries have been teaching him for years. During weekly planning on Friday, we were like "Hmmm... who could get baptized right now?" and Rigoberto came to our heads. We had a lesson with him that night, and he is getting baptized October 27th. You wouldn't believe how happy we were. His wife was like "We were waiting for what Hermanas were going to ask him!!" It will be great. The ward is so excited and I'm lucky to be a small part of his conversion.

A little girl named Sophia that we met a couple nights ago.

Renee fed us dinner this past week! She fed us our favorite foods that we hadn't had in a long time: orange chicken and parmesan chicken. Haha she is so cute. Alexa also took us out to dinner at El Super Gallo #1 which is just a store with really good Mexican food. We are going to go there today and buy some Mexican food.

Saturday night was the ward Trunk or Treat. It was so fun! I dressed up as Mary Poppins and Hermana Hudman dressed up as Belle. We had fun passing out candy to all the little kids. A member bought us candy to hand out to them, and it was like the GOOD candy, so now all the kids in the ward think we are the coolest. It was a great night. We get to teach sharing time this Sunday so that will be a good time I'm sure.

ROCHESTER DAILY ZONE BIKE CHALLENGES
Monday's: Who can wear the most reflective gear??
Tuesday's: We forgot to make one, whoops.
Wednesday's: Who can wear the funkiest glasses?
Thursday's: Take a selfie with a random stranger.
Friday's: Street contact without dismounting 
Saturday's: Hand out a pass-along card to someone without dismounting.
Sunday's: Make a snowman! 

I've been studying out of the Book of Mormon a lot this week. I'm reading in Alma right now. One of my favorite things to do is have gospel discussions with other missionaries about things we are learning or questions we have. I honestly like never talked about the Book of Mormon before my mission, now I love to talk about it!! 

I had a really bad ingrown toenail that was just hurting so bad, so Hermana Hudman did some surgery and took it out. OH MY GOODNESS it was horrible!!!

Thanks for everything! Best fam ever. 

(And yes, we have already started listening to Christmas music)!

Love Hermana Nissinen

President Nelson & President Trump

Hellooooooo!

Wow, what an exciting weekend! I hope you are all as spiritually fed as I have been this weekend. My goal was to go to conference with my glass empty and come out with it full. I think it was. It has been a great weekend. There are so many things from conference that I loved, and I can't wait to study the talks more. What was your favorite? Also, thoughts on the 2 hour church and the home-centered program? I wanna hear!

This week has flown by, yet again. Exactly 9 months ago tonight I was set apart as a missionary. I can't believe it! Doesn't feel like it at all. I'm so excited for these next 9 months. 

Last Monday night we drove up to Bloomington and stayed with President and Sister Barney for MLC on Tuesday! I learned a lot about how I can become a better STL. There are things I want to start doing more. For our Zone Focus for the month of October, we are working on motivation. We have some key parts to it, and the first one is to have a car fast week. So, starting tonight, as a zone, we will not be using our cars until Sunday. I'm pretty sure the whole zone hates me, but hey, whatever! It's cold and it's rainy, but I think it will be really good to get outside now before it's 20 below and snowing. I announced it at MLC this week, and President Barney was in full approval of it so I'm stoked :) It's gonna be hard, but I think we will see some cool things from it! Also, our mission now has Sister AP's. Pretty crazy, right? We still have the Elder AP's, but now we also have the sisters.

 

Thursday we had an exchange with the 5th ward sisters. Sister Knapp (one of my favs), came to my area with me. We had a lot of fun together! We were at a member's house on Thursday night doing some service before our dinner. Well, her house is pretty close to downtown, which is where Trump was. All of the streets were completely blocked and the traffic was horrible. Our dinner was at an apartment complex literally right down the road from the Mayo Civic Center. There was no way we could drive. We decided to walk to dinner... which was about a half an hour. Haha we kinda sorta like walked right in the middle of all of the people outside for Trump. It was CRAZY. We dodged it all really quick though and got back through it. It was pretty insane. I wanted to take pictures of everyone and all the protestors, but it was too hard. So that was a bit exciting. 

