The Sport of Laundry Watching    

MTC - Week 8

Terve! HYVA JOULU!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

Christmas truly is the best time of the year! I love it so much that yes, I will be singing with just two other people in front of thousands of missionaries tonight. But it's just one line of a song, so I'll be ok! Our angel choir has grown to 16 but we are divided into 6 singing groups. It sounds pretty cool and our costumes are way fun, so really all is well, no bumbling angels today! Well, I guess the performance is in a few hours, I hope there won't be any bumbling going on.

We are all moved into our new house! It's pretty great because the beds and closets are close enough that it's like we have a two-floor apartment! The ground floor, and the level made by each top bunk and closet tops. There isn't really room for a soccer game, but if we had a mini chess board there's room enough for that. Maybe even a full-size chessboard if we go on the second floor! Even though it's crowded, I'm really going to miss it because my roommates are just the best. Really it's amazing to look back on everything we learned together, and how much we've laughed together. My MTC stay has just been wonderful, everybody should go on missions so they can come feel the spirit of the MTC!

Ok, so the subject of my email refers to an intense yet delicate art, and it only occurs once a year. The one time this phenomenon happens is the day before Christmas (today) because if your P-day is on Christmas (like ours is) you go do all of your P-day things the day before, but every missionary that has P-day on that day still has their P-day. (On other holidays you're just supposed to get up super early, like we did on Thanksgiving.) So double missionaries! We got to the laundry room at the beginning thankfully, and then watched the peaceful battle ensue. You'd see missionaries lapping the machines, taking mental notes of which had the fewest minutes left. Some missionaries starting countdowns much like one does on New Years Eve. Others camped out with study materials and snacks. Some tried forming alliances "I'll rotate your laundry if you let me use your washer next!" Really, missionaries were getting super creative! The most awesome thing though, was that people weren't getting mad. You go anywhere else with lines, with not enough of what is needed, and with people on a strict schedule and I'll bet fights would break out. There's no way a bunch of teenagers could be so peaceful if they weren't spending their time trying to come closer to Christ. The whole situation should have driven people crazy, but it didn't. That peace is really what I love about this gospel. Even when you know things are not the best, you can find peace. Even if what you need peace in is as silly as laundry, the Lord is willing to help.

IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!! And one of my favorite Christmas scriptures is Luke 2:10-11 "And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." What is the first thing the angel says? Fear not. Why not? Because Christ the Lord is here. We need not fear when we have Christ. I realized the other that the scriptures tell us to "fear not" quite a few times in connection with Christ. That is just as true today as it was then. I am so grateful for my Savior, and that during this time much of the world is celebrating Him. I don't want to think where I would be without Him. I know He came to this earth, He suffered for our sins, He died, and then He lived again. He did all of this for us, because of His love. I love my Savior, and I hope you all take the time to think about Him this wonderful Christmas day!

Last note: I have travel plans! I fly out Monday!!!! Suomi here I come! that means I probably won't be able to write or email until two Mondays from now. But I can always still receive mail... :)

Love you all so much!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

-Sisar Mendenhall

Saunas and Singing    

MTC - Week 7

Terve!!! 

This week has been so great and just filled with little fun things! No sarcasm there, these things might not seem the best, but here at the MTC we make them the best.

First of all, I really want to go to Finland, and the MTC knows, so they brought a little Finland to me! Finns LOVE their saunas, and our whole dorm building has been converted into just that. The heaters in our building have been broken (as in they will not turn down) for two weeks and wow are they cranking! So even though it's December all the windows are open at all times, and if you want to take a shower, you get up way early or be prepared.

Secondly, our building is being renovated/torn down, we don't know, so we moved across campus! Our room was built for four (there are six of us) so it's a good thing we all get along so well. You know what though, I'm happily sacrificing closet space because... THE HEATERS WORK!!! YAY!!!

My companion and I have amazing unity, at least our investigator Monday thought so. That's because we stood and left in perfect unity, moving as one, waving as one. My notebook somehow got way tangled up in my companion's sweater and we didn't want to stop teaching so we just acted like nothing was different, and exited en masse.

I got to host again this week! They had too many Sister hosts and not enough Elders, so I had to help a few Elders too. I think they felt really weird having me carry their bags.

This is the story of how I became involved in a duet in front of hundreds of people: The other day a memo was sent to my teacher that I had to call the front desk, immediately. Those calls generally aren't so good. I walk to the hall phone prepping myself for the worst and hear, "Hey Sister Mendenhall! We need you to visit with the MTC presidency to talk about your part in the Christmas musical production." *Stunned silence ensues* I don't know how many of you heard my musical talent before, let's just be nice and say it's rather limited. Like, think of those TV auditions you watch and just want to give the person a hug afterwards. My comp and I head down, wondering what interpretive music they must be planning for Christmas, and go to the designated room to find just Sister Nally, and Sister Roach (the MTC Relief Society president and first counselor) sitting at a table like they are ready to hear our audition. We almost bolted. We walked in terrified, and then Sister Roach said, "Sister Mendenhall! I was just visiting with your grandparents last night and promised I would say hello!" PHEW! Huge sigh of relief there. We visited for a bit, she's way fun, and then Sister Nally says, "Sisters, you look very angelic, will you be the angels in the Christmas pageant?" YES, I was always the donkey, a wiseman, or a sheep (or even Joseph one year) in nativity scenes at home. Then she says, "Ok the two of you will just have one musical number." Whoops! Well, we really did want to be the angels, so we stuck with it. You all will hear part two of this story in a few weeks. It will probably be entitled: "The bumbling angel" or "Sisar Mendenhall solos in the choir--on accident". But I really am excited, they decided to have 12 angels, and I found a very strong singer to partner with, I can work with that:)

Truly though, this week has been fantastic. The power of a positive attitude is huge and my companion has optimism by the ton. We've loved the hard things because in hard things where do we turn? To our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I've been thinking a lot about Christmas, (ONLY ONE WEEK I'M SUPER STOKED) and the symbolism of Christmas. So the Christmas tree is the evergreen because of several reasons, but what I think is so cool about it, is that it really is green and lively all year. All year we have Christmas trees! All year, every day and every hour, Christ is there "to lift up the hands that hang endlessly down" (Elder Neal A Maxwell). This gospel is truly a message of hope. Of hope for better things in this life, and in the life to come. "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh and anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." Ether 12:4. Hope nowadays is used to mean something you don't actually think will happen, but that you want to happen, when really in the scriptures it's used to mean something that we really expect to happen. Right now I hope that I will be able to speak Finnish well, not because I don't actually think it will happen, but because I have faith that Christ can work miracles. This hope anchors me in strength when faced with what would normally be an impossible task (namely learning Finnish...). There's always something each of us could use a little more anchoring in, so go ahead and find your anchor! It'll make Christmas even more meaningful.

I love you all! Have a fantastic Christmas!!

Love,

Sisar Mendenhall 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FINN FAMILY!!!

A REAL FINN   

MTC - Week 6

Terve ystavatni!!!

I love Finnish!! Sometimes it feels like Willie Wonka explaining calculus in Alice's wonderland, but it's starting to really make sense! Like why wouldn't "purple" have 17 letters? It has to be conjugated the right way or obviously the force would be unbalanced. My companion and I have started practicing Finnish by translating hymns and it's super fun. It is kind of tiring, the other day my companion said, "I think I would seriously die without food." She is absolutely brilliant, that just shows how tired our brains get. We have Speak Your Language (SYL) days during which if we do not speak in Finnish (or if taking to missionaries that don't speak Finnish if we don't translate everything we say to them into Finnish) we have to write every English word we spoke in five different sentences. Our charade skill level gets +50 points every SYL day. 

At the MTC we eat every meal in the cafeteria. So because we have eaten many many meals there, my companion and I have developed fabulous getting-up-from-the-table routines which have sparked a fad. Much like synchronized diving, getting-up-from-the-table routines are critiqued on unity and complexity. Our newest routine involved the cups song (with Finnish words of course). Also at the MTC there is a thing for holding open doors. To avoid contention my companion and I both open a door, then run really quickly through the door that the other has opened so that both of us can feel good for serving. 

This week my companion and I...SYKPED A REAL FINN IN THE REAL COUNTRY OF FINLAND HAVING A REAL CONVERSATION FOR 40 MINUTES!!!! We ran out of the skyping room and just prayed in thanks for the gift of tongues. We had so much fun talking to our Finnish sister and cannot wait to get to Finland!! We said words wrong of course, but with some laughs and help we were able to communicate our message. The biggest thing they teach here about the language is that you have to just try and have faith that the Lord will provide. And then He does and it's just the best!! Lots of times when we want to help someone, or help ourselves, we think we are just too far behind to even start. Maybe we are far behind, but most likely we just need to stick our necks out there and give helping a try. If we show the faith to say, I need help, the Lord is so happy to give us the help we need and want. I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!!! And I love it because, "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ...that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." 2Nephi 25:26 Such a great time of the year!! I love my Savior, and I love you all!

"What's a fish's favorite Country? Estonia." --Said by the Estonian Missionaries next door. The real answer is Finland. Finland is every fish's favorite country.

Onnellinen joulu!! (Happy Christmas!)
Sisar Mendenhall

Pictures: Enjoying the December heat, and my view 9 hours a day (which I love because the gospel and Finnish are both pretty amazing)

     

Thanksgiving + Christmastime = the PARAS!! (BEST!!)‏   

MTC Week 5

Terve!!! I would start off by saying I love you all but I learned that Finns almost never use "to love" so... Mina pidan teita!! (I like you all!!) Also, fun Finnish fact, the difference between a conjugated from of "to meet" is only one letter away from meaning "to kill", don't kill your neighbors, meet them and like them. 

Thanksgiving was tosi mahteva! (truly awesome). The entire day was packed with funtivities that included a devotional with Elder Bednar that was Q&A style. They passed out hundreds of cell phones and has us text in questions that he answered from the pulpit. This devotional was being broadcasted to several MTCs throughout the world and they were able to send in questions as well! It was so fun. Even though the question my companion and I sent in wasn't answered, we still learned a ton. Later that day we had a humanitarian program, and then a humanitarian project packaging meals to go to the Utah food bank. That was so fun, us lahetysaarranajia (missionaries) packaged over 300,000! We had a huge lunch and my companion and I didn't want to miss any of the food. We decided to hit separate lines and take double so that both of us could have everything. Unfortunately, we ended up hitting two lines that were actually serving the same thing. So we met up and had quadruple of what we wanted. I think our table and the next had to help us out. Dinner that night was super fun, We ate sack meals in the hallway with our whole zone. We then got to watch...Meet the Mormons!!! Ah that movie is most excellent! Seriously if you haven't seen it, mene (that's the command form of "to go" btw). After that we had "a surprise waiting outside", and ran out to find the whole place decked out in Christmas lights!! It's so beautiful, I don't how many you can see in the picture, but there are a lot and it's glorious. 

With the start of the Christmas season we had a speaker come and share a video called "Share the Gift" I hope all of you have already seen it, it's so beautiful. It's all about how Christ truly was the first gift of Christmas. The video then tells us to DISCOVER and EMBRACE the gift of Christ. We were asked to think of how we have embraced the gift of Christ, and I thought of one of my earliest memories. It was a pretty simple thing, I asked my mom if Jesus actually looked like all of the pictures. She told me she didn't really know what He looked like, but she did know that He is the Son of God. He lives. He loves us. And because she has faith in Christ and has felt His Spirit, she would know if she saw Him. That has stuck with me for years, that happened when I was really little. I saw that's the first time I discovered Christ. Now I work everyday to embrace Him. I want to be like Him in everything I do, and I know that by trusting in Him, that goal is possible for everybody. I love Christmas! So for this Christmas, think about how you have, or can, come to know Christ, and then embrace Him!

Other fun things this week: BYU's Vocal Point came and sang a bunch of Church hymns, my companion almost died from excitement. In choir we sang a really epic arrangement of "Away in a Manger", think of Lord of the Rings background music, it was way cool. I got to host this week!! That means I took missionaries from their parents at the MTC curb and threw them into their classrooms (with love and support of course) it was so fun and great to see the excitement of the Lord's newest                                            missionary servants!

