Finland, Helsinki Mission

Finland, Helsinki Mission
Finland, Helsinki Mission

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Mom's talk on Jessica's mission....

Jess sent this to me, Rhonda, two weeks ago when I told her I was asked to talk in Sacrament meeting on her mission:

You have to talk on my mission huh... voi että. I am so sorry that I have been so bad at sharing stories. Well, a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see an investigator that had been investigating for 2 years go to the waters of baptism. He had always known that is what he needed to do from the beginning, but he just had one problem. He works on Sundays and therefore could not come to church. When I got to the area we had a big "heart to heart" and tried to figure out how to get him to baptism. We set a date and started working for it. He didn’t make the first one and that was sad, but we tried again and he made the decision he was going to make it to the 25th of February. When he put his mind to it, he did it. He talked to his boss and goes into work earlier so he can be done in time to make it to church. To see the joy that came to him from being baptized and then receiving the Holy Ghost was amazing. He is so happy and so excited that he is finally on the path to the temple and eternal life. This investigator also invited his friend to start learning and has been helping us to teach him. His friend should be baptized on your birthday momma.(April 22) It’s amazing to see the change it has brought to the friends life as well. Then we had a cool experience in Haaga. Sister Nelson and I were out on a train platform and we choose a random guy to go talk to and he immediately said that he was interested. He told us that he knew us. That he had seen us often and we were usually on the same train and bus as him, but we had never talked to him before. He said he was just waiting for us to come talk to him and asked how we knew that he wanted to hear from us. He came to church the next day and we started teaching him and he learned that day that we do baptisms for the dead in Sunday School. He said he knew this was the true church and had been waiting for someone to tell him how he could help his grandparents on the other side. He was way cool too, but I haven’t gotten an update on him lately. Then in Haaga we also had another investigator that went to baptism soon after I left. He came from a Hindi background and was so excited to find out that he had always been him and that god loved and knew him personally. He especially said he loved that he hadn’t been a dog before this life or a tree or anything. he had always been him and will always be him. He was relieved and said that makes so much sense and feels so right. He had amazing faith and even received a blessing to help him live the word of wisdom and from that day on lived clean. such an amazing example of faith. We also had an investigator in Haaga that was a refugee and when he got to Finland he wanted to go to church. So he asked the guy he was living with if there was one close. the man said he didin’t know, but that two weird girls had given him a card with a church address on it the day before and that he could try there. Well, he showed up at the church the next day and received the Book of Mormon. He told us that as soon as he started to read it he knew that it was from God. he started living the gospel without us even teaching him. he wanted to be baptized so badly, and he read the Book of Mormon in about two weeks. He had to be deported before he could go to baptism, but he called us from Holland and asked how he could find a church. I know he is in the Lord’s hands and will accept baptism when it is good and safe for him to. 
Those are some fast track highlight stories from my mission... I hope that helps at all. Man, I can’t wait to tell you more about my mission one day, I just cant do the miracle that it is justice over email.