"I knew it from a dream..."

First of all, congrats to the best beef Kaylee for GETTING MARRIED!!! That is absolutely insane, I am so happy for you, you look gorgeous!

Also, WOW. PEOPLE.

This week has been a week of complete and utter miracles!

Do you remember that family that we were teaching last week? Well...we got to meet her husband this past Sunday and they BOTH HAVE BAPTISMAL DATES!!!!!!!!! There are no words to express my joy that I felt at that moment when we asked him if he would prepare himself for baptism. Usually people are very "Maybe..." "I think so..." "I don't know, if it feels right..."

BUT NO.

THIS BELOVED MAN SAID "KYLLÄ."  

HE SAID YES.

Another cool experience with this family was when we met with the mother yesterday. We were talking about how God has a hand in our lives and that our purpose on this earth was to progress. By the end of the lesson she is telling us about when she was young, the missionaries had tracted her neighborhood. She had sent them away convinced that she would never listen to their message. But she then tells us that the morning of the day we met her she had woken up with a distinct impression that she needed to listen to the missionaries. MIRACLES!!!!

This is such a relief for this area, for the longest time the adversary has just been pounding our investigators to pieces. And they weren't just getting hit with tomatoes people, there have been some pretty serious rocks that have hit our members and our investigators.

There were days when I felt like every single time something good happened, I would have to brace myself for bad news about a members' family, another dropped investigator or another anti-Mormon relative.

This area is hard. Very, very hard. I would never have admitted that to myself, but throughout these past couple of weeks I've had to come to grips that the work that we've been doing isn't bad work. We just need to endure it the best we can and work against all that we've been facing.

Please pray for this family everyone, please pray that this area will be able to progress and that our members will receive the help that they deserve.

I love you all! I hope you are finding the Lord's hand in all that you do! He loves us, He loves to see our growth.

Have a great week!

Sisar Kwok

Lost bikes.

Hello everyone!

First off, Happy Mother's Day! It was so cool to see everyone again and to hear their voices. For some reason, I always thought skyping home from a mission would be a traumatic thing but it turns out that it was just the opposite! I love you all and thanks for the kind words and support!

Second off, it's been a good, good week. Hard, but good. You know you're killing it as a senior companion when your junior companion's bike gets stolen on their first day. It wasn't our proudest moment but HEY, we ended up getting in contact with this investigator that hadn't been meeting with us for a while because she was selling a bike, and guess what! She's investigating again!

MIRACLES PEOPLE!!!!

On Thursday we met a cool Russian guy named I. Pretty neat. 

It's also been a good week because we are teaching FAMILIES. If you told me two weeks ago that we would have appointments with families I would have laughed so hard. But guess what people... it's true! We have found two amazing families to teach that are so prepared for this message! It's incredible to see the hand of the Lord in the lives of these people! 

Kuitenkin...the computers at the church are kind of broken so this is just going to be a short update 

But here are some pictures for your visual enjoyment!!

Ice cream made out of oatmeal...in Swedish 

#classy

​This truck was just parked in the middle of nowhere, of course we had to take a picture with it! 

'MERICA!

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Change calls! What a treat!

Hyvää päivä kaikille! 

This week was another beautiful week in Lappeenranta, and guess what?? Change calls came... and I'll be staying in LPR peeps!! With...(drum roll)....SISAR POWELL! 

That's right everyone, the best buds from the MTC are going to be companions now! It's super exciting but also a little bit nerve wracking. Being in the same MTC group also means that we've been out the same time, or in other words, both of us probably still don't know what people are saying 95% of the time. But we'll power through, what else can we do right? (just keep praying for us) 

Other than change calls, this week has been pretty ordinary. We've been meeting this investigator named J, who is...still interesting. Most of our lessons just end up with Sister Kwok crying in the bathroom because he'll dodge every single question we ask with answers about physics and relativity. And then he gets super frustrated when he sees that we don't understand him. But hey, he wants to get baptized and he comes to church so that's that.

I'm going to miss Sisar Dowd, not only because she quotes Disney movies like a boss and she's always smiling. But I'm going to miss her because she's taught me a lot about learning to love the work despite the highs and lows. 

I've only been a missionary for six months, and I have so much more to learn but I sincerely love it here. Sometimes it's difficult to keep my head up, most of the time I just feel like I'm that one sower who is casting all of the seeds onto the stony and barren ground. But I know that success isn't defined by numbers. 

As Ammon said in Alma 26:

  27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

 28 And now behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings,and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the world—not upon the mercies of the world alone but upon the mercies of God.

...

 30 And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some.

 31 Now behold, we can look forth and see the fruits of our labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea, and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us.

 

Many times, we will not see the fruits of our labors, but I bear my testimony that they will come. We may not see them now, nor later in life. We may not even see them until we are brought to the judgement bar, but eventually we will look back on our lives and recognize that as long as we served the Lord with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength, good fruits will come forth. 

I know that God lives, that He loves us. I know that His only begotten Son came to earth to atone for our sins, and that because of Him we all have the chance to inherit eternal happiness. I sincerely know that the Book of Mormon is true, I have read it, I have studied it, and I have received that answer for myself.

 I love you all! Have a great week!

Nepalese food with the Zone Leaders, so good! 

​Jäätelötötterö!!! (that word is for you dad!) 

Rakkaudella! 

Sisar Kwok 

 

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Wives in Arabia

Terve Kaikille! 

I hope everyone's week has been going well! 

This week was pretty ordinary, BUT it's the last week of the transfer. Pretty crazy to think that two months have already passed in this area, I'm not sure if I'll stay or go, but I look forward to the adventure of change calls! 

That being said, we bumped into a former investigator in the street the other day and guess what? He came to church!!! He's very interesting... has a lot of theories about love and equality and science, but it's a fun experience every time we teach him. We hope he'll continue to progress and learn more about the gospel! 

Sadly, our beloved investigator E is having issues with her parents giving her permission to be baptized. We are continuing to pray for her, but as of this moment it seems like she will have to wait until she is 18 until she can finally be baptized. Pray for her please! 

Funny story of the week: We'd been teaching a man from Syria for a couple weeks, and every single lesson would always end up with him talking about how he wanted to find a wife in Finland. It didn't help that he spoke neither English or Finnish very well, and that we communicated mainly through online translation...

Anyway, Sisar Dowd and I are walking down the main road where all the buses get off and we see our Syrian friend on the street, talking on the phone. After he hangs up, we go over and say hi and he simply tells us "Now I have wife, she is in Arabia." Before we get the chance to say anything else he waves us off and walks away.  And then Sisar Dowd whispers to me, "Well. can we teach you the gospel now??" haha I love people. 

That's about it for this week, take good care of yourselves! 

At the Helsinki Temple last week

Rakkaudellani! 

Sisar Kwok 

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Funny quotes and spiritual things (of course)

Terve minun rakas! 

The following email is an excerpt from several pages of Sister Kwok's quote page in her daily planner.

While tracting:

(In a building that smells like really good food.)

"Come on people, invite the missionaries in, we're just 2 poor young women who don't have any muscle on this meat."

(When we get door-checked) 

"Well. He obviously wasn't ready for eternal life!"

While walking toward an appointment:

(After a man on a bicycle passes us)

"You know he's a professional biker when there are two of those reflective shiny things on his butt." 

(This is a true thing people, this man had actually reflective thingies SEWN onto his rear end.) 

Interesting things seen this week:

-A man on the bus who looks EXACTLY like Ron Swanson off of Parks and Rec.

-2 Russian women, one with Cruella De Vil hair and the other with the hair of Cinderella's step-sister.

- The Saipa cross dresser. This man wears Saipa hockey gear every single time we see him, along with high heels and blue eye-shadow. He's a very nice man, we've actually had some really great conversations.

-A St. Bernard the size of a large child or small adult. Either way, it was massive.

-A man selling balloons in the city market asking me to marry him.

Kuitenkin...on a more spiritual note, we've had some great miracles this week, especially with investigators popping up through mysterious places. It amazes me how the Lord knows who is ready and how he works through us to find them. 

I also want to thank you all for your prayers and kind words! 

I know Christ is the Son of God, and that he atoned for our sins.

He loves us!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Kwok 

Spring weather!

​we love getting lost in the middle of nowhere! 

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Stepping foot in Savonlinna

Hey everyone!

There are many wonderful adventures that happen to you when you serve the Lord. Wonderful as in...exhausting, stress-inducing, nerve-wracking...but wonderful nonetheless!

First things first, last week we had Zone Conference in Mikkeli with President Watson. It was so amazing, I love hearing about our mission and learning how to be a better missionary through such an inspired leader. We are really trying to use the "Because of Him" video in contacting and tracting, it has been translated into Finnish, so it's been a really powerful tool! If y'all want to see it, it's on YouTube and it's titled "Hänen ansiostaan".

Anyway, the fun started after Zone Conference.

In order to get to Mikkeli for the conference, we needed to take a 2 hour bus ride that leaves at 6:50 in the Morning, and in order to return we usually take 2 hour train ride back. But because we were rushing out the door, we forgot our train tickets. So we had to end up staying a tiny bit longer to take the bus. We catch the bus and with only about 20 minutes left on our ride we get a call from our Zone Leaders asking us if we had left our keys at the chapel. Turns out that we had forgotten our keys in Mikkeli and wouldn't be able to get into our apartment for the rest of the night.

After a lot of phone calls with President, we decided the best thing to do would be to spend the night at a member's house (who actually wasn't home the whole night) and take the 5 am bus in the morning to go to Savonlinna, where the Zone Leaders would be for the day.

Little did we know that the route that the bus took went through every back alley known to man and a trip that would have usually taken less than an hour and a half ended up being four hours.

BUT, now I can say that we were the first two sister missionaries ever to step foot in Savonlinna, an area that only has 10 members. We were still able to an older less active woman, so it wasn't a total bust.

So folks, the moral of the story is to just not be a forgetful sister missionary and always check for the keys!

I love you all, take care!

Rakkaudella,

Sisar Kwok

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Say hello to Rikki Jr.

SO MUCH SUN THIS WEEK.

It's been heavenly.

Aside from the amazing weather, this week has been pretty great! I think it's funny that I say that because there are a lot of days within the week that actually make me want to curl up in a ball and stop trying to plan anything for anyone ever again...

But then the week goes by and I realize that being a missionary is actually quite awesome.

First things first, we picked up an investigator named E! E is just incredibly receptive to the Spirit and such an overall wonderful person, we've been teaching her for only a week and she's already so progressed so much! She's pretty much everything I want to be when I grow up. Which might be a problem because she's only 16 years old. But, really, she is that incredible people!

On another note, I got my first official bible bashing lesson this week, which was pretty awesome. I knew it was going to happen because right when we walked in we saw a massive bible on the kitchen table and a notebook next to it that had the words "Joseph Smith" written on it. It was painful to experience because no matter how many times we would try to pull things back to basic gospel principles she would change the subject and start talking about how we didn't believe in the same God or same Christ.

We have another appointment set up with her this week, pray for us people.

Also, because the slush in the street has cleared up, we brought our bikes out from the storage garage a couple days ago. Sisar Owen would always talk about how her bike, "Rikki" (which is the Finnish word for 'break' I think?) would always fall apart in the streets of Helsinki. Since I inherited my bike from her former companion, I've decided to name it "Rikki Jr." I can already tell that so much good work is going to come through this bike, the brakes are basically gone and it makes this strange scratching noise whenever I ride it. Haha I am so excited!

That's it for this week!

I love you all!

Make good choices in life!

Sisar Kwok

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