 |
| Reindeer Dinner |
 |
| Missionary Life |
Alright so a way exciting week! It's getting sunnier and sunnier and slowly warmer, we had 5 investigators in church, and had our meeting yesterday with elder Nielson! So a pretty sweet week, I'll start with all of the normal stuff then talk about our zone conference at the end.
I think I mentioned that we found a new African family last week. Well anyway this week the 23 year old son, his mom, and hi little sister all came to church! It was way cool they really liked it. The son is the only one that speaks good english so we had him listen to the english translation with his headphones and then he translated everything to his mom and sister in their language. It was quite the process, but it worked out well. The 23 year old guy is super funny, they're all just insanely nice and the guys gives us hugs every time he sees us because "I like to hug my friends and brothers every time". So after our gospel principles class he pulled me in for a big hug that lasted about 15 seconds and was saying "wilson thank you so much, I now know about the ladder day saints. Thank you" It was so nice and funny all at the same time haha Well we also had the mom of the Finnish family that we teach in church and an older man that is friends with some members, so it was a great group on Sunday! All of our other investigators are doing pretty well, just slowly progressing.
We also got to do splits with the other elders here in Oulu and that was a way good day. I was with elder Greciano for the day (from Spain) and we had a pretty sweet day. They didn't actually have anything planned or set up so it was just going to be a big blank day of talking to people and tracting..... so I was honestly a little bit not looking forward to it but we went out and walked and talked to people forever and found a few potentials. So then we were heading home for dinner but had about an hour left so we started tracting some nice houses. And like I honestly don't think that I've ever tracted on a nice house in Finland and found a family before but the third house we knocked a young Finnish mom with a bunch of kids opened up and we told her about the Book of Mormon and that it teaches that we can live as families eternally.... and then she was totally receptive and so nice and willing to talk more about it! So we gave her the book of Mormon and got her number. So I'm excited to ask the other elders if they were able to get an appointment set up with them. It was one of the most exciting tracting experiences of my entire mission though, I had a really good feeling about them. It was super cool!
So then this weekend we had church and then Sunday night 8 elders got to Oulu and got to our apartment to spend the night. While they all got in elder Ahlquist and I drove to the airport to pick up Elder and sister Nielson. The Nielsons were sooo nice. Sister Nielson was even from Texas originally so we got to talk about how great Texas is and how delicious mexican food is. We just drove them to their hotel then went home to sleep. The next morning we picked them up from their hotel and took them to the chapel for the meeting. The meeting was awesome! President and sister Watson spoke, then sister Nielson, then elder Nielson for a while. Elder Nielson served his mission in finland so it was super cool to hear from a general authority that knows exactly what it's like to serve here and hear what he had to say. He basically just told us like guys I walked around the frozen black streets of Rovaniemi for an entire winter, I know what it's like. It's not an easy thing to do some days but he said that even though he thought it was hard while he was on a mission, he looks back and sees the miracles that came from him serving. One of the few men he baptized became the Helsinki Stake president a few years ago and he bore really powerful testimony that we're supposed to be out here doing this. The Nielson's talked a lot about their own family as well and made the whole meeting very personal, it was just a really cool day. Towards the end of the meeting he opened it up for questions and he taught us really cool lessons about faith. He explained that to perform and see miracles, you need to develop stronger faith in Jesus Christ. Since the Spirit and the Light of Christ is in all things it is only through faith in Christ that miracles can be performed. Of course it says in Moroni 7:33 that Christ hath said that, If ye will have faith in me ye shall have the power to do all things which are expedient in me. He explained what it means by "expedient in me" and how all things are done according to the will of the father. So just because things don't always work out how we expect it does not mean that it went against the will of the father. All things are done according to the wisdom of he who knows all things. But the miracles will never happen until we show our faith and exercise the faith that we do have in Jesus Christ.
All in all it was just a great day. I'm super glad that I got to be up here in Oulu and get to know the Nielsons a little bit.
Well that's everything from the week. We only have one more full week and then we get our change calls. So May 2nd we should find out who's leaving. I suspect that I'll stay here in Oulu since elder Ahlquist has been here longer than me but we'll see! Alright I love you guys!
No comments:
Post a Comment