February 21 2017

 
Hey everyone, it's been a great week here in Turku!
     Last week we had to go to the US Embassy in Helsinki cuz of my passport stuff, so we got to have a fun little adventure there. The island of Suomenlinna is really near by there as well, and it was a really pretty day with the frozen ocean, so that was really "cool" too. We took lots of pictures.
     Then Wednesday we went to Tampere for another zone conference. 

     One of our four investigators that has a baptismal date has officially quite smoking!! We're so proud of him! He's officially on his way to baptism! It's been so awesome to be a messenger of the Lord in helping bring his children to come unto Christ and to help them become truly converted. I love being able to see the enabling power of the atonement work within people and help them make significant changes in their lives to turn their life around and follow the example of Jesus Christ into the waters of baptism. It has definitely strengthened my own testimony, and makes me want to be a missionary and disciple of Christ.
     We also had this really great lesson with another one of our investigators on enduring to the end. We shared with her the movie clip on LDS.org about John Tanner and his conversion story. It wasn't the movie we were intending to show to her, but it ended up being perfect anyway because it touched on every aspect that we had been wanting to talk to her about. We also read with her D&C 122:7 where it talks about how all this shall by for your growth and your experience. After reading that, she turned to us and in English said, "This is exactly what I needed right now." We were really happy to hear that, especially cuz she had been having a really hard time at work, and we could tell it had brought a lot of comfort to her and had touched her heart.
     So funny story: we were out contacting the other night, and we went to stop this one man and as we were talking to him he just kept looking between the two of us. He didn't move at all or say anything. He just kept shifting his eyes between the two of us. We tried to give him a book, he didn't budge. Tried to give him a card, didn't budge or say anything, or even show any emotion, the entire time. So eventually we just wished him a good night and left. It was really weird, but after we were far enough away from him we just started laughing because it was so funny and awkward.

     In church this Sunday, it was really awesome, because I finally felt like I could understand almost everything that was going on in church. I still didn't understand everything, but I understand almost consistently the gist of everything. Finnish is such a cool language, I love it! 
     Well, it's been a great week! Thanks for all your love and support! Hope all is well. Love you all!

A frozen playground

January 31 2017

Hey everyone!

 I made it to Turku safe and sound! It's been a great first week here. Though I do miss Haaga and especially the people there tons, but Turku is beautiful and I can tell there are new things for me to learn by serving here.
Our first full day together we had the worldwide missionary broadcast which the presidency came out with some really cool new adjustments to the missionary schedule. Now it's more flexible in how we schedule our days, and we can even get an extra hour of sleep if we wanted to. It'll take some getting used to, but it'll be a great adjustment. They wanted us to be able to exercise our agency in how we schedule our days so we can have a better adjustment when we go home, and so that we can fit our schedule to the needs of our area. It's nice. This also means we have more time on p-days. Not to email per-se, but just to do all our p-day stuff. Our p-day starts at 8 now instead of 11.
We had a couple appointments with some really awesome people, and 2 of them currently have solid baptismal dates for March. We're really excited and praying for their preparation towards baptism.
Friday we had a dinner appointment at the church with our Ward Mission Leader (WML). Apparently he feeds us every Friday evening. That night he and his wife served us reindeer (don't tell the children! haha) on mashed potatoes, and blueberry pie. Soo yummy!! Sunday we had 4 investigators to church. It was awesome but hectic as well, especially because President Watson showed up at church too. Haha. So in between meetings we were shuffling between investigator to investigator trying to get them where they needed to go. Then on top of that a non-member decided to show up to sacrament meeting. So we got to tell her a little about it and brought her with us to our classes. We have a scheduled meeting with her for this wednesday.
After church our WML had us over to his home for dinner. It was about an hours drive too. They actually invited the non-member to come with us. She's a young sweet girl that's about my age. Our WML built this really cool cabin with lots of taxidermy's and animal pelts and wooden logs. It was really cool. I wish I had taken a picture, but I forgot to. :(

Anyway, Turku is beautiful with lots of beautiful old intricate buildings of which I haven't been able to take a picture of yet. Gah, sorry! But the Turku castle and Muuminmaailma are both in my area. It's in our plans to go see them during this transfer.
Love you all! Thanks for all the love and support!

12/20/16

​

Merry Christmas everyone!I can't wait to be able to skype home this week.
We got two new investigators this week. They're really awesome, and in their first time coming church they both made comments in

​ ​

Sunday school. It was really great! One of them even volunteered to help prepare the
Sacrament, but luckily bishop was sitting next to him and explained to him that he couldn't really do that
quite yet. That part comes after you receive the Priesthood.

​ ​

So glad to see they're willing!
Haha.

We visited a less active member (she shared some yummy Finnish blueberry pie with us), and

​ ​she

​came

 to 

​​

church

​ ​

Sunday

​ as well.​

. This was the first time she had been to church in about a year. In church that day, one of the

​ ​

High

​ ​

Councilors

​ ​

had come to speak, and he was actually her home teacher a while ago. How cool is that?! He didn't know that she hadn't been coming to church, so that was a blessing for them both. After meeting with her on

​ ​

Wednesday, we were able to get home in 20 minutes,

​ ​

even though

​ ​

it took us an hour to get there. It was quite a blessing because we wouldn't have gotten home on time otherwise.Another day, we were out trying to find a referral, and couldn't find it. It was in an area that we had never been before, so we didn't know which busses went there. We went to a stop and waited for a second. I had the feeling to hurry over to the next stop, so we did, but on our way a bus came that we knew could take us home. We weren't to the stop yet, and the bus had passed us, so we were afraid we weren't going to catch it, especially

​ ​

because

​ ​

president has advised us not to run for busses or trains because we don't look professional when doing so. We were able to make it because the drivers were switching shifts. We knew that was a blessing from Heavenly Father.

There were some other sisters having a baptism at our church building because it's the stake center, so we decided to invite some of our investigators to it. When we invited our

​ ​

Chinese investigator, he mis-understood, because he thought it was

​ ​

HIS

​ ​

baptism. His response was "Oh, okay. I'm a little nervous, but I think I can do this." It was so cute. He was just so humble and ready to do what we asked of him, even though we would always make sure it was his decision, not ours, for him. He asked us when the soonest was that he could get baptized, and that this is something he's really serious about. He's awesome. He has plans to go back to China

​ ​

rightafter Christmas, but he found out that if he gets a job, he can stay.

​ ​

He wants to so he can keep coming to church here and learning
about the Gospel

​ ​

from us.

Saturday was the baptism of the other sisters. Our

​ ​

Chinese investigator and one of our newest investigators came, it was really cool. Because the church was in our area, we had to prepare the baptismal font.
We woke up and came straight to the church to start filling it up so it would be ready by

​ ​

noon. When we got to the church (we had a lesson a little bit before), the water was really cold. So we decided that we would let it drain
out

​ ​

a little bit

​ ​

and

​ ​

turn the hot water back on. 20 minutes later as we came out of the lesson,

​ ​

​

a member told us that the font was

​ ​

nearly empty!!!!! We went and checked and there was only a foot of water in the font!!! It takes

​ ​

4 hours to fill it up,

​ ​w

e 

​really ​

didn't think it would drain almost completely in 20 minutes. Keep in mind that this is 30 minutes before the baptismal service is supposed to start.

​ ​

So the elders, us, sisters, everyone is grabbing pots from the kitchen and filling them with the sink,

​ using ​

hoses

​ and​

 everything

​ ​

we could think of. They ended up postponing the baptism for another 20 minutes. But we were

​ ​

still

​ ​

able to fill the font in only 40 minutes

​ ​

instead of 4 hours. Heavenly Father was definitely watching out for us!

​

 At church on

​ ​

Sunday, as we were greeting people at the door,

​ ​

our mission

​ ​

President and Sister Watson walk in the door. Surprise!!! Of all the weeks they picked to show up, it was probably the best one because we had 4 of our investigators in church, and a couple less active

​ ​

members. After church President and Sister Watson invited us to come over to their home for dinner with the 

​​

elders. We were really surprised because 1) they live out of our area, and President has a rule that we can't have dinner appointments out of our area, and 2)we can't have dinner appointments with the

​ ​

Elders. 

​In this instance though, the President was in charge, so it really wasn't an issue after all. Just surprising. ​

We had yummy

​ ​

Shephards pie, cinnamon apple slices, carrots, pulla, and glögi (finnish christmas drink). We talked about Christmas traditions, and favorite

​ ​

Christmas movies. It was really

​ ​

awesome to interact with President and Sister Watson on such a casual one on one basis.  It was fun.

Well everyone, it's been a great week. Thanks for all the love and support. Love you all, and I can't wait to skype home at Christmas!!!

-Sisar Cappskarissa.capps@myldsmail.net

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin
Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

11/8/16

Hey 

​all​

!!!

This week has been a great week. We'll be going to the temple 

​in Helsinki ​

today, so unfortunately we don't have hardly any time to email. 

​I do have some pictures though. 

Enjoy!

​

Love you all!!!

 
All bundled up for winter! 

Our Backyard! Beautiful!

The tallest hill in Helsinki!

Sunsets and icy roads

Sis. Nelson and Sis. Capps in the snow.

10/11/16

​​​​​​​​​​Hello everyone back home!                                     10/11/16

Wow, what a great week! It's been super crazy fun getting everything ready for the baptism. The baptism went very well. He kept telling everyone he felt so light, and that he felt like flying afterwards. He is an amazing person, I can tell that he is on his way to even greater things.

We had splits with the sister training leaders yesterday. So many miracles came about from it. The first sister I was with, we went to tract in Leppävaara (I got lost on the way there, haha). We got a return appointment with one person we talked with, and gave a Book of Mormon out to another. The second part of the day after lunch, I was with the other sister training leader. We had planned to tract in the area we lived in, but realized that the other sisters had all the books to keep track of what doors we knock on. So we decided to go to our area and find former investigators. We got lost on the way there again, but Heavenly Father had a plan for that. Once we got our bearings again, we started down a street, talked to a man, gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment, walked about 5 feet, talked to a lady, gave her a book and set up an appointment. Walked another five feet, talked to another man, gave him a book and set up an appointment. We had multiple miracles happen within just a couple feet. This pretty much never happens in Finland. People are hardly ever this willing to learn about a new religion.

A street or two later, we see this lady standing next to a tree, and she was doing something strange. As we got closer to her, I leaned over to the sister I was with and asked, "Sister, is she stomping on acorns?" She said, she sure is, let’s talk to her!! So we stopped and talked to her and started stomping on acorns and taught her almost the entire lesson about the Restoration of Jesus’ true Gospel upon the earth. So cool!

The last part of the day I was with the first sister again, and we went to a lady who was a self-referral, meaning that she sent or called in a request to send missionaries to her. She told us she is looking for the truth. She is so awesome, and she is definitely so prepared and wants to keep taking the lessons. We're super excited to keep teaching her.

It's been a great week.

Unfortunately that's all I have time for, but I love you all! Thanks so much for your support!

Rakkaudellani,

-Sisar Capps

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

    

4 Oct. 2016

Hello all!

This week has been really great! General conference was amazing! We had a little different of a schedule. So as you all were watching it at 10 am, it was 7pm our time. We watched the  Women's conference Saturday afternoon. Saturday morning session in the evening. Priesthood session was Sunday around noon, then we had the Saturday afternoon session, the world report, then Music and the Spoken Word broadcast by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, we then watched the Sunday morning session. The Finns have to wait until conference comes out in the Liahona magazine in order to read the Sunday Afternoon session in Finnish. As missionaries we don't have time to watch the last session, so we'll just wait for it to come in the Liahona and read it during our meals and such.

Every Thursday night, in this area, the missionaries host what we call game night, and we play what we call "chair football" in other words chair soccer, where you have to guard your own fold-up chair and everyone else's chair is the goal. It's a really fun game, we bring investigators and invite people we meet on the street that could potentially be investigators. We have a  really fun crowd show up every time. It's quite refreshing to laugh and have fun.

We met with a less active member of the ward this last week, he was really friendly, and has been coming to church lately. It makes me ​truly happy to see the changes in him each time he comes.

We also met with a potential investigator of the Gospel, yesterday, he was very kind and seemed to be interested. He didn't know where our church was, so we had to meet him at the train station and show him the way to and from. I can definitely say our discussion could have gone a little better. If it weren't for a ward member we had there with us, it would have been a very interesting meeting. Neither my new companion or I know Finnish all that well so we had to have help from the ward member with us. And if it weren't for the Spirit that was actually there in spite of us. I can tell you he definitely would not have wanted to meet again. Fortunately, he said he would like to. We asked him on the way back to the train station, about his thoughts to meet with us again, and he told us he didn't really know, just that he felt like he should. It is so interesting to see how the Father works through weak people like us sisters who can barely speak Finnish, and how the Holy Spirit guides people to the truth through His power and not our abilities!

We have a baptism set for this weekend, and it's been cool to teach this other gentleman a little bit more, and to see how he's changed. He's definitely ready for baptism into Christ's true Gospel, and we're very excited for him. Hopefully I can send a picture of us
afterwards.

Anyway, it's been a good week, and I look forward to another week of missionary work in the beautiful country of Finland. It's starting to get a little colder nowadays and the leaves are changing colors, it's all so very beautiful!

Hope all is well back home.P.S. Cami, don't blow away in the hurricane!

Love you all!!!

-Sisar Capps
https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin
Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

​                 

​

​  ​

9/27/16 Haaga

Hey, All!

This week has been pretty great

​ in my new area​

! Sister Nelson and I have been getting to know each other, and I've been doing my best to keep up with her. She's quite the hard worker. This zone is also very obedient. Like, exactly obedient

​!​

 

​I'm grateful for it, but ​

 i

​t'​

s a bit of an adjustment, because it can be hard to start and end 

​everything​

 exactly on time

​.​

 

​W​

e have to sit next to each othe

​​

r on the train/bus,

​ instead of mingling with the people, so​

 it's been an adventure. 

Haaga is beautiful. It's a little more city-like than Lahti was, but it's still quite beautiful. When we look out our window, it's like we're living in the sacred grove, we live on the main level so it feels like we aren't even living in an apartment. 

​T​

he colors are changing, so it's very beautiful!

We have a baptism that was already set when I got here for October the 8th. We're super excited for Anthony, he's so faithful and ready. We've also been teaching some other really awesome people, and 

​have even ​

had some referrals! 

​It's s​

o great! A lot more people speak 

​E​

nglish down here because we have a lot of foreigners here for schooling, so we get to teach both in 

​E​

nglish and 

​F​

innish. 

​ ​

Sorry I can't really give a ton of details because of the laws here in Finland we can only do so if we have direct permission from the person themselves. But I've got it all written down in my journal at least. :)

Sunday night I started coming down with a little cold. I'm getting better now, but it's been a little tiring, 

​because ​

I can't sleep it off 

​all day​

, I just have to take my vitamins and keep doing missionary work. I 

​do ​

have about a half hour to 

​nap​

 during meal times, so that helps a little bit.

We get to email in the family history center here at our church building. We have the stake center here, so it's nice. 

We're excited for 

​G​

eneral 

​C​

onference here! Our schedule is very different if we want to watch it live. Since we're 9 hours ahead, we have to wait until evening to watch the 

​S​

aturday morning session, then 

​S​

unday afternoon we watch the 

​S​

aturday evening, and then 

​S​

unday evening we watch 

​S​

unday morning. After that, we just have to wait for the 

​L​

iahona magazines to come out before we can read the 

​S​

unday afternoon session, 

​because​

 we don't have any other time to come here and just watch the last session unfortunately. But either way, we're still pretty excited.

​​

Anyway, until next week.

Love you all!!!

-Sisar Capps

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

​  ​  

9/27/16 Haaga

Hey, All!

This week has been pretty great

​ in my new area​

! Sister Nelson and I have been getting to know each other, and I've been doing my best to keep up with her. She's quite the hard worker. This zone is also very obedient. Like, exactly obedient

​!​

 

​I'm grateful for it, but ​

 i

​t'​

s a bit of an adjustment, because it can be hard to start and end 

​everything​

 exactly on time

​.​

 

​W​

e have to sit next to each othe

​​

r on the train/bus,

​ instead of mingling with the people, so​

 it's been an adventure. 

Haaga is beautiful. It's a little more city-like than Lahti was, but it's still quite beautiful. When we look out our window, it's like we're living in the sacred grove, we live on the main level so it feels like we aren't even living in an apartment. 

​T​

he colors are changing, so it's very beautiful!

We have a baptism that was already set when I got here for October the 8th. We're super excited for Anthony, he's so faithful and ready. We've also been teaching some other really awesome people, and 

​have even ​

had some referrals! 

​It's s​

o great! A lot more people speak 

​E​

nglish down here because we have a lot of foreigners here for schooling, so we get to teach both in 

​E​

nglish and 

​F​

innish. 

​ ​

Sorry I can't really give a ton of details because of the laws here in Finland we can only do so if we have direct permission from the person themselves. But I've got it all written down in my journal at least. :)

Sunday night I started coming down with a little cold. I'm getting better now, but it's been a little tiring, 

​because ​

I can't sleep it off 

​all day​

, I just have to take my vitamins and keep doing missionary work. I 

​do ​

have about a half hour to 

​nap​

 during meal times, so that helps a little bit.

We get to email in the family history center here at our church building. We have the stake center here, so it's nice. 

We're excited for 

​G​

eneral 

​C​

onference here! Our schedule is very different if we want to watch it live. Since we're 9 hours ahead, we have to wait until evening to watch the 

​S​

aturday morning session, then 

​S​

unday afternoon we watch the 

​S​

aturday evening, and then 

​S​

unday evening we watch 

​S​

unday morning. After that, we just have to wait for the 

​L​

iahona magazines to come out before we can read the 

​S​

unday afternoon session, 

​because​

 we don't have any other time to come here and just watch the last session unfortunately. But either way, we're still pretty excited.

​​

Anyway, until next week.

Love you all!!!

-Sisar Capps

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

​  ​  

Hey everyone, 

​S​

orry I forgot to tell you 

​that ​

on transfer weeks our preparation day switches, so I'm writing on Monday this week. 

We received transfer calls on Friday morning. Sister Albiston and I thought I would be staying, because she and her last companion

​ were​ both

 completely new 

​as a ​

companionship 

​to​

 the area. But

​,​

 we got our transfer calls and I am being transferred to a city called Haaga just outside of the Espoo/Helsinki area. I'll be with Sister Nelson since Sister Albiston is going home this week. I'm a little sad to leave Lahti because we made friends with a lot of the members and we had some amazing investigators. But I'm excited for a new experience!

​One experience we had​ a

 week ago, 

​was when ​

we were out tracting door to door

​, we felt impressed to ​

​

knock on this lady's door

​. W​

e gave her a Book of Mormon and she told us we could come back. So, we came back and she had read the introduction and the testimonies of the Book of Mormon. She had so many of the perfect questions that just led straight into the Restoration. We briefly taught her about the Restoration and how we got the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith. After a couple seconds in silence, she said to us, "I should probably tell you two that when you knocked on my door, I was reading from the 

​B​

ible about 

​'

knock and it shall be opened, ask and ye shall receive

​'​

. As I was reading that, I heard a knock on the door and though

​t​

, oh that's probably angels at my door. And when I opened the door and you sisters told me you had a message about Jesus Christ, I thought, wow, this is  something I should really

​ ​

look into

​!​

" We told her that when we go out 

​searching for 

people

​ to teach​

, we don't just go to each and every door

​, one after the other​

. We pray first for guidance, then we 

​feel inspiration to ​

pick a 

​certain ​

door, and today, that door was yours." The Spirit was so strong, and we knew that Heavenly Father had prepared her to be ready for 

​H​

is message 

​to her​

. She has accepted it so well, and she loves hearing from us. We have been in two lessons with her since then, but we also had to say goodbye in our latest lesson. She was really sad to see us go because she recognized 

​and felt ​

​a​

 differe

nt spirit​

  when we were in the room. We told her that there were new sisters that could come, she really hesitated, but reluctantly agreed to let them come. We got her address so we could continue to write her. 

Anyway, I meet my new companion on Wednesday. I'm excited to be able to meet her, and to be in a big city. I'll send pictures next week, but until then, I love you all so much!

​​

Rakkaudellani,​​

-Sisar Capps

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko

9/7/2016

Hey everyone,

In some missions, the mission presidents like to pull the newest missionaries back in after 6 weeks of being in the field, and have a couple days of spiritual nourishment and role plays

​,​

 all things to help us become a better missionary. It was so spiritual, and we learned so much. I took so many pages of notes, I wouldn't have time to type them up, but I'll be sure to do that after the mission. Everyone from my MTC district and our trainers came back to stay at the mission presidents home and we all squished on his couches and pull out the kitchen chairs to be spiritually fed by President Watson. He is so knowledgeable and he taught us so much about the spiritual aspect of missionary work. Sister Watson gave us advice on staying healthy and gave us some life 

​

skills

​

 so we could do house work and other tasks easier and still stay focused on missionary work. The assistants to the president and the sister training leaders in Espoo helped out and led role-plays where we would practice different types of contacting people on the street or tracting in apartments, interactions with our companion, etc. in both 

​E​

nglish and 

​F​

innish. It was all so great. The office and senior missionaries made us some really yummy foods that were nice and healthy, but hearty. They were so good. It was such a great week.

Yesterday we had a really busy day planned. We had to renew our bus passes in the morning, we had a lunch appointment with a member (she gave us some cute hand knitted 

​F​

innish socks afterwards-I forgot to take a picture of them, sorry), then we had to meet with an investigator, had another dinner appointment with our bishop and his wife who live almost an hours bus ride away, then lastly an appointment with a less active member. There was so much traveling that had to be done, and we didn't know how we were going to make this work. My companion Sister Albiston is really good with the bus schedule, so she did the best she could in planning, but if we missed any of the buses it would throw everything off. We said a prayer before we left and asked that everything would go according to plan, and that it would all work out. 

We came so close a couple times, where there was no way we would have been able to make it, but we noticed Heavenly Father tweaked things in such a way that we didn't miss any of the buses, no one cancelled, and everything was able to work out. It was quite a miracle that we were able to get everything done that day. We've truly seen the Lords hand in our lives, I cannot deny that this is His work, and He will do what it takes to help us complete the tasks.

 

​​

 Copy of DSC00476[1].JPG

​We all got to go to the temple of Friday​

 Copy of DSC00483[1].JPG

​It's officially fall, and the leaves are changing colors. We decided to laminate some leaves to put in our journal.​

 Copy of DSC00473[1].JPG

​My companion and I at the temple.​

 Copy of DSC00475[1].JPG

​A picture I took outside the temple.​​​

 Copy of DSC00470[1].JPG

​Such a pretty day at the temple.

-Sisar Capps

https://www.mormon.org/fin?locale=fin

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko