Halfway there, Living on a prayer. But really.

Rakkaat ystävät!

I really love what I am doing. I hit my half-way point on Thursday. Can you believe I'm already on the downhill? Gross. Really, I feel like I'm only really starting to understand how much I love my mission, and I know I still have a lot of time left. But, I'm really evaluating where I'm at and I still have so much more I want to do and become. I'm going to start studying the Atonement, and I'm excited for it to help me throughout the rest of my time here to get where the Lord knows I can be.

My week was pretty chill. We did go to Tampere again this week for Zone Conference, which was really good. President Watson spent quite a bit of time going over rules and it was nice to have clarification on various things that to me had been a bit fuzzy. We also talked a lot about "Hastening the Work," or how we can be better instruments in the Lord's hands as we help bring souls unto Christ. AKA: missionary work. How do we do it more effectively? We went over the five aspects of the work: Retention of new members, Reactivation of less-active members, Temple and Family History work, Member missionary work, and Teaching (that's us!).Then, we discussed each one and brainstormed ideas of how we can keep work going in all areas. It was a really good meeting. 

We've been in a lot of meetings recently, which means a lot of sitting in pews or uncomfortable chairs. As great as all the meetings were, I'm grateful the wave has passed for the time being. As Elder Bednar told us, "The mind and heart can only receive what the rear end can endure!"

It has also been a faith-building week in other ways as well. Sisar Ross and I decided that it was time to put the majority of our investigators in the Lord's hands for a while, and that's taking a lot of faith.  Especially since our pool is now down to two investigators, the young daughters of a woman in our ward. There was one young woman that was particularly difficult for me to let go. She's Latvian, a really great woman, with a very deep-thinking mind, and I've been working with her since I got to Finland. But it became apparent this week that she was not ready to progress when she pretty much said outright that she didn't want to change. It broke my heart that she just didn't want to understand, and it was really hard for me. But, even though she isn't ready now, I know that having the faith to let her go will give her the chance in the future to keep learning. Besides, the Lord is a far better caretaker than I am.

We've been doing a lot of contacting this week, and following up on old potentials. We've been doing more Area Book work, and there are potential investigators in there from 10 years ago! We are slowly, but surely, making our way through that list and organizing it, because there are also a lot of names on that list that belong to the other ward. So, we've been condensing and dividing the lists between the wards, and starting to follow up on the names of people in our ares. Nothing has really come of it yet, but we've really only scratched the surface. There is so much potential here!

Saturday we experienced a cool miracle. We had an appointment at 3 PM in Varissuo, and another at 4 PM in Lauste, which are neighboring areas, but still a good amount of travel time apart. We wanted to do a little contacting in Varissuo before our appointment there, but the night before in planning Sisar Ross felt impressed that we should go to Lauste first, then to Varissuo, then back to Lauste, and even though it didn't make any sense, we acted on it. While in Lauste, we went to visit a former, whom we had had an appointment with in the past that had gotten cancelled, and we'd lost contact. She wasn't home when we knocked, and we tried a couple more doors, then decided to move on. Right as we were getting out of the elevator, however, in came this woman! We talked for a minute, then she invited us to come up to her apartment! We happily agreed, and ended up having a great conversation with this awesome woman, and she even asked if we could pray for her sister, which means she trusts us and recognizes what our purpose is. Way cool experience! I just think how absolutely perfectly timed it all was. IF we hadn't gone to that area, if we hadn't tried more doors, if we had taken the stairs instead of the elevator...all of it just fell into place so that we could be coming out of the elevator at the exact same time that this woman was coming in. What a miracle. The Lord has His hand in this work!

I hope you all have a lovely week and look for the touches of the Lord's hand in your lives!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella, 

Sisar Hillebrant

Enjoying the last days of the Finnish summer

The Most Special Day of My Entire Mission Thus Far

Rakkaat ystävät!

My my, it's been a crazy week. We kicked it off with a hectic P-day, which wrapped up with us on a train to Tampere for exchanges. I had a great day on Tuesday with Sisar Jones in Tampere. The two of us took a train to Tojala, which is a 20 minute trip from Tampere, where we went to a member family's house to help clean up apples out of their yard. This family had 18 apple trees in their yard! 

