Summer is Officially Here
As of yesterday Summer is officially here!!! Well, that is what all the Finns say at least though I am not sure if I actually believe them or not because I think they said that a month ago... And then if you ask a foreigner they say that summer in Finland is 2 days long and then it goes back to winter! So I guess I will find out soon enough! :) So much happened this week and I honestly don't even know where to start. I can't actually even go by day because I am not sure what day each of the things I want to write about actually happened! Therefore, I am sorry but this letter will be all over the place. Hang in there.
I Was So Wrong
So to start I will talk about the weird food that I got to enjoy this week! We have a African investigator, Danon, who has really been wanting to make us dinner and we finally agreed that he could. I am not sure how good of an idea that was. I thought that Pig Tongue was going to be the only weird animal part that I was going to have to eat. I was so wrong. He decided to make us Chicken Throat and Beef Liver. I honestly thought that I was going to die. We had a member with us to help us who is from France because this investigator only speaks French, a little Finnish, and NO English. So she helps with the translating though she only speaks French and English. It is quite the experience. He ended up giving us a ton and then told us to eat all of it and then went and sat on the sofa and watched the World Cup while we ate... haha. Let's just say that it was a tender mercy that we had to speak in English to our member (since he couldn't understand.) In the middle of the meal we were all just dying and just started laughing so hard and couldn't stop. The only way I was able to get it down was to cut it up into the smallest pieces possible and then swallow it with water. Fortunately our member ended up telling him in French that we were full when we had barely eaten anything and that it was too spicy. Oh the blessings of members!! :) We ended up having a really good lesson with him though so it was all worth it. :) We went again later in the week to visit him and he had made us more food. Oh No! We just turned to our member and said,"Do we really want to know what it is or should we just eat it?" Haha, you know that it is bad if you have to ask that! It was just chicken wings though so that was fine. Thank goodness.
These Members Are So Great
We also had some amazing experiences with members. We have one member, Sisar Tanja Pelkonen, who comes out to lessons with us 2-3 times a week and we felt so bad for asking her to do that but then when we didn't ask her for the 3rd lesson this week she texted us and told us about how she had been praying that we would find a nice home that she could come with us to lessons and then we called and asked her to come. We answered her prayers!!! It honestly made us so happy! She then asked us if she could come to the lesson that Saturday! These members are so great and so ready to do missionary work. We had another member that we are working with and helping do more and more missionary work. At the beginning of last month we set a goal with a member to give away a Book of Mormon. We went and checked up on it the week before the month ended and she hadn't done it yet. So we helped her to find out who she wanted to give it to and when. The following week we went back to her and she was literally on cloud nine! She was so happy. She had given the Book of Mormon away to her friend on the last day of the month and it had gone really well for her. She is now so excited to do missionary work and it really is amazing to see! Miracles are happening! She then went up on Sunday and bore her testimony all about it! YES!!! Hopefully we can get more and more members to be as excited to missionary work as she now is! :)
Girl's Camp
This week I also got to go with one of the other sisters to girls camp to help with a spiritual hike. It was quite the experience. I had gone running earlier that day and it wasn't raining at all but then by the time we were supposed to leave to the camp it had started softly raining. I just thought, "The rain here always stops within 20 minutes, I just need a small jacket." That was the biggest mistake ever! I think for the first time on my mission, or at least for a long time, it decided that it was just not going to stop raining at all. So we got to go on a 7 to 8 kilometer hike in the POURING rain. I got soaked!! Plus, halfway through they had a small camp set up to make food and roast makara on a miracle made fire. Thank goodness for boy scouts. It was so cold and I was drenched. We all were drenched. So we decided the best thing to do would be to just run all the way back to the camp. So we all took of running back and before I knew it I couldn't keep up with Milla and I was about to be companionless. Fortunately, one of the Young Women, Maria Sankala, came running up just in time and I got to run with her for the rest of the way and really get to know her. That was really good. Although I was soaked clean through and freezing, it was still a really good hike and I got to help comment and testify on all of the stops. That was really good and it was a lot of fun to get to know the Young Women in the ward better. I never thought I would get to go to Girls camp on my mission!
The Sweetest Letter I Have Ever Received
This week I also got the best letter that I have ever received in my life from Hai (our new convert back in Espoo.) Things had been really hard for me the past couple weeks and I just really needed something that would keep me going and it came at exactly the right time. It was the biggest tender mercy ever. He wrote telling about how grateful he was that he met missionaries like me and Sister Fronk and how grateful he was for the gospel. He wrote about how much his testimony had grown and it was really the sweetest letter I have ever received. He also told me that his little brother will be coming to Finland!!! We had been praying for that for months and it was so good to hear that our prayers had been answered and that Hai was going to have family here in Finland by the end of this summer!! Hai is the best and I am so so so forever grateful that I had the opportunity to be in Espoo and to meet him. His faith really has grown so much and is such an amazing example to me! I am SO happy for him!!! :)
New Mission President
This week we also got to meet our New Mission President! That was fun! I will admit I was SO nervous about it at first and what the transition was going to be like but it was a really good meeting and it all just felt right. He is going to be a really good mission president and has been called by God to be here and to serve here and help us bring people in Finland unto Christ.
Members Working Miracles
Things are also going really good with our investigators and a lot of them are progressing and getting answers to their prayers which is so amazing to see. Jari is really progressing and it is amazing! We had one of the most amazing lessons this past week that was really guided by the spirit. I am personally still working really hard at not thinking about what to say and trusting the Spirit to put the words into my mouth and this lesson it really happened! I said words that I didn't even know that I knew! But the coolest part was how strong the spirit was and how much he was learning and at the end we invited him to pray about a date that he wants to be baptized on and he is doing it! We are so excited for him! He also ended up coming to church and stayed all 3 hours and then a member invited him and us to come over for dinner after church and he came and loved it! The members really are taking him and and helping him become apart of the ward and it is working miracles! :)
Well, this is a long one but thank you for all of your prayers, love, and support! I love you all!!
Love,
Sister Knapp
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