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| Sisar Egan, Sisar Nielsen, and Sisar Hubner - one last picture together |
Monday, October 28, 2013
10/28/13 - Long Story Short, I'm Alive! I'm Well! and I'm Happy!
MOI FROM KUOPIO.
After my last email, I boarded a train (BY MYSELF. weird.) and rode 3 hours to the North to my new city. The longer we rode, the more snow there was. When I finally arrived, I was greeted by my new companion Sisar Lund. She's from Utah and we get along really well! I'm so excited to see what we will do together this change. We are officially the youngest companionship in the mission. I've been in the country for 2 months, she's been in the country for 4. We are by far the most inexperienced and neither one of us knows the language all that well. She's only been in Kuopio 2 weeks longer than me because of a mid transfer transfer so everything's pretty much new to her too. Long story short, WE ARE PRETTY MUCH CLUELESS. But we're ready to work! This area apparently has a rep for being a low baptizing and low finding area. When I got here, there were no progressing investigators (somebody who learns about the gospel continually) and only about 2 investigators (people who are interested in learning more). We decided that we don't care what the past is here. We don't care what is "expected" or "possible" here. We don't care what people say we can or can't do. We're just gonna do it! We drove around Kuopio (WHICH IS GORGEOUS BY THE WAY) and found a place to stop. We got out and said a prayer together asking the Lord to help us to take Kuopio where He desires it to be, because we both know that He has greater things in mind for this place than the limitations that have previously been set for it. After we said "Aamen", we were ready to work.
On one of the days this week, we didn't have any plans at all. So we decided to make it a "finding day" so we could find more people that would be interested in the gospel. We also made it a "pray always" day (which we pray all the time anyway, but we reaaaaaally prayed A TON that day). We felt we should go stop by a less actives house, so we took her some cake and went to introduce ourselves. She let us in and we were able to give her a nice teach. Then we decided to tract her whole building. It was interesting because earlier that day, I had been praying to ask the Lord where we should go. I had gotten the feeling that we needed to go tracting. Now here's the thing, I hate tracting! I think it's so inefficient and quite frankly having the door slammed in your face time after time after time eventually starts to get old (call me crazy). But I had gotten that impression and I knew that's what we needed to do. We also knew that the Lord had brought us to this area for a reason so we tracted that building. And guess what! WE FOUND 3 NEW INVESTIGATORS. AND TWO WERE FAMILIES. It was amazing! We also had met a really awesome 20 year old girl on the street the day before and we set up an appointment with her the day we found those other 3 investigators so that means we found a total of 4! WE MORE THAN DOUBLED the current investigator count. It was insane. As we walked home in the freezing rain, I could not wipe the smile off my face! This is why I'm a missionary! And it just amazes me that we have a Father in Heaven who cares about us and loves us! And lets imperfect people like ME do HIS work. I have witnessed so many miracles in my lifetime, and I think on my mission I am just more aware of even more. God lives. and He cares! When we called our district leader that night (we call in every night to let him know we're home safe and give a mini reporting of the day) he could not believe that we had found 4! He just kept being like "4?! What?!" We're going to take Kuopio to the next level. It's not going to be easy. It's actually gonna be way hard. Pretty much impossible if we didn't have the Lord on our side. But we do and with Him, all things are possible.
I have witnessed the miracle of the gift of tongues even more apparently since coming to Kuopio. Both Sisar Lund and I are at a similar level of understanding... which basically means most of the time we are totally clueless as to what is happening. But here's the thing, so many times this change I feel like all of sudden I can understand everything perfectly! It's crazy. And then all of sudden, I go back to not being able to understand anything at all, like literally nothing. It's the craziest thing. But I've noticed in times where we need to understand what is being said, all of a sudden it comes clearer to me and it's almost as if I'm hearing it in English. CRAZZZY. And then on Sunday there were some nonmembers at church who were from China and didn't speak Finnish. The teacher of the class asked if Sisar Lund and I would translate for them. UHHHH MITÄ?! We didn't really have a choice so we said "okay....". And I mean it was probably the worst translating job in the history of translators (and who knows... we might've just taught them our own lesson instead of what the teacher was saying) but we did it! Through the Lord, we were able to do it.
So long story short, I'm alive! I'm well! and I'm happy! I drove in Finland for the first time here so that was pretty exciting. We have a car so we drive a lot. It makes it harder to contact people but it's nice when it's raining/showing and it's freezing cold. Pray for the people of Kuopio. They don't know what's about to hit them. Pretty much, they're all gonna join the church, the teens are all going on missions, and everybody's gonna get married in the temple and live with their families forever and be HAPPY. Sounds like a pretty good game plan to me.
LOVE YOU ALL. THE CHURCH IS TRUE.
Sisar Nielsen - p.s. I just got myself a new reflector. Because it's so dark here, it's required by law that everybody wear reflectors all the time. So now I'm all legit and stuff (and obeying the law... ya know us missionaries - we gotta be obedient.)
Monday, October 21, 2013
10/21/13 - I'm Ready To Go (Alternate title - Crying, Crying and More Crying)
This has been quite the week.
On Friday we were expecting change calls. All of the missionaries in the mission patiently (and by patiently I mean not very patiently!) wait around their phones for President to call. He calls to tell us if any changes are being made to our companionship. Well Friday came and went and there was NO CALL from President. We were staying with the Sisters in Turku because we went down there for exchanges and we were all freaking out. Well Friday came and went and Saturday morning dawned bright and early. Sisar Hubner and I woke up and went on a run at 6 am through the streets of Turku. It was absolutely beautiful. Turku is a very old city and we ran across the cobblestone roads past the beautiful architecture until we made our way to a very old church in a different area of the city. It looked like something out of the Middle Ages. It was amazing. We returned back to the Sisters' apartment and were getting ready for the day when the phone rang - it was President. Sister Hubner and I weren't nervous at all because we have only been here for 9 weeks and we still have 3 weeks left of training and they don't normally split up new missionaries from their companions for the first two changes. Also, we had basically been hinted to by the Zone Leaders it was pretty much decided that we would all stay in Tampere. Welllllll, it just constantly amazes me how President can rock our world. His voice came clearly on the phone and said "Well, this is actually a real change call. Sisar Nielsen, you're going to Kuopio." WHAT. So basically I'm being transferred today (Monday) to Kuopio. I'm the only sister in my zone and the only one of the 15 of us who arrived to the country together to get transferred! Kuopio is in the North Zone so it's even COLDER. Apparently they have a craaazy accent and many Finns have told me that it's hard for them to understand them! Pray for me! However I've heard that it's absolutely beautiful there and that it's the perfect "Finnish experience." I'm really excited to go, but I'm also so sad! I'm gonna be honest, I've done a lot of crying since I found out. I cried pretty much all through both wards at church yesterday. Both made me bear my testimony. In the first ward, my district leader gave his goodbye address because he's going home to America. In the second ward, my Zone Leader gave his goodbye address because he's going home too. It was so emotional! Sarah, the recent convert, just cried as she hugged me. She also bought me a very expensive sweater that has a really big turtle neck as a going away gift. She said it was so big so "it can keep my neck warm so I have my voice to preach the gospel in the cold." Baaaaaasically I love her. It broke my heart having to leave her. Many of the youth wanted to know my name so they could add me on Facebook when I go home. I had many a tearful goodbye. The night before we were sitting at home, and Sisar Hubner was like "what am I gonna do without my twin? I'm gonna start crying" and then tears literally started BURSTING from her eyes. It was actually the weirdest thing. hahaha and even she was like "uh what is going on?" as they started streaming down her face. Long story short, it's reallllly hard for me to say goodbye because I already love all of these people so much. But I know that I'm needed in Kuopio. Before change calls happened, I had prayed that the Lord would keep me in Tampere unless I was needed somewhere else. When President first told me I was going, I felt the Spirit confirm to me that I'm needed there. Then yesterday at church, the young woman who's friend we are teaching tearfully said goodbye to me and said (in Finnish) "they need you there". The Spirit instantly hit me. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to travel by train (BY MYSELF) for a couple hours North to storm castles, preach the gospel, and save souls!
