Transfers!

So first off I am sorry that I wasn't able to email last week so I will have to catch you up on the last two weeks, so let's get started.  

These past two weeks have gone by super fast. First off I got a bloody nose on Friday the 13th so if that isn't like a sign that I'm cursed what is. We were also informed about our new mission presidents. Our new mission president is actually a councilor in the Helsinki Stake Presidency so everyone here is super excited to have a Finnish President. 

We have also had a couple of Swedish lessons lately and it feels like I am right back where I was the first day I got here. I don't understand much but now I'm pretty good at reading facial expressions so I know when to smile, frown, and laugh. At one point in the lesson the lady asked if I knew what she was saying and so of course I said like one of the only Swedish words I know which is absolute and so now she thinks I'm fluent so that's pretty great. 

This week we had a lot of success with one of out investigators who has been investigating for a super long time. We had her start to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning and she has been really liking it. She even came to Sunday school. She loves to talk more than anything so sometimes it can be hard to keep her on track with the lesson. At one point she started talking about how if we get a wife before we have a job then we are going to have lots of trouble in our life. 

In other exciting news this week we got transfer calls and I am going to Kemi. I am going from a city of 200,000 to a city of 20,000. I am not sure what it will be like but I am excited to experience something new. Well that is all I have for this week!

loves,

Elder Lewis

heyo

This week went by really fast, We had a couple of really cold days but for the most part it was pretty nice. This week we were able to do service for a less active in our ward. He was converted about 18 years ago and hasn't been to church in the last couple years. We stacked firewood basically all morning. It was fun just to talk to him about his life and about how the church has helped him in his life. We know that with some time and with some love we can get him back to church. Lately things haven't been going so well for him and the church is the perfect solution to all of that. This church can give hope to everyone no matter their circumstances and I am so grateful for that.   

This week we also decided to deliver some cookies to some less actives that lived
pretty far out of the city. It had just snowed but that still didn't stop us from biking out there. We finally got there and everything went well. Some of them were not home but it was fine because we just left the cookies. On the way back we made a couple of wrong turns and ended up in the forest somewhere. We decided the best option would be to keep biking because we really didn't want to bike back the way we came. After some wipe outs in the snow we finally made it to an area we recognized. It revealed to me how out of shape I am and also how much fun it is to drift on a bike. 

This week I read a really great quote from President Monson. It says "We can't direct the wind but we can adjust the sails" I have definitely seen that this week. There have been a lot of things out of my control, but as I try to just focus on the things that I actually have control over, I have become much happier. The church is True

Elder Lewis

This is me with my cheerios this morning

This is my lunch

New year new me

Just joking its the same old me. again. This week was filled with a bunch of the I haven't done this since last year jokes and to be frank I still find them funny. This week we had a lesson with our investigator H who has been investigating for a very long time. We talked about our purpose as missionaries and then we asked her what she has learned from her time investigating. She has learned a lot about the church but she struggles in applying it to herself so we are going to focus on how the church applies specifically to her. The problem is she can talk for hours and hours so we have to plan very little and then make sure we keep the lesson on track or else we will end up talking about how kids need to respect their parents or something like that. 

This week we were tracking and we met a man who invited us in to talk. We had a really great lesson with him. He told us about his daughter who is actually good friends with a member. The next day the other sisters in our city called us and said that they just had a lesson with a lady whose dad just met with missionaries yesterday. Both the Dad and the daughter came to church on Sunday. It was such a testimony to me that Heavenly Father really does direct all that we do and all that we do we do for a reason. 

This week I gave a talk in Church. I talked about President Gordon B Hinckley's saying, "Things will work out" I love it because often times we have trials in our lives and we get caught up in the technicalities of the life, but if we know that things will work out then what else really matters. I know this is true and I have definitely had hard times where I didn't think things would work out, but as we continue to exercise our faith things really will work out. The church is true.

Loves

Elder Lewis

Well these are the only pictures I took this week so enjoy. The second one is me falling off my sick new set of wheels. 

Joulu!

This week was simply just amazing. 

This week we spent a lot of our time visiting less active members in our ward, It was super fun to drop by and wish a Merry Christmas to a lot of the members that I haven't had the opportunity to meet. We had a couple lessons with some of them. We had a lesson with one member who has been less active for a couple years now. He lives out on one of the islands and so his house isn't the easiest to get, but we felt like we should visit him so me made the journey out to see him. He is a super great guy and has had some bad things happen to him this year. We talked for awhile about how this Gospel is so great because we are never without hope. With Christ's Atonement we can always return back to the path and turn to Christ. He has a lot of yard work which he needs help with so we are going to keep visiting him. 

For Sacrament meeting we had both wards come together so it was pretty packed. We had one of our investigators come and she really loved it. Christmas on Sunday is such a special opportunity because we get to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas. Afterwards we went to a member's house and had a bunch of traditional Finnish Food. It was all super tasty. It was super cool to experience Christmas here, while the traditions and culture may be very different from what I am used to, the meaning of Christmas was still the same. I am so grateful that I was able to celebrate the birth of our Savior. I know that because of him we can return to our Father in Heaven. Thank you for all the loving

Elder Lewis

Pictures!

1 & 2 are outside a members house

3 is my candy stack

4 is some traditional Finnish food