Belgians and Brothers  

(Finland – Week 16)  

21 April 2015

Many adventures this week! We went to the temple on Wednesday because we have a companion that is new in the mission. It was amazing! It is so great to feel God's love in His house. We also had zone conference this past weekend with the Tampere zone (I'm in the Helsinki zone, there are four zones in our mission) and we had to be at Tampere by 7 in the morning. That meant we had to be on our charter bus in Helsinki at 4:30 in the morning, but the buses and trains don't run that early so that meant we had to walk, and that meant we had to stay at the Sister's apartment in downtown Helsinki. All in all we got up at the lovely hour of 2:30, got ready, and walked to the central train station amongst the revelers that had yet to go to sleep. It was totally worth it! Elder Nielson (he spoke in general conference about the prodigal son and his sister Susan) spoke to us and he served a mission in Finland! He knew exactly what we are all trying to do, and exactly what we needed to hear. It was obviously way super great because after only four hours of sleep we all stayed awake through a four hour meeting. 

I met a Belgian yesterday!! I was so excited I literally jumped. She knew Mons (my city) and good chocolate and lots of other life-and-death details of Belgium. We spoke in Finnish, I can't remember too much French, it made my day.

I was reading in Alma the other day and I just love the advice he gives to his sons. This first one is to Alma's son Corianton who had just been a huge punk and committed terrible sins, Alma 39:10, "And I command you to take it upon you to counsel with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold, thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel." I just love the counsel to talk with his brothers. Imagine the humility it would take for him to go to his brothers and say, I really need help, and the comfort from knowing that no matter what he said, his brothers would still love him. I love my siblings a lot, and I just imagined us having a little pow-wow. Of course they would be disappointed, but they would care so much more about getting me back to where I needed to be than anything else. Christ is our older brother, and just as Corianton was to counsel with his brothers, we are to follow the counsel of Christ. "And now, my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness." (Alma 38:9) I just love how much the Book of Mormon talks about Christ. It truly is another testament of Him, and He truly wants us to come home. 

Much love from Finland! 

Sisar Mendenhall 

Soldiers and Cards  

(Finland – Week 15)  

14 April 2015

No hei! 

Wow this week has been awesome! A few days ago one of my companions sat down by a man on the bus who promptly pulled out his phone and began talking to a friend in a language she didn't recognize. She heard "something something Missionary..." and then the man switched to Finnish. She pulled out a pass-along card with a picture of Christ on it and the man said, "Oh! They believe in Jesus!" He then switched to English and kept talking to his friend about this missionary on the bus next to him. My companion gave him the card and we laughed about the weirdest card-giving ever. Yesterday this man called us and asked for a church tour and to learn about our beliefs! We were more than happy to oblige and we had an awesome lesson yesterday. Miracles are everywhere! I'm so grateful my companion braved the awkward and gave that man a card. 

Also this week is interim training for the newest missionaries. That means both of my companions are gone right now (one is a trainer and the other her trainee). Two other sisters are in the exact same situation as me and so all three of us are here in Haaga and it's been so fun! One of these sisters was my MTC companion, and the other was in my first district here in Finland! We've been learning lots from each other and the weather has been lovely (well, lovely for about two hours but vitamin D is vitamin D). 

I read 2 Timothy the other day and man it's a powerhouse! If you ever need a pick me up forget youtube videos of fuzzy animals and get out your Bible. First of all is 2 Tim 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." God doesn't want us to live in fear and stress, he wants us to be happy! To feel love and power. Not power to take over the world, but power to do and be good. I love this second one, 2 Tim 2:3 "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Imagine yourself as a literal soldier of Christ, the army of Christ would make those 300 Spartans run for the hills. No one will ever or could ever overpower Christ. By joining His forces and following His orders we will never fail, the path will never be too hard. 

I found the great and spacious building! I think it's about to fall soon. 

Much love!

