Missä on sinun sormet?‏   

Finland – Week 2

Moi!! 

Week 2 has been great! I've been speaking more Finnish which means more laughs for my companion. I asked someone without gloves where their gloves were the other day, they laughed and said "Well I sure hope I know where they are!" turns out I asked where their fingers (sormet) were, not their gloves. 

This week I've been singing a lot of hymns for several good reasons. One of which is that they speak fabulous Finnish, and another is that they really invite the Spirit and calm the atmosphere. People always say when you have bad thoughts or are discouraged to sing and hymn and honestly, it's great counsel. "A song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" is so true, and earnest prayer is the best way that we can really develop our own personal conviction that Christ is the Savior. So sing hymns! Hymns have the power to calm, to teach, and to testify. All of those are invaluable in a world that teaches you not to hope, there is always hope! I like to stop people on the street and ask them what hope means to them, often they don't really know how to answer. I'm so grateful for the gospel so that I can know what hope is and what to hope for, and I'm so grateful for hymns to bring that hope to light. 

On a completely unrelated note (pun 100% intended), we have a really great investigator with really affectionate cats. I'm finding myself grateful for all of my weird animal stories (such as when our school had a cat infestation in the ceiling and for a few weeks cats were raining into the classrooms) because they've been testing my vocab and helped with contacting! 

People here are very kind. Really, we're spoiled a lot. Lots of people tell me how good my Finnish is, but they always say it in a creative way that, ironically, I don't understand. If they just said, "Wow you have great Finnish!" I could say, "Thanks! I try." But instead they say, "your ability to communicate in the Finnish tongue is quite impressive" and then I say "I'm sorry, I'm new and don't understand Finnish" and my companion says "They just said you speak great Finnish" and then no one quite knows what to say. I don't even know the word for awkward.

Word of the week: tiskaan, which means, "I am doing the dishes" Hooray for Finnish efficiency!

Hyvää päivää!

Sisar Mendenhall