#58 "Who is your lifeguard? "

Well.... just another week here in Finland:) It's starting to get chilly and I can actually experience the whole Fall season (I got here at the end of Fall last year) It's pretty cool!! But we have been having lots of rain... we're getting back into the rainy season.... but I'm excited for winter. I am a beach boy who loves the sun but I'm wanting a wayyy cold winter this year:)) But here's the 7 day forecast of my week.

Wednesday was a pretty good day! We had district council and were also joined by the zone leaders... so that made it fun having more missionaries there. We had a good time together especially with the role play.... "Recovering when you go to follow up with someone and it's the wrong person" Haha. Elder Koch had some great Arabic Finnish haha. We had a lot of fun!! But that was not the best part of the day:) The rest of the day was pretty normal but I was looking forward to the night cause we had a lesson set up.  This guy we were teaching called us about a month ago and said he wanted to learn about Jesus. Well... we have been working on getting a lesson set up and finally a month later we had a lesson set up.... that he for sure could come to and not flake on us. Now I thought I had no idea who he was, he showed up and we started talking. And then it all came back and I remember exactly where I had met this guy. We had actually met him last transfer, he was in a hurry, he was moving apartments so we just gave him a card. My entire mission I have never given out a card and actually have the person call us. Well that is what happened. He used our card to get in contact with him and I was just amazed!! We taught him the restoration and it was wayyy good! He had a lot of good questions and we had a really good discussion with him. He said he would read some of the Book of Mormon until we could get him one in Polish. He was a way cool guy just like I remembered... but I was just amazed that he had actually called us cause that has never happened before:)). It only took a month but hey it still happened Haha. So that was a good way to end the day:))

Thursday we were done with personal study and we had planned some area book work. Well since we have a deadline... we had come up with a system to get us organized and make it way easier for us.... so we didn't have as many papers to keep... and so we could have an efficient follow up system. So we sat  down and started going through papers and writing stuff down and planning where to go. We currently have 6.8 pounds of papers that need to be shredded:))And we still had more to do. But we knocked out a ton of stuff and we were way proud of ourselves cause that made it so much easier for us to have a good system to follow up with everyone Haha. But then we did studies and lunch. We had a DA later that day with a family and we had decided to do the restoration cups. I think most people know what that is. So we went to the church and made those real quick for our DA. And it turned out way good!! We have a lot of fun with this family. Still working with their kids but I think we could be getting somewhere. We will see... but I feel good about it. After the DA we went to follow up with a potential who was sadly not home and then we decided to contact on a walk  around the beach. It was way nice weather and people were out. Nobody really wanted to talk about gospel stuff but we did talk to a few people about their dogs and fish:)). We also got some way cool pictures. So we had fun with that as well.  And to end the night off we went to visit a friend we are working with to help them stop drinking. He's doing good, he's slipped a few times here and there but we are working with him. He's a way cool guy and I know he can do it. We just gotta work a little bit:)). 

Friday was a way good day. We got up and when it came time.... we drove right into the area book to get that all done and we busted through it all. So now our system is all ready to go and it's working really nicely...so that's been great. It took some work, but we got it. Then we had weekly planning. So it was a little easier to do weekly planning cause we are almost gonna be gone the whole week. We leave Tuesday for zone conference and then we have splits in Seinäjoki after... so we won't be coming back till Friday. And we also have General conference... so we will be busy with that. So we don't have much wiggle room next week. We planned for next week and then we went to go out tracting and we didn't get too far before we had to pick up a member.... cause we were bringing them to a lesson. We brought a member in our ward and he is blind. So we drove the 45 min to where our appointment was. We had a good lesson with her. Our member was awesome and had some way good thoughts to share and helped explain some things as well. He was a great missionary. We sadly found out that our friend doesn't like it when we talk about things that we both don't believe. So prayer and scripture study are good. But we are not allowed to talk about the plan of salvation...and we can't get her to church cause her mom who is a JW tells her she is not allowed to go. So that makes it a little hard but we had a good little chat and had a good time spent with our member. We also listened to the talk His Grace is Sufficent by Brad Wilcox. If you have never read that I highly recommend it cause it's BOMB!! But I would recommend listening to it cause there are some parts where it's so much better where you can hear him Haha. But then we got back and had a late dinner and then finished the night out contacting.

Saturday was quite the eventful day. We were ready to have a good morning block of tracting. The VERY first door....wife answers and tells us that's it's a bad time and to come back later, but then her husband comes out and just starts yelling at us and getting up in our faces...telling us to go away... so we leave and try to be as nice as possible and he's like "Go away! RUN!" That's all I can write cause I am not sure if the other Finnish words are missionary appropriate if you know what I mean Haha. Elder Andersen almost got hit. He was getting ready to, but nothing happened. But man, poor guy must have found some mold on his bread right after toasting it. I know how that feels and it sucks. So we just got him at a bad time. Hopefully his next loaf doesn't have mold on it but who knows:)). Next guy walking in the street, after that circus show we attended. "You gonna like convert me to play baseball or something?" Honestly that's a first for hearing that. But apparently he met missionaries in the 50s and played baseball with them. And the last guy we talked to was way cool. He thought I was 23 haha, and elder Andersens 22. I love it when people guess how old we are cause we are way younger than their guesses. But he wasn't interested but we talked about work , skiing  food, languages. He's a cool dude. Then we went back and did studies. And then we went to a ward activity. We went for a walk in the woods to some bird tower. A member was telling me you can see a lot of cool birds. We hiked through the woods and to this bird watching tower. And you would not belive it, I saw the the biggest thing flying in the sky coming towards us and it was loud. It was like a big giant airplane. That's cause it was:))). There were no birds in sight. But I did have some good pastries from the bakery so it made up for not seeing birds. But we had some friends ask us if we were coming to play soccer that day. So we went and played with them. That night we visited a friend at his work and chatted with him. We walked the dark Finnish streets and there was not a soul on the streets. But we walked and didn't get a thing. But still an overall good day.

Sunday was a pretty good day. We went to church and it's always good to see the members in our ward and talk about the week. It was fast Sunday so we had a good testimony meeting and for second hour we watched the introduction video to the new youth program the church has. It was great to cause our branch President wanted to watch it in English so we watched it in English. It looks like a pretty good program they have. Kinda sad to see that the EFY program is done from what I understood. I really enjoyed going to EFY the times that I went. Probably one of the things that helped me out a lot. But I'm sure they have a good new program going. After church we were talking to members and one came up and was like "would you like to come eat tacos after church?"... now it would just be plain rude to say no. Tacos, on fast Sunday... well gosh be darned we will be there at 1:50 haha. Just kidding we showed up at 2. But that was way fun and we got some way good food. Then after, we went to help a member move a book shelf. By then it was dinner time and we had a lot of food so we weren't all that hungry so we made some calls. Called some members. We then called a less active to see if he could meet today and not later in the week. So we met him at the church, played some ping pong, and then talked about marriage with him. We talk about it quite a bit with him. But it was good. Then for the night we walked around the streets trying to find someone to talk to and all we found was some graffiti and our neighbor walking inside right before we went in. So not much luck on the street contacting side. But being with members today was a big plus.

Monday seriously went by soo fast. That day just disappeared. We went tracting in the morning block and we tore through this way long street and for a small bit this cat followed us to each house. A little creepy. Not a fan of cats but we tracted for a little while. We got to talk to some way nice people,  but they didn't want to go any farther than just the few minutes we talked to them. We came back and did studies and we went to teach our friend. We finished teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and he told us a lot to prepare for next time cause he has some big serious questions he wants to discuss. So I'm really not sure what's gonna happen. But it went well. Then we went back for dinner and during dinner a less active texted us asking us if we had anything or if we could chat with him. So we met him at the church and talked about the book of Mormon and the Bible. So that went really well. Just a fast day, just boom, boom, boom. But it was good. That is about it for the week though. We have a fun week this week with splits and zone conference and general conference. So I'm excited for that. 

Elder Love out.

1) "Just street contacting"
2-4) Vaasa beach
5) "Heel clickin cause I'm on a mission"
6) Vanhin Love in Vaasa
7-8) "Who is your lifeguard? It should be God."
9) Walk in the woods
10-14) Sunset pictures
15) "If missionaries were trees"
16-18) ward activity
19) Yummy pastries 
20-21) Vanhin Love and Anderson