Zone Conference and new friends

Rakkaat ystävät,

Living in the North Zone is a lot different than farther south. For example, it only gets light around 9 in the morning now, and gets dark around 4 in the afternoon. Happily, it will only get worse until Christmas, and then it will get better :)

North Zone also means TRAVELING. And a lot of it. We make weekly trips to Varkaus, a smaller town an hour away, and Joensuu for District Meeting. Many of our members also live an hour away. And Zone Conferences are held in Oulu, a 4 1/2 hour long train ride, and involves about two days' worth of time. We had Zone Conference this week, and we left mid-afternoon on Wednesday and didn't get back until mid-afternoon on Friday.

Zone Conference was awesome. Elder Texiera of the Quorum of the Seventy and Europe Area President, was there as part of a mission tour. He and his wife, as well as President and Sisar Watson, presented an excellent, uplifting meeting, and I learned a lot and received a lot of inspiration on how to improve and strengthen my personal work. President Texiera shared many inspiring stories from his own mission and taught us to have a baptizing mindset, to never believe that miracles can't happen to us, and to put forth all of our effort until the very last second to do absolutely everything the Lord has in store for us. Very motivating.

As far as the work goes, we found a miracle new tutkija last night. We needed to go home for dinner and weekly call-ins, but we stayed out just a little longer and met this young man on his way to the store. We stopped him rather awkwardly, because stopping someone on the street really can't be un-awkward, and kind of elbowed our way from uncomfortable small talk to the gospel. As it turns out, his mother passed away not too long ago, and we were able to teach about eternal families, gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and set up an appointment, He readily accepted all of it, and we're excited to talk with him some more.

As the Christmas season approaches (Finns don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so I'm already in the Christmas mindset), just remember who we are really celebrating. The Savior of the world is a pretty important person, and we get to celebrate His birthday. Let's not forget that Jesus Christ really is the reason for the season :)

I wish you all a lovely week. Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

Seeing old friends. 

"Lift where you stand"

The lakes are freezing over.

Kuopio week 2!

Rakkaat ystävät!

Long crazy week with so much strange stuff happening and so many miracles. Here are a few fun things that happened this week:

- We got 3 new investigators!! Two of them are older, and it my be difficult to have formally structured lessons with them, but we hope to bring the Spirit to them by reading the Book of Mormon with them and singing. We do a lot of singing. The third is a younger man from Nigeria who is SUPER ready and really thinks this gospel is what he is looking for. Of course we assurred him that is is :) He came to church on Sunday (the first investigator the sisters have had in church in a LONG time), and even though he could only stay for about half of Sacrament Meeting (he had his little girl with him and had obligations with the family for Father's Day) he loved it and is really excited to come next week.

- We dropped in on a less active woman to bring her muffins, and accidentally ended up staying for 2 and a half hours while she talked at us about her familiy history, her apartment, her photos, you name it. She is quite an interesting woman, but in a really cool way that makes me want to be her friend forever. We were able to set up another appointment with her, and it was so good to finally establish contact with her. She'll be reactivated in no time!

- The bishop's wife invited her friend over to have a lesson with us. The young woman is in the wife's nutrition class and is interested in the Word of Wisdom, of all things. But we taught her about the Restoration and it was such a cool lesson - she has so much potential. It seemed to really click with her. She prayed with us and agreed readily to meet again. Right now, she's only willing to arrange a meeting through the bishop's wife, but she is way cool and super prepared.

- The Young Women's president held a sleepover with the YW girls (she's 27 and way cool), and she invited us to come hold an activity with them. We played a game about the Restoration, which they loved, and taught them and invited them to read in the Book of Mormon, and they said they would. It was a great opportunity because many of the girls there are less active or on the brink, and it was a really good chance to teach them about the gospel in a fun, low-pressure environment.

Other than that, we have been doing a lot of good member and less active work. The members here LOVE the missionaries and invite us over a lot. I really love them - they are so loving and so willing to help and learn and do missionary work.

