Footprints in Finland: #103 Just a FUN week!!

Way fun week! Hope you enjoy the read.

Also the best news this week is we found out we can Sauna!! So that's way sick

Wednesday was a way fun day. We had district council and this one was in person so it was a lot more fun. The elders from Rauma came down and stopped by our apartment as usual before district council. We started walking to the chapel and it was cloudy but no rain. Well... we make it most of the way and we are literally like down the street... 5 min from the church and it starts to rain. It's not to bad just light so you wouldn't get too wet, well about 1 minute later it is pouring rain and none of us had an umbrella or anything cause it hadn't rained. Well we get to the church and we are soaked. We got to the church and everyone else is dry like nothing happened but the 4 of us were dripping wet Haha. That's the start to the bad luck for Elder Love that day. We had a great district council and talked about finding new people to teach. It went really well. We went and ate lunch and after we went to the gym and passed a volleyball around for a bit. Usually after our in person district councils we play a game or something. This time we just had a nice little circle going passing the volleyball. Well we're playing and Elder Kimball passes me the ball... I had to bend and go down a little farther to hit the ball. Well I bend/ squat down a little to hit the ball and BOOM!!! There was a nice pop and there went my pants. I ripped a pretty decent sized hole in my pants Haha. So that was the end of volleyball for me. Just after that they wanted to take a district photo so Elder Gatrell just so happened to have a safety pin and pinned the hole in my pants shut so I could at least walk home without anyone really noticing haha. But we went back and I got to change my pants. We did some studies and had dinner. For the night block Elder Dossett and I wanted to try contacting by fishing. So we went to fish and we noticed some red bull cans floating in the river, and we thought to ourselves "think we can get those cans out of the river with our onkis?" Plus someone was bound to talk to us doing that. Well we got the cans out of the river, a few people wished us luck in our endeavors and were also really curious to what we were doing. Worked out pretty well. Then we went fishing for actual fish and talked to a few people. We caught 1 fish that night, just a little guy but that's good. On the walk home a guy stopped us and asked if we got a fish cause he had biked by earlier and thought he saw us pull one out. So we talked to him for a bit and then another guy asked if we were the Mormons. So we chatted with him as well. It went really well! We talked to so many people!

Thursday was a pretty good day as well. In the morning it was raining pretty good and not many people were out.... so we decided to stay at the apartment and do some Facebook work. We got a lot of stuff done so hopefully it will have some positive effects. We got a text that morning as well that a YSA member from Rauma was moving into our area that day and needed some help moving stuff into her apartment. So all 4 of us elders in Turku went to help and met up with some more members from Rauma that were helping. It started pouring rain and so we were pretty much running back and forth with stuff and moving as fast as we could. We got it done in like 10 min, she didn't have a lot of stuff. But we did spend the next like 45 min putting her couch together and helping others assemble stuff like chairs in the kitchen. So that was way fun. We stopped by McDonald's and got a soda to reward ourselves. I think Finland finally got the any size drink for a buck deal. It's about time.... cause man... drinks are pricey here. We had to run to the store real quick and grab a few things and then it was dinner time. Luckily by then the sun was back out and it was warm cause we had planned to go basketball contacting in the park that evening. We showed up and not many people were there... but then we had enough guys to okay a game. One guy from the states like us, some guys from Algeria and Albania, and a few Finnish guys. But we got some games going and got to chat with them a bit and made some friends so that was way fun. But also I left that basketball night with 20 mosquito bites Haha. But it was worth it.

Friday we went out for a good contacting block in the morning. Not much going on... well because they weren't interested in us Haha. Had some lunch and then hopped right into weekly planning. I cleaned up the teaching pool that missionaries in the past had refused to drop... but it was time to drop them. So we cleaned that out and then spend a good chunk of time adding all of the members numbers into the phones because for some reason we were missing like more than half of them. So that was a bit of a pain in the butt, but now we are better off cause we got it done. We made some dinner and then went out to contact for the rest of the night. We talked to a quiet nice man who has been an electrician for 40 years and he told us why he left the Lutheran church. After he told us his story he left cause I guess he didn't want to talk anymore:)). Then we also got stopped by some guys who were willing to talk... but one guy only cared about what Satan wants and who goes to hell. So I guess that's good for him. Another guy asked if we had a pamphlet for him to read. And he started reading it right away so maybe he will call us or at least find something good that can help him. Then after that nobody really talked to us and that was the end of our night.

Saturday was such a fun day. In the morning we had interviews with President Kervinen. We all showed up at nine cause he hadn't said anything about what time each person was meeting with him and he's just like "So who wants to go first?" And then we started and the rest of us sat in the foyer area with Sister Kervinen. We talked about anything and everything and she is way funny as well. But it was way fun. I then got to meet with President Kervinen and he is awesome! Too bad I only get to serve with him one transfer cause he is awesome. We talked about Turku and the work and all the Activities we had been up to. President is very much for trying new ideas and getting out there and being normal with people. So when we told him about basketball, fishing, frisbee, etc. He was way excited and was like "wow that's awesome" and we had a way good chat. You can become best friends with him instantly. And at the end of all our interviews he told us to go by some ice cream and we did just that with a few more treats and ate that all together by the river. Way fun! We went back to the apartment to change out of suits and then we had to go to the church to meet our friend Ayush. He cooked some eggs and toast with a bunch of indian spices and was pretty good. And we got to talk with him before and after as well which was good. The elders also joined us on that as well. By then it was getting late and we had to change for our sports night so Ayush walked with us back to our apartment and we chatted, then we went inside real quick to change and then back out to go play some volleyball. Volleyball was as good as usual and it was so much fun! All the other people that come as well are now just a bunch of way good friends so its way fun! But then the day was already over and we had to walk back home, but we ran into the guys we played basketball with and they were pretty happy to see us so we chatted with them and they asked when we were coming back. So trying new ideas seems to be working and we are making lots of friends so that's way cool!

Sunday was a good day. We went to church and it was fun because President and Sister Kervinen spoke in church... so it was fun to hear them speak. After church we spent some time talking to members and a member from Espoo was in Turku visiting his sister so it was way fun to chat with him. I hadn't seen Perti in over a year so it was awesome to catch up with him. Then we went home and did some studies and then bussed to eat with Sebastian, he had invited us over to eat. We got some quality makkara and a good salad, and then cake and ice cream for dessert. We chatted with him and then talked about Gods plan for us. We bussed home and then we texted a few people and then we did Facebook work for the rest of the night. I worked on making a group on facebook for all our people who want to play volleyball and for people we want to invite to come play. So I worked on that for a while and also called the elders to get some help with it. And that was pretty much all that happened Sunday.

Monday we got up and worked on texting or calling all the people in our area book who had not been taught in a while. So that took a while and we finished off the morning trying to track down all of our YSA on facebook so we could contact them and invite them to stuff. Had lunch and did studies. Went out contacting and tried talking to people, but we had really nice weather so that was another upside to the day. We then went mini golfing with the YSA and that was way fun!! It's so cool to get to help out at the YSA activities and get to know them and talk with them. It was my first time going mini golfing in over 2 years I think and I did pretty good. Had me a good few hole in ones Haha. Then we ended the night by going to McDonald's. We had a great day!!

This week has been way fun! We have another fun week coming up, well every week is really fun.

Elder Love out

1) Our districti

2) Got a red bull can out

3) Caught a small fish:)

4)The Elders:)

5)Getting a bus pass from the sisters

6)YSA activity, Daniel and Elder Dossett

7-9) Turku

10) An old prison turned in to an apartment building

11) Where we play volleyball

12) "Still got some skills"