Winter's Here!

Hello Family and Friends!

Well lots happened this week but I can't currently remember any of them... Whoops. Good thing I journal! So here's what sticks out from this week:

Monday we had family night with the YSA! We watched the John Tanner story and our friend S came! She's from Thailand, but speaks Finnish so it went pretty well. And then we made Finnish waffles so that part is always fun as well :)

Tuesday it SNOWED!! Yep this week winter hit! I've worn my winter boots and coat all week and enjoyed the snow covered leaves a bit as well. It's definitely not "white" here yet, but it's coming soon! We also met with a former investigator A this week and she became a new investigator again! She loves the church and really wants to get baptized. She just lives with her boyfriend, but we'll work on that :)

Wednesday we had some appointments with less actives and they went well and contacted and studied and stuff like that, but at night we got to go play Sähly! We had a potential investigator and a less active and her non member boyfriend come so it was a pretty successful night!  (I looked up Sähly and it is like floor hockey.)

Thursday consisted of weekly planning and then meeting with L. She's our investigator from Columbia. We showed her the church and she expressed her desire to get baptized! She doesn't quite understand priesthood and authority yet, but she knows she needs baptism. She's so cool! And we've become really good friends now. 

Friday we had a weird experience.... Earlier in the week we went and stopped by a less active Sisar Jones and I had never met nor knew anything about. He was home, but busy, but gave us his number and said we could call sometime to come meet and that was about it. Well on Friday we went to visit Sisar H who is an older lady in our ward who is in a wheelchair. So she always has an assistant at her house when we go. Well we walked in and this less active man answered the door! How crazy! Sisar Jones had never met him in the 8 months of her being here and the sees him twice in 2 days! So yeah, I think he's getting the sign. We were able to watch a talk of general conference with them and it went great! That's kind of been our way in with the less actives recently. Everyone loves general conference, especially now that it's online and in Finnish. So we've had about 4 appointments with less active members we usually struggle to meet with to watch general conference. We just watch a talk or two and then talk about them, but then they want to watch more after we leave! One less active member even asked us to show her how she could send the link to her mom in Ukraine. So yeah, you can always bank on the prophets :) It works pretty well for us as well because now we've been able to see some of the talks from the sessions we missed.

Saturday was super busy as well! We had an appointment with our investigator A from Bangladesh. We talked about prayer and the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy in Bengali (his native tongue) There's a slight language barrier, but he's already Christian and was going to a Christian church here in English so I think we'll be okay. We also met with our ward music coordinator who is kinda a less active. We're planning a restoration concert entitled "Tulkaa Kristuksen Luokse" (Come Unto Christ). It's going to be a lot like the Music and the Spoken Word that we did in Neitsytpolku, but a lot of people here in Tampere play instruments so that should make it pretty cool! 

Sunday - great day! L came to church! We went and picked her up in the morning and she loved it! And stayed for all 3 hours! We're watching the restoration movie with her later today so it should help some of her questions. Then we had a lesson with V. He's the investigator with a LOT of questions. He's Lutheran (as all Finns are) and struggles with the idea that he would first have to say that the Lutheran church isn't true in order for him to ask God if the Book of Mormon is true because there are contradictions between the two. We had Sisar And Vanhin Jouttenus come with us (he's a member of the area 70 I think) And tried to teach simply, but it's hard when he has such deep doctrinal questions. So we just focused on the fact that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion and by the end I think he understood that he needs to pray about it. We'll see how it goes next week.

Well this week was a great one! I'm really loving Sisar Jones and Tampere and being a missionary and everything. Transfer calls come this Friday and that means Transfers are next Monday/Tuesday. so send any mail to the mission office. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm staying here in Tampere, but you never know what President Watson has up his sleeve! 

All is well here in the North Pole. Christmas lights are already up all over the city even though it's still fall. But when Halloween and Thanksgiving aren't holidays, people have no reason to not just jump to Christmas in October! Sisar Jones and I love it though :)

Well I hope you're all happy and healthy :) I'm praying for you all and that we can all do what the Lord needs us to today. I love you!!

Rakkaudella

Sisar Crandall

p.s. Sorry if this is short. The pictures will make up for it.

First day we had to wear our winter clothes!

There are so many leaves!!

Zoomed out version of the above picture...

Just look how beautiful Finland is!

Out on the dock :)

Beautiful Tampere Skyline

So many leaves!!'

I LOVE FALL

IT'S SNOWING

This is basically what it looks like everywhere everyday of this week. So cool.