March 27, 2017

Transfer calls! I am staying here in Tampere 1 ward as a Sister Training Leader AND AND AND my new companion is Sisar Carter!!!!! She was my companion in the MTC and she is amazing! I am so excited to serve with her again. It will be a cool experience to see how far we have both come. But sadly that also means that I will be saying goodbye to Sister Adams tomorrow (transfer day). I have LOVED serving with Sister Adams and I will really miss her. 

We just had our last Zone Conference of the transfer this past week as well and we are preparing now for the new Easter initiative that is coming out soon. We were given a challenge from our mission President to spiritually prepare for Easter by leaning more about the Savior. I have been using some of my personal study time lately to read from the Bible about the end of Christ's life and I am always amazed at how selfless He is. I am excited to prepare for Easter and for this coming General Conference.

March 20, 2017

This week Sister Adams and I participated in our ward party. It was the celebration for the 175th year of the Relief Society! Tampere has two wards that share the same building and it was a combined event. We sang a song in the program with the Tampere 2 sisters and it was so fun. Finns are so crafty and the decorations were amazing. 

We also had a dinner appointment with these amazing Filipino families in our ward. I think that there was around 30 people there when we showed up and also it was one of the kids birthday party. There was so much Filipino food. They have these deep fryers on their porch and they just kept making more and more egg rolls. And the dessert was this cool sticky rice thing that I can't really describe but we were given a bunch of it to take home. I love Filipinos. They are some of the nicest and funniest people! They make you feel like family and they make you eat at least 10 egg rolls before you leave. 

The Elders in our ward had a baptism this past week that we got to go to. It was this young married couple and they were so excited. In church yesterday they were given the gift of the Holy Ghost and confirmed members of the church. The couple also has a 3 year old daughter and I am excited for her to be able to grow up in the church. It was a great week.

This week is the last full week of the transfer and it blows my mind with how fast it has gone. I feel like my whole mission has gone by pretty fast and that it has continued to speed up every transfer. We get our transfer calls this Friday, Sister Adams already knows her call ( she is going home!) and I am about 90% sure that I will be staying here in Tampere but I guess we will see! I will be really sad to say goodbye to Sister Adams, she and I have become so close and I will miss her a lot. Also it will mean that I  am in my second to last transfer and I don't know if I am ready for that! But I know that God has a plan and that His timing is perfect and that whatever happens will be a great learning experience for me. 

March 14, 2017

Exchanges in Turku!

Three times this transfer people have just walked into our church building because they felt like they were looking for something more in their lives. This past Sunday when we got to church some of the members told us to go to the chapel to talk to this man who had just randomly decided to come and so we did. He told us that he was walking past the church and he just felt like he had to come in. He said that he loved the peace that he could feel in our church and that he had had a lot of hardships in his life recently. Sister Adams and I testified to him that our Savior Jesus Christ truly loves and knows each of us personally and that through him we can find peace and joy in this life. We are teaching him tomorrow and it was just a really cool experience to be able to see that other people really are searching for happiness in this life. 

We also had exchanges in the beautiful city of Turku! When I come back to Finland one day I will definitely be visiting Turku. It was gorgeous and it was so much fun to spend the day working with the sisters and their investigators. It was also our last exchange so we'll be staying in Tampere for the rest of the transfer! As much as I love traveling, it is kind of a relief to be able to just work in our own area these last couple weeks together. 

Sister Adams and I have for some reason been teaching the commandments and about repentance in a lot of our lessons recently and it has really helped me to see that God's commandments are given to us because he loves us. God knows exactly what will keep us safe and happy and just like a loving parent He has told us exactly what we need to do in order to come back home one day. My view of repentance has changed a lot on my mission. I have such a testimony of daily repentance. In the world we live in today there is just so much temptation and people telling us that our actions right now don't really matter. God wants to bless us and help us become more like Him but we prevent Him from blessing us when we sin. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and His atonement and that He knows exactly what we go through every day. Repentance is such a gift and we can't utilize the power of the atonement without it. I know that life is hard sometimes but we never have to be alone. I love this church and I know that it is God's true, restored church. I am thankful for the chance that I have to be a missionary and to share the wonderful news.

March 7, 2017

Exchanges with the Turku 1 sisters!

I am sorry but I don't have time for a group email this week. I love you all and it was a great week!

February 28, 2017

The reflectors are going crazy but it keeps us safe!