I love you all too! Have a great week and remember how much the Lord loves you!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

We found Ikea - it's just like home!

YESSS!!! They have Swedish meatballs in Finland. 

Kuopio, the City of Dreams

This has been quite the week. Monday evenng last week was the Huhtala boy's baptism, which was great, and immediately after it ended, and we'd gotten a little food and some photos, there was a mad dash to the train station. Sisar Ross had to stay behind at the church with the other Sisters because the Restoration concert started at 6:30, and Sisar Huhtala kindly escorted me to the apartment, where we somehow managed to manhandle my bags into the car, then to the train station where I got on the train with just minutes to spare. Blessed! It was really sad to leave, but I didn't have a lot of time to mope. I got to Helsinki in one piece and stayed with the Neitsytpolku Sisters, who got me off dark and early Tuesday morning to my train. The train to Kuopio was delayed in Helsinki for an hour for technical difficulties, after which the trip lasted 4.5 hours. But finally, I made it to Kuopio, where there was another crazy couple of hours getting me settled in and getting Sisar West sent off to Helsinki.

The work in Kuopio is going wonderfully. We have a couple investigators, but right now we're mostly doing a lot of member and less-active work. The members here are so cool! By the end of this week, we will have had more DA's than we usually had over the period of a month in Turku. The members love us so much and are so willing to help us. Not to mention everyone here is musical or artistic in some way. I just got dropped into a massive pool of kindred spirits. I've even been asked already to do a musical number in church!

The Sisters' area in Kuopio is really spread out (welcome to the North!), so we have a car here to get us to areas that are farther away. One area is out in Varkaus, a little town about an hour away, and we go there once a week. We aren't allowed to proselyte there because it's so far away, but we had a really cool miracle happen on Wednesday when we were there. One of our appointments there cancelled, so we went to an ABC (a gas station/restaurant-y kind of thing) to do language study, and we had only been sitting there for a couple minutes when a man approached us and asked if we were from another church. We told him we were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and why we were here. He plopped right down next to us, and we had a really long conversation about doctrine, gave him a Mormonin Kirja and a couple pamplets, and set up an appointment for the next time we are in Varkaus. It was a miracle to see how the Lord put us in that exact place at that time so that we could meet this man. He was very interested, and we are excited to meet with him again.

Other highlights of the week include, but are not limited to:

- Prepping for (and pretty much running) the unofficial ward Halloween party at our BML's house, and eating lots of homemade caramel.

- Cleaning the apartment of a recent convert in our ward who just moved, and spending about 5 hours deep cleaning the kitchen alone. It was quite the process.

It has been a wicked fast week packed with more things than I can account in such a short email time. And, our car is parked on a meter, so we have to get going.

But, I really love the work here. I love what I'm doing because I know it's true. This is the true church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. We have a living prophet and we have true scripture in the Book of Mormon, as well as the Bible. We have the real and functioning power of the Priesthood guiding our church. And I get to share that with the world :)

I love you all so much and hope you have a fabulous week, wherever you are!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

Caramel apples. Yum!

Let it snow.

Can you guess who we are supposed to be?

Ch-ch-ch-changes! Another turn in...

Not Turku! I'm headed to Kuopio to serve with Sisar Bunting! Kuopio is north of Jyväskylä by about an hour by train, so it's about 5-6 hours from Turku. It is much smaller than Turku, and supposedly the people there have the most difficult dialect/accent in all of Finland. So that will be fun. But I have only heard good things about Kuopio, and I am very excited to serve there! The missionaries call it the City of Dreams, and if that's not promising, I don't now what is.

