Six Weeks in Finland and its AMAZING!

Hey everyone!! I can’t believe how time has flown! I have already been in Finland for 6 weeks. Starting week 7 now!! It’s crazy to think that I have been gone for that long! It’s been crazy this week!!

We had Return and Report this week which is where the newest group to Finland goes back to the mission home for about 2.5 days and we talk about missionary work and how it’s been going so far and how we can improve. But more than that, we get to hang out with our MTC district. But because our group was so big, we only got to see half and the other half is this week. Kinda sad, but we had so much fun!! We got to go to the temple, which is so beautiful! And we went on a walk and saw a little bit of the area around the mission home. We also got to eat lots of good food and not just missionary food. It was super sweet!! I also got to see Sister Godfrey!! Which was a blast and a half! And it was an all-around good time! I also felt like Sister Kristensen and I grew A LOT closer! Because we had 8 girls and one shower where we were in the house, the Auras allowed us to use their showers or there was another shower room or something, but we could use that as well. And there were two showers in that room. But Finns really have no shame because that wall that was between the two showers was about chest height. So Sister Kristensen and I faced opposite ways and just showered really awkwardly in the same shower basically. And I am still not quite sure how that is missionary appropriate, but yeah…

 On Thursday we came home. Well we went to a member’s house to help her dust her bookcase (SERVICE!!) which was kinda hard because as a bookworm I wanted to ready everything, but I couldn’t. But I found out that she had classical music from a composer who I love! And she let us listen to it quietly while we dusted and talked with her! She made my whole day! The best part was that she had the Symphony that is my favorite of all time, and I almost cried. I was so happy to hear that blessed music again. It was also nice because we can actually listen to classical music as missionaries. It was amazing!! She also fed us and that was super amazing. For desert she had this fruit pie thing and ice cream and it was amazing! Then we unfortunately had to leave, but we went straight to a lesson and it went so well, and we wanted to go back because we felt the spirit so strongly and I know they did too, but they weren’t too keen on meeting again. But it was okay, we had a good lesson anyways.

Not much on Friday, but on Saturday, we visited a less active, from Venezuela and taught her some Finnish and English and she tested my Spanish knowledge, but she’s super kind. Where she lives, we can’t visit as church representatives, but she has been reading the things we give her on the down low, and she seems to really like them. She also really seems to have a testimony and conversion to Jesus Christ. Which is amazing. She just doesn’t have a car unfortunately. Then we drove from her house, down to Tammisaari which is a Swedish speaking town a few kilometers South of us. Which is the quaintest town ever! We tried to find a café to eat at, but we couldn’t find one near the library where we would study after lunch, so we asked this man, and he was so cool. He makes violins for a living, and he showed us his shop and all of his work in progress instruments. He was awesome! But he showed us to this cute Café where we at lunch. Then we hiked back up to the library, which was closing, so we drove to the train station and planned the lesson we were having with a less active there. Which was awesome. We went to her house and she’s this really old woman who speaks Swedish and pretty good English. She gave us afternoon tea basically is what it was, and we talked about her life and ours and she’s an amazing artist. She showed us some of her work and it’s remarkable. Then we talked about Come Follow Me and she had one already. A member from the ward had already visited her that week. It was awesome! We couldn’t stay long, and we tried tracting in Swedish but that wasn’t easy because we don’t know much. Just like three phrases. So we were going to go home, and we stopped one more man, but Sisar Kristensen stopped him in English and it turns out he was from America! Seattle! Where she is from! So we talked to him, and gave him our card, and told him to find the Book of Mormon online, and he can listen to it. He had eye cancer and can’t read well. He promised us he would because he was super curious. We also got his number and gave him ours so he could call with questions. It was awesome!

Sunday was as always good. Church then meeting with a less active man at a member’s house which went swimmingly. He has so many questions and we are trying to help him learn how to find them through revelation. It’s so fun though! We also learned that he can speak French so he talked to Sisar Kristensen in French for a bit. Then we ran to a lesson with Pen and he is good! He turned down baptism again claiming to not be ready, but he doesn’t sound like he wants to set a goal either, so I hope everything goes well with him.

