God Gave Us Families

    Hyvää Päivää teille kaikille! :) How in the heck are you all? I just have to say, thank you again for all the love and emails and support. Seriously, I am so blessed. I have been blessed with the most wonderful friends and family. It's so amazing to me how there really are no coincidences as to who our family and friends are, but I lucked out. I think I snuck into the "Awesome Family" line on the way down from heaven and they shot me down here to all of you. It was a good move on my part. I'm glad I did it!

    First off, I just have to say how much I loved Conference. I still haven't listened to the Sunday Afternoon session, but we are watching it later today. It was such a powerful conference. Oh my word. Sister Rochette and I talked about how much more straightforward and to the point the talks are. It's just evidence that we are preparing for something great, aka the Savior to come back. What a glorious day that will be. I will talk a bit more about our Conference days later, but just wanted to give a little shot-out. Also, I hope Moab was fun. My word, I bet you just had the time of your lives. I saw the arches at the beginning of Music and the Spoken Word and I thought about all of you. I can't wait to see pictures. 

    I thought it would be cool to give you a little update on what we are doing in our area. I am sure you are all just dying to know. :) This is mostly for my benefit so I can remember later in life, but we are doing really well in our area. We haven't achieved the Standards of Excellence yet, but we have been consistently finding new people to teach and our number of referrals from members has shot up. We have really focused on giving short, powerful messages to our members, building trust with them, and praying with them over names of people they thought might one day accept the gospel. Last week we received 5 member referrals of solid people that really want the gospel. It's been amazing and we are working on contacting them all this week.

     We have really refined and organized our area book and it is just a machine. I have found more investigators than ever on my mission as our area book has been up to date. We don't ever lose people. We follow up with them quickly after we get their information and we have seen miracles because of it. We are working closely with members and we have developed this calendar where we call members and ask them what day of the week usually works for them to come on lessons. We then map it out on this calendar so immediately when we set up an appointment with someone, we call a member and it's all taken care of. It's been SO much easier than scrambling around the day before an appointment, trying to call all of the members and see who could come with us. I think the members appreciate it so much more. I know they want to help us, they just need to know enough in advance. President Watson has talked about how important it is that we don't ever feel entitled to members as missionaries. They have their own lives and it really is a huge service when they come with us. I love the members in these wards so much. They are wonderful! Anyways, that's the run down on our area. We are having a lot of success. Heavenly Father is helping us so much. It's amazing to see.

    We had a great week this week. Remember the story I told you about the woman we met running and then she came to a temple tour? Well, we had a lesson with her last P-day and her husband and 2 kids were there. They are such a cute family. They are from India. I love Indian culture. They are so kind and respectful. When we went in their house, the husband helped us off with our coats and escorted us to our seats. After everything we said they would respond with, "Yes Sister" and a little bow of the head. I am 99% sure that they went to a Catholic school as kids and the only sisters they knows are the nuns that worked at the school. Haha nonetheless, it felt nice to be respected in that way. I could get used to it! They had also made this HUGE cheesecake with fresh blueberries on it. I felt bad that they went to such great lengths to make our experience meaningful, but it was really nice. The kids are so cute. They have a 9 year old boy and a 5 year old daughter. I can't tell you their names, but the boy's name may or may not be Grandma Parkinson's maiden name...pretty easy for me to remember. :) Anyways, they really made us feel special.

    The lesson went really well. They honestly sort of revere us and it's really nice, but we want them to know we are normal while also maintaining the relationship. I think it has something to do with the fact that the member who was with us told them that we are "Messengers come from God." Apparently it made an impact. They are really excited to keep meeting with us. We talked about baptism and they were pretty hesitant to set a date, but they said they would when they know it's true. We are working on helping them see why it's important to set a date at the beginning, to show Heavenly Father our real intent and all. ;) We were only able to meet with them once because they went out of town for Easter, but they are really great. They have so much real intent and we are focusing on getting them to church this week. We will call them the F family. I am sure that just clears everything up! :) #finnishprivacylaws

    We had a really good lesson with A this past week, our recent convert. Over the past few months, she has sadly turned into a less active. She gets frustrated when we say that church weekly is a commandment. In her old church, she said they could go whenever they wanted and no one called them or came and got them or "dragged" them to church. We have been really praying about how to help her. We have committed her over and over to read the Book of Mormon daily and to come to church, but something always comes up. Well, this week, we had the idea to teach her about Patriarchal Blessings and that she could receive one. As we were teaching about it, Sister Rochette explained that you have to have an interview with the Bishop before you can get your blessing and that you have to be living the commandments, including going to church weekly. She then asked A, "Would not coming to church stop you from getting your patriarchal blessing?" It was such a powerful question. At first, A seemed a little offended and the Spirit almost turned contentious. We were both praying so hard that they Spirit would help her understand how important keeping the commandments, all of the commandments, is. Well, she made some comments about how we don't understand how busy life is as missionaries because all we do is church stuff, but literally, the Spirit started working in her. You could see it. She stopped talking and just sat there for a while. You could just feel the Holy Ghost come back into the room and she said, "I know I need to come to church. God gives me 6 days and 21 hours, I can give 3 hours back to Him." Wow. There is nothing more powerful than the Holy Ghost and inspired questions. I gained a deeper testimony of those things that night.

    So on P-day, we were standing at a train stop with our groceries and I had the thought to talk to this really scary man. I honestly didn't want to. He looked drunk and honestly really scary, but I had the thought to give him a pass-along card. Well, I didn't do it. I brushed the thought off thinking that no way that thought could come from the Spirit. Well, I went home that night and I just felt horrible. As I was saying my prayers, asking Heavenly Father what I could do better, that man's face popped into my mind. I felt so horrible. I asked Heavenly Father to forgive me and I made a promise with him that the next day, I would follow EVERY single prompting I got, regardless of who I was supposed to talk to or what I was supposed to do and then I went to sleep. 

    Well, we went to district meeting the next morning and I talked to all of the people that the Spirit prompted me to talk to. I didn't have a lot of success. People weren't rude, they just weren't interested. I always feel happy when I follow the Spirit, so I was feeling pretty good. After district meeting however, we were on our way home for lunch and I sat next to a lady on the train. I sat down and asked how she was doing and she looked at me with eyes as big as golf balls and shouted, "Don't you ever talk to me about your church again." Well, it wasn't the best feeling in the world, not going to lie. Especially when her yelling attracted the attention of the whole train, but it's whatever. I was especially confused because I had felt so inspired to talk to her. I knew it was from the Spirit. I was like, "Spirit, come on man, what are you doing to me?" Well, we got off the train and started walking home. As I was thinking about what happened, a lady all dressed in black walked next to us. The Spirit whispered to my heart, "You need to talk to that lady." I said hello to her, but she either didn't hear or didn't acknowledge that I had said anything. She turned and started walking around the building right next to our building. We kept walking around the other side and the Spirit said, "Go talk to that lady." Well, I remembered the promise I made to Heavenly Father, so we followed the woman in black, like literally followed her. We even had to jog a little bit, but we stopped in enough time so she wouldn't be freaked out. I called ahead to her and said, "Hey! Hold on a second." haha I am sure she thought I was crazy, but she stopped and we caught up to her. We proceeded to tell her that we were here as church representatives. We asked her if she had heard of the church. She told us that she had visited the temple 3 times when the open house was happening. We asked her why she had gone 3 times and she said, "Because of the wonderful feeling of peace I felt there. It made me want to go back." Well we then said, "You can have that feeling of peace with you always. When could we come and teach you about it?" She then gave us her name, address, number and set up an appointment for Thursday. Miracles people. It was pretty amazing. Her name is T. Pray for her. Following the Spirit works.

    We went on splits with the sisters in Kerava sisters this week, Sisar Forrest and Sisar Herrmann. Sisar Herrmann has been in Finland for about a month and I was able to go with her. She is an amazing missionary, plus she plays soccer and was even a sweeper so I mean, it was like a match made in heaven. :) We clicked really well. She had a goal to apply the gospel to everyone we contacted and to talk with everyone and I was just riding high on the following every prompting of the spirit train so I stuck with that as my goal. We had a great day. We felt inspired to do some tracting and we set up 4 return appointments for them. It was amazing. We had so much fun! She is a great sister! We talked a lot about how important it is to be yourself as a missionary. There really is no set way to contact or to teach. If we were all supposed to be the same, it wouldn't matter where they sent us. But for some reason, the Finnish people respond best to Sister Bitner's and Sister Herrmann's personalities. We are needed here for who we are. It was a good reminder for me and I was grateful we were able to talk about. Sisar Nyman sent me an email this week and commented on how amazing it is that all of the apostles have such different personalities, but we need each one of them. Something about each one of them touches our hearts. It's just the same with missionaries and people in general. We should never EVER try to be someone else. If you do that, I can promise you, you will never be truly happy. It's all about becoming your best self through the Atonement and then being that best self. That's what brings true happiness.

    We had about 537983 dinner appointments last week which was great. I wanted to share something with you that one of the cute little old Finnish members said to us. We got to her house and went inside and asked her if there was anything we could do to help. Now normally, Finnish members say no, but her "no" was very serious. She said, "Absolutely not. You go sit and rest. Missionaries represent Jesus Christ. When you are at our home, it is as though Jesus Christ is here, so we want to give you our best." Oh my goodness. It was the most humbling thing I have ever heard. I was so grateful that I have had the opportunity to be a representative of my Savior for 18 months. What an honor. It was cool to hear that that is really how people perceive us. We really are "messengers sent from God." I thought it was pretty awesome!

    So for my spiritual thought this week, I wanted to write down some thoughts I had from each of the sessions of Conference I have watched. I will start with the Saturday Morning session. 

    Saturday Morning: I loved Elder Packer's talk. My goodness, is there anything better than his cute story about his wife? I was so amazed at how much Conference focused on families, marriage, and honestly true love. From Elder Packer's talk I learned that true love really is out there and we shouldn't settle for anything less when we are looking for a spouse. I loved that. I don't remember who said this, but I loved the thing, "You life me and I'll lift thee and we'll ascend together." What a great motto. This applies in any relationship. If you both focus completely on caring for the other person, then you will both be taken care of. Kind of a "duh" concept, but if we all lived that principle, the world would be a much better place. I also learned from this session that we cannot be paralyzed with a fear of the future. Fear and Faith cannot reside in the same heart.

    Saturday Afternoon: I learned from this that it requires effort to remember Christ. We promise to do that every week during the sacrament, but it requires greater effort than I realize. I know I need to pray for help to remember Him always. We should always live with reverence, respect, and awe for the Savior. I also loved when someone said, "Ultimately we will have no excuse." There really are no excuses in the end of all things so stop making them now. I loved, "A saint is a sinner who keeps on trying" and if we don't keep trying, we are just latter-day sinners. If we don't endure, we are just latter-day quitters. That's a really good reminder.

    Sunday Morning: Put down the phone. Make time to marvel at the world and to actually TALK to people. I learned that I need to marvel at and enjoy Finland and enjoy my last month here. I just love that world, MARVEL. It's a good one word sermon if you ask me. I loved Elder Holland's talk. Holy cow, how powerful was that. The Savior reaches to us with brotherly hands and determined arms. I loved the story he used to illustrate the point. I have felt like that so many times in my life, but especially my mission. Just that feeling of dangling and grasping for something. I loved the phrase, "Grasp me as I fall, hold me with thy might." It made the one-liner file in my brain. I learned also from this session how much I want to live life to the fullest. I want to laugh a lot, cry a lot, love a lot, travel a lot, and just be a real person. It's such a beautiful life when we do that, and it's only possible through the Savior. I think that is why "Meet the Mormons" is such a great movie. It shows 6 people who have really lived life to the fullest because of Jesus Christ. It's amazing!

    I saved the Women's meeting for last, because it was SO STINKING GOOD. Holy cow. That first song they sang with the line, "God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be" hit me like a sack of bricks. I bawled like a baby as I thought of our family and how that line is 100% true. I wouldn't be anything without my family. You are everything to me and I am so grateful for all of you. I had the distinct impression as I watched that session that nothing can ever stop our family. We are in this together and I know that we will continue to grow strong and to be better. Nothing brings me more joy than that. I also had the thought during the meeting that I needed to give you all a "One for the Day." So here we go:

    Dad, your one for the day is how well you hold the Priesthood. You are everything that a righteous Priesthood holder should be and you have always been the rock of our family. I thought of all those times when you led our family in prayer, scripture study, and family home evening and I was really overcome with gratitude for you and for the love you have and respect you have for the Priesthood you hold. Thank you! I love you!

    Mom, your one for the day is your determination to have the Spirit in our home. I always remember as a kid how you would say, "Satan will do anything to get the Spirit out of our home and we can't let him win" and you really fought back against him. As a result, I have a testimony, all of your kids have testimonies of the gospel and we love each other deeply. That would not have happened without your righteous desires and determination against the adversary. Thank you so much for that example. I love you!

    Joce, your one for the day is your passion for everything. You live life to the fullest. You NEVER do anything half-heartedly. You don't love half-heartedly and you don't work half-heartedly. You have inspired me to be passionate and to be true to what I love. Thank you for that. I love you!

    Anne, your one for the day is your kindness and your love for peace. You have always been a peace maker and that is one of the greatest Christ-like attributes that can be developed. You just have it in your soul. You love with the love of Christ and you leave everyone around you feeling uplifted. Thank you! I love you!

    Lauren, your one for the day is your loyalty and companionship. You are the best friend that anyone could have. You love deeply and you love completely. You don't love just a part of a person, you love the whole person for exactly who they are. You have always loved me that way and I appreciate and love you more than you know. Thank you! I love you!

    Luke, your one for the day is your happiness and your desire to have fun. You brighten up any room you go into and you always make me smile. You want nothing more than that the people you love and the people around you are happy. You are a natural leader and you draw others to you with your sweet heart and your goodness. Thank you for your example. I love you!

    Caroline, your one for the day is your desire to work hard and to do your best, always. You always succeed at what you do, and that is because you work so hard and are so diligent. You are so incredibly smart and talented and you have a great influence on those that are around you. Thank you for influencing me for good. I love you!

    Well great, now I am crying. haha :) I have the best family in the world. I was on the train yesterday and I sat next to this lady and I showed her our family picture and tears came to her eyes...guys this was a Finn, and she said, "This is the most beautiful family I have ever seen. You tell them that I said they are beautiful." Wow. I couldn't agree more. You all shine with the light of Christ and I really am humbled to be your daughter and sister. God really did give us our family to help us become what He wants us to be. I hope you all know that I am always here for you. I am here for you whether I am in Finland or home and I can't wait to come and see you all. It will be so wonderful! I may pass out with happiness. Have a stretcher close by! :) Have a wonderful week. I love you so much!

    Rakkaudellani,

    Sisar Bitner

    P.S. "Something Finnish" They have this famous Easter dessert called Mämmi. It is basically rye pudding and it honestly tastes pretty nasty, but when you put lots of cream and sugar on it, it tastes pretty good. haha I am so American, and proud of it! :) I love you! 

The traditional Finnish Easter dessert, Mämmi....it looks gross, but its pretty good!

I love Mämmi

You put a lot of cream and sugar on it and then it tastes good

...I'm pretty sure you can do the same thing with dirt, but you know... it's whatever :)

Sister Herrmann and I on splits in a graffiti tunnel

The sisters at conference, and some members! 

My boots have gone the way of all the earth...as I was running they busted open...R.I.P.

My companion made me an Easter basket...she even hid it in the sauna.

A little angel gave me some Cadberry creme eggs for Easter...wow. Best gift ever!

 He Lives

    "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"....but only if you're in Finland! Good Winter Morning to you all. Did you get the pictures I sent you? Yep, winter is back. I am not super surprised, but Spring Fever caught me pretty bad this year. I was getting ready to retire the winter boots, but it's all good. Finland is still so beautiful in the snow! I love doing missionary work in the snow. It's like I was born to do it! :) But HAPPY EASTER! HAPPY CONFERENCE WEEK! HAPPY MOAB WEEK! Wow, could this week get any more glorious? I am so excited for conference. Just think, this is my 3rd conference as a missionary. Woah. That's weird. This week I also hit my one year "Vaasa-versary". I was flipping through my old journal and I realized that I had moved to Vaasa exactly one year ago on March 24...wow. Sometimes I feel like I have been a missionary for about 2 weeks and then other times it hits me. Like on my Vaasa-versary....what in the world? I have been doing the same thing, everyday for the past 18 months. Isn't it great? I am so grateful to be here and am so excited for conference. We are so lucky to have a living prophet and apostles. I sustain them and am so excited to hear from them. It's going to be great!

