Photos from the MTC

The only palm tree on her mission. 

Looking for Justin Bieber

Picking up her Visa in L.A.

'Grateful that this family could eat us'

Well, this week has been a cold one. But I'm also glad to report that I have successfully gone from Monday to Monday without any major health issues. Except for I apparently have tendonitis in my knee and have to ice it four times a day, and am not allowed to walk up and down stairs. Obviously. Let me fill you in on a few of my favorite things from last week:

-Singing "Happy Birthday" to Justin Bieber in an elevator with a potential investigator.

-Going to Helsinki (I'm obsessed with that place).

-I didn't get much practice of Finnish this week due to the many lessons I had in Chinese, Cambodian, half-Swahili or some random African language, half-Vietnamese, half-Russian, and English (yes, random, I know).

-We had Sisar Xu (a mini missionary) with us this week, hence the Chinese lessons, and I felt like I was back in Taiwan.

-I got to go to the temple when I was in Helsinki.

-For four months I've been craving butter chicken and naan...definitely got it last week.

-We tracted into the most phyisically active 90 year old woman I've ever met in my life. She "doesn't even need her glasses all of the time, just sometimes."

-I had a Gilmore moment yesterday afternoon when I learned that I live on Vomit Street. Nice.

-Also last night in a prayer I was trying to say that we were grateful that a family could feed us, but I didn't know the verb for "to feed" and so I just said some form of the word "eat," (half the things I ever say in Finnish I'm just making up, haha) but then later realized I had said, "We are grateful that this family could eat us." Oh man.

We have been meeting with a man for some time, and he actually spent some time investigating from the elders, but we really needed him to start to take this seriously, and put in some effort from his side. We had a lesson with him on Thursday and were somehow able to commit him to baptism. I said a lot of things, don't really remember what, but I know I ended up being a lot more bold than I was planning on, and maybe should have been. I just really wanted him to understand that if he really wanted this change in his life, he was going to have to work a little for it. In fact, maybe I had a little panicked break down in the building after we left his apartment. Maybe there were tears. But we set up a lesson for him this week, and will also be doing a Family Home Evening with him and his children on Saturday. We invited him to church, but he hasn't come in awhile. So we were all quite surprised when he walked into the building on Sunday. The ward members immediately helped in welcoming him, and are thrilled that he will one day join them. We even noticed some friends for him, and already have them lined up to come to the next few lessons with him.

On Sunday my companions and I (also our entire district) are heading to Helsinki for four days for Leadership Training, and also one day for a language class for the elders in my group and myself. That means we're going to have a crazy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to fit all of our lessons in for the week. But I'm excited to see my elders, funny how that works isn't it?

-Sisar Clifford