Footprints in Finland: #99 Meet the new Mission President and Fishing

Pretty busy week with some fun adventures. Hope you enjoy the read.

Wednesday was a pretty good day. In the morning we had district council. Sadly this one was online but that's okay. I do enjoy the in person ones more but who wouldn't Haha. It was a good district council though. Then we had some lunch and hopped on that study grind before heading out to do some contacting and Facebook finding. Honestly with the whole Corona thing still going on and just the people in Turku... contacting is a bit tough cause really nobody really wants to talk to us Haha. But that night was pretty fun cause we met with our man Jukka Pekka and that was way good. We read in the Book of Mormon with him and had a very good discussion about how you can't have one foot in the world and one foot with the gospel. It just doesn't work, and what we have to do to get to one side and if we stay off how we can come back. It was a great discussion and it was good to see him again in person cause we met him at the church. It was way fun!

Thursday not all that much happened. It was a really big contacting day on facebook and on the streets. But there must have been something in the water that day cause man there were SO MANY PEOPLE that had absolutely no interest in talking to us. Sorry if I got your hopes up with that all caps but then it took a turn Haha. But yeah we walked everywhere and nobody wanted to chat:)). Me and Elder Dossett had a good time together so at least we enjoyed our time together. I guess the Finns just didn't want to enjoy that with us:)) But honestly that's about all that happened Thursday.

Friday was meet the president day! So we went to Tampere nice and early in the morning. Rolled into Tampere and walked to the chapel and met the other missionaries. It was way good to see them again! Honestly probably one of the best parts of the big meets is to see the other elders and sisters. But we met President and Sister Kervinen. They spent the first like hour and a half almost just going around to each companionship and chatting with them and getting to know them. After that they talked to us about kind of the vision they had for their mission, and the thoughts they had when they were called. Honestly I thought the story was hilarious. But it was crazy to hear President Kervinens conversion story. He received the Book of Mormon from his friend who was a less active and told him "Hey read this. Maybe you will understand it better than I do." So he decided to read it one day cause he had some questions and wanted answers. Read the whole book over the summer then ran into the elders one night and set up a meeting for the next day. They came over Monday and taught him and answered his questions. They came over Tuesday- Saturday as well and taught him and answered his questions. They came over every day for 6 days straight. On that Saturday they invited him to be baptized on Sunday, the very next day. He accepted and was baptized the next day. So he was taught and baptized in 7 days. That's crazy!!! But so cool!!! Anyway President Kervinen and Sister Kervinen are awesome I really like them. That night after getting back to Turku elder Dossett and I went out contacting and got held up outside a bar for like 45 minutes haha. At first we got stopped by these 3 drunk guys and we chatted with them and answered their questions. They were way nice and really enjoyed talking to us. Well when they went in another guy came out of the bar to talk to us as well, and we talked to him for a while. Then one of the guys from before came back out and we talked with him again. But they were all nice guys and cracking jokes so it was pretty funny. But they loved us and thought that we were as they called us "Real Jesus Men" and they were very proud of the work we do Haha. Then we contacted all the way to a store and stopped by to grab some drinks for our 4th of July dinner and ran into a member and we chatted with him for a while as well. Overall a very good and effective night contacting.

Saturday was the 4th of July! And of course we had to celebrate. So during the day it was packed with Facebook finding and street contacting. But in the evening is when we celebrated. We went over to the elders apartment and the sisters came and we had bought some makkara to BBQ and had some chips and sodas. The closet thing we could get to American food and hung out. Then after dinner it was off to sports. But because it was raining so bad we got just a tad bit wet as we walked to the church to play some volleyball cause we couldn't exactly play outside that day. But we played some volleyball and then played chair soccer. I had no idea what it was but apparently it's like an all on all kind of thing and you try to hit other people's chairs with the ball and if your chair gets hit then you get out. It was a little tricky at first but then I got the hang of it and it was pretty fun! But that was pretty much all that happened that day.

Sunday was a way fun day! It was the first Sunday that we actually got to go back to church. So like after 4ish months we made it back to church Haha. But it was good, just a short sacrament meeting but we had the chance to meet some of our members which was great! After church we stuck around and talked with a lot of members to get to know them better and introduced ourselves. After church elder Dossett and I did some weekly planning cause we had not really had the chance to do that yet. So we did some weekly planning. That night we did some Facebook finding and also had a good come follow me with the district. And after that it consisted of some more Facebook finding.

Monday we had a really eventful day planned. We had a service project planned to help a member.... that was going to take a long time and then we also had a meeting set up with this guy we met on facebook (sounds kinda sketchy huh? Haha) so we could teach him some Finnish and it all got canceled. They all canceled their plans with us Haha. But that's okay cause we had lots of finding time this day. Me and Elder Dossett were talking during our weekly planning on how we could get some creative ideas to talk to people... cause the whole street contacting normally isn't going to hot for us so we thought we would try some new stuff. Well we figured lots of people go fishing in Finland. Why don't we go fish in missionary clothes and talk to other fishermen. So we embarked on our fishing adventure and we got to the spot. Literally the worst weather you could have for fishing is what we had. Or it could have been the best I don't really know cause I've gone fishing maybe 10 times in my life. Anywho it's way way way windy and literally like nobody was out. Honestly I thought we would at least have someone even ask why we were trying to fish in such bad weather but nobody wanted to talk to us:). Probably cause we were 2 weirdos fishing in bad weather who knows. But we took a long walk to see what else was around this area we were in and talk to people, not much success but hey we were doing our best and that's what matters right?

Well we came home, had some dinner and then did some facebook work and that was about it.

Pretty eventful week with more to come next week Haha. Hope y'all have a good week.

Elder Love out

1-2)Rainy morning run

3-5)Turku

6)Tuomio Kirkko

7)Meet the President meeting in Tampere

8)View from our apartment...we have gotten lots of rain

9-14)Naantali and Moomin world

15) Picked some blueberries

16-17) Me:)

18)Pancake cafe