Finnish Strong!: Just another week in Jyväskylä

Well, this week was another great week! We have some amazing members here in Jyväskylä and I'm just so grateful for them and all they help us with. It really is almost impossible to do missionary work here in Finland without the members. Well, here's what we were up to here in the North Pole this week:

Monday: We had a lesson after P day ended with an investigator who is actually Muslim and he was really open and listened to a lot of what we had to say, but I'm not sure how much of it he actually took in. We asked if we could come back at the end of the lesson and he said "well. I guess so, but just keep this in mind, if a person is thirsty, they'll find the well, the well doesn't need to find them" Kinda interesting. He talked in almost riddles the whole time, but I thought it was a good lesson!

Tuesday: We had zone conference in Tampere and focused on praying always. For our companion, for the mission, for the people of Finland, for the person we're talking to, for everyone! It's so much easier to feel Christ's love for someone when you're praying for it. After zone conference I had Kieli Koulu (Language School) It happens when you've been in the country 6 months. So everyone that I came with who's in my zone all had a little class with the language coordinator (yep, that's a calling) and we just made sure we were all on track. And I got to see Sisar Howell (my MTC companion) so that was awesome! We talked about better ways to study and set some goals and really got me re-energized to learn Finnish and not just be content with my current language ability. It's really easy to slip into mediocracy because I can understand and speak just fine and usually just work my way around something if I don't know the word, but I have so much further to go! So I hope I can keep progressing in Finnish until the end of my mission and even after that! Kieli Koulu ended really late and we had an hour wait til our train back to Jyväskylä so we went to a Chinese restaurant that was delicious. Sometimes I just miss non-Finnish food.

Wednesday: We had a lesson fall through today which was a bummer and then none of our investigators showed up to our Sport Night so it ended up just being the missionaries and the youth, but I still had fun! And learned a lot of Finnish. The youth are seriously awesome here and some of the best teachers!

Thursday: Pretty normal day, nothing too exciting... We had District Meeting and 3 hours of studies and 3 hours of weekly planning all that feel on the same day so not a lot of time to get outdoors, but we do our best!

Friday: We've started this new thing with all of our members here in Jyväskylä where we play this game that we call "Helppo ja Hauska" (Fun and easy) And we have random subjects written on pieces of paper (like school, travel, family, friends, colors, sports,...) And then when it's just turn, you pick a piece of paper and have 30 seconds to think of 3 ways where if you and your friends were talking about this topice, you could mention something gospel related. It's super easy like "Oh hey, there's a boy in our ward who plays basketball" And that's it. It just helps the members realize that we can talk about the gospel in normal and natural ways because it's just who we are. It shouldn't be hard to talk about a huge part of our lives. So we played this game with our Primary President on Friday and it went great!

Afterwards, we had a lesson with our investigator who is from Africa and speaks French. His English and Finnish are really bad so we've been struggling to teach him (lots of pamphlets and movies that's for sure) but this time we were able to bring a woman in the ward who served a mission in France and her husband. The lesson went great and he understands a lot more and it's awesome! So grateful for members :)

Afterwards we went tracting and found a new investigator! He said he's read some of the book of mormon so we're excited to meet on tuesday and find our more about that!

Saturday: We had splits! Once a transfer the Sister Training Leader works with each companionship in the zone. Well, the Sister Training Leader is here in Jyväskylä so we went on splits, but didn't have to leave our city which is nice. Sisar Dixon came and joined me in my area and Sisar Lund went up to the other sister's area. Sisar Dixon has only been here about 2 months and is still in training, but she's awesome! Definitely more bold and outgoing than I was when I had only been here 2 months and it's so good! She's a great missionary. We went out to do service and I ended up tutoring in math again and Sisar Dixon ended up tutoring in English so it worked out pretty well! So yeah, pretty good day!

Sunday: Always my favorite day, We had a DA at this awesome family's house and played the word game with them and their 5 kids and they're so great at finding creative ways to simply mention the church! I'm excited to see all these future missionaries go out and share the gospel!

Well, that was our week! Not incredibly exciting, but still a great week! This week we have a lot of awesome members who are stepping up to help out and we get to work with them to help their friends and I can't wait! Change calls are also on Friday and we'll see what happens with that! I'll letcha know next week :)

Well, I love you all so much! Thank you for your awesome love and support and letters and emails and just everything :) It's awesome knowing you are all doing well :) Go look up the song "We'll Be There" on youth.lds.org it definitely reminds me of you all right now.

Also, there's a new Mormon Message that you all need to check out as well.

Well. Have an awesome week! I know I will because I'm a missionary and that's basically guaranteed when you have the spirit with you 24/7! This gospel is so true (even up here in the North Pole) and I'm just grateful for the privilege to share it!

Sisar Crandall

Pictures:

Sisar Howell and I at Language School