Monday, March 31, 2014

A Second Week of Fasting

Hello family and friends! Not a lot of time today, I'll explain why later, and I'm also on an Ipad with an American key board and I just got used to the Finnish ones and now my typing is all off so sorry is this letter is all over the place and full of errors.

Anyway, this week was great! That's of cool things going on so here they are in no particular order:

-This month's issue of the Liahona has an article about Finland! So everyone go read it right now! The opening paragraph is about Suomenlinna which is in my area! It's the fortress I talked about maybe 2 weeks ago and sent pictures home about so that was cool to read about that.

-This weekend is general conference! I'm super excited! We have some awesome less-actives and investigators and potentials lined up to come with us! We get to watch it in Haaga broadcasted in Finnish, but the missionaries get to watch it in English because there are so many foreigners here that it's broadcasted in both languages. So I've been focusing on writing down questions about what I'm struggling with and my investigators are dealing with too. So I challenge you to do the same thing. Somehow questions always get answered no matter what the talk subject is about. Funny how that works huh?

-So last week I got a letter from the lady who was re-activated in Jyvaskyla. She gave me the name and number of her daughter who lives down here right by us! So we called her up and she invited us over for dinner tonight! So I'm super excited to go over there and get to know her! Her mom also wrote me and said that she hoped I could share the gospel with her (she's a non-member) So I'll letcha know how that goes!

-So my dear companion Sisar Curtis got picked to do a TV special on missionaries for this TV program called YLE. The majority of Finns don't even know that sister missionaries exist even though they've seen elders all the time. So Sisar Curtis and Sisar Nabatnikova (another sister missionary from Russia) Did a tv special where a reporter followed them around all day Thursday. So that means that I was on splits with Sister Ladd! We had fun getting to know each other and teaching lots of less-actives. I like working with other sisters a lot because I'm able to learn from them, without actually being their companion haha so that's pretty cool!

(Sisar Ladd and I)



-On Friday we went over to our investigators house to help her clean and when we got there she said "Today's a beautiful day! let's go explore Finland!" uhh okay! So she wanted to drive us up to Porvoo, which is not in our area, but then we convinced her to go to Seurasaari and then the temple! Seurasaari is this island in our area that is basically an outdoor museum. the whole island. You park your car and then walk across the bridge and you're in the museum! It's pretty cool actually, they took all these cool old buildings and historical things from all over Finland and brought them into one place! So now we can just walk around and see all these sights from all over and it's way cool. Then, afterwards we went to the temple! We walked around and taught her all about it and why it's important to us so that was really special and fun and I know she's able to feel the spirit on the temple grounds so I'm glad we could give her that experience.

(Cool windmill)



(With Sisar Curtis at an old telephone booth at the museum)



-On Saturday we visited a sister in our ward who is a cat lady who also hoards. (mom, you would die.) It's pretty impossible to move in her house, but she's a less active and LOVES us coming over. So we went and basically out goal is to just take a bag of trash away with us each time and so far, it's working! So yeah, lots of funny adventures happen there. And also, she speaks Finnish, Swedish and English and switches between all three whenever and doesn't realize it. And then she gets mad at us if we don't understand... So yeah, I've learned a couple more swedish words and also learned to just smile and nod.

-Well yesterday we got a call from the other sisters that one of them was sick, but they needed to go to church with their investigators. Soo we went on splits and I ended up staying home with the sick sister and doing area book work. I was super bummed I missed church, but I was surprisingly productive so I guess it all works out in the end.

-Sunday night we had a senior couple (Brother and Sister London) invite us and our investigator over for dinner. So we went and had a great time! We were able to teach about the Book of Mormon and why we read it and how we can apply it to our lives. So yeah, I am super grateful for members who willingly have missionaries over and fellowship investigators. PLEASE ask the missionaries in your area how you can help. I PROMISE that they need it!

