Wednesday, July 22, 2015

July 21, 2015 - Slow Week, But Cool Things

Yeah, this was a super-slow week for us. We haven't been able to meet with many of our investigators this week, due to almost all of them deciding to go on vacations. But that's cool. We're still in good contact with them.

We have had one of our investigators at church for the last 4 Sundays now, which has been really cool! She's excited for her baptism, and we are excited for her, too!

We got to have the Zone Conference this last week, as well as see a baptism this last Saturday for a new member of our ward! The sisters had been teaching her, and the service had many languages in the program. When the Bishop got up, he said that we had heard 5 different languages that day. I did a quick count-off on my fingers - Finnish, English, French, and Swahili - and then the Bishop made sure that we remembered that the language of the Spirit was something that was speaking to all of us. Pretty cool thing to say, and I think it helped us to answer an investigator's concern later that day - the fact that we aren't giving well-prepared speeches that we have taken classes in Convincing Strategies for -  we rely on the Spirit to bring the word of God unto the hearts of men. The only thing that then matters is if you then let the Spirit into your heart, and learn from it. I liked that lesson.

Questions!

Megan's question: What was the color of your tie 23 days ago? Or yesterday. Your choice.

Okay, you got me - I don't catalogue my ties by day, or anything like that. 😜 (By the way, there are new emoticons! What's with that?!)  Yesterday, I was wearing that blue tie with all of the overlapping blue-and-Silver squares. I like that one, but my favorite is that not-quite-a-skinny-tie with dark-blue-and-Silver tight diagonal lines. It goes well with the vest I got out here.

Did you do anything new and different recently?

Hmm. No, not really... I got to help clean the church, but that's not really cool, I guess. I don't know, like I said, this week was really slow. I'll be on the lookout for new and different things this week!

Have you met anyone new and different lately?

Well, we did meet someone new, but I think I wrote about them last week. We got to start teaching another person, so that was good. I can't really say too much, though. Weird Finnish privacy laws. But, I'm doing well, don't worry! Plenty of people to talk to now.

What have you studied this week?

I studied quite a bit more of Preach My Gospel (using the Finnish and English technique that I talked about last time), and I have also started going through the References part of the Bible Dictionary - the one where it shows the New Testament quoting the Old. It's been pretty interesting to read up on!

What have you taught this week?

We have started talking in depth about Commandments with one of our investigators. The most important thing that I think that we've shared is that the commandments are not supposed to be a list of rules that we just blindly follow. I got to share some points from the Music of the Gospel General Conference talks, one of my favorite from this last time around. (Mother, if you could share that here, that would be awesome!) It means a lot more when we know what it means, you know what I mean? 😁 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-music-of-the-gospel?lang=eng
(This link will take you to the talk he referenced. It was one of my favorites! ~Mom)

What have you shared this week?

We also got to teach the English class in church this last Sunday. It was going through the first 5 chapters of the book Acts of the Apostles in the Bible. We were to talk about the Holy Ghost having helped us as missionaries, and we then started talking a lot about why the Holy Ghost is important in all of our lives, and how it can help us both teach and learn, through speaking and listening. It was a great lesson, and the new member was there too!

Is it hot enough to want ice cream and popsicles? Or is it mild?

I'd say it's pretty mild - it only gets up to about 70 degrees Fahrenheit - but when you're walking outside for 5+ hours a day in white Sunday shirts, it gets hot enough! I just yesterday found out a great way to combine the concentrated Finnish juice (Mehu) and Finnish Ice Cream to make an awesome berry-tasting-float. Looking forward to cooling off with that. (I had no idea how much David liked to create his own floats! First the chocolate milk ones in the MTC, now these! ~Mom)

Do you know any good Finnish jokes?

I've heard a number, but most of them rely on mishearing or mispronouncing a Finnish word, or knowing about Finnish sweets. There was a really funny one about Chocolate Kisses in Finland, but they aren't Hershey's Kisses, so it doesn't make sense to Americans. They are very different.

Probably the best translated-to-English-from-Finnish joke that I can tell goes short-ways like this. A stuttering young man walked into a door-to-door Bible salesman's office and asks to be hired. The head guy, knowing that it's really hard to market regardless of stuttering or not, gave him a big box of Bibles and said that once they were all sold, he'd consider the man as if he weren't a stutterer. A week later, the man was back with wads of cash, saying he'd sold them all. The head guy was shocked. He said that if the man could do it one more time, he'd have a top position in the Company, and could share his marketing pitches with the whole industry. With an even bigger box in tow, the stutterer went out. After only 1 more week, he was back. The head guy was so impressed, he set up a committee meeting right then, called in all of the marketers, and placed them in a conference room with the man at the front. It stuttering Finnish, he explained his strategy - go up to the giant buildings with 40+ apartments, buzz each room individually from the intercom, and say that he would read (as best as he could) the Bible from beginning to end, repeatedly buzzing their rooms, until they bought a Bible from him.

It's really a funny joke when you look at the fact that practically EVERY apartment complex in Finland has this set-up where that is actually a viable option!

Well, that's it for this week. I'm hoping you all are doing well - be safe!

Vanhin David Milligan

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