MUUTOS KIRJE!!! (change calls!!)

Drum roll..................................................(we got our change calls this Saturday, with only one change left I was wondering where I would get called. This happens every 9 weeks that we have a possibility to move. Some missionaries move a ton, others...like me, not so much) 

I will be staying in Oulu and my new companion will be Sisar Woods! She is in Lappeenranta right now and she was in the same group as my companion that I trained Sisar Pack, and then Sisar Thayne. I have heard she is a Saint! I am so excited to learn from her! The last big Hurrah! So excited for this transfer. I have so much to learn before I hit the real world!

So sorry I don’t have much time to write this letter, didn’t budget out my time wheel. I was chatting, writing back and forth with my baby sisko Saige! Ahh love that little girl, not so little anymore its incredible how much people change in a year and a half. Also shout out to my other little sister Aria, so proud of her! I wish you all could meet her, so much drive and great perspective!

Well to sum it all up. Great extremely freezing week! Man, 2 sets of thermals is not cutting it, had to put wool leg warmers that I borrowed, and need to get huge leather gloves for my hands, for them not to freeze. The face though, its just hopeless, on that bike with -17 c just smacking your face, it feels like your face will fall off any second! And then how will we share the gospel?!?! Hahaha, its pretty funny trying to contact on the street with your lips freeze, the words come out so misformed and mumbled! Haha that’s the good news----the gospel. Rain or shine, we be sharing it (=

But olneeksi! Today all of a sudden after we had a huge snowstorm thing hit, boom it all melted (that was huge bike through little lakes almost!) thank goodness for rain boots!!! And today it’s like summer!! Ahhh and the sun is shining!! Ahhh so amazing!!

Words can’t describe the love that is in my heart when I think of Oulu. I love this place, these people beyond words; tears come to my eyes every time I think about how amazing it has been to serve here! At church I was sitting next to my two friends C. and H. from Vietnam and we were talking about the spirit and how it feels, they both were explaining how the spirit feels and it so crazy because every though it can be different for every person it is still basically the exact same feeling of LIGHT AND LOVE! Just makes you want to hug every person you see tell them they are doing such a great job, solve world hunger, give every person a book of Mormon so they can have a portal to heaven! gahhh! It hard to explain but the love just hits so hard that you can’t do anything but smile and let the tears flow out of you eyes. Our Friend H. was saying how amazing it is to see people get up at church and start talking and then something amazing happens to them and they just start to cry! Ahhh the CHURCH IS TRUE!!!! Ahhh just read the Book of Mormon and pray and come to church. CPR is will save you life

c- church

P-pray

R-read the scriptures.

Seriously don’t believe me? Try it out!! So much light and love comes from it! I have seen so many lives transform being touched by this gospel love. Even though I'm probably not the smoothest when I share,.... it comes from my heart and I wish all could just partake of this iankaikinen herkullista hedelmä! (This eternal delicious fruit!) Talking about lives changed. Our friend A. from Sudan that changed to be Christian and has been threatened for his life because of it. So now he is completely protected by French government so he got the okay from the mission president to get BAPTIZED!! Wow, I'm so excited it’s happening next Saturday and he just keeps bringing more people in because he KNOWS how great this peace feels! He came to church looking so snazzy with a white shirt and tie and slacks! And he was greeting everyone at the door!! So happy!

So we did splits in Kuopio and it was great! 

So hilly! Man, biking there is insane! Anyways, so the crazy story, we come back on Saturday, but we forgot to buy the tickets, we have 5 min before the train leaves and the ticket office is closed!! NO!!! And we have so many teaches with investigators and members set up for that night! Quick prayer, Sis Lund is like hey let just run up to the tracks and see if we can’t talk to the conductor. I was like merhhhh it wont work, we don’t really have money for this stuff. Anyway she basically dragged me to the conductor explained the situation and he (the lord Totally! soften his heart it was amazing) said hey just get on the train and we will figure something out!!! 

So we say a thankful prayer and jump on the train, then when we comes our cards don’t work because they are American no chip cards! Ahhhh and I have 40 dollars and sis Lund has 20 and normally it cost 43 each, bummer BUT!!! The conductors was so kind and gave us a discount and turns out it was 60 dollars all together!!! HE SAVED OUR DAY!!!! We were so grateful. Then later as I was sitting there this thought came to my mind, well if he was so nice and the Lord was able to touch his heart, then he must be open to the spirit. I want to give him something nice as a thanks. A BOOK OF MORMON!! But then all of a sudden all this fear comes in and I start thinking there is no way he will accept......blah blah blahhhh. I’m like hey listen Sisar Hubner- this is my whole purpose in life is to share this light that I have, how will I ever regret sharing the thing that has bandaged so many wounds. So I pluck my courage up, after saying a fervent prayer. And when he come back I explain how much he has helped us and how I wanted to give this precious book to him as a thanks, and I had marked my favorite verse for him. Wow, amazing his face just lit up and he was SOOOO grateful. 

I felt like I could fly. I love sharing the gospel. It is my light and the love that powers my life

I love you all. 

Sisar Hubner!

P.S. it snowed!

Sparkly Frost

So basically it turned into winter over night. As I told me little sister,

WOOL.

Seriously the key to keeping warm. The bad news is we are on bikes and it constantly seems to be icy rain, so it’s a permanent freeze. We have this awkward hour at 8pm where our lessons are out, and we have travel time home but also a little extra time. That is when the bone-chilling freeze comes... exciting to say the least. But its actually pretty fun, few can say they fought the icy October Artic Circle freeze.

So much has happened this week that my mind is really blank on what to say.

We taught a lot of family home evenings, with a lot of children. Practicing teaching the restoration to children. It was incredible, and the parents were even more involved that the kids were part of it. I am working on how to teach simply but still directly. It has been so exciting. I love little kids, they are just so pure, never mad for long, so trusting and simple. We also taught the family that we have been praying for, for so long we have been searching for them. The gospel of Jesus Christ is best felt and understood in family setting. It was so great 5 kids, all participated as we taught them the restoration using the example of the rainbow. Making a perfect rainbow representing Christ's church, then giving them the colors except for one having them draw their own. Showing and teaching them what happened to the Priesthood of the power of God, after Christ was killed and his apostles were killed. But that now it has been restored through a prophet today. THE PERFECT RAINBOW IS BACK!

I love this gospel. It gets truer and truer every time I learn about it. I was reading a general conference talk from Nov 2011 talking about how little we are compared to the universe and how meaningless we could be. But we aren’t because we have sons and daughters of a king. How much meaning we have.

This week we had zone meeting and I was in charge of teaching the whole north zone through a role-play of asking good questions and teaching by the spirit and following up. Not going to lie I started to get pretty nervous, but then I prayed super hard and just turned it over to the Lord. It went so great; in fact I can’t even really remember what I said. But afterwards a lot of people came up and just thanked me and said that they received a lot of answers while I was teaching love the SPIRIT. It definitely wasn’t me, nor should it every really be about me but about HIM.

I have gained an even stronger testimony about also how important how to begin teaching is. Showing that we will follow up on what we teach and it is organized not just a bunch of random ideas, strung together. But that we intend to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for them to act as their own agents! Its brilliant.

I’m sad this upcoming week will my last with my dear companion Sisar Lund. But all great things come to an end. She will be going home next week. This is the time to shine. Its cool to see someone that has served so faithful give Satan one last big bunch as a full time missionary before going home. This mission has just shaped us all so much, it’s incredible.

President gave me a hint that I will probably be staying in Oulu! I would be so excited. I will have served in two areas my whole mission. WOOT WOOT! well katsotaan if that actually happens.

I love you all, the CHURCH IS STILL TRUE (=

Sisar Alayna Hübner

P.S. Our Best friends from Vietnam that came to church for Sisar Lund's farewell speech. They seriously are the cutest!

Aloset Naiset ja Auringon Miehet

The title which our former Mission President's wife, Sisar Rawlings, said the Finns have given us, meaning Women of Light and Men of the Sun.

Have you ever thought about light? As a child which so many are, scared of the dark, needing a nightlight. Something to give them comfort. As a child the Primary songs always brought the light back in after a scary nightmare. My favorite was,

Whenever I hear the song of a bird

Or look at the blue, blue sky,

Whenever I feel the rain on my face

Or the wind as it rushes by,

Whenever I touch a velvet rose

Or walk by our lilac tree,

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world

Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see

The color of butterfly wings.

He gave me my ears that I might hear

The magical sound of things.

