Elder Hancock's Mission in Finland: Week 4

Hello, everyone!

The subject line means 'peace, one love'. I heard one of my teachers throw it out this week and I loved it so there you go!

Every day Finnish gets easier and Finnish gets harder, so sorry if I start making weird sentences or something in advance!

Last Friday I went to the health center and got some medicine - pseudophedarine, some random prescription, some other bottle of pills I forgot about, and uh, another one. I don't know why I remembered Sudafed. Oh well!

Saturday I started feeling better, probably because of the medicine. I learned 60 Finnish words that day! The next two days were spent learning about ten and reviewing those 60. I love Finnish, did I mention that? I have a really weird pseudo-Finnish accent now that I can't get to go away, so speaking in the English language sounds strange sometimes.

Sunday was beautiful! I got released from my position as District Leader (three week rotations), got our sacrament meeting moved to T4 (the big new building), played in Sacrament, watched the video Legacy with our zone (we all lost it), strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith being Christ's prophet, and my favorite part, Mitch Davis gave our devotional! He directed the Other Side of Heaven. He talked about how missionaries need to Get Called, Get Courage, and Get Lost! It was wonderful and we got to see a couple clips of the Other Side of Heaven as well.

Monday I was even less sick yay! We learned of our new investigator Karina, which was great! We also got to teach Miro again that day.

Tuesday was amazing. I slept so well, and then the day was great and then Elder Christensen from the Seventy Presidency gave the devotional! In our discussion after, I got so pumped for missionary work that I was literally bouncing up and down in my chair and since I can't go out and tell people in Finland that the Church is true yet I ran around the MTC and told everyone I saw that the Book of Mormon is true!! I got some weird looks but I don't care because I know it's true and I would legitimately die testifying of it (although I hope it doesn't come to that).

Yesterday was great too. Some people in my zone started talking about awkward date stories and I felt so strange hearing them, like, going on dates is such a thing of the past for me now. I know my purpose, I know what I need to know, I know what I need to do to get there, and I know that I love Christ! I'm so glad I'm serving a mission, this has been the best month of my life.

A month! Wow. That's crazy, I'm serving a 23 month mission now! And I'm loving every minute of it. I've matured more this past month than I did my whole senior year, and I've loved putting who I am into God's hands so He can make of me what I need to become.

I love you all! Suomalainen kieli on niin mahtava, mä rakastan se. Mä just haluan olla Suomessa, mutta mä tiedän että mä täytyy ole tassa... nyt varten. Rauha, yksi rakkaus!

Elder Hancock

Week 4 Pictures: