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