Yesterday was good as well. We had district council and swapped memory books or v-books is what we call them here. So mine will finally be written in. And then afterwards we did missionary stuff that I can’t fully remember then we and dinner at a member’s house. They are the sweetest and we love them so much! They do so much for us, and they fed us homemade pizza! It was legit! And they have the cutest family! One of their sons is preparing for a mission in one month three weeks and three days, if I remember correctly. It was awesome to talk with him about missions.

And that was my week. It went well with lots of stuff. I hope you all enjoy this long rambley letter. I hope that you all have a good week and to make it even better… I have a scripture you should read! 1 Nephi 8 and 11. They talk about the tree of life and what the symbolism is. It really reminded me this week of why I am on a mission. To share the Fruit of the Tree with everyone. It’s an amazing gift from God to know about Him and His plan for us and I would encourage you all to read it and study it a little bit this week. I love you all and I miss you!!

Rakaudella, Sisar McCammon

Helsinki Finland LDS Temple

 Abbie and Sisar Kristensen (current companion)

 Abbie with her MTC Companion at the Return and Report Sisar Godfrey

 Soup

 I think this is her lunch at the Cafe below in the Swedish town she talked about in her letter.

I think its a Yeti Sighting or wait maybe Abbie in her winter coat, only Sisar Kristensen knows! LOL!

Return and Report January 2019

Its so fun having a missionary out. I love watching Abbie progress spiritually and emotionally. Its not an easy transision for her or me for that matter but life goes on and so must we all. It sure is fun to get these great updates! Posted on Facebook by the Mission President.

Five weeks after the arrival of the new missionaries, we invite them and their trainers to the mission home for 2½ days of experience sharing, confidence building, friendships forming and inspiration seeking.

We seek to magnify our purpose to invite others to come unto Christ and sharpen our vision to become converted disciples of Jesus Christ while finding joy in establishing His Church.

We concluded that we should eagerly wait for the Lord to reveal His arm to hasten the work of salvation in Finland. We are excited to realize Paul's promise to the Corinthians: "But as it is written,Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." 1. Corint. 2:9

RETURN AND REPORT 

 Sisar McCammon and Sisar Kristensen

 Country road ½ mile from the mission towards a farm that has been operational since 1556.

On our way home to the mission home.

 At Pitkäjärvi ½ mile from the mission home

Trainers, trainees, assistants and Sisar Aura.

1/2 the MTC Group

Drowning in Snow!

Hey Everyone!!! I hope you had a good week!! It’s been pretty crazy here in Finland!! We’ve got so much snow that we’re basically drowning in it, but it’s really exciting!! It’s starting to get really cold. For example today we were -18 C or -1 F. It’s so cold!! We haven’t been making the warmest decisions regarding clothes either, but it’s all been okay. We’ll get better about it. But onwards and upwards and onto the week of Sisar McCammon!!

Wednesday was really good. I woke up and remembered a dream I had where I got engaged to Patrick Dempsey who was my surgeon, but we were engaged and that was pretty fun! But besides that I had an inspiring meeting with my district. We talked a lot about how we can be better missionaries and using the tools we have like family history and English to get people interested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about going the extra mile for both people we are teaching and members. Making sure that they can feel the love we have for them. Then we ate lunch and left! We were going to follow up with some people who lived by us, but then they weren’t home, so we ate dinner then went to a little bit of a further out area that we have and talked to a few people who were interested and gave out a couple Book of Mormons. We also followed up with this one man who used to take the lessons, but then stopped and we got an appointment set up with him, so tender mercies. On our way home, we stopped by a member’s house whose son’s birthday was that day and we gave him a little card. He was pretty chill about it, but you could tell he was touched. Then yesterday at church, his mom told us he was so excited!! He was running around the house yelling “I got a card!!!” He had a Finnish reaction to us and an American reaction with his family is what she explained to us.

On Thursday, we were really busy. We had lunch with one of the interested people. He is kind of like an estranged uncle. A little weird but really nice and wants to serve you. He really likes us so we went to this kebab place. Not like skewers or anything, but it’s a type of meat that’s illegal in America. So that was sweet of him. But then we had to leave because we had to study really fast and then go to Raasepori to meet with a returning member/ recent convert. She’s from Venezuela and her daughter is with her, but her other daughter and husband are still in Venezuela.  She is super nice and loves us, but it’s hard to communicate because she knows very little Finnish and a little more English so she’s testing my Spanish skills. We met with her and chatted for a little bit though and that was nice. Then we had to leave and go to a dinner appointment with a member. They’re an older couple who are super sweet and we went to visit like my first week here, so they were impressed at my Finnish’s growth and how much more I could understand if they spoke slowly enough for me, but it was nice.