Our job was to sort through the apples on the ground: the good ones went in one bucket, the bruised ones went in another to be collected by someone who would take them to feed deer, and the mummy apples got left on the ground to get raked up. There is this weird apple disease that the Finns call "mummy disease," and it gets into the apples if they have a break in the skin and rots them from the inside out. It's pretty gross. The work was pretty rough on our knees, and my thighs were pretty tired by the end of it from allt he squatting, but it was a lot of fun and the family gave us two entire buckets of apples (which are delicious, by the way) to take home!

The one lame thing that happened was that I forgot my camera out there and didn't realize it until we were back in Tampere. Luckily we have Zone Conference this week,and the sisters will bring it to me.  Sisar Jones and I split a pizza at a Kebab shop for dinner, and taught a lesson to one of their investigators with a baptismal date. 

The best part of the day was a special sisters' broadcast in the evening. Elder Ballard and Elder Bednar from the Quorum on the Twelve Apostles spoke from Germany to all the women of the church in 39 countries throughout Europe, and all the Sister missionaries were given special permission to attend (it was finished way past normal curfew). It was a really special meeting, with all the speakers speaking directly to the wonderful, strong sisters in Europe. We really have strong stock over here. It was so special to me that I got to participate in this meeting where all the speaker really just commended all these women for their strength and expressed the love of the Church leaders. Even though I'm not really one of these women, it made me feel so connected to them and strengthened my love for the people I'm serving. 

Wednesday morning, we caught a train back to Turku where we had a language lesson with a really great Finnish woman. We've been meeting with her for a few weeks now and hope to be able to start teaching her soon. But it's been really great language practice to have a real Finn teaching and correcting and giving us (gasp!) homework to focus on. We then had a super last minute meeting with a wonderful part member family we've been working with, and played "10 Commandments Bingo." Way fun!

Thursday was pretty uneventful. We had weekly planning and a lesson with a recent convert about the Law of Chastity. It was pretty great. He even asked if he was allowed to talk about it with sisters, which was pretty funny. We did the best we could to keep it un-awkward. Our only other appointment of the day cancelled, which was actually great because we took a bus we probably wouldn't have taken otherwise and ran into a current investigator we haven't had contact with in like a week, and a former investigator who just got so busy, and whom we haven't seen in months. So it was a blessing in disguise. 

Friday was probably the most special day of my entire mission thus far. We had a Mission Conference (meaning every single missionary in all of Finland coming together in one place) in Helsinki, and Elder David A. Bednar was coming to speak to us (!!!), along with Elder Kearon from the Europe Area Seventy. We were told in June that this would be happening and I've been stoked out of my mind ever since. 

It was really busy, long day that started with us and all other Turku missionaries on a train to Helsinki, where we then took another inner-city train with a ton of other missionaries to Haaga, where we met in the church building. It was packed with missionaries from all over the country and it was so fun! I got to see all my friends from my MTC group, and I got to see Sisar Howell again too! After we were all done socializing, we got situated in the chapel where we were asked to study quietly while we waited for Elder and Sister Bednar, and Elder and Sister Kearon, to arrive. A lot of excitement in the air, let me tell you. Well, when they arrived, we all stood as Elder Bednar walked in, which is always so special to me. You could just feel the Spirit in the room increase a couple degrees.

The meeting was an incredible three and a half hours, where Elder Kearon, Sisar Kearon, and Sister Bednar spoke, then Elder Bednar talked a little. He taught a lot about the relationship between prayer and agency. Basically, the only way to have true power behind our prayers is if we truly intend to act on what we are asking for help with. He introduced this concept of praying always that I really liked: "Prayer is when we're working on the stuff we've been talking with Father about." In other words, we say a prayer for help, then that prayer continues after we say 'Amen' as long as we are working to do and improve upon the things we have prayed about. That makes so much sense to me. 

The rest of the meeting was basically a Q&A session with Elder Bednar where he would ask us questions and have us respond, then had us ask questions and he would respond. Or rather, someone would ask a question, he would answer, then maybe he would ask a follow up question or have a little one-on-one with the person asking to help them answer their own question. Or something like that. It's kind of difficult to explain, but it was really interactive and basically we had a three and a half hour discussion group with Elder Bednar and 100 missionaries.

I even had the chance to ask Elder Bednar a question I'd been pondering, and let me tell you, there is nothing more powerful than getting to have a little conversation with an Apostle of the Lord in which he is able to discern your personal needs and answer in the way the Lord wants you to hear. So it was pretty cool. And I've never felt the Spirit so strongly in a room, speaking directly to me the things I needed to learn to help me become a better missionary, and a better person. It was such an incredible experience.

The rest of the week really pales in comparison. After the meeting with Elder Bednar, Sisar Ross and I went with another pair of Sisters to a little Mexican restaurant owned by Church members (half-price, baby!), then hopped a train with the rest of our district back to Turku. 

Saturday the other ward had a baptism, a young couple with a baby who just got married two weeks ago so they could get baptized. They are just incredible!

Saturday evening, Sisar Ross and I got contacted on the street by a bachelor party! The groom was dressed in a bunny suit handing out carrots and stickers and the group stopped us, asked us to write down wedding advice in a little notebook, gave us both stickers, chatted a bit, then sent us on our way. Missions, man. Lots of crazy stuff happens. 

Sunday was great day. We had an awesome lesson with a recent convert from Espoo who is living in Turku for a couple months, then an unexpected lesson with a potential who we dropped by. 

It's been a whirlwind of a week. I've learned so much, and my mind and heart are due to explode from all the wonderful things I have been able to hear and learn and gain from the Spirit this week. I wish you all could have the chance to be in such close quarters with an Apostle to learn from and talk with him. These men truly are called of God to be His teachers and mouthpieces to the world. I have such a strong testimony of that. 

I hope you are having wonderful weeks, wherever in the world you are.

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

My MTC district together again. 

Joy in the Work

Rakkaat Ystävät!

It has been quite the week! Planning and praying and trusting in the Lord has really paid off, and we were finally able to teach 20 lessons this week. Talking to people on the street has been a struggle for me my whole mission so far. It's just so far outside of my normal comfort level! But when Sisar Ross and I found out that we would be staying together for another change in Turku, we decided that it was God telling us that we just needed to kick ourselves in the pants and get over our inhibitions and just do His work His way! So we decided that we just want to get over ourselves! This week was packed full of prayers for strength to be bold and outgoing, and lots of resolutions in our companionship to be better. We've made a lot of goals in areas we can improve, and by the end of this change we want to be the power team. And I know it is totally do-able with the help of the Lord and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

One particular thing we've been working on has been teaching 3 solid lessons every day, which in Finland is pretty difficult. People, at least here in Turku, aren't as open to just talk religion on the street, so we kind of have to be  a bit sneaky about it and work into a conversation first. Also sometimes tough, because many Finns just don't talk openly with strangers. But our district leader had asked that we make it a goal to teach at least 3 lessons a day, so we did . . . and almost immediately fell behind. By Sunday, we would need to teach 6 lessons that day in order to hit 20 for the week. But luckily for us it was Fast Sunday, and that means miracles! In our companionship prayer that morning, we laid it all out on the table. We knew what we needed to do, i.e. talk to everyone on the street and the buses that we could, and asked the Lord to help us do our part, and we knew He would do His. We only had two appointments scheduled (which honestly is pretty good for us on a Sunday), and we still needed to get 4 more on top of that. But as the day went, we talked to people, and we taught a guy over the phone, and a potential showed up in church even though we had forgotten to take the bus with him. Then we had a dinner appointment with a member and did a member role-play. By the end of the day we had taught 5 lessons. We were one short! So instead of getting off the bus at the stop closest to our apartment, we decided to go one more stop to the Center in faith that we could teach one more lesson. And we did. There was a man standing on the corner on our way home, and we started talking to him. Turns out he has a Book of Mormon at home, and faith in Jesus Christ, and is super willing to meet. He didn't have his calendar on him so we couldn't set an official appointment, but he became a sweet potential and we're going to get in touch with him hopefully today to set something up. The Lord really puts people in our path who are prepared (I mean, where on earth did he get that Book of Mormon!?) and if we are doing our part and showing that we are willing to work for it, we will see miracles!