Sisar Mendenhall

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

Toveruuden voima‏

(Finland – week 13)

31 March 2015

And we're back! Into winter that is. But you know what they say, April snowstorms bring May flowers!

Companionship power moment: I was talking to a lady on the bus the other day who was not Finnish, she spoke rather loudly, Finns are very quiet. We were having a good conversation about families, I even showed her a picture of my family, and then she asked me a question that I did not understand at all. I was a little panicked because our conversation had been going so well. I glanced to the side of her and saw my Finnish companion staring me down from across the aisle, she mouth "joo" (yes) and I exuberantly replied "Kyllä!" (also means yes). The lady was happy and we continued to talk for several minutes. I'm so glad that my companion had my back, and that the lady I was talking to was loud enough for my companion to hear. Double blessing! 

This week I've been studying the enabling power of the Atonement. Lots of times we focus on the power of Christ's Atonement to receive forgiveness for our sins, and we forget that the Atonement also allows us to become stronger, and to grow. One of my Dad's favorite quotes is that the Atonement makes "Bad men good, and good men better" I used to think this just meant everybody sins, even good people need to repent. That is true, but this also means that the Lord can strengthen us to stretch farther than we thought possible. There's a wonderful example of this in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi 7, when Nephi's brothers tie him up. He prays not to have the bonds removed, but to be strengthened so he can break the bonds himself. "But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound." (1Ne 7:17) Nephi showed God his willingness to do his part, he humbly and realistically said, 'I promise to work, please just help me with this one part.' Then according to Nephi's faith, the Lord gave him the strength, "And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet," (1Ne 7:18). We can do exactly the same thing, by giving our all we show we aren't taking the Lord's work for granted, and we are enabled to grow. I'd like to end with one of my favorite quotes, "Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He just calms the sailor" (I'm not sure where that's from...) I love this. We don't have to be in a perfect situation to grow. We don't have to wait until tomorrow. With the strengthening and enabling power of the Atonement, we can start right now to become better, stronger, more dedicated disciples of Christ.

A lot of this is from a talk by Elder Bednar called, "The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality" I highly recommend it! (https://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng&query=strengthening+and+enabling+power) 

In other news, WE FOUND TWO PUZZLES IN OUR APARTMENT AND I AM BEYOND EXCITED! I get ready so fast in the mornings now!

Much love, sois fort (throwback to youth conference in Belgium:) ),

Sisar Mendenhall

The Perfect Missionary  

(Finland – Week 12)  

24 March 2015

Moi moi! 

It's almost been five months since I went into the MTC! Crazy how time flies! 

My companions made cinnamon rolls this week with improvised flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and frosting. They were absolutely delicious. Shout-out to my dearest mother for an impossible-to-be-undelicious cinnamon roll recipe. Also shout-out to my parents for teaching me how to clean a kitchen. I remember Dad telling us to do chores through the scriptures, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52) "Favor with man kids, that means you have to clean the toilet." I clean the bathroom here every week Dad. 

This past week I finished up my twelve weeks of training! Thus I am now a perfect missionary. No mistakes, fluent Finnish, 100% confident, and always led by the Spirit. Haha, no. That will never happen. I still make a lot of mistakes, last night I swapped "to meet" and "to kill" (and that was not the first time I've done that), I still am working on exact obedience, and I'm still not where I want to be at the end of my mission. But all of that is exactly ok. My trainer always told me to compare myself to who I was, not who I want to be, because my ideal isn't realistic quite yet. One of my favorite things that I learned in all this training is that the Lord has already invested a lot in me, and in each of you. We all have bodies, life, and a chance to do and become great. We already have so much confidence from the Lord that we can achieve these goals. If you're anything like me, you hate doing something wrong when you know you've done it right before. But imagine, if you were already perfect, where would the joy be in the rest of your life? I would be scared to try anything new because I already had perfection in my sphere. So don't worry about being perfect right now, and be confident in the Lord's confidence in you. Think about that, the most powerful, supreme, loving Heavenly Father has faith in you, an imperfect-bound-too-mess-up-again being. That's a lot of love right there. Go do great things, He's got your back. 

