Footprints in Finland: #45 Vaasa is Great!!

Hey everyone! This week has gone by way quick and in a new area it's gone even faster haha. But here's what happened.

Tuesday was transfer day! Yeah so that was a little crazy. In the morning we finished up all the stuff that we needed to do and the sisters came to help us with all our bags which was very nice of them.... and we had a member there as well so with all our bags and bikes it went way smooth. But then I had to hand over the keys to the apartment and other stuff and it was so sad to lose an area just like that:( I was at Helsinki main (train station)for a while with other missionaries. Elder Kimball took off pretty quick with his new comp while we all waited for trains. Me and Elder Aitken (friend from MTC) were on the same train for like 3 hours so that was a ton of fun!!! We haven't seen each other in a while and so it was fun to sit and chat, and he's in my district so that will be fun as well. Turns out we are testing out for the mission to Skype district meetings so we will see how that goes. We do it every other week. But we rode the train from Helsinki to Seinäjoki, and then I switched trains with my new comp and went the rest of the way to Vaasa. Vaasa is a cool place... it's way different from Espoo... so it's some getting used to going back to a small city again. Espoo will be greatly missed. But also come to find out since we took the sisters area we also got their car as well and now I'm driving!! Yeah... wish somebody would have told me that Haha. But now we have a car, so we will see how that goes. I haven't driven since I was home but I still got it. Pro driver. We did some shopping and then came back and I unpacked and that was about our entire day.

Wednesday was a good day. It was my first full day in Vaasa. We went out and we did some tracting in the morning and that was a good time. Not many people wanted to talk to us but that's okay. Me and Elder Chugg had a good time. Elder Chugg is from Logan Utah and he has been out 2 months less than I have, he is in the same group as Elder Kimball. But we have fun together. We went to a lesson with a less active and he was hilarious... oh he was so funny. But we talked with him and got to know him better. He was a cool guy. I'm still in that biased mode where I say that Espoo is the best place ever but I can't do that cause every city is special in a different way and I love Vaasa. It is cool. Then we just went street contacting and that was fun and that was about our whole day.

Thursday we had district council and so the Pietarsaari elders came down. First we did a mini splitz and we went out contacting. Elder Ames was contacting everyone in Swedish so we did the morning contacting in Swedish... and that did not go well. I was way more comfortable in Finnish than trying to speak Swedish Haha but we had a good time anyway. Then we went to meet up with the rest of the elders. Since the Vaasa sisters are no longer there we have an all elders district and that is pretty fun. We had a good district council and it was fun to see some of the other elders. We went back to our apartment and we did language study with the Pietarsaari elders and then after they left we had a lesson. We met him at the library and it was way good! We got to talk a lot about prayer and Heavenly Father's love for us. We talked about the spirit as well and what it feels like. It was great and then he told us that he was going to be in China for the next month so we can talk more after he comes back. So that was a bit of a bummer that he's going to China... but he will be back. Then we went back and made some dinner and then off to another lesson with a less active member. That was a lot of fun, the guy is hilarious. We talked with him and he went on a rant about all this free food he had gotten and how much money he saved cause things were expensive. We shared a spiritual message with him and watched a short video called the Will of God. That one is pretty good. And after that we just tracted and street contacted. We met a lady who had family that live in Espoo. So we started talking about all the different areas and I was like those are my streets! I know where all that is! So that was fun to talk about Espoo. Then walking home we met a way cool guy and that capped off our night.

Friday was a bit of a slower day. We got up and did our normal things in the morning and then we went to help someone in the ward move. That was way fun, it was nice to get a break from the usual stuff and help them move. Switch things up a bit. So we did that for a little bit and then came back and had some lunch and some studies. And as usual for Friday we weekly plan and that took a long time cause we are trying to learn the sisters area as we go so it's a little different. After weekly planning we went out to do some tracting and then we went and street contacted. We contacted by a graveyard cause we thought it was a park haha but we got some cool pics cause it was a huge cemetery. So that was cool. We also found Gatorade and that was awesome cause I haven't had Gatorade in like almost a year :)) and that brought me back to my track days :)).

Saturday was a busy day. We went to help a family in the ward move. The same family we helped out earlier. But today was all the heavy stuff like a washer, piano, couches but hey, good thing your boy has been keeping up his workouts on his mission to help people move. A member kept telling the people that we were helping that this is what they taught in the MTC, helping people move, packing up stuff and moving heavy things. They were pretty confused and he was having a great time doing that Haha. Then we went to a dinner appointment with a member and we went to a pizza buffet. They were from the states and it was way fun to chat with them. Plus it was their birthday as well so they wanted eat with us for their birthday so that was fun. Then we went street contacting and this guy stopped us and he asked if he could walk with us and talk with us...so we walked to the church and chatted with him there and he's pretty cool. He started talking with us about how he became religious and he's not like any guy I've met.. he's way outgoing and talked a ton so that's great. Hopefully things go well with him and maybe he can become a way good investigator. Then we continued street contacting and we walked down by the beach and the Vaasa prison and talked to people down there. This girl talked to us and we talked to her for like a half hour and had so many questions about the book of Mormon and how we know it's true. In the end she didn't want to talk with us anymore...but we had a good discussion with her. Then we headed back home and people avoided us like the plague which was really funny Haha.

Sunday was my first time here in the Vaasa branch. Going from a ward to a branch is different but this is a bigger branch that I had in Kajaani. There are maybe 50-60 people in the branch which is good. But church was long. This old guy in Sunday school was teaching and he's like "how much time do I have left before church ends?" And a ward member immediately replies " your 15 minutes are over" and yet he continues to talk for another 15 minutes Haha. But church was good. We then headed back to get some lunch and do some studies. We did our studies and then went to visit an investigator. He told us that today was his last day drinking so that was awesome to hear. We later had some dinner and then went out for the rest of the night to do some tracting and we talked to a lot of people...granite most of them were foreigners...but we met this way funny guy from Russia. We knocked on his door and he went to tell us he didnt speak English or Finnish and that he was from Russia. So from my time here the only thing I've learned to say in Russian is hello. So I say hello in Russian and he gets a big smile and then starts telling us to come in so we can talk... well I think that's what he said cause he said it all in Russian. Then we explained that is all the Russian we knew... but it lead to a way good conversation for the very little Finnish he knew and he was cracking jokes and it was way funny. But he also said we could come back and we could give him a Book of Mormon in Russian. We went around and talked to a few more people and that was about our entire night.

Monday was good day. It was pretty crazy. We had a morning tracting block and we went to a new area cause we are covering the sisters area as well...so we went to some part there and we got lost driving around trying to find a place to park. We ended up driving to a lake and we found parking there... and then we walked around and we found a way good place to go tracting and we talked to some lady for like a half hour and she was way nice. But we got in some good tracting and to treat our selves after this long trip of trying to figure out this new area we went to burger king haha. We went back to do some studies and a less active called us if we could meet earlier.... so we went to meet them right away and we met them in the center. He was hilarious so it was a lot of fun to get to know him and talk to him. We also had a lesson with this one guy who stopped us on the street and wanted to talk. He said he had talked to missionaries before. So we went over and he just to happened to have his friend come over while we were there. So he had made himself a pamphlet of notes that he wanted to talk to us about. His friend was newly converted to Christianity cause he was a former satan worshiper. How that happened I am not really sure but good for him right? But We had a really long discussion with them. Luckily these guys are way cool and it didn't turn into a bashing session... they kept it way nice and just had a lot of questions. But that was about all of our day. It was pretty tiring and it went really fast but also was a really long day haha.

That is about all folks. We are headed up to Oulu (4hour train ride) today for zone conference so that should be a lot of fun.

Have a great week!

Elder Love out

1) Austen with Elder Kimball

2) Austen and Elder Olsen...they have become great friends!

3) Him and Elder Olsen

4)Cute house:)

5) Austen and Elder Aitkin (friend from MTC)

6-9) Vaasa

10) Austen and Elder Chugg...they are getting along great already!

11) Streets in Vaasa

12) Fixing the car:)
13) Cemetary