He gave me my life, my mind, my heart:

I thank him reverently

For all his creations, of which I'm a part.

Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me.

His love shines light on this dark world. It is physically impossible for light and darkness to be at the same place at the same time. When you are in a dark room and turn the light switch on, in seconds the darkness disappears and there is nothing but light.

That is what this gospel is for me. Jesus Christ, is the source of all light. We as imperfect mortals cannot even understand the physical, real power that comes from unshakable faith in the Savior Jesus Christ.For friends and family not of this faith reading this letter, not even considering religion. Think of the times, or specific things in your life that have and do enlighten your mind. Those things that give you the encouragement to go back out there and try again, the light that leads you to find that great job, or a good friend. That extreme happiness you get when you gave help to someone that was in desperate need. Collect all those pieces of light, and pure joy, and you will realize the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ matches up perfectly and explains the reason for the light. The light of truth will always lead to more truth until understanding comes that Jesus is the Christ, the reason that we can always try again, there are no permanent endings Because of Him.

This week had some hard spots, but also so many amazing aspects. I'm so grateful for the teacher of contrast. Our dear friend J. Who we have be meeting with for the last 2 months 3 times a week, church every Sunday, has grown and found out that the Atonement is real. He decided that he has received all the answers at this moment that he needs. That because of a specific commandment in the word of wisdom, he just cant give up, and is not willing to sacrifice in order to come closer to his Father in Heaven and embrace the many MANY more blessings. It broke my heart. I can only imagine how the Lord feels when we decided we have heard enough from Him, for the next 2 years or however long it takes until WE decide we want more, when HE has the answer to all the problems we are facing. The Lord just started answering J's questions more fully and now he is just clutching onto those few. Why is it so difficult for us to see that we could clutch onto 3 or we could open up to millions more.

Though that had been pretty sad for us, he still came to church and we will talk more in 2 weeks time, give him time to pray about the restoration.

On Monday last week we hoped onto a train for 5 hours south to Vaasa and we did splits with our wonderful sisters there! I was with Sisar Pace, she has only been here 3 months now and speaks amazingly, she is the funnniest one too! She had me rolling all day long. I had been praying that miracles would be able to happen in their area. We drove the car out for an hour to Seinäjoki, and man did miracles happen. After we had a teach with this member we felt like there was someone in the building ready to hear the gospel, so we pray about a couple doors and try 2, both shut us down pretty fast, but then I feel pretty strongly this other door. So we knock and this British man answers who turns out has just been thinking what happened to Jesus Christ's church, what would it be like in modern days if He were living on the earth! So great, super ready to meet next week and talk more. Sis. Pace said its been a very long time since they found any investigators in that area. Then we were also able to find a piano player, used to be a jazz pianist that could possibly play voluntarily for the small Seinäjoki branch. Also we got in contact with this less active woman who they have been trying to get in contact with for MONTHS, and that day she was just so welcoming and we taught her and she even is going to come to the teach next week with the British guy!! It was just so great to see the Lord's hand.

As most of you know we have been praying SOOOOOOO hard all day everyday to find and family. This whole transfer it felt like we weren't even getting close. GUESS WHAT??!?!?! this week we found 2, well actually the Lord already found them, it was just divine locating, is what we call it. One is a mother and daughter that we found while they were playing soccer, we awkwardly biked over to them, and Sis LOn saturday we finally got them, 5 kids, both parents are legitimately the coolest people I've ever met! The Dad has even visited our church before! They are soo cool, all tattoed up, but the sweetest ever! They want us to come back next week and do family home evening!

The Lord has just been helping us so much, we have such a packed with planned with alot of family home evenings with members and their friends!

I hope you all are having a great week and I encourage you all to watch Elder Bednar's Talk from this last general conference. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/come-and-see?lang=eng

See i even took time to look it up for you! It is all about why I share this light. How can you share or find this light more in this beautiful month of October? I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas next week!

Love you all long time (=

Sisar Hubner

P.S. Our adorable Vietnamese friends made us this delicious dessert! Yummm i was so excited, as you can see!

Its SOOOOO Dark here, its incredible almost pitch black at 18.30! and today it is snowing, it has been so cold all week with just freezing rain in the face all day, had to pop out the extra thermals, double gloves, and huge scarves. LEGOOO winter.