MISSIONARY WORK IS BOOMING HERE. We had the most amazing lesson of my life. (which is another reason why it's going to be so hard for me to leave). We taught that teenage girl again. This time we taught her at the church. We discussed the second half of the Restoration and focused more on the Priesthood. First we started by giving a church tour (she comes to church a lot but she doesn't know what all the other classes at church are). We talked about the restoration of the Priesthood, how it's the power of God and the authority to act in God's name, and how it blesses our lives. We talked about the different ordinances we perform with the priesthood-sacrament, baptism, and gift of the Holy Ghost. We then showed her a Mormon Message called Power of God (http://www.lds.org/media-
I had to whip out my winter coat for the day it snowed. Like my real $200 winter coat that comes down to my mid-calf and is about the warmest thing I've ever worn in my life. I've heard that there's already quite a bit of snow in Kuopio... we shall see about that.
Basically, I'm still way awkward. When we were at the train station going to Turku I tried to walk through doors that were automatically closing the other way. I about got squashed in them and I had to shimmy my way out. Sisar Egan just looked at me as she walked through the doors next to me with ease (because they were actually the correct doors to go through) and just said "wow, can you get any more awkward....?" Luckily, Sisar Hubner is also way awkward. On Saturday, we were sprinting to our bus (something that we do quite often) except this time we had our suitcases with us because we were heading home from Turku and had our backpacks full and were wearing like a bajillion warm clothes and boots that pretty much acted as ankle weights. Sisar Hubner and I were sprinting towards the bus when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw things flying around. I turned and saw that Sisar Hubner's backpack had come unzipped and pamphlets and cards were going every which way. Also, she had broken one of her boots earlier and we had just picked it up from a shop where it was fixed so it also went flying and almost landed in the street. As I yelled at her to stop running, she whipped around and more things went flying out. The bus' doors were starting to close so I just continued to book it to the bus. I got there just in time to stop the bus and get on, completely out of breath (did I mention we had to run up a sloped street in the middle of the busy city to get to the bus stop?) I said "Anteeks, meilla on ongelma" (sorry, we have a problem) the bus driver just looked in the side mirror and could see everything and just said "yessss...." I yelled out "Sisar, oletko ok?" (Are you okay) and the entire bus turned in one accord to look out the window at my two companions struggling to pick up everything. I felt kinda bad for drawing the entire bus' attention towards them but I needed someway to stall the bus driver! After a lot of running around and grabbing things, they finally stumbled on the bus with pamphlets, books, and boot in hand.
Well, next time you hear from me, I'll be up north. Hopefully I'm not a total popsicle. KIRKKO ON TOTTA. just remember that okay? The gospel changes lives! This is the only way that we can find lasting happiness, in this life and the life to come. I miss and love you all. But I know I'm exactly where I need to be right now.
Rakaudella,
Sisar Nielsen
Monday, October 14, 2013
10/14/13 - Then We Went To Work
MOI. So for starters, I saw the most beautiful sunset in the whole wide world the other day. We were riding our bikes trying to find a less active's house and we got to witness the whole thing. It kept changing colors and had the most brilliant clouds and sunbeams. Seriously, it was so good that even other missionaries mentioned it the next time we talked to them. Heavenly Father is truly a master creator, and I'm so grateful to be in this beautiful country.
This was a good week. It was tiring, but it was good! Every week we set goals that we want to achieve (example: number of teaches we want, number of investigators at church, number of referrals from members of their friends that we can teach, etc). By setting goals, we are able to put our trust and faith in the Lord. Well this week, we all felt really strongly that we needed to set some pretty high goals. Even though most of the numbers were higher than we have ever reached, we decided to follow the Spirit and trust in the Lord. Then we went to work.
