Wednesday, August 24, 2016

23 August 2016

Hey everyone, 
This past week has been both good and hard at the same time. I've definitely gotten a teaste of missionary work and the toughest and the best aspects of it. We contact people and go tracting, get doors slammed in our face, and people give us dirty looks and walk away or entirely ignore us as if we weren't even human. We've had drunk people stop us as we're out walking. But drunk people here are very different. They won't hurt anyone, so we don't have to be afraid of them. But they will start talking to you and that's how you know they're drunk, because they'll initiate a conversation when normal people don't do that. We had a drunk guy say I was from the CIA because I was from America and because I was being really quiet, but of course that was only because I couldn't understand, nor say anything. So...that was an interesting experience. Haha. But there's always that side of missionary work.
The other end, we met with one of our investigators, (We'll call her Kristina) and we felt the spirit so strongly, and we just love her so much and we really hope and pray that she will have the desire to make those promises that will help her come closer to her Father in Heaven. We also met a man on the street while contacting. (We'll call him Allen) Right off the bat, he invited us over for lunch. So we went over and he made us some really yummy Pakistani food and we had a really good discussion. We brought the bishops wife along and she helped quite a bit with her testimony.
But anyway, it's been a pretty good week and I'm still getting used to missionary work, and the language is still coming along slowly. I'm slowly starting to be able to contribute more in our lessons and such. But anyway, it's been great either way. 
Hope all is well back home!
Glad to see something from the Tubbs family, and that mom and dad had their anniversary, and Colby and Melissa happy anniversary as well, and happy belated birthday to Logan!
Love you all, and miss you! 😘

​Amazing clouds out our window near sunset​
​A beautiful view while waiting for the bus​
​Sister Albiston plays the piano really well​
​Beautiful park near us​
​Splits with the sister training leaders. It was a long day so we all look windblown and tired​
​If you can read it, this is my schedule for a normal day.

-Sisar Capps
Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

16 August 2016

16 August 2016
Hey all, for some reason the regular computers are down in thelibrary that we use here in Lahti, so we're using an iPad instead... I don't think we'll be able to send pictures this week, but we'll see if anything changes. 
This week we went on splits with the sister training leaders. At first I was super nervous, but they turned out to be super nice. They encouraged us to make a goal that they could help us work on while they were here, and I chose to focus on getting down a couple different contacting approaches. We saw so many miracles! One of many was that sister Clark and I were walking to talk to a lady that sister Albiston and I had met while we were out contacting. We were half way there until I realized that I had forgot my planner. So we decided to go back through a different path and contact on our way back. We talked to a lot of people, one of which was an older man who was very sweet and very interested and we practically taught him the entire first lesson right there on he street. We gave him a Book of Mormon and our number and told him if he had any more questions or wants to talk more about Christ, he can contact us. HI didn't want us to come over though so he didn't give us any of his information. Right as we were done talking to him, we walk a couple steps, our apartment building is in view, and we see the lady that we were going to go meet. I stop her and ask her if she remembers me, she said of course, we set up an appointment with her for Tuesday night (tonight), and got her phone number so we could contact her. It was amazing when we realized that I had forgotten my planner for a reason and that we came back on that path, cuz that wouldnot have been the best use of our time, and then to bump into the lady that we were meaning to go and talk to.
Also while we were on splits Sister Albiston was bus contacting with the other sister, and they met a really sweet lady in her fifties and asked if we could come back and teach her. She agreed. She already had a Book of Mormon, but hadn't read much of it. We just went to her apartment yesterday, and she is just the sweetest lady ever. She fed us croissants and donut holes, and just talked our ears off. She told us a bunch about what she believes, and she's actually correct in so many of her own beliefs (except she believes in reincarnation, we'll have to see about that). The light of Christ is so strong in her, she agreed to let us come back and teach her more, so she's officially our newest investigator. It'll be so exciting to just be able to build upon the faith that she already has. 
Missionary work has been so great, we are getting more and more people, and we have appointments lined up every day this week because of all the faith and hard work on splits.
sometimes it's so weird being a missionary, it just feels like almost normal life, but you don't always realize it. Sometimes you just have to sit back and think, wow, I really am a missionary and I really do represent so many things. First and foremost I represent Jesus Christ, then His church, then America. It's so interesting to hear people's opinions of America outside of America. But I am grateful to be here and to represent our Savior, and to bring people closer to Christ. I wouldn't change it for anything.
Minä rakastan teitä! Ja hyvää viikkoa!
Rakkaudellani, 

Thursday, August 11, 2016

9 August 2016

Hello!

Lahti is so beautiful! Have you traveled it on google maps yet?
This last week​,​ as I said ​before, ​we've had our mini missionary and just dropped her off at the train station yesterday morning. We had a couple interestingly fun experiences with her, but it ended up feeling like we were babysitting ​because​ she had really different expectations and complained a lot. But it's okay, we both learned patience from her and I definitely got a chance to come out of my shell a little bit by not being the youngest anymore. That's definitely one of my weaknesses, when I feel younger or more inferior, I shrink into my shell. I'm working on getting out of that habit. 
We don't really have any progressing investigators at this point except this one Brazilian lady we started working with. She's a little more interested in learning ​E​nglish and ​F​innish than about the gospel, but she could also learn it elsewhere​, so we're glad to help! She used to be the elders "investigator", but they decided to hand her off to us, so we've been teaching her in the church building by reading out of the scriptures in Finnish and helping her translate. She seems a little more responsive to the gospel learning from sisters​.​ ​T​he ​E​lders told us every time they brought up the gospel, she'd start saying she needed to go and such.  We are praying for her! Please join us.​

Yesterday we went to a members house in Orimattila for dinner. Orimattila is about an hour bus ride from Lahti, and it's a beautiful drive. But since our ward list isn't entirely updated yet, we didn't know that her address had changed, so we ended up going to the wrong place. It took us about an hour to find her new place, and since she's a little bit older, she wasn't too helpful in helping us find her place, so I had to get the map out and try and find the street she told us, and get us there. It was quite the fun experience. 
Anyway, sorry this letter is a little shorter.

Love you all! Rakastan teitä!


Drive from Orimattila​
​Drive from Orimattila​
​It's super foggy in the mornings​
​More beautiful sunsets​
​More beautiful sunsets​
​We discovered what we call "old people time" where we get in our pj's after planning, get our blankets and our comfy chairs and sit on our porch and watch the sunset.​
​More beautiful sunsets​
​More beautiful sunsets​
​Licorice grows wild here. Jk, it's a metal bar that was painted red. But they have AMAZING black licorice here. ​
​More beautiful sunsets

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Aug. 2, 2016

So this week has been fairly interesting. Haha. But it's been getting better as I am getting a little more familiar with the area and the missionary rules and such. We've had some potential investigators turn into not so potentials because they turned out to be weird...
But we got two new potentials yesterday as we were walking and another out tracting. Hopefully they'd be willing to learn even more and become an investigator.
This week we have what's called a mini missionary. It's where a youth will come from within Finland and go out with the missionaries for a week. The sister we got is super cute and fun. She's 16, but she definitely has the spirit with her and we love her already. 
It's been a little hot, but it has started being a little more rainy the last couple days. The weather man says the hot days are behind us and it will start cooling down a little more day by day.
Tuesdays are our p-days, and we usually email around 11 am our time, but Utah is about 9 hours behind us.
The computers were kinda weird today, so I don't get as much time to write, but I'll be sure to write more next week. Especially when we won't have our mini missionary with us.