- This week is Interim! So basically all the newbie missionaries who have only been in the country 6 weeks come to Helsinki to meet with president for training. So we have 2 sisters living with us this week and we get to go on all sorts of splits all week! Sister Schellenberg (who came in my group) and her companion Sister Owen and with us and we're having lots of fun! So yeah, meeting other missionaries is awesome. 

Well, this week was our fasting week and we were specifically praying and fasting that we would know how to work with all the less actives we have. There are literally 50+ names on our ward list JUST IN OUR AREA that no one knows anything about... and the other 3 companionships have the same. So yeah, we've got our work cut out for us. Well this week we were able to contact a LOT of less actives and actually sit down and teach 7! That was our goal! So yeah, things in this area are definitely looking up! Im super excited to help them progress and learn and get back to their state of conversion that they were once in. 

So that's basically my week! Lots of awesome things set up and pretty cool goals reached last week! Sisar Curtis and I set the goal to teach 37 lessons last week ( I think the most I've ever taught on my mission in one week was 23) So we set our weekly goals and then adjusted our daily goals each day to help us reach it. Well, we ended Sunday night with 38 LESSONS! Yep, pretty miraculous if you ask me! And this week, since we have the help of 2 more sisters, we have the goal to teach 50! So I'll letcha know how that goes too! 

The work is sure moving forward fast and we as missionaries just love trying to keep up with it! I love you all so much and I hope you have a most wonderful conference this week! (And A Happy April Fool's Day tomorrow)


Sisar  Crandall

Monday, March 24, 2014

Half-Way Mark. Wut.

Family and friends,

Yep, it came and went. There's no use avoiding the obvious. This past Wednesday was the 9 month mark of my mission. Holy cow. While I was reflecting about what has happened the past 9 months and where I was last June, a lot of different thoughts came into my mind and I started writing them all down. I ended up with 10 things that I've learned on my mission thus far. I call them "The 10 Things I've Learned on my Mission thus far" A lot of them may seem super obvious and you're probably thinking "really Sisar Crandall? You had to go to Finland to learn that?" But I guess I was too prideful to learn all these lessons back in America, but I've hopefully got them figured out here in Finland. Here they are:

1. My call comes from the prophet. I realize more and more everyday that these experiences-companions, members, the language, everything else-were made just for me and I'm grateful to have a prophet who is inspired to know where missionaries should serve.

2. You can't convert people beyond your own conversion. People are prepared here for me so I need to be prepared for them too! I can't ask my investigators to do anything that I'm not doing so that sure helped me whip my priorities into place real quick.

3. What I do in my free-time matters. I'm a 24/7 missionary even when it's P-day and after 9:30 when it's "free-time" Ha. There's no such thing as "free-time" on a mission. Everything I do should be fulfilling my purpose - "invite others to come unto Christ". Sisar Curtis and I now use our "toodle-time" (as we call it) to read conference talks, go through potentials and it's made all the difference. It really has helped us be effective missionaries and I'm just bummed it took me this long to figure that out.

4. The Holy Ghost converts, not me. We've focused a lot on praying always so that we can have the spirits with us when we teach. A quote from President Hinckley came into my brain "Start your day on your knees as if it depended on the Lord, then get on your feet as if it depended on you!" So basically we just try to be praying always and be led by the spirit in all we do. So then we don't have to worry whether a thought was my own or from the spirit or whether it was inspiration or me just day dreaming. If we always have the spirit with us and our focused on our purpose, they're one in the same. 

5. Faith is an action word. We pray and ask for help and then we go to work! We can't pray and ask Heavenly Father to help us find people to teach on this tram and then not open our mouth! We "prepare for rain" with the faith that it will come and then AFTER we're done out part, we're able to reap the blessings.

