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.

Grace and Charity

Rakas ystäviä,

The week was much less exciting than last. We did A LOT of contacting because work with our investigators has been pretty slow. They haven't been able to meet, or in the case of the Iranian man, he was out of town and had forgotten his phone. 

We've been starting to do some work in areas that haven't really been touched lately. One thing we've been doing is going through old teaching records to find people and making a list of those we want to try and get in contact with again. Earlier this week we contacted one guy that has met with over 20 sets of missionaries in the last 30 years! We met with him on Saturday and he showed us a photo album full of pictures of missionaries he has met with! He really likes the missionaries and seems to believe a lot of what he has been taught, but for some reason has been unwilling to act on it. We'll see what we can do with him. Maybe it's his time!

On the downside, we recently put J the college guy back into the Lord's hands for a while. We had been teaching the same thing over and over because he just wasn't getting it and wasn't receiving answers. We had covered pretty much everything with him, and for his sake, we needed to let him go until he is able to notice answers or recognize the Spirit that is missing when he isn't meeting with us. So for now we are giving him a break that is much needed on either end.

We have also been going to basketball night a little recently. Many wards here have sports nights where anyone is invited, and it's a great place for people to bring friends, and for missionaries to bring investigators and potentials so they can be in the church building in a casual setting. We've attended twice this month, and despite my lack of interest towards sports, I have actually enjoyed myself and discovered that I am not too bad. Surprise!

Yesterday was a fun day. There was a woman that Sisar Ross knows who is spending some time at the spa in Ruissalo, an island just off the harbor here, and she invited us to come out and see her. So yesterday morning, we bused out to Ruissalo Spa to spend some time with this member, and she bought us lunch too, which was SO good. And, we got to do a member role play with her as well, so it was fun and productive.

Noting Better to Do in Finland than Relax at a Spa - Yeah, Right!

Then, in the evening after church, the bishop's family had us over for dinner and to start the member role plays with them. They are such a great family! Susana, the recent convert

who has come with us frequently on lessons, is an awesome missionary (she actually just got back from spending a week as a mini missionary with the sisters in Vaasa), and so is the piispa. It is going to be so great to have the whole family starting to do their own personal missionary work!

We also went to Tampere on Wednesday for Zone Meeting. In the meeting, we watched the short movie wbout Zion's Camp (You can watch it here: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-090-zions-camp?lang=eng ) and compared it to missionary work. The Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders talked a lot about Preach My Gospel and how we con more fully use it to become more effective missionaries. There are a few assessments in the manual that we can take to evaluate our progress is various areas of our work and our personal growth in the gospel and as representatives of Jesus Christ. One assessment is focused around Christ-like attributes, and how we can become more like the Savior. The leaders challenged us to do one of these assessments every week and choose something from the assessments that we would like to work on. I decided that I needed to work on diligence and having charity. 

I've already been studying charity, which by definition is the pure love of Christ, and how I can have it more strongly especially in relation to those I meet on the street. As part of this, and as recommended by President Watson as something we all should do, I've been trying to pray for charity every time I say a prayer. I hadn't really seen too much of a difference until just the other day when we encountered a very interesting situation.

We were walking down the street, and walked past an older woman hobbling slowly along on a set of awful Finnish crutches. We just said hello as we passed, but she asked "Oletteko Jehovan Todistajia?" (Translated: "Are you Jehovah's Witnesses?") No, we told her we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, and suddenly she got very passionate. At this point in time, Sisar Ross was in the middle of making a phone call, so she was out of the picture for a moment. The woman asked me what our beliefs are about how we are saved, so I explained that, well, everything is through Jesus Christ and if we do everything we can to become like him and follow him . . .

"No," she said, "that's wrong! It is only though armo!" Grace! Mercy!

"Well, yes," I said, "of course we believe that, but we also need to do our part, and . . ."

"No! You Mormons," she said, "think that everything is your doing! You try to earn your way to heaven and you all say 'Look at me God, I am better than everyone else because I DID all these things!'"