1 Corinthians 1:27 "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"

Also as an important side-note: check out these socks, and sing the Finnish anthem whilst looking at the epic flag and BLUE sky. 

Much love to you all! 

Sisar Mendenhall

LEAPING  

(Finland – Week 11)  

17 March 2015

Moi from the land of SPRING!! It's been sunny for SIX days in a row! A woman yesterday told me that in the month of January we had 3 hours of sunlight, this is a big deal. We just want to lie in it, in our jackets and scarves of course.

This week I played sähly for the first time which is indoor hockey with a wiffle ball. (Not so sure how to spell wiffle, wiffel?) It was intense. We had an investigator there with a variety of different sticks, I picked the red one rather than the white one. That's kind of like my knowledge of cars, there are white cars and red cars. My red stick did well. It was great for language practice! Apparently in Finland to say "go team" you say, "go team". Man I love it when that happens. Lots of Finnish words are English words with an "i" on the end. Apparently though "spooni" doesn't translate. Thus after just one embarrassing dinner appointment, I forever will remember spoon. Actually I think I might only remember fork and knife, oops.

I recently read this fun story of a man that couldn't walk in Acts 3:6-8:

 "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God."

I love to picture this man and his weak ankle bones leaping for the first time. How joyous the love of Christ is, it can heal us from everything! Weak ankles, broken hearts, stubbed toes, you name it. How can we not leap for joy at that? I've been leaping for joy at the sun we've been having, literally. I can't tell you how happy it makes people here. We all have things that truly give us joy, let's take a minute to thank God for giving them to us. I recommend leaping and praising.

Fun news of the week: having two companions instead of just one means we can buy and carry a lot more jogurtti. I love jogurtti.

Keep smiling! Lots of Love,

Sisar Mendenhall

Transfers and Talks

(Finland – Week 10)

10 March 2015

Rakat Veljet ja Sisaret,

Transfer time! Crazy to think that I've already been here 10 weeks, and that I've only been here 10 weeks. The time has gone by fabulously and although my last companion has gone home, her legacy lives on, I took almost all of her clothes. I'm still in Haaga (pronounced with soft a's, like in avacado) and we have had a surge in interest, we almost don't have time to meet with everyone that wants to see us! My new companion is adjusting well, but we do have some lapses in communication, the other day I wasn't very clear so she mixed up who was the investigator and who was the member. That lesson started rocky but it ended well.

So this week a boy in the ward was baptized and guess who they asked to give a talk? My last companion! But of course she was going home so they asked me to do it instead. Thank goodness it was for an eight year old, then my simple Finnish sounded intentional. It went really well, the baptism was great (baptisms are always prime times to feel the Spirit) and ward members are trusting me a lot more with Finnish, it's really great to feel their trust, it gives me hope in improving more and more! I love celebrating small successes, they truly illustrate how the Lord's goodness is all around us, taking time to recognize it is the trick. My mom shared with me a few really cool scriptures on this principle this week, the first is in Psalms 145:9 "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." Simple, to the point, the Lord is over everything. I've been thinking a lot lately about how we can panic, agonize, and stress over something, and the Lord will take care of it. Or we can calmly and happily be patient, and the Lord will still take care of it. The latter is obviously much more enjoyable. Let us all try to "cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." (D&C 123:17) True trust in the Lord is very difficult, but when we find it it is invaluable. 

Plot twist! My companion and I will be getting a third companion! She comes in tomorrow, is brand-new, and a Finn! So we will have her in her first transfer, me in my second transfer, and my other companion in her third transfer! Hopefully that means it will be as easy as 1-2-3.

Also, look at this crazy weather!!! It's beach season! In scarves, coats, and boots of course. 

I hope you all are doing well! Much love from Suomi!

Sisar Mendenhall