Wednesday, June 17, 2020

#95 Old Fortress, Splits and contacting activities

Yeah... I think this week is a long one so buckle up Haha. But it could also be the same length as others... so in that case... still buckle up...cause as you know how the saying goes "Click it or ticket" hahahaha. Well enough drivers safety and here is the week:))

Wednesday was way fun! But also didn't go as planned really at all. But hey that's okay. We had some good studies in the morning and knocked out some Facebook before we had district council. In district council we reviewed zone conference and talked a lot about new ways that we could do contacting.  They want us to get creative and try new things. So we talked about that and actually put that into use later that day. In the middle of the day our friend Ayush messaged us if we could meet up so we went and met him in the center of town and talked for a long time... and then took a walk with him around part of the city. Really good chat to get to know him better as well... so that we can know how to better help him. Then we got a text from the sisters saying their plans had fallen through and asked if we wanted to help with a new contacting idea using chalk. So we of course said yes. We went home and made a real quick dinner and then went to meet the sisters in the park and Ayush came to meet us there. So the sisters decided that they wanted to draw out the plan of salvation in a fancy way.... and so we got right to work on that following a picture they had found. We had a few people stop to just look at it and a guy came to skateboard through it a few times but that's okay. Ayush was playing Maroon 5 off his phone cause he wanted some music and we weren't gonna complain with that Haha. When we finished I ended up chatting with this one guy for about 15min....we were talking about what we had drawn and getting to know him and what his thoughts were on God... and some of the things we had drawn out. He was a way nice guy and we had a good chat and he took a Plan of Salvation pamphlet so that was great! Way fun day!

Thursday we hit that facebook find n grind hard. Elder Larson had an idea for something to try out on facebook... so we got to work on that in trying to get it together. And we had a lot of messages to respond to so we were trying to get back to everyone as well. So the morning was pretty busy. We went for a walk to go contact and went to see how our chalk art was doing.... and it was still going strong! We got back and we met with a returning member over the phone for some language practice and had a way good chat getting to know them better. Next week we are gonna meet them in a park so we can see them in person and we will teach them English and they will teach us Finnish! So that's pretty great! After getting off the phone with them the Elders called us and asked if we could join them for a lesson and game night with their investigator to try to help. So we ate some dinner pretty quick and got over to the church pretty quick. We met them and went to a nearby park and played "Mölkky" and it's this lawn game where you throw this wood stick and try to get to 50 points and its way fun! We played that for a little bit and then we went back to the church and we met with their investigator and talked with her for a bit. Hopefully things work for the best... but it's not looking so good right now. But after our lesson we ran into the sisters on the street and talked with them for a bit. And then we went with the elders to scout out a good spot  by the river to do a contacting activity for the next day! And Elder Stanley and I had a conversation while walking around about how all these people at the bars on boats in the river were like the great and spacious building in Lehis dream. And also how sad it is that nobody wants to learn about God. But we will find them don't you worry!

Friday was a way fun day! So we had splits with the Rauma elders and they came down to Turku. So we went and got them from the bus station in the morning. During the day we did lots of work on facebook and spent some time talking to people on the phone. We also got lunch and brought the other elders along so all the boys got together which was way fun! But the best part of splits was our contacting activity that we did that night. So we did a contacting activity down by the river and that was just crazy! Come to find out if you go contacting by the river in the evening and particularly the side of the river we were set up on, about 95% of the people you talk to are drunk. So that made for an interesting night. But elder Stanley, Gatrell, and I all went out to do some contacting on the other side of the river so we didn,t have too  many people by the river. Not many people were in the mood to talk to us. We chatted with some guy and his dog for a while so that was good. But immediately after that we had a couple of guys come up to us and tell us to give up religion and give up our faith. And just told us how wrong we were and it would be best to just go home. Well yay. Those people definitely make ya feel good Haha. But it's not the first time it's happened to me.. so I didn't really care:). We headed back across the river to the spot where we were set up which happened to be under a bridge so we could use the wall for some chalk. We were asking people what brought them joy and having them write on the wall. We had some wonderful answers like "friends, family, traveling..." and other answers like "Beer, snorting drugs, and those types of things" so we definitely had a variety of answers. But we switched and I primarily did work with elder Stitcher and Gatrell and Stanley contacting people. While elder Pauole and Larson went out to find people the 4 of us stayed by our walk and stopped people. Well our wonderful friends who told us to give up our religion came walking up and are more drunk than they were before and they excitedly yelled out to us "Hey! It's the Mormons!" So what do you when that happens? You excitedly greet them back the same way as if you're best friends. But the one guy that that told us to give up came up and threw his arm around me so I threw my arm around him and we start talking like we we were just the best of pals... while his friend started handing us all his Dr. Peppers cause he was tired of carrying them around. He kept trying to offer me his beer and take a sip which I kindly declined... but we talked with them and we had a decent conversation and ended on a better note than the first time. Their friends were completely gone and we saw some interesting things happen, we'll just say that. We ended our conversation with getting a picture together and them telling me that I could send our picture into Salt Lake and tell them I converted them so that I would earn some big points. Then like 5 min after that Elder Stitcher and I contacted these 2 ladies that were what we thought sober at first... but they were long gone. She was showing me and elder Stitcher pictures from 40 years ago when she was 20 and like leaning on us and getting very close....and by that time it was time to pack up and head home. Do you think our night ended there? Nope Haha. We walked about 10 feet and got called over by like 10 guys about our age who said they wanted to talk to us. But these guys were actually really cool. We got one of their numbers and we talked to them for a while. We had a really good conversation with them and they had so many questions about us as missionaries so that was way fun! And walking home you had everyone staring you down and well that's just what happens and there were more drunk people Haha. But it was a way fun contacting activity and it was hilarious Haha.  We ended the night with some ice cream with the Rauma Elders.

Saturday in the morning the Rauma elders headed out pretty early in the morning. Elder Larson and I decided to take some time to clean up our apartment a bit so we did that. It's always good to have a nice clean apartment. After lunch we went to go do some weekly planning and that took a while trying to prepare for the last week of the transfer which is crazy. We had some dinner and then that night we went to our first sports night and that was way fun! We played some volleyball and that was a ton of fun! I haven't played volleyball in like a year so that was way fun to play again. But we had a pretty good turn out. I felt bad for one guy that came though, he wore jean shorts and he ripped them and ripped them bad before we started playing. We were just passing it around before we started but he hung around to play for a while until the rip got worse. But he,s coming back next time so that's great! But that was about our day, it went by really fast!

Sunday was a good and very quick day. We had church and had a good come follow me discussion. After church we stayed after for a bit to practice some songs for a contacting activity that we will be doing later in the week. Honestly other than that our Sunday was spent doing some Facebook finding and giving a spiritual thought to Elder Larsons family. Of course we ended the night with the best thing of all and that is call ins! I love being able to chat with the missionaries for a while and hear about their weeks.

Monday was a pretty fun day! We had some Facebook finding in the morning and had a big day of trying to find some new groups to join to get some new people to talk to. We did language study at the church cause we were meeting with the other missionaries to practice some more for this activity.... cause we are playing the guitar and singing and there will be like 10 of us... so it should be pretty good. We are having 2 people play the guitar and apparently I'm that second player so I gotta learn some stuff real quick haha. And that night we taught a friend of elder Larson's from back in Utah. And that was way fun and it went really well! Then we finished off the night with a zoom call with the mission and that was it :))

This week has been way fun! And we will get transfer calls on Friday and I'll find out who my last companion will be because I'll be going into my last transfer. So sad yet exciting! 

Elder Love out

1-17) The Tuomio church
18)"Burger King cup gang"
19-20) Old Bunkers
21) "Looks like a 70's picture"
22) Turku
23) Brings back old memories:)
24-25) Pday
26-29) Splits with the Rauma Elders and contacting
30) Street in Turku
31-34) Splits
35-39) Chalk...Plan of Salvation
40) Splits
41........) Old Fortress













































































No comments:

Post a Comment