 Now that's a Kebab I guess!!!

Friday was awesome! We had a first lesson with a man we had met on the street forever ago. He is super interested and loved the discussion we had. It seemed like he expected us to just speak at him, but when we asked more questions, he felt like he could ask more questions and he was so curious!! He’s so awesome and when we texted him later to ask about things, he said he would show us around the big city he lives by! It was super sweet!! We can’t go because it’s not in our area, which we are super sad about, but his offer was so sweet and genuine. We had it at a member’s house too so he told us he was going to go read the Book of Mormon because he learns better alone than in a group. We have another lesson set up, so pray that he reads it!! Then we had to go and he helped us brush the snow off our car and we then went home to plan before coming back to this same member’s house for lunch. We brought along a returning member too so it was super fun to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be uplifted together. We were also going to have a lesson that night but it fell through and we were super sad, but we knocked on some doors and had some really good conversations about Jesus Christ.

Saturday was also slightly bittersweet. We thought we had a lesson with Fam one of our opetustavia. They’re this cute family where the dad is a member but the rest of the family isn’t, but the mom has really bad allergies and we texted them and found out that her allergies are worse. It was just to cat hair we thought, but it sounds like it’s more and the kids are also having to take medications for it. So we couldn’t go over, but they are wanting to still take the lessons if they could, and see what they could figure out about church. So we’ll see what happens. We want them to be baptized but they can’t see a way that they could be active members yet because they couldn’t be at church which is so important to conversion. It’s where so much of learning and growing closer to Christ happens and taking the sacrament. It’s good that they recognize that though and want help. So we were sad that fell through, but we finally got a meeting set up with a less active man in the ward. He’s been having doubts about his faith and feeling like he isn’t enough and like he just needs an angel to appear and then he’ll believe, but he knows the Church is God’s church restored to the Earth again, but he doubts himself. It’s sad, so we are trying to build him up. And our lesson went amazing!! He loved our answers and adored us! He even came to church on Sunday! We were so happy to see him and he looked like he felt better after attending. I really hope that he can feel his conversion to the Savior growing stronger as he continues to attend church.

But really into Sunday now. We had church today and we got to see all our church friends. We also got to see the AP missionaries. They’re in our ward. Sundays are so fun. We had church where still nothing makes sense. It’s all in Finnish, so I find myself zoning out more easily because I don’t understand. It’s really hard. We also talked to one of the members of the bishopric and he asked me to sing in ward conference… yay! But anyways. We had a dinner appointment then Sister Kristensen felt sick from her dairy intolerance we think and we cancelled so we ate at home before going to a lesson after she felt better. The lesson was good. We think this man will be baptized. Pen is super nice (he’s the one who took us to lunch) and he is super interested. He has such a strong conversion to Christ already and he seems to believe whatever we tell him. We want to try and commit him to be baptized, but he already turned us down once, so I don’t know, we’ll see. We talked about the Plan of Salvation with him though, and it all seemed to click with him though, so it was good. We could really feel the Spirit before he started asking questions about Jesus’ grandparents. But otherwise good!

We are now at today!! Monday!!!!!!! YAY P-DAY!! It’s p-day because tomorrow is Return and Report, (the kids she left on her mission with all go back to the Mission Home and meet with the President and have some more training and for him to find out how everything is going) so it should be fun! But we got up and ready and studied a little and then went shopping and we unfortunately had district council because of return and report but it was good. We talked about bearing our testimonies and showing our conviction to serve the Lord even though we don’t perfectly know the language or we’re still learning. It was very uplifting. We had fun anyways and here we are.

My week was busy and full of meeting new people. My day-to-day life isn’t too exciting, but it’s full of meeting new people and struggling through the language. That was one thing that has been really hard this week. My language skills have felt way worse than before, so it was so hard. I’ve also been pretty homesick and it’s rough to want to love the people here but long for people at home. I love you all. I hope you know that. I really do. It’s amazing to be here and serve the Lord and have Him with me so strongly, but it’s also hard to be away from home. I know that this is the place though. That I am supposed to be here and that where I would be if I wasn’t a missionary would be nowhere near as good as here right now. I have an amazing companion an amazing area and ward, and the Lord is with me withersoever I goest. I know that He loves me and all of you and that as we strive to live His commandments and follow Him, that blessing we won’t even notice will rain upon our heads. He gives us what we need, and helps us through our struggles. I love you all and miss you!! Have a great week!!

I know that Jesus Christ lives and is my Savior. That He restored His true church on Earth and that this is that church. This message is one of joy and thanksgiving. I love that I can study for so long every day and invite others to come unto Christ, but it’s hard to go and try to find. When we go tracting or contacting, it’s hard to feel like you’re useful because people shut the door or walk away so quickly or rudely so much that it’s hard. Also being so tired and not having very much sun. But I love Finland. There are so many amazing people here. I really am so grateful that I can be here and testify of Christ at every bus stop and street corner. It really is a different life, I love it. 

Love Sisar McCammon

Their cute car!

Looks pretty cold!

Abbie said they are swimming in snow!

Outfit of the Day

I love that her companion is in the pic too!  

Abbie said she is grateful that the sun shines more and more each day and wants pictures to express the love for the sunlight and the beauty of Finland.

This is their Chapel in Espoo (Es-poe) 

First Zone Conference

This week has been crazy!! We did so much stuff and it has been super fun! I'll do a brief rundown of the week.

Wednesday was Zone conference so everyone in the Helsinki area got together and we learned more about missionary work for this transfer. It was awesome! We talked about using family history work and other things to get people interested and IT WORKS!! Familysearch.org is a wonderful resource to find out more about your ancestors and put in information and pictures and all sorts of stuff. Try a little this week and I promise the Lord will guide you to find something that you needed to know or see. Oh and we also went around a round about with stoplights.

The girls with the Mission Presidents Wife, Sisar Aura.

Thursday was busy with lessons and seeing people. We got to meet with a less active who loved family history and shared a bunch about his family history and we're trying to help him go back to the temple, so he can get his family sealed for eternity. We also had a couple lessons fall through so we went to a members house and got to know her family a little better and spend some time building our relationship with them which was fun! Invite the missionaries over lots and help them find people to teach. It isn't our job to tell who is ready to listen to them only to invite and refer!! But let them know if you think they'll say no and invite your friend and the missionaries over for lunch and just be friendly but the missionaries aren't scary. They're more scared of you than you are of them!!!

Friday wasn't too bad. It's our planning day so we didn't do a lot. And this potential we had talked to on the street and set up a lesson with, told us (through her husband) that she didn't want to meet with us anymore and gave us the book back. It's because she knows it's true and is scared, but oh well. It's just sad.

Then on Saturday we spent the day in Espoo where we did splits with our sister training leaders. They are so fun and I got to teach in English a little bit and that was nice. I also got a nice pair of socks that one lady made and she wanted to give to me. It was the sweetest!! The people here are so kind and generous and they love to help. It's so fun to be here!!!

Sunday was church and we got to go and discuss (or try to listen and translate). It was good though. We read Be Not Troubled from Elder Rasband which is an amazing talk. I suggest it. We also set up a couple dinner appointments because people here are amazing! Then we went to an appointment for dinner which was delicious chili. And ice cream for desert which they cut up into pieces and serve. Which is interesting. Also black licorice flavored ice cream. Not the whole thing but ribbons of black licorice. That's all I will say. Then we went to a new interested person's house. He's new so his name will be Pen. He is cool and likes to overshare so we have a 15 minute lesson that lasts for 1.5 hours because he likes to talk. He basically knows the church is true but isn't quite ready to be baptized. (We asked). He's sweet though.

Monday we taught the Knitter and she is amazing! So nice! We're already really good friends so it was like being with friends. She had a moose fur rug that we sat on which was legit. I laid on it for a picture. We also had car maintenance to do so we sat in an office all day before meeting with someone to teach English. So It was a blast but I don't know how to teach English so if you have ideas.... then we knocked on some doors and talked to some people playing hockey. It was a good day. hockey is big here and it's fun to see people play. I think it's way fun.

