#1 Challenges are good

TERVE!!! MITA KUULU!!!

Well we finally got our first P day after 8 days! So it will always be on Thursdays but they didn't give us one last week cause it was only our second day here. So I'll just start from the beginning and let you all know how this week has been!!

Wednesday: So not gonna lie that was rough, it was hard leaving home and family but I am doing good now. So I got to the MTC and met my host Elder Briggs who just left for Kentucky. I got my wonderful name tag that had my name on it and I absolutely love wearing it. I kinda panic when I don't have it on. Anyway, we went to my dorm to drop off my stuff and immediatly after went to our class and met my companion Elder Carter who is from Draper and me and him get along great and have so much fun together. They throw you right in and put you to work. I got to meet the other Elders and Sisters in my district. Or in Finnish Vanhinmats and Sisaretts. All of the people in my district are amazing and we get along so well. We have one of the biggest districts here at the MTC!! For class they took us on a tour of the MTC so that we could see it all and know where to go. While walking around our teachers were teaching us words in finnish like "Kiitos" which is thank you and "Ole Huva" is your welcome. So just some simple stuff that wasn't too hard. We got some pretty good dinner but I don't remember what we had cause it was a long time ago haha. After dinner we went back to class and class goes until 9:15 every night. So they make you work the whole day but its nice cause you stay busy and always have something to do. Then we went back to the dorms for the night and the Elders there welcomed all of us Fins and they gave us a box full of stuff that the previous Fins had left behind. So it was just exciting to be welcomed and they told us that the last Fins were awesome  and we had a reputation to live up to, and if we didn't, then we would have issues with the Mongols and according to history they never lose haha. So there were just a bunch of jokes and it was a good night.

Thursday: We got up and began our lives as missionaries. We actually got to meet the Mongol  missionaries and they are awesome!! We get along with them sooo well. They have Elder Ball who attended CAL before he came here and so us Fins gave him the nickname of Berkly haha. Elder Ball is one of the nicest guys and he is now our zone leader. We also met the Croatians who are in our zone and they are amazing as well, they seem so much older than us but we are all the same age so its weird but it makes things fun. Now we can walk around the MTC and we have so many friends that are serving in different areas. For class on Thursday we went and got all of our finnish books and let me tell you there are a lot and we cant read any of them haha but that is what we are here to learn so in no time we will be able to do it. We started our lesson by learning some finnish  with introductions.  So we can all introduce ourselves in finnish! Class is pretty similar every day so I will do my best in making them sound better so you can hear all about the stuff we do!! Our teachers Veli (Brother) Allen, Veli edwards, Sisar (sister) Cardon, Sisar Clark are all amazing and I learn something from each of them every day. They all served in Finland and are determined to make us sound like Fins! So I am so excited to learn from them and become one with my inner Fin  haha.  We met with the Branch Presidency tonight and we got to be interviewed by them so they could get to know us and they had to find out who was going to be our district leader. I got to meet with Brother Edwards and he is one of the nicest old guys I have ever met. He gave me advice when I told him about me being nervous for the Language and he told me " 1) Work Hard 2) Study Hard 3) Be exactly obedient" and then finished with " Elder Love I love you and you will be a great missionary" So that really helped me boost my confidence in the language and just to know that there was 1 more person who believed I could learn it. Then you will not believe what happened when I got back to class. THEY CALLED ME AS DISTRICT LEADER! Its my second day, I don't even know what im doing yet! HAHA! But I am getting better and I have got this District Leader role down. At first I was terrified cause I am not a fan of callings but this one I decided to take the torch and run with it and do the best I can. I remember from EFY a year ago my director told us a this quote that his dad told him when he got baptized "Charles, If youre gonna be a mormon, be a good one" and so I applied that to me "Austen, If youre gonna be a missionary, be a good one" So I am doing everything that I can to be the best that I can be. 

Friday: Friday was a little bit of a hard day, Finnish was kicking my butt and I could not remember anything. I would forget how to say things and review over and over again and nothing would stick. Now with learning a new language it is expected, you are not going to be perfect the instant you start, you have to work at it. Well I was super frustrated with how things were going. Not only me but a lot of the members in my district were getting frustrated as well. One thing that I have learned quickly is to find the good in every situation, no matter how hard things get, there is always something that can brighten your day and make things a little bit easier. I came back for my afternoon classes and things were still hard, but my attitude was a lot better. That night we had SAND VOLLEYBALL and that is the funnest thing in the world. All of us are so bad at it but that is what makes it fun, we also get to meet other elders and sisters from different zones and districts and that is fun to talk to them. 

Saturday: This morning we got to play the russians soccer!!!!! Now sadly we lost 2-0 but in our defense the Russian team has all these new guys from europe that are all fresh out of soccer camps so its like playing some pros. But it is still so much fun. Hopefully this coming week we can come back and win cause our team has only won 1 game in the last like 8 weeks. So we are all determined to win. Anyway back to missionary life, We studied a TON of Finnish saturday cause we got into our normal routine and we have lots of time to study the language, which is nice cause Finnish is seriously so hard but surprisingly fun to learn. All of the Elders study together and we make the learning fun and think of ways that we can remember things. After studying for the past couple of days we had to teach out first lesson to one of our teachers acting as people interested in the church. It was an absolute disaster because none of us know that they are saying, on our part we say what we know but then we have to try to find out what they are saying. Its quite the adventure. We were all laughing about how our lessons were and learning different things from each other on what we had done in our lessons,so that next time we could do better. After teaching we had some more finnish lessons and we all were having a real good time learning but at the same time making it fun. I don't know if I have ever laughed so much in the past cause we are laughing every single day. We have gotten to know each other and its just so fun cause we get along so well and its like we have known each other for a long time. 

Sunday: I got up Sunday morning and took my companion to my District Leader meeting that I had that morning. Not gonna lie it was a little boring at first but then it turned into a really good meeting. I personally hated meetings before but they are not so bad now. We just talked about how our districts were doing and what we could do better. Then we had normal church meetings so we went to priesthood and sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting is way cool because you can hear people give talks in their mission language. After church we went to choir practice. Yes you heard right, I went to choir. I never thought those words would come out of my mouth cause I am not a singer at all. But its so cool cause while you are learning to sing a song the director gives a lesson that goes with the song. So he told us all about Joseph Smith while we were learning the song Joseph Smiths First Prayer. That night we got to watch a talk given by Elder David A. Bednar called " The character of Christ" and it was one of the best talks I have ever heard. The best part for me was he talked about how having a testimony wasn't the end. We need to fully convert ourselves so that we will always have the knowledge that never fails. Cause once we are converted we will never fall so that really stuck out to me cause we are out here working to convert others so that they will have the knowledge and never fall. 

Monday: Today was probably the worst day ever. Not the entire day just the first half. We had class and our teachers were teaching and just stressed us all out with the language and told us we had to have so much done and memorized by certain times. Thats not how you want to start the day but it did. So our entire district was in a bad mood and just stressed out about everything we were doing.  Luckily the day got better that night when we went to class. We got there and spent majority of the time in the scriptures which is what we needed. We all were able to share thoughts on what we read and that whole morning just dissappered from our minds. We all were on a spiritual high that night and when we studied some more finish we had a better attitude about it all and we did so much better. 

Tuesday: Tuesday we played soccer against the germans and we lost horrifically haha. They are so good. We went to class and taught another lesson and it was GREAT everything was a whole lot better than our first one so we are making improvements. We had a devotional from Elder D. Todd Christofferson and he came to the MTC and spoke to us about the new change with the names and getting rid of the word Mormon which was interesting to hear from him.

Wednesday: We are just going to skip to the good stuff cause it was a crazy day. We have exercise time at 8:50 in the mornings and literally 10 min into playing basketball MY COMPANION BROKE HIS NOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He ran into Elder Aitken and busted his nose off his forehead. So from now on we all decided not to play basketball anymore. But I love medical stuff so this was so cool to see. His nose was messed up. There was lots of blood and it was so cool. I feel bad for him, it sucks, but it was so cool to see. So we actually got to go to the BYU urgent care across the street and THEY MADE HIM REALIGN HIS OWN NOSE!! WHAT KIND OF DOCTOR DOES THAT!!!  My Companion has to have surgery on Thursday next week,but its not to major so he will be able to come back later that night, but still thats crazy. So we were all worried about that but he will come back so thats great.  We went to class and worked on some more Finnish, Sisar Cardon helped me a ton in memorizing stuff and taught me a new way so that I could remember stuff but also have an effective way to teach. 

Today is P day so we are just chillin and doing some laundry. We went to the temple this morning and we went to the 7am session and that was a lot of fun to go with our zone.

Thought: Brother Edwards has said a lot over the last couple of days  and he says "Challenges are good" I have learned this week that they are. Without challenges we would not be able to learn and get better at what we are doing. Even if it is hard the outcome will have a great reward. 

Love you all, thank you for the emails I love getting them!!

Elder Love is out

1. Picture from his classroom
2. His companion after he realigned his nose
3. Austen and his companion
4. The elders in his district
5. Someone "stole" his camera and took a selfie. Austen got to know him through instagram before they entered the MTC....and had become really good friends already.
6-7. Scriptures
8. I (his mom:) told him I wanted a selfie every week...and here it is:)
9-12. MTC campus
13-14. Ready to play sand volleyball
15. His friend:)))
16. Group study
17. Another selfie:)
18-19. Tag pictures. The last one is an inside joke among his friends