I honestly had no idea what to call this email, so the two subject finalists have both been displayed. Whichever one you like better, you can have it. Both are true!
This week has been one of flying tomatoes and steady progress. It's a parable I just made up right now. Tomatoes don't normally fly, but I don't normally speak Finnish! Finnish being ridiculously hard, and tomatoes being ridiculously hard to make fly, the two are basically the same. You have to be diligent if you want to do it! As I've done such, I've been able to make my Finnish fly and my tomatoes speak.
That was an awful parable, so I'll try to make the rest of the email better.
Last Thursday I decided that I was a twig and needed to get ripped, so I lifted weights! Then came the eating a bunch of meat part. I think I ate around maybe three ounces of chicken and half a potato that night, so, uh, we'll see how that goes. The problem is that night I got sick and haven't been much better since soooo exercising is a bit tough at the moment, since I just cough a lot. Oh well. We taught Miro that night and it went pretty well!
Friday I memorized some verbs. Woo. We use an acronym entitled HAVE YOU SLAPT JJAMS and it works surprisingly well!
Saturday our lesson wasn't as great. I got too caught up in speaking Finnish almost as rapidly as I could speak English and totally didn't invite the Spirit.
On Sunday a number of things happened: I was the chorister in Sacrament, taught my district about obedience, was the subject of an object lesson in Priesthood, sang 1st tenor in the MTC choir (converting from bass, whee), watched the UVU President give an awesome devotional, and saw Meet the Mormons 2! Such a wonderful day.
On Monday the English speaking missionaries who entered the MTC with us left. Sigh. It's okay, though, because Finnish is still coming more and more every day! I still can't wait to get out into the field, though. In our lesson that night, I wanted to badly to have the Spirit, unlike our last lesson, so the whole time I was pleading that Miro could feel it, because he was struggling, and then I felt that I should bear my testimony about the Atonement, so I did. And let me tell you, there is no substitute for the Spirit. No amount of stellar Finnish from me or Elder Skinner could've achieved what the Spirit did that night. We all felt the truth of it, that Christ really did suffer for our ignorance, because He loves us.
On Tuesday ELDER STEVENSON CAME!!! It was a wonderful devotional, he talked about how amazing Preach My Gospel is and how we can better use it. I was so enlightened. I was also singing in the choir, and got on the big screen more than once!! The cool thing is that it was being broadcast to all the other MTCs, so they all saw us sing. We sung Hope of Israel, and it's wonderful, we who know the truth of the gospel really are the hope of Israel. Ask yourself, you being the hope of Israel, knowing the truth of the gospel, what are you going to do about it? I exhort all of you to don't falter, fight for your brothers and sisters. We aren't fighting a physical enemy. We're fighting FOR each other. I'm going out to Finland to get Satan off the backs of my brothers and sisters. What else can we all do? I'd invite you to think about that, ye hope of Israel.
Wednesday we taught at the TRC again! That's where we teach Finnish-speaking volunteers, typically members. The Spirit and Gift of Tongues came to both me and my companion, and we had a blast. I can't wait to be in the mission field.
This morning we went to the 7:00 session, and I went to the BYU Student Health Center to get some medicine, but they sent me back to the MTC to get something so I have to go back tomorrow morning. Now I'm here! Whee! I love my mission, and even though I've only been out three weeks and a day, I know that I've been changed forever. I love this gospel like I never have, and I love being a missionary.
Minä rakastan te kaikki! Minä haluan teille on tosi hyvä viiko!
I love you all! I want you all to have a super great week!
--
Elder Hancock
No comments:
Post a Comment