April 19, 2016

Hei! This week really went by so fast.I am pretty sure I say that every week but it's so true. I spent most of the week in Espoo (it's pronounced Es-Poe) I kept saying it wrong at the beginning. :) It was so good to see my MTC group again and everyone was so happy! When they would pray in Finnish it was amazing to see the progress and the growth that everyone has had in just the short month of being here. Finnish is hard but not impossible! We talked a lot about how to plan better and how to plan our planning. I have never been so organized in my life. I know what I am going to be doing every hour of the day and we also set goals. Transfer goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. So many goals. I don't know if I realized how hard a mission would be, every day when we get home we still have to plan everything for the next day in greater detail and we usually get done with everything around 10 every night. It has definitely been a humbling experience to realize that there is absolutely no way that I can do this on my own. I pray constantly and I have never felt closer to my Savior Jesus Christ than now. Every time I start to worry that I cannot do this I see a tiny miracle when someone says ''yes'' when we're contacting or when one of our investigators prays. I think that I'm definitely learning a lot about hard work and just how rewarding it is. 

Also, this week we had District conference right after we got back from interim. There are no sister missionaries in Pietarsaari so Sister Kwok and I got to stay at a hotel for the night (that never happens) and all 8 elders had to cram into one apartment. It was awesome. We even had the opportunity to have breakfast there with Elder Dryden who is an Area 70 member in Europe. It was so cool to hear him speak at conference and because he's British I actually understood it all. As for the other speakers that were all in Finnish I picked up bits and pieces of what they were talking about. The theme was '' How to grow our faith''. It still amazes me that I don't even have to understand what the speakers are saying to feel the spirit. You can feel their love for the gospel and how much they love their Savior. 

Sister Kwok and I got to learn a little bit of Swedish as well because that's the predominant spoken language in P-town. There's also a lot of Swedish speakers in Vaasa so it was a good practice. I can officially say '' We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'' that's about it...I can also ask them if they speak Finnish. We have a missionary in our district from Sweden and he was helping us practice but he was also laughing pretty hard so who knows if I can actually say anything in Swedish. 

This Thursday the Sister Training Leaders for our zone are coming down for exchanges. That just means Sister Kwok and I will be split up and we will be companions with with one of them for the day. They just help to figure out what we can improve on and other things but I've met them before and they're super sweet. Also on Sunday we go back to Oulu for another Zone training conference.... so many meetings. They're all amazing, it's just a long trip every time. 

I'm so glad to be back in Vaasa even though the warm weather is gone again and it's blizzarding outside I'm so grateful to be a missionary here in this wonderful land. I know that God loves us all and that he will give us help if we ask for it and believe that we will receive it. I know that this church is true and that God answers our prayers. Jeesuksen Kristuksen nimessa aamen.