Greatest Finnish family out there! my bml and his family. there son in serving in Ogden.....it would be cool if Tasha and Eric ever saw him.

The Lord's Navy Seals

First off, was CONFERENCE amazing or WHAT???? Wow, my mind was so blown almost every second. My question that I brought was how can I get to know my Savior on a more emotional and personal level. And man, did that question get answered! I realized it all depends on where I am facing, the world or the Savior? I can’t do both at once, it was so clear! And the other answer I got was to focus on compassion and charity more! Both not the easiest, but if that is the main focus then I think it will be doable, and I can accomplish it!

Also four of our great investigators came to at least one session of general conference (the best place they could be). And our friend C. that we have been out of contact with for a while, we got back in contact with her, when her roommate came to church by herself! Then later this week we made jam with C. and invited her to come to this potluck in between conference sessions and to bring her roommates. So I made this pesto salad, and made WAYYYYYY too much enough to last us the whole winter so we insisted that they all come to help us eat the pesto salad, and guess what. THEY ALL CAME!!! It was so great (they loved the salad, hahaha good news) and they stayed for music and the spoken word, AND for the last general conference session!!! It was so great, they are just so sincere, all of them are from Vietnam and seriously just so pure in heart!

Ahhh, also I wasn't the best with timing today so I don’t know if I will be able to capture everything I wish I could tell (tottakai, se tapahtu joka viikkoa! ahha ei se mitään)

So I have been connecting the pieces lately how we are actually the Lord's Navy Seals. Let me explain:

We wake up 6:30 sharp every morning, and sprint our heads off to wake up. We work our bodies out For the Lord.

We come back in get ready and study His precious scriptures, and for our friends we will be teaching for that day. We work out souls out For the Lord.

Then we plan and practice for the day how to teach with our companions. We work out mouths out For the Lord.

We then study the complicated Finnish language for an hour........We definently work out Brains to the breaking point of learning Finnish, For the Lord.

Then we eat all our meals super fast so we can get out of the door faster to be tools in His hands. We work our stomachs out, For the Lord.

We then usually have such a tight packed schedule or we talked to someone for too long on the street so that we are slightly tight on time. We call those times (they happen just about every day) death bike sprints. We work our thighs and lungs out, For the Lord.

Then in every lessons, or street contact we are praying so hard for these people to have open hearts and minds to understand the GREAT PLAN that contains way more than before birth and after death. We love these people, these Finns, these friends, these foreigners with more love than I have ever felt before. We work our hearts out, For the Lord.

Then at the end of the day, we normally do another death sprint to get home on time, plan and hit the pillow as fast as fast can be, 10:30pm we are asleep after praying for at least 10 minutes reporting to the Lord. We sleep our hearts out, For the Lord.

All day, Everyday, for 18 months straight. AND the whole time we do it….. WE ARE WEARING SKIRTS!!! Booom, beat that Navy seals (;

I love this mission!

This week we went to Kuopio and I was on splits with Sisar West from ALASKA!!! woot woot alaska buddies! Hahaha, it was literally such a fun day, we were in the car, she also will be ending her mission at the end of this month along with my companion and man she is ON FIRE still! She is the cutest. We contacted this referral, we went to this place an hour drive away called Varkaus where everyone out there has their own LAKE!!!! say what? so cool! Anyways we finally got in contact with this referral A. after feeling like we should walk back and try again turns out the second time she had just gotten home and was so excited to see us! She invited us in, gave us wool socks that she had knitted! And the friend who is an invesigator who gave us her name told us to sing to her and talk about the plan of salvation. We had forgotten our song books so the only song I could remember at that time was Nearer my God to Thee in Finnish. Turns out that is a song they sing at funerals (hahaha had no idea) and also that her son had died a couple years ago and was so open to hear about the Plan of Salvation! They will go back next week to teach her more!

Then we went to this other couple’s house(one is a member and one is not) the non member had expressed wanting to learn if the Book of Mormon was true and so we helped him connect some of the pieces and he is willing to learn more and study the restored Priesthood! It was so great! We saw a lot of other members and had a lot of yummy food! Then at the end of the day, we went to visit one more member! But Sisar West wrote pukkikankaantie, instead of PIKKUkankaantie, which turns out is a totally different gated spot. But there was a beautiful lake and sun set there so we jumped the fence and ran down to see it!

