Mission Map

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Week One

HELLO EVERYONE!
Wow it feels super weird to be emailing you all haha mom if you could forward this to whoever wants to hear about it or just upload it to your blog or whatever that would be great thank you! Well I have so much to tell you all. I miss you all but I am doing quite well. The first day here was insanity, there's 16 of us finnish missionaries (lahetysaarnajia) 8 in each district. My district is 5 elders 3 sisters and the other is 6 elders 2 sisters. All the elders in my district are AWESOME!

We live in the west campus and its super nice over here, we all get along great. My Swedish comp, Vanhin Stegeby is this super funky guy but is awesome and makes us all laugh like all day long. He doesn't speak any finnish, Swedish and Finnish are just as different as english and finnish are so it's just as hard for him as it is for us haha Finish is INSANELY difficult. But I am doing pretty well, I appreciate all your prayers because I can tell you all that they help a lot! I have always been able to learn quickly... but I've never been able to learn and remember so much so fast as I have hear. I am learning extremely fast and I love every second of it. We pretty much study finnish for like 8 or 9 hours a day and all the other time is spent eating or going to choir or devotionals. My tailbone hurts and I crawl in to bed exhausted every single night  but it is all worth it.

On Monday I was told that me and a few other elders and sisters were all supposed to go to LA to get our Visas! So I woke up at 3 AM and got to the airport only to find out that the MTC lied to me and I wasn't supposed to go till wednesday.... I lost a lot of faith in the MTC travel department that day. But I thought to myself, hey maybe as I ride the tracks back down to provo by myself somebody will want to hear the gospel.... but no. Some guy just asked me "Where's the other one" ... that was a long day. But that night was amazing! Elder Anderson of the quorum of the twelve came to speak to us and it was incredible!! He talked all about sacrifice and he said something cool "we sacrifice what we love, and we love what we sacrifice for" It was exactly what I needed to hear and afterwards he shook my hand!!! it was a super cool experience. So then wednesday morning I got to wake up at 3 AM again and actually went to LA this time. It was super fun! I went with elder Hugie and Richards, Hugie is my other companion and Richards is in my district.

They are both really really awesome guys. It's true what they say, the finnish missionaries are awesome haha every single elder in my district is either a genius or like a spiritual powerhouse. Our trip to LA was way fun but it sort of made me homesick seeing normal UCLA students walking around made me miss school. But on the plane ride to LA I was the only elder that sat apart from the rest of the group and I sat next to this man who was going to Mexico because his father is super sick. He talked to me the entire plane ride and asked me all these questions about what I believe and I taught him a little bit about what we believe and gave him a pass along card. It was awesome I felt like a real missionary! It was weird having people look at us weird all day but I kind of liked it. While in LA our shuttle driver dropped us off in the hood to get some food from this sketchy taco place, we were like the only 7 white people in ten square miles and we're all dressed up in suits in this crappy little restaurant so we looked pretty ridiculous but I got my visa so now I can officially live in Finland! They just needed us to sign something and take finger prints and we got to practice our finnnish on the consulate lady and she was impressed!

So today was our first P day and we got to go to the temple which was great! I have never been so physically exhausted in my life but it was really nice being in the temple and I felt rejuvenated. We then did our service project for the week which was cleaning the creamery and now I'm here emailing you all! It has been an insanely busy week and I am tired all the time but it has been the best experience ever. Vanhin Hugie and I are super close already and I love all these guys. We're all progressing fast in finnish but keep praying for me! Our zone consists of us Finn's, two Hungarian districts and some albainians but all of them are leaving on Monday so us Finns will be the only ones left! well I am out of time but I love you all so much! I will send pictures in another email! I love you and I miss you! Mom I don't really need you to send me anything else I got the first package and I love the dear elder letters!! Do that as much as you want they make my day :)
P.S. I want a picture of sammies swollen bunny face!