Sunday, February 7, 2016

January 29, 2016


Moi perhe!

                So I accidentally sat on my missionary tag and I kind of bent it so they just ordered me a new one!  I’m sending the one I sat on back home so you guys can have it!  It literally translates to:  Latter’s-Days Saints Jesus Christ’s Church.  So yeah it’s pretty mahtava (awesome!).
                I don’t know how people decide to learn how people decide to learn languages without the Holy Ghost.  It’s crazy how much I understand already.  I still have a TON more to learn but I haven’t felt overwhelmed.

                I feel like I can say this because you guys where there for it, but it really reminded me of my Patriarchal Blessing and how it said I had the gift of tongues.  I haven’t once thought that I couldn’t do this and that has been such an amazing blessing.  I’ve felt such peace here.  I’m almost always exhausted in more ways than one but they MTC has been really fun.  I have an AMAZING toveri (companion).  My roommates Sisar Burden and Sisar Margetts are really easy to get along with as well.
                One really big problem here is that the food here makes everyone SUPER gassy.  Like it’s bad!  But I’m going to try really hard not to gain 20-30 pounds!

                We did this thing today called the TRC that we’ll be doing every week now where we teach actual members, that aren’t our teachers.  It was really cool because I feel like I haven’t talked to like “real people” in forever.   And they weren’t pretending to be investigators.  It was all in Finnish but we were supposed to have some sort of lesson for a member.  It was hard planning it at first because we had to form sentences and questions that aren’t in our Finnish language books because they mostly focus on the discussions but it was ok once we picked a topic.
                Sisar Carter and I prayed about it and decided on teaching about how we endure to the end.  It ended up being really good.  Luckily, it was pretty interactive and both of our 20 minute lessons were really fun.

                We’ve run into so many RM’s here that have served in Finland.  Every single one had nothing but amazing things to say about it and they all light up when they talk about it.  Apparently now is a really good time for my mission and baptisms are happening!  The consensus on the language is that it takes about a year to learn it and speak it like a true Finn.
                So it’s actually hilarious but everyone always introduces themselves or asks the same questions like 100 times a day.

·         Where are you going? 

·         Where are you from?

·         How long have you been here?

EVERYDAY 100 times a day

                Everyone that sees my awesome foreign tag asks where we are going and everyone has literally the same reaction.  When they hear that we’re going to Finland they make a face and say something like, “wow, isn’t that the hardest language?” or “I’m glad I don’t have that Mission.”  Once when the Danes were praying they thanked the Lord that a least they weren’t learning Finnish.  But honestly Finnish isn’t that scary, it’s a ton of memorization but I can pronounce it all and it’s all the same characters that we have in our alphabet except for ä and ö.  What makes it so hard is all the grammar rules (I think there’s about 50) so you have to remember all of them before you form a sentence.  Also they don’t have a word for “the” they add stems to a word depending upon how the verb, pronoun, or noun are interacting with each other.  FINNISH!
                Also, please never make Finnish puns ever ever ever again.  Don’t ask me if I’ll Finnish my mission or Finnish anything.  That joke is dead.  I’ve heard it SO MANY TIMES!

                So every Sunday night we get to watch a “movie” or an old devotional that they’ve had here at the MTC.  (They record everything here)  It’s always an apostle and so far I’ve watched 2 David A Bednar (love him) movies called “The Character of Christ” and “Becoming a Missionary.”  Fun fact about the movies is they are only for MTC missionaries at the MTC and you can’t watch them anywhere else.  They are always my favorite part of Sunday because the spirit is so strong.  They’re all basically about how to be a missionary and how to come unto Christ.
                We had a worldwide MTC training broadcast on the 20th where we got to hear from Neil L. Anderson, David A. Bednar, W. Christopher Waddell, Bonnie L. Oscarson, L. Whitney Clayton, and Dallin H. Oaks.  It was really good.  It was the first time in more than a decade that a worldwide MTC broadcast was made.  It felt awesome to be able to see it.  The broadcast’s theme was “Teach repentance &  baptize converts.”  They explained what questions to ask people, how to find people, and that we should always teach repentance and baptize.  It was a couple of hours long but it was so good.

                I wish I could talk to you guys about everything that happens here but it’s really hard to describe.  Besides the Temple, I’ve never felt the spirit so strong in any one place.  Everyone here, even the staff has a temple recommend and we are all going through the same struggles right now with mission training.
                I leave you with my testimony that I have no doubt this church is true.  God is our loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is our Savior and our brother.  This church is for everyone and I can’t wait to share the gospel in Finland.  I have faith that as I put in the work I will learn this language and be able to say the things I need to say.  I love you guys so much and I pray for you every night.  I hope you’re all doing well and I’ll see you soonish!

Love,  Sisar Roberts

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