The pictures: Our mini tree someone's mom mailed in, and our excitement about the nativity statue!!! (Sorry, my poor selfie skills couldn't get the whole nativity.)

I like you all so much!!! Thanks you for your letters! I super-liked those too! 

Sisar Mendenhall

Hooray For The Holy Ghost!   

MTC - Week 4

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I love Thanksgiving! Gratitude is such a happy emotion and can help our problems seem small. I'm so grateful to be a missionary, every week I learn so much. 

This week two particularly awesome things happened, first of all, Elder Oaks came to the MTC! He gave a wonderful message on WHY we do missionary work, and HOW. He talked about how we really can't fully do the how if we don't know the why. That can be applied to every principle of the gospel, if we know the why the how becomes something we want to do. I know that we can learn the why through pray, study, and personal revelation. God lives and He will give answers to any of us that ask with sincere desire to know and the intention to act upon our answer. 

The second super awesome thing, Sisar P and I were teaching a lesson and our investigator asked a question that we did not understand at all. She repeated it, rephrased it, and finally threw her hands in the air. We were so sad that we couldn't help her. Sisar P then turned to me and whispered "bear testimony" so I did. I looked at our investigator, and in broken Finnish I bore testimony of the law of tithing. After our lesson, our investigator thanked us for answering her question so well, she thought we didn't even understand her. We were so confused because we didn't understand her, but it turns out that I answered her question in my testimony. That minun ystäväni (my friend) is the power of the Holy Ghost! "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." Moroni 10:5. The Spirit is what teaches our lessons, not us, and thank goodness for that! There's no way we could do what we do without the Holy Ghost to guide us. I am so grateful for the comfort and peace that comes through the knowledge that the Lord always has my back. If I can just open my mouth, He can provide the words.

I hope you all have a great week and awesome kiitospäivää!!'
Much Love, Sisar Mendenhall

L.A. and 18 Daughters 
MTC - Week 3

Terve!

Every week is so different and I learn so much, but this week was especially so.

Monday the Sister Finnishionaries (Sister Finnish Missionaries, aren't we so cute?) took a day trip to LA! Yes, I do mean Los Angeles, California. We needed to visit the Finnish Consulate so we could get our visas. We woke up at 2:30am, bussed to the airport, caught our flight at 7:30 am, and we were off in the the real world! It was great! We talked to so many people, shared our love, bore our testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, were bluntly told what others thought of us, and absolutely loved all of it! It was great to be out of the MTC and practice teaching people that we just met on the street. Some were really receptive and talked with us for a while, and those people made the trip worth it. Our taxi driver was awesome! He drives the missionaries that head to LA for visas and so he has heard a lot about the church. We asked to go walk around the LA temple, and he decided to come with us. He loves his family so much, and on the temple grounds is a beautiful statue of a family accompanied by a description of how the gospel blesses families. He was so excited, he took pictures, and he expressed how much he loved that experience. It was so great to be able to see his love for his family.

So when I said "18 daughters", I wasn't talking about someone we met, I was talking about my companion and I. This past Sunday we were assigned to be the Sister Training Leaders (STL) for our zone, meaning we are in charge of all of the sisters' well-being. A little scary to think about, but we are already loving the new work! Yesterday new sisters came to the MTC that will be serving in Hungary and we were able to show them around, answer questions, and just help them through their first day here. We have learned the importance of planning and scheduling, my goodness do we use our planners. Our sisters truly are so great, they make wanting to serve so easy. Most of the time this assignment entails simply helping them know they are loved, and helping them to release stress. This week I came across a great scripture about joy in Genesis 21:6, "And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." The footnotes for this verse say that in Hebrew the word for "to laugh" also means "to rejoice". The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is such a happy message, and everyone could always use a little more joy. Oftentimes we are the most happy, when making others happy so it's like double blessings! We are happy and so is our neighbor! I encourage you all to do some small thing to include others in your laughter and rejoicing. When you do so, they will feel your love, and it really is the more the merrier.

These pictures are of the LA temple which is really super beautiful.

Have a great week everybody!!

Minä rakastan teitä!!

Sisar Mendenhall

Activation Energy   

MTC - Week 2

Terve! Mina rakastan teita!

Fun fact of the week, Elvish on Lord of the Rings was based off of Finnish! So to all of you that speak Elvish, I feel you.

This week has flown by! Seriously time must be the best at hide-and-go-seek because I do not know where it goes. Finnish is still coming along well. However, now that we know more grammar we realize how bad our grammar truly is. The Finn-speakers we practice with must have amazing problem-solving and quick-thinking skills! In Finnish you conjugate nouns as well as verbs and there are no prepositions, you add prepositions to the ends of words. That's why Finnish words are so long. In my last letter I'm pretty sure when I tried to say "I love you all" I said something like "You Me love". Mutta nyt mina voit sanoa mina rakastan teita! ("but now I can say I love you all!" That's the right grammar but I can't figure out the accent marks on this computer so it's still wrong.)

We love learning new words! At lunch we sit by Hungarian-bound missionaries who have been here four weeks more than us, so they speak their language much better than we speak ours. When they rattle off Hungarian we want to feel cool too, so we just start saying every word we know in Finnish using inflection to make it sound like sentences. One of the "Huns" figured it out and now he has a list of simple Finnish words to rattle off right back at us. But the neighboring Spanish table still thinks we're pretty cool!

During personal study this week I read 1 Nephi 10:6 which says, "Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer." That scripture talks about how we all need Christ's Atonement in our lives so that we can become better and live with God again. When I read it, being a nerd, I immediately thought of changing states of matter (as in an element going from a solid to a liquid to a gas). In my head I imagined when a solid turns into a liquid to be like when we decide to follow Christ. We have new energy, determination, and different properties than we did before. But, if we want to keep changing states and turn into a gas (which is like becoming like Christ and enduring to the end), it takes a lot more energy to turn from a liquid into a gas than for a solid to turn into a liquid. Sometimes, we might think we will never have the required energy, we think there is just too much to do so we shouldn't even try. Let me tell you something awesome, you don't have to provide the energy yourself. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13) With Christ we are more capable than we can possibly imagine. So use the activation energy freely given to you by Christ's Atonement! It is possible to keep changing states! Literally everyday you can make yourself better. That's what the Atonement is about, it is "to make bad men good and good men better" (I can't remember who said that first, but my dad quotes it a lot!). And unlike a New Years resolution, this change can last for eternity. 

A HUGE thanks for all of the letters this week!! If you haven't seen the movie "The Best Two Years" go watch it. If you have, you know the scene where tons of letters come and it's all for one Elder? That was me:) Vanhin (Elder) Hyer had a stack of letters and went through them like, "Sisar Mendenhall!!! Sisar Mendenhall! Sisar Mendenhall. Sisar Mendenhall..." I loved every one! 

Oh my companion wanted to join choir, I am not a singer but I went with her. They asked me what my choir experience was and I thought back on the time that I was in the Sound of Music. So I replied, "I was in a Catholic Nun's Choir." That got some pretty great faces:)

I love you all and wish you all the best! Have a great week!

Rakkaus ja rukous!

Sisar Mendenhall

Halloween in the MTC:  dressing as Octuplets!

Finnish district braving the elements of Provo:

Drinking From a Fire Hydrant   

One Week Down...

Julia had an awesome send off to the MTC from her fabulous siblings...

She got her first companion...

And she met up with an old friend...

So far, so good!!!

And here is her first letter:

Terve! Hei! Mita kuuluu! (Hello! Hey! How are you doing?)

Before I went into the MTC Cathy explained to me that if your P-Day (preparation day) is on Thursday you don't get it until the next week. Well guess what, my p-day is Thursday! So that's why you all haven't heard anything from me yet. The MTC is fabulous! The first day felt at least 35 hours long but since then the time has really flown by, I can't believe I've been here over a week!

I love my companion, she's so great. Really, I'm not typing this because she is sitting right next to me (although she is), she's awesome. We're totally different, but that works so well. She is from Utah, never has left Utah, was home-schooled, and doesn't eat junk food. She does however like to run, and we both want to learn Finnish so bad! 

Here we have 16 hour days seven days a week. Actually, we are up at 5:45 and in bed by 10:30 six of those days, so that's 16 hr 45 min. You would think we are just burned out all the time, but we're not! We're smiling, we're having fun, we're studying, we are happy! It's amazing how much the Spirit is present here, if it wasn't, if we weren't on the Lord's errand, you can bet all 2100 teenagers here would be zombies. There are six in our district (4 Sisaret ja 2 Vanhinmat, 4Sisters and 2 Elders) and another Finnish district next door (2 Sisaret, ja 3 Vanhinmat). There are also a few Albanian districts, an Estonian district, and a Hungarian district in our zone. We are the "most difficult languages" zone. But our Branch President (our zone is our branch) likes to call us the "Wild and Ferocious Zone, Cha-Ching!" so we say that instead, it's less daunting. 

My very first day was exciting, I was given a massive industrial-strength yellow bag full of books on Finnish. I walked into the classroom and bam, the training started. Our teacher did not speak a word of English the entire day. (I'm really fast with a dictionary now.) By the end of the day we already knew simple sentences and small talk. The next day we studied a ton, and on the third day here we gave our first lesson entirely in Finnish. (Ok, in Finnish and mime/pictionary.) We were in there for about 35 minutes and I cannot believe how much we were already able to understand. The gift of tongues is so real, I know that the Lord is helping us all so much with this language! We have given three lessons since, and each is better than the last. For the fourth lesson my companion and I wrote down just a handful of words, no phrases. Oh man that lesson was so cool! We understood our investigator, and we understood each other!! The Spirit was so strong, we challenged her to follow Christ and be baptized and she said yes!! We know it was just a practice lesson and a fake investigator, but it felt so real. The Lord cares about all of us so much, even though it was a practice lesson that didn't matter to who we were teaching, it mattered to us. We left all calm and cool, really classy-like, but as soon as we shut the door we started jumping up and down and hugging while spinning, we were so excited!! The Spirit was so strong, the Lord helped us remember our Finnish, and we worked so well together. Of course our moment of glory had to end, our investigator then walked out and saw the spectacle. Note for future missionary work: when you leave a lesson all classy-like, get off her porch before you start acting like a buffoon. 

Ok so the subject of this refers to how we feel here at the MTC a lot of the time. There is so much information, so much to do, so much we need to learn. But it's ok. We know we will be able to get down what the Lord needs us to do. "Fear not I am with thee oh be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will still give thee aid...[I'll] cause thee to stand" A lot of the time we feel like we can't stand anymore, whether we can't stand something or are simply exhausted. We want to throw our hands in the air and let someone else deal with the problem. But I know that relying on Christ and trusting in the Lord, will give you the capability to do what you never thought you could. On the first night I looked out my window and saw a street that I have run on a million times. The idea popped into my head that my window was open, not far from the ground, and if I booked it I could be at Cathy's place in less than two minutes. I didn't feel like I could do what I am being asked. then I realized, I don't need to be able to do it all, because I know that I have the Lord to help me. We all have the Lord to help us.

Mina rakastan te! Kiitos for the letters, love and prayers! 

Oh also, dearelder.com is super great...

Sisar Mendenhall

And I'm off!

Hello all! I am Julia Mendenhall (Sister Mendenhall) and on October 29th I will begin serving as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Finland. I will email my family updates of my many adventures spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they will post those updates on this page. This blog contains my own thoughts and opinions and is not an official page of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For privacy names of those I meet may be changed.

I hope that this blog will bring a smile to your face and that it can help you understand why I chose to give 18 months of my life in service to the Lord. I am so excited to serve! I know this will be a growing experience for me and I hope that what I post here can help you to grow closer to our Savior Jesus Christ and feel of His love. I know that we have a caring Heavenly Father that loves each of us deeply, and individually.

My contact information will be kept current on this blog and I would love to hear from any and all of you! If you have any questions about what members of my church believe, about life, if it really is that cold in Finland, or anything else I’m happy to answer! You can also look here for my Mormon.org profile to learn a little more about me and my faith.

One last thing, I have never had a blog before, so if something looks a little funny, laugh at it and know someone will try to fix it later:)