#74 Swedish lesson!

Well... this has been quite the week with a lot going on haha but it was a very enjoyable week and I hope you enjoy the read as well!

Wednesday was a busy day but also not... cause really not that much happened. But caught the early bus down to Vaasa for district council. It's always fun to go back and visit Vaasa cause it feels like I still kinda serve there even though I don't.:) It's just fun to visit. But we had district council and President was with us cause he had come up to do interviews as well. We had a good district council talking about planning for baptism daily and reviewing our past district goal and doing role plays. After district council we were all just hanging out and chatting waiting for our interviews. It's always good to get to meet President. He's just the greatest so it was good chatting with him for the little time we had. President also treated the whole district to a late lunch so he took as all to the Svenska Klubben. It's like a fancy buffet. I ate there with a member when I served in Vaasa and ate some flounder. This time they had some chicken parmesan thing that was really good and this like beef patty with the mystery sauce that nobody knows what was... but it was good. It was fun chatting with the district and president. We went back to the church and they finished up interviews and then we went to the bus station and caught the bus back to Jakobstad. Well we got back to Jakobstad pretty late...so we had time to make some dinner and by the time we finished dinner it was Swedish study time and our day was over. So it was way fun but way fast.

Thursday started out like most of our Thursdays go Haha. We went to our disabled friends home... his name is Kenneth, and helped him out. I had to fix his speakers again Haha. But this time it was so smooth....his speakers sounded great. Lowkey kinda jealous of his speakers:)) Then we helped him put away some Christmas decorations, hung up a calendar, and he wanted to show us his new rehab game that he plays from his wheelchair..so he let us try and it... was pretty fun. Then we came back for some studies and we prepped for a potential lesson. This lady we had tracted into last week at the door set up another time that we could come back and today was that day. We got a member who could come with us... and if it went through it would be Elder Roylance and mine first lesson taught in Swedish... so we were a little scared Haha. But we had an early dinner after cause our night was pretty busy. We went to teach our lesson, our member was there, we went up and the lady was home and we were in:)). It was go time with our Swedish:)). So Veli  (Brother title in Finnish) Veli Back was awesome at befriending her and was a great help in the lesson to help us with words we didn't know or help explain things a little better. But we taught her the restoration and she was just awesome! Magareta is her name and she is just so cool! She had great questions and elder Roylance and I were able to teach the restoration in Swedish Haha. Didn't think I could ever do that. But the restoration is just such a good lesson no matter what language it's given in. She had great lessons... and at the end she kept asking questions about like why we are here and what happens after this life....and Veli Back was just like "The elders can teach you more about that next time" and so we are working to get a lesson with her so we can go back. So we were way pumped. Then we went to teach Finnish/Swedish. This time we just taught Finnish and our investigator Jenni showed up. Jenni is our eternigator who's been investigating for over 3 years now. And that was good and then went home to study.

Friday was not all that of an exciting day cause not much happened. We had a meeting in the morning. Well Elder Roylance had a training meeting for being a district leader but the zone leaders asked if I'd join... so I sat there with them on the call Haha. Best part and funniest part of the day was at the end. Shout out to Elder Isom for this one Haha. But at the end he was doing some dance thing and drops it like it's hot and BOOM! My poor boy ripped his pants. But literally the funniest thing in the world. Then we went to go do some service for an older gentleman in our ward Veli Lehtinen. He's moving so we had to clear out a bunch of wood. He also gave us some track suits that are like straight outta the 90's so we couldn't get covered in dirt or saw dust. But it was way fun... I really enjoyed it. As much as I love talking to the people and knocking on doors....it was nice to do something different. Then he invited us in for some baked good and juice. I swear that's all people want to feed us.... baked goods and like plates full. Now... I have no problem with that but boy it's a dangerous dance with the devil you're doing there. Then after that we went back and the rest of our night consisted of dinner and weekly planning. We did that for the rest of the night cause it takes forever. But hey it was good.