This weekend has been a blur of packing and goodbyes. I found out only yesterday that instead of leaving Turku on Tuesday, I am leaving already tonight (Monday) at 7 pm. I will spend the night in Helsinki then take a morning train to Kuopio and get there tomorrow afternoon. I had a chance to say goodbye to some of my favorite people here, and the ward members were so kind to wish me luck and safe travels. It was nice to feel like I've made a difference for some of them, and I guess it was really satisfying to have that kind of reassurance. Of course I'm sad to leave Turku. It is my first city and my second home. I have met so many lovely people here, and the ward has been my family for the last 8 months of my life. I feel like I really became a missionary here, so it will be sad to go. But then, it's time to try something new!

The last week had been the biggest blur of my life. I was so anxious about change calls that the week passed and it feels like I was unconscious for most of it! And honestly, I did not do my most focused work this week.

Be that as it may, the things that did happen were really good things, including meetings with investigators, members and less active members. This week V was actually able to come to Institute. What we didn't know, however, is that this year the are studying the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history, so because of his limited understanding (we've only taught him 3 times), V was a little confused. Not to mention it was in Finnish so he was getting it all through one of the girls who agreed to translate. but they talked about patience as well, and showed this awesome Mormon Message by Elder Uchtdorf, and he really liked that.

We started trying something called "Investimembers" with some of the members we met with this week. This is something that the Stake President wanted to implement, and what it means is that missionaries will start teaching members and member families like investigators. We will teach them the basic discussions from the Preach My Gospel manual (the Restoration of the Church, the Plan of Salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and so on), they can ask questions just like investigators, and we will give them commitments to help them learn and grow and come closer the Christ. the idea is that the members can learn exactly what we are doing when we teach nonmembers, and so that they can feel the missionary Spirit. Nothing brings the Spirit into the home quite like the joyful message of the Restoration.

We've only done this with two members so far, and once was with M, a less-active woman we've been working with for a while. Usually when we go there, there is a pattern of getting sucked into a long social conversation, sharing a quick spiritual thought, and bouncing as fast as we can because we've already gone over an hour. It's a lot of fun, but definitely not very effective missionary work, and the spiritual thoughts are doing nothing to change her. Well, we were really nervous to try this Investimember thing with her because we weren't sure she would take to it, but we really felt it was the right thing to do. And it was actually the most spiritual lesson we've had with her in a LONG time. For the sake of her being interested enough to do it, we had her create an investigator persona and told her she could be as tough of an investigator as she wanted to be, so that it would be fun for her, as well as productive. And, she actually took right to it. We were ale to teach about prayer and the Atonement, and we really felt that all the questions she was asking as her persona were questions that M herself really had. There was definitely a special Spirit in the room, and even if she doesn't really recognize it for what it is, we have faith that this Investimember program could possibly be a turning point for her. It's an inspired idea from inspired leaders.

Time has run short once again, and we still have things to do and a baptism to attend (the Huhtala's youngest son - what a tender mercy that I get to see that before I go!) before I ship out tonight. Wishing you all a wonderful week. Remember the power of the Restoration, and when you have some time, go back and read the testimony of Joseph Smith of how the true Gospel of Christ was restored again to the earth (if you don't know where to find it, it's available online here). This is it, folks. This is the true church, and Jesus Christ is our leader. How amazing is that?

I love you all. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Have a great week and stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,
Sisar Hillebrant

Sisar Ross enjoying the first ice of the season

Add Roller blades + Nordic walking poles = Finns

We found Hogwarts! 

She's got the whole world in her hand. 

Miracles are Everywhere

Rakkaat ystävät!

Happy fall! It is starting to get cold and dark in Finland, but hopefully my attitude won't go downhill with it :)

Our week was a really good week. Numerically, it wasn't super impressive, but I felt like pretty much everything we did was right in line with what we should be doing. The thing we still struggle with the most is talking with everyone, and that is a perpetual struggle I think for most missionaries, that we are working on overcoming.

