Hyvää Pääsiäistä!

(Finland – Week 14)

07 April 2015

WOW Easter and General Conference! It's been a good week.

So this week I gained at least 50 smooth points (which is scored similar to golfing, one day I might be at the level of crunchy peanut butter). A majority of those came from when we went to visit a member family. We had never been to their house nor even met them. The journey there was an adventure comparable to that of Cuzco and Pacha, although we couldn't even draw our path afterwards as it was so confusing. We finally arrived, and a very friendly man said hi to us on the street, people rarely say hi to us so we were so happy! We rushed by, realized we were early, took a little siesta in the hissi (elevator) and went upstairs. Come to find out the really friendly man was the father of this family. Oops. And if we had gotten off the bus one stop sooner we would have had a very easy journey. Oops. Well repentance is the thing, I don't have to be perfect yet.

At least we eat healthy-ish! (Note the attached picture)

These are a few of my favorite things (April 2015 general conference edition):

1. “I can teach you to dance, but you have to hear the music.” I love this analogy, how it makes to gospel so personal, how it is up to us to truly make the dance (living the gospel) something meaningful. I thought back on my social dance class at BYU (which happened to be my lowest grade of the semester) and wondered if I could really learn a dance much more important than waltzing. 

2. To answer that, and to assure everyone that we can in fact learn this dance, I have another quote I heard in conference from Nelson Mandela, “I’m no saint—that is, unless you think a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.” My dance teacher was pretty merciful but the mercy of our Savior is much, much greater. His love for us is infinite and eternal. As long as we keep trying, we are Saints. Our church is full of try-ers as it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Isn't the Savior's love wonderful? He loves a bunch of people just because they try to figure out the dance. 

3. I'm pretty sure I say this every week, but that's also something that struck me in conference, the need to "constantly marvel". We need to constantly marvel at Christ's love, His sacrifice, His enabling power. Easter marks literally the biggest event that has taken/will ever take place on this earth, and we need to always be in awe of this act, the Atonement of our Savior.

I hope you all had a happy Easter! (Hyvää pääsiäistä) Have a great week!

Love Sisar Mendenhall