#57 Getting to be with our members is great!!

This week has been pretty good! Got to spend some time with members and help them out. Been a fun week so here it is!

Wednesday was a pretty good day. We had district council so we started our day off with that. This time it was over the internet so we just skyped everyone and had our district council. We had a pretty good discussion about diligence and how it helps us in our work and in our lives. We had a funny role play of "Awkward Contacts"... what to do when you get yourself caught in an awkward situation. Well you literally have about a million ideas of what you can role play... cause you have those... like every person you talk to... you have no idea what's coming.  So that was fun. We came back and did studies. We had to get to a members house to help... cause they asked for some service to be done and they said it was gonna take a long time. So they would feed us before so we would have energy to work and after cause it would be late. Now we are totally fine with getting fed 2 meals haha. So we got there and they were pumping us full of sandwiches and juice. Way good food to start. We got ready to work. And literally all we were doing was loading wood from the pile that had been chopped into the storage house. It was a pretty small pile. And we had not 1 not 2  but 4 of us doing this:)). Well this "tough work" we did in like an hour. Way quick:)). And then they fed us Flying Jacob (Chicken, Bacon, peanuts and bananas:)Wow that was my first time having it and it was good. The rumors are true, its freaking good!! So we left well fed and had completed some pretty easy service but it was pretty fun. We got back and changed to go contacting for the rest of the night. We saw some guy we play soccer with that we are good friends with outside an Asian market. They were trying to move a new fridge into the store. Well our friend volunteered us to help and of course we were happy to do it. Well...a couple of hours later and a few drinks from China... we helped them move this 1,200 pound fridge into the store. It took lots of pushing, pulling, pallets, and Asains arguing about what to do. So it was way fun:)) 

Thursday we had a pretty normal day to start off. Just following up with former investigators and doing our street contacting. A member had invited us to lunch at this Swedish Club. Don't worry...it's not that kind of club:)). Its inside an old house and it's just a buffet for old people. But we went in and I was looking around at the few selection of what they got... and I could see they got some tasty looking fish. I was curious as to what kind of fish it was... so I asked the lady who was ahead of me, and she Englished me. She just turned around, looked at me and said in pretty loud English like I didn't understand English as my native tongue. "Its fish! This is fish!"  Well thank you very much, we politely parted ways. I grabbed a slab of fish and some sauce and ate it. It was pretty good so I go get another slab with some more potatoes. I asked another person and luckily this time they told me the name of the fish and what it was. I ate the little yellow and blue guy off the little mermaid:)) I ate Flounder:)) I can't remember if that was just his name or if that was the type of fish it was. For all I know that may not even be his name but that's what I thought of as I ate it. Really good 10 out of 10, would eat again. Later that day we busted out a ton of area book work and we were getting a lot done. We went to follow up with some potentials we had found before and talked with one of our investigators. He also wanted to double check our plans to go fishing the next morning with him. He was so worried about finding us chairs that we could sit on when we fish.... all of a sudden he just told us he would be right back. He left us to go grab this chair and we were just sitting there in his apartment... not knowing what to do:)). He came back with this chair like 5 min later and looked at Elder Andersen ..."No niin, Love voi istua tällä" like hey Love can sit here. This is his chair. So he made sure I got that one for the next morning Haha. He's a funny guy. 

Friday... wow that was a busy day. So we went fishing with our friend in the morning, we bundled up cause it was a bit chilly. We sadly didn't catch anything except some wayyy small fish... and not too many.... so we didn't stay long. We went back, got ready for the day, got in some studies in the morning and went off to teach a lesson. This guy was confused as to why we don't drink coffee. He's been trying to disprove us that coffee is good by trying to get addicted to coffee the last like 30 years. He said he's not addicted but can't go more than a certain amount of time without it:)). I was a little confused... but way nice people. From there we went from his place to a members house who had called us to come help him with some work he was doing. I love this guy so much! he's so funny! He's 80 years old...and we got there and he was on his hands and knees laying tile on his back porch! He wanted us to come help... no not to lay the tile and do the hard stuff for him... Just come and cut the pieces he needed. We had a lot of fun. In the midst of working I asked him, "what's your favorite movie?" To which he replied "I don't think I've seen movie in over a year" and we were all laughing. He can't make it 5 min before he falls asleep:)). Then just a little later we talked about new Finnish words we had learned and I told elder Andersen I learned what the word was "to give up" cause I read it in the Book of Mormon and all of a sudden our friend yells "never give up!" "My wife tells me I can't eat chocolate cause I eat to much, but I have my secret hiding place" and went  on and on Haha. I was dying. Funny part was that we had to leave... but would come back like 2 hours later cause we had a DA set up with them that day and he was coming on a lesson with us that night. So it was way fun. We had dinner with them and talked about the scripture 1 Nephi 3:7. After that we went and taught our new friend who had gotten back from their trip...and our member and this lady became instant friends. We got to answer a lot of her questions about the church, clarify a few things, and listen to how much she doesn't like the JWs. I guess over here if you're not with them then you're against them. There is no in between Haha.  Then we came home. And to finish off the day we watched the first episode of the Book of Mormon videos that they are releasing on Gospel Library. I would recommend them, they are better than some of the other films the church has made:). I think they will also get better as they continue. 

