So last p-day we had to cut it a little short cause we had to take a nice 5 hour train ride all the way down to Jyväskylä and spend the night with Elder Krause and Elder Lakatos....so that the next day we could take another train to Tampere for mission tour:) So the train ride... ya know just same ole same ole. Still full of Finnish people that don't talk to one another and it's completely silent in the train car haha...it's pretty funny actually:) But when we got to Jyväskylä we went and dropped off our bags and then immediately went out street contacting. I got to spend some time with Elder Krause and he is a way cool guy. He is from New Jersey and one of the nicest guys you will meet. So we were just going around talking to people and as you know all the Finnish people just flock to the missionaries haha.... not..... but we got to talk to a few people so it was pretty good. We went to the church for Finnish hour and that is to help all the new people that move to Finland learn Finnish. I bet you can guess what happened haha, Not a soul showed up hahaha. So we went out street contacting again and this time I went with Elder Lakatos...from my MTC group:) That is right.. we went out just us two greenies not knowing really anything to contact people:) All we had was the greenie fire to talk to people haha. We stopped this one guy and he just laughed at us trying to speak Finnish and he kept replying to us in English... but when we asked him if he speaks good English and if it would be easier for him he tells us No...but keeps replying in English ahaha. Then we stopped these two guys right before we went back to the flat for the night and guess what... they also laughed at us trying to speak Finnish hahaha. But we ended up getting their number so that they could learn more cause they were interested from what we had to say, so I guess our Finnish wasn't that bad...so a win!! Then we just went back to the flat, had some ice cream and hot chocolate and then just talked for the rest of the night!
Wednesday we got up early to take a 2 hour train ride to Tampere so we could go to mission tour. So it was like the entire North zone getting together to listen to a guy from the 70 speak to us and to also listen to President and Sister Aura. It was a ton of fun getting to meet a lot of the other missionaries that are serving in Finland cause when you serve in the north, the only people that you know are the ones in your district. So out of the 80 missionaries I think there are in Finland, you get to know 10 and that's it haha. So it was fun to meet a ton of the other missionaries.That was just a long day cause we were just sitting in a chapel all day.... but the messages shared were good so it was worth it. Also for lunch they made this potato and salmon thing and holy cow that was dang good. I have had salmon a few times out here and let me tell ya, if it's cooked properly... like holy cow it was amazing. Then for dinner like 20 of us missionaries all went to the train station and got some kebab for dinner and that is really good as well...so we ate really good. Then we had to get on a train and ride that to Kokkola to spend the night there cause it was too late for us to take the train back to Kajaani.
Thursday we got up in Kokkola and the elders there made us some french toast for breakfast and that was good... and then we had to get on a train to go to Oulu. So lucky for us this entire journey of train rides we have had the Rovaniemi elders with us... so we got to hang out with them for majority of the trip. We took the train with them to Oulu where they continued on the train to Rovaniemi and we got to take a 3 hour bus ride back to Kajaani hahah. Seriously not gonna lie....with all of the travel that we have had to do in the past 2 weeks.. it's been fun... but man I am so tired of being on a train haha and a bus ahah. And on the bright side I get to take a train to Oulu on Thursday!! But we just came back and started to tract and we did that for the rest of the day and it was good to be back in Kajaani :). We also got to see one of our investigators play the guitar in a small show that he was being graded for school cause he's going to school to be a musician. That was way cool cause he was so happy that we came to see him and I think he did good on his test cause he played really well... so that was fun as well to end the night like that.
Friday we had a busy day and we had 4 lessons planned! That was a really busy day cause we got 3 out of the 4 so that is awesome and we got to meet with 2 other people that we were not planning on!!. Around lunch time we stopped by one of our Arabic friends. I wish you guys could meet him cause he is hilarious and it's so funny cause his Finnish is not that good and his English is alright...so there is a bit of a language barrier.. but he cracks me up! We were just chatting with him and he was making himself lunch and then asks if we can come back in an hour and eat with him... and so we were like sure. So we came back after tracting for an hour and he had made us some traditional Arabic food, and this guy can cook. He made us some beans, rice, and meat thing that I'm not really sure what was all in there... and it looked a little weird... but it was really good! I have developed a liking for beans cause I've had it a lot here:) This food was way good and then while we were eating he was teaching us some Arabic so that we could better communicate with him. He really enjoys the fact that we stop by and see how he's doing and learn some Arabic from him while we teach him some stuff. Then we had a lesson with one of our investigators who has progressed a ton and we finally got him to pray on his own! That was huge for us cause it's taken us a long time to get him to build up enough confidence to pray, but he finally did it! So that was a really cool lesson. Then we also met with one of our other investigators and chatted with her cause she had called us to stop by which never happens. We went over and met with her and her family for a little bit and that was fun. She gives us so much candy and she gives us the good Finnish chocolate, so it's hard to not eat a ton of it haha.
Saturday we had another day full of lessons and got another 3 out of the 4 which was way good! That like rarely happens.. so let's hope that this keeps up. Some of them were the first lesson so we will see how it goes... but still... I was happy with the turn out. These lessons went really well and we met some really nice people and some of these really nice people have some interesting life stories. Sometimes you wonder how they even wanted to meet with you ahah. Kajaani has some interesting people that is for sure. But just another day with lessons and tracting so it was good.
Sunday we just had church and that was a good 2 hours of me thinking really hard trying to figure out what people are saying and looking through my pocket dictionary to figure out what words mean ahah. I really hope I'll be able to learn this language on day cause if not church will forever and always be confusing haha. After church we got a DA (dinner appointment) with the branch president, and him and his wife had us over and we had some burritos... and then we shared a spiritual message and then it turned into like a service hour of putting together bookshelves and such cause he just moved back to Kajaani:) We have been helping him move the past couple of days and put things back together:)
Monday was a day full of tracting. That is really all you can do here cause nobody is really ever on the street. If you try to stop them...sometimes they just look at you weird like " Why do you want to stop and chat when it's freezing outside?" but we do get to talk to some people which is good:). We talked to this guy who wanted to discuss all the things in the Bible that contradict each other and how the earth is flat. Yes you read that right, Flat earthers are real. I thought they were a joke until I legit met one and talked to him ahah. So that was an interesting conversation... but he took a Book of Mormon! Then we went out to Otanmäki and had a DA with a member family and that was a ton of fun. We had a dang good dinner and spent a lot of time learning the guitar. I was talking to Veli K. and we were talking about music and how I had thought it would be cool to learn to play the guitar. I've tried it...but I can't do it cause it's so hard and confusing. Just like Finnish haha. But he got so excited and he grabbed the guitar and books and we went for it... and while I attempted to play he would sing along ahaha. It was quite the show! This family is so funny and they are such nice people, so I love getting to go over to their house for dinner and the food is bomb,so that is another good thing ahah.
Just been staying busy here. Hope all is well in the good ole states:).
Love and miss y'all
Elder Love out
Pictures from Austen's travel to different cities in Finland and missionaries that he got to know:)
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