So beautiful, then showed up 30 minutes late to this amazing member house, turns out he is from STUTTGART, GERMANY!!! This is where I lived. I tried to speak german.......fail… it’s all Finnish now! But I was able to say a little broken german prayer! Dad he says you have to come visit him sometime when we come back to Finland!! So coool!!!

They have the best view, they literally live on a lake, it was sunset and Man! Amazing! Then on the way home, our phone dies, we run out of gas, and its super dark now, and its getting close to when we have to leave! Hahaha and we can’t find a gas station that will take our card! So we are about to freak out, thinking what do we do!?!?!?! Hahaha the Lord reminds us... PRAY! Hahah we are missionaries and we forgot to pray!

So we say a quick humble prayer asking the Lord what to do now that we are stuck. He then answered (good news he has a sense of humor and is patient) 'Dummies, you have cash!' Hahah True! True! we had cash! So we fill up the car and get home safely only 5 minutes late!! Another pikku (small) story and testimony that Prayer really does work and the Lord wants to help us in crisis, if and only if we are talking to him all the time, not just when we are in a crisis, but he WANTS TO HELP, because he is a Loving Father.

I love you alll! Take care little friends!

Sisar Hubner

p.s. while in Kuopio I got a sweet real fur hat for the winter....I’m pretty obsessed with it!

also the other picture is us in front of the lake that we jumped the gate to get to!

The Light of Truth

(Sorry for the late post - I was in Utah with new Baby Violet :) 

This week was a great one. Another week of focusing on people, pushed by goals, and love. It was great. Looking back on all my journal entries, I just felt so much excitement and love at the end of the day! It’s a blessing to be serving here in this mission. We had some great miracles with member helping out with our new investigators. One is a doctor from Zambia, and we did a church tour, taught the whole restoration. He was so excited to learn more about this priesthood, we set a baptismal date with him on the 8th of November, and then the next day the member that was with us, picked him up for church and then had him over for dinner that night!

Another cool story is we met this Chinese student on the street and she was so excited to learn more, and even though she doesn’t know English that well or Finnish at all, she was so brave and even came to church with us! And it just so happened that our former investigator (from Vietnam) her friend just came to church on her own and just really loved it, and turns out she knows our Chinese friend. Through this Vietnamese girl we were able to get back in contact with our other former investigator! 

Just a great week, great member, great companion!

I love the gospel; it’s really pretty hard to explain to the investigators and just random people on the street. Its something one has to feel for themselves in order for them to believe. But I just end almost everyday so grateful. Its not that its easy here, its getting darker, the people are getting colder, we are always semi drenched, because of the freezing rain, but I have gotten to a point that the outside stuff really doesn’t phase me too much. Its like I have this ball of sunshine on the inside that is bubbling out, fire in the bones as Jeremiah says from the testimony of Christ. The Light of Truth.

We were at the bus stop waiting to go visit some members, and we were talking to an older Finn. I looked down towards the bus stop and see this guy that looks familiar so I decided to go talk to him, and turns out we are going to the same place, taking the same bus. About a month ago we played soccer with him and a couple other people. He had met with the elders a couple times but his phone had broken so he couldn’t contact them. Long story short he had the book of Mormon with him, he had to flee his country because He switched to Christianity. Though he has been in danger for a while, He said he wont turn back, He is a disciple of Christ and it brings him peace knowing that Christ is his personal Savior, even if that means dying for Him, he will do it. We showed him a picture of the temple and said he hopes to enter one day. We can’t teach him due to the danger until he gets his permanent residency. But it made me think a lot. Faith like that, and it reminded me of the Book of Mormon, where they killed all those who did not deny the Christ. Its looking like the world is heading closer and closer to that. 

I love my Savior and this gospel so much that I would die for Him, if it came down to it. But more I know that my Redeemer wants me to LIVE for Him. Everyday, all day, we need to shine the light of truth to areas where darkness has reigned. I hope you all can ponder and make goals of how you can LIVE FOR HIM more fully this coming month of October, preparing for Christmas and the celebration of the birth of our Savior. 

He lives, and I will forever be indebted to Him.

Hyvää Viikkoa teille 

Lovella

Sis. Hubner

P.s. The most adorable Finnish family I know! Love them, you all have to come to Finland one day and met these Rocks of Members!