My good friends the Danes (my old roommates) are leaving this week...on monday! We are going to be so sad to see them go. We definitely have the best Zone there is. Since everyone in our zone is at least a 6 week mission, everyone gets to know everyone really well and everyone becomes really good friends. We got 4 new danish sisters a week early for some reason...so they were able to meet the old danes. We are going to be getting like 12 new missionaries in the next week, all sisters. our of the 54 missionaries in our branch right now, there are 30 sisters and 24 elders. There is a great need for sisters to serve missions. We have noticed that in general, the sisters are spiritual studs... and often make really good missionaries. One reason for this is because they usually really only come on their missions because they choose to, because they know they need to, and that they want to. Elders sometimes feel like they have to. But this isn't how it should be...Young men need to get in spiritual shape and choose to serve, want to serve, and then... go serve...not because you are asked to, but because you want to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This week was a pretty good week! We got one of our Investigators: Juusi, to agree to baptism! We were giving him a church tour, and at the end, we felt that we needed to ask him again to be baptized. He said "Miksei" "why not". He is a strange fellow, but we are very happy for him. One thing that we are taught as missionaries is that if you leave an appointment/lesson without giving them an invitation to do something...you have failed your purpose. We are here to help people come closer to christ. They do this mostly through their own actions and changes that they make in themselves. They can't hang off our testimonies forever...They need to find their own. Another thing that we have been trying to practice is to show real disappointment when an investigator doesn't follow thru on their commitment. When we first started learning Finnish, and someone would say that they didnt read their assigned scriptures...than we would say something like this..."ok, hyvää" which means "ok, good" because we didn't know much of what they were saying except that they mentioned the Book of Mormon. YOU NEED TO BE DEVASTATED that they didnt do it. This is so important. If they dont know that the Book of Mormon or prayer is that important, why would they do it?
It started snowing one of the days this week...It didn't stay, but snowed for like 4 hours. pretty cool. They also started putting up christmas lights today! One thing about Utah and the mtc is that the mornings are so cold, but then after you put on your sweater and suit coat in the afternoon it is boiling hot.
Elder Russel M. Nelson came to speak to us on tuesday! It was a great talk...(did you know that he got married 12 years ago) He has such an awesome spirit. When he came in, we were singing "if the savior stood beside me" You could literally feel Christ's presence there. Like I said a couple letters ago, Christ physically runs his church.
We had our last TRC on wednesday. This is where you teach members who know Finnish. We taught this super funny old guy from Iceland i think. Awesome guy. That was probably the best lesson ever. We taught on recognizing blessings in our life. I feel like that lesson was just for him. After our lesson, he said the closing prayer. It was like ten minutes long. My companion elder viitanen's parents are Finnish and they showed up. We didnt get to teach them, but his mom gave us cinnamon rolls. Very good.
The MTC food is really growing on me. The best thing in the world is the MTC broccoli and Cheese. (Parsakaali ja juusto) so good. And we have burgers a lot. today was chilli cheese scones. One thing that I have started doing during gym time everyday is running for the last 15 minutes that we have on the track. This really helps start out my day great. Also, sometimes volleyball can be super fun, when everyone actually tries, which is most of the time, but sometimes you get a goon who wanders on and messes around. Don't be that guy. Worst thing in the world.
Some cool finnish experiences that I had this week:
During one lesson, Our investigator asked about spiritual gifts. I was explaining it and tried to say "esimmerkiksi, minun lahja on että minä olen mukava" (for example, my spiritual gift is that I am nice) but said "makkara" instead of "mukava" so I said (I am a sausage)... Messing up while learning a language is how you learn. I probably won't make that same mistake again. I dont understand how being scared of messing up can keep you from talking, christ fills in what we can't say. If at the very least you make someone laugh because they have no idea what you are talking about.
Sometimes finnish can get really mental...for example:
kuusi = six...while kusi = pee
tapa häntä = meet him...while tappa häntä = kill him
We all love it here at the MTC. I can't wait to get to Finland. We get there a day before their 100 year of independence. It is going to be crazy!
Love elder christensen
No comments:
Post a Comment