FINNISH CHOCOLATE
Disclosure: Dallin writes to each one of his siblings at the end of the general letter. I don't include these since they are personal to the kids.
Still no pictures. Hopefully soon.
November 9, 2009
Family,
Yes another week has come and gone and yes I've already been out for 5 months! Crazy. We were in Turku for Zone Conference and it was awesome. We did splits and I went with one of the newer greenies who's even younger than our group. It was the most fun tracting I've had ever AND it was really productive. We gave away a Book of Mormon/got his phone number, got someone who said we could come back and a third lady who ''promised'' to call the missionaries. Not too sure about the last one but the first two people I listed were pretty good. It was fun. I was able to hang out with Elder Ranzenberger a lot. He thinks he and I are going to be put together next change. That would be sweet.
Yeah so about the changes. We get our change calls on Saturday so we'll see what happens. I wouldn't mind staying here at all because then I would get to stay with the ward that I already know through Christmas. But whatever. Elder Pettus and I think that he's going to get transferred because he's never been with a companion for more than 2 changes and he's already been here in Kuopio for like 4 months. I guess we'll have to wait until Saturday! Either way though I won't be able to email on Monday because we have a ''school present'' thing that will be during the day so even if we don't get a change we won't have our Preparation Day until later in the week. You can still email me by Monday though just in case because things can easily change.
Our blind lady is doing fine. She's a pretty slow progressor but we've been very straight and direct with her the last couple of teaches so she knows exactly why we're here as missionaries to try and pick things up. I think she's just had the idea (like so many people do) that we're just good people who talk about Christ but they don't always realize that it's a LOT more than that.
So get this. We found a new investigator last week. He's about 25 years old and is married, a perfect candidate, he AND his wife. What's interesting is that he's planning on being confirmed into the Lutheran Church this month but after we met and talked with him about the Book of Mormon, he's pretty interested in it. Hopefully we'll be able to crash the confirmation party and bring him into the right church. We've been praying hard for him so we'll see how it works out.
We take turns driving the car. I don't have to get my license until next summer so I'm good for a while. They do have a few different rules. Overall the roads are pretty decent and such so it's nothing too crazy.
Yes, the mission home is the place to send the package BUT depending on when you send it, I could give you my address once I know where I'll be for a while and then you could send it directly there. I'll know next week and I'll tell you where you should send it.
Hmmm, letters...I kinda don't remember what those look like. I'm currently on a dry spell and haven't gotten anything in about 2.5 weeks. I'm feeling some this week though so I'm not too worried about it. Yeah Jaimie still writes. In fact, she's the most consistent. I'm still waiting to hear from Dave and Jess. I'm not sure what they're doing these days.
Yes non romantice Josh Groban stuff is ideal. That said, all of his stuff is pretty romantic. I mean seriously, have you heard his voice? No but seriously February song is good and so are the other non romantic ones. He has songs that are hard core, clearly romantic and some others that are just inspirational (ie February Song, Don't Give up, You raise me up...) and those are good. I hope that helps clarify. If not ask me for more clarification. As far as General Authorities, I really do like Uchtdorf and Monson but they're all good. The older stuff is perfectly legit too.
This week we're going to Rovaniemi! AND because of train schedules and how freakin far away it is we get to stay there for 2 nights! Elder Empey from my MTC group is there and so is Cason's twin, Elder Heelis. It's going to be sweet. District Meeting will be great and then we get to go to the Arctic Circle where Santa lives! Did you know he is fluent in 17 languages (I think it's 17)? My Finnish is getting better every day. Maybe we'll baptize him.
It's been pretty cool. We've had a few warmer days and it's been snowing a little bit but it's still in that awkward inbetween time. It just needs to get freezing and snow already!
Shoot I'm almost out of time so sorry to the siblings for getting a shorter message.
November 2, 2009
Hi,
Last week was pretty freakin busy, only because we were in Kuopio the entire week but then we went to Savonlinna on Saturday/Sunday. It's a cool little town. Write down the ''Savonlinna'' story so when I get back I can tell you all that went down because it's way too much to try and describe/tell in this email.
On Wednesday we get to go to Turku for Zone Conference! We've been looking forward to it since the last Zone Conference 6 weeks ago. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Yeah we ate lunch with our new Branch Mission Leader. He wants to eat lunch with us every week at the University of Kuopio where he goes to school. When we met him there he told me that Danika had sent him a message and he thought that was cool. He's a stud.
We had another lesson with our blind investigator. She's making progress, slowly but surely. We did meet a couple of people last week who seemed really interested so hopefully we'll be able to meet with them this week sometime when we're not in Turku.
It was pretty freezing all last week. It's definitely more humid here than in Colorado but I don't think it's nearly as much as in Missouri. I don't even notice it that much at all. But it's still freezing. I did buy some mittens with my MSF about a month ago for like 4€ and I also bought a scarf with my MSF for like 7€. The gloves I brought are pretty warm, the mittens just keep my hands a bit warmer because my fingers are kept together. Depending on what we're doing I'll wear one pair over the other. Other than that I don't really need anything. We did find this shop that sells these really nice white shirts, European style, which means the collars are ''wider'' and they are pretty sweet. This store sells them really cheap, only like 30€, where most places they're like 50€+. I might get one and have that be my ''nice event shirt'' for Zone Conference and stuff because my other shirts are already showing a little wear. They're doing great thus far though, I can make them last for sure. I am considering getting a different backpack, one that's a bit smaller, lighter, and just easier to handle for our daily activities. I don't know if I want to or not because the bag I have now is in great shape and I like it, it's just a bit large. To get the backpack that I want would cost about 30€ and I'm not sure if that is an MSF expense or if that would come out of my own pocket. I don't know. They don't have the right one in Kuopio anyway because there are like NO shops here at all so I guess I don't really need to worry about it for a while. Don't worry, I'm not spending lots of money. I have a hard time buying a candy bar let alone anything else. Anything I get is well thought out and necessary!!
Finnish is still plodding along. It is weird about the ''thinking in Finnish'' thing because a lot of the time when we're talking to people, you just understand what they're saying. I don't have to translate the words into English in my head, they just make sense and I know what's going on. It's weird. I've had a couple dreams in Finnish. Also weird.
There's really nothing I can do about getting pictures to you unless I get transferred or something. None of the computers we have access to are any good and to print them off at a shop is pretty expensive. Don't worry I'll figure something out! The computers at the church are currently being worked on and hopefully being replaced, then I might be able to email pictures. We just don't know when they'll be ready for use again.
Ha Halloween here was a joke. Basically it's just an American holiday. I hear that in Helsinki or in bigger cities they actually do stuff but up north, definitely not. It was actually some other holiday on the 31st. ''All Saints Day'' which is basically like our Memorial Day, but it's not only for veterans, it's for EVERYONE who has died. Kinda cool. In Savonlinna we were walking past a graveyard and there were candles everywhere on the tombstones. It was pretty cool looking.
We had our DST thing a couple weeks ago. We got to ''sleep in'' an extra hour! I, honestly, did not sleep very well the last hour of the night because my body clock wanted to get up so bad.
October 26, 2009
Moros Perhe,
Yeah so I forgot to tell you last week that we were going to Helsinki for a couple of days for a ''Language School'' thing for the missionaries who have been out for 6 weeks (myself and my MTC group). It was pretty fun because I got to see them again, especially Elder Ranzenberger. He's the best. We were met at the trainstation by a couple of the Helsinki elders who told me that Sister Nelson had been asking about me so they suggested we stop by because they lived pretty close. It was fun to talk to her for a bit and stuff. Don't worry about that going to my head. I don't even know how they found out anything about me and I know my Finnish/missionary skills are still very much in the developing phases. VERY MUCH SO.
Yeah we travel a lot. Elder Pettus and I do especially because we have two visiting cities, each of which is like 2 hours away by car. We're going to our second visiting city, Savonlinna, this weekend. Between our visiting city travel and any conferences/meetings we have, we do travel quite a bit. Pretty much every week we're somewhere different for at least a couple of days. We get to go to Rovaniemi (the city on the Arctic Circle where Santa lives) on the 12th of November for District Meeting! It's going to be sweet!
I haven't been able to go to the temple yet. In fact, I haven't even seen it yet. While we were in our language school thing our companions got to go though.
Transfers aren't until the week of 16th of November, so we still have some time together in Kuopio.
The work is going pretty swell. Our blind investigator came to sacrament meeting yesterday which was awesome. She's still our best investigator and is coming along. Last week we tried to be pretty direct and forward about praying about the Book of Mormon and she said she would so we'll follow up with her this week. We have some people we're hoping to meet with this week so hopefully we'll get some new investigators from it. A couple of them seemed pretty promising.
Finnish is still coming along. Every day it gets slowly better and better. Yesterday we learned some slang from one of the members. Yeah.
That's good to hear that David and Jess went to the temple. They had told me they were going to go this month but I HAVEN'T HEARD FROM THEM! If you get a chance, tell David and/or Jessica that I would love to hear what's going on with them. Seriously.
So dad bought a mini chain saw. That's ok because it was fun doing it all manually because it builds character. Speaking of building and weight, I am getting heavy! I came into the MTC weighing about 165. I left them MTC weighing about 169. I am currently 179-182, depending on the time of day. I for sure think part of it has to do with the food, but I also think it has to do with the fact that we actually exercise every morning where I do push ups and sit ups and stuff. I'm definitely getting stronger/bigger, so Connor, if you don't want to get owned, start bulking up bud. Remember mom, when I said I was going to come back HUGE? It's well on it's way.
I'm glad you're going to the temple pretty often. That's a good way to get some sweet blessings. I wish we could go more often but oh well, nothing we can do about it.
We're just waiting for the snow to come down. It's hovering just above freezing so any snow we do get just melts off pretty quickly. Elder Pettus and I did get our socks from the bishop's wife in Joensuu last weekend. They are legit. I took a picture of them so I can show you sometime. That was probably our last time in Joensuu together so it was a nice way to leave: with our awesome socks.
October 19, 2009
Moriens Perhe
Ok so another week down in the month of October. Yesterday was Seth's birthday, so we celebrated by going to Joensuu! Just kidding, but we were in Joensuu again this weekend. I gave a talk to all 18 of the members and it went pretty smoothly.
Last week went by super fast because we were only in Kuopio for like 4 days. It was pretty sweet being in Oulu for District Meeting. Oulu is WAY bigger than Kuopio is. As always, it was sweet to see other missionaries and talk with them a little bit. The only bummer is that we didn't get into Oulu until about midnight the night before the meeting so we didn't get much sleep so the the train ride home we were out of it for pretty much the whole thing.
Yeah I've been taking my vitamin D tablets. I hope they're helping, I'm sure they are. That's probably why I'm not sick.
Oh I'm glad the chocolate made it to you all fine, even if it took almost 2 weeks. I had written a little note with a description of the chocolate that I was going to put in your envelope but I sealed the envelope before I put the note in. The Fazer bar is the standard, most famous Finnish chocolate and is pretty good. The Panda stuff is pretty good, a slightly different kind of chocolate but it's pretty good too. I'm glad the Robinson's got the letter. Dallin is the really the only person other than Seth, Jaimie, and the Wetherbees who wrote to me so I figured he earned a chocolate bar. Hopefully he'll keep writing!
As far as P-Day goes, we don't really do a whole lot. We email, we buy our food, sometimes we'll go shopping but not too often because there isn't really anything to do/see in Kuopio. We did do a bit of shopping today, though. I bought Danika's Christmas present and I found the Dark Knight for only 10€ so I bought it. In other cities there is more to do but that's about it for Kuopio.
My Finnish has really been getting better. When we were in Joensuu I was actually able to have a conversation with the Bishop and his wife for the first time so that was neat. Every week it gets better and better. Thanks for the prayers.
Elder Pettus and I are doing pretty well together. We're both excited to have a good rest of this change. We've gotten to know each other quite a bit better over this last week so that will only help our work get better.
