Excerpts from letters

July 26, 2010

Family,

Wee!! Our investigator has a baptismal date!! She will be baptized on the 28th of August in Lohja Lake. We are very excited. At the last teach we had planned to talk about baptism with her and see what she was thinking and she more or less brought it up herself and said she wants to be baptized in August. So, we picked the 28th. She has to get some eye surgery in the middle of August, thus the reason it will be so late in the month but that's ok. She is so ready. She keeps trying to teach her boyfriend the gospel and she accepts everything like crazy. We taught tithing earlier last week, which can be a stumbling block for many, but the Spirit told her don't worry about it, so she said she'd do it when she is a member.

We didn't get a change call so Elder Leppard and I get to stay together. He is only my second companion with whom I have will have been with for more than one change! Pretty weird. I can't believe that I've already been in Espoo for 3 months and after this change 4.5 months. Crazy.

Last Friday we were on a train to Kouvola for a district meeting and we got a call from President Brown. As you may know, every three months, missionaries in Russia have to renew their visas. He called and told us that such an event was happening, but one missionary's visa did not go through and has to wait until Tuesday. He asked us to take care of him for the next few days until his visa is good to go and he can go back to Russia. His name is Elder Haynes from Arizona. He's been a missionary for only 6 months, a little bit younger, and is trapped in Finland with us. I like him. He doesn't speak a lick of Finnish (who does?) and got to experience church, the lesson where our investigator set her baptismal date, a dinner appointment and Finland in general. We've all been having fun. He should be going back tomorrow.

July 19, 2010

Family,

So. It has been really hot lately. And humid. All of the Finns are amazed at how hot it is. First we have the coldest/longest/most intense winter in 7-10 years and then we have this crazy hot/humid summer. It's nuts.

Things have both slowed down and accelerated at the same time. Almost everyone is on vacation but the number of baptismal dates across the mission is shooting up and continues to climb faster and faster. Kinda strange how that works but we're not complaining! Our investigator close to baptism surprised us by coming to church yesterday. She is now back from vacation so we can get right back to it. The last thing we have to teach her is tithing and it was pretty convenient because they talked a lot about tithing at church yesterday so she's already learned the introduction to it. We're shooting for a baptismal date with her after we've taught it.

July 5, 2010

On Friday we had our zone conference with Elder Caussé. It was so good. He talked about exactly what we needed to hear to help get things going around yet another corner so we can baptize everyone. At least those that are baptizable. Friday night was a leadership meeting with us, President Brown, Elder Caussé, the stake presidency, and the other stake organization presidents. It was a sweet meeting. The whole meeting was how the members can be better missionaries and better help the missionaries. As soon as the few suggestions are enacted, everything will go forward that much faster. On Saturday was the Zone Leader Council up in Oulu. We jumped on a train from Helsinki at 7:30 and arrived at 2:00. It was a long ride. I got to see Elder Ranzenberger for a minute as he and his zone were just finishing up their meeting and leaving to the train station. A fun mini reunion. The council with Elder Caussé was also awesome. We have a good list of things to work on and make happen. He is such a good teacher it was awesome. He knows the scriptures so well and knows how to teach to people's needs. I really enjoyed being around him and trying to soak up knowledge. After the meeting we took a night train home. Let me tell you, that was an experience. It's hard to explain in words so the picture will have to suffice.

June 21, 2010

This morning we had a teach with our investigator who is so close to baptism it's ridiculous. She has narrowed it down to the first week in August when she could get baptized so she's going to pray about that and get a specific day. We'll follow up with her on Thursday about it. She is such a good example to her friends. She has taught one of her friends that alcohol is not good nor is coffee. This morning she told us that he has stopped drinking alcohol and today was the first day for him without coffee. It's kinda funny because he's very skeptical about the church and gives her a bunch of anti stuff but he is now trying to live the word of wisdom. It doesn't matter to her though, she knows what she told him to cut it out because it won't change her mind.

Next week is a mission tour with Elder Causse!! (He's from France). It's going to be so sweet. He's going to visit each of the zones for a day. We'll have basically another zone conference where the whole zone comes together at one of the chapels where he will tell us things and teach us things. We're all excited.

June 14, 2010

Wow what a week. Elder Nikiforov is now back in mother Russia and I'm with the elders in the Espoo I ward (my ward is the Espoo II ward). We'll still be together until tomorrow when my new companion comes. My new companion is Elder Leppard, from England. He's my papa Finn from the MTC so I already know him pretty well, and then he was in the Kouvola district when I was district leader there. He'll be coming from Lahti where he was district leader over the Tampere district. He's a good missionary and I'm excited to be with him.

Last Saturday was a baptism over in Haaga, a part of Helsinki. The three of us went and several of the other Helsinki missionaries were there as well, including the sister missionaries who taught the girl that was baptised. It was a very nice service. It was the first baptismal service that I had been to. There were several people who didn't speak Finnish there so they asked me to translate. I spoke into a little microphone and the people needing the translation wore headphones to listen. Let me tell you, speaking, listening, and translating are 3 completely different things. Listening is the easiest because it just makes sense in your head. Speaking is a bit harder because you have to put together the grammar principles and words yourself. Translating is a mess because you have to listen and speak in two languages at the same time. It was fun though and it went pretty ok.


June 7, 2010

A letter written to our ward:

My name is Elder Grimm and I have the privilege to serve in the Finland Helsinki Mission. I am the oldest of the Grimm children and have been in the field for approximately one year. Serving a mission has been one of the best (if not the best) experiences of my life. I would like to share a simple lesson learned in just the past few weeks. The question is, ''From where do we get our joy?'' Often we think that the more ''stuff'' we have, the more joy we obtain. I have learned that lasting joy or happiness can come only from the eternal things. Our television will eventually break; our car will eventually run out of gas, permanently. However, families can be together forever. We can enjoy life in the Celestial Kingdom FOREVER. The lesson I learned, to put it another way, is that we must be so careful to determine our sources of joy. A car or television or anything else of that nature is not bad, in it of itself, but if we seek happiness from these things, we will find ourselves in a never-ending search for more. Seek things of eternal consequence, not of immediate gratification. I am so happy to be a missionary. Thank you for taking care of my family. The church is true!

May 31, 2020

Another week come and gone just like that. We were insanely busy but it was good. The one investigator with the baptismal date decided to postpone it for a month so he can get more faith first. He's a good guy so we'll stay with him as long as is necessary. He was at church for all 3 hours, a first for him. Our other investigator was also at church for the full 3 hours. Last week when we visited her, she had invited her friend/neighbor over for the lesson. We ended up teaching him about the Book of Mormon and she was testifying along with us. It was great. Hopefully we'll be able to meet him again this week sometime.

May 17, 2010

Stake Conference was good. It was at this big conference center place the church rented in Helsinki because there aren't any church buildings that are big enough for stake conference. President Brown spoke, of course about missionary work. He did a really good job. Elder Nikiforov was trying to translate into Russian for a temple missionary couple from Russia. He was pretty done afterwards. Translating really makes your head hurt, especially since Finnish grammar is so different from Russian or English or any other language, for that matter.