Last Wednesday we got in and immediately started working on Finnish. I was like "ah ah ah!" but it's been great! That night was fine but my mind was so full it was tough to get to sleep.
A week ago (Thursday) I was sitting in our branch meeting super tired and wondering if I'd be able to survive the next two years being so overwhelmed with new things when I got called to be the District Leader! That was quite humbling of an experience, I'll tell you what. But I've loved serving the elders and sisters in my district and have come to love them so much.
Friday was pretty full! Finnish went super well. The others elders seem to always ask me questions about Finnish which is pretty cool at some times and a little stressful at others, but I'm so glad I spent so much time studying the language before coming out here to the MTC.
Saturday was Oliver's birthday! Shout out to him for being 16! He's single as pringle, ladies, so don't be shy. I taught my first lesson (in Finnish, no less) that day! It went really well, although I couldn't remember the word for 'read' (lukea) so I sat there for five seconds trying to figure out how to get our investigator Anna to read the Book of Mormon, so I eventually just went 'minä haloan sinua katso kaikki Mormonin Kirja, okei?' which means 'I want you to look at all of the Book of Mormon, okay?' It probably seems a little trivial but it cracked me up, possibly because I was waving my arms around trying to describe it while I was speaking.
Sunday was sooo looong. Fast Sundays are something else at the MTC, goodness gracious. I couldn't eat food so I consumed Finnish all day and felt like I had a headache. We had a lot of meetings, but in Sacrament meeting the Weegies (Norwegians) and Swedes, who are in our branch, sang the EFY melody of As Sisters in Zion/We'll Bring the World His Truth in Norwegian and Swedish with English for the last verse which was so beautiful that I literally lost it at the end and became a shaking fountain of salty tears but it was okay because I wasn't the only one!! If you want to hear what the song sounds like it's on YouTube. Also, we had a devotional from President and Sister Martino (MTC President and his wife) and that was fantastic. We then watched Elder Bednar's address to the MTC some years ago entitled the Character of Christ. It was phenomenal. The essence of the talk is that without Christ's outstandingly, completely perfect character of selflessness, the Atonement could not have occurred. There's a shortened version of it on YouTube because he gave a similar address at BYUI, and I would highly suggest finding it. I can't even explain the Spirit that comes from that talk.
Monday flew by. I finally started to recognize that missionary life IS my life, and once I had that ingrained into my mind, my outlook got a whole lot brighter. I don't have to be perfect at Finnish, even though I certainly was trying to, because I just need to bring in the Spirit. THE SPIRIT IS THE TEACHER! :) Speaking of teaching, we taught another lesson on Monday! Finnish just came to me and I didn't have any problems with it, which I thought was nice being in here for five days! The gift of tongues is so real, my friends. If we live worthily, desire righteously, ask sincerely, and act with totality, we all can access it. The Weegies and Swedes left on Monday, which was sad, but they're in a better place. I'll miss playing volleyball with them.
Tuesday was LA DAY! We woke up at 2 am and somehow got ourselves dressed and over to the travel office to get on a bus. We got to the SLC airport and realized that Elder Christensen had forgotten his driver's license! Whoops. We said a pretty intense prayers that it would work out. He got in (yay) and we flew to LAX, where our shuttle was nowhere to be found. It was supposed to be there twenty minutes before we were. We waited for 45 minutes and said about five prayers in that time when it showed up! We drove to the consulate and saw the LA temple, which was cool, and met with this lady about three minutes each who took our fingerprints and then we were done! So our phone stopped working and we had no idea what to do, since our itineraries dropped off at that point, and we said another prayer, worked some weird things with the phone, and it started working again! We called Church Travel and told them that we were Finnish missionaries stranded in the middle of Los Angeles and they told us they had scheduled a bus for us, coming two hours later. Soooo we got some food and studied, and met an ex-Mormon who a pretty nice guy (I think he left when he was about thirteen, he told us about being a deacon and doing baptisms for the dead) and eventually got back to LAX, where we met two Finnish ladies and a Finnish RM! That was so cool. We got back to SLC around 7:30 and got some burgers, then made it back to the MTC around 9. The same missionary who had been so happy about "leaving this spirit prison" that morning was equally happy about returning, we were all so tired.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was awesome! We got some new Swedes and Weegies (including Sister Julia Kimball from Rexburg). I jammed my finger playing basketball so I ran for exercise time, which was pretty nice, although the corners on the track are so tight that any mile under six minutes makes you feel like you're going to fall down. I got to play the piano in the new building, which I LOVED, I LOVE THE PIANO, I FELT THE SPIRIT SO STRONGLY AHHH, so that was great. ;) I taught Anna (our investigator) again today and my Finnish went so well, I had zero problems whatsoever, even when we extended the baptismal invitation and she asked why she needed to be baptized again, she'd been baptized as a baby. I went on this thing about asking her if God is a God of order, and if being a God of order, which she had said he was, would he have mutilple churches on the earth or one? So if like Christ says in Johanneksen Kirja (the book of St. John) that we need to be baptized in order to return to Taivallinen Isä (Heavenly Father), would he want priests of the world determining how baptism was to work or determine it himself? He would determine it himself, so I then talked about Priesthood authority being restored with Joseph Smith, which allows order to come to the baptismal process. This was all in Finnish!!! I wasn't even paying attention to trying to look for words (well, maybe once or twice) and asked her if she felt that the Book of Mormon was true (since God has one church and our church has the Book of Mormon), by really studying (not just reading, that never works) all of it and doing as Moroni says and asking God if it was true, if she would be baptized? And she said yes!! So in my closing prayer (again, in Finnish) I poured out my soul asking Heavenly Father to tell her that it was true as he had told me and started crying, and then when I got back upstairs to our classroom, excused myself and started crying again. I felt the Spirit so strongly, and it didn't matter that I was speaking in Finnish, it was the same true gospel. If you're wondering if you should serve a mission, this one week has already been the best week of my life, and Heavenly Father will bless you so, so much for it.
That night, at dinner, President and Sister Martino with their grandchildren came at sat with my companion and I! We talked to them for about 45 minutes, it was so cool. We talked to them about their missions, being the MTC President, Finland, why we came to serve missions, and taught their grandchildren some Finnish, which they loved (they were all about three to six years old, so so cute, I love kids). That was a wonderful experience.
So overall, I love it here. My district, and well as the Danes and some other missionaries, here, are so wonderful. We're all working together to learn how to serve best our Savior and King. I am so beyond humbled to have His name on my chest every day. I love Jesus Christ so much, with all my heart, and even though none of us are perfect or have perfect Finnish or even perfect testimonies, Christ is perfect, and nothing else matters to me except doing my best to become like Him.
I love you all!
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