Week 2 - Kärsivällisyys eoisyksessä!

Terve, kaikki! 

If you're one of the 7.5 billion people in the world who don't speak Finnish (unlikely chance, I know, but BOY SCOUTS ARE PREPARED HOOOOYAH) then you're probably wondering what my subject line means. Kärsivällisyys eoisyksessä means 'Patience in Progression' and it's sort of become my motto this past week. With all the things we want to achieve in our futures (e.g. for me, learning Finnish fluently) we can sort of get caught up for a bit and forget that to get to those points we need to work on the present! So recognizing that true progression takes patience this week has been great for me, since growing up I had a problem with patience, wanting to do everything now now now.

Also, I realized that I added around ten of you to my contacts in MyLDSMail but then totally forgot to add you to my group email list! So I took care of that, and if you'd like to see what I wrote last week (or even before then, my thoughts before my mission and random entries) I have this mission blog!!! My Mom keeps it up for me now (thanks mom) so you can check out any week if you want.

Aside from that, I'd like to share a couple things about MTC life! First, we are not only allowed but encouraged to check our emails often, so even though I can't actually write until P-day, I definitely see all of your emails. That's been great. We have vending machines here and they're heavenly. I actually think they may be a lesson on frugality in disguise, since we only get six dollars to use a week and they have super good stuff. I also think that sending my pictures in the same email could be causing some problems for some people so I'm going to be doing that separately from now on.

Anyway, on to my week! I'll try and shorten it up a bit this time buuuuut we'll see how that goes.

Last Friday I became a basketball legend. I'm basically LeBron James now. Haha not really, but for some reason I just got way more competent at basketball this week. Also, the new buildings were dedicated on Friday! That was so cool! President Eyring came. He brings in the Spirit really well and he's very obviously a man of God. Anna turned out to be our teacher! That was pretty wild. Sometimes the investigator really is the teacher! *shrug* She's Sister Ross now, and she's so great. Other than that, we had pizza that day! It must've been good, because I wrote it in my journal.

On Saturday I wrote my first talk in Finnish! A good chunk of it was me quoting President Uchtdorf (I love him so much) but I was pretty proud of it. It was about obedience, which to us as missionaries is absolutely paramount.

Sunday was mahtava (awesome in Finnish)! I taught the lesson in Elder's Quorum, about the restoration. We spent a lot of time on how Satan fell upon Joseph Smith as he was praying, and how Joseph Smith exerted all of his energy to call upon God and was delivered. We need to do the same, when we have trials or darkness in our lives, we need to call upon God and He will help deliver us. We also had a devotional from Brother and Sister Dalton (She used to be the general Relief Society President). They talked a lot about missions, and we all loved it. We then watched the Mountain of the Lord video (about the construction of the Salt Lake Temple) and had a wonderful discussion on God's love. We also had our nightly Sermon on the Bed (our zone does it, every night someone different gets on a top bunk with the rest of our zone crammed in the room and that person gives a thought). It was about Christ being our big brother who went out to serve a mission, and we really missed him. We heard about him being persecuted by the people he was serving and he was killed by them. The people our big brother was serving killed him. Our big brother was killed on his mission for us. That really touched me and I cried a bit.

On Monday we got a new investigator! He's actually our teacher Veli Ryan, but he portrays a man named Miro. We already love him. He's really shy but he loves families so we focus our lessons on that a lot. Our Sermon on the Bed that night was about how God sees us as His children and He wants the very best for us, He loves us and wants to help us.

Tuesday was bittersweet. One of the elders in our mission went home. Interesting story, so I had no idea that he was going to leave, but that night I had a dream that he left and that the Finnish missionaries were connected with and comforted by an older man in a suit and told that we had the strength to make it through our own missions with Heavenly Father. Well, I woke up and the elder had left at 3 am, and that night our devotional was with a Seventy who served his mission in Finland. He gave us so much strength, and by the end we knew that even though we didn't know everything we knew enough to serve a mission, and that God loved us and would strengthen us. I was able to share that in our district discussion that night and we all felt the Spirit. 

Wednesday we taught Finnish speaking members (who weren't our teachers) for the first time... and lo and behold who do we end up teaching but my companion's cousin!! It was great. We taught two lessons and they both were great. 

Thursday (today) we woke up early to get to 7:30 session. Quote of the day: why in the blasted tarnation are we up at six am, what am I, a shepherd? Yes you are, Elder!! Someone forgot to tell him why we woke up at six. Temple breakfast was greeeeat. We exercised for a bit, had lunch, and now I'm here!

I love this gospel so much. It's true, I know it. The Holy Spirit is real and touches our hearts if we seek it. There really is meaning to this life, and Christ really is our Savior and King, God's Son, our big brother, who loves us and died for us. He died for us. He. Died. For. Us. A perfect man. Serving in his place has got to be on of the most humbling things ever, but with His help I can help other people in Finland feel His love too. 

Have a fantastic week, everyone!!!

--

Elder Hancock


From Mom:
Our friend Brigham Taylor who used to live here in Rexburg (he has kids that are my kids' ages) texted me yesterday with a picture of him standing with Elder Hancock at the MTC, texting me as they stood there together.  Brigham was at the MTC doing some training for senior missionary couples and just happened to run into him.  It was such a wonderful surprise.