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