The Power of Prayer

Catching up with his MTC Buddies

Conference in Oulu

Hello everyone! Alright well we had a pretty fun week here in Finland! Mom you asked me about our study schedule, so we just do an hour of personal study of like reading the scriptures in english, then during our hour of language study we read the scriptures aloud together in Finnish to work on pronunciation and we pick up vocab and stuff like that. Well we get our change calls on Friday! Pretty nuts, I've already been here about two changes, thats 4 months in the country! Can't believe it, time is starting to fly by. I am pretty anxious to get the call, I suspect I will probably leave Seinäjoki but you never really know, If I do leave Seinäjoki though I would hope to stay in the north zone or go down to Helsinki or something like that, but we will just have to wait and see! So, next monday will be the last P day of the change and then everyone will move to their new places next Tuesday. Well this week was a lot of fun because we got to go up to Oulu for a zone meeting. I got to see elder Christiansen and my mtc companions Elder Hugie and Stegeby so it was awesome! We all slept in the chapel up there and played games and whatnot and then we came back down to Seinäjoki the next day. At our zone meeting the zone leaders talked alot about the nature of God and Satan. We talked about the feelings that come from God and the feelings that come from Satan and how we can resist the negativity that the adversary would want us to experience. It was a really good discussion, it lead in to this whole idea of praying always and how we need to all be praying always as missionaries and also as just regualr members. When we pray always we are keeping that connection with God and with the spirit open at all times and it is a lot easier to feel spiritual promptings that way. So, we really tried to implement this whole idea of praying always this week and we had a pretty cool experience through it! On Saturday we had a blank day, meaning we had no appointments, and nothing to do. So we tried one area in the morning and nobody was home, so it was like 4:00 and we hadn't taught any lessons and we felt like we were going to be out all day with no success. But we decided to go to another area and try a potential over there who is never home. We talked to people on the street on the way over there and had a couple good chats with people but nothing great. so we get to the potentials house and she wasn't home so we started making our way back and both trying to know what to do and then I just looked up and saw this housing complex and a very clear thought just came to me that we should tract in there. Usually when I get little thoughts like that I am a little heistant to say anything because usually they never work out, but this time it was just super clear and I just said immediately to Elder wood that we should tract here. So, literally the very first two doors we knock both people answered, accepted book of mormons, and said that we could come back! That literally NEVER happens and it happened two houses in a row! It was super cool we were really pumped. Afterwards wood said that he had felt like we should stop as well but he just didn't say anything, but we were both super glad we had been trying to receive some guidance. So hopefully those two will become investigators! 
We had some other good lessons this week as well. We tracted in to this family a couple weeks ago who said we could come back sometime and they seemed kinda interested, but not really so we went back on Monday and the dad came out and talked to us for about an hour. They are this cool young family with 5 kids. The dad knew the bible super well and was asking all sorts of deep questions but we had a good conversation with him so we went back yesterday but unfortunately he had been researching the church on the internet and came accross all sorts of anti info and so he was just asking all sorts of crazy questions and he wouldn't take a Book of Mormon. so we told him that the only way for him to really find out what we believe is be reading the book of mormon, not reading stuff on the internet. He agreed but still wouldn't take a Book of Mormon but said that maybe he would find it on LDS.org and read the chapter we suggested to him, so that was a disappointment but what can ya do. 
Well everything else has been pretty good here, the weather is warming up which is SO nice but unfortuantely it's just all slushy and muddy and nasty everywhere so we come home super gross every day, but once all the slush and stuff melts it will be amazing! Well tell Mandy that I say happy birthday! I wish I could be there for her little birthday bash but I love you all! Näkemiin!