Not FINNISHed Yet: Always a Longer Letter Than Planned

Rakas ystäviä!

This was a pretty low-key week, but I have a couple stories I want to share.

First: We've been working with a really awesome inactive woman for a while now. I've talked about her before, and she's the one who has had fairly bitter feelings toward the church, and she is from England. Call her M. Anyway, we gave her a challenge a month or so ago to write down five things every day that she was grateful for. At the time, she told us that it was going to be really hard, and all she could think of were her kids! Well, this week, we went to visit her in their new apartment. They had just moved, and it was the first time since the moving process that we had been able to visit her. We were getting ready to leave after a good hour of just chatting, when she brought up the challenge. We had forgotten to follow up! But she was so excited when she told us about how it had gone. She had been writing down TEN things a day that she was grateful for and would find herself throughout the day thinking of things and saying "Ooh, I need to write that down!" She had even gotten a lady she works with to do it with her! She was having so much fun coming up with things that she was grateful for and the change in her was just like night and day! She was SO much happier! Then she told us this story: It was the day they needed to turn over the keys to their old apartment and the guys said there was one missing. M wracked her brain to figure out where it could be and had absolutely NO idea. At this point, their new apartment was a mess of boxes and junk stashed all over the place. She quickly realized she wasn't going to be able to find it on her own and decided to ask the one person who knows everything. So she prayed and asked God to please please PLEASE help her find it because if they didn't turn in the keys in an hour, they would have to pay over €100 to have the locks replaced. As she prayed she kept seeing in her mind a little clay dish her son had made, but she didn't know where it was so she went onto the entryway and decided to just start looking in boxes she felt she should check. She went through one box, no key, no dish. She opened the second box, and there, wrapped in newspaper was the clay dish, and inside that, never even removed from the original plastic bag, was the key. She told that she prayed again and was like, "yep, I get it, God." What an awesome experience! The Lord truly does answer prayers, and he knows when to soften hearts because M is really softening again.

Second: Not as long because I still don't understand most of what J the college guy says, but last week, we challenged him to improve his prayer to receive answers more fully. We challenged him to kneel when he prays and to say them out loud, and he said he would try. When we met with him the first time this week, he said that he had done what we asked and that he felt like he'd had a much more profound experience! We think he is really getting to the point where he can notice his answers and even though it's slow-going, he is still an honest seeker of truth and he will get there!

Third: We had THE BEST weekly planned day this week. We had a lunch appointment with a member before planning and on our way to the bus we felt like we should go piipahtaa an investigator we had been unable to get in contact with. Just as we were trying the building, he drove up and we had a solid lesson with him and his friend (though they are super Muslim and we're pretty sure it won't go anywhere at this time - maybe in the future). Then, on the bus, we got a new investigator! Here's the story: A month or so ago, when I was on splits with the Sister Training Leader, we got on the bus and I sat down while she fished around for her bus card. We had just had a really good lesson, and I was in a really better-than-normal mood, so I struck up a conversation with a woman - it was my first time ever just talking to someone alone, and we had a really good conversation. I gave her a Book of Mormon, and then we had to get off the bus. My personal real intent was pretty strong, and I just knew I would see her again. Well, this week, my companion and I were getting on a bus, and lo and behold, there was that woman! We sat down across from her and she recognized me, and we talked and set up a church tour with her for the next day! She is super interested to learn more, and because I had planted that first seed, we got a new investigator! I know that when we do our best to act on the answers and promptings WE receive, then the miracles will come.

Later that evening, we had our first lesson with an amazing Iranian lady we met on the street a while ago when she asked us if we had the full Persian translation for the Book of Mormon. We had an awesome member with us, and the Iranian is lady is just the absolute sweetest person i have ever met. She is so prepared to learn more and we are so excited to teach her.

We also had a great lesson with one of our Nigerians. He is a slow mover too, and we just need him to come to church, but Sisar Howell and I are doing a musical number next Sunday, so hopefully that will be a good reason for him to come.

Sunset in Tampere

Fourth: This weekend was stake conference, and we went up to Tampere Saturday evening for the adult evening session (I think it was for everyone 12 and up). That night we stayed with the new Sister Training Leader and one other companionship. It was a party. On Sunday, the conference was held in this huge concert hall in the middle of the city that the church rents for things like this. The highlight of the meetings, in my opinion (although it might be because he spoke English so I could understand him) was Elder Kearon form the Europe Area Presidency. He is possibly my new favorite speaker for a variety of reasons, one of which may or may not be because he sounds just like Tom Hiddleston. I kid you not. But also because he is one of the nicest people I have ever met. We talked to him a little at both meetings and he is just so pleasant! He spoke a little about missionary work, and he also gave one of the sweetest testimonies of the Atonement. He said something I really liked: "The Atonement is eternal. It is infinite and it can free us from our behaviors, from our addictions, and from all those dreadful things that have happened to us." That is one of my favorite parts of the Atonement, that it can heal us not only of our own sins and weaknesses, but also of any unfair or unkind or painful thing that we ever experience, of our own doing or of someone else's. I have such a strong testimony of the Atonement and I promise you that through it, we can be healed, and we can become better. (see Alma 7:11-13)

Well my friends, I always tell myself these letters will be short. I should know better by now. I hope you are all having wonderful weeks. I love you all and am so grateful for your thoughts and prayers. Have a wonderful week!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant