#55 English, Finnish, Spanish and Swedish!!

Well..this has been a busy and fun week!! Hope you enjoy the read:)

Wednesday was a way fun day!! So we got up that morning and did studies and headed straight to the church, cause President was coming to our district council and we had interviews with them. It's always good to meet with President. We had a good district council and we talked about the attributes of Christ and why it is important to develop these attributes. We had a way fun time at lunch getting to chat with everyone! It's been fun cause we have had some more face to face district councils lately.... cause the APs messed up the first time so our schedule got off from the entire mission... and then President was there so we all had to come together so we could meet with him. So it's been fun to see everyone often. After district council we had splits with the Seinäjoki Elders!! Wow that was a ton of fun!!! So they came over and we went straight to work. We had 2 lessons set up for the night and then we were gonna tract student housing. And with our lessons and getting in some time to tract before we can't knock doors anymore.... we decided to have a late dinner. So we had both our lessons fall through. But me and Elder Aitken got to go follow up with an investigator and meet some way cool people . Plus it was fun to chat with elder Aitken....cause we are from the same MTC group:) It was just fun getting to catch up and talk. That night I was going with Elder Lebaron hitting student housing and we met the most sincere guy I have probably my ever met... and was down to chat with us at the door, take a book  and be willing to meet later. So cool!!! Then it was dinner time. So we went to this habibis kebab shop and since we are friends with the guy who owns it.... we always get A LOT of food:)). It was waaay good!!.... And of course every time you have splits, you have to get a treat for the night:) So me and Elder Lebaron got to the store before heading home and picked up 4 small boxes of ice cream. Well... we got back and started eating and we divided it up. So we cut all the boxes into fourths and then everyone got a fourth of each flavor. Well... let me just say... I can no longer eat the same way I did in high school:) It just doesn't work. But I finished my ice cream and I had just eaten a pizza for dinner that had a ton of meat on it. Wow we were full and just crashed on the beds to chat. Trust me.. we don't eat like that every day.. it's a special occasion cause it's splits and we only get one about once a transfer so it was worth it!:) 

Thursday....I had slept so well...and  I had one of those moments when you wake up and you don't know where you are:) I was really confused for a second and for the fact that it's like 4:30 in the morning. Well my mouth was wayyy dry and definitely needed a drink but was not wanting to get out of bed. So I tried to fall asleep and get a drink in the morning but iI couldn't take it. Well I got up and was like thinking to myself "where's Elder Aitken?" He was in the kitchen getting a drink as well:) Well before you know it it's 5:30 cause we had been talking. And we went back to bed but we were planning on getting up at 6:00 to go frisbee golfing to get some more exercise time. So we went and played a round of frisbee golf that morning and came back and had pancakes. And then off to work again. Me and elder Aitken went out to tract and follow up with a lady. We found a cool slide that we of course had to go on and it was wayyy fast. We came back for studies and we did our splits review. After having to drop the elders off at the train station me and elder Andersen headed to a members house for a DA. We had salmon soup which was bomb. And apparently "mustikka" is a blueberry. Now I've been confused why that is... cause "sininen" is blue and "musta" is black. So if you directly translate it...a blueberry in Finnish translates to a BlackBerry in Finnish but a BlackBerry is a "karhunvatukka" how does that make sense? Anyway we went tracting that night and met some way cool people. We met an Asian  who LOVES America like a ton. So he got to take a selfie with 2 real Americans. He thought that was pretty cool. And we met this way awesome guy who had met missionaries before but said we can keep talking cause he had some questions. Also crazy part about talking to this guy. I understand Spanish!:)) Elder Andersen knows Spanish and so did this guy so they started speaking Spanish....but I just sat there and followed along the whole time. I knew everything! Now I took Spanish in high school for 3 years and didn't learn jack squat and look at that! It paid off:)) It will probably never happen again but hey that was cool:)) Just an overall 2 wayy good days! Way busy, way fun, and wayyyy too much food... but it was worth it Haha.

Friday was a pretty good day but not much happened. We got up and did studies. We spent some time doing area book work getting that all sorted out and finding people to follow up with and had some lunch. We then started weekly planning. During weekly planning we called an investigator who we haven't seen in a long time and she invited us over. We went over to talk to her and we talked outside her apartment. We are helping her with the word of wisdom. And she's gonna be going to Sweden to get some help. But we had a good talk with her. And we told her we would be back that night to talk more. Well before we went back that night we had a dinner appointment with a member and we got Kebab with them. I really like Kebab. Sometimes it's lamb, sometimes it's horse, and other times it's just some random animal that you don't know:)) But the lamb and the horse ones are really good. Then we went tracting and tried to follow up with some people and then went back to our friend's place. Me and elder Andersen were excited cause we had had a good talk with her. Well we went back and she invited us in but we needed a third man... so she invited her friend over and we went in. We were continuing our conversation from earlier that day. It went well...we had to show her some tough love if we are going to help her quit drinking:) After her visit we just street contacted for the rest of the night.

Saturday was a pretty good day. We got out in the morning and went tracting. And we ran into a lady from California! How crazy is that!!...but she wasn't all that interested cause she was a JW so we just had a nice conversation about America and Finland.  We kept on tracting and didn't really get anything. It was raining the whole time so we got a little wet but not too bad. When we got back we did our studies and then it started pouring and we were planning on playing soccer cause we play every Saturday. So after studies and some more work we went to play soccer. It was raining on and off.... but it rained majority of the time and it was a ton of fun! We had some good games going and it was a lot of fun. Then we stopped playing for a little bit and were talking with our friends about Finnish and American food and what stuff Finland has and what America doesn't have:)). The list for America was not all that long Haha. After soccer we were planning on making a pizza for dinner. Well turns out we ran out of flour over splits after making pancakes... that all we had left was rye flour. Wel...l we sprinkled some of Chef Loves special cooking dust which is called "go for it and pray that its not gross" and we made the pizza and popped it into the oven. Came out a little suspicious looking, we poked it with a fork, looked at each other and decided to go for it. The end result was the whole pizza was eaten cause we went in with such bad expectations that it actually turned out pretty good:)) Then we went out to street contact in the pouring rain and just offered people to walk under our umbrellas who didn't have any so we could talk to them. Well nobody talked to us except one lady... as we kept one lady and her dog dry until her husband came with the car and had an umbrella for her. So I would count it as a successful night Haha.

Sunday we had church and that was really fun getting to see the members and talk with them. My MTC teacher and her husband were visiting Vaasa to see her husband's mom and brother... so I got to chat with them as well. They are cool so it was way fun to see them and talk to them. We sat in on young men's and we talked about Lehi's vision of the tree of life and drew pictures of it. So that was fun cause not every day do we get to sit down and draw. Then we went home and did some studies, and finished making some sweet pork. We went out and  tracted a little but before dinner and talked to some lady who was a firm believer that the bible was all we needed. She was nice though and had a good conversation with her. We had some burritos for dinner, we went out tracting and followed up with some potentials, and then we were street contacting and we met one of our less active in the center and talked with him and that took up the rest of our night.

Monday... wow that was a fast day. So we went out to go follow up with formers. We decided to bike cause we were gonna be close to home. Well... this one paper was in the wrong section in the area book and was not close... but we decided to bike out to it. So we were biking and doing our thing. We are Waving to people, listening to google maps on where to go and  checking out the cool scenery. Well... we get there and nobody is home. So we were like... that's okay, we'll just go back. We biked through this weird park with some weird statues so curiosity got the best of us and we started going through this park and taking some pictures of cool stuff. Well we are on our way back and I'm biking and I head this sound that's usually not what you're supposed to hear while biking. I look back and Elder Andersen's bike chain is in half and in the dirt. So like any good companion would do... I start laughing as he's just looking at the ground:)) We tried to Macgyver a way to fix it there but we got nothing:) So we walked all the way home, luckily we had good weather! Then we had lunch and did studies, and we went out tracting. So this lady....she answers the door and we are talking in Finnish cause you know that's what we do in Finland. Then all of a sudden she just switches to Swedish and tells me she can't speak or understand Finnish. Yet we were just talking in Finnish. Maybe she was more receptive to the gift of tongues than I was. Well then in Swedish I say "oh you don't speak Finnish, that's okay, we are missionaries..." to catch her up in her "native tongue" so she knows who we are. Well you should have seen the look on this lady's face. Just in shock:))). She had no way out:) Little did she know I had used up all the Swedish that I know..  almost. Well I went on to ask her if we can come back with someone who speaks Swedish and she just yells No! And goes off in Swedish and slams the door. Funny part is...she didn't even get it closed all the way. And then at that moment I was out of Swedish Haha. But we got a good chuckle out of it. We came back for dinner and then visited our less active friend and we talked about the Book of Mormon and the Bible, scripture study, we took our blood pressure on his machine, and we talked about his life. You know the usual visits. And that was the night. And we topped off the night with Rootbeer floats:)).

Well that's all I wrote folks, have a good week.

Elder Love out


1) Early morning frisbee golf
2) pancakes for breakfast
3-4) With Elder Aitken from his MTC group
5-8)splits
9)temple missionaries
10-15) The "weird" park
16)He made an omelet with meet, cheese etc.
17) Rootbeer floats