6. "Hold tight, knuckles white" -President Craig Olson. I've learned that whatever we're going through (mission/life/trial/anything) won't be easy, but it sure is a LOT easier when we hold fast to the gospel. When we bring our all to the Lord, whether that be a lot or a little, the Lord magnifies it so that it's enough. We learn that although times may be difficult, anything is possible with the Lord. We hold fast to the truth we do know and "first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" (President Uchtdorf). The knowledge of the truth of this gospel and its message is enough to get us through anything :)

7. The atonement is for saints as well as for sinners. I always knew that we could use the Atonement to repent, but this life is all about progression. And we can use the Atonement for that too! The purpose of life is for us to become better and I'm just grateful for this opportunity for my progression to be accelerated on my mission. Because I'd sure be light years behind, without it.

8. Specific commandments come with specific blessings. So I need to learn to teach and promise them to others! I've learned to ask myself "If my investigator kept EVERY commitment and EVERY commandment except this one, what blessing would they be missing out on? And then once I've figured it out, I canter my lesson around that! They my investigators better understand the "Why" behind the gospel and actually WANT to keep the commandments instead of me dragging them through it. This desire leads to conversion instead of just a testimony. D&C 130:20-21

9. The only message I really have to teach is the restoration. So when I'm on a tram or bus and debating what I should talk to someone about or why an investigator isn't progressing the answer is ALWAYS the restoration! Once this is understood, everything else falls into place. And this is our UNIQUE message. So if I don't teach about the restoration in a contact with someone, I'm really not giving them the chance to accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

10. I am a representative of Jesus Christ. I have the privilege to do what he would do if he were on the earth. As Sister Wixom once said, "The man on your chest is my best friend" And he's my best friend too. President Dyches said "Missions aren't sacrifices" and he's right! I GET to be out here telling people about my best friend and his love for them. AND I don't have to worry about money/school/rent/job/boys/myself/anything! How much luckier can a person get? Man I just sometimes stare our the window of my apartment and think "Is this real life?" "Do I live in Finland" "Did I just have a conversation with a real Finn in Finnish?" "Am I really a missionary?" Maybe one day it'll hit me, but I'm still in awe of it all. Never before in my life did I think I'd have an opportunity like this.

So those are the lessons I've learned thus far. And I'm sure the Lord had a billion more to teach me so I'm excited to see where the next 9 months will take me!

Also, remember how about 2 months ago there was this 12 week fast thing and each district gets to be prayed for by all the other missionaries/leaders in Finland? Well I got to participate in this when it was Jyväskylä's turn and now next week is Neitsytpolku's turn! So once again it's our consecration week! So we have lots of district and companionship and personal goals and we're really focusing on talking with everyone wherever we are and helping our less-active members. Sisar Curtis and I are also only speaking Finnish this week so that'll help us focus as well! I'm super excited to get to participate in this again and see all the miracles that come from it. So once again, we're praying at 7:50 am and 9:50 pmand it's just really cool to see the whole mission and members in Finland come together on the behalf of the work here!

One SUPER cool experience this week. I was on a tram this week and couldn't find a place to sit/someone to easily talk to so I ended up just sitting down next to this guy who was intensely reading a book and looked like he did NOT want to be interrupted. But I just HAD to say something. I noticed that the book was in English and that it was a grammar book of some sort. so I just dumbly asked "Uhh whatcha reading?" And he went off in Finnish about something something something I don't understand something something... But what I did get out of the conversation is that he couldn't find the book in Finnish and that he's learning Arabic/Farsi or something like that (Who speaks those languages anyway?). So then I was just like "Oh cool" And couldn't think of anything else to say! In english or finnish! So the conversation just dies there... And then HE turns to ME and says "Are you Mormon?" "YEP!" "Are you on a mission here?" "YEP!" "Well I'm getting off on the next stop, but I've met with church representatives before from other churches and I'd love to meet with mormon ones sometime. Can we exchange numbers?" "YEP!" (Yeah I'm reeeeal fluent in Finnish... All I said this entire conversation was "Kyllä!" (YEP!)) So then we switched numbers and he got off and I just sat there staring at Sisar Curtis like "What just happened?" So yeah, just another reassuring experience that people IN FINLAND are looking for the truth and want to meet with us! Very cool!

