Buenos días!

I'm glad to hear you had a great trip and traveled home safely! It looked super fun! I appreciate all the letters and stories. Haha sounds like you all had a really fun time together! Sorry dad that you were pretty sick. That's not fun, but the Priesthood is awesome huh? 

My week wasn't quite as exciting as yours, but we did have a pretty good week. We've been working hard and knocking a whole bunch of doors. Our numbers have been showing it, cause we have found quite a few new investigators these past 2 weeks! On Thursday, our Zone had a cool finding hour. Each companionship was given instructions on what we need to do to prepare for this hour. We first had to have a prayer of repentance, and then more prayers about where we think we should find and write down apartments/streets and compare them with your companion to choose a few spots to go to. It was awesome! Hermana Winterton and I went to this one neighborhood, and a guy named Seh  came out and said he recognized us (we had never seen him before). He said that he just moved here 2 months ago from Liberia and had met with the missionaries there and had a date to get baptized but then moved here. Once he got here, he didn't know where the church was. It was super cool to meet him! It just made me think about how those missionaries in Liberia probably wouldn't have thought that we would run into him and teach him, but its just amazing to me how worldwide this church is. Its just so cool!

We have a few progressing investigators, but none of them kept their lessons this week and they didn't come to church. If you could please pray for Jamie, Miguel, and Kelly, that would be MUCH appreciated! 

We didn't do a whole lot to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. On Friday we went to the Veteran's home and had a fiesta there, where we helped them make salsa and guacamole! We also watched them hit the piñata and that was pretty hilarious. We were going to do that cool contacting thing on Saturday at the Mexican Market, buuuuuut Bishop didn't think it would be very safe for us to go there, so yeah. It was still a good day though!

Yesterday at church it was our turn to translate sacrament meeting. I've only had to do it a few times before, but Hermana Winterton usually did the majority of it cause I wasn't very good at it! So yesterday we did it, and I did half of the meeting! She had to still help me of course, but it was awesome cause I was actually able to do it and understand what was being said! The speaker in the hallway where we translate isn't very loud, so we have to stand on a chair the whole time to hear what they are saying haha. I have a few pictures. It definitely helps ya stay awake during sacrament meeting! 

Last week for P-day we went to the global market and Spanish market with the elders and had lunch and shopped around (which is where we bought our Mexican dresses). Then we played like 3 or 4 hours of volleyball and football! Haha today we are having a Zone P-day at the park and playing sports and having a big picnic. It should be pretty fun! 

I'm excited to work hard this week. We met with the bishop yesterday about who he wants us to see and what-not, and so we are trying to work hard with the less-actives (you're right B, they are goldmines!) and ask all of them for referrals. 

I've been thinking a lot about Joe and Okie this week and how awesome of missionaries they are going to be! I am honestly soooooo excited for you guys! 

Also, we get to call this Sunday!!! Woohoo! We haven't quite figured out exactly what time we can call yet, but when we figure it out I will let you know. Probably sometime in the evening like after church. 

I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week back at school and work. Joe, keep it up with Duolingo and I will try to send you more Spanish things that I got from the CCM. Also, pay Kim to teach ya some Spanish over the summer😉 She is a great resource!

Love you!

Love Hermana Nissinen

FELICIDADES JOE Y OKIE

Hey ya'll! 

Thanks for emailing me even though you are out of town. I appreciate it. Even though I wish I was with you guys this week, I hope you have tons of fun!

First, Joe and Okie, I am SOOOO excited for you 2! So crazy! I'm really grateful I could watch/Skype in and see it. It was awesome. I was way off on both of my guesses, but im way happier with where you are called to serve. This week, I will write up a whole list of tips and tricks and things about the Mexico MTC. I probably said some things in my emails when I was there, but I will write in more detail about certain things. YOU WILL LOVE IT! Estoy muy emocionada a hablar con ustedes en español❤🇲🇽

