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!