So this week was great and I learned a lot! And next week is consecration week so I can't even imagine where the Lord will take us! I love and miss you all and thanks for all your letters and love and support!

Sisar Crandall

Pictures:
Us and Brother Thelin who came over for lunch today at our super ritzy apartment

Sisar and Brother Thelin with our cutely decorated table

Elder Stegeby got transferred out of our district this week. so sad :(

Sisar Curtis and I got lost on some islands in the middle of nowhere so here's some pics of the sunset we took in the meantime!


Monday, March 17, 2014

Taka Talvi!

Family and Friends,

Well This week was just great! As is every week on a mission! It's been pretty warm, but then it plunged into the negatives again which is what the Finns call a "TakaTalvi" So I put my big coat and boots back on and headed out to work! 

This week I got 2 packages! Yep! 2! One from mom and one from dad. THANK YOU SO MUCH! They were absolutely wonderful and delicious and very appreciated. More thanks to come in my letters home :)

Well this week was fun, not a lot to talk about though. On Tuesday we went out to Suomenliina. It's an island that's in our area and we take a ferry to get to it. It used to be a fortress or something like that during war time. And something to do with the King Of Sweden... En ole varma... Just google it :) well anyway, we have 2 less actives and a potential who lives out there so we go every now and then. We had an appt with our less active and then went to contact the other less active and we had our map out and we found the street and then we went to find the house number and... it was a prison... Uh, awkward. We literally could've walked right in if we wanted. There is no fence or barbed wire or anything like in america. It's basically just this little complex of house with a tiny gate around it that WAS OPEN with a sign that says "Do not enter" Okay? so we just hurriedly walked out of there... But yeah, all the pictures of the sunsets and the ferry plowing through the ice and the old castle looking things are all from this little trip.




This week we had to drop 2 investigators :( One was only interested in teaching US about the gospel and the other would physically like cringe whenever we talked about the Book of Mormon or anything and she just wants us to come over to hang out and eat and chat but NOT about religious things... So that was a super bummer this week. 

This week we also had more than our normal share or run-ins with drunks... And it wasn't even at late at night! One was around 8 o'clock on our away home, one was at 12 on saturday morning, and one was after church around 2. Like what? So we just tried to avoid them as much as possible and got off the tram and switched to another seat so that was fun. Obviously we're totally safe (This is FInland) And everyone tells us that drunks are harmless so we just smile and leave. So that's always fun.


We've recently been struggling with our investigators grasping the importance of this message. We have multiple investigators tell us that they know the Book of Mormon is true and that Thomas S. Monson and Joseph Smith are prophets of God, but they don't want to join the church. like what? so we've tried explaining multiple times that it's a commandment and that this is the restored gospel and so forth, but they just nod their heads and smile and agree, but then don't commit to do anything. I wish they could just understand what this all means. So we're trying to help them progress, or we're giving them a break for now and just trying to find new investigators! We've got some awesome things set up with potentials this week, so we'll see where that goes! 
On Thursday we had Zone Conference. Sisar Curtis and I have gotten a lot better at talking to people while we travel and everything and really just talking to everyone (which has been something I've struggled with in the past). So, we traveled to Zone Conference in Haaga (by train) And got there about a half hour early just from how the trains arrived. There were lots of missionaries there, but we decided to just keep walking around the neighborhood until it was time to go in. Not a lot of people were out, but we were able to have a couple conversations with people, including some construction workers eating their breakfast, and even teach a lesson to a lady at the bus stop! Usually we're not able to teach our first lesson until later in the day, so that was a great way to get started! Zone Conference was great and we talked a lot about family history and using it in our missionary work. So I've gotten the chance to talk a lot about my family yay :) and show lots of pictures to people of trams and buses and I just love it. I've noticed how open to the gospel people are when you really personalize it and they internalize what you're saying. So I'm excited to get the family history center here in Neitsytpolku up and running!

