Rakas ystäviä!
What a week, what a week.
I hit my 6 month mark on Wednesday the 18th! One third down
and it actually feels now like it's speeding up and I'm freaking out a bit!
We had wonderful exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders,
Sisaret Foster and Jones in Turku on Thursday, which was Sisar Howell's and
Jones's one-year mark! What a way to celebrate! I was with Sisar Jones, and we
had a really good day biking all over town trying to contact people. It was
raining too, so that was fun :) We may or may not have stopped as well to check
out an old farm and an the site of an old church ruin. We got lots of fun
photos. That night there was a YSA party as a fun Juhannus celebration. There
were a few teams, and a bunch of ingredients were put out one the table, and in
teams we had to make cookies without a recipe. It was probably one of the more
fun baking projects I've ever been involved with. We had a really cool guy
there who is the non-member son of a less-active in our ward who we
accidentally contacted when we were trying to find his mom. We think he has a
lot of potential!
We got our CHANGE CALLS on Friday morning!! And the verdict is ........................................................ .......................................................................................................................................................................................I
will be staying in Turku for another 2 months and will be joined by Sisar Ross
from Jyväskylä!
I'm way stoked to be here for the rest for the summer. Sisar
Howell will be moving to Espoo, which will be hard for her because she really
loves Turku and the people here. I imagine it will be hard for me too when
I will probably have to leave in August. But for the time being, I'm excited
for these next two months with Sisar Ross!
We had a pretty weird weekend. It was Juhannus, or
midsummer, which is huge holiday here, and subsequently it is also a "Hard Red
Day" because people like to get super drunk. So, there was pretty much no one to
talk to and our appointments were few and far between. But, we had a musical
number in church to prepare for so we got to practice for that and Sisar Howell
had a chance to start packing. We were also invited to come the Huhtalas' for
lunch which may or may not have turned into a 5 hour event. But we had brought
and investigator and recent convert with us, so we were OK. We ate far too much
and played a super fun Finnish game called mörkky, which basically consists of
throwing a block of wood at other blocks of wood and seeing who can get to 50
points first. It was grand day.
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| Happy Juhannus from Finland, where midsummer is cold and wet! |
I had some really lovely experiences with following the Spirit
this week. The first was with Sisar Jones. We were a little early for an
appointment, so we walked around a bit. Sisar Jones felt impressed to turn down a
certain street, and we saw a young woman and started a conversation with her. It turns out she has been looking for the "right church for her"
ever since she moved to Turku. We talked for a bit, but unfortunately her bus
came too soon and all we could do was give her a pass-along card with our church
information on it. But she will find the right church and I think the Spirit
will direct her back to us soon.
The second was just this morning. We had a church tour with
an older woman set up and we had tried to call a woman in our ward to get her
to come with us. We called once and the call didn't go through. A while later I
felt I needed to try again, and I almost ignored the thought. But I called her,
and she answered and she was super down to come and help on the lesson. And she
ended up being the biggest asset and the biggest help in teaching this woman
who was about her same age. She was able to explain some things so much better
than we could and may also be a good family history buddy for this lady and
help her get started with that. It was a good reminder to me that the Lord
knows His children and he knows what they need. He knew that the woman we were
teaching would need a good friend and a good "missionary-Finnish"
interpreter. If I hadn't followed His guidance, the lesson would not have gone
nearly as well.
Well, my friends, I must say TTFN. Hope this week finds you
well and remember that Heavenly Father knows you and loves you!
Rakkaudella,
Sisar Hillebrant
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| My Mom made pillow cases for Sisar Howell and me. |
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