She the proceeded to ask how well I know the Bible and I said that I read it of course, but then she told me that I needed to read it again because CLEARLY I don't understand that we are only saved by grace, because it says so. Poor Sisar Ross was completely oblivious to all that had just happened because she was on the phone, but when she joined the conversation, the lady basically repeated everything she had just said, then proceeded to lecture us for a good 15 minutes about how we Mormons believe THIS and THIS and that's wrong because all you need is grace!

And, no matter how many times we insisted that, yes, we do believe that the Lord's mercy is in fact the center feature of everything we do, she only heard what she wanted to hear. I could tell that Sisar Ross was getting pretty frustrated, but she was handling herself very calmly. But what surprised me most was that, while situations like this would usually get me very frustrated and potentially angry (I don't particularly care for other people telling me what I believe), I found myself praying for the woman! Praying that the Lord would soften her heart and help her to feel His love and get SOMETHING from this whole conversation. That was so amazing to me! Because usually, in the past I would be praying for patience for myself and for help to be able to explain without getting upset, but instead my prayer was focused on this woman, and not myself.

And, I think that's the essence of charity - being concerned for others when you could be worrying about your own uncomfortable situation. Because that is the center of Christ's Atonement. He willingly allowed himself to enter into the worst suffering and discomfort imaginable just so He could focus on us and our needs, because He loves us more than his own life. We are more important to Him, and when we follow that example and make others more important than our own discomfort, we allow the love of Christ to permeate everything we do. I still have such a far way to go to become more charitable, but this was a testimony to me that through prayer and study, we can develop these Christ-like attributes and become more like our Savior. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week and find something charitable to do this week for someone else.

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

FESTINORD!!

Rakas ystäviä!

Man this last week was SO surreal! It seemed we were in Naantali for like half the week helping with Festinord. We had the Sister Training Leaders camping at our apartment Monday and Tuesday night because they were helping as well, and then we were on splits with them.

On Tuesday, we were up early and got out to Naantali by 7am. We helped with some setting up, and then directed people to their rooms as they arrived. There was a bit of a panic because the lady who was supposed to provide musical numbers (with whom I was originally doing a duet) suddenly cancelled due to illness and asked me to figure it out. Everything worked out fine, but it was stressful.

Ready to Assist with the Great Naantali Race

The rest of the time, we helped with "The Great Naantali Race" where we were posted at stations and the groups had to come around and do activities such as figuring out if various quotes were from General Conference talks or Disney movies. It was a lot of fun, and I got very sunburned, despite being in the shade (I know, I'm pathetic). We did get some proselyting time in the evening. Sisar Jones and I were together to go contacting for an hour, and it was way fun.

Wednesday we were basically on kitchen duty all day, washing dishes and cleaning up. Then we got to go on splits with some of the young adults that were there. Sisar Ross and I each had a young woman, and were assigned a car to take them out to a couple lessons. Let it be known that I had not driven in over 7 months, let alone in a foreign country, and we only got lost twice. Thank heavens for GPS!

Thursday Sisar Ross and I performed a musical number in the morning devotional, but got to go home after that. We did our studies (during which there was a MASSIVE thunder storm) and Weekly Planning. Then, we had our first interviews with President Watson! He and his wife are SO NICE.

A Duet With Sisar Ross

Friday was the longest day of my life. We were at Festinord a little after 8am, where we participated in a choir for the morning devotional, then got put on dish duty again. We sang again in the afternoon conference meeting, then got assigned to help make flower arrangements for the center pieces for the fancy dinner that was happening. We got pulled into the rush of setting up the tables in the gym, and making sure there was enough silverware and the like. There was so much disorganization that the dinner started about 45 minutes late, and then we helped in the food service line.  This was also very stressful because, again, of little organization and lack of communication, and the poor kids got out of the dinner and on their way to the big dance about an hour late. But, I think all and all they enjoyed themselves. After dinner we were on table cleanup and breakdown duty, and we didn't get back to our apartment until after 10pm (with permission form the higher-ups).

Look, I'm a "Budding" Floral Arranger!