​This candy is really good. It's called a rocket, and it kind of like a sour gummy with stuff inside.​
​We went out tracting and it started raining really hard. Thankfully we had our umbrellas with us.​
​It is so beautiful when it rains here.​
​There was a double rainbow, but then it went away by the time we were able to get a good picture of it. But still it was a huge rainbow.​
​More pretty greens after the rain​
​​
​Me and my companion being silly in the rain​
​Amazing clouds at sunset​
​More amazing sunset clouds.
Moi from Lahti Finland!!
My first area is a city called Lahti just about an hours train ride from the main train station in Helsinki. 
I pretty much slept the entire plane ride from Salt Lake to here. I was a little sad I slept through the flight from London to Helsinki, cuz I wanted to be able to see it from the sky. But that's okay. 
President Watson and his wife, the assistants to the president and sister training leaders all met us at the airport. We had a little ride around Helsinki and Espoo on our way to the mission home. We stopped by the temple on our way. It's so beautiful here. Everything is so green and rich, and there are biking-walking trails everywhere. 
We stayed the first night in the mission home then had to go get registered the next morning. We had to go over some other legal things and paper work while we were in the mission home, then we had lunch, found out who our companions were and where we were going. 
My companion is Sisar Albiston. She is so awesome and so helpful. This is her last transfer, so after these next 8 weeks, she goes home and I have to finish my training with another sister if I don't have to train someone. Because there are 23 new missionaries coming in this next transfer, it's likely that some of us will be trainers. But we'll see when we get there. 
First day when I got to Lahti, we already had an appointment set up with a man that was a potential. Sisar Albiston and her previous companion had talked to him on the street previously he gave them permission to come back that day. So he wasn't an investigator yet, but when we talked to him that day, he agreed to continue learning about the gospel. So we got a new investigator on my first day in Lahti. I'd tell you more about him, but privacy laws in Finland are a big thing here and they're fairly strict. It's kinda like the HIPAA laws for healthcare. At least that's how I treat it. We're allowed to write a little bit more about it in our journals though, so I'm not too worried about it. But that also goes for the kinds of pictures we take, cuz we have to be careful about that. So I'll send as many pictures as I can, but just know that there are laws that kinda keep me from taking a bunch of them.
Otherwise, things are pretty slow. People are pretty set in their ways and they mostly keep to themselves, so it's a challenge to find people that are interested. But it's okay because any time they say no, or shut the door on us, I have to remind myself of what President Hadfield told me just before I got set apart: If knew that there are 50 people in Finland that are ready to hear the gospel, and there are 5 mil. people in the country, you're going to do everything you can to find them, right? If they close the door on you or shut you down, then you know that they're not one of the 50. That's what I tell myself every time they say no.
The language is pretty rough. My first Sunday, the first councilor asked if I would introduce myself and share my testimony. I had no choice but to agree of course (Their accent is different than we though, so I had to learn a little bit of their accent the past week). So I gathered some thoughts and introduced myself and shared my testimony. After sacrament meeting people came up to me and asked how long I'd been in Finland because "you have a great finnish accent." (The members are so great and welcoming) They said some other things that were comforting to hear. So at least I have good accent. haha. Vocabulary and grammar though... not so good. Usually if I'm understanding what's going on in the lessons (most often with less active members), then I'll jump in and bear my testimony of what ever we're talking about. At this point I can understand maybe 1/3 of what's going on in discussions. 
Jet lag is still pretty rough, but thankfully sister Watson gave us permission to take little naps as needed for our first week. Utah is 9 hours behind us. So here when I'm supposed to be awake and studying, my body is still on Utah sleep schedule thinking that I'm supposed to be going to bed. But anyway, Finland is amazing and I wish everyone could come here and experience it.
Can't wait to hear from you all! 
Rakastan teitä! Heipää!

​Me and Sisar Albiston on my first day in Lahti​
​A little park shared by our apt. complex​
​Panorama of the view out our porch​
​They have big things of sand cuz they use that for traction with snow instead of salt. But it said Sandi, so I thought I'd take a pic and share. :)​
​Temple in Espoo - Our MTC district​
​Temple in Espoo​
​Temple in Espoo - from the back. The window is in the celestial room. It's so small​
​​​​​They do this really cool thing with grass and the bricks. It's kinda everywhere​
​Temple in Espoo - Sister Barrus, my MTC companion​
​Temple in Espoo​
​Temple in Espoo​
​Temple in Espoo-stairway to heaven​
​Temple in Espoo​
​Temple in Espoo​
​Random road in Helsinki​
​Random road in Helsinki​
​Random road in Helsinki​
​another random road in Helsinki... it's blurry sorry​
​boat harbor in Helsinki​
​Finland Lutheran church in Helsinki​


​Beautiful islands in the harbor​
​Finland Lutheran church in Helsinki​
​Russian orthodox church​
​On our way home from the airport​
​Everything is so green and there are trees everywhere. It's normal for it to look like this for a regular freeway.