 

Saturday we got up and watched our usual Saturday morning cartoons. Oh wait sorry that's what I did when I was 7:))). But we did our studies in the morning in hopes that we could get a meeting with our friends who have a baptismal date... cause we hadn't been able to get a hold of them all week. Well the great part was we got a hold of them and set up a time to come over later that day. We went tracting and met some way cool people and drunk people. The drunks were way impressed with our Swedish but not sure if they actually were or if was the alcohol talking. But hey I'll take it. Then we went over to Tom and Niina to chat with them. Well things weren't all happy in the magic kingdom if you get what I'm saying. So we will see what happens with them. But we had a chat with Tom and then went to our next appointment. Our next appointment our guy wasn't home but she gave us some great directions to find him. They consisted of "go to the end of the street, take a left, and then go that way and then it will be right there" Well my thoughts were what is "IT" and it will be where? So we tried to figure it out but all that happened was we were on a different road in the neighborhood looking for it. Unless IT is just a row of houses and apartments on both sides of the streets...then I don't know what it is:)). But anywho we tracted and then went back for some dinner. Then for our night block we went to follow up with a potential... but instead of seeing him we met this way cool guy from India and he was way down to talk with us later and is thinking about inviting his friend who is Christian as well. So that's pretty sick. And that about ended our day. Also today I listened to a talk by Hank Smith called Real Life. Well it's a great talk but man that had literally the saddest ending to the talk ever. Like I'll probably listen to it again but maybe not cause the next time I'll probably cry. It was way sad. But I listened to another talk and that one was funny so it made up for it Haha. 

Sunday was a pretty good day. We went to church a little early to help shovel some snow. That's right we got snow:)). Church was really good and our friend Thure made it to church as well as Jenni. But Thure chugged across town on his moped/scooter in the snow... so I was way proud of him. But church was way good.  Then after church we went to finish preparing our sweet pork for dinner but we got invited over for a dinner at like that moment. Like food was already on the table. So we quickly finished our prep in like 10 seconds and then biked over way quick. We had an awesome dinner appointment and had wayyy good food and lots of ice cream. So that was great but also these members are awesome. We had a good talk on how we could help our friend Jenni. So it was cool to see the members watching out for our friends we are teaching.  After that we went back and did some studies and then headed out to get some good ole tracting done. You know we are out there and door after door after door. Literally like nobody was home Haha. I have no idea where the people went, unless like the country fair was that day I don't know where they went Haha. But there was a few people. Then we finished the night studying. But funny thing Veli Back who came with us on Thursday to our lesson to teach Magareta. He is so giddy about our new investigstor. He greets us at church "How are the fine elders who just received the Golden Investigator? We're teaching her again right?" But he's way excited haha. Such a funny guy. He also showed us his boats this week as well which are named after some names mentioned with the Jaredites that I can't remember right now haha.

 

Monday was a pretty slow day. We went out tracting and the first door we knocked answered and we were like sick this is off to a good start. And then about 4 buildings later we hadn't talked to a single person Haha. But hey that's okay we just don't have time to teach all those people that live in those buildings at once.... If not we would need like 20 sets of missionaries just in Jakobstad haha. But we had some sweet pork burritos for lunch and studies and then back out to tracting. We met some bros from Ukraine. Like 7 guys all in one apartment working for a construction company and we asked if they spoke English and they all went off at each other "who speaks English?" In English Haha. And eventually one who knew enough talked to us. Sadly they were only here for a few more weeks before they head back to Ukraine.  Then we went back and had more sweet pork burritos. After that we taught Jenni. Had a good chat with her. Sitting there  I think I figured out more of what we can do to help her so that was pretty nice. Then that was our day. 

We are headed to Oulu this week so that should be fun!!

Have a great week!

Elder Love out

Also I'm sure you are very curious as to why I have included people's names in my email cause I haven't done that like once on my mission because of the privacy laws. Well it changed that we could include first names. But also turns out I'm like maybe 5-6ish months late. I just asked pres this last week if we could include names cause I had no idea. But I will try my best to include the names so you can actually know what  people we work with here in Finland. But I've been writing this way for over a year now so its gonna be a hard habit to break Haha. But I hope you enjoyed reading stuff that actually has names with it Haha.