Tempeli päivää!! (Temple day!)

Hey everyone! This week has been really great, our recent convert is doing really well (priesthood, temple, all the above...all exciting things). Sorry this week is going to be super lame, because....its TEMPLE DAY! We get to go to the temple once every change and today is the day. Sadly however, it takes a big chunk out of the rest of pday so...just know that things are going well and I will write more next week. I love you and am, like always, so grateful for such a supportive and loving family. Thank you for your prayers. Oh and my ponderizing scripture this week is Alma 26:11-12. Through our Heavenly Fathers help we truly can do miracles. Have a good week!

-Sisar Clark
pics- muiku (probably the most interesting food specific to Finland...really not that abnormal, but ya.) It tastes great!
- Flat Katelyn and I are having a few fun adventures here in Finland :)

Meillä oli kaste tilaisuus! (We had a baptism!)

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday! I got pictures in the mail from magnificent Mom and Aunt Bonnie this week and Katie wins the prize for having the most significant changes. Katie your hair is SO long!! Holy cow! It looks really pretty!

This week was an awesome week! We had our baptism and it went really well! Sisar Bruce and I were in charge of most things (finding, cleaning, filling font, playing piano, singing musical number, giving talk/prayer, bringing food, baptismal clothes, clean up after, etc.) so we were pretty tired after, but happy tired! (eli a missionaries life=happy tired haha) I asked special permission from our recent convert if I could tell a little bit about him and send his picture to friends and family and he said I could so: Joe is from Nigeria and has lived in Finland for just over a year. He was a referral from Elders who met him while he was working and since the first time we met with him he had a desire to be baptized. We have seen such a light and spirit develop in him and have felt so lucky to hear him testify now of how he knows this is true and wants to dedicate his whole life to it. He is a wonderful example to all of us of acting in faith. I hope someday you get the chance to meet him! Although baptisms aren't a measure of success, and true joy comes only from hard work in whatever circumstance as a missionary, it has been a big blessing to see the fruits of the gospel portrayed in another person's life. 

I hope you are all doing well. Callie, thank you for the Christmas Rotation ....Robbie, Kari, and fam...What is your address?...:)
Good luck this week! Love you and praying for you.

-Sisar Clark

Kaunis kylmä ilma (beautiful cold weather)

Hey everyone! The mission life is going great and I'm feeling happy, blessed, and lucky. There is so much to learn, and then when you think you have learned a lot you see even more things that need improvement on. But, what a blessing it is! We had a lot of really solid "reestablish purpose and expectations" lessons with some investigators we have had for a while and we had more awesome lessons with our investigator who is getting baptized this week! Some more awesome quotes from him this week: "Please, tell me everything I need to do, I am fully dedicated to this church and I want to know everything I'm supposed to do" and "I want to get married and if I get married, I'm going to get married in the temple" ... ya he is pretty great. We are very excited for his baptism and for how much he has already done to have the spirit stronger in his life. He is a great example to all of us.
The weather is awesome right now. Clear skies and we still have all the fall trees and cold! Last week was actually an abnormal cold week. It got down to -8 degrees one night and stayed pretty close to 0 or 2 degrees celsius during the day. Fun fun :) but this week is supposed to be a little warmer. Sadly no snow yet, but looking forward to it.

I hope you are all doing well, I miss you and love hearing about how you are doing from mom (really she rocks at updating). I love you and am praying for you :)


-Sisar Clark

Yleiskonferenssi! (General Conference!)

Wow what a blessing and treat it was to have General Conference this week. There is a special energy and excitement watching it as a missionary. I also felt very blessed to be able to watch it in English :) woo hoo. We still haven't seen the last session due to time differences and lack of available technology, but we look forward to seeing it soon. My favorite talk was President Uchtdorf's talk on not complicating the doctrine of the gospel. That brought a lot of peace to me and was a good reminder that the Holy Ghost will speak truth simply, clearly, and to our understanding. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the talks and the powerful spirit that accompanied the talks. 

Another big blessing this week was finding a lot of things to be happy and laugh about with my companion. It was a big answer to my prayer and I'm hoping it continues. One of those things we had a really good laugh about was an encounter we had with two drunk men while tracting. Rather than the classic open the door two centimeters, they threw open the door and came barging out ready for a good dicussion haha. We introduced ourselves and did our best to address the situation appropriately as one of the men grabbed the Book of Mormon and began to randomly open it, read a verse, and ask if we believed that. haha The other soon became interested as well and grabbed the book from his friend who then decided that he actually didn't want it anymore and was trying to get his friend to give the Book of Mormon back to us (this ended up with them drunk fighting over the book of mormon as we slowly tried to back away and tell them that they could have it for free). Then the man decided he wanted to keep the book, but that it was necessary that he paid us for it so he emptied all the coins from his wallet and started following us around to give it to us (while his friend is still fighting with him)....anyways long story short the money ended up in Sisar Bruce's hood and the drunk man "running" up the stairs laughing because he thought he tricked us into taking the money. haha oh man that was hilarious. So there is the funny story for the week.

One thing I have learned on my mission so far is the blessing of fasting. It truly brings answers and blessings. Every time I have fasted and prayed with a sincere heart, I have been answered. Heavenly Father has given us such a wonderful opportunity to receive inspiration; I hope I can continue to use it to it's fullest. I am so grateful for missions and how they help strengthen our understanding and testimonies. I know that Heavenly Father truly loves us and has not left us here without help. What a comfort.

Weather update: last night during contacting we saw the temperature got down to 4 degrees celcius...no snow yet, but definitely seeing some changes. Luckily it has been really sunny and beautiful though, just chilly and darker sooner.
I hope you don't get too much of the post conference blues (it is a real thing here in the mission...its like the week after Christmas of something) and I hope your week goes well. Thank you for your prayers :) love you all

-Sisar Clark