It was really a great week. I finally feel like I personally have found the Spirit of missionary work and that I am up to par, or at least, that I am starting to get to where I know I can be as a person and as a instrument in the Lord's hands. Sisar Ross and I have talked a lot about the progress we have already seen in our willingness to talk with everyone -- and it feels so good! It is so fun to do real missionary work! We've been a lot better at just stopping people and talking to them, no matter how awkward it is, and even if it involves going back and trying again to talk to the same person as the Spirit directs. It's only uphill from here, as long as we can stay humble and remember who leads the work: the God of Israel, the Lord of all, our Heavenly Father, and our Savior and Redeemer. 

The Lord truly is at the head of this work. He numbers His children. He knows us all by name. He knows our struggles and He knows our trials, He knows our successes and He knows our triumphs, and He will be at our head and at our rear, and His angels will be round about us to bear us up (D&C 84:88). The Lord has not left us helpless if we do not live as faithless. There is happiness to be had in this life, for that is the purpose of our existence: that we might have joy (2 Nephi 2:25). I testify that true joy can be found only through Jesus Christ, and He has provided for us this gospel so that we can find that joy, and then share that joy with others. I can promise you all that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Jesus Christ's true church and full, restored Gospel on the earth today, and that Heavenly Father can speak that truth to your hearts, if you ask in faith. I have asked, and I have received. I love this work. I love this church. I love the Savior Jesus Christ, and because I love Him, I love that I have this opportunity to bring this joy and happiness to the Lord's children in Finland. 

I love you all, and I wish you all the very best week. There is no greater time to be alive than right now.

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

I can't get over how incredible the sky is here!

Our district right before changes

Us with the other sisters, Sisaret Pack and Elliot

Changes!

Rakkaat ystävät! (I finally figured out how to actually say this. Hows that for 8 months of learning this ridiculous language?)

The air is getting crisp, the days are getting shorter, the sun is shining, and life is looking up! It's been a great (albeit a little stressful) week here in the blessed land of Turku! 

The work here has been a little funky lately. We're still having a tough time meeting with a lot of our investigators, and so we've had to keep spending time trying to find and contact people. The first couple days of the week were stellar, with lots of appointments and things to do. There's an awesome part member family that we've been working with for a while, and the daughters have been investigators. Right now we're only actively working with youngest, who is 9 or 10, and we've been having a really fun time coming up with creative lessons and games to play that will keep her focused. This week, we played Simon Says, which in Finnish is Kapteeni Käskee, or "Captain Commands," and talked about the Book of Mormon and how if we follow the words of the prophets, we won't get "out."

We also have been teaching this older guy who we found in our list of former investigators, and he is super slippery. He's a nice guy, and has been visited by over 20 sets of missionaries in the last 15 years or whatever, but just has a really hard time keeping commitments. Like, a REALLY HARD time. We just want to sit him down and be like, "WHY AREN'T YOU BAPTIZED YET?" He has so much potential, and now all he needs to do is DO something about it!

The there was a bit of a damp cloth thrown down when I woke up on Thursday with the beginnings of a old working it's way into my system. Suffice it to say it slowed things up a bit. Then double the trouble when it quickly became apparent that Sisar Ross was getting one two. The more the merrier. We must have been quite the pair in church yesterday, both with runny noses and sore throats, each going through a pack of tissues and lots of hand sanitizer. Hopefully we don't start an epidemic.

In any case, the rampant illness in our apartment slowed us both down quite a bit, but we still did as much work as possible. We did go to basketball on Friday and Sisar Ross played (this was before she got sick) while I watched. Then we went to get ice cream with one of our potentials, a really cute 24 year old girl from Thailand. On Saturday, there was an international market along the river, and we went to that to try and find a guy that had gone to church with the missionaries when the market was in Helsinki. He was a really nice guy, very charismatic and fun to talk to. He didn't come to church with us, but we enjoyed the conversation (and more blatantly suggestive comments than we've heard in a long time). 

And then changes. There was so much anticipation as we awaited our change calls. We had heard that President Rawlings wasn't going to call if no one was changing, so I think the wait was longer and more painful because we didn't know if we were going to get a call or not. So when the other sisters called us on Saturday morning asking if we'd gotten our calls, and we hadn't, we assumed nothing was changing. So Sisar Ross and I started making plans and talking about all the changes we wanted to make and things we wanted to do in the next two months ago.

AND THEN! Suddenly our phone went off, and it was President's ringtone. I wish you all could all hear his ringtone, because it is very intense, and when it rang, we both about had heart attacks. We didn't waste any time picking up, with a shaky "Good morning, President." But he told us he was actually just calling to let us know that neither of us would be going anywhere, and to keep doing what we do, and that was all! So there was a lot of dramatic buildup for not a lot of anything. As positive as I was that that there was no way I would be staying, I'm excited to keep on keeping on here in Turku, among the people and places I have come to love so much.

 

As far as other changes in the District go, Elder Wilson got transferred a week and a half ago to Helsinki to be a Zone Leader, and Elder Golling came to take his place. He only has one change left in his mission, and he will be the new District Leader here. Elder Ahlquist, who has been the District Leader here since I came to Turku, so 6 months, is moving to Oulu to be a Zone Leader in the North Zone. I'm sad to see him go, because we've been serving together for so long and have gotten to be really good friends, but he's off to bigger and better things! And Elder Johnson, who was with me in the MTC, will be coming to take his place! Sisar Schellenberg, who has been here since before I came, is also shipping off to Helsinki, and Sisar Pack is coming from Jyväskylä to take her place. Of my very first District in Turku, I am the only survivor, so I will know the area better than any of the other current missionaries here, and that will be fun :)

One of our goals for the upcoming change together is to do an overhaul of our Area Book. We want to get organized and we want to find people! The Lord has provided us with this method of remembering the people we have found and preparing those that are ready the progress in Christ's gospel. We want to make the best use of the resources he has given us. We've already started making a little progress, and it has made all the difference. We've found names of people from all over the city, some that were put into the book almost 10 years ago with no evidence of follow up! We've started making lists of people to contact and have already started implementing them into the work. We know things will take off when we can start really utilizing all our resources. The Lord really does know what he's doing!

I hope you all have a great week and remember how much the Lord loves you each individually!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

On the Up and Up

Rakat ystävät!

Life in Finland is as good as ever. The temps have been cooling down rather dramatically here. Just two weeks ago we were still sweating in the sun, but then suddenly it has been rainy and cloudy and chilly. In fact, I'm pretty sure it has rained at least once everyday for the last week and a half or so. I'm already starting to wear tights again!

Changes are nearly upon us!! You probably want to know what's going on for that. Well, originally they were supposed to happen this week, as in we would have gotten the call last Saturday and it would take place probably tomorrow. But President got called to some super down-low meeting for like all of Europe or something, so it got pushed off a week. So we will get our calls this weekend, and changes will take place next week, and next Monday you will know what's going on.

So my week. this week was pretty comparable to last week, but my attitude was a little better about it. I've found a lot of places I need to improve, and Sisar Ross and I have been working together to improve our missionary work. We definitely had our ups and downs. We had had three awesome lessons planned with a member lined up to go to each of them, and all three of those teaches fell through for one reason or another. It was a little disheartening, but at least we knew we had done our part.

And then there were little miracles like running into a former investigator, who had texted us the week before to cancel an appointment and told us that she wasn't planning on joining the church so she didn't want to meet. When we ran into her, she invited us over and said she felt bad because she thought maybe she had offended us and she still wanted us to come visit sometime in the next week.
Sisar Ross and I made a goal to have at least 10 solid lessons planned by Sunday night. We realized that our biggest problem was that we have had a hard time planning really solid teaches, and that's why we were seeing a shortness of success. Well by the end of the night we had nine lessons on the board, with various others in the works. And the week looks great! We have awesome plans and we feel so motivated to make this next week the best week ever! When we do our part. the Lord makes up the rest!

Also, check out 2 Nephi chapter 4. That is one of the best motivator chapters in the Book of Mormon, in my opinion. It's comforting to know that even Nephi, a great prophet, had doubts and personal struggles to the point of calling himself wretched. But his focus is in the Lord, and that is key. When we truly trust in the Lord and the Atonement of the Savior, we have the best motivation to pull ourselves up and try again.

I hope you are all doing well! The Lord loves you all and he wants you all to be so very happy. Remember that and everything will seem just a little brighter ;)

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella, 

Sisar Hillebrant

Looking on the Bright Side

Rakas ystävät,

This week has been one of humility and making more apparent the things that I need to work on. We have pretty slim pickings right now from our investigators, as most of them can barely commit to meet weekly. We did so many hours of contacting this week, and very little came of it. BUT FEAR NOT. As Mushu once wisely said, "Don't even worry about it! I will NOT lose faith!" Because no matter how rough the week was, there were many little tender mercies and good things that happened that made all the bleh stuff not so terrible.

YSA on Monday was so fun. The Puikkonens (the new Turku senior couple) asked the missionaries to come up with an activity to go along with their spaghetti feed, so I drew upon my FHE activities from BYU, and we played a game of baseball in the gym. The catch? We used a tennis racket in place of the bat, and apples for balls. Chaos ensued. But at least the gym smelled very pleasantly of apples when the sähly players got there. (Don't worry, we cleaned up after ourselves)

Tuesday. Contacting. All day. Paitsi one appointment we have with this super cool girl who has been a potential since right before Sisar Ross got here. She is so nice and asks great questions like "How can you tell the difference between your own thoughts and the Holy Ghost?" We have a great lesson with her and finally made her a new investigator.

Wednesday. More contacting. One appointment in the evening with on older woman in the ward who loves to have the missionaries over and just talk about things and feed us snacks and have language practice. The last two times we went to her house, she pretended to be an investigator and asked us to go through different missionary lessons with her, which was great practice. And we're starting to do the member lessons with her as well.

Thursday. Weekly Planning. A lessons with a really nice Chinese woman who likes to take things very logically, but seems to making progress towards actually wanting religion to be a part of her life. I have a lot of faith in her, if we can just get her to meet with us more regularly. After that we met with a young family in the ward who are the most disgustingly adorable little family in the world. Seriously, they are just too good-looking, and their baby is SO CUTE. We've been doing the member role-plays with them as well, and I think they are going to be wonderful member missionaries in the future.

Friday. District Meeting. We talked about Christ-like attributes from chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel, and Elder Alquist challenged us to pick one specific thing that we could do to develop the attributes we've been working on. I've decided that I need to be more bold in pretty much all situations, including but not limited to talking to people on the street, and presenting commitments in lessons.
We also went to play basketball that afternoon, and 3 of the potential investigators we had invited came and had a great time! After that we gave a church tour to a really awesome girl who, although she wasn't interested after all, was really really awesome. It's too bad we won't get to teach her right now.

Saturday. Contacting. Plus we got to go to the baptism of a boy in the ward who just turned 8. Nothing like a baptism to make any day brighter.

Sunday. Church (and the chapel was actually a decent temperature and not boiling hot). Our goal for the day was to try to stop everyone we passed on the street and talked to them. It didn't work most of the time, but we did talk to a few pretty cool people and it was good practice at being bold. Our very first lesson of the day actually happened at 7 in the morning on our Sunday walk, when we walked a ways with an older lady and were able to teach her. Way cool!

Today. Got my hair cut! And after e-mailing, we're going to try to see a cool old museum and potentially some underground ruins. And of course do missionary work :)

Well, the week may have been hard but the Lord certainly knows what we need. I needed to see my weaknesses laid out on the table so I can learn how to improve, but I also needed good things to happen so I wouldn't get discouraged. And thus we see the heavenly balance of humbling experiences and tender mercies. After all there must be opposition in all things, darkness to see the light, sadness to see the joy (see 2 Nephi chapter 2, specifically verse 11 here: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2?lang=eng).
What tender mercies and little blessings have you seen in your life this week?

I hope you are all having a splendid week wherever you are. Remember that God loves you, and so do I!
Stay shiny!
Rakkaudella,
Sisar Hillebrant

I apologize for my lack of dignity in my photos. Sometimes I forget that other people will see these until it's too late.