Sisar McCammon on a Mission to Finland: Marjaniemi is my new HOME!

Hey everyone! What a week! I got transferred and I had to leave my dear sweet companion Sister Kristensen! It was very difficult and sad to do. Plus leaving a car and an amazing ward was difficult too. I am now here in Marjaniemi which is basically East Helsinki and there I so many people. I can't believe how many people. We don't even knock on any doors anymore because we never get there in time because we talk to too many people.

But here's a list of my new friends!

There are:

G our friend from Nigeria who is set to be baptized the first weekend in April!

Sunny our Chinese friend who is so cool and we want him to start coming to church

Z our other, older friend from China who is so sweet and has lived here longer than I have been alive!

J our only Finnish friend who Sister Hansen contacted almost 2 months ago when she was here for a day

B our Nepalese friend who wants to be baptized, but is still learning that God is our loving Heavenly Father

S&S a couple from India who strongly believe in the Hindu religion but still like to meet and discuss and are interested, but we have to help them understand something way different

J who is a young girl from Vietnam who is super busy and is possibly only meeting with us because she has a crush on one of the Elders...

E who is a family from Syria who seem pretty interested but we haven't met them yet

That is all of them. I have taught G, Sunny, B, and S&S. The rest I have met thorugh our English class or sports time. Except J and E. I haven't met them yet. They seem pretty solid though. It is just weird that everyone who we are meeting with speaks English. (minus J) It's been an odd adjustment from speaking only Finnish to a lot of English. I can't say I particularly like it. But we will get onto the details now.

Last Tuesday, I transferred me and everything I own from Lohja (west of Espoo) to Marjaniemi (East of Helsinki). It's a much bigger city and I am in a trio now... in a small apartment. It's very different and I can't say that I particularly like it. It's really hard to accommodate three pretty particular people. We also have each done missionary work a different way and don't really want to change. It's hard too because it means a lot of decisions go unmade or argued about. Not a great transition but we are working on it. It also takes a lot more time to get everything done. We also got to teach an amazing! recent convert. He's Finnish and loves the church! He's a YSA (Young single adult) and comes to our sports night and it all around so cool!!

Which brings us into Wednesday.We had a hard time coordinating plans because of our differences and it took us a long time to plan and nothing to remarkable happened that day except that evening we taught Sunny who is so cool! We showed him the Restoration video in Chinese and he said he understands so much better now and he believes it. We just need to get him to church now! Today was really difficult too. I am very uncomfortable in my new home and that makes for a lot of stress and a lot of tears.

Then on Thursday I got to meet my district and have a fun couple of hours getting to know each other and talk about Missionary work! So much fun! We also were contacting in the evening and we talking to this man who told us to wait then ran off with his friends then we started to walk kinda after him after a few minutes then he came back and told us to follow him, so we walked with him then he told us to wait again and so we did then he came back and we talked. He was really interested and told us to call him, but he had to go because it was his BIRTHDAY!! It was so fun and so weird! Then he hollered after us to put on our gloves because it was cold.

Then on Friday I met our ward mission leader and he was pretty cool. His wife gave us chocolate and hugs and compliments then we had our meeting (100% Finnish) and that was hard, but we survived. We also go to weekly plan which took forever because again 3 of us and 2 of us don't know this area at all. Then we taught English in the evening which was weird. I don't know how to teach and it helps me remember exactly why I don't want to become a teacher.

Then on Saturday, we taught G and he is so cool!! He is going to be baptized, but we found out that he isn't reading the Book of Mormon so we finally got him to decide to read. Then we got to play sports after his lesson. It's basically indoor gym hockey. Sähly. (sah-luu) It was so fun and I got so sore! I haven't worked out hard enough I guess. I don't know. It was super fun and most of our friends came!!

Sunday was super nice because church and the sacrament was a life saver. I had to give a short talk about who I am and an experience and a testimony from my mission and life. It was good and afterwards, everyone told me how awesome I was and how much Finnish I know and that I was a miracle. They were all super sweet! It was fun then that night we taught S&S and they are sweet and very kind. They just have strong Hindu beliefs that are hard to testify that it's wrong, but we are trying.

Monday was good. We met with B and he is so sweet! He even said he wanted to be baptized sometime in the future! It was awesome! He doesn't have a lot of religious background, but he is so willing to learn. We also met with a returning member and it's so sad to see her. She has started smoking again and she said she has two daughters who she wants to be good, but her example isn't great. It's hard to watch. She also fed us really spicy food! It was good but spicy!!

That's the week! It's been really hard this week honestly. I feel super stressed and crazy emotional, and I don't know how I could do this for the next 10 weeks because all 3 of us have a hard time getting along. We'll see if it gets better, but I don't know. It's just extra stressful to be in a new area, new house, new circumstance, and not get along very well with the people you have to spend 24/7 with. hopefully, this next week will be better.

Anyways, I hope you all have a good week!

Love, Sister McCammon!!

Well that sure isn't the most upbeat letter she's sent! Missions are tough. Companions can be tough. Hopefully she will become tough!!! On the upside her new area uses the church to do her weekly emails and they have cameras so I was able to video chat with her this morning at 5am! She was not in the best spirits when she began but she did seem to cheer up by the time we finished. It was good to see her face and I really hope that being able to talk to us will help her through this tough time. I was talking with a friend at the gyms and she said that when she didn't like her companion on her mission it felt very isolating so maybe this will be a big help. 💕- Tammie

The first pictures of her new chapel