Last week I mentioned we rearranged our apartment, so there are also some pictures of what our new and improved place looks like. 


Sisar Curtis and I are doing awesome! We're SO excited for general conference and we have a countdown chain in our apartment where we read one old talk each day to prepare ourselves! It's been awesome to be able to review old talks. Man I love the prophets :) How do you all get ready for #genconf?

I love you all so much! I hope you know that I love being a missionary! Have a most wonderful week and enjoy the work!

Sisar Crandall

Monday, March 10, 2014

Temple Trip and Taxis

Hello family and friends! Another great week here in Helsinki!

Blahhh I don't even know where to start! so much happened and I can only type so fast! Well first off, the most important thing was that I got to go to the temple!!! It was my first time in the Helsinki temple and it was amazing! We took P-day on Wednesday and took a train to Espoo (where the temple really is) and hit the 10am session. And yes, the session was in Finnish and yes, I understood :) Finally! About half-way through my mission, you'd hope I'd be able to do that. It was super cool to go in Finnish and all the workers are speaking Finnish and I just get to sit there and enjoy it all :) And since it was P-day and everyone around me was a member (because I'm in the temple) it was probably the first time in about 9 months that I didn't have to worry about talking to someone or what I was supposed to be doing or anything. I could just sit there and feel the spirit in the celestial room and read the scriptures in Finnish. ah :) perfect.



So, that was definitely the highlight of the week, but lots of other cool things happened. On Monday/Tuesday Sister Pugmire came and joined our companionship to be on splits. Going out with other sisters is always fun. I also kinda knew Sister Pugmire pre-mission from BYU-I so that was fun to finally see her for real in the field. It was also Laskiaspäivä (go google it) on Tuesday and everyone eats these pastries on this day so of course we stopped and got some so that's what I'm eating in the picture and why we were at a bakery.


On Tuesday, this awesome potential that we met last week called us up and insisted on taking us out for dinner. She was literally crying that we talked to her on the bus because Finns will literally go miles and miles in complete silence on a completely packed tram. And we said hi and talked to this lady and she was so touched and is now reading the Book of Mormon! All because we said hi to her. So it's good to see that people really do appreciate the little things. 

Also on Wednesday, after the temple, we had a cool lesson with a potential who became a new investigator! He's half Italian and half finnish so we teach him in English. We gave him a church tour and talked about the importance of taking the sacrament and he had a billion questions and we're really excited about him!

On Thursday we had dinner with a member family who has a 7 year old girl who is scared to get baptized next month. (She thinks she'll drown) So we explained baptism and what it was and what happens and that her dad will be there to baptize her and she kinda got it, but then we started talking about the Holy Ghost and she got really excited about that. We played that little object lesson game where you set up a kinda obstacle course and "the still small voice" has to lead you through it blindfolded to get some chocolate at the end. She loved it! The lesson went great and the mom was so grateful and she's getting baptized next month so we're super excited for that!

Also on Thursday we went to help a woman in our ward who was getting eye surgery. We were going to meet her at the hospital and then walk her home so she was safe. Well, we came out of the hospital and said "okay, where are the taxis?" And we were super confused because no one used taxis here except the rich foreigners and we all have tram passes but she insisted on taking a taxi! So all three of us climbed in the taxi and had a nice talk with the driver! He was super funny though because we sat down and asked him about his day and he was just like "Minä?" "Me?" Because no one ever talks to people they don't know here and we were like "Yep!" So we made his day :) And it as my first time ever in a taxi! Pretty cool, not all that I though it'd be, but still!

On Saturday we met with our potential investigator and taught the restoration and invited her to baptized and the lesson went great and she became a new investigator too! That makes two new investigators this week!

