Almost missionary experiences

We have had four what I would call almost missionary experiences this week. One sister invited us to her friend's house for lunch but because of our language deficiencies, we didn't understand why. We thought that her purpose was to provide lunch for us. The women had been friends for 50-60 years and were happy to be together. We were never completely sure what they were talking about. There we were with 3 non-members being as courteous as we could. As everyone started to leave, the sister said we need to talk about the Mormon church. We had no idea we were supposed to do something missionary like. We will try to invite them all to our apartment for lunch soon and teach them something about the church.

We went to hometeach another sister and there was a neighbor there. We weren't introduced to her. At one point she asked us what we did as missionaries and just as we were going to tell her the phone rang. The sister's daughter had called to invite her mother to come have some leftover birthday cake. The mother invited us all and wewalked over to the daughters house immediately. Amazingly enough by the time we got there the daughter had set a beautiful table for all of us and had an assortment of cakes, rolls, pizza bites, and herbal teas ready. But the missionary moment had passed.

At the house on the lake there was a non-member who was very friendly and gracious. We never gave a message. We did say a prayer.

The last one was pretty hilarious. We visited the house of a woman who had met with the missionaries in the past, but not recently. We walked into her yard and she and her husband were there with two of their three children. Before we got out of the car David had rehearsed what he was going to say. So speaking Finnish he introduced us and talked about her being a friend of the church. He finished his little speech and she responded in English. David said, in Finnish, do you speak English? She said "I am English!" We visited with her for as much as an hour. She said we were welcome to return any time. She was excited to hear we would be here for a long time and said we could meet her mother in July. She also said she had been wondering when someone would come by again. We were able to say a prayer before we left.

Sometimes I think we are so focused on learning and negotiating the language that we forget we are missionaries. But we are going to do better.