Oulu Pride

April 28, 2015

Hey! Well I can't believe that little Sammy went to Prom. She's all grown up that's crazy! Sammy I was a huge fan of the dress and everything, sounds like you guys had a great Prom! Hope you feel better soon from the whole concussion though that's no fun :( At least the concussion was not related to prom though that's always nice. Well we just had a normal week here in Oulu. Unfortunately elder Ahlquist was super sick for quite a few days this week so we had a lot of time in the apartment going insane just watching church videos and reading scriptures but I am now much more knowledgeable on the old testament so it was all worth it. But we still had a good week! We even went to try the new Burger King that opened up here in Oulu so that was super fun and tasted like America. It was also an exciting week to be in Oulu because the Oulu Kärpät (the Oulu city hockey team) won the Finnish national championship this week so the people were so pumped! Quite a few members texted us and asked us to pray for the Kärpät and they pulled out the win! People in Oulu are super proud now because just recently the new Miss Finland is from Oulu, the new Prime Minister is from Oulu, and the Kärpät won so people are saying that Oulu has now established the holy trinity of Oulu. It's been pretty fun. 

But we had some good lessons this week, we taught that new african family again. We usually teach them in english and the brother translates but unfortunately the brother wasn't home when we went so we just gave them the Joseph Smith restoration movie to watch together and then couldn't communicate with any of the other family members at all so we just left haha it was pretty funny because they're so nice so they invited us in and all sat around and were staring at us waiting for us to talk but they didn't understand anything we said so it was kind of tough. But the brother told us that he wants to come to church again next week so that would be awesome! Yesterday we only had one person in church which was a bummer but it was the older Finnish man who's life long friends with some members. He comes every week he's way solid. He just still has some questions and concerns he needs to figure out before committing to be baptized but he's doing well. We also had a super cool lesson with a guy that we received as a referral from some elders in a different city. This guys was in Seinäjoki a few weeks ago and the elders there talked to him on the street and got his number for us. So we called him and set up an appointment but then found out that he lives pretty far outside of Oulu in the country side. But we decided to go out there at least once to try him. So we drive out there and it was beautiful, it was in a little tiny town on a big huge river and you had to drive over a big bridge to get to his place and it was just a really beautiful area. The guy turned out to have three kids as well! He is divorced but has 3 sweet little kids and they were just so nice. They gave us ice cream and the little girl kept giving us candy and stuff and just super sweet people. They live on a strawberry farm in a little farmhouse built by the guys great grandfather it's super finnish and awesome. But the man was really interested and had already read a bit of the book of Mormon and is willing to read and pray about everything so we are super pumped about them! We're going back to them this week. 

That's pretty much all of the excitement from the week. This week should be good though, we go down to Helsinki on Thursday night and then have our MLC meeting on Friday. Then we'll find out our change calls so next week my p day will probably be on Monday since one of us will probably get transferred. but I'll tell you all about it next time. I love you guys! 

Elder Nielsen's Visit

April 21, 2015

Reindeer Dinner

Missionary Life

Hey! 

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! 

Spring is Coming????

It's been a little bit warmer the last few days and it's super nice! It's been like up to 6 Celsius so like not warm really but it feels a ton warmer and it's been pretty sunny and nice. Most of the snow is melted too! So hopefully it keeps getting nicer. Way funny to hear that you guys have a snow storm in Utah though right as we're getting out of snow storms in Finland, that's too bad. But we had a really great week though! 

We got to go up to Rovaniemi again for splits and when we got up there it was a total blizzard. So that was pretty unfortunate, especially because my companion and I were on the bikes and had to bike around all day long so it reminded me of the beginning of my mission haha it was a ton of fun though. We had some really good lessons and Rovaniemi is a really cool city. We even went back to the same restaurant as last time when we were in Rovaniemi and feasted on some Reindeer so it was a pretty perfect day. We almost decided to go all in for the bear but it was like 50 euros so we all stuck with the reliable reindeer. We also stopped at this little park that is world famous because it's an Angry Birds park. All of the toys are just angry birds themed stuff so it's pretty funny to see. All the kids would've loved it. I took some pictures too but unfortunately I forgot my camera today :( sorry so I'll send a bunch of pictures next week! 

In Oulu though we had a great week we had some good lessons with the older man who is a good friend of a member and is pretty close to being baptized. He still just has a few concerns that we're trying to work through so we are just trying to answer all of his questions and help him to take the leap of faith to commit to be baptized. We had the chance to give him a blessing though this week which was a really cool experience. He didn't really know what a Priesthood blessing was, so we explained a bit to him and then he asked his member friend to give him a blessing and we stood in with the member. It was a really nice experience, the spirit was super strong and the man was pretty touched after the blessing. I think he'll make it eventually to baptism but he's just kind of scared taking the big steps to get there, but we've had some really spiritual experiences with him. 

We also found some really cool new people this week including another big African family! It was super funny we met this 23 year old african guy a few weeks ago who was super nice and down for us to come over. So this week we finally got to go to his place and he came out of his house and was like "I like hugging my friends when I see them" So gave us all bro hugs and then we walk in the house and he's got like 5 little sisters and a mom and they were all soooo nice and so down to learn about the church haha so it was a ton of fun! So we watched the new easter video from the church with them and they were all gathered around the computer and liek "wow... oooo... wow this is awesome" haha they're hilarious. 

So this week we've got a pretty busy schedule, we're doing splits with the other Oulu elders on Friday and then on Sunday we have to pick up a bunch of elders that'll be staying at our house that night for the zone conference the next day. Then we also have to pick up elder Nielson and his wife from the airport that night and take him to his hotel and then from his hotel to the chapel the next morning so that should be pretty cool! We'll have to do a lot of stuff this week to prep the chapel for the meeting it will be a little hectic but definitely fun! 

Well I think that's all from the week but I love you guys so much! 

Conference and Easter

Easter Dinner Finnish Style

Hey! Well yeah it was a way good weak of general conference! It was so nice to just sit back and hear awesome talks for two days. It was way cool too, in the sunday morning session elder Teixeira of the seventy spoke (elder Teixeira came to Finland like 4 months ago and did a mission tour with us) then in the same session elder Nielson of the Seventy spoke and he's coming to Finland in a couple weeks to do a mission tour with us! So it was pretty neat to see both of them speak. We had three investigators who came to watch conference which was awesome! Our Chinese investigator came and absolutely loved it. He was like "It was so informative and I just loved all of the stories and especially the man who spoke about guile!" hahaha it was super funny I was just impressed that he knew the word guile. We had another man there who is an older man who's been friends with some of the members of our ward for a really long time and he's been coming to church for like 7 months now every week. We've been teaching him and even though he's still hesitant, he has a baptismal date for this Saturday. He said at conference that he's still not sure about it but we still feel that it really might happen. But even if it's not this Saturday he'll be baptized sometime fairly soon I think. 

Since Sunday was Easter all of us missionaries made a big meal between sessions of conference and ate with some members and investigators and it went really well. Elder Ahlquist and I bought 18 little broiler chickens and oven baked them and made potatoes and so it was a feast! It actually surprisingly turned out to be pretty delicious, everyone had a good time. But that was our easter celebration this year. 

Mom, like you said I really liked elder Holland's talk. It was such a great and powerful way to lay out how important Jesus Christ is and how he literally saves all of us. It was an awesome story and talk that he gave. I also really enjoyed President Eyring's talk from the Saturday morning session.  It was just all so good though. 

Well this week we just have normal stuff going on, we're going up to Rovaniemi on Friday for splits though. Rovaniemi is the furthest northern city with missionaries in it, so that'll be fun. I'll make sure to try to pick up a sweet reindeer souvenir or something like that. Other than that though just a normal week. We're getting all prepped up for elder Nielson coming in a few weeks though. Organizing the whole thing is super hectic because all of our zone and all of the east zone will be up here in Oulu for that meeting and we have to have 10 people staying at our apartment and we have to pick up elder Nielson and his wife from the airport and do a bunch of stuff so it'll be pretty nuts. 

Well that's all I got from the week, but I love you all so much! Have another great week! 

Missionary Leadership Council

March 31, 2015

Spring in Finland

Well thanks for all the love this week, it looks like you guys had a great time for Chloe's birthday, can't wait for the celebration next year! So I heard that my Bruins made it to the sweet 16! That is awesome! Did they win or lose that game? Sounds like they'll have some good momentum for next season when I'm back! Dad have a good time down in Louisianna. I hope you and Danen studied enough to seal the deal with some new customers. 

We had a pretty good week here. We went down to Helsinki for our MLC meeting which was pretty fun. It was a special MLC where all of the district leaders throughout the mission went as well so it was super fun to see some old mission buddies. We flew down Wednesday night then had the meeting and temple trip Thursday, then we had to wake up at 4:15 on Friday to make our flight by 7 so that was pretty rough but overall a fun trip! But we had a really good week in our area. We hit our standard of excellence for member present lessons which is 21 per week so that was super exciting! It's pretty tough to do but we got it! Our chinese investigator is still doing well, he's feeling good about everything and came to church on Sunday. We have a lesson with him tonight and then later this week we're going to talk about tithing again which is the only thing holding him back from being baptized already so hopefully he is able to make the leap of faith this time around and go for it! The African family that we've been teaching is doing well also. The little 4 year old boy was bouncing around the other day while we were there and elder ahlquist gave him some Jolly Ranchers and the kid snatched them and was sucking on them like his life depended on it and just soooo happy haha it was hilarious. Our Finnish family is still doing well, the wife is still reading and feeling good about everything but just has a hard time with tithing as well. Our russian mom who was doing so great came back from Russia and texted us saying that she really appreciated all of the help we gave her and everything we taught her but she says it's not the right time for her. She has some sort of really difficult life situation going on and she says she's not able to meet with us right now. But that she would still read the book of Mormon and pray. I believe it was just her husband giving her a hard time and not wanting her to talk to us, he was always pretty opposed to her coming to church and stuff. So I think that she just needs some time to sort through things but that she will be baptized. Whether it's while I'm in Finland or years down the road I think she'll make it. Mom I haven't gotten a hold of the lady that sister Rascon's brother told me about. I talked with some members about her and they are going to try to get her info so that I can call her but they haven't gotten back to me yet. But we're trying! 

Well this week we're going down to a city called Pietarsaari for splits. We're going to leave tonight and come home tomorrown night. So we're excited for that. Pietarsaari is a swedish speaking town, I've done splits there before but that was over a year ago and I was with a swede at that time so he just spoke swedish all day and I tagged along but this time around there's not a swede serving in Pietarsaari right now so it'll be 4 elders that don't speak swedish.... so we'll see how this goes. But it's a really cool little city. Other than that though we have a normal week. Since conference is also on easter sunday we are going to make a big meal here at the church with some other missionaries and members and just all feast between sessions of conference. It'll be way fun! I don't think the easter bunny will make is way around this year though but it will still be delicious!  

Alright I think that's all for the week, I love you all so much! Have a great time watching conference I'm so excited for it! Love you,

Rakkaudella, Vanhin Wilson 

Takaltavi

March 25, 2015

Spring Break 2015

Oulu Service

Winter-  staying for awhile

Well I've got some sad news first. Often times in Finland right as it's finally starting to get a little warmer and the snow is starting to melt, there is what's called takatalvi. Which just means winter comes back. And that's what happened this week :( It's been below zero for days and we got like 12 centimeters of snow last night so it's looking exactly like it looked in January. It's pretty depressing. But they say that this should be the last flurry of winter and then it should get warmer in a week or so. But still, it hurts the soul a little bit. I'm way jealous that you guys are in full on Spring. It feels like we're living on opposite sides of the hemisphere haha but it will probably only be miserable for another month or so. So I think I will make it.

On a lighter note though, we had a pretty good week! We had some fun stuff going on. We had zone conference on Friday which was really good, we got to watch Meet the Mormons during zone conference so that was sweet! That's my second time seeing it now. We watched it at MLC like a month ago as well. But it's way good and it's going to be coming to Finland! They'll probably show it in some theatres in some of the bigger cities here so all of the members are pretty excited about that. We're going to try to use it as a big missionary tool, to invite investigators and members invite friends to the theatre to watch it, so should be fun! We also got to do some service this week for a family here which was fun. We just chopped and sawed wood, all sorts of manly stuff like that. There was also this pretty weird phenomena going on this week where when it's below 0 but the sun's shining and there's lots of snow the snow gets super hard. So even though it's all powdery and not packed down at all it's hard enough to walk on and your foot doesn't sink in at all, and you can ride bikes on it and stuff so it was pretty trippy. We were walking on giant heaps of powder like it was just dry ground, pretty weird. O! Also, I saw the northern lights this week!!! Super cool! On wednesday a member told us that they were going to be really strong and we saw them here in Oulu! They weren't very brightly colored but just blue and a little green but they were super clear, it was an awesome sight. They were really powerful ones, apparently people could see them all over Finland.

