Okay, so Itesennäisyys päivää was on Friday, December 6. Which, for your information, is Finnish Independence Day, and a hard red day* for us missionaries. Fortunately, Sister Schellenberg and I didn't realize it was a hard red day (we thought it was just a soft one), and we booked appointments from morning til night! Hooray! We left the apartment at 9:30 and didn't get back... until past 9:30 at night... ya we we're a bit late. In that long day though, we were able to celebrate Itsennäisyys Päivä with real Finns, and though we couldn't watch the President's speech, we did get to light candles, and it was great! We also were able to make French toast as a district, and eat a ton of other good food. So no complaints.
The snow has really come now and it is gorgeous! My pictures don't even do it justice. It's like walking in a fairyland or something, and I agree with my companion in saying that I'm never going to get used to how gorgeous it is.
A fun discovery. Missionary work goes a whole lot better when missionaries are in the same town. Sister Schellenberg and I had a hard week. Elder Call and Elder Jeffries (The Lahti Elders) were out of town, due to Elder Call's six week training. Nothing happened the whole time they were gone. Our investigators got flakey, 99% of our appointments fell through, no one was home... until right around the time the Elders arrived back in Lahti. Then our appointments started working out, people we're home. Weird but true, when missionaries come together, magic happens!
On the other hand we've been focusing a lot on trying to meet the less actives in the ward. We've been taking cookies to each of them, sharing a short Christmas message, and singing them a Christmas song. It really works! There was one sister on the ward list that missionaries had suggested not visiting, Sister Schellenberg and I decided to visit her, on the basis that there had not been sisters in Lahti for a long time, and she probably just needed a sister's touch. When she answered the door and saw who it was she was ready to flat out reject us. But we just gave her the cookies, and chatted about Christmas in general and the ward Christmas party. By the end, she was really friendly with us. We are now praying what the next step is but, now at least this less active sister has had a positive experience with the missionaries.
Anyhow, I should go. I still have things to do... as always. Love you all. Have a great week!
Sister Kastendieck
*Hard red days are the worst when you don't have appointments, you are not aloud to go outside, knock on doors, or talk to people on the street, in other words you can't do anything, except area book work... and no wants to spend the whole day doing area book work, believe me. It's a kin to shelf reading in libraries. Not fun.
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