On His Way to Finland!

Well, we are on a bit of a high right now. We just got off the phone with Dallin. He had a layover in Denver on his way to Helsinki (via Frankfurt) and was permitted to call us. We were able to talk with him for 2 hours. That time went very quickly!

He is doing very well and is excited to finally get to Finland. He said his time in the MTC went very quickly. It is hard to believe that he has been out for almost 3 months. He had an opportunity to see his cousin Kersti at the MTC right before he got on the bus. He thought that was cool.

He and his companion have already given a few pass along cards out to some people at their gate. He said that Elder Schoof and Elder Empey got their first rejections. Good news is that they are already at work!

His schedule will look something like this: They land in Finland around 5pm tomorrow night (local time). The Mission President and the AP's will pick them up at the airport and take them to the mission home for dinner and interviews with the President Brown. On Wednesday, they will spend time with a set of couple missionaries in the mission home that will get their paperwork in order (i.e. bank accounts, etc.). Apparently, that takes a while. They will be in training the rest of the day to learn about the country and the mission. They will likely head out to their areas on Thursday with their trainers.

It is expected that the four of them will be split up in four different cities: Rovaniemi, Vaasa, Kuopio or Tamperi. We will not know which one he is assigned to until our email next week.

We do know that his P-Day will be Monday, so we won't hear from him until a week from today.

They had a bit of a close call with their luggage. They found out that they could only take 1 carry-on, less than 18lbs and two free checked bags of 50lbs or less each. He had to put his small roller bag inside of the medium sized one so he would not have to pay an extra $100. Too bad I could not pass on my 1K status to him! His two checked bags came in at 49.5lbs and 50.5lbs, so they let them go through. His carry on was 17.5lbs. Good thing we did not send a package to him at the MTC right before he left!

We did send him a surprise package to the mission home that should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday. It sounds like we probably should have sent deodorant. Apparently, they do not have very good product in Finland. I guess that will be the next package.

If anyone wants to send something to him, send it to the mission home. He also suggested that letters should go to the mission home also and they will forward accordingly. I have updated his address on the blog page for your reference.

That's all for now. Please write letters to him!

Thanks!

Last Day at the MTC

Well, today is Dallin's last day at the MTC. He heads out for Finland tomorrow. We will have an opportunity to talk with him during his layover in Denver (it figures). We are very much looking forward to that.

In the mean time, we have some additional updates from his last few emails as well as an email from one of his MTC instructors.

This was from two weeks ago:

Last week in the TRC, Elder Ranzenberger and I had the opportunity to teach not just one, but two real life, 100% authentic Finnish people. What was amazing is that we actually understood most of what they were saying. I think I mentioned last week that Elder Ranzenberger and I are speaking Finnish all the time now, as much as possible so that certainly helped, along with the fact that Heavenly Father likes to help missionaries. It was an awesome experience and probably one of our best teaches, if not the best.

In the RC, Elder Ranzenberger and I love to take incoming calls from people who are calling in to order something. For whatever reason, we always seem to get a ton of people calling in with the wrong number by mistake. We make it a goal to give one of these wrong numbers a Book of Mormon or a DVD about Christ. So far no luck but we're trying. Yesterday, out of the 15 calls I answered in about 1.5 hours, 13 of them were wrong numbers. Crazy. We have been calling some of the same people back over the last few weeks. One lady I've been talking to for a long time is meeting with the missionaries so we're just kind of an in between support group. Her story is quite intense so I'll have to tell it when I get back because I just don't have enough time now. She's doing well though and wants to be baptized so in due time she'll get there.

Oh boy so today our district was selected to help be hosts for the new missionaries coming in today. Elder Ranzenberger and I get to help with traffic so that will be a party. It'll be fun to see all of the new missionaries coming in. The only bummer is we don't get to go to the temple today because it's a conflicting schedule. Sealings last week were really cool though.

Here are some things from his letter last week:

The MTC is just fine but I am ready to move on. Yes Finnish is hard. We have been learning "spoken" Finnish, which is what the people will actually say. It's totally different and kinda scary. For dinner/lunch/breakfast we eat some sort of meat item with a different sort of meat gravy/sauce, depending on the day.

Guess who i saw today? Tyler King. he's been here for a week now so i talked to him for a few minutes so that was fun. there are currently 12 finnish missionaries here. There are 3 elders in the group that replaces us in a couple of weeks.

Get this, President Brown and his wife (my mission president) are hard core UTE fans! Yeah! Monday was our last day with brother west, one of our teachers, because he was going out of town. He brought in a bunch of pictures and told us a lot of cool stories about finland so we keep getting more excited. Saturday is our last day with our other teacher, brother evans so he'll do something similar: show us his stuff/pictures and give us his last words, so to speak. It's so exciting to think that this is the last email from the United States for 2 years! Ahaha!!

Here are some thoughts from Veli Evans, one of Dallin's teachers:

Hopefully you have heard my name in emails from your son, and hopefully the things you have heard have been nothing but positive. My teaching companion and I had the privilege of teaching Vanhin Grimm while he was in the MTC for 12 weeks. During the last 3 months I have really enjoyed getting to see the spiritual, intellectual, and personal growth in him as a missionary of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

After teaching a group of missionaries I am particularly impressed by I ask each missionary if it would be alright for me to write their mothers and let them know of their current progress, etc.

Vanhin Grimm has been a lot of fun to teach at the MTC. He grasps things very quickly and has learned to speak Finnish quite well. Of the two companionships in his district his companionship is the most dynamic. They teach very well together and have learned to explain complex doctrines in Finnish.

He is the best Finnish speaker of the group and loves speaking Finnish all the time. His diligence has paid off because he is able to teach very well in the TRC each week. I always looked forward to interviews as well because he is always so happy and nice to talk to. His expectations for Finland are exactly where they need to be and he is so excited to go there!

He is very obedient and always seems to accomplish all of his goals each week. He sets extremely high goals and has a very unique way of motivating himself. This diligence is going to make him an awesome missionary in Finland when he arrives. I always tell my missionaries that they only send the best to Finland and I truly believe this. Being in the MTC with Vanhin Grimm has helped me become a better teacher and it has been a blessing in my life to get to know him.

Thank you for preparing him the way that you have. It is evident that he has a strong background and in the gospel.

As a parent, this letter was very much a "pay day". We will post some thoughts after our call with Dallin tomorrow!

2 More Weeks...

Dallin is getting very excited to leave the MTC and head out to Finland. His travel day is Monday, August 24th. We are very excited about this because we are supposed to get a call from him that day during his travels!! We will post an updated address when we have one.

Dallin currently has 3 cousins in the MTC as well. Lars Spjut (heading to Russia), Kersti Spjut (heading to Canada) and David Grimm (heading to Mexico). He has seen all of them at one point or another. Kind of fun!

He was excited to get a letter from his Aunt & Uncle, Darryl & Karin. Please send letters!

Dallin told me how to say, "Snake! I will destroy you" in Finnish: Käärme! Minä hävitän sinut! Nice...

He has sent some additional Finnish words for us to stumble with:

tähti: a star (like in the sky). Suunitella: to plan

tietokone---> computer. It literally translates to a "knowledge machine."

laulu--->a song.

makea---> it means "sweet."

läskii. It means "chubbs" So you can say, "hey, läskii!" Don't really say that, it's kinda mean. But it is an awesome word one of the teachers taught to Elder Ranzenberger and I.

Lakkaamatta: without ceasing.

Dallin & his companion, Elder Ranzenberger have decided to speak only Finnish their last few weeks in the MTC.

Elder Ranzenberger and I actually made a goal to speak only Finnish for our last three weeks here. So far so good. It's certainly not easy all of the time but just in the last two days my Finnish has improved a lot. I'm excited to see how much better it will be in 3 weeks!

So because Elder Ranzenberger and I are speaking Finnish until we leave, we can say," Me puhumme suomeksi lakkaamatta!" We speak in finnish without ceasing! It's a good one.

Dallin has had some great experiences in the Referral Center (the RC):

I have had some more cool stuff in the RC. I actually just talked to a lady yesterday from Washington, MO. She was very adament about the fact that she was Catholic and just wanted a Book of Mormon so she could see what it is. It was a bit of a fun challenge for me to "teach" her without actually "teaching" her. I suggested she read the Introduction of the BoM because it sums up pretty well what it is. (it also happens to outline the logic chain that if the BoM is true, then Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was His prophet, and that our church is the true church.) Hopefully whoever calls her in a few months will be able to teach her more.

In the RC yesterday during a call back, we were able to teach a lady part of the plan of salvation and it was really good and then her nephew started crying and company came over so she kinda sorta hung up on us. That's satan for you, interrupting our lessons, but the important thing is that she felt the spirit when she prayed and when she reads the book of mormon. We'll keep working on her.

So, please keep praying for him and please send him letters.