Saturday was a busy day. We got up and did studies and all the normal morning routine stuff. And we headed out to go hunt down some former investigators and to also find new people. We had a pretty slow morning. We literally only got to talk to 2 people. The winter vibe is coming early maybe, nobody on the streets and everyone chilling in their homes:)). Nah it's not that bad, we are all enjoying the nice fall... it's a but nippy every once in a while but not bad. We also went to find a less active who hasn't had his papers moved to our branch yet, so we went to visit him and ..... he moved! So now we have no clue where he is. Sadly nobody has this guys phone number either so we can't call him. We were also out tracting and I sniped it right away, I saw two ladies with big purses dressed in Sunday attire. JWs... And then they just start swarming in on this complex that we are tracting like flies at a BBQ. The first couple of them noticed who we were and just smiled and nervously laughed. And me in my head... I was like " uh uh this is our area, go find some new buildings" so we watched them walk in one door into a building. So my bad habit, I walked in to the door right next to the one that they went into and started knocking those. We were on the top floor and we were gonna visit a friend we had, cause miraculously they happened to live there. Sadly they weren't home but we waited to see if they would come in. Well they had a real hard time deciding what to do cause they walked in and out of the door about 5 times. But they came in anyway. And just started 1 floor below us. We just left after that there was way to many of them. But as we left we all smiled and waved to each other. But man it really bugs me when they crash a tracting block:)). But we went back for some lunch and to do our studies. And then later that day we played some soccer with our friends as usual but then after we went to play Sähly with a recent convert  and some ward members. That was way fun. Sähly,  is just floor ball, like indoor hockey. It's way fun but man I was TIRED. I was exhausted, it makes me sad all the time cause I realize I'm not in the shape like I was when I was in high school haha. But that was some good quality time with our ward members and we had a lot of fun. Had a pretty late dinner and that was about our day.

Sunday was a pretty good day. We got to church early to help prepare the sacrament and then we just got the rest of the church ready cause nobody was there except us. We also got to go to YM and that was pretty fun. We talked about Moroni and Joseph smith, along with kick boxing and jujitsu and playing instruments. So that was pretty fun. We were at church for a while after talking with members and we talked a lot about food which made me really hungry:)). Like how those companies who put peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, now that's just an abomination, you don't do that, that's just wrong:)). The same people who come up with scary movie ideas that freak people out are probably the people that buy peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.:)) We went back to our place and had studies and then went out tracting. We followed up with this potential that said we could come back and gave him a book of Mormon... but the found out his native tongue was Arabic so we told him we would come back later that day with one in Arabic so that he could understand it better. Well we just went on tracting and following up with people. We went to give him the book of Mormon later that day and then went on to tract some student housing that we had not been to before. There is quite a bit... so we are trying to get all of them. Then after tracting we went street contacting and no body wanted to talk to us but we got some cool pics so that's cool.

Monday was a pretty good day. So we headed out in the morning to go tracting and follow up with some formers and try to find them. We didn't really get many people to talk to us but for the few we did... they were some quick conversations Haha. But we went back for lunch and did some studies. We planned a lesson for a lesson that we were gonna teach that day. Luckily for us he did not cancel so we got to meet with him and it was a pretty good lesson! I think we were actually able to make some progress about teaching him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are still waiting for him to read the book of Mormon but he said he would try. He is just a really stubborn:). But I think we made some progress. We went to a member home for a DA and we had some burritos and they were awesome. Just a young couple with two young kids... but they are way fun. We had a lot of chatting.... Sharing mission stories and it was way fun and we had some good food. His wife is also a professional Baker so desert was way good!!:)). We then went to meet a less active for some ping pong. We are trying to just be friends with him first and then work to talk about gospel things. We made some progress but still not too much. He just tells us how he's getting old and he's not married and we talked to him about that. I don't know how much I can help cause I know nothing... but we also had a lesson set up for next week and we are gonna get to talk about the gospel with him so we will see how that goes.

But it's been a good week here and we have been able to help our members a lot so it's been great! Getting to be with our members is great!

Elder Love out

1) I ate Flounder!
2-7) Fishing with our friend
8)Our 80 year old friend
9) First attempt at homemade biscuits 
10-11) Vaasa