Sisar Ross Making Flowers (and Faces)

And just think that everything we did was super surface-level. Now I know what all goes into these kinds of events, and I will be SO APPRECIATIVE of the people helping if I ever go to one. 

And still after all that, we even had a great teaching week. I attribute this entirely to the Lord, because we were so drained from Festinord. But with the help of a lot of prayers and the blessings that come from doing so much service, the Lord helped us to keep the work going despite being gone so much. I truly believe we can't do anything without the Lord's help. Good thing he wants to help us :)

You guys are all rock stars. I hoe you have wonderful weeks and enjoy the Lord's love and your air conditioners.

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

Miraculous Coincidences

Rakas ystäviä,

I hope no one had a heart attack (Mom) because I'm writing so much later in the day than usual. We got all our missionary work done this morning since that's when things got scheduled, and then we wanted to hit up the stores before most of them closed at 6pm, and now here we are. And the Sister Training Leaders are coming in from Tampere tonight to do splits tomorrow, which will be way fun because this week is Festinord! I'm so excited that we get to help out so much, because we basically are going to Festinord for FREE. When does that ever happen? Next week you will hear all about it :)

The coolest thing that happened is that we had our first lesson on Tuesday with an Iranian man we met last week. But first a little important back story: A few months ago, Sisar Howell and I met an Iranian woman on the street who stopped us and asked if we had the rest of the Book of Mormon in Persian. Turns out she'd been taught quite a bit a few years back, had read all the Book of Mormon excerpts available in Persian, and had loved it. But when she had resisted setting a baptismal date (she was from Iran after all, and things are a lot different for people in that part of the world) the missionaries had let her go for a while and she had never been picked back up. So we started meeting with her until we were unable to get in contact with her for various reasons. 

Now fast forward to last Sunday evening, when Sisar Ross and I are stopped by and the Iranian man started telling us he's pretty sure he's seen us before and was asking for all the Persian materials we have available. This guy is probably the most agreeable person I've ever met, and we set up a return appointment right away. Well we met with him on Tuesday, gave him the Book of Mormon excerpts in Persian, taught a sweet lesson where he basically kept asking us to talk more about the Book and telling us he wants to know everything we can tell him, and then his friend shows up whom he'd invited and she was way interested too! We got a return appointment with both of them for Friday (where they subsequently agreed to come to church on Sunday and BOTH SHOWED UP, courtesy of the bishop who gave them a ride). And on top of all this, it turns out that this man in the (ex?)HUSBAND of the Iranian woman we met a few months ago. Talk about miracles! OR really, talk about the fact that these people are super ready for the gospel. The only potential speed block in the situation is that the man only speaks English and Persian (fine) and the friend only speaks Finnish and Persian (also fine) but they seem to not understand that we really need to meet with them separately and so both lessons we have had with them have been the two of them together with the lady not really understanding when we speak English and the man not understanding at all when we speak Finnish. So one of us has been teaching the man and the other of us has been teaching the woman, but we are going to have to split them up eventually. But other than that, they are basically the nicest most accepting people I have ever met, and I'm (cautiously) excited to see where this goes!

That is the biggest thing that happened this week. I honestly don't remember too much else. I forgot my planner in the apartment so I can't go back over the week to see what happened, which is honestly probably a good thing because I always take too long typing this email. 

I hope you all have a really fabulous week! Remember the Lord loves you and that anything is possible through the power of the Atonement!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

And thus ended the twentieth year . . .

Rakas ystäviä!

We had a pretty good week! We've been spending a decent chunk of time contacting, both outside and in the apartment. Early in the week we decided to stay inside for an extra hour or so and dissect the Area Book to find people to contact. We want to do a little bit of that every week so we can finally get our phone contacts and list of potentials lined up so we know who hasn't been contacted. Also, we want to have a fairly extensive list of former investigators on hand to try whenever we're out and something falls through. It's going to be a process, but really worth it in the grand scheme of things. 