Entonces, I definitely had the most adventurous week on my mission so far! With it being the car fast week for the Minneapolis Zone, we tried to go as much as we could with not using the car. Or district made a goal that if we went 150 miles on bikes this week, we would be able to take a temple trip soon. So, skirts on, helmets buckled, tires pumped, and each companionship biked just over 50 miles to reach our 150. Man was it fun! Hermana Winterton and I got pretty good at it. Since our area is huge, we knew there was no way we could bike all of it (it would literally take us like all day). Haha so we got real good at using public transportation! Last Wednesday night was one of the funnest nights on my mission. Hermana Winterton and I biked to our appointment which was just over 5 miles away. We got in, taught and visited, and didn't realize how late it was when we left! We needed to be home in the next 15-20 minutes and we knew we weren't going to be able to bike it in that time (we aren't the fastest lol). We decided to take the bus home. We rode to the nearest stop, loaded our bikes, and got home in time. We really didn't know what the heck we were doing, and us 2 hermanas in Minneapolis late (ish) at night riding bikes around and trying to find the right bus was such a fun adventure! Every Friday we have service in Minnehaha. Usually it takes us like 45 minutes to drive there, so we definitely weren't gonna bike it. Instead, we rode our bikes to the bus station, caught the bus to downtown Minne, took the train to Minnehaha, and rode to where our service was. We got to it right in time. BIEN CRAZY! We did the same thing coming back home, and it was awesome. We will definitely be using bikes/busses/trains even more. 

Everyday this week our Zone Leaders put out a bike challenge. One day it was to take a selfie on our bikes with a cool background or whatever, but our favorite was the "fly-by pass-along card" challenge. You had to give someone a pass - along card while biking and pedaling the whole time. You can't stop pedaling. I put some pamphlets in my skirt, Hna Winterton had the phone recording, and we rode around and passed them out to people at bus stations. Haha it was a blast! I even got real good at riding no-handed which helped😉 

Besides our fun adventures on bikes, we found 5 new investigators this week, and 4 speak Spanish! We saw some cool miracles from it. We put in the work, and the Lord blessed. We had interviews with President Barney this week. He is a very inspired man. Things are looking good with Hna Winterton and I staying another transfer together, so cross your fingers and pray that we will because we want to go eternal so bad! We also had Stake Conference this weekend. Elder Schweitzer of the 70 and his wife came and spoke. He's a really awesome guy who knows some deep stuff. A lot of the talks were on ministering which is way cool. 

After stake conference on Sunday we went to the Vega's house for lunch. They had a huge pot outside full of oil, and they were just straight up throwing dead fish in there and fryin it up. They also made shrimp soup. MAN was it good! I even sucked the eyes from the fish😋 Joe and Okie, be prepared to eat some real good Mexican food. 

I love you guys! Thanks for the pics. I am excited for this next week. Have fun!

Love Hermana Nissinen

Pachanga!

Hola!! Como están? 

Wow! I've had an awesome week! I know I always talk about the weather, but it's actually warming up now! The other day it was so warm, (compared to the freezing cold), I even went tightless and coatless for the first time here! Pretty big step haha. Our zone was supposed to have the car fast this past week which is where we all go as much as we can without using the car, but with all the snow still on the ground they changed it to this week. I finally get to bring out the bike :)

Our week began out kinda weird. We had a ton of lessons set up, and all of them cancelled👍 Woohoo! We have just decided now that we aren't going to text to confirm appointments, we are just going to go over there.  It's so annoying haha. It was National Volunteer Recognition Week at CEAP where we volunteer and help teach English every Tuesday! They gave us a sweet card and flowers. One of the Spanish students moved on to the next level, but we saw her leaving at the end of the day and we talked to her and she invited us to come over for tamales and to play soccer with her family sometime! We aren't allowed to teach in the class, but outside of class we can😉

This is my desk! We got cute little plants at service
and I thought it looked fun on my desk.

Onto the best part of the week: So the STL's texted us, and they decided that they wanted me to go down to Bloomington for exchanges and have Hermana Winterton stay here again! We were really surprised, because I thought for sure I would be staying. So Friday night I went down to Bloomington, and I had a lot of cool experiences there! At dinner Friday night at a member's home, the AP's were also there eating dinner. It was our turn to give the spiritual message, so Sister Wilkinson and I gave it. Afterwards, one of the AP's told me that if he hadn't known that I've only been in the field for 2 months, he would've thought I've been out for way longer. That was such a huge compliment!! I also went to their ward coordination Saturday morning, and learned a lot how their ward focuses on missionary work. I even brought up some of the things in our coordination meeting on Sunday. Sister Wilkinson and I did some finding, and we knocked on this lady's door and she doesn't speak any English. I got to do the whole doorstep thing in Spanish all by myself! I think I did a really good job! Haha I literally offered her a Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and our card. I wanted to share everything with her because I knew it was my time to just be able to speak in Spanish all by myself :) So fun!

Exchanges with Sister Wilkinson. She's adorable!!

After exchanges, I came back up to Minneapolis and we went to a wedding! There is this couple in our ward named Victor and Christina. They are both members, and just had a baby a few months ago whose name is Jacob! Hermana Winterton and I got to visit with them a few times and then they got married! Yay! It was definitely so much fun. We got to help set the gym up and everything. I have lots of pics and videos! Haha 12 missionaries came, and it was a party (or pachanga as they call it). It was also very hard to not dance to all the music! Like I've said before and will probably continue to say throughout my whole mission: Hispanics throw THE best parties. Idk what it is about them but they are the best.

We are working really hard with our few investigators. There hasn't been much progress with them the past little bit which has been slightly frustrating. If only they knew how much this Gospel could change their lives! UGH! Our numbers for sacrament meeting have tanked this month because of general conference and then the blizzard and then stake conference this next week, and also because none of them came to church yesterday. So yeah. Haha but we're still goin strong with cute little Jamie for her baptism next month! We made her a "Baptism Preparation Chart" (I'll attach the picture) to get her all ready to go. 

We are preppin for Cinco de Mayo next week. Our ward mission leader wants to set up a stand downtown where the Mexican Market is and have us missionaries there handing out stuff and talking to them all about the church. We don't know if it'll actually happen, but he seemed pretty excited about it and we are too!

I love my mission so so much! It is the best!! This morning we went to breakfast at Berta's house with a bunch of missionaries and today we are going to hang out at the church and make a bunch of desserts and watch movies all together or whatever. Should be good! 

The lady in the gray jacket next to me is Berta, the one who reminds me of Ro. All 3 of these ladies fed us this morning for breakfast. So good!! I love all these women so much!

Thank you Taunya and Henry Beltran for the package

Have tons of fun at Disneyworld! Have lots of Mickey bars for me please. Travel safe and I hope to see lots of pics!

Love you guys so much!

♡ Hermana Nissinen

SnowBlizzard!

Hey!

This has definitely been the craziest spring I have ever experienced! It's been an awesome past few days.

So the day after the Twins game, we had zone conference! It was in Oakdale, which is a bit away from us. So we rode in the 'vanimal' with 10 other missionaries and it was a party! Haha zone conference was really great. President talked about the Book of Mormon and how we need to start using that a lot more at doorsteps and just incorporating it more in lessons because it really is the key to conversion. He also shared mission experiences from when he served in Finland which was really cool. He said that he struggled with the language as well (and I know that Finnish is a lot harder than spanish), but it still meant a lot to me because he can kinda relate with me on that ya know? So that was a sweet day.

All the missionaries at the Twins game!

Friday we made lunch as a district at the church and then went to the Veteran's home. We did cute little crafts and sang with them :) That night when we got home, our neighbor Sherry told us that a blizzard was comin in and that we shouldn't leave if we didn't have to. (She kinda always tells us that the weather is going to get super bad and she's just a sweet old lady that watches the news all the time). So we didn't totally believe her, until we woke up the next morning! There was tons of snow and it was super super windy! We finished studies in the morning, and then went out for a few hours before the mission grounded the cars. Oh my goodness it was SO FUN. I have never been in so much snow in all my life!!! Hermana Winterton loves the snow too, so we had so much fun going out in it. We made a video talking about our whole weekend, so instead of typing it out I'll just send that and you can hear what we did. They cancelled church, so you know it's real bad when Minnesota cancels church! You would be surprised how many people got stuck and didn't know what to do. It was a very service filled weekend helping a bunch of people out. I loved it. I think overall we got about a foot and a half of snow, and it's supposedly going to snow more here in the next few days. Woohoo! Pretty much everyone but Hermana Winterton and I are tired of the snow haha but we just keep praying for more. We'll see what happens😊

I have now studied 50 conference talks within the past month or so! I looooove study time, and I have learned so much! Hermana Winterton is also a genius, so comp studies are the best with her because we just discuss the Book of Mormon and what we read and we learn a lot from each other. I'm so lucky to have her as mi compañera, we have so much fun. 

Anyways, that's pretty much how this week has gone. Pray for more snow! Ha ha. We have exchanges this week with the English STL's, and I'm staying here in North Minneapolis with one of the English sisters, so basically it's all on me to do alllll of the talking. Wish me luck! I know that it will be a good experience for me. 

For P-Day today we are just taking it easy. We're gonna meet other missionaries at the church and play games and hang out. It'll be nice.

Thanks for the emails! Joe, you looked great at Prom with Jayla! Glad to hear you had fun! Have fun at Lake Powell this week B! Good luck Jacob and Kim with all of your finals and everything! I can't believe you will be at Disneyworld in 2 weeks! Ahhhh!

Love you guys so much, literally I'm so happy. I have never been so happy before!


Love Hermana Nissinen

Also, since I don't know for sure when you get your mission calls, I will make my guesses now:

Joe: Colorado, English speaking

Okie: Japan

(So excited for you two!!)

Oh my goodness! What a fun, crazy, hard week it's been!

First, Mall of America was sweet! It's huge. A bunch of us missionaries went and shopped around and had lunch all together. I splurged on some Bath and Body Works hand sanitizers hahaha you can never have too many.

Hermana Winterton were getting pretty discouraged this week. We were having a really hard time finding Hispanics when we were out knocking doors. We couldn't find any, so we asked our district leader what we should do. He asked what our goal was for the week for new investigators (which was 3) and he told us to double it, and only count the people that speak Spanish people. We accepted the challenge, and went to work! We set a goal to knock 25 doors on Saturday. We knocked 26 and found 4 Spanish investigators! So we didn't meet our goal of 6, but we knocked 26 puertas and still found 4. We were pretty proud of ourselves. 

There is this sweet lady in the ward who actually reminds me a lot of Ro. She's got a bunch of cute girls, and her name is actually Berta haha. She loves having the missionaries over, and so she invited us and the elders to breakfast Friday morning. It was HUGE. Chiliquiles, (Ask Kim about them, they are SO good. I asked her to send me the recipe too), pancakes, sausage, potatoes, and fruit. The whole time she was telling us to "come más, come más!" Basically the more you eat the more you are liked in Hispanic households. Haha everyday I'm becoming more of a Hispanic missionary by the way I eat/joke around with them. It's so fun!!!

Jensen let me hold his guinea pig.

Our cute little Jamie is getting baptized next month! She is so excited, and we are so excited for her. I guess slime is like a really big thing going on right now with kids, so she always gives us slime (she makes the best kind). We went over the other night to teach her and her family, and they had laid out all the stuff you need to make slime and taught us how to make it! It was really cute and we had a good time all together.

 

We received a referral from a sweet lady in our ward the other day. Referrals are the best! So we went over to this guys apartment. His name is Miguel. He wasn't there, so we thought we would just continue knocking on his floor since we were already in the building. As we were about to leave, he was coming down the hall and noticed us. Long story short, he let us in and he's seriously so golden! He's met with missionaries before, but didn't feel like it was the right time to be baptized. He feels that now is the right time in his life. So I'm gonna ask him to be baptized at our next lesson on Friday :)

At the beginning of last week, it snowed a bunch! I think around 6 or so inches. The next day as we were out doing stop bys and finding, we decided to do some service and help people shovel their driveways and sidewalks. It was really fun and a good opportunity to talk to people about who we are.

So pretty much the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission is THE best mission ever! As you all know, we get to go to the Twins game today. I'm not sure how many missionaries are going, but pretty much anyone within about an hour of the city gets to go. We are SO excited! It's gonna be real cold, but real fun. Tomorrow we have zone conference and I'm accompanying one of the Hmong sisters! I'll try to get a video of it so everyone can see.

This is Elder Shauers. I was great friends with his sister at BYUI and her and I were in the same English class!
It's a pretty small world haha.

I absolutely LOVE Hermana Winterion. She is soooo witty
and I love her more and more everyday.
 I want to be her companion my whole mission. 

Minor/Major accomplishment: one of my personal goals last week was to not bite my nails. I did it for an entire week, and now I've gone a week and a half without biting them! I'm too far now to stop haha.

My personal studies have been really cool this past week. I've tried doing different things within that hour, and it's been really cool!

Don't have a lot of time to email today because we have had a crazy morning trying to get everything done and then we are gonna be at the game the rest of the day, but I'll have my next P-Day on Monday! 

Love you guys! Thanks so much for the emails! I absolutely love the dress mom. I'm wearing it today :) 

Hermana Nissinen

La Conferencia General y La Pasuca!

    I memorized D&C section 4

Hola! 

Sounds like y'all had a good time camping and everything! Looked really fun. This weekend was the BEST! With General Conference, Easter, and April Fool's Day, we had a lot of fun. The transfer board came out, and Hermana Winterton and I are staying in Northe Minne! Woohoo! I am so excited to keep serving here with her.

I started to feel a lot better on Tuesday which was a blessing! This past week we had some interesting stop-bys and doorstep encounters haha. I won't go into detail, but we ran into this guy who was super duper drunk and it was just so weird and hilarious. I was trying SO hard not to laugh at the things he was saying and everything that was going on but I literally couldn't contain myself haha. We also had the COOLEST doorstep encounter Hermana Winterton and I have ever had (and she's had a lot more than me). Like I said before, we really only try to knock on the doors where we hear Spanish. I listened in on this door, and I definitely didn't hear English so I just kinda assumed it would be Spanish. Well a guy from Liberia answered, and he said we were the first Mormons he has ever met. He asked really cool questions, and we taught him for a solid 15 minutes right there about the Restoration. It was just super super cool! 

Hermana Winterton and I started teaching an English class at the church on Thursday! A bunch of people came, and we are going to make flyers and try to get it to be bigger. 

So back to this weekend, WOW! I guess I never had a really good appreciation for General Conference than when I have been on my mission. We just watched it at the church both days with our district and the zone leaders. It was seriously so great, and I only fell asleep in 1 talk which has never happened before at home!! I loved a lot of the talks, but one of my favorites was on Sunday morning from Massimo de Feo. It was really good, President Nelson has made some pretty sweet changes, I am excited to see how it all goes!

Breakfast at Hermana Fuente's house. Her and Hermana Patty are so sweet, they always feed the missionaries breakfast. There was a ton of food this morning for us. Soooo good

We had some fun pranking the elders this past weekend for April Fool's day. Between White Castle burgers (which are way gross, please don't eat them), putting red food dye and elmers glue in face masks and giving it to them, (don't worry, it didn't stain their faces too bad, it washed off hahaha) and changing up the transfer board to say that they are both getting transferred, let's just say that we had a lot of fun :) 

We went with about half of the zone last Monday downtown Minneapolis and walked around and went to the Nicollet Mall and Viking's stadium. Super fun!

I have been working really hard on my Spanish, and everyday Hermana Winterton gives me a new concept to learn and practice. Everyday I add something into one of my prayers or lessons that I have been working on. Almost every single appointment/dinner this week, the person has complimented my Spanish, knowing that I have only been here for a bit. It has made me SO happy you don't even know! I'm practicing hard :) 

Easter was really great. This past week, we have been teaching a lot of members and kids about why we have Easter. I have loved being able to go through pictures of Christ and teach about all He did for us and that because of His resurrection, we can all live again with our families. 

Thank you so much mom for the cute bracelets for Hermana Winterton and I! We love them! 

Today I get to go to Mall of America for the first time :) I can't wait!

Feliz cumpleaños Jacob! I made you a video, thanks for being the best oldest brother! Have a fun day❤

I love you guys! Have a great week, enjoy work and school. Thank you for everything❤ I'm halfway through training baby! Yay! 

Con amor,

Hermana Nissinen