We got to enjoy conference at some member's homes this weekend. We mostly watched all of the sessions at Bishop Fletcher's house with his family. They are so sweet. I think my favorite talk was from the Women's Session from Sister Cristina Franco. One of the questions I took to conference was "How can I strengthen my relationship with those I serve with/around?" Her talk was an answer to my question. I loved when she said, "The secret ingredient is the love we have for those we serve." So good. I can't wait to take President Nelson's 4 steps to action. Haha a nickname I heard for him is President "Hussell" M. Nelson. Made me laugh.

Today we have our zone P-Day and we are carving pumpkins and playing games! Should be a fun time!

Thank you SO much Mom for the dresses. I LOVE them! Thank you also for sending me the hat and the cream. Hermana Hudman is going to be Belle and we have her costume already. 

I hope you all have a great week with school and work. Keep it up. Start studying General Conference this week. 

Love you all,

Love Hermana Nissinen

President Trump to Roch!

Buenos días familia y amigos🍁🍂🎃

It's October! Woohoo! You wouldn't believe it, but we have now started to wear tights. Here's to about the next 8 months of being cold :) We are all moved in now, and it's a way nice apartment! It's been fun decorating it and making it cute. We had 2 big couches, and none of the elders were able to help get it out of the apartment because of the angles and all that. We had to get them out though that day because the next day they were showing the apartment. So we called a couple guys in the ward, and at 8:30 Monday night 7 men in the ward came and helped move around our couches. I'm so grateful for them!! #roch3wardisthebest. We also couldn't figure how to turn the heat on, so this whole week we have been bundling up every night when we go to sleep but we finally figured it out :) 

We had Zone Conference on Wednesday up in Anoka, which is about 2 hours north. A sweet lady in the ward with a 14 passenger van drove us all up there and back. The night before that, Hermana Hudman and I got a call that we were going to be giving a training at the conference about social media. We didn't have hardly any time to prepare, but I think it went well! President has asked us to go through our friends list on Facebook and message people who we think would be interested in learning from the missionaries. I'm pretty lucky because I have a lot of non-member friends, so I am going to do that this week. 

Also, Sister Barney announced that our mission will be having a 5K next spring, so we are starting to train now! We go outside every morning at 6:30 AM go for a 30 minute run. I am so out of shape, but it's going to be good. 

 Friday night we went to our other apartment to check our mail and grab a few last things from there. A man named Jose was coming down the stairs right as we walked in and started talking to us. We have just said hola and a few things like that to him before, but he was just asking us lots of questions about the church and what-not. It was really cool! And super fun to speak spanish! He seems really interested and he has a young family, so we are excited.

Last night as we were out tracting, we knocked on this door and a lady named Emily just did not seem interested to see us there. Her husband came up and invited us in, and we got to talk to them for bit. At first they were really standoff-ish and just thought we were salesmen, but then we showed them the "Because of Him" video and their hearts were totally changed. Right after the video they were like "Wait, what church are you from again??? That's amazing!" So that was cool. They are young, just had a baby, and the husband got released from prison 2 years ago. Perfect family to teach :) haha. We have tracted quite a bit this week and on Saturday we were getting pretty discouraged after just finding for hours on end and having no success. We had only found 1 new person and we needed to find a couple more by Sunday night. We had a busy day planned for Sunday, but we made time to just knock pretty much an entire apartment complex and then we found the young family. Heavenly Father answers prayers. One of my favorite things to ask people when we meet them is to describe Jesus Christ in 1 word. A few responses this week were family, amazing, and peace. I love those! I know that because of Jesus Christ, we can have families and peace, and that He truly is amazing :) 

OH! Guess who is coming to Rochester this Thursday! Yup, President Trump! Haha he's coming to the Mayo Civic Center which is in our area and is holding a rally at 3:30. We might just be goin over there to see all the chaos. Should be fun. Everyone is freaking out about it. Maybe I'll try to give him a Book of Mormon lol.

Thank you so so much Ninny for the sweet package!!! I love it! We truly have the best family in the world.

Have a great week. Keep truckin along Elder Nissinen! Please eat some chiliquiles for me :) They are my favvvv. Tell President and Sister Bennett I say hola!

If you could describe Jesus Christ in 1 word, what would it be?

Have a great conference weekend! Listen to what the Prophet has to say! It should be exciting!

Love Hermana Nissinen