But I guess the greatest news is that we finally, FINALLY have new investigators! We now have 3 very friendly, and very open, Chinese investigators (I promise we're not trying to profile - they're just really easy and open to talk to!), all of whom have very strong potential. There is an older man here studying for his doctorate, a middle aged woman who is married to a Finn, and a young man in his early 20s (we think) here as a student as well.

In particular, we have had some really miraculous experiences with the young student, (we'll call him V). We met him when another potential investigator asked if he could bring his friend, who was interested to learn more about God, to our meeting. That friend was V, and the very first referral I've ever gotten from someone who isn't a member if the Church. V turned out to be way more interested than we could ever hope, and in the last week and a half we have met with him twice, and he has come to church twice. Last Sunday he turned up to church on his own without any help -- we didn't even know he was coming. On Wednesday, he had planned to come to Institute and had shown up at the church, which was locked because, unbeknownst to us, Institute was not happening because there was a week long autumn break from school. We were able to find a member (by the promptings of the Holy Ghost) in literally the last minute so that we could have a short lesson with V before he had to go home.

On Friday we had our first official lesson with V, where we addressed some personal concerns he had posed to us on Wednesday. The member who came with us had had no briefing on what we were talking about with him, but with the Spirit guiding all three of us, V's concerns were sated, and he prayed for the first time! Then yesterday, V texted us in the morning saying that he wasn't going to make it to church due to poor planning. Sisar Ross and I have been practicing being more bold and we felt very strongly that we needed to help in understand how important church attendance is. So instead of just telling him that it was fine and that we would see him later, we prayerfully promised him that if he was able to come to at least the first hour to take the Sacrament, that the Lord would bless him with the time and strength to do all the other things he needed to do. Well, he texted back saying that he had missed the bus, so we scrambled to find him a ride, and after calling around to a few people, the bishop agreed to pick him up. When we got to church, there was V already seated in the chapel waiting for Sacrament meeting to start. The meeting was great, and the Spirit was strong, and V got to take the Sacrament. He was off like a shot after the meeting ended, but he came! And it was really a miracle. He is so excited to learn more and we are so excited to teach him more. We'll see him again when he comes to Institute on Wednesday :)

Well, that was a really long story, but I am just so excited about V. His desire to strengthen his relationship with God is strong. And did I mention that he only just decided to become a Christian early this year? He is SO COOL.

Honestly, that was pretty much the highlight of the week. There has been a lot of awesome stuff happening in our area, and I'm just excited to see what's going to keep happening.

I'm so grateful for the chance to be serving in Finland. I know the Lord has placed us all where we are "for the greater good," and we can be the biggest difference when we just trust in Him and do what He asks, which I will keep trying to do :)

Have a wonderful week, my friends, and stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,
Sisar Hillebrant

The Lord's Spirit

Rakkaat ystävät!

What an amazing week it's been!

We had splits with the Sister Training Leaders on Tuesday and I was with Sisar Crandall. We had a really great day learning to just slow down and take time where time is needed, which included camping out in the lobby of a kerrostalo (apartment building) and making phone calls for 45 minutes while we waited for the rain to stop. We also worked on avoiding the phrase "church representative" when we tell people why we're here in Finland, because that's not really why. We're here to share with people the things that are most important in our lives, such as the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the message that families are eternal, and that's what we focused on sharing with people when they asked why we're here.

On Friday we were in Tampere all day. We had a Zone Meeting in the morning, and then there was a language test for the whole zone. Then I had a language class for my MTC group (we have three kieli koulus, every 2-3 months or so, to gauge our progress with the language and go over things for which we might need help or clarification -- this was our group's last one), and that went until late afternoon. We didn't come back to Turku until about 8pm.

While in Tampere, though, Sisar Ross and I had interviews with President Watson. It was just such a sweet conversation where I could just be open and honest about things that were troubling me, which may not have been that serious, but it was really calming to just talk about them. There was a bit of a release of tension I didn't know I had been holding (missionary work isn't a cake walk -- it's hard, but it sure is worth it!). President Watson is such a wonderful man. He is so kind and full of the love of Christ, and he definitely lets the Spirit lead. It was just a really great interview.

Saturday was probably the most Spirit-guided day I've ever experienced as a missionary. We had a meeting with a potential, a young man from Africa, who has some very interesting views on the concept of Christianity -- for example, he really does't like the idea of organized religion, and he talked about how we put up heaven as a reward for ourselves for doing good, and he wants to take heaven out of the equation so that as he tries to live like Christ did; not for any ulterior motive. Which I guess is kind of the case, but if you take out heaven, you kind of take out God, and then what's the point? I have never felt so guided by the Spirit as to what to say as I did in that lesson. There is no way that the things I said could have come form me alone. A 20-year old girl doesn't come up with the things that came out of my mouth.  It was amazing, and such a faith building experience that yes, the Lord will fill our mouths if we just open them and trust.

Later we had a lesson with a recent convert and we were talking about family history work, which transitioned naturally into the temple. I shared with him about how our family did my grandmother's temple work last year, and once again, I've never felt the Spirit testify so strongly to me about eternal families as it did then. It really brought tears to my eyes, and as you know, that doesn't usually happen for me. The Lord is really in our lives, and if I didn't know that before this week, I certainly do now.

How have you seen the Spirit guiding you this week? I'm interested to hear you responses :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week as you look for the hand of the Lord in your life. It's there, and it's guiding you!  Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,
Sisar Hillebrant

Biking with Sisar Crandall

Happy General Conference Week!

Rakkaat ystävät!

I hope you all had a chance to enjoy General Conference! If you didn't, you can watch it, listen to it, and download it here.

Here's a brief rundown of how the week went:

Wednesday was Sisar Ross's birthday! She has hit the grand age of 21! We celebrated with brownies, an ice cream cake at District Meeting (courtesy of Elder Golling), and dinner with the Huhtala family, where they also provided cake. So perhaps it was not the healthiest day of my mission, but you've gotta do what you gotta do. We also celebrated by finding a new investigator, which is the first new investigator we've had in weeks. He is another foreign man, which seems to be our forte at the moment, but right now we're working with what we've got and what we've been given, and working our way up from there. 

We got another new investigator on Thursday (yet again a foreign man), when he offered us homemade bread that he had made for us because we'd been kind to him at the bus stop when we met. After like half an hour of texting and calling back and forth and struggling through a bit of a language barrier, we were finally able to meet up with him the center where he gave us the bread.  We taught a brief lesson and set up an appointment with him for the next week. It was a very interesting experience, but the bread tasted good and he became an investigator, so we're not complaining. 

The weekend was wonderful, as you can imagine, with General Conference! There is such a wonderful buzz in the air on General Conference weekend; it's almost tangible. You can feel the combined excitement of millions of Latter-Day Saints around the globe joining their spirits and their prayers to hear the words of the Lord delivered through His servants, the modern-day prophets. When I was a kid, I never thought I would love General Conference. Oh how the times have changed. I really enjoyed all the sessions we were able to attend, and I learned so much. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my study journal, so I will compile a list of highlights over the week and share with you next week some of the things that struck me. But I love Conference so much, and I know that Heavenly Father has called a living prophet on the earth today, and that he truly speak to us the words of the Lord. I know it with all my heart and soul, because the Lord has answered my prayers. If you don't know for yourself yet, find out! Ask Heavenly Father and study the words of the prophets and come to know for yourselves.  

As you ponder the things you learned this weekend, try picking out one or two things that you can implement this week. Heavenly Father speaks to us all through the Holy Spirit, and He will prompt you to know the things you can work on that will bless you life in ways you can't even imagine yet. He loves you so much!

I hope you all have a wonderful week filled with lots of little tender mercies!

Stay shiny!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant

Getting ready for priesthood session. (Just kidding!)

Fall colors seen from our window.