Welcome to Kesäkuu!

Hello Everybody! 

First off, Congrats to Camille for getting a scholarship! So proud. 

Well I'm emailing on Sunday this week because we have Interim next week! 

So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all the trainees and trainers will be in meetings/trainings with President and Sisar Rawlings from 10 to 5 ish. Kinda long, I know, but this also means that we get to have the Kuopio sisters stay with us! Sisar Nielsen and her trainee Sisar Bates will be at our apartment all week so we're super excited for that! We'll also have 2 companionships in our area in the evenings so that means a lot more work will get done! So I'm excited to see what'll happen this week. That also means that on Thursday I get to be on splits with Sisar Nielsen all during the day while our companions are in Kieli Koulu (language school) and then ALL of us get to go to the temple! It's the first time they've done it that way so I'm pretty excited. It's also our President's last Interim (He goes home end of this month) So obviously he saved the best for last and it's going to be awesome. So anyway, that's what I've got coming up this week. But as for last week, Here's what happened:

Monday- We had our ward activity! It was a dessert competition! Sisar Johnston and I made a Finnish version of Oreo Truffles (I wanted to make muddy buddies but Rice Chex doesn't exist in Finland...) And they turned out really well! And apparently people even voted for us! But we didn't win :( But the cool thing was that we had an investigator and a potential show up! So they got to see the church and meet some members and it went super well. And I was super proud of everyone in our ward for coming out. Usually ward activities have a kinda sad turn out here in Finland, but this one went great! 

Tuesday-Not much happened today. Just a LONG District Meeting with our new District Leader, Elder Smith, and studies and some Less actives. We had a lesson with our new investigator today and... she dropped us. I guess she found out a little more about "mormons" from the internet or something and wanted to give us the Book of Mormon back. We told her to keep it and it ended on a good note, but that still was kinda disappointing. But then we finally got to meet with this less-active girl! She's about 27 and super cute and seriously would be best friends with our investigator V so we figure we'll re-activate her through missionary work.

Wednesday-2 NEW INVESTIGATORS TODAY! Last week we really focused on talking with everyone and we got some awesome potentials and we were able to get in contact with them and make them investigators today! Yay! We really needed some addition to our teaching pool... And then we were also able to finally meet with our Less-Active! And the lesson went AWESOME! She really has become friends with us and is now totally open to coming to all the YSA activities and to meet with us and everything. She just needs some more friends in church and she's good to go! And we also got to meet with this referral we got from a member. We went over a couple of weeks ago to help her do some spring cleaning and clean her windows and then invited her to the ward activity on Monday. She wasn't able to come, so we brought her some of our dessert tonight and talked a lot about families and we gave her a copy of the Proclamation and that went really well as well. So we still have a TON of potentials that we're working with and hopefully they'll become a little more interested soon!

Thursday-Well we ended up not having any lessons scheduled today, but we did have Weekly Planning and then helping our Ward Mission Leader move (don't worry, he's still in the ward). So that took up a chunk of our time, but we were still able to make some awesome plans for next week with the sisters here!

Friday-Well to be honest, today was a struggle day... One of those "everything that can go wrong does and everybody cancels and is rude to you" kinda days. We were able to meet with a LA and it went really well, but she was upset that we had to hurry and leave and help another member move and then after some missed buses and metros and getting lost, we finally were able to help two YSA girls in our ward move (also still in the ward) and then we had to run off to meet our recent convert and we were extremely late and then our appointment afterwards cancelled and everything was just crazy and somehow we ended up at the baptism of a member boy in Marjaniemi with our recent convert. The baptism went REALLY well and the Dad's not a member and it was just a great experience for everyone. So we ended up on top at the end of the day :)

Saturday-BEST DAY! Today was one of the best days I've had on my mission. Which was awesome because Friday was a bummer. Well, first off, The Sister's investigator got baptized!! Yay! So we got to have another baptismal service and it was absolutely beautiful. This investigator had been married to a member for 30 years or so and had kids her were members and it was just his time now :) He was baptized by his son-in-law and the whole family was there and I just loved it :) I didn't even teach this man but I teared up a little bit just thinking about all the potential their family now has. It was wonderful :) 

And another amazing thing happened today! We were just in our apartment studying before we had to head out to the baptism and the door bell rings. That NEVER happens so I was slightly hesitant, but I answer it and guess who was there?!! SISAR GRETA BALLIF! My old companion/trainer who went home in November came back to visit Finland with her whole family! And they were staying at the hotel across the street! I seriously freaked out! It was so so good to see her again. So after a few hugs and catching up for a minute or two, she invited us to come have dinner with her and her family. I was so excited! So that's what we did tonight! We ate at Tortilla House and I got to meet 7 of her 9 siblings and it was so cool! We were companions 3 months so I had heard so much about everyone so it was just so great to finally meet them all! Seriously, one of the funnest things that's happened in a long time. So yeah, A baptismal service and Sisar Ballif...er...Greta made today great :)

Sunday-Fast Sunday and church and nothing too exciting so far. We have an appointment with our new investigator and a member today and I'm super excited for that and then some awesome plans next week so I'll letcha know how it goes! Sorry this week was basically just a journal entry of things that happened. Hopefully I'll have some cooler stories and insights next week. Well, I love you all so much!  Have a wonderful week! And Welcome to June!

Sisar Crandall

p.s. Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. I did take them! And I even remembered my cord! But I left my camera at home...