    So we have had another week full of meetings and splits. It's been really busy, but good. I love being busy and always having something to do. It makes you feel so good at the end of the day to fall into bed and to fall asleep instantly. Mom, I know I have said this before, but I never understood how you could sit down and fall asleep instantly any time we tried to watch a movie as a family. I am sure I am not "mom-status" tired over here, but I really appreciate you so much. I will never force you to stay awake again! :) It's really funny actually, we have office chairs in our apartment at our desks, you know the ones that spin and roll and stuff, they are pretty legit, but anyways, when we pray at night, I kneel down next to the chair, rest my head in my hands and boom, I fall asleep. But I realized that if I sway back and forth while we pray, I stay awake. I don't know if it's disrespectful, but I figure falling asleep is worse, so I am going to stick with it! :) 

    Another funny story, so on Tuesday, Sister Rochette and I got permission from President to go down to Helsinki to get Luke and Dad's souvenirs. They are pretty legit guys...don't even worry :) But as we were in the store, these 6 young men walked into the store. I turned around because they were being so loud, and they were all literally glowing. It was amazing. I felt like I was staring at a light bulb. I had the thought come to mind, "Those guys are missionaries." But they didn't have name-tags on so I kind of brushed the thought off and continued talking to the worker at the store. Well, I bought the souvenirs and as we were leaving, one of the guys came up to me and said, "Hey, are you the missionaries here in Finland?" I said yes and he said, "We are the missionaries from St. Petersburg. We are here for the day renewing our visas." Apparently they can't wear name-tags when they are in Finland, but isn't that hilarious? They really were glowing, with the light of Christ. I have such a strong testimony of members and missionaries' ability to  shine with the light of Christ. It was a really cool experience!

    We had the Helsinki Zone Conference on Wednesday. It was a wonderful meeting again. The thing I love about the Helsinki zone is how many wonderful sisters we have down here. There are wonderful sisters all over Finland, but it's so much fun to be together. The principle of reading the same thing twice and getting something new out of it has always astounded me, but I realized and gained a testimony of the power of the Spirit in teaching again on Wednesday as President taught us. He followed a similar outline as the other meetings, but the Spirit, stories, questions, and ideas were completely different. He is an amazing teacher. We talked a lot in this zone conference about obedience. I am so grateful for obedience. I don't remember the exact quote nor who said it, but someone said something to the affect of, "When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power." I think it was Ezra Taft Benson, but don't quote me on that. :) I have such a strong testimony of obedience. The thought came to my mind as we were discussing that we really don't have to be obedient. We don't have to do anything. But, if we want to be happy, if we want results, in the case of missionaries, if we want people to teach and baptize, obedience isn't an option. Dad, you said to me before my mission, "Coming home isn't even an option." That has always stayed with me and it came to me during zone conference again, disobedience to any of the commandments isn't an option if we want happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. It was a great discussion. Obedience is freedom...you may quote me :) 

    I learned a lot about prayer, once again. I learned that we should pray for everything. Anytime we are nervous, scared, stressed, happy, excited, anxious, anything, we should talk to Heavenly Father. There really is no limit to the answers and knowledge that Heavenly Father is willing to give us. The only things that stands in our way is "our veil of unbelief" as the scriptures say. Once we get rid of that, so much is possible. My Chinese friend Li, the one you all met on skype last Mother's Day used to say in her prayers, "Thank you for the great light you have given us. Thank you for your great knowledge." I can't wait to do her accent for you all, Sister Fronk will remember it :) But I have started thanking Heavenly Father for the knowledge and light that He gives to me every day. Isn't it cool that we have the opportunity to receive personal revelation every day. Wow. We are so lucky. At the end of our discussion about prayer, President said, "I learned as a kid that we should pray like everything depends on the Lord and then work like everything depends on us." To me, that's what the prayer of faith means. President Hinckley has a quote that I love. It's hanging up next to my bed, but it says, "You are doing the best you can, and that best results in good to yourself as well as good to others. Don't nag yourself with a sense of failure. Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord and then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do." What a simple formula for life. I think I'm going to stick with it! :)

    So after Zone Conference, Sister Rochette and I went home, packed and went to pick up the Tampere Sister Training Leaders at the train station to go to the Mission Home for MLC the next day. It was great to see them. Sister Johnston and Sister Pack. Man, they are wonderful! I love them both so much. So we got to President's house and Sister Pack rubbed out my shoulder...just like old times. She is a professional. She used to always rub out our shoulders in the MTC. haha it was awesome. I told her I am hiring her as my eternal chiropractor. She agreed so it's all good :) Anyways, MLC consisted of the sister training leaders, zone leaders, Assistants, and all of the district leaders in Finland. This kind of MLC only happens once a quarter, but it was fun to have a big group there. Almost all of my MTC group was there, so it was fun to see them all. 

    At the beginning of the meeting President said, "Elders and Sisters, what do you know that the world doesn't know?" We had a wonderful discussion from that question into the Book of Mormon. We all went around and shared Book of Mormon verses that are meaningful to us. I shared on of my new favorites, Alma 28:14 which says:

14 And thus we see the great call of diligence of men tolabor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see thegreat reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrowbecause of death and destruction among men, and joybecause of the light of Christ unto life.

    I love that scripture. I think I mentioned this last week, but there really is no greater call than being a missionary. We are all called to be missionary. People always say how much Heavenly Father loves His missionaries. I know that is true, but I also know that every member is a missionary. Heavenly Father is proud of all of us. As we serve faithfully in our callings, we are all being missionaries. As we invite our friends to learn about the gospel, we are being missionaries. I am so grateful that I get to be a missionary for the rest of my life. The name-tag never comes off, you know? It's a beautiful thing! :)

    After our Book of Mormon discussion, President talked about Zion's camp. He told us that he hadn't planned to talk about this at all, but when he woke up that morning, the Spirit told him that we all needed to hear about Zion's camp apparently. :) Well, I have to say, it was one of the most amazing discussions/lessons I have ever had. I was not really familiar with Zion's Camp at all. For those of you who are in the same boat as I was, Zion's camp was a march of 1,000 miles that the Lord asked Joseph Smith and other members of the church to make in May 1834. Originally, the Lord said that 500 men would make the journey, but when the time came, only 200 ended up going. It was a horrible journey full of trials, sickness, starvation, and basically anything else that you can think of. It was really hard.

    Zion's camp turned out to be a test from the Lord for the members of the church at that time. He wanted to see who among them would be faithful to Joseph, but most importantly faithful to the Lord. It was a sifting. And boy, did it work. So many people complained and murmured, gave up, blamed, whined, and honestly, they had good reason to. But the ones that remained faithful ended up being the leaders of the church. Brigham Young was among one of the faithful men that endured Zion's camp. 

    I have heard about this story before, but I never really thought about it or compared it to me and my life. But after President gave us a little background he said, "Elders and Sisters, this is your Zion's camp. The Lord is here. He is watching you. He wants to know if you will remain faithful." Wow. Talk about a wake up call. The thought came to my mind, "Well, Sisar Bitner, are you going to stay faithful? Not just to your mission, but to the end of your life? What if it gets hard? What if people mock you? What if they cast you out? What if this...what if that?" The thought went on and on and on, and I decided that Yes, I am going to stay faithful. I am going to be faithful and I am not going to murmur and whine along the way. I will be who I become. This mission is the foundation for my life, for all of the missionaries' lives. This is the day to change. My mission has changed my life forever. I know I am being prepared and we are all being prepared for great things to come, but also for hard things to come. The Lord can't have whimpy members in these last days. He trusts us enough that He sent us here now, but we have to do everything we can to make sure we are strong and ready to stand the test. I am so grateful for my personal Zion's camp. This has set my course. I will forever be grateful to my Heavenly Father for the opportunity to serve a mission.

    Anyways, MLC was wonderful. I love MLC. I love learning and improving and trying to be better. I always have things to work on when I come out of those meetings. I know I probably sound like a broken record, but I honestly can't say enough good things about serving a mission. It really has been a miracle in my life. I will forever be an advocate of serving a mission. Every young man should serve, and every young women should pray about serving, knowing that she will know for sure if she is supposed to go. I had no doubt in my mind that I was supposed to serve a mission, and that's one of the things that has kept me here and has motivated me to work hard, I know this is exactly where Heavenly Father wants me to be. 

    So we had a great Friday after MLC. We had a DA with the A family again and they told us that their Indian friend to whom they gave a Book of Mormon is coming to meet with us. YIPPEE!! I am so excited and can't wait to meet them! After the DA, we had a lesson with H, the woman who watched "Because of Him" with us. The lesson went well. She has a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon, but we are working with her on that. She bought us each like 3 pastries from a really good bakery in Espoo and wouldn't let us leave until they were gone. I have never hated eating so much in my life. After the DA and then those pastries, I was about to die. Then we had to run for a train immediately after our lesson with H. Oh my goodness, talk about the enabling power of the Atonement. I know that's what it really is when we all say we had an "Adrenaline rush." It's just the enabling power of the Atonement. :)

    On Saturday we were on splits in Haaga. It was a great day. I went with Sisar Andersson who is from my hometown of Tampere. She is great. I also went with her trainer, Sisar Richards. They are in a tripanionship so Sister Rochette when with their other companion. We had a really good day. The thing about their tripanionship is that Sisar Richards has only been in the country for 5 months and Sisar Andersson doesn't speak English. Oh boy. We are working on helping Sisar Andersson develop a language study plan for English and Sisar Richards is working on her Finnish. She already speaks really well, but it's one thing to have to speak Finnish 24/7. They are great though. We had a fun day and focused on talking about our families with people. We set up a lot of return appointments and had fun doing it! I love splits!

    I had a really cool experience on Monday. I woke up Monday morning and felt really weird. I felt really frustrated for some reason, but I didn't know why. As I was doing personal study, I had a really negative vibe the whole time. Afterwards, I talked to Sister Rochette about it and I had the strongest feeling that I needed to call Sister Thayne. I had no idea why, but I knew that I needed to do it. So I called her, as she is in Helsinki, and I told her that I had no idea why I was calling her. We proceeded to talk and I felt like I needed to tell her how much I love her and how grateful I am for our friendship. I really do love Sister Thayne. She has been with me since the beginning and she knows me so well. I felt like I needed to tell her that I am always going to be here for her. Not just in the MTC, not just on the mission, but after as well. I am so grateful for all of my companions. I love them with all my heart and I know that we were put together for a reason. I know we are going to need each other after the mission and for some reason, both Sister Thayne and I needed to hear that yesterday. Anyways, moral of the story, trust your feelings. If it's a good feeling, it's from the Spirit, if not, work it out until you feel good again. The Spirit works in many ways, sometimes through weird feelings until we figure out what he is trying to tell us. I am so grateful for the Spirit.

    I am so grateful for this time of year. I am so grateful to be a missionary around Easter. I have been reading in Alma lately and a few verses have become so special to me, as they talk about the Savior. It is found in Alma 34: 8-12, 15-16:

 8 And now, behold, I will testify unto you of myself thatthese things are true. Behold, I say unto you, that I doknow that Christ shall come among the children of men, totake upon him the transgressions of his people, and that heshall atone for the sins of the world; for the Lord God hathspoken it.

 9 For it is expedient that an atonement should be made;for according to the great plan of the Eternal God theremust be an atonement made, or else all mankind mustunavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all arefallen and are lost, and must perish except it be throughthe atonement which it is expedient should be made.

 10 For it is expedient that there should be a great and lastsacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast,neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a humansacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.

 11 Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his ownblood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if aman murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, takethe life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay.

 12 But the law requireth the life of him who hathmurdered; therefore there can be nothing which is short ofan infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of theworld.

 15 And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shallbelieve on his name; this being the intent of this lastsacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, whichoverpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto menthat they may have faith unto repentance.

 16 And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, andencircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercisesno faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of thedemands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faithunto repentance is brought about the great and eternalplan of redemption.

    I wanted to add my testimony to that of Amulek that I do know that Christ came. He atoned for our sins. He lived a perfect life. He is our older brother and was willing to atone and die for us because He loves us. He was the only one that was able to perform the atonement. I have thought a lot lately about our state without an Atonement. Honestly, it makes me cringe to think about it. Without Christ we have no hope. He is the only hope we have to return to live with our Heavenly Father. 

   I am sure you all have heard about or seen the "Because He Lives" video. If not, go watch it. It is so good. My favorite line from that video is "It doesn't matter who you are, or who you were, He is here." It really doesn't matter who we are. It doesn't matter what we have done. All that matters is that we trust Him enough to turn our lives over to Him, to allow Him to make us more than we ever could be alone. To become the best versions of ourselves. That is only possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I don't think any of us really can ever fully understand the Atonement. All I know is that if we believe in Him, if we have faith in Him, if we repent, if we are baptized, if we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end, we shall have eternal life. We are encircled in the arms of safety now and forever. He will stand by us. He will defend us. He will support us. He will strengthen and enable us. He loves us. I love Him. Jesus is the Christ. He rose on the third day and because He lives, we too shall live. All of us. The Lord is my Light and I love Him with all of my heart. I love you all and am so grateful for you. Because of Jesus Christ, we can all be together forever. There really is nothing better. Happy Easter! I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

    Rakkaudellani,

    Sisar Bitner

    P.S. Something Finnish, They really like to feed the missionaries, here in Espoo. We got 7 DAs on Sunday! :) Wow! I love you! Hopefully I'm not too fat when I come home! JK :)

We all got the memo to match at zone conference :) The Kerava sisters Forrest and Herrmann

Our MTC group at MLC....we have all grown up so much :)

Sister Pack and Sister Johnston, the Tampere Sister Training Leaders...they are great!! 

Splits....Sister Andersson, the finn, and Sister Richards

Ya, it was a blizzard all day yesterday...I spoke too soon about spring...oh well :)

The Time of My Life

    Well, well, well, Good Morning! How are you all doing this beautiful March 24th day? It's a beautiful, windy day here in Finland. But the birds are still singing and the sun is out. I am not complaining. As Michael Buble says, "It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good." That's such a good message. I don't know if he knows it or not, but that song is totally about repentance. Wow, someone needs to baptize him. He is sending hidden messages in his songs. :) So anyways, hahaha sorry for my rant. I hope Dad and Lauren had wonderful birthdays. I thought about you both on your birthdays and I hope you both know how much I love you! Thank you for everything.

    First off, I just have to say a couple of things I have come to appreciate about Finland. This is my "Something Finnish" for the day. First thing, I have come to appreciate their sense of humor. Let me explain. So like, in the past, I haven't ever tried to make jokes in Finnish A, because I'm not very funny, but B, because I never felt confident enough in my Finnish and I figured I would probably say something wrong and they wouldn't understand the joke anyways. Well, this week, I tried and totally failed to crack a joke to a Finn. We were talking to this woman at the train station and we were having a great conversation about church tours and stuff and then we asked her what her name was. She said, "Marika" and I said in my "Yes, I'm trying to be funny right now" way, "Oh, you mean like America." Granted, that joke sounds even lamer now that I'm telling you about it, but she just looked at me like I was the biggest loser on the face of the earth, and boy, I felt it. Sisar Rochette cracked up pretty hard at my failure to be funny, so at least someone laughed at something. The contact didn't end really well, hopefully not because of my joke failure, but I really do appreciate the Finns for their sense of humor and honesty. They don't laugh at anything unless they think it's hilarious. No pity laughs here. :) 

   Second thing, I love that the Finns don't pretend to be more excited than they are. I have always felt like a dummy whenever I would see people that I haven't seen for a long time, of course I get excited, but I am not exactly the jump and down, start screaming and running around in circles kind of a person. It was great though because this week at the temple, I saw my mini missionary Sisar K from Vaasa and the N family from Vaasa who are like my favorite people in the world, but when I saw them, I didn't feel obligated to jump up and down and "freak out." They just calmly gave me a hug and asked how I was doing and I did the same. It was so great. I feel like I am amongst my own here in Finland sometimes. It's wonderful!

    Third thing: I have come to appreciate peace and quiet as I have been in Finland. I would wager that there is not another place on the earth where you could go and sit on a train, completely FULL of people and hear literally nothing. Like not even coughs or sneezes or music or anything. They just sit there. The only thing you can really hear is missionaries trying to preach the word. :) This new found appreciation became apparent to me this week as we went and taught our new American investigator, P. She is married to a Finn and the Espoo 2 sisters had been teaching her for quite a while. She has a lot of family members who are LDS and she wants to join the church because of the "Light and Love in the eyes of the Mormons." Pretty cool. But anyways, we had our first lesson with her and she told us EVERYTHING about her life. Like literally. I was so shocked that someone was telling us so many personal details, and she was talking very loudly. Sister Rochette and I walked out of the lesson, which went really well, but we both commented on the fact that the lesson felt so loud and she shared really personal things. Well, the things she shared weren't too personal of course, but this culture is just rubbing off on us, I guess. Become one with Finland, you know? :) That's the way to be a missionary here. But seriously, I love that the Finns like the quiet. They really understand the concept of "Be still, and know that I am God." I am grateful I have learned that lesson from them! 