We had exchanges again! The Jyväskylä sisters came to us here in Tampere for exchanges and it was such a great day. I love getting to know the sisters in the mission and I always like to ask them why they decided to serve missions. It is has been a cool experience for me to hear others people life experience and what led them to this point in their lives. We also had another trip down to Espoo this past week for another Missionary Leadership Council. I love meeting together with the Watsons and brainstorming the best ways we can help the mission right now. We also got to go to the temple again! 

In my personal study of the Book of Mormon I came across my favorite verse which is in the book of Ether, chapter 12, verse 27- '' And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.''  

This is Christ speaking and I didn't used to understand why He would give us weaknesses if He loves us so much. I now know that It is through our weaknesses that we learn to rely on the atonement of our Savior. His grace is sufficient for us when all else fails, when we have tried our best and our best isn't good enough. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I am grateful for my weaknesses because like the scripture says, they help us to become humble. 

February 21, 2017

'' My English is getting worse but it's not like it's being replaced with good Finnish''- A quote from an unnamed missionary this past week. Truer words have never been said! Here is a rundown of last week! We started off with a Zone Conference this past Wednesday and it was great seeing the whole zone together again. Sisar Watson issued us all a challenge to step up our morning workouts and Sister Adams and I did just that! We started to go jogging in the morning and I have so much more energy now and I am actually awake for our morning planning that we do afterwards. And the mornings here are gorgeous, it's covered in snow and Finland is basically all forest anyways so if we head out just a bit from where we live we can go running through the snow covered forest and it is beautiful! 

We also had exchanges last Thursday in Lahti. I got to spend a lot of the day with one sister who is one of the few converts in our mission. She's from Lithuania and I got to hear her amazing conversion story and hear about the church in Lithuania. The church has only been established there for around 20 years and the country has only had it's freedom for about 27 years. So everyone there is a convert and has amazing faith. 

When we got back we got to go to a baptismal service! I love watching people get baptized and how incredibly happy they are. I know that this church is true and that it is only through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that we can have joy. I am so grateful for the Bible and the Book of Mormon that teach me more about the Savior and how I can be more like him. I know that God has a plan for each of His children.

February 14, 2017

Sisar Roberts and Adams after their first Zone Training Meeting together!

So much has happened and I don't have much time to write about it! I will summarize! The Zone Leaders and us held the Zone Training meeting last Tuesday and it went really well. I know the Lord helped me a lot because I am not a fan of public speaking! Sisar Adams and I taught the Zone about proper pronunciation for Finnish and then we demonstrated a role play about how to follow up with investigators and members after helping them share the gospel with their friends on social media.

(It's an activity we've been doing a lot recently.) 

Then the next day we headed off to the mission home again for a leadership training meeting! The day after that I headed off to central Helsinki for the day to do work while Sisar Adams had to stay at the mission home for ''My Plan''. It's a meeting all of the departing missionaries now go to in their last transfer. Then, on Saturday we held my first ever exchanges with the Tampere 2 sisters! It was cool because I got to spend a lot of the day with my former companion Sisar Pugmire and I got to know her amazing new companion. 

On Sunday I gave my first ever talk in Finland! I was asked to introduce myself to the ward and share why I decided to serve a mission and how it has helped me. I started off by saying that I still remember the amazing missionaries that taught my parents and how grateful I was to them and that it took me a long time to actually decide to serve a mission. But I am super glad that I did! After I sat down Sisar Adams and I had to plan our lesson that we were teaching in  third hour (we hadn't had any time to prepare) and then we taught third hour in church and it went surprisingly well! It was definitely because the Lord was helping us! 

Something cool that happened this week was that we got to teach a deaf woman yesterday. We had met her the day before at her door and this time we came prepared with a huge white board from home! After we started to meeting we started to write out questions to get to know her better. She started saying how she knows that she doesn't have much time left because she's really old and has already lost her hearing so we read with her from the scriptures about how Christ overcame death so that we can all be resurrected. We wrote out that she has a loving Heavenly Father and that He has a plan for her. It was such an amazing lesson. It had to be super simple because it took a while to write it all down (especially in Finnish) but the spirit was so strong and we hope to go back soon. 

Also, today is Ystävän Päivä! In Finland it's not ''Valentines Day'' it's ''Friends Day'' and they celebrate friendship. It's actually really cute. The bakeries went crazy and it was literally a struggle to only get one pastry. Finland knows how to bake. Hyvää Ystävän Päivää!!! Happy Valentines Day! 

Sisar Roberts and Adams needed a short rest from tracting 

We love our tracting days! Seriously!