where can I turn for peace?

Evankeliumi Johanneksen mukaan 14:27

”Minä jätän teille rauhan. Oman rauhani minä annan teille, en sellaista jonka maailma antaa. Olkaa rohkeat, älkää vaipuko epätoivoon."

John (or the literal finnish translation: The gospel according to John) 14:27

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

I'm so grateful for this promise Christ leaves His disciples with, and I can personally say I've felt this so many times in my life. The peace that Christ offers is real, it applies to each and every person. As we learn more about Christ and then try to follow Him-try do as He would do, then we will feel this heavenly peace He talks about. We gain perspective, we gain confidence in God's promises, we can continue admist life's challenges with peace in our hearts. I know Heavenly Father is real, He watches over us and He has a perfect plan for us and the greatest journey planned for us to become the person He sees we have the potential to be. Jesus Christ is our travel buddy, He's seen the path and He'll encourage us when the road feels long or the way steep. You are known, They are with you every step of the way, although they may feel more distant than they actually are to allow you just enough space to grow. Have courage! 

UPDATES 

-pday might have been the greatest day of my life. A dear senior couple here rented a mökki (summer cottage) and all the Kuopio missionaries got to go! Felt like a cute summer family get-together haha 

-lesson with K, she's a really lovely finnish girl who knows she wants to be baptized but is wanting to wait for her 18th birthday! I gotta say I love seeing her smile, she's so adorable. We talked all about faith and how we can live with this faith in Christ. We do the little things like going to church, reading scriptures, praying etc. And our faith grows, because the promises associated with doing these small acts present themselves in our lives! 

-DA with a wonderful member couple. They told us the story of how they ended up moving super close to the church so they could help out more with missionary work🫶

-phone call lesson with G. He's kinda been taught everything so we all shared our testimonies of who Jesus Christ is. He said, "Imagine someone who loves you unconditionally." 🤍 Very good lesson and it was so funny he was just like walking around in the woods as we taught him. 

-dinner with our favorite Vietnamese family, they made us such yummy food! Sister Rudd used chopsticks for the first time, metal ones no less. (if you know you know) They are such geniune people, I'm grateful to be a recipient of their kindness:) 

-VAPPU PARTY (for context Vappu is the holiday "May Day") And we had a party for it at the church which went amazing and tons of friends and peoples showed up🥳 I even got to play and sing some guitar- huge shoutout to Jarvis for letting me learn on his guitar last transfer. 

ALSO Vappu was the day I had my first full day in county last year...that was so strange. 

-lesson with A and E about baptism and temples because...

-BAPTISM! Kuopio truly is a blessed place to be. We had 3 baptisms on Sunday and the 2 girls who were baptized were able to be baptized by their dad who joined the church not too long ago! Actually, as I've been in Kuopio these 2 months we've had 6...which is pretty crazy. The ward is so good though, they're ready to recieve these new friends into their family. For example, when everyone had been baptized a overheard a dad telling his young son "Look now we have 1 new brother and 2 new sisters in our ward family". It was kinda painfully wholesome. 

-ALSO we got to take a trip to a town 2 hours away called Savonlinna to see all our buddies there. We were SO spoiled-fed a great lunch, given homemade Brazilian juice, shown the castle in Savonlinna, given sodas from our lovely friend from Kenya, given boba by our sweet Vietnamese friend (those who know me know I went crazy for those after my Taiwan trip), AND on top of that we ended the trip visiting a member family who had pounds of ice cream that needed devoured. Good times. 

-And our friend F from Kenya. I could go on for a long time about her BUT I won't this time because I fear this is becoming a very long weekly update...BASICALLY she is amazing, I really admire the faith she has. She told us despite being so busy that she forgot about her birthday and her family being worried if she was okay because she hadn't been responding to them with how busy she is...She wants nothing more than to give her time to God AND when she finally becomes a nurse, like she would like to, she wants to tell all her patients about the real healing they can find in Christ. Is she not the coolest person ever??! 

-So Sunday was kinda a bittersweet day honestly, we had the baptisms and then it's Sister Rudd's last day along with 3 other missionaries here so...out of the 5 (rip Elder White having to go to America for a little while) only 1 besides me will be staying. I'm gonna miss these guys a lot but I know good things are always ahead. :)

-Last hurray playing some spikeball with our friend E before he leaves on a kinda long trip abroad. Kinda just praying all our friends don't go away during the summer months haha...

I wrote this on the train on my way to Helsinki to get the new missionaries and new companion! Let's see what updates I have for yall next week...don't worry it most likely will not be THIS lengthy. 🙂‍↕️

If you made it all the way to the end- FIST BUMP BRO YOU IS A REAL ONE 👊 

Love yall

Kaikki järjestyy,

Sisar Dickson 

these johns as always: