Not FINNISHed Yet: That's what I get for having a lesson in the park . . .

Rakas ystävia!

We haven't had too many meetings with investigators this week and have been spending a lot of time contacting and finding few people. We found a ton of sweet new potentials this week and are pumped to start setting up appointments with them. We have also had a few active member plan meetings with member families, and we are excited to finish those lessons with them so they can start helping us do missionary work.

We had a lesson with J the college guy this week and basically had a heart to heart about what he needs to be doing to prepare for baptism. We straight-up asked him if he wants to know and is he willing to do whatever is asked of him, including go to baptism, if he receives his answer, and he flat-out said yes. We know he has real intent, but just think it's a little harder for him to see it right now. We're pretty sure he won't be baptized this weekend as planned, but we have a lot of faith in him that it is going to happen.

We have also been doing the new member lessons with Amanda, and she is doing splendidly. Today we are meeting with her and talking about the Gospel of Christ and missionary work. We want to invite her to come to lessons with us and we think it will be a really good opportunity for her to solidify her own testimony in the things she has just learned. I know from experience that I learn something better when I am the teacher, so hopefully it is the same for her.

One other thing that did happen this week is that we had Zone Meeting, and I had my second kieli koulu afterward. The way that works is that your MTC has special language training after a zone meeting every few months. The first one was day four of our 6-week interim training, and we had number two this week. Elder Johnson and I are the only two from our group in the Tampere zone, so it was just me and him and Elder Durrant, the language coordinator for our zone. It was a lot of fun, and I learned some good tricks for conjugating past tense verbs and plural nouns/adjectives which will hopefully prove helpful.

Funny story of the week: We were meeting with a guy who used to be an investigator and we've been trying to set something up with him for months. We finally had a meeting, and his son had a friend over so he asked if we could go to a nearby park. Yeah, cool, that sounds fine. We were sitting an a bench in the pleasant summer weather, when all of a sudden I feel something soft hit my arm. I look down and there is a greenish goo on the sleeve of my white cardigan, a little splatter on my bag, and some on the member sitting next to me. My mind is working very slowly to process what happened and the first thing I think is about a story I heard about sisters who had mashed potatoes thrown at them. But there is no one around us and I slowly realize that this is actually food, just food after it had been processed a little more. Yep, a bird flying overhead laid one on me. It was frustrating for a moment while I dug out some tissues and started to dab it away, but quickly turned into laughter, especially since Sisar Ross thought it was absolutely hysterical (let it be noted that the bird missed her, so of course she thought it was funny). It was a good ice breaker though, because the investigator thought it was pretty funny. The rest of the lesson went smoothly. Now only time will tell if I can get the stains out of my white sweater.

New Companion - Sisar Ross

Something that I read in the Book of Mormon this morning stuck out to me a little more that usual and I just wanted to share it with you. I was reading in 1 Nephi chapter 13, and Nephi is in the middle of talking with an angel (this is the vision where he sees the Tree of Life like his dad did, and he also sees the ministry of Christ and the preparation of the Americas for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon). The angel mentions to Nephi in verse 30 that the remnant of his posterity will be preserved and not destroyed. I never thought about this before, because at the end of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites are killed off and I always sort of assumed that this meant 100% of the Nephites. But throughout the Book of Mormon, there are numerous occasions where some of the people of Nephi desert over to the side of the Lamanites for various reasons, so Nephi has posterity that has mixed with the posterity of his brothers. In this same vision, Nephi will also see that his people are going to be destroyed, and he's probably going to be pretty devastated. I just think how comforting it must have been when the angel reminded him that he will have people left and that they won't be destroyed completely. Nephi was a righteous man who did what God asked, and now God is blessing him with the preservation of his descendants. It just goes to show how Heavenly Father knows and numbers all His children, and that he will preserve them for the sake of the righteous.

I'm excited for the following week, which is sure to be stellar. I hope you are all doing wonderfully and that you remember to appreciate the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as of English grammar.

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant