Elder Hancock's Mission in Finland: Week 5 - FREE GOLD and PRESIDENT NELSON!!!

Joo, jos se ei ole suosikkini ihmiset!

This week has flown by! The MTC is great, I think David Archuleta is singing with us in a couple weeks, but we'll hear about that later!

Last Thursday I got my first haircut here! It was fine, I guess, and free, so there you go!

On Friday I gave the sermon on the bed! I talked about the time I was saved from drowning in Hawaii and then related it to a time I was figuratively saved from drowning, it was nice. I also did a flip, so, uh, there you go. We taught Miro and got him to commit to come to church!

Saturday was great, we got to show Miro around the 'church' and had just an all-around fun day!

On Sunday I passed the sacrament, which was a fun throwback, and bore my testimony. Our choir director gave the devotional, which was awesome, because he's a seminary teacher who really knows his stuff and he's super funny. He talked about William W. Phelps and how we came to the Church, had one tiny problem that grew to a huge deal to him, left the Church, wrote a whole ton of fake testimonies against Joseph Smith accusing him of murder and blackmail, which got Joseph Smith thrown into Liberty Jail, and then later William W. Phelps was just completely broken when the missionaries found him, and he wrote a letter to Joseph apologizing for the awful things he'd done, and Joseph welcomed him back completely with the most genuine, kind letter I've ever seen. William W. Phelps came back to the Church and was one of Joseph Smith's best friends. After Joseph Smith was martyred at Carthage, he wrote the song 'Praise to the Man'. After Brother Egett's devotional, we watched the Restoration movie. I appreciate the life of Joseph Smith so much more know. He was one of the kindest people to walk this earth, never seeking for his own gain, ever. He got tarred and feathered multiple times, so many of his children died, never ever got rich, and died for what he knew was true. I loved that movie. One of my favorite sayings from him was "My mission is to testify of Jesus Christ. I know that He lives." It's so simple and yet so applicable to my life now.

On Monday we had Chick-fil-A! Woo! And During volleyball I kept spiking the ball so hard I had this huge bruise on my wrist, so rip to me. Also shoutout to Oliver and Andrew! I saw them working on their case all the time and they work so hard, so it's awesome to see that their work is paying off. And great job to the rest of the debate team! Whee! Monday was when I heard about all that. Anyway, so we taught Miro and the Spirit threw us off of our lesson plan completely, and we ended up to where he said that he knew the Church was true, wanted to follow Christ's example, and get baptized! Wooo!!! The Spirit was so strong and it brought back the full baptismal invitation in Finnish to my memory. I loved it.

Tuesday it snowed! Yay! I've missed snow so much, I love it. I've only ever lived in Utah, Minnesota, Idaho, and now Finland coming up in three weeks and four days, so I was pretty happy. I'm going to miss snow machining but every thing has their season. (if you got that reference and why it was funny, I love you. hint: Ecclesiastes) So that night, choir seemed to be a little more special than normal, and it turned out that was because PRESIDENT NELSON CAME AND SPOKE TO US!!! He has like 120 great-grandchildren, did you know that? He was really fun about it and spoke about how we're living epistles of Christ. His wife also referenced the chain on the Baltic Way that was made when the Berlin Wall fell, stretching from Lithuania through Latvia up into Estonia's capital, Tallinn, which is about fifty miles from Helsinki, so nice shoutout to the Baltics there. She spoke about how we make a chain of covenants, it was awesome.

Wednesday I hosted Sister Ashley Burt! It was crazy because Elders hardly ever host Sisters, only when we're completely out of Sisters to help host, so I got told to go take a Sister car and I saw it was from 1M and was like, hey, maybe I know them! Yeah, so it was Sister Burt, who I've known since like 3rd grade, so that was cool. I thought a lot that day about D&C 4, talking about serving with all your heart, might, mind and strength. I heard a lot about the new Thor movie, and we were talking about it in our dorm. I think that if you're on your mission and wish that you could watch a movie you couldn't then you're doing your mission wrong. I love being a missionary! My life is amazing and there's nowhere I'd rather be, except maybe in the field. ;) We taught at the TRC for the last time last night before we start Skyping Finns and it was great!

I was able to do initiatories today and I loved it! I love this gospel and this mission and I know it's true! I love you all! Email me, I love hearing from you!

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Hancock

Elder Hancock