Hermana nEEssEEnen en MinnesOOOta

WOW. I'm here!! 

So holy cow, I made it to Minnesota. It's been a crazy awesome week! 
 (Lo siento for the long letter)

It was awesome being able to talk to you guys at the airport. Thank you. When I arrived  to Minnesota later that night, I was just so tired and ready to eat and meet President Barney and Sister Barney. When I was coming down the escalator, Sister Barney was right there with her arms straight out welcoming me. I hugged her, and just started to cry right there because I was so happy to finally be there and meet her. They are amazing people. I am so lucky! That night, they let me sleep in the room where they have the general authority stay when he comes to visit! It was way nice, and I had it all to myself :) 

Thursday morning I got my companion/trainer... Hermana Winterton from Las Vegas! She is so sweet oh my goodness! She is 24, and she has already graduated from BYU. I am really grateful that she is my companion. We are going to get a lot of work done here. 

So we are in the Twin Cities 1st Spanish Ward in Minneapolis! There are 7 missionaries in this ward, and we are each over different parts of the area. So Hermana Winterton and I are called the "North Minne Hermanas" and then the other missionaries cover the center and South parts of the area. And here is the thing... her and I are whitewashing! So I am brand new, and she is brand new to the area, so we both don't know exactly what we are doing, but we will get it all figured out. It's pretty exciting to just get in there and learn everything!The ward is only spanish. Some of the members know some english, but it really is mostly spanish here which is great. Her spanish is a lot better than mine but mine will just come in time. The members know I am brand new so they speak slower to me and they appreciate that I try to speak to them in spanish as much as I can.This ward is awesome at having get togethers and everything. They always have Family home Evening together at the church every Tuesday night, and right before that I got asked to teach a music class to all of them! So I start that tomorrow night. Friday nights we all go and play soccer together. It is awesome. 

Fridays are our big service day... we go to a Veteran's Home and visit and play Bingo and sing songs with the Veterans... SO FUN.

Tuesday morning we go and teach an english class. Super cool!

The weather is a bit different here than Mexico City... haha it's pretty cold, and TONS of snow! I think Saturday night we got another 8 or so inches. But nothin stops here when that happens! Everyone is out driving and doing everything else. Sunday morning before church, Hermana Winterton and I got stuck... we were stuck for a good half hour, but we were shoveling and pushing and got out in time for our meeting! 

The people here are really sweet. They all want to feed us and help us with anything, and they are awesome. My first night here, we had dinner at the Zempautecatl's house. I was a little nervous because I didn't know what to expect, but I just went for it and talked to them and taught! I was so proud of myself, and when we left, Hermana Winterton and I gave each other a huge hug. It was great. 

Saturday afternoon, we went to an apartment complex that all the missionaries call "Mexico City". It's a completely locked building; like all the doors to each hallway are locked. We don't have keys, but the Relief Society President lives there, so we asked if she would let us in so we could go finding. We called and called, but she never answered. So we said a quick prayer and asked that if this is where we are supposed to be that there would be a way to get in. We said that we would wait 3 minutes. After we prayed, we waited in the cold for exactly 3 minutes, and right then a lady came up with keys and let us in! We were so so happy! I knocked my first door, and a lady named Susanna opened.

We shared a message about families, and she invited us to come back this next week. We are crossing our fingers that it will go well! We got quite a few return appointments that day, so that was awesome.

Super blurry picture, but Hermana Winterton and I got permission to go to St. Paul last night to see a girl named Tierra get baptized who she was teaching! 

Anyways, estoy muy emocionada ser aqui en Minneapolis. Hermana Winterton and I are gonna work hard and have lots of fun.

Thanks Aunt Ninnie!!!

 

Love you guys! Have a great week!

Con Amor,

Hermana Nissinen
(Or as they say it here, nEEssEEnen) ha ha

Feliz día de San Valentín❤

Family and friends,

Happy Valentine's Day, I love you guys so much!

Whelp. To not beat around the bush, it has been one infierno of a week. Ha ha. I think it's just that I am so excited and anxious to go to Minnesota that I'm just itchin to get outta here! I know I will miss this place though. I was thinking the other day how far along I have come in SO many ways in literally just over a month. There is no other place that could have given me this opportunity. It's remarkable! From my Spanish, to my testimony, to my love for the scriptures, and to my love for everyone I serve with and teach, this past month has seriously changed me. And the coolest part is that I still have 17 months... who knows where I'll be then! 

Hermana Despain and the rest of our district are doing great. We are all so close and get along so well! We have a ton of fun together. I will miss them. 