    Man oh man, thanks for letting me rant about this beautiful land that I love. But let's get on to the week, this week has been CRAZY. All the weeks are crazy, but this one especially. Let's start at the beginning. Let me just start by saying I have gained a new perspective on less-active members this week. I will explain later. But Tuesday night, we went out to a less-actives home that lives in the Espoo 2 ward. She is from Estonia and has been less-active for a long time. She is really friendly and likes having us over, but she says she doesn't feel welcome at church and told us she has no desire to read the Book of Mormon. It was actually a really funny experience, because she said to us, "When I joined the church, I used to go out teaching with the sisters all the time. I know how missionaries feel about less-actives. You are just so frustrated with me and you don't like coming to see me and I annoy you and you feel like I am a burden." We told her that we love her, which we really do, but it kind of clicked in my head after she made that comment that less-actives really want someone to want them to come to church. They want someone to notice when they aren't at church. Obviously other things contribute to them not coming, but I know that the chances of them coming would increase greatly if they knew that someone cared if they were there or not.

    My perspective continued to change as I read a talk from last conference called, "Rescue in Unity." Elder Wong shared the story of the man with palsy being brought to Jesus by his friends from the roof of the house. He said that the four people who lowered the man's bed to Christ could represent a member of the Relief Society, the Home Teachers, and a full-time missionary. I realized that as hard as we, the missionaries, try with less-actives, they aren't going to come back unless the ward is involved. We have such a wonderful opportunity as members to do missionary work in a very real way as we reach out to those members of our wards that have left. They just want to know someone cares. I know that love from everyone, including the missionaries and members, is such an important component of these members coming back to activity. Elder Wong made the comment that:

    "The work to assist Jesus Christ in saving souls, at least for them, was never too demanding. They came up with a plan—not an easy one, but they acted on it."


    That is one thing I am going to do when I come home. I want to ask my Bishop who in the ward needs a friend. I want to ask him who is struggling and who could use some extra help. We really can rescue these people if we work together. I know that is true.

    So that was Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, Sister Rochette and I woke up at 5 a.m. to get ready to go to the East Zone Conference in Mikeli. We were able to drive the 3 hours to Mikeli with President and Sister Watson. It was so great to get to know them better and Sister Watson was so cute and brought us snack bags. Man, we are so spoiled. They are the best. We have 4 zones in Finland and because of decreased numbers of sisters, Sister Rochette and I are the STLs for the Helsinki Zone, the East Zone, and the North Zone. So we were able to go to the East Zone Conference. The meeting went well. President started the meeting off with the question, "Elders and Sisters, how do you know that God loves you?" We talked a lot about prayer and I gained so many insights on prayer. I definitely can improve the quality of my prayers. I have made it a goal since conference to make time to say my prayers at night. I have started praying now at 10:10 instead of like 10:25 and I have found that has made all the difference. I feel so much closer to my Heavenly Father and I know that is all because of the quality of my personal prayers. Sister Watson shared 2 Nephi 32:8-9 which says:

 8 And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

 9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

    I love that scripture. I love the last part that talks about the Lord consecrating our performances as we pray in faith. So many things are possible through prayer, but it's really all contingent on our prayer of faith. President talked about those people that pray and pray and pray but don't do anything about their prayer and "never get an answer." He talked about how the prayer of faith is hope plus action. We hope that we will get answers, but then we get to work. We can't sit around and wait to be commanded in all things because the Lord doesn't work that way. Elder Oaks has a quote in Preach My Gospel that says:

    “[A person may have] a strong desire to be led by the Spirit of the Lord but … unwisely extends that desire to the point of wanting to be led in all things. A desire to be led by the Lord is a strength, but it needs to be accompanied by an understanding that our Heavenly Father leaves many decisions for our personal choices. Personal decision making is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will soon find circumstances in which they pray for guidance and don’t receive it. For example, this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances in which the choices are trivial or either choice is acceptable.

    “We should study things out in our minds, using the reasoning powers our Creator has placed within us. Then we should pray for guidance and act upon it if we receive it. If we do not receive guidance, we should act upon our best judgment. Persons who persist in seeking revelatory guidance on subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to direct us may concoct an answer out of their own fantasy or bias, or they may even receive an answer through the medium of false revelation” (“Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall,” Ensign, Oct. 1994, 13–14).

    I love Elder Oaks. He is so straightforward. All the apostles are. This quote is true. I have a testimony of it. President also made the comment that we need to talk to our Heavenly Father the same way we talk to our earthly father. Dad, you have made me cry, in a good way, many times this week. As President made that comment, I started thinking about you and how much I love talking to you. I thought about my favorite memories I have with you. There are so many, but honestly my favorite times were when you and I would do dishes on Sunday night or when we would play ping pong or when we would drive to soccer tournaments, just the 2 of us and we would talk and talk and talk about everything. I always told you exactly how I felt, whether you liked it or not :) and I loved hearing what you had to say. I loved hearing your ideas and your views and opinions and I really take to heart everything that you say. I wondered if that is always how my prayers are. Sometimes I have fallen into the trap of forgetting my relationship with my Heavenly Father. Yes, he is God, but first and foremost He is our Father. He wants us to call Him that because that is His most important role. I need to talk to Him like I talk to you, Dad. But I wanted to say thank you for helping me see what it means to love your children unconditionally. Thank you for talking with me and listening to me. Because you did, I know Heavenly Father does too! That knowledge really is priceless. I love you. I am so grateful for prayer and am excited to continue to learn about how I can make my prayers more effective and sincere. 


    So the Assistants are really great Elders and they taught us all about Finding People to Teach. They had asked Sister Rochette and I to do a demonstration of finding someone on the street through a church tour. They called us about a week before Zone Conference and asked us to do the role play, but they also asked us to find a new investigator before Zone conference with a church tour. Sounds pretty simple, but once Monday rolled around of this last week, we were starting to sweat pretty bad. We wanted to be able to testify that this approach to Finding would work. So on Monday morning, we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to bless us to find someone who would come to a church tour and become a new investigator. 

    Well, as we continued our work that day, the thought came to mind that we should call a potential that we had met about 2 weeks earlier. We had tried to call him a couple times before, but he hadn't answered. Anyways, we called him on Monday around 12:30 and he agreed to come to a church tour Monday at 15. So we hurried a found a member, and A came to the church tour and LOVED IT. It was one of the most spiritual church tours I have ever given and we focused completely on the Restoration. At the end of the tour, we were in the chapel with A and Sister Rochette asked if she could sing him a song. Well, I whipped out my skills and played the Children's Songbook version of "I am a Child of God" #skill and Sister Rochette sang. The spirit was there and A was totally feeling it. When I turned around after having played the song, his eyes were all teary and he said he wanted to come to church on Sunday. Guess what, he totally did! It was great! Prayer works. I know that the Lord blessed us, but only after we did all that we could do. It was pretty cool!


    So we got home pretty late Wednesday night. We had a great day Thursday. The Lord really blessed our area while we were gone. We were able to find 2 awesome investigators. One was P, the American, and the other was S, and old Finnish man who came up to us at the train station and told us he had a Book of Mormon and wanted to learn more about it. We had a lesson with him on Thursday and it went really well. He clicked very quickly with the member that we brought and we both thought, "SWEET. this is so great." Well, yesterday S called us and said that he didn't have time to read the Book of Mormon right now. We were pretty bummed, but then a scripture came to my mind that President had shared in zone conference. It was from D&C 42:8 

 8 And from this place ye shall go forth into the regions westward; and inasmuch as ye shall find them that will receive you ye shall build up my church in every region—

    We are called to find those that will receive us. It kind of sounds like an oxymoron, but I have taught so many people on my mission that "haven't received us." "Those that will receive us" are those that want to learn, that are willing to learn, that keep commitments. If they aren't ready to make and keep commitments right now, that is totally ok. We haven't failed, we haven't damned them to hell, they just aren't ready. They will be ready eventually though. We ended up giving a few of our investigators over to the Lord this week because we both felt like they weren't progressing. After praying and receiving a confirmation from the Spirit, we felt peace in our hearts about all of these people. Their time will come. We just have to find those that are ready to receive us and the Lord will lead us to them. It's such a comfort to me that the Lord knows each of His children personally and has their best interests at heart. He takes care of all of us.

