¿ La Primavera, dónde está?

Howdy! 

Thank you all for emailing me this week. I love reading your emails and letters! 

Every day here is something crazy, but I love it. We never really know what is going to happen or who we are going to meet when we wake up in the morning! A lot happened this week, so I will probably just do a little re-cap of each day. 

☆ Monday - A bunch of missionaries (maybe like 20-25?) went over to the Hicken's house to watch Coco! They have a huge house, and we got to go in their theater room and watch it. Afterwards, we played basketball in their indoor gym and lots of ping pong! It was a really fun day.

☆ Tuesday - Every Tuesday we go to this place called CEAP to volunteer for a few hours. We go in a classroom and help a bunch of adults learn English. They are from all over the world, and it's a pretty cool opportunity to go help them. There is this lady there from Ghana, and when I asked her if she likes Fufu and Banku, I immediately became her new best friend. Haha she was so excited that I knew that. Tuesday night's we also teach a music class for the ward! This week we taught them how to lead music :) It's a pretty hilarious class honestly. We enjoy it.

☆ Wednesday - I hit my 1 month in the field! Bien loco! We had a cool experience while finding this day. We got into a locked building (they tend to keep the back doors unlocked so we sneak behind there to get it😉) and listened in on the doors to see if we hear someone speaking Spanish, a Spanish TV, or Spanish music. Haha we walk so quietly down the hallway and always whisper so they don't hear us right outside their door listening in. Well, we really didn't hear anything, but we wanted to knock at least 1 door on the floor we were on. We saw this door that had an English Easter sign on it, so we decided to knock it. Lo and behold, he was Hispanic! (We were so excited). He seemed interested, and we gave him a pamphlet and our number. Hermana Winterton and I left and started walking to a different building, when we both stopped and felt like we should go back and give him a Book of Mormon. We knew it would be kinda weird to go back right after we left, so we pushed the prompting off for a few minutes. But I KNEW I would regret it if we didn't give him one! So we did the "inspired coin flip" technique. Heads we go back, tails we don't. Haha and of course it was heads! So, we went back, gave him one, and testified of it. I am really glad we went back. He is a cool guy.

☆ Thursday - District meeting which is always fun. Our district leader loves to cook, so we all went to the clubhouse of their apartment after and grilled up some burgers and played pool. It was our district leader's birthday on Sunday, and I guess it's a hispanic tradition to smash their face into a cake for their birthday? So we made a cake and did that :) 

☆ Friday - TAMALE DAY! We made 1,500 tamales. 1500 TAMALES. It was so fun. My clothes and my hair all smelled like tamales the rest of the day hahaha. The ward gave us a bag full of them, and man they are so so good. Nothing better than fresh tamales with a little Valentina ;) I also ate watermelon with Tajín chili powder on it... SO good! Makes the watermelon taste way better!

Stirin some tasty stuff to put into the tamales. It smelled soooo good. They went to Mexico and bought

this huge pot and then flew it back haha!

☆ Saturday - We did a ton of finding this day! We met this super sweet lady named Kelly. She started talking to us in English, (and when people do that, we have to talk to them back in English), but then she started to close the door and said that she doesn't know very much English. We asked what language she speaks, and then immediately started talking to her in Spanish. She was so impressed! She said she had been telling God that she wanted to go to a church, and she knew God answered her prayer when we showed up. She even came to church yesterday! Whoop whoop!

My district and the zone leaders. We all sang yesterday in an english ward for their choir, and we all
decided to match with blue florals!

I love Hermana Winterton :)

☆ Sunday - soooooo not entirely sure what I ate, but I felt sick as a dog. Hermana Winterton got food poisoning a few days ago, and it hit me hard yesterday too. We really don't know what it was, but it wasn't fun at all. I asked the Elders for a blessing at church, and then had to go home because my stomach was hurting so bad! I am feeling better now though thank goodness. Haha that's the thing about eating at different homes every night- you really don't know what you are eating, you just eat it. 

Spring is slowly on its way, yay! We shouldn't be getting anymore snow. I am excited to not wear big coats and boots anymore.

One of my goals this week is to just give everything to the Lord; to just lay it all on the altar. I know that this time I have here to be a missionary is short, and I just want to use it to its fullest and give all my time and effort and energy to the work. We have every minute of everyday planned from 6:30 AM to 9:30 PM filled with studies, visits, finding, and backups. You all know how much I like to know what the plans are for the day (right mom and dad?) haha but I love having it all planned out everyday all day here. I want to work really hard this week.

One of my favorite conference talks that I read is "Obedience Through Our Faithfulness" by Elder L. Tom Perry in April 2014. The story reminded me of Papa and the boys.

Anyways, sorry for the long letter but I just have so much to tell! 

Have a super fun time camping this weekend. I am so excited to watch General Conference this Easter weekend. I hope that you all have a special day remembering our Savior❤ Good luck with school and work and everything else! 

Love always,

Hermana Nissinen

Altibajos

Hi guys! 

Glad to hear you all had a good week. 

This past week had a few ups and downs, but overall it was pretty good. The weather is starting to warm up and it feels SO nice! I think Hermana Winterton and I are gonna do a bike day sometime this week which I'm weirdly really excited about.

I love Hermana Hudman. We are great friends.

So I have been practicing my Spanish a lot during language time and I try to speak as much as I can in lessons and dinners. I feel like I have been working really hard at it. Well, last Monday night, we were doing some stop-by's and we went to this one family's house and the mom is not a member. We talked with them and got to know their story and everything, and then shared a lesson. While I was speaking, she stopped me and told me that I really need to practice my Spanish a lot more (in a not very nice way at all). Hermana Winterton was like "No, her Spanish is really good, this is only her 3rd week here!" I was honestly so upset and frustrated. The husband looked at his wife and was like "you have been here for a year and don't know any English so she is doing really well" and then she was silent the rest of the time. I didn't really say much else the rest of the lesson because I was worried that I would say something wrong. At the end, I offered to say the prayer, and I gave probably the best, most heartfelt prayer that I have ever given before and I said it very smoothly. I know Heavenly Father helped me out with that one! When we left, I just started to cry because I was pretty frustrated.That night gave me more drive to practice harder on my Spanish though. I don't want to have anyone else tell me that again!

On St. Patrick's Day, we had breakfast, district meeting, and interviews with President! We made green crepes for breakfast and it was really fun. President Barney is such an inspired man and I really loved the counsel and help he gave me. 

Our District and president Barney. I love these missionaries!

We had exchanges this week, and I got to go to Bloomington with Sister Larsen for the day! It was very interesting to work with Americans.  We had a really fun day and it was a good experience! 

Exchanges with Sister Larsen! She is really sweet. We went out to DQ for some blizzards for a fun treat after an afternoon full of rejections!

Update on Flor: She came to church yesterday!!! AHHH! She got permission to leave the treatment center for a few hours if we found a ride for her, so we were so happy to see her there! We sense a date set comin up soon 😄 We met our goal on sacrament attendance this week so we were pretty darn happy about that.

I had a few firsts this week: 

♡A few days ago I experienced my first bible bash. I hated it! The Spirit immediately left. I probably said more than I should have (as always ha ha) but I know better for next time. We were at the clubhouse doing language study and she came up to us and ranted at us for 45 minutes... ugh! No fun at all.

Another blurry pic, but Israel is a guy that Hermana Winterton taught in St. Paul and he got baptized yesterday so we got to go see it!

♡I also had my first double dinner Friday night woohoo! We had an hour in between to let our stomachs rest before we had to eat again, so that was good at least. We literally get fed so much here, like it's impossible to not have a lesson or a visit without food involved. (I'm doing my best though mom to eat small portions!) 

We learned how to make tortillas at the

Matus' house Saturday night

♡I made tamales for the first time! The scouts in the ward are making/selling tamales for their fundraiser, and the whole ward gets involved with it. Last night we helped make some, and this Friday the missionaries get to make them alllllll day. It's gonna be sweet. 

Tierra is a sweet girl. She is the one that
just got baptized a few weeks ago.

♡I ate tinga for the first time yesterday. It's really good! Pretty much just this really yummy chicken on a tostada with all this stuff on top. I really like all the food we eat, except for this thing called elote that I had last week. It was corn, a bunch of mayonnaise, and the super super hot Valentina hot sauce (the black label kind) all mixed up in a plastic cup. Man was it gross hahaha. 

I helped Neil make a "Pot of Gold" for our St. Patrick's Day craft. The Veterans are soooo funny. Whenever we play bingo, whoever wins that round gets a dollar. They always try to give us their money, and they are HUGE flirts with all of us girls! It is seriously the funniest thing ever.  He is one of the Veteran's that I love. He is soooo funny. Always singing!

I read a bunch of conference talks this week, and one of my favorites was "Raising the Bar" by Elder L. Tom Perry in the October 2007 conference. It applies to everyone, but I especially want Joe to read it!