The investigators are doing well though, especially our Chinese college student that almost got baptized a while ago. He is progressing super well and getting very strong answers to his prayers and we set a new baptismal date with him so we're way excited for him. Also a pretty funny story, we tracted in to this older african couple this week and they let us in so we started talking to them and it turns out that the man did a study exchange in America a long time ago and was a graduate student at USC. So I told him I went to UCLA and it was just a really funny coincidence. A pretty small world. But all the other investigators are doing well though and we found 4 new ones this week so the works going well!

That's pretty much all of the excitement from the week though, but I've got some great pictures to send this week. by the way I just remembered Mom I loved that picture of you at Bentley's wedding. That is so weird and cool haha I can't believe he's married! Wow pretty crazy how life just keeps going on. Well I love you guys so much! Have a great week! 

Goodbye to Snowflake

March 17, 2015

Well it's been another good week. First off, I have some exciting but also sad news. This morning I sold my sweet blue snow flake bike to a newer missionary. I trust you guys remember the pictures of the bike I bought in Seinäjoki. Well I haven't really used that bike in over a year, I've been carrying it around with me ever since I left Seinäjoki and I kind of think I won't really need it the rest of my mission. This morning the other Oulu elders called asking if they could use our car to go buy a new bike and I said that I would just sell them my bike instead. So I sold it for 50 euros. Elder Greciano (who I sold it too) said that he felt bad taking such a sweet bike for so cheap but I told him that I physically would not take more than 50 euros for it since it's a 12 year old girl bike. So now I no longer have a bike, it's way nice. 

 

Our week was good though, it was a bit slower than usual but still really good. We had a lot of investigators out of town but everyone should be back to normal this week so I think we'll bounce back pretty well. We had some way sweet lessons though. We have this one African family that we've been teaching for a couple of weeks and they are super funny to teach. It's a family of a mom and then like 7 kids. They don't all speak english but the oldest daughters speak pretty good english so we teach them and they teach their little siblings what we say. So we went over to their house on Sunday and it was just way crazy as always with little babies running around everywhere, it's hilarious. They also had a friend there who was like a 30 year old guy and we were able to teach him as well. They're all adventist though and the 30 year old guy was trying to give us a hard time about the sabbath being on Sunday (because they worship on Saturday) but we pointed out in the new Testament that the Apostle Paul talks about changing the Sabbath and howthe apostles took the sacrament from Jesus on a Sunday. So the 30 year old guy was still trying to bash a bit but all of the girls were totally on our side and they were all ike You just have to ask God. We have to do what God says. And we totally won so it was awesome! They are way funny to teach though. And they all committed to pray and ask God if Joseph smith was a true prophet, so they're doing well. We had another really awesome lesson with this Finnish guy who is about 30 and is atheist. He said that his family was religious when he was young but he has such bad memories of church and some really bad stuff happened to him when he was younger so it just made him believe that there is no God. So we read a bit from Enos with him and told him that all he has to do to really find out once and for all if God is real is to read the Book of Mormon and pour out his heart to God every day. We invited him to try this out and to be baptized once he had his answer. So he thought about it for a while, then said that he's willing to try it out. So he's going to read and pray and think it out for a while on his own and then he will let us come in 2 weeks to finish teaching him the lessons. Usually when people say they need time to themselves to think it out it's not good because they don't do it. But this guy was really sincere and we think he's really going to give it a shot. We felt really good about it. It was a sweet lesson. 

 

We also had the chance to do some splits in a city called kajaani this week. Kajaani is like 2 hours east of Oulu, it's a tiny little town. So it was pretty fun to spend a day there. A lot of walking and contacting but we found a bunch of good potentials with the elders there and it was a fun day! I was with an elder named elder Hunter for splits and it was super funny, he said that his sister lives in Orem and she met someone at a target a few weeks ago who's last name was wilson who has a little brother on a mission in finland as well. I don't know if it was Brittanie or Mandy or Chloe or something but there is another elder wilson in the mission as well so it could've been his family but I thought odds are it was probably one of the girls haha 

 

Well this week we have a zone conference here in Oulu so that should be fun. Other than that though it's just a normal week. Well I love you all so much! thanks for the emails and the love!