It been a purdy good week!:) Lots of travel and many other things happening. But an overall good week:)
Tuesday was just P day and we didn't do much... we had to pack and get ready for our trip to Oulu for zone conference and then a day in Seinäjoki...so we spent some time just doing that. We rode down to Seinäjoki to meet up with those elders and switch trains to Oulu. When we got down there and hopped on, we were also accompanied by the Tampere STLs... but us elders enjoyed our Jatti Pizza. This pizza is about 40ish euros so we all pitched... it's huge!! but we ate that pretty quick and it was a waay good pizza. By the time we were done and had been chilling for a while we had the Kokkola and the Pietarsaari elders hop on and all us missionaries had a way good train ride up... it was way fun. We got to Oulu and went to the apartment and got ready to end the night with ice cream and get some sleep. Elder Andersen, the Pietarsaari elders and I kept up the trend of sleeping on the parveke..(built in balcony with glass windows) So we grabbed our mats we were sleeping on, blankets, and we found sleeping bags in the apartment and we got our stuff all set up. Surprisingly those glass windows keep out the cold pretty good and with us 4 out there, it was pretty warm and I slept waaay good:)) Probably the best night sleep I ever had at Oulu. But that was the day.
Wednesday we got up and got ready for zone conference and headed to the church. It was way fun to see the zone again!! I got to see my boy Elder Isom again so that was a party. It's fun having so many of the elders from out MTC group in the same zone. But we had a really good zone conference. We continued our talk about developing Christlike attributes. Sister Aura encouraged us to when we pray to really open up to him, tell him how you are and how you feel. She's pretty persistent on getting the missionaries to share their feelings:) She'll ask you how you are and pretty much no matter what you respond with she will then ask you "what does that mean?" So you always better be prepared Haha. We also spent a lot of time talking about the Book of Mormon, how to use it in the work and also talked about baptismal commitments. Sadly we had to hear some final testimonies from some elders who are going home. I have become really good friends with these guys and it is pretty sad to see them go. One of them was my former Swedish companion. Crazy to think we served together 10 months ago about hahaha. It goes by waay fast! My trainer also is going home at the end of this transfer, sadly I have not seen him since my training transfer... but I'll have to give him a call at least. But then we had interviews with President. We were also the last ones so we were in Oulu for a while. But it's always good to meet with President and he was very loving in telling us that he was proud of the work we were doing in Vaasa. Since we had interviews we got put on a later train. But also after interviews we also had an hour before our train left...so we went and got snacks for the train ride. Me and Elder Aitken walked the whole train and counted how many people were there. There was less than 30 people on a train of 8 cars haha. We were in car 1 and we had the whole thing to ourselves. The top half and the bottom. We enjoyed our train ride back together. We got back pretty late but we also had not had dinner...so we went and got some real food. Well at least as real as kebab can get and then took that back, ate it, and crashed haha.
Thursday morning we got up and for our exercise we ran up the one hill in Seinäjoki and did an obstacle course there and that was way fun. We did our personal studies and then headed out. I went with Elder Aitken and we had a lot of fun.(He met Elder Aitkin before he entered the MTC, and have been best friends ever since) Just chatting about really anything and everything and we have a lot of fun together. Way fun to hang out with my boy. Then we went back for some lunch and studies to plan lessons. We planned lessons and then I went with Elder LeBaron to teach a lesson to a less active member while the others went to another lesson. We had a great lesson with him. We talked about Gods love for him, and watched a video with Henry B. Eyring. And then we talked about general conference coming up and committed him to come and see. Such a good lesson and Elder LeBaron is a bomb missionary so it was way fun to teach with him. We also went tracting after and waited for this lady like 10 min cause she was on the phone and had to finish her conversation. But then we talked to her for like another 20 min and she was way cool! Just a way nice lady who was down to chat with us then and later so that's cool. We also fed a boxer dog who was way scared of us and got a little cold. I then went with Elder Aitken for some more tracting and had some good conversations and enjoyed to see how far he's come since we were just clueless in the MTC over a year ago haha. The Elders are the Seinbrokis. After that we did some language study and had some way good salmon casserole made by elder LeBaron. I gotta get that recipe cause it's way good. Then we got some mud cakes and ice cream for dessert and that was our night. Also had another great nights rest:)).
Friday was a pretty slow day at first. We got up and got ready in Seinäjoki and then the Elders took us to the train station. Well we got there and me and elder Andersen were looking for our train. And the only train that was in the station just then begins to pull away. Not too worried cause we were not supposed to leave for another 5 min and this train was going to Oulu. But come to find out no more trains were coming. We quickly found out we had a bus ticket!!.. so we had to run over to catch the long distance bus back to Vaasa:)). Pretty relaxing ride, I haven't been on a bus ride that long since I was serving in Kajaani and those bus rides were a few hours longer. But it was like an hour and a half ride back so it wasn't bad at all. But we got back to Vaasa. We did studies and we unpacked and got settled back into the routine of things pretty quick and then started weekly planning. We weekly planned and then we made a list of all our people we were inviting to general conference cause we were gonna stop by personally and talk to them and not just text or call them. So we made the list and ordered where we wanted to go. By then it was dinner time and a member called us and asked if we wanted to go to dinner with her and meet someplace. So we met her at this Mexican/ Texas themed restaurant and boy was that good. I got shrimp tacos with mango salsa and it also had freshly made guacamole and tomatoes and chili peppers. Wow that was amazing... I could have eaten 100 of these tacos. And I haven't been too big of a guacamole fan... but this one was really good. So we enjoyed our dinner and chatted with her. Then we went out to invite our friends to General Conference and try to set up lessons with them. It was way good to see them and talk with them. We had some way good conversations and we also followed up with a potential that we haven't seen in a while and she was home!! And we talked for a while and it was way good and we also found out where we can buy real American jello!... so that was awesome as well:)) And that about capped off our day but it was a good first day back in Vaasa.
Saturday we had a service opportunity and we got to help a member from Pietarsaari move stuff out of his apartment here in Vaasa. He used to live here and had now moved and just sold his apartment in Vaasa.. so now we had to help move everything. But that was fun we got to do something different and we don't get too many opportunities to do this... so it was a lot of fun. We chatted with some of the young men as well and talked with them for a while and that was pretty fun as well. We had lunch and did studies and then one less active we have been working with asked us if we could meet him at the church for some ping pong and talk. We played for a little bit, we made some dinner at the church... nothing too fancy. We found some mac and cheese at the store the other day from America and we thought we would try it. So we had that and some hot dogs with him. We got him to stay that night for the first session of general conference so that was awesome. And let's be honest here, Jeffery R. Holland was bomb at opening general conference. But a way good first session so it was fun to watch.
Funny story. So we were making lunch and had bought these premade pancake things... so I just had to heat them up in a pan. I was doing that and putting peanut butter on them and then rolling them up. Yum. Well Elder Andersen was making banana bread and was putting ingredients away. I was just focused on my pancakes and talking to the Seinäjoki Elders on the phone. Elder Andersen spilled some salt on my pancakes... and there was like this glob of salt in one of them. Well... I hadn't seen it was salt and thought it was just sugar so I threw some peanut butter on and kept going like no big deal. Well like halfway through eating... me "you know I had peanut butter with breakfast this morning and it was fine but something went wrong cause these pancakes are like way bitter" as I kept eating these terrible pancakes with hope's it would get better... cause I had a good breakfast. Elder Andersen then replied "well they wouldn't be so bitter if I hadn't spilled salt on them" and we start cracking up cause I was so certain he spilled sugar on them... but instead I was eating all the salt he spilled...haha.
Sunday was a way fun day! We just did all our studies in the morning and did that till lunch. After lunch we got out to visit a less active member to see how he was doing after some hard stuff happening in his life... and then went to visit an investigator. Well he told us the day before he could come to conference but when we went to pick him, up he told us he couldn't come cause he had invited his friend over. But we had a good chat with him and by then it was already time for the first session. So we ran to the church and we had a solid 4 people there! 2 of them were me and elder Andersen. But we enjoyed conference and it was wonderful cause they had an English translation so I got a lot more out of it than I would have if it was in Finnish. Then before I know it the session is already over. So we finished watching the Saturday session and then for dinner we made some frozen pizzas real quick and watched the world report and saw what was happening in the world. We got ready for the Sunday morning session watching it Sunday night Haha. Wow that one was great!! I think my favorite was Elder Uchtdorfs talk, I really enjoyed that one!! Gotta reread a few cause they were way good. But man I think this has been the fastest conference ever it just flew by. Now granite I have a whole session to catch up on cause we can't see the last session.... but still.... wow it went fast and wow it was good. Just an overall really good and fast day.
WOW!!! Monday was just a crazy day! Literally this day went by so fast and it was gone in a flash but wow so much happened. We were tracting that morning in an area we had not been to. We were knocking doors and we meet this Swedish guy. We have the awkward thing about what language we are gonna speak. It's settled that we speak English. He told us to come in. We started talking, and just when you think your life is hard and you got problems... Well I was humbled and put in my place after talking with him for a little bit. He has a great attitude about everything. But we were able to talk to him about God and why bad things happen to good people and then led into a restoration lesson. He had some really good questions and led to a good moment for us to talk and testify about the Book of Mormon. Then we walked away like woah! That was awesome! Well we continued our day...studies, eating, had a lesson fall through and did follow up with people. Well we went back out cause with our schedule it ended weird... and we didn't have much time left to tract. So we had in mind to go to the student housing. Well we had the feeling to go to a certain building that we had friends and members live close by and been there a lot. We had knocked like 10 doors and we got to the last door and it was one of our soccer friends. We tracted into him before and talked about the gospel... but eventually just talked about soccer. We have become way good friends and play soccer together every week. We decided to knock on his door and see how he was doing. We thought he might be at work but tried anyway. He was home and invited us in to talk. And I had no idea what I was walking into going through that door. We sat down and it was the normal stuff... we were chatting... talking about sports, hobbies we had at home, music, we were playing the guitar and just having a good time. Getting to know each other more and just kinda being bros. Well we got on the topic about God. Well this conversation was like taking a lighter to gas. It just ignites. I don't know if there was a topic about the gospel that we did not talk about. We talked about the restoration, marriage, the law of Chastity, the word of wisdom, parts of the plan of salvation, why does God allow bad things to happen, agency... I mean I can go on forever. But we were talking and we asked him. What would it mean to you if you knew God was there? What would you do? And he gave the quickest response... I would do anything.. I would serve him for the rest of my life. We followed up with...like you would quit drinking and on and on about things we had talked about. And he said... yeah I would, cause it would mean a lot to me to know that he is there. Wow. I don't think I've ever felt that way in any lesson with anyone!! Sitting there and talking with him... I just couldn't help but smile! He'd started to ask a question and I could literally finish it for him if I wanted. I probably looked like a goober cause I was just grinning from ear to ear... so excited to answer it. Me and Elder Andersen would just look at each other when he would ask something and just grin cause we knew where it was going, we had the answer, and we knew how it would change his life. Probably one of the best experiences on my mission. He said he would read the Book of Mormon... and also ended the night with him telling us that he would see us at church on Sunday. Literally just the most amazing lesson ever!! If you told me that I would just face no after no after no. Being yelled at, chased after my whole mission. Not having a single person ever want to talk to me about anything or give me the time of day. But you told me I would be able to sit down and talk with this guy and have the lesson we had with him at the end of my 2 years. I would do it. Something like that is what makes it all worth it. Just indescribable!! I wish you could have been there to sit in that room and feel the things I felt and see the things I saw. It is priceless. One of the best ways to end a night.
Elder Love out
1-2) Vaasa
3-4) Train ride to Oulu
5) Sleeping out on the covered balcony in Oulu
6) Priceless picture with mission president's wife
7-9) Zone Conference....Austen and Elder Englund who is going home to Sweden. Austen had a lot of fun serving with him
10) "If only I could go back to Kajaani!"
11) Austen and Elder Aitkin...his friend
12) The American restaurant
13) Splits
14-15) Elder Lebaron and his famous salmon casserole!
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