We taught this teenage girl who is the friend of one of the young women. We had a great meal with them before and then we taught about the Restoration. From the moment we started talking it reminded me of when Kimmy took the missionary discussions. (Jenessa's high school friend who was baptized 2 1/2 years ago.) The lesson went great and the Spirit was strong. At the end I was bearing my testimony and I just started crying. Through my tears and broken Finnish, I testified to this girl that she is a daughter of her Heavenly Father. That He loves her and that He knows her. That she is special and that she is worth it. I told her that Jesus Christ is her Savior and Redeemer and that He loves her perfectly. I could feel the love Heavenly Father has for this precious daughter of His as I was speaking. She started tearing up (okay actually everybody did) and at the end we invited her to pray. She said a simple but beautiful prayer. Her friend had to help her say "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" at the end. When she finished, her friend threw her arms around her and they both had tears in her eyes while they hugged. This is why I'm here. Because everybody needs this gospel. Everybody needs more happiness, purpose, and hope in their lives. I love my life!
We also had a great teach with the most adorable girl ever! She's 20 and I met her on the bus. She's super outgoing and friendly, likes practicing her English with us, and is genuinely interested in learning about the church. She's come to FHE (Family Home Evening) with the young adults twice (they have a lesson, a meal, and then an activity. it's really fun). This past week, she came a little early and we were able to give her a tour of the church building. When we were in the Relief Society room, I bore my testimony of the power of the Relief Society. As we were talking about this amazing women's organization, she said "I have chills as you're speaking. This is truly amazing". We finished in the room with the baptismal font. We talked about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We explained to her that the feeling she had felt when we were upstairs in the relief society room is the Holy Ghost. We explained to her what the role of the Holy Ghost is-that one of His main roles is to testify of truth-and that through the Holy Ghost she can know the truthfulness of our message. After Perhe Ilta (FHE), I felt that we should show her this video. http://www.lds.org/
So anyway, our goals that we had set were going fine, but we weren't quite reaching them. The majority of our investigators weren't able to come to church on Sunday which was sad. There's a one hour break between the two wards that we attend. During that hour, we went to the center of the city to pick up one of our new investigators and bring her to church. When we got to church, we had to practice a song that we were singing in Sacrament Meeting (in front of everybody... in FINNISH. okay I know that makes sense but still, sometimes I freak out when I think about the fact that I'm singing/speaking/thinking in Finnish!). She's 17 so we introduced her to some of the young women so they could talk to her while we practiced. When we got back, we saw that they had brought her into the chapel and had all sat down and surrounded her. There wasn't even room for us! It was amazing! And she looked so happy! One of our other investigators came who we taught for the first time this week after a member referred her to us saying that she needed help cleaning her house. Before we left her house, we ended up giving her a spiritual thought and committing her to be BAPTIZED. When we later told the member, she was shocked! PEOPLE ARE READY FOR THIS GOSPEL. The Lord knows who is ready. We need to help His work by inviting our friends and praying for ways that we can share the gospel. A simple act of service is enough to provide the perfect gateway to lasting happiness and salvation people! This is important! :)) so that was really exciting! Then we were talking with the young woman about the lesson we had with her friend earlier that week (the one in the story above) and the other young women heard us and one of them said "wait! I have a friend I want you to teach too!!. Then before church started, Sarah (our recent convert) shows up to church with her children and another woman and her son. This other woman is not a member of the church, but she absolutely loved it! When she saw a flier for a Relief Society activity, she turned to Sarah and said "Sarah, we should go to this! She asked me if she could buy a Liahona (church magazine) and I told her she could have it for free. She gave us her number and said she wants to learn more. AND GET THIS. SARAH HAD MET HER ONLY 2 DAYS EARLIER IN THE TOWN CENTER. WHAAAAAAT?! She had just started talking to her and ended up inviting her to church! And she's totally interested and wants to learn more and now she and Sarah are friends! This is what missionary work is about people. Inviting EVERYBODY. So basically, KIRKKO ON TOTTA AND GOD LIVES. Through all of these amazing miracles (and more) we met almost all of our goals (which was UNBELIEVABLE). I know that when the Lord asks us to do something, He provides us a way so that we can do it. I love being able to witness His hand in all that we do.
OKAY, so here's a list of some more "Finnishisms" (things that reflect my life here/Finnish culture)
1. everybody wears crocs
2. when teenagers learn to drive here, they all have to drive these little cars that look like smart cars that can only fit 2 people in them and have a big orange triangle on the back of them
3. they eat rye bread like candy
4. and we eat candy like candy. they especially like salted black licorice (which i'm trying reaaally hard to like... it's a bit of an acquired taste)
5. everybody's a "member" of the Lutheran church but most people don't attend
6. so many people wear American athletic wear (but then when I try to use it to strike up a conversation, they don't even know anything about the teams...)
7. as soon as you walk into pretty much any house or apartment, you walk right into a mudroom. it doesn't matter how big your house is or how small your apartment is, essentially everybody has a mudroom as their entry room... if that doesn't show you how wet and muddy and snowy this place gets, i don't know what does....
8. you haven't seen pine trees until you've seen Finnish pine trees
9. you flush toilets by pushing a button on the top of them
10. and everybody's legit scared for winter (you'd think they'd be used to it by now).... and apparently we're supposed to get actual snow this week. wish me luck. :)
RAKAUDELLA,
Sisar Nielsen
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
10/6/13 - We Were Able to Walk Away Feeling Triumphant
HELLO HELLO.
This week was really good. And really crazy. I spent almost all of it in Helsinki for Interim Training. Since I've been here 6 weeks, everybody who came in the same day as I did all met in Helsinki for 3 days of training and a day of language school. It was amazing. I absolutely LOVE Helsinki. It is such a beautiful city! And our Mission President pretty much blew our minds away. It was all so good. I learned a ton and I can't wait to practice what I learned and become a better missionary!
This week was really good. And really crazy. I spent almost all of it in Helsinki for Interim Training. Since I've been here 6 weeks, everybody who came in the same day as I did all met in Helsinki for 3 days of training and a day of language school. It was amazing. I absolutely LOVE Helsinki. It is such a beautiful city! And our Mission President pretty much blew our minds away. It was all so good. I learned a ton and I can't wait to practice what I learned and become a better missionary!
Sisar Hubner and I had quite the interesting experience. All during Interim, my companions and I stayed with the sisters in Espoo (pronounced es-poe.. not es-poo!). It's about a 15 minute train ride from Helsinki. So the day of the language school, all of our trainers went on splits (meaning they went with other missionaries) while we newer missionaries worked on our language skills. When it was over, Sisar Hubner and I had to travel to a city called Killo while our trainer was somewhere completely different. We navigated our way through Helsinki and made it to the train. We got on and sat down. This man across from us started talking to us. It was obvious that he was very drunk. He started getting up in our faces and making both of us feel very uncomfortable. He said "where are you from?" we told him America. He said "no you're not! where are you from??" we said "we're from America" he started getting more angry and said "no you're not!". At this point, Sisar Hubner and I got up and walked to another train car. We did not want to have to deal with that. We sat down and all of a sudden, this man sat down next to us. He had followed us! He started asking us more questions and kept telling us that all of our answers were wrong. Well, needless to say, both Sisar Hubner and I got the "you need to get out of here now!" feeling. We excused ourselves, got off the train, and literally sprinted towards the front of the train so we could get back on in another train car. We did, slid into our seats, and thought phewww that's the end of that. Well, we were wrong.
