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

I am not a truck

Hey guys!

I'm sorry I won't have a lot of time to write today. We are moving! Woohoo! We have all the Rochester missionaries helping us move, so that'll be nice. 

 I'm not sure why the camera cut my eye out like that but this is how we drove from Bloomington to Rochester in the Ferrara's car! It was about an hour and a half drive like this haha.
 The car is full of Hermana Hudman's stuff ;)

Wow, this week has been awesome. Last Wednesday we had S Con (sisters conference) in Bloomington. It was an all day event, and it was really well done. Every single sister missionary in Minnesota was there all together. The theme was love and unity, and we had guest speakers and crafts and games! We also had a testimony meeting and it was very powerful. I love being a sister missionary!! 

Transfers were also that day. Hermana Hudman and I OFFICIALLY BECAME COMPAÑERAS. (Dream came true, thanks President Barney). It's been a really busy past couple of days but it's been so fun. Great things will happen this transfer, I know it!

Yesterday was the Primary Program at church. We had a couple people come which was awesome! It was so so cute. The first kid that went up is 5 years old, and said "I am not a truck. I am a child of God" and talked about how much he loves trucks. Hahaha so adorable. 

We also got to teach Priesthood yesterday! Haha I had never been in Elder's Quorum before so that was a bit interesting. They asked us to speak on missionary work and explain simple day-to-day things that everyone can do. I think it went well. 

A lady we did service for has a bearded dragon named Drake and we got to hold him. Funny story is that right after this, she set it down on the ground and a little kid was running around and didn't see it and stepped on it and the lady freaked out so bad haha.
 It was a bit scary.

Sounds like you are doing awesome work, Elder Nissinen! Fyi, I lived in casa #6 right down the road from ya😊 Keep it up and don't get discouraged! 

Love you all. 

Have a great week,

Love Hermana Nissinen

SO STOKED!

Hey guys!

Wow, kinda crazy to think that we are all in different states/countries right now! I'm glad everyone had safe travels. I was so happy to get your little email, Elder Nissinen! I hope you are surviving your first week there :) Looks like Europe is sooo fun mom and dad! Thanks for the pics!

This week started off a little slow, but it picked up quick and this past weekend was awesome! We had some really cool things happen. 

This is Alex Schloo! She lived in the Forest Grove Stake for 4 years and knows the Sharp's, Brother Burke, and the Knapp's. It was really fun to talk about Forest Grove
and stuff with her :) SMALL WORLD.

We have a Sister's Conference this Wednesday in Bloomington, and it's basically an all day conference for all the sisters in the mission! There's gonna be speakers and crafts and fun stuff. I'm excited! Transfers are also this Wednesday for sisters. Hermana Hopkins will be leaving and my new companion will be....HERMANA HUDMAN! I can't wait! She is my mission best friend!!!! It's going to be an awesome transfer. I'm so lucky I get to stay in Rochester. This place is the best.

This is Anna! She is the lady that makes all of the food at Salvation Army where we do service.
She is really sweet and is a great cook

Last night we had the church tour for all 5 of the Rochester wards... SUCCESS. We got it put in the newspaper, handed out a ton of flyers, and told everyone about it. We had quite a few nonmembers come and it was awesome. On Saturday, I told all of the missionaries in the Rochester wards that for every flyer they handed out, I would do a pushup! Haha I can't remember how many I had to do, but it was a good motivation to get them out. Church tours are a really great opportunity to introduce people to the church.

Alexis and us at the church tour!

Renee came to church yesterday! She is so so sweet. She actually lives in the 4th ward area, so we will be passing her off to the elders this week but she is one of my best friends. Her and I have a great relationship and even though we won't be teaching her anymore, I'm definitely still gonna hang out with her. 

Sweet beautiful Renee, my amazing friend

We met a lot of people this week from South Sudan. They really are the nicest people and when we go over to their apartments, they just always offer and give us their food. They are so humble and sweet. Haha this family from Iraq invited us into their apartment on Saturday. They kept speaking to us in Arabic and we were like "Uhhhh we literally have no idea what you are saying" lol. But then the grandma brought us Arabic tea and we tried telling her we couldn't drink it and then she was so confused. So she brought us out really gross warm milk and I just felt so bad so I had to drink it but it was horrible! It's actually really really cool to meet people from all over the world though.

Sweet Alexa :) I love her so much! She is returning back to church. She also lives in a fancy apartment
 and we went outside and ate dinner.

I'm so excited for this new transfer and everything it has to bring. It's gonna be SO AWESOME😊

Hermana Elias' birthday party

Good luck this semester Jacob, Kim and B! And Elder Nissinen, buena suerte😉 Work hard this week and stretch yourself, but remember not to be too hard on yourself and get discouraged. I'm so excited to hear about su compañero y sus maestros y la comida y todo! Go treat yourself with a Bueno Bar today from the tienda :) 

Our family is seriously the best. We are so blessed. 

Love Hermana Nissinen

Apostolic Blessing & Catholic Mass

Hey y'all!