So basically this week we focused on inviting people to be baptized early and often so that we don't create eternal investigators. We've started teaching the restoration on trams and have gotten fairly good and transitioning into it so that we're actually giving people the opportunity to accept out unique message instead of just talking to them about the church to get in our lesson for the day. We're also trying not to just chit chat on trams with people as much. A lot of times we'll talk to people all around us and they're just interested in the fact that we're Americans and can speak Finnish, but that's not while we're here! Now that we both know Finnish a little better and know more vocab besides just church vocab, it's almost harder to teach! Because we could talk about other things if we wanted to. But we're working on it and have some awesome goals set for this week so I can't wait to see how it goes!

One of the biggest things we're struggling with right now is less-actives and also finding families to teach. No one in the Helsinki area has kids older than about 10 years because the apartments are all too small so they all move away. So even though we have a very big, nice ward, we have one young woman and no young men. That makes it pretty difficult to invite youth to church and activities when there's no one there to be friends with them. So we're trying really hard to find some more families with teenagers to join the church. Also, we have a lot of less actives that literally no one in the ward knows about so we're slowly trying to get around to them all. The only problem is that every building/apartment building in finland is locked and requires a code or someone who lives there to buzz you in. So a lot of times we pray and do all that we can to be able to get into these building and talk with these less actives and some days, like one a couple weeks ago, we hit 10 or so buildings, and somehow (The Lord)  we got into every one. But then, on Saturday, we tried to do the same thing, and we didn't get into a single one. So I'm not sure why it works sometimes, and not others, but we'll just keep on praying and trusting in the Lord!

So that was basically my week! Sisar Curtis are doing awesome together and had fun re arranging our apartment this P-day and getting rid of a TON of Elders' old stuff that has been there for years. 

Well anyway, this week was wonderful. Hope you all have a great week and I love you all!

Sisar Crandallt

Monday, March 3, 2014

Another Week of Miracles!

Hello Family and Friends!

Wow, A week full of miracles that's for sure! I'll try to write them all down, but this letter may be all over the place so bear with me. 

So, major cool things that happened this week:

On Thursday we had a zone conference and President Dyches who is in our Area Presidency and the Quorum of the 70 came! The entire meeting was about sukututkimus (family history) and how we can use it in missionary work. There are 28 family history centers here in Finland and we're getting them all up and running with specialists manning them at certain times and getting our investigators interested in it and it's awesome! 

Also on Thursday, I finished the Book of Mormon! I wanted to finnish it a little bit ago, but I got stuck studying Moroni 7 for a couple days. That is such an awesome chapter packed full of way cool insights. If you haven't read it recently, I'd strongly encourage you to.

This week I also re-read a lot of chapters in PMG. Especially Chapter 9 (Finding People) And realized that the promises made in that chapter in missionaries is that people are prepared around us to accept The Restoration. So Sisar Curtis and I made a goal that whenever we teach a lesson on the trams of buses or street, it needs to be the Restoration. So although we can teach the plan of salvation and about temples and about a billion other things, that's not what people are prepared to receive. So we've been using the Book of Mormon and the Questions of the Soul paper that is inside every copy and it's been going really well! Two cool miracles experiences came from this:

First, We had a referral of someone who (way back in 2006 at the Helsinki Temple Open House) said they wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon. So our office just gave us this HUGE list of people to go contact and give a book of mormon too who might still be interested so we went out! Now it's really hard to just go find someone here in Helsinki because every apartment building is locked and you have to know the door code to get in. So we either have to wait outside the apartment and awkwardly go in when someone comes in or out, or we can't ever get to their door. So we went to contact this referral and we were standing by the front door for a minute or two and then we saw someone go out the back door for a smoke break. So we decided that we'd go stand by the back door because it's like 0 degress outside and that guy wasn't really wearing a jacket so he's going to have to come back inside pretty soon. So we walked away from the front door and on our way to the back door, we passed a lady on the street and said "terve" and she smiled, but just kept walking. So then we realized that she was walking to the front door so we quickly turned around, but she had already gone in and the door shut behind her. But then, another man came out the front door, and we finally got in. So now we're in the building and we figure out which apartment we want and as we're walking up the stairs, we see this same lady who we said hi to on the street walk out of her apartment (which "coincidentally" happened to be the door we needed to go to) and go down the elevator. So yeah, we missed her 2 TIMES! Sheesh. But then we could still hear someone in the apartment so we decided to knock anyway. Her husband answered and we talked to them for a couple minutes, but he said he already had a copy of the book of mormon and he wasn't interested. bummer. So we start walking down the stairs, and guess who comes walking up! The same lady! don't worry everyone, we got her this time. We stopped her and explained that we had just talked to her husband and we were talking about the book of mormon and she was interested! And she said we could come back this week! Man, third time's the charm. So yeah, the Lord is super patient with us and when we miss an opportunity to share the gospel with a prepared person, her will continue to put them in our path until they hear what they need to hear. So cool. This story reminded me a lot of the quote by Elder Holland"Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people areall God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating toHim, but He deals with it. Sshould we."  
Man I'm so comforted by that fact. 

Okay here's the second experience that happened:
We were on a tram talking to this lady and she was kinda interested, but not really. She just told us a lot about her church and we tried to talk to her, but then she just got off. So we kinda didn't really think that much about it because it was like a 4 minute conversation. But then, about an hour later, we were coming out of a lesson and passed her again on the street! So, after having learned our lesson from the previous experience, we stopped her and talked to her again, and she was a lot more open! She gave us her number right then and there and we told her we'd come bring her a Swedish Book of Mormon this week! (We only had Finnish ones with us.) So yeah, the Lord has a much better plan than all of us and he sure is patient with two imperfect missionaries like me and Sisar Curtis.

Then, yesterday we had another miracle while waiting outside this locked apartment building. We had sat there for about 10 minutes and didn't want to waste any more time and all we knew was that this was a 31 year old less active man so we couldn't even go in and talk to him because it was just us 2 so we didn't really know why we were there, but for some reason we kept waiting. Pretty soon, a man came in and opened the door for us so we got in the building (probably because we were still fasting from fast sunday) and just knocked on his door! Well, it turns out that this man had a wife! Who wasn't a member so she didn't show up on our records! So we went in and talked to them and got to know them and taught them a lesson and ended up being there for about 45 minutes! It was so cool! We're meeting with them again this week to do language study and hopefully they're coming to the ward party on saturday! Just one of those experiences where you walk away and you're like "uhhh what just happened?" Gotta love that.
This week we've been focusing on talking with everyone, even if it's just a 2 minute tram ride. I think we got the motivation from a quote we read from President Uchtdorf "Some sins are committed because we do wrong; other sins are committed because we do nothing." So we decided to get over ourselves and talk with everyone because I sure don't want to be held accountable for someone not receiving the gospel because I didn't feel like talking to them or because I judged them and already told myself they wouldn't want to join the church. 

Like I said last week, Sisar Curtis and I are A LOT alike and we have the same weaknesses, but we really push each other and I can see a HUGE growth in what's happened just the past 2 weeks and I'm so excited for the rest of the transfer!

Well, the best part of this upcoming week is that I get to go to the temple! Yep! Now that I'm in Helsinki I got to go every 6 weeks! And since a transfer is 9 weeks long, then I get to go twice this transfer! So I'm going on Wednesday and I get to do a session in Finnish and I'm so excited! 
I'll tell y'all all about it next week!

Well I heard about Kelson and Halee coming home. So fun! Tell them hi for me! And also about Allyson's new calling and all the fun stuff going on at home! Sounds awesome :)
Well this week was awesome. Full of Unity and the Spirit and missionary work. What could be better? I hope you all have a wonderful week and I just love you all so much!

Sisar Crandall

pictures:

A church we visited that's inside of a rock. I think it's called "The church in the rock" church. Finns are very creative.



My first reindeer in Finland



Me and some other sister missionaries (All of us happened to be companions with Sisar Ballif) at zone conference



Me and Sisar Curtis on our way to our zone conference with a GA!