Big ice skating rink in the middle of the park by our house. We had to go out and take some pics on it :)

Blurry pic, but the city is gorgeous.
I love seeing it every day

Our investigators are doing well, and I finally feel like I am starting to connect with the people here. It's the best.

Have a great week! I love you!

Love Hermana Nissinen

(Or as I got called this week by an old white lady, Hormona Nissinen... jajaja).

"Cerveza, por favor?"

Holaaaaaa!

I love you all!

We didn't have a super successful week, but está bien! Poor Hermana Winterton wasn't feeling too good, so we laid low for a bit and took it easy after our crazy last week. She is feeling much better now and we are both ready to get back to it this week! We are visiting a bunch of less actives and progressing investigators and we are hoping to get a few more date sets which will be great. 

Some of the apartment complexes we go into aren't the saaaaafest ones around town... (North Minne Spanish is known to be the most ghetto area out of all the spanish areas), but really it's not too terrible. We just have to be careful where we go finding later at night. We have definitely ran into some interesting people here haha. Hermana Winterton and I are good about noticing when it could be a not-so-safe situation with someone or a certain complex though. We'll leave those places to the Elders!

One of our neighbors, 60 year old George, is a "bachelor who is a self-employed photographer" (that's what he calls himself) and who literally only wears a bathrobe every time we see him... sorta reminds me of Uncle Eddy from Christmas Vacation. He lives directly above us, and he loves his sleep. So, I guess when we shower at night, the fan in the bathroom wakes him up and is super loud. We weren't aware of this until we received a note from him Tuesday afternoon. It was not a very sweet note. After reading it, I went back to my studies, and had a thought that we should bake him a cake. So, we did. We threw a cake in the oven, wrote an apology note, and walked upstairs to give it to him. Boy was he surprised! At first he started complaining to us, but we just stood there and nodded and smiled, said sorry, gave him the cake, and walked away. Next day, he came down with the plate all clean and a note that said thanks, and then offered to help us out whenever we needed anything. He has been so nice since! It was a small little act of service, but to this man, I think it meant a lot.

My new goal for personal study every day is to read one General Conference talk and continue reading The Book of Mormon. I started to read it from the very beginning again this week and write down in my study journal my thoughts/impressions. I have really grown to love reading talks from General Conference. If you'd like, I can write in my letter home every week my favorite talk that I read and have you all read it for FHE or whatever! 

Some quotes I love!

One of my favorite days of the week is Friday's. Our district meets together at a restaurant called Currans for their $2.50 breakfast that actually isn't half bad (you get 2 pancakes, eggs, and hashbrowns). After that we have our district meeting, and then we go to the Veteran's Home for a few hours. Its SO fun. They are hilarious! Typically we sing a bunch of songs, play bingo, visit, and have treats. But last Friday, they had me put on a little recital for them! I didn't have any other music besides church music, but they loved it! I also played the patriotic songs out of the Hymn book and they all sang along and it was a blast.

This past weekend was the party weekend! We got invited to some birthday parties (Hispanics really know how to throw a fiesta) and then we crashed a huge bridal shower that literally looked like a wedding reception when we went to the clubhouse to get Wi-Fi hahah. There were limos, men dressed up in tuxedos, and super loud music. It was pretty great!

Sunday was a bien loco day. We got a referral to go teach a lady named Flor in an Addiction Recovery center. We met her, and she is really sweet. Very hard life. She has 4 kids who she isn't able to see, and she is pregnant. We taught her about the Restoration and she loved it. I then asked her to be baptized, and she said she wants to. The spirit was really strong in the lesson, and I was starting to get emotional from hearing about her experiences and how she was feeling! It was really cool. That night, the Relief Society President called us and asked us to go to the hospital and visit a lady in our ward who is lonely and sick. We ended up being there for a few hours, but it was sweet.

We had "New Missionary Training" this week. I absolutely adore and love President and Sister Barney. They are the sweetest people I have ever met. Every week, he replies back to all of the missionary's emails individually. I have a lot of respect for them and I am grateful and lucky to have them as my mission presidents! 

The mission office gave me a Finnish Book of Mormon!!
 No idea how to read it but I thought it was cool.

A few days ago at dinner at a member's house, I needed a napkin. The Spanish word for napkin is "servilleta." I asked the Hermana if she could pass me one... but instead of saying "servilleta", I said "cerveza"!!!!!!!! Which is BEER. They all just starting laughing and then I finally realized what I said... haha whoops. 