I still haven't met anyone else going to Minnesota... I am literally the LAST person to leave by 2 days for some weird reason, so I get to hang out with Latinos which I am so excited for. They are my favorite people! 

Last night we had a devotional about hardwork from Presidente Eves and his wife. He's an ex-military guy, and his lessons are always so powerful! He actually reminds me a lot of you, Dad. Haha. But there was a quote that he said that I really liked, and is one that I want to remind myself of often. ~"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."~ Everyday is an opportunity to be better and to work harder. Love ittttttttt.

I hope you all have a fun Valentine's Day full of love and chocolate and flowers! Since I don't really get to celebrate that holiday today, I am reminded of God's love for us...

John 15:9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love❤ So sweet!

Have a great week, thank you for your emails. NEXT WEEK I'LL BE IN MINNESOTA SAY WHAAAAAT?! Que loco! 

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Nissinen

The Best Invite ❤

Hola!

So excited to hear from you guys today and to be able to email. It's been a muy bueno week! I enjoyed being able to go to the temple again today. It was my last time being able to go here.

I have exactly 2 weeks left! CANNOT WAIT. My entire district and everyone else that flew here the same day I did leaves on February 19th, but I don't leave until the 21st, so I think they will put me in a Latino district and give me a Latina companion for the last 2 days which would be awesome! 

Since this is week 5 for us, the expectation is solo español for the entire week. On Monday, my district did an "English fast", so we went the entire day without ANY English! 24 hours of straight spanish. It was hard, and we were all kind of quiet, but it was actually so cool and we had a lot of fun doing it! 

We do this thing every Saturday called TRC. It's when volunteers of any age and religious background (member, less-active, and nonmember) come in to have the missionaries teach them. We don't get to meet them before, it's just all right on the spot. Hermana Despain and I taught this sweet lady named Delfina who's 55 years old and who has only been a member for 1 year. Her husband and her kids aren't members. It was fun! After her, this younger guy came in. He is 22 years old, and he isn't a member. His name is Eduardo, and he has 2 Mormon friends that told him to come that day! It was SO cool. We finally got to teach a real investigator! We taught him about prayer and how to pray, and he even did it at the end for us (with help). After that, it made me so excited to be a missionary and to get out and teach. It was really great. It definitely made the entire week for Hermana Despain and I.

Being the Hermana Training Leader is so fun! I got to meet with all of the girls this week and have the opportunity to know more about them. Some of them come from pretty difficult backgrounds, and it makes me so grateful for my family and friends and all the support I have at home. ~muchas gracias for all the letters and emails, it means so much~
 
Hermana Despain and I had the opportunity to teach Relief Society this past Sunday! (they sure love to keep us super duper busy here). We were asked to teach about how to endure to the end... but we thought that that sounded a little lame. So, we did some homework, and found a talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard called "Return and Receive." I highly recommend 10/10 listening to it or reading it! I have read it multiple times the past few days, and it's great. 
I found a scripture about it in Alma 5:33 that says "Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you." He has sent all of us the BEST invitation we could ever receive! Whenever I read that, I think to myself, "Why the heck wouldn't I want to accept that?!" 

I am grateful to be here. I love serving others and learning more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not gonna lie, it's hard. But I know that if it was easy, it really wouldn't be worth it. Kinda crazy, but I literally have bruises on my knees from praying all the time! (There isn't any carpet anywhere here so it just happens haha). I have really realized that none of what I am doing or what I have accomplished here the past few weeks would be possible without Jesus Christ. 
 I have so many new friends from all over the place here! My district has already planned to have a party all together after we all get home from our missions. I love them all so much!

Love you all so much! Have a great week!

Con Amor,

Hermana Nissinen

Hermana Training Leader Whoop Whoop!

What a great week it's been! 

Feels like just yesterday I got to email you all. I am exactly half way done here! Pretty darn loco but it's a good feeling.

So, guess what!? Sunday morning, Presidente Suarez (my branch president) asked Hermana Despain and I to be the new Hermana Training Leaders. We accepted the calling! So basically we are zone leaders but for the girls in Zone 10. It's gonna be great. We have to do interviews with all the girls to make sure that they are doing alright and to help them with any problems that they are having. I'm excited to get to know them better and to help them out here at the CCM. I already love all of them! (There's about 28). It'll be a great opportunity for Hermana Despain and I to get some leadership skills and to get outside of our district and help some girls out. The Branch Presidency thinks we will do a great job so we will try our best! 

This morning, my teacher Hermano Martinez challenged our district to memorize 200 new vocab words in 24 hours... so I have been studying like crazy to get them done! I have to have all 200 memorized by tomorrow morning at 8 AM. Ahhhh!

