Monday, June 23, 2014

Miracles: Spanish and Baptismal Dates!

Dear Family and Friends!

Holy cow I have so much to tell you! There are literally so many miracles and cool things going on that I can't type fast enough! So first things first, transfers. SISAR JOHNSTON AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER IN NEITSYTPOLKU! YAY! So yep! another 2 months here in Helsinki! I'll be here until the end of August! Sisar Bunting got transferred out of our district and then Sisar Woods is training a greenie so there are just 6 of us now in this ward.

(This is Kathryn's current Address:)
Lönnrontinkatu 42 H 109
00180 Helsinki
Finland

-It snowed this week! This week was Juhannus (Mid-summer's) and is a big deal here in Finland and we celebrated with a barbeque in the park with a member and our investigator. But it wasn't a nice sunny barbeque like in Mesa or anything. We all had jackets on and went inside to eat as soon as the food was cooked because it was too cold. Pretty lame summer here in Finland, but all the light is nice!

-On Thursday was my year mark! So us and the other sisters went out to eat at Vapiano's. It's a way good Italian restaurant (kinda like Olive Garden but without the breadsticks) And they make the pasta in front of you and everything so that was super fun. It was also Sisar Bunting's year mark so we got to celebrate together.

-We headed out to Suomenlinna again this week to meet with our less actives out there and got lost in some medieval castle looking for a potential. So that's what a lot of the pictures are of.

-On Monday we played frisbee with all the missionaries (6 of us now) and some members and some less actives even showed up! It was way fun and it poured the whole time so we were soaked, but it was P-day so it was worth it.
and now.... MIRACLES!!

So recently people have just been handing us people who are ready to be baptized. So that's cool! The Lord has really been preparing these people and have now just put them into our laps. So we found 3 NEW INVESTIGATORS this week! two of them are a Finnish couple we were finally able to set up an appointment with after just stopping by and teaching twice and the third one is a miracle story!

So this woman's name is J and she is from Spain. Cool huh? Well except for the fact that she doesn't speak ANY English or Finnish. Well it would be nice if she lived in the area of two missionaries who speak Spanish, but she doesn't. She lives right next to Sisar Johnston and I :) yay. So J met missionaries in Spain and they taught her all the lessons and then moved to Finland and now wants to be baptized. Well she didn't have a way to contact the missionaries here so she came to the mission office and left her number and said she wanted missionaries to call her so we did! I have talked to people in Spanish on buses and on the street before but all I can say is "We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I don't speak Spanish well but we'll put you in touch with someone who can" Well shout out to all my Spanish speaking missionary friends because Holy Cow teaching in Spanish is HARD! I feel like I'm in my first week at the MTC again. I struggle to get out a complete sentence and all that comes out are Finnish words and it literally took us 15 minutes to invite her to be baptized, but we got it! And she accepted a date! So we met with her on Friday, Saturday, and then she came to church on Sunday! Way cool! We use LOTS of pamphlets and movies and just read things to her in Spanish and we get by. Luckily our comprehension skills are SIGNIFICANTLY better than our speaking skills so we can understand her questions fine and then just send her to the right chapter to find her answer. It's been a SUPER humbling experience though. And this week I had a dream in Finnish and then the next night in Spanish! Yep, my brain's all messed up now, but the Lord is moving his work along in any way possible! And I'm just glad that he can use me as a tool in it :)
OTHER MIRACLE STORY!

The Espoo Elders met this AWESOME girl on the bus.   Her name is H and she's 25 and a Finn! So she met with them for a while and then moved into our area as well! And she has a baptismal date and is progressing and was in church! So everything is falling right into place there and she's so willing to learn and I love it :)
So we ended the week with both of our investigators with baptismal dates in church and with some awesome lessons and miracles falling into place this week.

We're busy planning and helping out with the ward's 4th of July party (there are lots of Americans here). We've also really been focusing on praying always and when something goes wrong instead of asking "What more could I have done?" Asking "How can we more effectively involve the Lord in HIS work?" And miracles are happening! We have some awesome potentials and now with some more people in town after Juhannus hopefully everything will go well this week!

Pictures:

Lost in Suomenlinna... (It's a castle fortress island thing)
This place is beautiful
Wandering through the tunnels...
Beautiful nature :)



Completely empty metro on Juhannus. EVERYONE goes out of town...
Pictures with the sisters and Gesil in the metro station
mirror ceiling picture
We have too much fun together...


Me and Sisar Bunting. (And the Elders...)
Good-bye Sisar Bunting ;(
Neitsytpolku District
about 10pm at night :)


The one-year olds :)
yumm :) Pasta at Vapiano's ;)
My very productive language study :)
PACKAGES!! KIITOS!


They're weird...
Got to see Sisar Lund this week :)
Late night smoothies :)
dinner at Vapiano's :)




2 comments: