I love my ward and serving here

March 10, 2015

Hey! Well we're full blown deep in to March but it's still snowy and kind of wintery up here in Finland. But that's all part of it. They say the snow stays in Oulu usually through April and in to May a little bit so I'm sure it'll still be like this for quite some time. But at least it's warmer now. It's been above 0 every day for the last week and it feels super warm and nice. I just rock the fleece jacket and I'm good. The main bad part about this time of year is that every road and side walk is covered in ice and slush and snow and mud so it's way gross. I've had some pretty good falls on the ice which is always entertaining. Yesterday actually we were trying to hop over this small fence and the snow bank that elder Ahlquist was using to step over this little fence collapsed under his feet and resulted in him rolling over this little waist high fence and falling completely on his back on the other side and it was hilarious. 

Serving in Oulu

Well our week here was way good. It was transfer week so last p day we helped out with some missionaries moving around and got all of that done. But the rest of our week was just normal. We had a good finding week though and taught a lot of member present lessons which was great! Unfortunately it was ski break here so a lot of our investigators were out of town, including the Russian woman but she got back yesterday so we're going to try to meet up with her tomorrow! All of our other investigators are doing pretty well though, just slowly and surely progressing. We brought our Chinese investigator to family night yesterday and it was super fun! We taught him how to play Uno and he had a great time! We had three people in church and found some sweet new investigators. O I also talked to this guy in my ward about the woman that sister Rascon's brother asked me about. He says that his mom knows her and would ask his mom more about her and try to set up some way so that we could meet her so hopefully that works out, I'll keep you posted on that though. We have some really exciting stuff set up for this week though. There's a man that has been coming to church here in Oulu every week for the last two years who is not a member and we've tried to meet with him several times but he's never let missionaries come over before. (I think he's just scared of committing to being baptized or something) but on Sunday a member came up to us and said that they invited this man over to their home and that we can come too and he agreed to let us teach him the lessons! So we are going over to their house tonight to teach this man and we're just going to challenge him to stop being scared and accept a baptismal date. I feel like this guy could be baptized in the next couple of weeks really easily but he just has to get over his fear and go for it. 

We also got to do some fun service this week for this elderly woman in our ward, she had us carry all of her mats out of her apartment and hit them with a duster stick thing, it was pretty fun. At the end she gave us a little bag of a freezer pizza and a bottle of juice it was so sweet haha there's also this other elderly lady in our ward who knows how to sew stuff and she took my shoulder bag for me (I broke the strap on it like 3 months ago) and she's going to fix it so that was super sweet! She also made us a giant pot of hot dog soup this week (just like warm water with cut up hot dogs and potatoes and carrots) it was so sweet !!We have such a nice ward here it's a ton of fun to serve in it. 

Alright I think that's all for the week, I love you all! 

Staying in Oulu

March 3, 2015

Elder Durrant & Elder Ahlquist

Alright sorry about the confusion with the p day situation. So Tuesday's will always be on Tuesdays but there's just an exception with transfer weeks. If the companionship has some sort of change, like one of them leaves, then the companionship's p day is on Monday. But for elder Ahlquist and I we had no change so we still had normal Tuesday P day. But I'm super excited to still be in Oulu with elder Ahlquist! It's been a ton of fun and we get another 9 weeks of it so it'll be sweet! We had a great week though, we flew down to Helsinki on Thursday night and slept over at the mission home then had our MLC meeting on Friday. We just talked about the next change and what we would all focus on in district meetings and stuff like that. Then we got to go to the Temple which is always awesome! Then Friday night we hopped on a night train and came back up to Oulu. Today were just helping some people move stuff back and forth from the train station for people getting transferred so it's been a busy week but way good. Oh mom ps I did get the slip in the mail yesterday saying that I have a package so I will go pick that up tomorrow! Thank you so much!

Well our investigators are doing well. Our super cool Russian woman investigator is in Russia for the next week on vacation so that's a bummer but she said that we can meet up when she get's back for sure so she's still doing really well! We have some other investigators that are progressing though, we had 6 people in church on Sunday so that was awesome! One lady came that we've been teaching for a while and she is an elderly finnish lady and is just super sweet. She gives us these home knit socks to wear every time that we're in her house because she doesn't want our feet to get cold and she's just so nice and she came to church and we introduced her to all of the elderly ladies in our ward so she made tons of friends. It was hilarious. We had another finnish guy in church and 3 siblings from an African family and then the American girl we've been teaching! So super cool! It was a great week of church. We also found a way cool family yesterday as well and we're super excited about them! We knocked on this door thinking that it was this Indian guy that we talked to on the street last week but turned out to be the wrong address. But we started talking to the Finnish guy that answered and he said he wasn't interested but maybe his brother would be. So his brother started talking to us and was definitely a little drunk but super interested in what we had to say. Then the guys mom came out and was like Come inside come inside! So we sat down with this whole tipsy finnish family and taught them about the Book of Mormon and they were really interested and said we can come over again tomorrow to give them their own copies! It was hilarious but actually a pretty cool experience. This week should just be normal though. We've got some new people in the district and our zone is doing well so life's good. 

Well that's all the excitement from the week I think. We're losing a bunch of good elders this change though, lots of mission buddies are going home this week so it's pretty weird to see. The sisters that were with me in the MTC also all go home so it's super weird! But I love you all so much! Thanks for everything! I'll talk to you next week! 

Transfers

February 24, 2015

Hello! Mom the weather here is alright, it's just hanging right around 0 degrees celsius and it's snowing today. The snow here last till like april or June so it won't leave any time soon haha but at least it's not that cold anymore. The worst part is that it just get's super slushy and icy everywhere and it's way gross. But the sun shines much more now and it's pretty nice. 

 

Well mom that was way cool to hear about Patti's brother's convert here. Tell him that we appreciate the info and we will try to find her and contact her. Well all of the baptisms that we had scheduled for this week won't happen this week. But it's ok, we're still teaching all of the investigators and I still think that they will be baptized but they just need a little more time. The Finnish couple that was going to be baptized are still doing really well. We asked both of them how they felt about baptism. The wife said she feels totally ready and wants to be baptized, but then the husband said he's just still not sure about things and he is pretty hesitant to belong to a set organization like so they just need more time. The husband said himself though that he likes the church and book of mormon, and that he could very well be baptized in the future but right now he's not ready to make the changes. The wife however is still considering being baptized pretty soon. She got a little scared that the husband doesn't want to be baptized right now so she's nervous and she is still struggling to quit drinking coffee. But I think that she can do it and that she'll will be baptized in the next few weeks. So even though the week was sad and rough in some ways, it was still really good and a rewarding week. Our other investigator who is the 30 year old mom from Russia is just awesome. She is the most prepared investigator I've ever taught. We taught her a great lesson at her house this week and then the next day we met her at the church for a church tour. We showed her the chapel and explained what happens in church and taught a little lesson and she just loved it. She was feeling the spirit super strong and she told us that for a while before she met us she had been going through a rough time. Her kid was being pretty difficult and had a bit of a temper and nothing was going right for her and so she prayed every day and asked God to just help her out. She felt like she had done something wrong and just wanted help. Then a few days later we talked to her outside of her house. She said if she had not been praying for guidance she would have shut us down and not talked to us at all but she felt like maybe we were the answer to her prayers. So now, about a month later she told us that she believes that it really was a sign from God that this is what she needs to do. It was probably the coolest lesson I've ever taught. She said that she would come to church but then unfortunately her husband had work and she had to stay with the baby so she wasn't able to make it to church. That was sad. But she's great and I'm sure that she'll figure out how to make it next week. 

 

Well this week we have our transfer calls coming. We'll probably get called on Saturday and find out what's happening. I guess that I'll stay here and I'll probably get a new companion. But you never know. I've been getting thrown all over the place. But I really really want to stay here in Oulu I love this place. O this week there was a huge YSA event in Oulu so YSAs from all over finland came up here and came to church on Sunday. So I saw a ton of people that I knew from Helsinki and Espoo and all my friends from Turku!! It was awesome! It was like all the people that I love in Finland all together it was so much fun to see them all. I sat with a bunch of the people from Turku who are all waiting on mission calls and have exciting stuff going on so it was awesome. Overall a great week. Well I love you all! I'll talk to you next week!

