February 25, 2016

We met a real Finn!!! He got to the MTC last week and he's headed to the Ukraine, Russian speaking. He already knows like 4 languages and speaks English better than we do because Europeans are legit. Whenever we see him we always ambush him with questions and practice our Finnish, it's been sooooo fun and his accent is adorable. It makes me super motivated to be better at the language and it feels good being able to understand what he says most of the time. But we have no idea how to have a real conversation in Finnish that's not about the gospel. So every time we talk and he's being normal I just want to tell him about the first vision (which I have the first paragraph memorized in Finnish, go me!) 

 

So this week we got to hear from the Primary General President and that was a really good talk. I was in the choir again and we sang " A child's prayer" it brought back a lot of memories. They had a whole bunch of the MTC presidency's grand-kids come and sing the first verse, it was the cutest thing of my life. 

As of last Sunday I've been assigned to be the new Sister Training Leader for the district and basically what that means is that I go to meetings and interview the girls in our district to make sure everyone is doing okay. 

Our friends the Danes left Sunday night and people are always asking us when we are leaving. It's really fun. It doesn't help that we had our first skype lesson with real Finns today. We had TRC today and that just means that we teach a lesson to a member of the church to help us practice and today we skyped a real Finn (she spoke 5 languages because FINNS ARE LEGIT) and I want to be there NOW! As you can tell I have been blessed with so much patience. 

We have Danes that came yesterday (we hosted again too). We got two new Elders and a new Sister who's actually our new roommate as well. Her name is Sister Landeen and she's a solo sister which means she doesn't have a companion. And because she can't be alone Sister Carter and I are now a tri-panionship and we walk her to class and pick her up from things. She seems really sweet and it's a welcome change when everyday feels kind of the same. I'm really excited to get to know her. 

 

We get our travel plans next Friday!!! I cannot wait! I have loved my time here and I don't really understand the grammar but I feel like I'll learn a lot faster there. Apparently my branch leaders know the Watsons (my mission prez) personally because before they were called to Finland they worked at the MTC. I've heard nothing but great things about them and apparently they can't wait to meet us either! 

Fun Finnish facts:

The simplest way to say "to meet" is- tapaa (you just hold out the "a" sound longer)
The way to say "to kill" is - tapa  So if I'm not careful I might accidentally say "nice to kill you"
Isn't Finnish awesome? I think so.
Also the word for missionary is "lähetyssaarnaaja" it's actually really fun to say.
I don't know if that is one of them but a lot of the gospel words are Swedish because the gospel was introduced there first.
Also the word "husband" in Finnish is "aviiomeis" which literally translates to- marriage man. I don't know why but we all thought that was hilarious.

Life is good. I love being a lähetyssaarnaaja and I'm learning a lot. I have a testimony that the Lord knows each of us personally and loves us all individually. Coming on a mission has been the best decision I ever made and I can't wait to share the gospel. I love my Savior and I love His church. Jeesuksen Kristuksen nimessa aamen.