Anyway that was my week. Today we don't do much but shop and rest and see stuff, but it's a good life. I have been pretty homesick this week so your homework is to do two things. I would love to get a favorite memory of us together. Either a picture or a story or both. and I want everyone to go onto familysearch.org and find a story there to share with me. This can be through email or normal mail. whichever is easier!! But I would love to see them!! Thank you everyone for your support and prayers!! I love you all and I miss you!!

Love, Sisar McCammon

Tosi lämmin suklaata - Very Warm Chocolate

It's been a crazy rollercoaster of a week. I still can't understand the language, so we translate a lot, but we're working on different ways to help me understand. So far after everyone we talk to, I tell Sister Kristensen different things I recognized and she helps me to fill in the blanks. My mind just has to translate word for word and so sometimes the context of their sentence gets lost and I think one thing when the conversation is another. At least I am recognizing words though. I am progressing. That is a good thing. I won't go into too much detail about the week because it's really kinda boring to hear things like "I got up and got dressed" you want the good stories and funny things and things about out opetustavia. It's coming don't worry. Since last p-day we have done a few things I will categorize them this week instead of chronological. mix it up right???

Funny! So we were tracting down a street and Sisar Kristensen said the funniest thing. She said "Brother S has really kicked me onto a ridge! Wait, that doesn't make any sense..." She just meant that she was really inspired by this man in our ward who became a singer as a hobby while on his mission. He learned to play piano and sing and all that jazz while here! It's actually pretty cool, but ti was so funny because it made no sense!!

I also don't know the word for hot in Finnish so that night when I was drinking some cocoa, I said in Finnish, "very warm cocoa" which was funny until it was sad because my cocoa wasn't that hot anyways. (Title of email)

New things! So most new things will be food related. This one is so fun! I had kebab!! It is illegal in the USA and I ate it here! It was super good! It was in in a taco just the shell was a pizza crust and it was HUGE!!! It was really good though.

I also had a yummy desert like a blueberry cobbler at a member's house yesterday. It was soooo good! Also some weird soup made of creamed vegetables and with a little bit of curry then we mixed in sour cream. It sounds gross it's called sunshine soup, but I didn't ask too many questions. I just smiled and ate!!

I also had my first taste of shrimp... On PIZZA!!! That was weird and it looked like brains, but I ate it and it was good so yayyy!!!

Opestustavia! So This word basically means teachables. We don't call them investigators anymore, so we use this word. We have 6 kinda 7 but mostly 6.

There's The Knitter, JO, Depressed, The No Show, Old Man, Fam, and Frenchie. Frenchie technically lives in another area and works here some days so we meet with him, but he's technically a referral. So we kinda count him but kinda not.

We met with Depressed this week and he seemed really resistant, but when we texted to set up a lesson and check up, he followed through on his commitments, so that's a good sigh. We made some good plans to help him progress a little better. He's just really sad because his wife passed away and he doesn't have any motivation, but we're helping him to come closer to Christ.

We also met with Old Man this week. He is mostly curious about the statistical aspects of missionary work, but he had read some of the Book of Mormon and he seemed to like it. He at least had nothing against it. But we'll see how our next appointment goes.

They are the only ones we met with this week because many are still out and about for the holidays, but this week everyone should be back.

Sunday! This gets a separate thing because I want to touch on it a little bit! So we met with the ward mission leader and his wife is American!! She is super sweet too! She's going to be a really big help in our efforts to work with the women of the ward. She is amazing! We also had 2 hour church which was so weird! I also found out that there is an English Sunday School class, but we didn't go, so I was kinda useless for an hour, but it was good. I learned a lot of new things. And one man said something really good about the new home centered church supported program. I hope you are all familiar with he story of the 10 virgins. Some had oil and others didn't and this man said that the way we get oil in our lamps and prepare ourselves to meet God is to study with the Come Follow Me manual. He testified that it's from God, so of course it will help you to gain a greater testimony. It was really good. I invite everyone to either ask my mom to help them get a copy or look online at lds.org.

I think that is all for this week!! I love you all so much and I will talk to you next week!! LOVE YOU!!!

Love Sister McCammon

The Girls went to a Lutheran Church to listen to a Christmas Concert here is a bit of that.