    So then, Friday rolls around and this time we woke up at 4:00 to get to the airport on time to catch our 7:00 flight to Oulu. We were able to go to the North Zone Conference as well. It's about an 11 hour train ride from Helsinki to Oulu and about an hour flight so we were able to fly. It was so great. It felt really weird, however, but I love flying so it was fun. Sister Rochette and I went with the Assistants and when we got to Oulu, one of the members was there, all decked out in his chauffeur cap, ready to take us to the church. It was great. :)

    Zone conference was great, again. It was amazing how different both meetings were and how many questions I had answered, again. I learned more about Prayer. I picked up a good idea from a missionary to take a journal or notebook or something with you when you prayer. He said that he asks Heavenly Father what he needs to do better and then he sits. He listens. He writes down thoughts and impressions that come to his mind. Then he asks, "Is there more?" He repeats this process over and over until he feels that there is nothing left, at least for that evening. It was a really cool idea and I am working on implementing that into my personal prayers as well. I know that Heavenly Father isn't going to give us an answer unless we are going to do something with it and writing down the impressions we have is a really good way to guarantee that those answers will keep coming. "Knowledge carefully recorded is knowledge available in a time of need." Elder Scott said that. I think he is pretty wise. I am so excited to hear from all of the prophets and apostles next weekend. Oh man, it will be glorious!

    So update on Canada K, she is in contact with a member. YIPPEE!! She is going to family home evening with the member down in Helsinki so hopefully that goes well. We texted her on Saturday and just told her that we still love and care about her and she is always welcome to church, even if she isn't going to join. She actually texted us back and said thank you and told us she is working to figure out some family stuff right now! keep praying for her though! She is great!

    Well I think I told you about the woman we met running in the morning. Wanted to update you on her. She came to a temple tour last night and LOVED IT. Oh my goodness she kept hugging us and crying and saying she is so grateful that she found us. She said on that morning when we met her, as we ran past she and her daughter, her daughter said, "Mom, stop, I want to talk to those girls." It hit me so strongly yesterday, What if we hadn't followed the prompting of the Spirit? Her daughter knew that they needed to talk to us, and she stopped her mom. Kids, man, they are just way closer to the spirit than adults. They literally have to wait for us to get on the same wavelength as them. Anyways, we have a return appointment with A and her husband and their 2 kids. We are so excited!

    One more cool experience for the week. So yesterday, we dropped 2 of our investigators as I said before. We had 5 lessons with members present planned for the day which is literally like the best I have done on my mission in 1 day like EVER. Anyways, it all fell through. It was pretty rough, but we had good back up plans so we set out to find this potential. Well it was in the Espoo 2 area and we had no idea where we were going. We thought we had found the building, but it was completely wrong, As we were wandering around, trying to find this address, this woman comes walking up to the door of the building we were standing next to. We started talking to her and told her we were representative of the church and she said, "Oh, are you the Mormons?" We said yes and she proceeded to tell us how she had visited our church in Turku when she was a child but she didn't feel the Holy Ghost once. She then told us how she had found the Pentecostal church and she felt the Holy Ghost so strongly there. Well, we asked her if we could come and show her a video about Jesus Christ. She said, "Ya, well maybe some other day." We had the thought to ask her if we could show her like right then. I have never asked someone on the street if we could just go straight to their house, but she said, "Oh ya, absolutely." We went up to her apartment and we showed her the "Because of Him" video. The first time she watched it, she seemed pretty dazed. But before we could even do anything, she pushed play again and we watched the whole video again. She was totally feeling the spirit which was evidenced by the tears streaming down her face. Long story short...we have a return appointment and she is reading 3 Nephi 11. Man...see, drop 2 investigators and the Lord leads us to this lady. Wow. Her name is H. Great name, huh? :) 

    I have to tell you, I have loved reading the Book of Mormon through this time more than I ever have in my life. I read this week the story of Ammon and Alma and all of their missionary adventures. This morning I was reading Alma 26-Alma 28. Two verses really stood out to me. The first is Alma 26:16. Ammon has basically just ranted for about 56431 hours about how much he loves being a missionary and how much he loves Heavenly Father. Then in verse 16 he just says, "...I cannot say the smallest part which I feel." Another verse was Alma 28:14. It says, "And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord..." As I was sharing  this morning with Sister Rochette what I learned in personal study, I just started bawling. I love being a missionary. Seriously, I can't say the smallest part which I feel. Verse 14 of Chapter 28 touched my heart today. There really is not greater call than that of being a missionary. Every other calling in the church is basically saying that anyways. I am so grateful to be a missionary. 

    It's amazing how I didn't even want to be a missionary, but now I can't imagine life without it. It's in my blood. I think it's in all the blood of this generation. We were born to be missionaries. We have the same fire in our hearts for the gospel that Alma and the sons of Mosiah did. We are right up there with the apostles of old, preaching the word to a world that doesn't always want it, and why are we doing it? Because we love God. We love our Savior. We love this work. I wish I could adequately communicate how much love I have in my heart for my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ, for the Book of Mormon, for Joseph Smith, for President Monson, for the Plan of Salvation, for the commandments, just all of it. I love it all. I love sharing it everyday. I am so grateful for the time I have left. I really have had the time of my life on my mission and I will forever be grateful for this experience. Anyways, I love you all so much. Sorry that this email is kind of crazy. I will try to be more organized next week. Have a wonderful week. Read your scriptures, say your prayers, serve those around you, tell people that you love them, smile. This is a great time to be alive! I love you all. Have a great week!! Talk to you soon!

    Rakkaudellani,

    Sisar Bitner 

The lady that makes the wool nativities...her husband should not have his arm around me like that, but I figured a nice punch to the face wouldn't be flattering... :)

Me and Elder Coffey and Elder Smith. Elder Coffey was in my MTC group. Last time I am going to see him 

A cool church in Mikeli

Our plane and the sunrise...beautiful!!!

Surprise guests at the temple. Sisar Koivisto...my mini missionary from Vaasa.....

....and the Nåsman family from Vaasa as well! I love them all!

Another Testament

    Hyvää Huomenta! Happy St. Patrick's Day! Happy Birthday Dad and Lauren! Man, so many good things happening this week! How are you all doing? I hope you have had the most ihana week of your lives. Ihana means lovely. Or like Lilo says in Lilo and Stitch, Ohana means family. So moral of the story, Finnish is close to Hawaiian. haha psych. It's not. But Family is ohana and ihana so it's fine. I love you all so much. Dad, you are just getting younger every day. You are such a spry young sap. I tell people that my dad is turning 44....that's right isn't it? :) But they are floored that you are so young. Same with you mom. People ask if you are my older brother and sister. hahaha so either I look old or you two look really young...I think the latter is more flattering for all of us so let's go with that. And Lauren, oh my lanta, you are turning 14. WOW. That's just all sorts of weird. I am so happy for you. 14 is a good age to be. When I was 14 I was your age! :) haha did you catch my throwback Tuesday reference to our Disney cruise? Oh man, good times. But seriously, I love you both so much. I hope you have the most wonderful birthdays ever! I am working on writing you some letters and sending you some good old Fazer chocolate, so stay tuned! I love you both!

    Well we have had another grand old week here in the magestic land of Espoo. It's a wonderful place. I love living by the temple. I could get used to this. :) I am just going to jump right in to all the stories. There is so much to tell. So a couple of weeks ago, we met this man from Thailand on the street. He was really cool and told us that we could come over and talk about our church. He kind of seemed a little sketchy, but we had an appointment with him Tuesday night, and he called us that morning to make sure we were still coming. Wow. That's pretty cool. So his name is K. The lesson was kind of shaky in the beginning. He was pretty "aggressively Buddhist" as in our ideas about God and Jesus Christ were all wrong, but we really did our best to answer his questions and promise him blessings. The spirit was there so strong. By the end of the lesson, I asked, "K, are you willing to do your part to find out if what we have taught you is true?" At the beginning he had basically said he would never pray or do anything in a Christian church, but after that, he said, "Why not? What do I have to lose?" What a brilliant question, K! You have NOTHING to lose and everything to gain. He said the sweetest prayer I have ever heard and invited us back this week. We are really excited to teach him. I love Asians. Honestly...my goal in life, apart from like education, marriage, family, happiness, you know the usual is to serve a mission with my husband in Asia. I don't care where, preferably China, but just somewhere. He is a really cool guy and we are excited to teach him more. I love missionary work! I love seeing the change in people. Literally in 20 minutes, this guy went from no belief in God to saying his first prayer. Wow. The Spirit is amazing. He works miracles.

    So I am just going to get this sad story out at the beginning. I am still a little sad about it, but it's ok. So K, the Canadian girl we met last week who is golden and came to church? Well, that is still true! We had a lesson with her Tuesday night and she kept asking us over and over again to continue teaching her and to help her get closer to Heavenly Father. We really wanted to focus the lesson on helping her learn how she would receive answers to her own questions. We talked about the Holy Ghost and she said, "Well if the Holy Ghost is what I felt in church on Sunday, then keep it coming." Oh my goodness. She is like a member already. It's incredible. Anyways, we talked about baptism and she set her own baptismal date for May 2. I felt like I was pulling an Elder Rogers from The Best Two Years, having a baptism right before I leave, but it felt so good and right. The Spirit was there and we all felt it. She said a prayer at the end and just kept thanking Heavenly Father for sending these two "wonderful girls into her life." She kept saying over and over again that it was divine intervention that we met. Honestly, I have never been so happy or optimistic after a lesson that I was after that. She is so ready.

    So we had another amazing lesson with her on Friday. We had committed her to ready the Introduction to the Book of Mormon as well as the Restoration pamphlet and she did that and more. She came to the lesson and told us that she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. It was another amazing lesson. So this lesson was on Friday and they had a YSA lunch at the temple guest house on Saturday. We invited her to come to that. Oh, by the way, she brought us cookies to the lesson. #lovethisgirl haha it was great.

    And now the sad music starts....so Saturday morning, we texted her and asked if she wanted to meet us at the train station or the temple. Well she sent us back a text that literally broke my heart. She said that her parents in Canada had gotten wind of her intentions to join the church and that her family, dad specifically told her that she isn't allowed to meet with us anymore and breathed out some pretty serious threats. We aren't sure what they are exactly, but they were serious enough that she didn't respond back to our text, asking her whether we could meet and just talk about what they said. I am not going to lie guys, it about killed me. I was so sad. You come to love these people so fast. I just saw so clearly in my mind all of the wonderful things that were in store for K. I know they still are, just at a different time. Man, I really could have used a hug from one of you in that moment, but Sisar Rochette and I said a prayer and we both felt peace about K. It was a blessing to meet her. I really don't know why it happened the way it did, but I know that Heavenly Father will take care of her. We have plans to hopefully stay in contact with her. She made friends with one of the members, so we are hoping they stay in contact. Anyways, keep praying for her. I know something good will happen. I love her a lot and am grateful I was able to know her. It was just another witness to me that people really are ready. Although her dad is pretty against religion in general, God is greater than all and K will find the church again. Now she has the Book of Mormon. She knows it's true. She is one step closer! :) That's pretty cool when you think about it. But anyways, no more sad stories. We are happy and I hope she is happy too. Things will all work out. 

     So on Wednesday night, we had a late-coming new missionary come to Finland. She is a Finn, so she didn't need to learn Finnish...lucky her :) But she doesn't speak English, so that will be a good learning experience for her as well. She is so great. Since she missed the welcome dinner with all the other missionaries, President invited Sisar Rochette and I and the Assistants to come to dinner with Sisar Andersson and her new companions. They are a threesome which is pretty cool. We had a great night and got to know her better. Man can I just say how much I love the Finnish people. I was able to talk with her and get to know her and I have such a special place in my heart for these Finns. They are wonderful and she is such a valuable addition to the mission. I am so grateful for the Finnish youth and their desires to serve. They are going to change the culture of this country. We have a Sister returning home to the Espoo ward this week. Get this, I actually met her in the MTC. WEIRD!! She has been in France and I am really excited to get to know her. I love being around missionaries. I wish they had an MTC in Logan so I could teach at the MTC, but alas, I will just have to help Dad teach mission prep! That will be awesome as well! I can't wait!

    So we had splits on Thursday, my last splits in Helsinki. I was able to go with a brand new greenie, Sisar Hales. She is from Nevada and has been in Finland a whopping 10 days. Well I guess 2 weeks now. She is HILARIOUS. Oh my goodness, I have never seen a missionary with so much energy. It is great! She had a goal to talk with everyone effectively, meaning that she wanted to set up return appointments on the street. My goal for the day was to use the Book of Mormon more effectively in contacting. So, we combined both of our goals. We each carried a Book of Mormon around in our hand all day. I felt like Captain Moroni, armed with my Sword of Truth. It was legit. :) Anyways we talked with EVERYONE and had a great time with each other. She kept asking me for "advice" and "words of wisdom from a dying missionary" to quote her specifically. It made me smile. She is great. I told her to be herself. That's the best thing any missionary can do. Well, one of the best things. We are where we are for a reason. I know that is true. 

    One cool experience from splits. Ok, two cool experiences from splits. So we were in downtown Helsinki, standing at a bus stop. We started trying to talk to this lady. She was really nice, but not super interested. I noticed, however, that another lady was standing right behind her, totally eavesdropping on our conversation. So the first lady left to get on her bus and this other lady just kept staring at us so we asked her how she was doing. Her response was, "Can you tell me more about what makes your church different from other Christian churches?" TOTTA KAI! That's my favorite thing to tell people about! Anyways, we talked about the Book of Mormon and got on the same tram as her so we continued to talk. We told her that we would love to come bring her her own copy of the Book of Mormon. She was really excited. Ok this is my Something Finnish for the day. So as we were talking to this woman, she was helping us find directions to our next appointment because neither of us knew where we were going. She started looking at the map. Now Finns pretend that they aren't paying attention to what you are doing. They have some pretty intense poker faces, but as she was helping us, 2 other random guys from the tram came over, after completely listening to our conversation and told us where to go. Then they both started telling us about their families (we had asked the woman previously about her family) and wanted to show us pictures and tell us stories. I just had to smile. Everyone always says that Finns don't want to talk to anyone, but I am here to tell you, that is a FALSEHOOD. They are the kindest people I know, you just have to be willing to get to know them. But once you do, man, they are the best friends you could ever ask for. You make friends with a Finn, you're a friend for life. I love that about them. They are worth fighting for. Anyways, we got the woman's name and address and gave the two men our card. It was a great experience and I was glad Sisar Hales was able to experience what Finns are really like. 

    So second cool experience from splits, we were walking down the street and we saw this man approaching, pushing his daughter in a stroller. We stopped and started talking to him in Finnish, and he says, "You're from America, we can speak English" in perfect American English. So this guy's name is D. He is from Wisconsin and is here teaching English in Helsinki University. Way sick! Anyways, we started talking to him about the church. At first, he was pretty condescending towards the things we were saying. There were a lot of scoffs and coughs and lame sounds that people make when they aren't pleased with something. He started listing off all of these facts to us. I could tell by Sister Hales' body language that this was the first time someone had started ripping her head off for believing in God. Luckily, it's happened for me a few more times. :) So, instead of arguing, we did the only thing we can really do. We testified. We testified of God, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, a living prophet, the Plan of Salvation, man we just testified the heck out of that contact. D got really quiet after that. We looked him straight in the eye and said, "D, you can know all of this is true for yourself. You are smart. You like experiments and evidence. Well, give this book a chance. Try it out for yourself and see if you get the same results as we did. If you really do it sincerely, you will get an answer that it is true. Are you willing to try?" Man, I felt like I was on fire. It was like the best black and white opportunity I have ever given someone to accept the gospel. The Spirit was SO stinking strong on the street, I felt like flames were coming out of my body. D looked at us and honestly, he looked kind of sad and he said, "No, I am not willing right now. But I am very grateful I met you today. Thank you for stopping and talking to me." 

    I have never felt so good about being rejected before. I gained such a strong testimony of the fact that when we do the work we are sent here to do as missionaries, that is when we find happiness. I have thought before on my mission, "Oh man, going to a movie or sleeping in or calling my family would make me so happy" But boy oh boy, how false that is. Of course, I would be happy to talk to you all, but it wouldn't last, because that's not what I am supposed to be doing right now. I am a missionary and that is what I have signed up to be for 18 months. I don't get why someone would go on a mission only to break the rules. That's never really made sense to me. So much happiness awaits us as we labor int he Lord's vineyard, but only as we try our hardest to be obedient and to allow our wills to be swallowed up in the will of the Father. I have never been so happy as I have been on my mission, but that happiness has only come in the times when I am trying my best to actually be the missionary that Heavenly Father expects me to be. Now let me just rant for a second, that is the common folly of so many people in the world. They look for happiness in all the wrong places. They want to be happy, but can't figure out how to do it. Why can't they? Because they are not turning to their Father, the one who knows them, created them, loves them more than they could ever imagine, and knows what they need to get back to Him and to be happy here and forever. It's so easy to turn to Him. It just takes a little courage! It takes courage to be obedient, but oh what blessings come as you are! It's pretty incredible! Thanks for letting me rant....I'm done now!

    So things went good on splits. It was the best day ever and I love Sisar Hales a lot. I was so grateful to be able to meet her. It was definitely a tender mercy!

    So things are going well with T. We weren't able to meet a lot last week, for various reasons. I think she likes us a lot, we are just working on getting her to love the gospel too. She is so hungry for truth and answers. We are doing our best to help her learn how to get answers. Continue to pray for her and her daughters. We hope to get all 3 of them to church this week.

    Way cool experience happened at 6:40 in the morning this past week. So, we decided to go running. As we were coming around the corner, a cute little Indian mom and her daughter came walking past us. We had the thought to stop and talk to them, but seeing as we were not clothed in proper missionary attire, we figured it might be kind of scary for them. So we ran past only to have the Spirit give us a good punch to the face. We both stopped and turned around. And guess what? The little girl had turned completely around and was staring right at us. We ran back to them and told them who we were and why we were here and the mom agreed to come to a church tour this week. WOW! Finding investigators koko ajan! :) All the time! We didn't have our phone, so we called our phone from her number and set up the church tour later that day. Heavenly Father is so funny sometimes. :) It was a really cool experience.

    Sisar Rochette and I talked this week about how we personally receive revelation. We dedicated one of our personal studies to it and had a really good discussion during companionship study. Sisar Rochette said for her, revelation comes strongest at the temple and during General Conference. I thought that was way sweet. I realized for me that revelation comes during my personal scripture study, specifically the Book of Mormon, and during Sacrament meeting. Of course I love the temple and General Conference and Sisar Rochette loves Sacrament and the scriptures, but it was cool to see how we both receive personal revelation. I think it's an important thing for all of us to figure out. Where do you go when you need to receive revelation? I have found that as soon as I said my revelation spots out loud, I was more eager to study and go to church. I knew that I would be receiving revelation. I would encourage you all to do it!

    We had a really cool lesson yesterday with just Sisar J and her visiting teacher Sisar V. We watched, "Because of Him" and talked about how prophets ALWAYS testify of Christ. That is their main purpose. I always love hearing President Monson and the apostles testify of Christ. I know that they know Him. As Elder Packer said, "He is no stranger to His servants." We  are really focusing on helping them get ready for General Conference. You can bank on the prophet, if you know what I'm saying? :) I think it will be really good for them. Sisar V shared a really special experience from her childhood. She said that she was about 12 and her family went to Stockholm because President Kimball was there. He was the prophet at the time. Well, they had a meeting and then President Kimball started to walk out of the room. Sisar V said suddenly about 30 moms ran to the front of the room with their babies and wanted President Kimball to touch them. It reminded me of my favorite Bible Video where the same thing happened to Christ. In the video, Peter and James tell the people that Christ doesn't have time to see them and he needs rest, but the Savior comes up behind them and says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." It is the sweetest video I have ever seen. 

    Sisar V said she was so worried for those moms because President Kimball's bodyguards were pretty large and authoritative and looked like they had a place to go and were going to get the prophet there, but just as the Savior did, President Kimball stopped the bodyguards, and touched each of the babies that were there. He said something to each of the mothers. Even though they didn't all speak English, Sisar V said, "It was in that moment that I knew he was a prophet." I thought about that. What a powerful story. We have a prophet on the earth today that represents the Savior, Jesus Christ. Of course, we all do as disciples, but the Prophet is a special witness. I just pictured that experience in my mind and felt an overwhelming appreciation and gratitude for our living prophet, President Monson. He is standing in the place and stead of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He is the greatest example on earth of Christ--like service and love and we get to hear from him in a few weeks. How amazing is that? I am so grateful for prophets. I know President Monson is God's prophet on the earth today. I love him, sustain him, and am so grateful for him!

    Well my spiritual thought today is pretty simple. After everything happened with K, I had a pretty rough day. Not pertaining to missionary work, but I felt pretty low. I know Satan was working hard on me, but I just felt so stupid about everything. I felt like a pretty sad excuse of a missionary. I felt like what had happened was my fault. I felt like had I just taken care of her better, none of this would have happened. I didn't understand why Heavenly Father would even bring her into our lives if He was just going to take her out again. I have changed a lot on my mission, but sometimes I just wonder why I don't understand God's will. I know that His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts are way higher than my thoughts, and that just really frustrated me so bad for some reason on Saturday. It frustrated me to think that after how much I have changed, I am still like ions away from being who I need to be in the end of all things. I went to bed that night with a pretty heavy heart. I felt numb, in a way. I was letting Satan get the better of me, but honestly, I didn't really care. I wanted to be sad, so I cried myself to sleep that night and had a nice good whining session.

    I went to church the next day, still feeling pretty crappy. I was so grateful to be going to church, however, because REVELATION. I needed answers pretty hard core. I wanted to feel Heavenly Father's love and support. I wanted to know what He expected of me and what I was doing wrong. Well as I was sitting in sacrament meeting, praying my heart out...actually during the sacrament, I heard the song from Primary come into my head about President Hinckely and the North Star. The line, "Be constant as the North star that shines for you and me, anchored in the gospel with pure integrity. Steadfast in your service to God and fellow-man. President Hinckley has shown us that we can." Man...I am so grateful the spirit can bring things to our remembrance. I hadn't thought about that song in like a decade. But a lot of examples from President Hinckley came into my head. One of course was, "Forget yourself and go to Work." Man...can service really fix our problems? Was that really the answer to my question? Yep. Totally was. 

    I realized that I am forever a servant to my Heavenly Father and how wonderful that is. I realized that as I have served His children, I have grown closer to Him and that closeness has brought more joy into my heart than I ever could have imagined. I realized, once again, that the scriptures are always right. When they say, "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God," they aren't kidding. But 2 other scriptures came into my mind during sacrament. The first was Mosiah 5:31 which says:

 13 For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?

    The next one was Matt 6:19-24:

19 ¶Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thievesbreak through and steal:

 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eyebe single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

 24 ¶No man can serve two masters: for either he will hatethe one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

    Service is the answer. Losing ourselves in the service of others and making the decision to serve one master, God, is the answer. I am so grateful for sacrament meeting and for the Holy Ghost. I am so grateful for reminders every day that help me stay on the path back to my Heavenly Father. I tend to wander...I am glad he keeps pulling me back. I know that the Holy Ghost is real. He will bring all things to our remembrance. He really is that peace that Christ promised to us all before He left. The Holy Ghost helps us remember Christ. You know those times when you feel the Holy Ghost and you're just like, "Oh man, is there anything better than this?" The answer is no. There isn't. There isn't because visitations from the Holy Ghost really are visitations of our Heavenly Father. That is just a foretaste of what our joy will be in the eternities. Wow. I can't wait to live in that state of never-ending happiness! What a joy that will be when we are all there together with all of our friends that we have helped find the gospel. How great shall be our joy! :)

    Well I just love you all so stinking much. Man, I look at your faces everyday and think, "How in the heck did I get so lucky?" Thank you for being my family. Thank you for supporting me in everything. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your thoughts. Thank you for your letters. Seriously, I am the most spoiled missionary to have a family like you! Thank you for everything you do. The song "Families can Be Together Forever" brings more joy to me than just about anything else. I love you so much. God lives. He is our Father. Christ lives. He is our Savior. This is the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today in it's fullness. We are so blessed guys! Let's never forget that, Ok? Ok. Good. Well have a great March week and I will talk to you next week. Same time, same place. Be there or be square! :) I love you!

    Rakkaudellani,

    Sisar Bitner 

Our church building in Espoo

Sisar Hales and I on splits!! I LOVE HER

Some graffiti in Finnish. I don't know what it says, but the picture is funny 

This is what happens at the bus stops late at night....haha way too fun

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My companion made us green breakfast