JOE! Wow, tonight you will officially be Elder Nissinen. I am so so stoked for you and proud of you. Yesterday a kid in the ward gave his farewell talk and I was thinking about how you were giving yours the same day. Warning: this will be the LONGEST week of your entire life, but just make it to Sunday! Work hard in the CCM. I absolutely love my mission and I'm so proud to have an awesome brother like you. It's your turn! Show the Lord what you can do. 

This week has been wild, to say the least. I got to go to MLC on Tuesday. President Stacy from the 70 was there, and he gave us all a blessing that came directly from Elder Renlund. We received this Apostolic Blessing, and all of us  missionaries in the room were crying. It was truly amazing. I won't share everything that he blessed us with, but certain things he said stood out to me, especially to remember how sacred this work is. I need to remember more how important my calling is as a missionary.

Sunday was a great day. Brother Foster, the best member missionary out there, brought 2 younger guys to church. We met with them and they invited us to their Catholic Mass so we went to it last night. Very interesting, but way cool! It was actually amazing to see many similarities. It was neat for them to come to our church and then us go to theirs in the same day. We also got to watch the Face2Face with Elder Cook last night. It was so good! I've been geeking out a lot lately about church history, and I've been reading and listening to the book "Saints" that they were talking about and that the church just released. Oh my goodness, READ IT. It's on Gospel Library. It's so so good! I'm learning a lot about Joseph Smith and all of the stuff that went on during that time. 10/10 recommend and I'm not even halfway through it haha. 

There's 2 senior sisters that are in Kasson who are companions. They are both widows, and they are absolutely hilarious. We got to do a blitz with them Thursday night, and just go to their area and visit with some people they are teaching. Haha one of the funniest nights on my mission. Just to see two 60 year old women knocking on doors is honestly the funniest thing. They are really bold sisters, which taught me a lot because sometimes I feel like I need to be more bold! 

This week we have interviews and then next week we have transfers! Holy cow! These 6 weeks have gone by so quick. I'm pretty sure I'll stay haha. 

Haha HUGE rainstorm Tuesday afternoon!!! Biggest one I have ever seen. I got super soaked just running in from the car.

Again, I'm so proud of you Joe! You are going to be an amazing missionary. The CCM can be really hard, but just go into it and have fun and be prepared to sit a lot and study a lot. And please please try the food :) Travel safe, and I can't wait to hear from you. It's pretty cool; we both get to serve on the Lord's team at the same time. You're awesome Joe. Can't wait to hear about all of your experiences. 

I love you all so much. Mom and Dad, have a ton of fun on your Europe trip and don't think about us kids! I better see pictures! 

This is the Restored church of Jesus Christ. I know it without a doubt. 

Con amor, 

Hermana Nissinen

Cops & Robbers? Or Missionaries?

Que pasa!

It's been another good week here. Rochester is beginning to turn into fall very quickly! We have had lots of rain and thunder storms this week and the weather is definitely cooling down. I love it :)

Before I forget, my Bishop's niece is going to the Yakima, Washington mission spanish speaking leaving December 5th! Watch out for Anna Lamb in a few months, Joe! Her dad is a football coach for BYU.

It's been crazy! Tuesday night we drove with the Elders to La Crosse, WI. We were supposed to meet up with the senior couple there Wednesday morning after District Council, but because of storm damage and everything they weren't able to make it. Sister Hopkins and I didn't have our car or anything, so we didn't really know what to do all day by ourselves. We decided to just go tracting and get some other work done and stuff! It ended up being a good day. We were sad we couldn't meet with the senior couple but everything worked out fine.

We also had exchanges with the Rochester 5th sisters on Thursday. Sister White came to this area and we had a great time together :) She is so sweet! 

Well... A lady called the cops on us last night...

I had my first encounter with the police on my mission! At 8:30 PM, we knocked on a potential's door. The dog was barking like crazy, so we just decided to knock twice and leave. We got back in our car and finished sending out a couple texts, when 4 police cars drove right in front of the house and got their dogs out and started walking around her whole house. We sat in our car and were like "Uhhhh they may have just called on us hahaha." So we hesitated to go out, but finally we decided to just go out and talk to them. Officer Daley brought us to the sidewalk and got our ID's and ministerial certificates and talked to us. The lady had just moved there that day so she was just scared. We felt so bad! The officer was really nice though, thank goodness. I don't think that 2 youngish girls walking up in skirts and dresses is that intimidating lol. Maybe we won't knock on her door at night😉

This past week I had to give 3 trainings in 3 different district councils! It was a lot of fun and was really good for me to be able to study different topics. I love teaching and learning new things.

We're working with some really awesome people right now, all between the ages of 21 and 27. They are all just looking for something more in their life and are wanting to make changes. It's been way awesome! Kind of interesting to work with people that are close to our age haha.

Tonight we will be driving up to Bloomington and staying with the Barney's for MLC tomorrow! I'm stoked. It's going to be a great week :)

We played ultimate frisbee. It was so so fun!

Love you all! Have a great last week at home Joe. I am so thoroughly exctied for him and the adventure he has. Missions are the best. I love mine so much and I am so grateful to be a missionary! Everyday I get to testify of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. It's changed my life. I am just so grateful to be here.  Please send me your talk! There's a kid in our ward that's giving his farewell talk this Sunday as well and his mom asked me to play a musical number for him so I'll be doing that. You guys are the best!

Love Hermana Nissinen