July 21, 2014

walk from the temple, Sisar Nielsen front, Cribbs middle

this is a fun game called mölkky. we played it with a family the other day, it was a lot of fun!

Thanks for your email last week I actually had a chance to read it really quick before we had to leave but didn't have a chance to reply. It's fun to hear about all your summer adventures :) 

Funny to hear the Kerrie was in Helsinki last week! We got a call from some of our sisters that ran in to some Russian missionaries at the train station, didn't even think about Kerrie possibly being one of them! There were 2 Russian missionaries that were at the temple that we ran into a few times. 

Saturday there were two baptisms. One girl was nervous to tell her parents, but invited them and they came and had nothing but good things to say. Everyone was so happy. Yesterday we asked the guy how he felt. He just put his arms in the air and with a big grin he said "YES!". So great. 

Yesterday we had a dinner appointment with a family who had relatives visiting. We had a cool discussion on missionary work and it's so awesome to see the members make plans on how they can incorporate missionary work into their lives. The families were a lot of fun and we had American bbq, it reminded me of spending time with family in Alberta. After that appointment we dropped by another family to share a thought and sing a song. We started the song (which sounded really good by the way ;) )and in the second verse I forgot the tune so I stopped singing which caught Sisar Nielson off guard that she was singing soprano alone while Sisar Cribbs was singing parts. So we all kind of stopped singing and weren't sure what happened. We started laughing. We couldn't stop laughing and the whole family was laughing. Eventually we got it together and finished the song. Sometimes we think we have too much fun. We have a lot of moments where we laugh uncontrollably, but try to control it in front of the members ;) they have to think we are somewhat normal. 

We have a neighbor who is our age. She has come to activities with us but we haven't started teaching her about the gospel. Saturday we found out she had a rough day and were thinking how we could brighten her day. We all marked our favorite scripture and wrote her a note and gave her a book of Mormon. She has started reading it now and hopefully keeps reading!

One of our friends gave us facials the other day, that was a lot of fun! It's fun to meet people from all over who have all different talents. We have some friends that have offered to teach us how to break dance. That might be difficult in a skirt :) 

We had a lesson the other day about the plan of Salvation. Our friend started drawing the plan out on the chalk board and the more we taught the more he added or erased from his picture. You could see him making connections and just lighting up! It's so fun to teach about the gospel, something so simple and familiar, yet so many people just haven't had the chance to hear about it!

Mom congratulations again on the calling. I'm excited for you. This is going to be fun! I love you and hope you have an enjoyable time at camp success!  Dad I'm jealous of the camping trip you had! We were working on Mt Moriah and hiked *almost* to the table. We ran out of water part way up and didn't make it all the way to the table, 10 more minutes would have got us there. But it was still a pretty view from where we were :) as I recall, our bath was REALLY cold. But refreshing after hot days and no showers. Sounds like a fun trip you had with the young men. I remember one of my professors at school talking about the importance of these spiritual experiences while they are young. he talked about a group on young men he worked with and the 2 that made time out of their summer work schedules had experiences that the other boys missed, because of placing priorities differently, were active and served missions while the others had nice cars but not these experiences. You could guess who ended up more happy and successful. It just shows how important these testimony building experiences are now. 

I have been reading and pondering about what it means to be perfect. I see too often the way Satan makes us get down on ourselves for feeling inadequate because we aren't "perfect". It is important to know our weaknesses as well as our strengths! Christ has given us the gift of His atonement so that we may become more like Him. It takes effort and patience on our part but what better time than in this life to develop patience :) He loves us. He knows us. He lives. He will help us help others. I love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

Rakaudella, Sisar Heggie