18 Months!!!

February 17, 2015

Well mom reminded me that I will hit my 18 month mark this week, that's super weird! That is a pretty long time. Yes I've eaten quite a few strange meats in the last 18 months, but I'm still kicking (ps mom bear meat isn't a common thing to eat, it's like something that people do up here in the north but it's super posh and expensive). Well we had another really awesome week! The weather isn't to bad, just a few degrees below zero most days, and the sun is shining so much now (relatively) and so it's way less dark and depressing. Like in Finland in the month of November there was a total of about 12 hours of sunlight or something like that, it was absolutely nuts. Just because the days were so short and it was cloudy every single day haha so now it feels like it's sunny and bright all of the time. 

 

Our week was awesome though, the people that we are teaching are doing super well. We have three people scheduled to be baptized on the 28th of this month. The mom and dad of the finnish family, and then this other Chinese guy who is a student here. He's such a nice guy and is super sweet and it's looking like he will make it on the 28th as well. So we are just praying that those will all work out! They are all doing great, reading and praying and they all came to church again on Sunday. Well the dad of the Finnish family couldn't make it because he had some special work thing but the wife and the baby still came which was awesome! We'll teach both of them three times this week and by then they will have been taught everything, it will just be up to them to go for it! It's kind of a weird situation though because the baptismal font in our chapel here is under renovation so we have to find somewhere else to baptize all the people. So we are going to look around at some swimming pools and stuff like that this week. Maybe they'll even want to be baptized in the frozen river you never know haha Our other investigators are also progressing though we have a Korean man and that Russian mom both scheduled to be baptized on the 14th of March and I believe that they could both be ready for that as well. The Korean man came to church again on Sunday and loved it. The Russian mom didn't make it to church, but we have an appointment with her tomorrow and then on Thursday she is going to come to the church and we'll give her a church tour which will be awesome! So everyone is looking super solid and it's just a ton of fun to teach them all. We found a few cool new potentials as well so this week we have a lot of stuff set up. Oh the American girl we found a few weeks ago also came to church and she loved it! She stayed for all three hours and had a great time. We had five people in church this week which was awesome! The ward did a great job of fellowshipping everyone as well, it just went really nicely.

 

Well today the AP's are flying up to Oulu to do splits with us so we have a bunch of stuff set up for tomorrow for a nice day of splits. We also have this little ward party tonight for this holiday here called laskiainen. Basically everyone just gets together and eats a bunch of pulla and pancakes so I am going to make a ton of dad's special pancakes and provide some American style pancakes for the party. They will probably all think they're weird, but I don't even care our pancakes are the best! That's pretty much everything for the week though. 

 

Well I love you all so much! Thank you for all the love and support and everything you do! 

The work continues....

February 10, 2015

Rovaniemi

Hello! Well it's birthday month, happy birthday Mandy and little Maxie boy! Hope you guys have awesome birthdays :) 

 

We had a super good week here again! Oulu is still awesome. We got 6 people in church on Sunday which is the most I think I've ever had. Including our whole Finnish family! They came to church and they liked it and we're going to their house tomorrow night so we're praying that they felt good in church and are feeling good about being baptized. We had some awesome lessons with them this week. We asked the dad if he had prayed and asked God if this church is true and he told us that he did pray one night and he didn't really feel anything. So the next night he was laying in bed just thinking about his prayer and everything we've taught him and he just started to feel really really good and he even felt like he was hearing some sort of voice telling him that it was true. And he just couldn't figure out what he was feeling so he walked out in the kitchen where is wife was and started talking to her and she said that she was feeling really peaceful and that there was something good there in the room. We were super pumped and explained to them that that is the spirit and that is their answer that they should be baptized. So they are just still reading and praying and doing a great job. They told us on Saturday that they had been looking at pictures online of General conference and they were asking us what it entails to be mormons and about the commandments and stuff so we are going to teach them some commandments this week and we are feeling way good about them. We also had some great lessons with a Chinese student that we are teaching and he committed to read and pray every day and come to church every week until the end of this month so that he can really find out if God is real and so that he can be baptized. I don't really know what the difference is up here mom, you were asking me why everythings going so well and I honestly don't really know but it's just happening for us. It's cool to be with someone else that's experienced and we've taught tons of people for the past year and a half and I feel lik we've both just gotten better with our actual teaching skills and people are just really getting it. 

 

Horse sandwich

Well we went up to Rovaniemi on Thursday night to do splits there on Friday. It was a ton of fun! It was like a three hour drive north, it's soooo far up there haha Rovaniemi is an awesome city. It's got a ton of cool tourist attractions like Santa's village and it's also a super good place to see the northern lights but unfortunately we didn't see them :( But it is a beautiful city. I took a bunch of pictures so I'll send those after this email. While there we went to this place called Nili for dinner and it's like a Sami restaurant. Samis are the people that are native of the lapland in finland. The sami language is kind of similar to finnish but just like a different dialect. But they had Sami music playing and everything so it was way fun. On the menu they had some sweet options like Bear sausages and a tender Bear roast. I wanted the bear roast but it was way expensive so I went with a plate of Reindeer and mashed potatoes which was delicious. Pretty gamey but very tasty. O that reminds me, last p day elder Ahlquist and I were feeling adventurous so we bought some straight up horse sandwhich meat and tried some horse sandwiches but... it was absolutely disgusting hahaha just straight up horse is super intense. I'll send some pictures of that as well. 

 

Finnish Feast

This week we are going to have a zone meeting here in Oulu which will be cool and then do splits with  the other set of elder here in Oulu. So should be a good week. 

 

I love you guys so much! I'll talk to you next time!

Santa's Village

Snow for days

Hey everybody! Happy Groundhog day! Also again happy birthday to Brittanie! Honestly I remembered that it was Brittanie's birthday, but I had totally forgotten what Groundhog day was so thank you for the reminder haha It sounds like it doesn't even matter if the little critter sees his shadow or not since you guys are having such a warm winter! That's awesome! The weather hasn't been too bad here either, it's been even warmer than it was last year but like it's still -10 and is getting colder this weeks so still pretty cold. The main thing though is that there's just tons of snow. There's just massive piles everywhere we go and it hasn't stopped snowing for days. It just keeps coming. A couple weeks ago I saw these three little girls walk out of an apartment building and just start ice skating down the street because all of the streets are completely frozen it was so funny! I see people cross country skiiing all of the time and babies being pulled on little sleds but that was the first time I saw people ice skating on the street. 

 

Well we had another really exciting week! The work here just keeps going well, we've found a ton of cool people lately and all of the lessons that we've been teaching have been going really well. Unfortunately our little Finnish family's baby was up all night on saturday night and so they didn't come to church on Sunday. But they said they were way sorry and that they will come next week for sure so I really hope that works out! They are doing well though and still reading and praying and everything. We found this american girl over a week ago and she came to Family Night last night at the church so that was way good! I think she enjoyed it and made some friends and so I bet she'll come to church on Sunday as well. We also have this way awesome investigator that is like a 30 year old lady from Russia. She's married to a Finn and speaks pretty good finnish and has a little boy and she is super interested. We've taught her twice now and we brought a member along who served his mission in Russia so he speaks some russian with her and explains things more clearly for her and things are going really well. After our first lesson she read 8 chapters of the book of Mormon and said she would pray about it this week and she's just way cool. We also found this super sweet family this week that is from Vietnam. The family consists of grandparents, a 16 year old boy two other boys and then a little adorable 8 year old girl. All of the kids speak pretty good finnish but the grandparents don't speak super well but the kids are good enough to understand what we say and then translate for the grandparents. Unfortunately they don't speak Vietnamese they speak some little local language (they're from some little village up in the mountains) so we don't have any church materials in their language which is tough. But they've been in Finland for a while and they go to the Lutheran church so they are Christian and are super down to learn about the Book of Mormon. They are just such nice people, we're going over to their house tonight! 

 

Temple Trip Selfie

We had a way busy week though in addition to all the good stuff going on up here. On Thursday we had to drive down to Vaasa to do a baptismal interview. I did the interview. The guy that got baptized is this 19 year old guy from China he was so cool! He had such a strong testimony and I could really tell that his newfound belief in God had changed him a ton. He was just super excited to get baptized and it was a way cool experience to do his interview. After the interview we drove back up to Oulu then we hopped on a plane that left from Oulu to Helsinki. So got to Helsinki Thursday night and slept at the mission home. Then we had our leadership meeting all day on Friday and went to the temple that night. Then we hopped on a night train and came back to Oulu. So it was a ton of traveling and way crazy but a ton of fun. This week I'm excited because we got to go to Rovaniemi to do splits. Rovaniemi is the norhernmost city in Finland that has missionaries in it. (It's also the northernmst city in the entire world with missionaries in it year round) I've always wanted to go to Rovaniemi so I'm super excited. I'll take lots of pictures. Hopefully I get to see Santa's village (that's where Santa Clause lives). I'm also planning on eating some Reindeer Rovaniemi is famous for it's reindeer pizzas. Alright well that is all I've got for the week. I love you all so much! Have a good week! 

Horse Meat and a lot of Travel

A visit to Seinajoki

Hey! I'm glad that everyone liked the horse meat I'll bring home a few packs in my suit case so that you can all try them. It looks like baby Rosie would love it haha I loved the picture of her chowing down on the sausage, so cute. Well we had another really good week here in Oulu!

 

Our investigators are doing really well and we've found a lot more really cool ones lately. Yesterday we even found an American!!! We were so excited haha she is from New York and goes to the University here in Oulu to study Finnish and culture. Super random but we're way pumped. This is the first time I've ever taught an American person on my mission, I can't really describe why it makes us so happy but it just does. Being away from America for so long has taken it's toll I guess. Yesterday we had a pretty insane day actually we tracted in to a super cool Finnish guy who just let us in his apartment straight away... that is the second time that has ever happened to me on my mission haha it's pretty rare. He is a super cool guy, he plays guitar and is getting his masters degree right now and is a way good solid investigator. We're going back to his place tomorrow. Our current investigators are doing extremely well too. The one Finnish family that we're teaching is still doing awesome. The dad has read like over 100 pages of the Book of Mormon and he said that him and his wife always talk about the things that we teach them and what they read in the Book of Mormon and that they are seriously considering joining the church. They were out of town this weekend again but this weekend they are in town and will be coming to church, we're super pumped! Everything is going great with them. We have a lot of really good members that are super willing to come to lessons with us and so everything is just working out lately. Last week we also got to go down to a city called Vaasa and do splits with the elders there. It is like a 6 hour train ride so it was a journey but a lot of fun. We got to switch trains in Seinäjoki as well so I hopped out and took a picture of my old hood. They actually have an investigator that is getting baptized this Saturday in Vaasa so we are going to go back this week to do the baptismal interview. Unfortunately we also have our monthly meeting down in helsinki on Friday so we are going to wake up and drive to Vaasa early Thursday morning, do the interview, and then drive right back to Oulu. Then we take a plane that leaves thursday night and we fly to Helsinki. Then we leave from Helsinki back to Oulu on a night train that leaves Friday night. So it will be a pretty hectic couple of days but it will be fun. 

 

O ok funny story for the week- we have this investigator here who is an older Finnish man and lives in a really nice house and stuff. He's way cool and he has two pet ferrets.  When we go over we sit at his kitchen table and these ferrets come up and scratch and try to bite our feet the entire time so we have to wear our shoes so that they don't bite our toes haha one of the ferrets even crawled inside of elder Ahlquist's bag and he had to pick up the bag and shake it out haha super funny. 

 

Alright well I love you all so much! Have a great week I will talk to you all next time!