We got to Killo and we visited some former investigators and contacted on the street. As we were walking, I turned to Sisar Hubner and said "we need to talk to this man" so we did. We had an awesome experience with him. Turns out, he has met with the Elders before. He said at that time, he was just too busy for these kinds of things. But now, he's ready to learn more. We talked about the hope and happiness the gospel brings to our lives. He said he's read parts of the Book of Mormon before. He said, "At first I thought that this cannot be. There is only one Bible and this book is wrong! but as I read it, I realized that this book says the same things as the Bible. It's just another testimony of those things. It's a good book." As he talked about the Book of Mormon, I felt the Spirit so strongly. It was amazing. After that, Sisar Hubner and I went to go meet 3 punk kids we had met two days earlier. They are all atheist and we asked them to try praying then report back to us. As we were walking to meet them, we saw the crazy drunk man again! He had gotten off at our same stop. We had to quickly dodge out of the way - and this is when things got crazy. Some of the punk kids had actually showed up and were waiting for us in the parking lot of a store. We were walking over to them when the drunk man showed up. He went up to them and started harassing them. Then, more punk kids showed up. Then this random woman runs up to us and says "sisters, sisters!" turns out she had a meeting with the Espoo sisters that we were staying with and they had planned to meet in the parking lot where we were. But the Espoo sisters were on the other side of town! This woman is a new convert and wanted to introduce her friend (who was with her) to the Gospel. So basically, there Sisar Hubner and I were, two new missionaries that can't really speak Finnish, with a group of punk kids that we want to meet with, a random sister who we apparently have an appointment with, and a drunk man who won't leave us alone! This is my life. The kids bought the drunk man a drink and ushered him away, we told the lady with the friend to wait for a second while we went to talk to the punk kids, then we told the punk kids that we wanted to talk to them but we needed to talk to someone else first, then we went and introduced this woman's friend to the Gospel, then the other Sisters finally showed up. We finished that teach and by then the castle was HUGEEE (See previous blog post if you don't know what this means :). There were so many punk kids! So we said a quick silent prayer and then we stormed that castle! We stormed it really well if I do say so myself. It was the biggest castle we've ever stormed. We just marched up and shook their hands. The ones we hadn't talked to earlier were way surprised. We talked to them for a while, were able to share little pieces about the gospel without being over bearing, and were able to walk away feeling triumphant. As we were walking to the bus stop, we came around the corner and the HELSINKI TEMPLE WAS THERE. Oh my word, it was beautiful! It literally radiated! It shown brightly in the darkness. The Spirit hit me like a wall. This is why I'm here. To get people there! The temple is seriously my favorite place on earth. I'm so grateful for the blessings of it in my life. I haven't had the opportunity to go to the Temple in Finland. So here's what I say to you all. If you have the opportunity to go to the temple in the near future, DO IT. It's where the Lord wants you to be.
So basically General Conference was AMAZING. I loved every single minute of it. We didn't get to watch Sunday evening's session because of the time difference, but I'll be sure to do that on one of my p-days. As I watched conference, it really just hit me how important it is to share the gospel. How important it is to share the light that we have. To share the happiness and hope that it brings. I love how they don't call it "missionary work". They call it "the work of Salvation". Salvation. That's huge. I encourage you all to pray daily for ways you can share the gospel. Ways you can help others. The word of God heals the wounded soul. We're not trying to get more members for our congregations, we're trying to heal souls and save them. So put a Book of Mormon in your backpack and pray for the Lord to give you an opportunity to give it away. Post a Mormon message on Facebook. Invite your friends to hear you speak in church or to an activity. If you're not a member of this church, find somebody who is and ask to learn more. I promise, this is what everybody in the world needs. If we don't share the gospel with our families and friends, who will?
I love you all and the church is true. I know it. I love it. I testify of it. And I'm so grateful to be able to represent my best friend, represent my Savior and Redeemer every day.
"doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" dieter f. uchtdorf
Rakaudella,
Sisar Nielsen - PS The night of our adventure, we talked to the AP's (Assistants to the President). They said that after we left the office that afternoon they had thought "Wait, was that smart? Letting two new missionaries go off on their own?" but then they said they were like "Ehhh, one's from Chicago and one's from New York. They're fine." hahaha
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