Vähän sick of joulu tortut

Terve!

Wow, I sure hope that everyone had such a wonderful Christmas! I hear Utah had a wonderful surpise of a foot of snow for Christmas morning! Ahh how magical. There is no snow here, unfortunately. And it really isn’t that cold. Very strange actually. It is about 3 degrees Celsius. Last night at a dinner appointment I was telling some members that it isn’t even cold and they said, "Just you wait." Not frightening at all!!

But wow. Christmas is Finland is a dream. Christmas Eve we went to the Bishop’s family party. We ate lots and had a jolly old time. Traditional Finnish consists of turkey and lots of casseroles. All very delicious. Dessert: Tortut (pastry with plum filling- I have been force fed many of these in the past few days), gingerbread (my legal drug), and kiiseli (fruit soup- not my favorite). We have been eating this kind of food for the past week— all the members want to make sure we have had a traditional Finnish Christmas! Ahahaha very delish. After we ate we sang and played games by the Christmas tree and it was wonderfully magical.

Christmas morning of course was spent in the very best way. At church!! Christmas fell on the best day this year. There was no better way to celebrate Christ’s birth than on the Lord’s holy day! Oh yes and then I got to Skype home!! Ahhh! Exciting! The members’ home I was Skyping from was literally in the middle of the forest. It was so quaint and nice. I didn’t get a picture though dang it! I have been terrible at taking pictures, there is never time!

Well, now I wish you all a Happy New Year! Make some well-thought out goals and plans on how you want to achieve them :))

Sisar Wilson

I made Christmas cards and cookies for the members who fed us 🙂 *something interesting- they don’t sell chocolate chips here, you just chop up a full sized chocolate bar into chunks

The Christmas tree we sang and played games by

I made pannukakku (Finnish oven pancakes) for my companion and I Christmas morning! *topped with berries, whipped cream and powered sugar

All the gifts from members 🙂 most of this is chocolate and socks

Even though I am tons of miles away– I didn’t fail to wake my family up early Christmas morning (7.30 am)

On Christmas, the cemeteries are all lit up with candles. Such a peaceful, holy feeling.

And this was just one of the many pictures I have of yesterday’s sunset (around 3 pm)

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HYVÄÄ JOULUA!!!

Hello my friends!

Well, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! (soon) I hope you all fill your holidays with cheer!

Wow.

I love the Christmas season in Finland. Everything is magical. And I swear if you listen really closely you can always hear Christmas music playing faintly in the background. The members here are AMAZING. We came home from church yesterday with a big shopping bag full of wrapped gifts. (All of which are probably chocolate, no complaints)

I will keep this email short this week. I really just want to let you all know how important each of you are to me. I am sorry I cannot send any gifts to all of you! Haha! But really Christmas is not about the gifts, but Jesus Christ, Our Savior! Keep that in mind as you go throughout your week. I know that He loves us, He cares about us, and He knows us. He is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD! The best gift you could EVER giveor recieve is the gift of Christ. Find someone you can give the gift of the gospel to this year. And then give a gift to the missionaries: a referral 😉 I know this gospel changes lives, I have seen it. It has changed my life and I know it has changed many of the lives reading this. SPREAD THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL TO ALL!!! And to all a good night!

PS. I am sorry my camera is being weird so no pictures! Also my p-day is today instead of tomorrow becasue we have zone conference!

Hyvää Joulua! xoxoxox

Sisar Wilson

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13 December, 2016 11:11

WOW! HEI!

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I really cannot believe that it is already December??? Wow, by this time next year I will be home! But let’s not talk about that.

Okay so first of all, someone needs to google this for me. Is it possible for the water molecules in the air to freeze?? Because sometimes the air here literally sparkles. But it isn’t snowing. Seriously! The first time I saw it I thought I was going crazy!!! But then my companion saw it too, so maybe we are both crazy. Probably.

We have been uber busy here in Lahti. I don’t know how, but last week we found 6 investigators! Okay I do know how– Defintiely the Lord. He has been helping us so much, even when we don’t even recognize it! Like just the other day, we missed our bus. (It happens a lot) We were pretty bummed because that meant we had to walk to where we were going to get there on time. But then on the way there we talked to this man who was a former investigator! And we got to show him the Christmas video. And now we are trying to set up an appointment with him! One of the biggest things I have learned on my mission is how mindful the Lord is of each and every one of us. He knows us. He will guide us, if we let Him. He has a purpose for everything that happens to us! Wow, it really makes me smile, knowing how much love He has for us.

The email system is being weird so I am going to send this off before something weird happens.

Love to all!

Sisar WIlson
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My family is the best family and send Christmas decorations
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Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää!

(Happy Independence Day!)

WOW. Okay. What an amazing week in Lahti.

YESTERDAY WAS A MIRACLE DAY! We had two lessons set up with potential investigators last night. Usually they never show up, which is frustrating. But we really had faith that they would come this time. So we called almost every member in the ward asking if they could come with us to the lessons. After who knows how many calls we finally found 2 members who could come with us!

1st lesson miracle: First of all he came!! Second of all he brought two friends who were also interested to learn! They were all so cool and so interested in learning about the church. It was such a great lesson and they all became new investigators

2nd lesson miracle: The lesson was scheduled at 19:00. It was 19:05 and he was wasn’t there. Ahhhh voi, että. But then he called us and said he was coming but couldn’t find it. But he finally got to the church and he told us he WALKED here. Let it be known it was probably 2 degrees outside and he only had a zip up sweatshirt. Man, he REALLY wanted to learn more if he walked here and this weather. But then we realized that he doesn’t speak very good Finnish, or English and speaks Arabic instead. And it was really hard to teach him. But then, the member that came with us just started speaking Arabic to him. Like who knows Arabic randomly??? She was able to talk to him in Arabic when he didn’t understand it in Finnish. SUCH A BLESSING, SUCH A MIRACLE! Out of all the members in our ward, we had HER come with us last night. We had no idea she knew Arabic. Wow. Amazing. He also became a new investigator. 4 new investigators in 3 hours! MIRACLE.

Just such a great week overall. I could write lots more but unfortunately time does not permit it.

Love to all!

Sisar Wilson

Permanently red faces are the best kind of faces

The sunsets are sure gorgeous here 🙂 even if they are at 3pm

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Sometimes you miss your bus and have to walk home in a blizzard.

The Aftermath…

​So a lot of the challenges for the Light the World campaign require you to have social media….. This is our "social media wall"!