We got to go to the temple this morning! Soooo cool! The Mexico City Temple is gorgeous. Really glad I got to go. There is a store outside and I bought a few things. It was great! 

I play for sacrament every Sunday, all the songs for the devotionals on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights, musical numbers for people who need a pianist (they are just hymns usually), and then for the CCM choir. Word went around that I am a "piano performance major" so I pretty much play for everything haha 

The biggest thing I have learned so far on my mission is humility. The CCM has really knocked me right down to the bones, and now I am being built back up! Its the coolest thing!! 

Thank you for your emails and letters and for the trail mix from Costco, mom! I shared with my district. They all say thank you :)

Love you guys! Talk to ya next week!

Hermana Nissinen

CCM=Disneyland! (Kinda)

Hey guys! 

Great to hear from you this week. 

I'm almost halfway done here at the CCM! This past week and a half have gone by a lot faster than the first week did, so that was good. It was hard though.

You're probably wondering why I referred to this place as Disneyland. Well, this past week was a tough one for our district. One of our elders went home, our 4:00-9:00 teacher told us that he  probably won't be teaching us anymore (and we all love him) and reality hit HARD and we realized that we are gonna be doin this for awhile.... (We all had a good cry fest last night together which was nice.) So, on our way to dinner one night, Hermana Hatch (the cute redhead in the district), said, "This place reminds me of Disneyland!" And we all just stopped and laughed and asked if she has ever actually been to Disneyland because it's definitely nothing like it. She said that the rollercoasters are our emotions because we are always on an emotional rollercoaster, the fireworks every night, the warm weather, and then there's all the happy people here who just wanna make sure that you're doin alright. We thought it was cute, so now we refer to this place as Disneyland to keep our spirits up and to make some fun out of it :) 

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The cafeteria has amazing food!

The tienda is the best store ever! They have everything!
 We almost always come here after lunch and get an
ice cream or a drink or a candy. Its really fun!

The other day, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. I was sitting in class thinking about allllll the other things that I could be doing at home or at school and wasn't feeling very good about myself. That next morning, I decided to write down everything I was grateful for in my journal and add things to it throughout the day. That night, I said a prayer and ONLY thanked Heavenly Father for those things. I didnt ask him for anything. I needed to be humbled and appreciate all the things I have and that I have this amazing opportunity to be here! The next morning I woke up and felt great. I had an awesome day and my lessons went well. I was like "Shoot, I guess I've gotta do this more often" haha. 

Where we play sand volleyball everyday!
It's so fun! 

I am a lot happier in a different way now... before the mission I was happy in a material, Worldy way, but now I am happy in a spiritual way and not the other stuff. I don't even miss my phone or computer or movies ( I do miss music, that is one thing).  Its awesome to be here!

Hermana Perrish! She sleeps in the same room
 as I do. She is really fun

I love the Latinas!

I love Hermana Cox! She is from Las Vegas
and is going to Washington DC.

One scripture I read this week that I loved was D&C 29:4-5. 
4: Verily, I say unto you that ye are chosen out of the world to declare my gospel with the sound of rejoicing, as with the voice of a trump.
5: Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father.

* I LOVE this scripture because when I feel incapable, I read aloud the first part of verse 4 when it says that I am chosen out of this world to declare His gospel and then in verse 5 when He says that He is in our midst. Like how cool is that?! Makes me feel like I can totally do this*

We didn't get to go to the temple today, I think we are going on Wednesday (which is my next P-Day). The people in my district who are staying in Mexico need their Visas so they are off getting that today while I get to hang out here! 

I got asked to give a talk this Sunday about the missionary purpose, so I've been working on that. It's only gotta be around 7 minutes and completely in Spanish so wish me luck! I am not so good at conjugating so I have to work a lot on that. we play a game with my morning teacher everyday called Latino. He leaves the classroom, and we pick one person in the district to be the Latino for the day and they can only speak Spanish. At the end of the day, my teacher picks who he thinks the Latino was. But to trick him, we all have to speak Spanish so he doesn't know and doesn't win. Its pretty fun and forces us all to only speak in Spanish all day.

Our district Thursday night. We were all having a
bonding moment and went around and read all of our
favorite scriptures. It was great.

Haha holy cow Joe, I can't believe what happened to you! I read Dad's letter about it to my district... that's muyyyyyy loco dude! Good thing ya won though. That's awesome. Sorry about your head :(

Love you all, thank you for your emails and letters. I have the best family ever!

I'm excited for this next week! It's gonna be a great one, I just know it.

Con Amor,

Hermana Nissinen

I Survived My First Weeeeeek!

Hey all! I'm so happy to hear from all of you. This has seriously been the hardest week of my life so far! But I made it to P-day alive :)

This is Hermana Taylor and I when we landed in Mexico.
 We were jus about to go on the bus to the CCM. 

First picture of me with my name tag! 
Hermana Nissinen!

I have so many things to tell you all about! First, the CCM is AWESOME. We're pretty much completely immersed in Spanish. My teachers only speak Spanish to us. The first full day here, I was SO tired from traveling the day before. I didn't understand anything that was being taught and it was a crazy long day. I was like "What the heeeeeeck have I gotten myself into. I don't know if I can be here for 6 weeks and then do this for a year and a half!" But some other hermanas here told me to make it to Sunday. Just make it to Sunday! The days here feel like months, but the week has gone by fast. Haha Idk how to explain it but it's true. I am always super tired when I get back to the casa! But I always feel really proud of myself because I had a productive day.

The Sisters in my district.  I love them all!

I'm doing pretty well with Spanish. Our 2nd day here, we had to teach Fernando (Our investigator) the first lesson completely in Spanish. MAN was it hard! I understand almost everything my teachers say, but speaking it is harder. It'll just come in time though :) I'm grateful I get to learn the gospel in another language because it's teaching me to just go back to the very basics. When we teach, our lessons have to be SO simple because we don't even know what we're saying haha. 

My companion is Hermana Despain from Beaverton! She's so so sweet. I love her. We get along great. She is going to LA California on her mission! We tease each other and always laugh at how we're just "2 blonde chicks from Portland who ended up in Mexico and are trying to speak spanish" haha.

So we actually live in a casa (house) instead of a dorm.  It has a laundry room and a big living room with couches. Then 4 girls have their own separate  room in the house.  It's nice!

My companion Hermana Despain.  I love her!

I had 2 cool experiences this week: 

1: Friday morning, I had told Hermana Despain and the other girls in our district how much I was craving a sandwich! We eat good food here, but I was just wanting a sandwich SO BAD. Well, we went to breakfast right after that and GUESS WHAT. The main entree was a triple decker sandwich with bacon, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. I was sooo happy you don't even know! (I even went back for seconds... ha ha). My district thought it was hilarious, and we turned it into a lesson about tender mercies and how God is aware of our desires and wants. I really learned how to find joy in the little things. We now all find "Sandwich Momentos" which is when something good happens to us that makes us happy!

2: On Saturday, Hermana Despain and I were told that we can't use our notes anymore for teaching in our lessons. No notes, no bullet points, nada. So, we started to prepare our lesson for Monday about the importance of prayer and the Book of Mormon. We were pretttyyyyy nervous. We taught Fernando, and we did GREAT. About a half hour lesson only in Spanish with just our scriptures and the Holy Ghost! He said he would read the assigned chapters in the Book of Mormon that night and pray to know it's true. The spirit was so so strong, I'm not sure if I have ever testified so strongly of the Book of Mormon than when I did it a few days ago in a language I barely know. 

The CCM is beautiful. The mornings are pretty chilly, but the afternoons and evenings are way nice. At night, we hear either fireworks or gun shots (we're not entirely sure), so we always try to guess which one it is. It's kinda fun :) I love the food here. A lot of Mexican food which is great! Joe, you'd love it here... there is fresh pineapple, cantaloupe, and watermelon every meal, so I eat a ton of fruit. 

Sorry for the small amount of pictures... We're only allowed to take pictures on P-Day's so cameras aren't a distraction. I tried to take some this morning before emailing.

The CCM is beautiful!!!!! There are always lot of guys here doing construction and landscaping.  They keep it very well maintained.

The latinos here are so fun! We try to sit with them
during meals because we want to learn Spanish
 and they want to learn english, so it's really fun!

I love you all. I really appreciate your letters that you send me. It makes my DAY when my district leader brings them to lunch and I have one from you guys. (Sometimes a tear or two falls onto my plate when I'm reading them) haha. 

 My P-Day is on Friday next week because I think we're going to the temple. 

I get to play the piano for the CCM choir and do a musical number next Tuesday in the big devotional! I'm excited.  

Thanks for all the support! Even though it is hard, I love being a missionary and being a representative of Jesus Christ. It's AWESOME. I'm so grateful to be here. I know that this is where I need to be right now in my life. I am going to keep working really hard! Love you all so so much!

Sorry for the way long letter, I just had so much to say!

Con Amor,

Hermana Nissinen ❤