"It Has To Be True!"

I'm On The Juice Aisle

Hopefully this will be a good email, but I feel like the closer I get to coming home the less I really have the energy to write long detailed emails. This week was a better week and things are going really well.  We are still teaching our investigator who is Egyptian, Elsayed, and he is one of the most prepared people that I have ever seen.  He is so humble and so ready to hear the Gospel. We told him about the restoration and how he can know if it is true and he just kept saying, "It must be true!  It must be true!".  He is amazing.  He is so nice and willing and ready to learn.  He came to church this past week too and really liked it. He said that it really touched his heart.  The only sad thing about all this is that he is moving to New Zealand! So we are going to have to help him get in touch with the missionaries there so that they can teach him and baptize him because he is so ready.  He is also one of the nicest people ever. Giving us a ton of juice and pastries.  Yum!  He is great. :) Small side note.... Have I ever mentioned anything about Finns and juice? Oh my word!  They love juice!! Seriously, you can go into a grocery story and they will have an entire aisle of juices. It just reminds me of Brian Regan, "I'm in the juice aisle... slumped over with juice people." Good ole' Brian Regan. :) 

So Many Questions

Things are also going alright with Anu. She decided that she wanted to get baptized in June but now her dad, Tero, is saying that she needs to wait until she is older. We are going to keep working with her and her dad though and hopefully over time she will be able to be baptized and her parents will be ok with it.  She apparently watch a movie about Christ with Mac and her dad and really liked it. She had so many questions after that and now she says that she believes in Christ so that was pretty exciting. She continues to be my favorite person that we are teaching right now. Her dad is doing alright.  He is having a really hard time caring right now and seeing a point in believing in this. So we are trying to help him build a greater desire to change.  

Less Active Work
We also were able to meet with a few less-actives this week. Sisar Aalto is great. She is from Chile and has been living in Finland for 25 years. She is so nice and you would never guess that she is less-active by the way she talks.  She really seems to understand the Gospel and what it teaches. It's just hard for her to come to church since her husband left the church and wont have anything to do with it. We are meeting with her again next week. We are also still working with Sister Ryyty. She is doing ok. We hadn't been able to get into her house for the past few weeks so it was nice to finally be able to meet with her again. She really just has a hard time coming to church and giving time for the Gospel but she is still praying and reading with us. So hopefully we can continue to help her.   

Success From Planted Seeds

Sister Seegmiller and I have also been going through our area book like crazy. It has been our biggest success in finding new people that are willing to meet with us that we can teach. We have gone through about 30 people who were former investigators in the area book and are now meeting with 3 of them so that has been really exciting. We have a goal to have contacted every single former in the areabook before the end of the change and so far we are doing really good. :) 

Nothing much more to report!  Thank you for all of your love and support!! 

Love, 

Sister Knapp

Teaching When We Really Trust

Being Taught
This was a lot better week than last week. I still have to admit that I don't remember much at all about what happened but it was a good week none the less. The weirdest thing is not having P-day on Mondays anymore and instead having it on Tuesday. I would have thought that it would make the week feel shorter since we have a break in the middle, sort of, but its not!  The weeks seem to drag on and on and on.  I miss my Monday P-days if you can't tell. I don't remember if I wrote about last Monday or not last week... so you might get to hear about it again. It was a really good day. We got to go and visit a less-active, Sisar Kiijarvi. That was an experience. We were in the middle of a spiritual thought with her and testifying about the Book of Mormon when she cut in and asked "Do you like Karjalanpirakka?" Um... Yes?  Well.... lets just say... that was the end of our spiritual thought and we got to eat food instead. We are still trying to work with her though. She really is super sweet. We also had a lesson with Mac that night. Mac taught us and made it super fun for us  He brought play-dough and told us to make something out of it. So, we did. I made a cake and a heart. It was super fun. He then gave us a lesson from Elder Eyring's talk, "Mountains to Climb" and talked about trials and the refiners fire, basically.  He then related it to us tearing and reshaping the dough into something better. It was a really good lesson. He is an incredible teacher.  Sometimes I really feel like we have so much more to learn from him than he does from us.   

Teaching the Stubborn and Sassy

Tuesday was P-day and that was a decently good day. P-day's always feel so short. But it was good. We got to go and visit a member's home and that was fun. We have some really great members here in Marjaniemi, despite the fact that they are so busy. Wednesday was a good day. Zone meeting went well, though more and more I really don't like sitting through long meetings. We did get to teach Anu that night which was fun. I love her. She is so sassy and so stubborn. We taught her all about repentance and had a member Paivi come with us, who just recently got home from her mission. We then got to play Afrikan Tähti (African Star) and Anu cheated like crazy, haha, but it was still fun. I love teaching her. She told us that she wanted to be baptized but that she wanted to wait until October. Then when I told her that I wouldn't be here anymore she told me that she would just wait until I come back, haha. Oh my word. We are still working with her. Now she is saying that she is wanting to be atheist.... but she was in a stubborn and sassy mood so we will see if she stays that way. 

Awkward aching Moment

Thursday we got to go and do service at a member's house, Sister Angelosanto, and she ended up leaving... so we were just alone in her house cleaning it. I am not sure it was the best use of time but we got to show her that we really cared and then she gave us a referral so that was a good thing!  We also taught a new investigator of ours. That was an interesting experience. He is our neighbor but doesn't want us coming to his place so he wanted to meet at a Chinese Restaurant right next to our apartment building. So we did.... It was SO awkward.  He has met with missionaries before so he knows what we do but it just felt so weird. We ended up having to order something small and then we taught him. The member didn't have anything to eat and it just over all felt so weird. He was super nice though and is willing to meet again, but he is going to be gone for the next month so we will see about it afterward. Then he paid for our food. We didn't know what to do!  So we just left and laughed about the whole thing. We will see what happens in a month. :) 

Teaching With Help From the Spirit

I am running out of time... But Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all good days too. Quickly, we got to teach Tero and it was such a good lesson. I learned so much from it.  It was one time that I really just stopped worrying about what we had planned and just listened to his concerns. I stopped worrying about what I was going to say in Finnish and just spoke, and it was such an amazing experience. I really felt like I was saying exactly what the Spirit was wanting me to say. I don't know if he felt the Spirit like I did. But I really felt the Spirit and it really helped me realize that when we just listen and trust that Heavenly Father will fill our mouths with what we need to say, He really does. It was amazing. He is doing good, we think. We are just trying to help him get a greater desire to learn and change. We also got to meet with another less-active this Sunday and she introduced us to her friend who is Filipino and so sweet. We are now teaching her and so excited about it!  We also are teaching another Egyptian guy that just walked into the church last week when they had an activity going on and wanted to learn more. Miracles are happening. Thanks for all your prayers, love, and support! 

Love, 

Sister Knapp

Some Weeks Are Rough

This week was was once again a bit of a rough week. Things are changing a lot in the mission and have been making things really hard and not as fun to do the work. But we keep going anyway. 
Loud Reminder of Home
We got to meet with one of our investigators. Kastehelmi this week and had a really good lesson with her. We ended up inviting her to be baptized and she agreed to it and was going to pray about a date, but sadly about two days later ended up dropping us. It was kind of sad. We also got to go to a family night with an American family in the ward. I love Americans. They are so outgoing and loud and it is kinda fun. It reminds me of home. They actually taught us a lesson on new year's resolutions. That was fun. It is so nice to actually be taught something every once in awhile!  

My Favorites :)
We also were able to meet with our 9 year old Anu a few times this week. I love her!  She really is the highlight of our day sometimes. She is so stubborn but so much fun. We got to teach her about baptism this week which actually went pretty well since we had a big box of chocolate at the end. We are really hoping that we can set a baptismal date with her this coming week. Things are also going well with her dad, Tero, and he has started to seem more and more open with us which we are really exited about. We are also finally able to get back in with one of my favorite less-actives who is Filipino.
When The Teachee Becomes the Teacher
Things are going well with Mac too. He is the best. Literally. We have decided that he is going to start teaching us and it has been so good.  He is such an amazing teacher it is ridiculous. I have been a missionary for like 17 months and I am not even half the teacher he is. He gives us amazing lessons and even made Sister Seegmiller cry.... it was because of the spirit. :)  Its been fun to actually be taught something and I learn so much from him. He has such a strong testimony. Stronger than I think he even knows that he has and it is pretty amazing to see. 

The work is going forward. We have a goal to have our name on every record in the area book and so we are trying to contact all the former investigators that are in there. We ended up calling a ton of them and now have 2 new investigators that we are really excited about. Sorry this is once again such a lame email.  Weeks are really starting to feel like the same and that there is not much variety at all.  I will try and write a better email next week.  Thanks for all the love and support. 

Love, 

Sister Knapp 

New Companion

Hei!!! 

with my MTC group--Sister Nyman (who was also my companion in Oulu), Sister Hansen and Sister Ross (who was my companion in the MTC).  Probably the last time we will all be together.

Train Station Transfers

Sorry, this weeks email is probably going to be a shorter email than usual.  Not too much actually happened last week. Transfers happened.  It was so much fun.  We ran into a huge group of missionaries all at the train station to pick up their new companions and some coming to pick up trainees the next day. So I got to see SO many missionaries that I absolutely love.  I got to see Sister Ross, Sister Hansen, and Sister Nyman all together again for the first time really since the MTC, or I guess mission conference. It was so much fun.  I also got to see so many missionaries that just were going home and got to say goodbye.  I really have had the opportunity to serve with some of the best people and missionaries in the world.  It is crazy how fast the time has gone.  I never thought I would make it this far into my mission.  The time is going by so fast and I can't believe it.  

New Companion

Things are going pretty well in Marjaniemi.  I have a great new companion, Sister Seegmiller.  She is so obedient and hard-working and really an incredible missionary.  She is a lot of fun to be around and we have a lot in common from back home life so that is fun. She has only been in the country for 4 months but she speaks amazing Finnish.  Really, she is incredible.  Right now we are still teaching Anu. She is so much fun to teach, even though sometimes she can be so stubborn.  She actually kinda reminds me of Cass, haha, so she really feels like my little sister. She is doing really good and when you can get her to focus she seems to understand things really well. She was WAY excited to come to church this week and by doing so got her dad to come too, who we are also teaching.  Miracles!  But sadly, the novelty of church wore off and she didn't like that the other kids steal her attention. So we are going to have to figure that one out.  Otherwise she is doing so good and really progressing.  I absolutely love teaching her and spending time with her, Mac, and Fai. They feel like family here.  

Sorry, this is really short.  I don't have much to say this week!  I love you all so much.  Thanks for your love and support throughout my mission! 

Love,

Sister Knapp