Finding in Faith

[Sent 27 Jan, 2015]

Rakkaat ystävät,

Well, first of all, we got a blown fuse fixed. We blew a fuse a little over a week ago, and for a little over a week, half of our apartment has been without electricity. I'm not an electrician, and I've seen some fuses before, but not the type that we have in our apartment. And, since we kept forgetting to call someone about it, we were without light in three rooms. Luckily for us, there are enough flashlights in our apartment to semi-illuminate the bathroom. We finally called the talomies yesterday, and an electrician came and showed us what to do. Let there be light again! 

We got a referral from Espoo about two and a half weeks ago. He is a young man from Ghana here studying, with strong faith and a great religious background. He believes that parts and pieces have been taken out of the Bible, and has other questions that all find their answers in the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've taught him twice and he is golden. Unfortunately for us, he lives in the Elders' area, so he will be trading hands this week. But he is just so awesome and so ready. He got us really good in our first meeting with him when he told us he was a prophet - which was a joke because he is named after a prophet in the Bible. We got a little nervous for a second there :)

M is still doing well, but progressing a little more slowly than before. She feels like she will be ready to get baptized in the summer. We want to let her take some time because we don't want to seem pushy, but we are planning on setting a date with her, even if it is a little farther away than normal, then taking steps to help her see that she will be ready earlier.

On Thursday we had splits with Sisar Pack and Sisar Woods, the Sister Training Leaders. I really like splits days because I always learn so much. Something I learned was how to be more bold and to show how excited you are about the gospel when you talk about it with people. Sisar Pack is a firecracker when we go street contacting, and she just skips the awkward and jumps into our purpose. We met this really cool young woman, G, who is searching for religion, and Sisar Pack was so excited about the message we were sharing that G agreed to meet with us.

Yesterday we had an awesome finding experience. We didn't have any appointments during the early afternoon, so we went to an area to contact some potentials, parked the car, and just walked everywhere. We tried for about an hour with no luck, but then, within the next 30 minutes, found 3 new investigators. I am so impressed with Sisar Lafferty's faith to find. Even though it is difficult for her to do the contacting because she is still new to the language, she wants to go out and do the work, which really motivates me to go out and do it too, and do it better than I ever have before.

It's been a really good (and really fast) week. Time is going going going, but I'm making the most of it :)

I love you all! Stay shiny :)

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

See - not lying about the temperatures:  -25C!!

First companion selfie with Sisar Lafferty