Spring is coming!

Rakas ystäviä!

I'm emailing today (Saturday, March 29th) because we are going to Helsinki tomorrow night and we will be there through Thursday for my "6-Week" Interim training, so I won't be able to email on Monday.

Spring is arriving here in Turku and it is beautiful! We have had sun, sun, sun the past few days. I've heard somewhere that the sky looks bigger in Finland, and it's especially true when the sun is out and the blue sky stretches on forever. It's been warm enough that I had to buy a lightweight spring jacket, and even that I had to take off yesterday because it was so warm. Thank goodness for kirpputoris, or second-hand shops. There's a Salvation Army shop right next to our apartment building, and I got a really nice jacket there for only €5! It's good to have the option, because there's been super nice weather, but we're still susceptible to a freak snow day, and plenty of rain.

We've had some really good lessons with investigators this week. We're still prepping the college guy for his baptismal date in two weeks, and he is coming along really well. He is sincerely searching for the truth, and even though he still doesn't feel he's received any answers to his prayers, he always says not YET, which means he thinks it's coming. And it will come because this gospel is true! 

We had a really cool experience on Tuesday. We went to an assisted care facility to visit a referral, the daughter of an older lady in our ward. While we were visiting with her, we decided to sing her a song and we sang Abide With Me, 'Tis Eventide, a beautiful hymn asking Christ to be with us. It brought me chills watching her feel the Spirit, and the workers loved it too. When we were done, a man started speaking to us in English and said that he was so grateful that two American angels had come to share that song and that he got to hear it. We spoke with him for a while as well, and he was in the facility because he had been in a very damaging car accident years ago. But he had such a positive outlook on life, about how he wanted to just get up every day to try as hard as he could to become a little better and a little stronger. I am so grateful that we were able to touch his heart with our music, but I am even more grateful for the reminder that no matter how hard life gets, I can always remember that I can try a little harder to be a little better.

We've also been trying to figure out more effective ways of finding new investigators. There is a list in the front of our planner of ideas, and one of those ideas is to go to mortuaries and ask to have our names put on a list of clergy that people can talk to for comfort when their loved ones pass away. We thought it sounded kind of silly, but there are a TON of hautaustoimistos (literally "burial office") around Turku, so we said "miks ei? why not?" and tried it out. We went to two that are a block away from us. The first one said they don't provide that service, but the second one did, so we gave them a hand-full of pamphlets about the Plan of Salvation with our names and phone number and location/times of the church services. We are hoping that someone will want to find out about life after death so that we can teach them!

One other cool experience we had this week. We were walking down the street to the center to catch a bus, and were stopped at a cross walk when a woman came up to us and said "Do you have the whole Mormon's Book in Persian yet?" or something like that. We were totally taken aback. Did she really just say what we thought she said? Turns out she had met the sister missionaries two years ago and they had given her Selections of the Book of Mormon in Persian (The Book of Mormon has had only selections translated into various less-common languages so that at least portions are available while the rest is translated) and she had read all of it and loved it but wanted to read the rest! The whole thing hasn't been done yet, but she agreed to meet with us and read it together in English so we could help explain and she can learn more. What a crazy cool experience!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! The work really is moving along her in Finland, and I am so excited to be apart of it!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant