#72 Äventyr i Finland

And so the adventures of Elder Love continue in the land of Finland:)) Hope you find my adventures as entertaining as I did... cause it was a fun week:) 

Wednesday was a pretty good day. It was New Years day... so pretty much we didn't do much cause we can't go out and do normal work. So me and elder Roylance played a lot of games and we played some ping pong at the church. Some members dropped off some baked goods so we ain't complaining about that. 

Thursday was a pretty busy day. We had service in the morning for our disabled friend. We helped him in his garage and I fixed his speakers so he can listen to music while he is out there, so that was fun. We had a good time there. We went home to prepare a lesson and studies and lunch. After that we went over to go teach our friend who became a new friend to teach! It is great cause we have had a few people just fall off the face of the earth and we have no idea where they went. But hey we got this new guy and he is awesome! He is hilarious. He was a sailor when we was younger and has traveled a lot... So bringing back his days as a sailor... he wants to practice his English with us. It's hard cause we speak Finnish and Swedish with him but he will reply in English. But the guy cracks me up. He lives in an old folks home right now but he's moving out cause he can't stand it in there and tells us about how he can't wait to move Haha. But we taught him the restoration and it was great! He seems pretty willing and wanting to change and make his life better. He expressed how thankful he was that we came over to teach him and spend time with him cause he gets no visitors while he is there. Cool story about him as well. He was a former investigator from Vaasa. Well I actually called this guy while I was serving in Vaasa and sent him as a referral to Jakobstad and now I'm in Jakobstad and get to teach him!:)

Then we rushed home to eat dinner and get to another lesson cause our friend wanted to meet with us and just asked if we had time that night. And of course we did... so we dropped everything which just meant tracting time and went to meet with her and it went pretty well. And that was about our day.

Friday we got up early and bussed down to Vaasa for District Council. It is really fun getting to go back and visit an area that I served in. I miss serving there but I get to visit every few weeks so that makes it way fun. I did score a sick Finland hockey jersey from good ole Intersport before district council so I was quite happy about that. And this homie came up while I was looking at it. I had already decided to get it but then he adds these great words "you like it? I can take 10 euros off" well tempt me, tempt me. I was already sold cause it's a sick shirt but let's just toss a cherry on top of this great sundae. I was like sick I'll take it. Then we went to district council and that was way fun with the new district. I have now been in the district long enough that every single member is different from when I first got into the district so that is pretty funny. But we had a good time and had a good discussion. After that we  bussed back to Jakobstad and we weekly planned for the rest of the night.

Saturday we had another pretty busy day. The morning we had to go back and help our disabled friend again and that took longer than we thought... but we got it done and then headed home for lunch. We did studies and prepared a lesson to go teach our two friends with baptismal dates. We haven't seen them in a while and they are awesome. They are doing good. Still making progress and that is what we want to see! They have the funniest relationship too and they are way fun to be around. They do have an interesting relationship but it works for them so go them Haha. But we had a great conversation. We talked about prayer, scripture study, church, obedience and started talking about the law of Chastity. It was just going very smoothly so we kept rolling with it and it was great! Then we had some dinner and went tracting and had to stop by to ask some people what was up with our bus cards and that was about our day. Also random thing... if anyone knows why the heck it is so windy in Finland I would be very curious to know. It's been so frickin windy and I'm very curious to what's up haha. The winds up to 44km/h right now so that makes biking fun. I got hit by a gust of wind after passing a building and no joke almost got blown off my bike. And I'm sorry to you back home to hear about my bike stories:)). Trust me I know how to ride a bike. I've been doing it for a long time but I just seems to struggle here:)). Must be the difference in altitude or something cause I didn't have problems back in the states. Who knows:). 

Sunday was a pretty good day. We got up early and we went to our investigators place to walk with them to church. Sadly one of them was sick but we did get another one and walked with him. It was fast and testimony and meeting and there was like nobody there and one lady gave her testimony in Russian. I didn't understand that one at all. I haven't been trained in that one. But I did get up and gave my best shot at Swedish and i think it went pretty well... so I was proud of that. Then we went home and had some studies and then went out to go tracting. That one was kind of a lonely block cause literally nobody answered, we had one lady answer at the end only for her to get mad at us for having more than the bible haha. But all was okay cause we came home and had sweet pork burritos and they turned out really good. Then we went back out and did a lot of follow up. We went and followed up with some less active members and potentials. Trying to get lessons set up and checking on some members. But not many people were home.... Or they looked out through their blinds at us and never answered Haha. But our less actives answered so that made it better. Then we studied some Swedish and that was our day.

Monday was quite the day. We went to Nykarleby and visited some less actives and talked to lots of old ladies out for walks on the road Haha. Everything was going great. We went to the bus station and well guess what... because it was a holiday it wasn't coming for another 3 hours!! We had set up a lesson with someone at 18:00. Well Jakobstad is 20 kilometers away from where we were... so we were like.... how long does it take to walk there.... 4 hours!! So we started walking to get a head start.... so in case a member could come get us then we would already be on the way. Well we had been walking for like a half hour and we found a member that could come get us. So we waited on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.... and our member came to get us. Huge blessing cause making that walk would have been kinda crappy... but would have made a great story. But it got way better...  cause we went to study Swedish and went to our lesson. Well this lesson.... we had her read a talk ... it's called Stand Forever. It's a BYU speech and way good. We talked about the talk, being a member in the church, baptism, how the gospel blesses our lives, tithing, etc. We covered a lot but after 3 hours, Yeah it was a long one but wayyy good. We committed her to pray about baptism and she said yes. She's been investigating for over 3 years now so this is pretty big and I think we are getting there slowly. Then we walked to the bus station after to pick up our bikes.... then we biked home and that was the end of our day. 

But wow it's been a way fun week and will be excited to see what the next week has to bring for us Haha. 

Hope y'all have a good week.

Elder Love out


Austen sent his pictures a little late last week...so these pictures actually go with last weeks post:))

1. Avocado Christmas tree:)
2-4. Christmas morning
5. Ready for church with a new tie:)
6-7. Jakobstad
8-10. Nykarleby
11. First mirror selfie of the decade:)
12. 2nd mirror selfie of the decade:)
13. "My sick new souvenir. Finnish hockey jersey.