Emili Goes to FINLAND: What A Crazy Week

Hei Everybody!

So one week down in the good ol' MTC. Holy cow I was not prepared for what I got myself into.

So to start my comp is Sisar Adams. She's from Idaho and is practically me just from Idaho. We're both Finnish and its kinda insane how similar we are. She's really nice and I think we will work well together. There are 11 of us going to Finland with Sisar Adams and I being the only sisters. Its really been fun and our district is really cool. We all seem to get along really well and I'm so gald we do. ha can you imagine 9 weeks with people who dont get along? So its all good :)

So this week was insane. We get to class and our teacher doesn't speak any english to us at all. She knows english but only speaks Finnish to us. So right from the start I've been completely lost, slowly but surely thought I'm starting to understand Finnish better. Luckily. Forming sentences is really hard for me and thats Sisar Adams strong point. She's pretty fluent so I'm struggling to find my voice in our discussions. I'll get there though. I know that the Lord with bless me if I keep doing as I am supposed to and doing my best to learn the language.

Tuesday was the best day so far! All of the Finnish Missionaries are required to go meet with the Finnish Consolate (no clue how to spell that) and they then deciede if you're able to go into their country. So Tuesday I woke up at 2 am and WENT TO THE AIRPORT! Ha yes I went to California on tuesday to meet with this lady. All she did was take my finger prints and say that they will let us know if we get to go to Finland. So yeah it was really fun to have a break from Finnish and be actual missionaries in Calif. We talked to this Islamic man from Turkey about the gospel and he told us all about Islam. He then invited us when we get home to go meet and get dinner with him and his cousin.. His cousin is Memmet Okur from the Utah Jazz. So I've got something really cool to look forward to when the Vanhimat (Elders) get home in 2 years. I was also able to talk to a lady about the chruch for about a half hour during lunch. Being from Utah and growing up with the missionaries as celebrities it was really cool to go somewhere and have people ask what my nametag said (its in Finnish so NOBODY could read it) and to see how that was the first thing people looked to when they saw us walking down the terminal.

One of the Hungarian Elders, Fitzgerald Elder, told us he was from Australia. He has the coolest accent and it was so cool to meet someone from Austrialia. He kept telling us that wednesday, yesterday, was surprise day. He was freaking out when it came lunch time because that's when he was going to tell us the surprise. Well after making us promise we wouldn't kill him, he told us he's not actually from Australia, but Midway Utah. Ha He was so worried it was so funny. But the fact that he kept it up for a whole week was pretty impressive. Now its just weird to hear him speak normally. So thats my funny story for the week. There were proabably others but this one was probably the funniest.

Other than that its been 7 days of sitting in a classroom from 7:45 am to 9:30 pm every day trying to learn a language I really dont understand. I'm so excited to see what this mission has in store for me and I'm so grateful for all the support I have with me being out here. This mission is exactly where I need to be, I still haven't figured it out why yet, but I know I need to be here.

Love you all and miss you guys a ton!!

Love,

Sisar Jones