We had a lesson in a brewery this week. We were supposed to meet this girl and go to the church for a tour, but when we met up in the center she asked if we could just go to coffee instead. We explained the Word of Wisdom, that we don't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol, and that we don't smoke, and the like, but she said it was just a little restaurant and we could have water. So we went, and she took us into a brewery (which smells really badly of rye, might I add), got herself a coffee, and when we sat down she asked if she could smoke. We said we'd rather she didn't because, you know, the Word of Wisdom. Luckily she was cool with that and we proceeded to have a really good discussion about the Restoration. It didn't end with her becoming an investigator, but at least now I can say that the first time I've ever been in a beer garden was on my mission.

But I guess the real question is, how was my birthday? Well, after District Meeting on Wednesday, the district had a little birthday party for me. The sisters in the other ward had made a cake, and they sang and all that. When we got home, we found that they had also gotten into our apartment and left balloons and candy for us. My district is just so great! Friday night, just as we were coming in for the night, the Huhtalas were waiting outside the building and had brought me and ihan Suomalainen birthday cake! It was such a surprise, and I just love that family so much! On the actual day, I woke up at 4am to the phone alarm going off, and Sisar Ross hurriedly shutting it off and telling me to go back to sleep. Of course I couldn't for a while, and not until after I saw her leave the room. But when I woke up at the regular time, she had decorated the apartment with banners and had made me a cake! I'm too spoiled. The highlight, though, was that the other ward was having a baptism, and we got to participate in that. We made some desert for it, then helped set up, and did a musical number with the other sisters. It really was a nice service, and made the day really special. That evening, the new senior missionary couple was coming into Turku, and we were charged with getting them some food, and meeting them there with the key. They are really great and we're excited to work with them. Ended the day with opening the big package from home, so it was a good end to the day. Then on Sunday night, we made pizza and had ice cream with rice krispie treats (courtesy of my grandparents - thanks guys!) and watched part of Legacy. Then today we went to the museum in the upper gallery of the Tuomiokirkko, which was awesome. The cap on the celebrations will be on Wednesday when we go to pizza and kebab as a district. Truly it has been a glorious end to my life as a teenager. 

​Cake for breakfast - it's a thing!

Cake from my District - Thanks Guys!!!

Cake from the Huhtalas

Sisar Ross Decorated our Apartment

A Package from Home!!

We had a really great District Meeting on Wednesday. Elder Alquist talked all about prayer and how to make our prayers more focused and earnest. He talked especially about Doctrine and Covenants 8:2-3, where the Lord tells us that the revelation we receive through prayer comes from the same Spirit by which Moses split the Red Sea. Moses was probably praying pretty hard right then. As he looked behind him and saw the chariots of the Egyptian army bearing down on his group of over half a million people, then looked back at the Red Sea with no way to go around either side, and with the Israelites' terrified screams and exclamations that they would rather have stayed slaves and that he had led them to their death, Moses found himself in a state of desperate need, pleading with the Lord as he had never plead before to send a miracle. And then came the thought, "Go stand in the water and hold out your staff." Can you imagine the confusion and perhaps disappointment in Moses' mind when this was the answer he got? Surely he must have been wondering what good that could possibly do, and why didn't the Lord just stop the Egyptians? But trusting in the Lord and following this strange little prompting, Moses waded out into the water, and held out his staff...and lo and behold the waters of this great sea rose into the air, splitting so entirely that the ground was dry. No water remained in pools in their path, no mud to get stuck in and slow them down. The Lord held the sea at bay just long enough for the Israelites to cross, then unleashed the waters again, destroying the enemy. Moses followed a seemingly silly and pointless idea and a miracle ensued. This is the power we have in prayer if we just pray the way the Lord has asked, then follow the ideas we receive, no matter how strange or scary, not questioning, just trusting and doing. Miracles can and will happen. 

So there you have it folks. I hope you all have had a great week and remember that there is power in prayer. The Lord loves you and wants to help you!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

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

We don't like each other at all

Folks from last week's Renaissance Faire

Early Rock-and-Roll band, I think

World's First Merry-Go-Round?