The goal is in sight

Terve perheeni!!

Less than two weeks to go until we ship out to Finland. I literally cannot wait. The goal is in sight. We still dont have travel plans yet, though. 

Mom, got the package you sent. Thanks so much! But....I probably don't need anymore junk food while I'm here. That's all anyone ever gets so we're about up to our waists in candy, cookies and brownies in our residence hall. But I did really appreciate it when it came. It came at exactly the right moment for me. Oh yeah, Dad, got the article about the Lithuanians. Pretty cool. Didn't know basketball was so big over there. Can't wait to see what the Lithuanians say about it, but I don't know if any of them are real big on sports, so we'll see.

Hilarious Finnish story from this week! Sisar Shreeve was practicing a door approach, and she introduced herself and talked about the church just fine, but when she went to introduce her compainion, she said, "...ja tama on minun rakas poikani....OOPS!" (Tama on minun rakas poikani = this is my beloved son...she had been trying to memorize the First Vision in Finnish right before this). So funny. We almost died. We've been having a lot of moments like that lately. Not necessarily in Finnish either. Later, Vanhin Bishop said something wrong in Finnish and Sisar corrected him, and he goes, "I don't care if it was grammacially correct!" To which Sisar responds, "You mean, grammatically?" So funny. He just threw up his hands. We're all starting to get a little overloaded with Finnish, so we start busting up at almost anything. Really trying to buckle down and focus though. I want the end to my time in the MTC to model how I will end my mission. This is the test. It's easy to work hard when you aren't tired. But when you're tired like we are now, that's when you prove to yourself and to the Lord that you can keep going forward. If I can finish strong here, I can finish strong in the field. Elder Jay E. Jensen quoted President Monson last night in the devotional when he said, "Decisions do determine destiny." To quote one of my all-time heros Qui-Gon Jinn in a similar vein, "Your focus determines your reality." (Yeah....Hoggard teases me about my closet Star Wars obsession all the time.) But it's true. Once your mind is truly set, you can begin to move forward. Until it's set, you're just sort of stumbling along. You might have some success, but heck, even the blind squirrel catches a nut once in a while.

[Here is a video of a door approach they came up with:]

Had an awesome experience in a teach the other day. We challenged "Heiki" to get baptized, but realized we hadn't talked about a date yet! So I just smoothly pulled a date out the air, September 10th. Then, to cover myself, I was like "well, we want the second saturday in September, not sure if that's the tenth or not." Pretty smooth right? Well, turns out the second Saturday in September IS the 10th. Boom. Not sure if that counts as inspiration or luck, but I like to think it's the former.

Well, family I love you. Erik, so great to hear how things are going in Denmark for you. So jealous about you fireside with Elder Bednar coming up. Gonna be awesome.

Love,

Elder McKay