Anyways, nothin too too crazy this week. Did you know that Minnesota has the most amount of Target's per capita than any other state?? I truly am supposed to serve here😄 Also, Hermana Winterton and I realized this week that we both grew up watching old shows! She knows all the Brady Bunches, Gilligan's Island, and even The Andy Griffith show. I love her so much!

I made a little collage of some pictures and things that I like and have collected so far. This is above my desk

I got your letter, Kim! I wrote you one back and sent it a few days ago❤ 

Thank you for all of your support. The MMM is the best, and I am getting taken care of very well here. I love it here so so much I want you all to come here sometime it is the best place ever.

Have a great week! Love you guys!

Hermana Nissinen

Soy Oficialmente Una Latina"

Hey y'all! 

Dang it's been an awesome week.

First, I need to thank Henry and Taunya Beltran for the SUPER sweet and thoughtful package! That was very kind and so generous and I really appreciate it. Thank you so much❤ 

Second, thank you to Bogey, Josh, and Armando for meeting up with Hermana Winterton and I this past week for dinner! It was really nice to see you and have a good dinner. I am so grateful we got to do that and it all worked out. At the end of the dinner, Armando asked if he could have a Libro de Mormón, so I had the cool opportunity to give him one and testify of it and have him read Mosiah 10. I hope he read it! We told him that if he has any questions or wants to find out more that he can ask the FG spanish missionaries, so Dad, talk to him about it for me okay?? 

Hermana Winterton and I worked hard this past week and knocked a whole bunch of doors. We have quite a few return appointments this next week, so we are excited about that. This area has been kind of dead for awhile, so we are just trying to get in there and get a lot of work done and start building it up again. We have a feeling that it's gonna be great and we hope to see some miracles happening. On Saturday, we made a goal to give out 1 Book of Mormon, hand out a bunch of pamphlets, invite everyone we meet to church on Sunday, and find 2 new investigators that... we literally completed that in the first hour and a half😄 We treated ourselves that day with some Domino's Pizza haha. (Not the best, but we were craving it). Looks like we are gonna have to make some tougher goals! 

We have been visiting with this guy named Paco. He is a less active. He's a sweet guy, but has a tough time keeping his commitments because he just doesn't really know if it is all true. It is just him and his son so we can't go in his apartment, so we teach him outside in the hallway which actually gives us a really cool opportunity for others to listen as they walk by! His neighbors will walk up to us and sit down and listen as well which is pretty cool. Anyways, we needed to be bold with Paco and tell him that in order for him to know it's true, he needs to come to church and to pray. Our lesson was so powerful, and he promised us that he would fast and come to church this Sunday. We're gonna stop by though before and make sure he really is coming haha. 

Also, I extended my first baptismal date Saturday night to a young girl named Jamie and her dad! The elders had actually started teaching them a bit ago but they are moving into the North part of Minneapolis at the end of the month so soon they will be ours! But we got to teach them and get to know them so that was pretty dang exciting. 

This past week at Zone Conference, all the companionships received smartphones!! Ahhh! We were so excited. It is way easier to use than those little slide/flip phones.

 

Here's a little story about the "Habanero Challenge" that I participated in. I have a video so I will attach it. But every Sunday night, all 7 missionaries in the spanish ward eat at the Vega Family's house for dinner. And since I am a new missionary, I had to do the Habanero Challenge. If you eat one, you get a page in her scrapbook (which is a pretty big deal). So I ate one, and it was hot, but I was like "What the heck, I can do another one." So I did it!!! Soooo hot! I started crying and I threw up a few times, but it was worth it. That whole night my stomach was hurting pretty bad, but hey, whatever. I get a page in her scrapbook :)

Anyways, I love it here. Our district gets along really well and I'm having fun. I love the members here as well. They are always willing to feed us and help us out with whatever. They also help me a lot with my spanish! All of them say I am doing really great for only my second week here, so that is good. I need to keep practicing a lot though. Even through the times when it's hard and monotonous or when no one wants to listen to us, I am genuinely still happy. It's so weird!! 

Thanks for all the thoughts, packages, and prayers from home. It is very much appreciated and I am so grateful for it! 

Can you believe that this week will be 2 months since I've been gone?!?! Holy smokes! I can't believe it. Everyday is an adventure here and I know we will see some awesome things this coming week.

Love you all MUCHO! 

Con amor,

Hermana Nissinen 

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