Excerpts from letters

October 25, 2010

Stake Conference is coming up in a couple of weeks. Last night we received a call from a member of the stake high council. He called President Brown, who gave our phone number to him. Apparently there is a special meeting for those who will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood soon and their families. They asked President to speak but he isn't going to be able to make it but President said we could do it. We need to start preparing for that one! It'll be fun, as long as we prepare properly and pray a lot.

October 18, 2010

Our investigators are doing ok. One reads the Book of Mormon like crazy (so far he's read over 400 pages), but he doesn't think he's ready yet to come to church. Another is really good at keeping commitments and commandments for a while, but then kinda stops again. He progresses, and then slows down, and then progresses, and slows down. It's ok, we are being patient.

October 4, 2010

We had an ok week. We had a district meeting in Kerava, about 45 minutes away. It was good. The highlight was, of course, General Conference. It was very very good. We watched the Sunday Afternoon session today at the office with a few other missionaries. I really enjoyed all of the sessions. We watched them at the Haaga chapel. They have it in Finnish projected onto a screen in the chapel and then in English projected onto a screen in the overflow area. All of the missionaries were in the English section and so were many of the Finns. It would be cool to listen to it in Finnish but one of the best things about conference is hearing the actual voices of the general authorities. With the translation that bonus is lost. We brought a bunch of sandwich stuff and just ate at the chapel. It wasn't anything too special but the point was simply not to be hungry. It was fun to see Elder Causse give the prayer because we met him! Yeah! Did you listen to Elder Nelson's talk? I guess it was in Priesthood Session. What he talked about is exactly what members need to do to help missionary work! He is so right! Besides, how can you argue with an Apostle?

September 27, 2010

Family,

We had a pretty good week. The training meetings were all great and it was a lot of fun to have Elder Ranzenberger with us. He and I still get along really well and we had a few good opportunities to teach together. It was really good.

Today we went to Helsinki with the Espoo I elders for a few hours. We walked around and looked at some stores and stuff. We didn't take any pictures because we weren't really doing site seeing. Elder Leppard and I are looking for some good winter gloves because last winter my hands were always freezing cold and I don't want to deal with that again.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. One of them stopped drinking coffee, which is awesome. Another is reading a lot out of the Book of Mormon. Another is praying to know if God is really there. Each investigator is so different from another. They all progress differently and have different needs and experiences. Two of them came to church yesterday and I think they like the fast and testimony meeting. Church is a little bit more stressful when you have investigators there, though. Trying to make everything perfect and make sure that they are being taking care of is a lot of work.

We are excited for General Conference. Watching Conference for us is like watching a football game, but better. The elders from Hyvinkää are going to come down for the weekend and stay with us because Conference isn't shown at their chapel. Because of the time difference and such, we get to watch one session Saturday night and then all day Sunday is just conference sessions with an hour or two inbetween for food breaks. We don't get to watch the Sunday afternoon session because of the time difference so we might go watch the Relief Society meeting on Saturday to make up for it...

September 13, 2010

We had a number of opportunities to discuss with members missionary work last week. Some of the members are so excited and are trying to arrange meetings with their friends and neighbors. That's the best way to do it! I think I've said before, in a perfect world, the members do all of the finding and the missionaries can do the teaching. The best thing is that some of these potential investigators are families. There is nothing better than teaching an entire family. This ward is made of almost exclusively of families. For a family to join the church the transition would be so smooth.

August 30, 2010

Yes, our investigator, was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday as scheduled. It was actually pretty cold (about 12 degrees C) but she said the water wasn't too bad. Several of her family members came to the service which was really great. The location was so perfect because of how peaceful and pretty it was. It was totally silent when she and the brother to baptize her walked into the water. There was a good Spirit present and everything went very well.

AUGUST 23, 2010

Perheelleni Missourissa,

Last week was our super intense week-long training meeting with President. Never before have I learned so much stuff in just a week. My head was pretty sore by the end of the week. The great thing is that it is all 100% applicable in any life situation. As a missionary or regular member or regular person or whatever, the principles apply. Because the meetings were all day every day we were only able to do teaching/missionary work in the evenings. Even so, a lot of good things happened.

The baptism is scheduled for this Saturday and all is going well. The most stressful part/biggest problem was finding a place to have the service. She wants to be baptized in Lohja Lake so it was a challenge to find a place that would be suitable and would ''please'' the most people. A little stressfull but now it has been taken care of so it's all in condition. Yes we will take lots of pictures.

These next two weeks are going to be insanely busy. We have district meetings we to visit, splits we to do, people to teach, and about a thousand other things. They are all good things, luckily, but we're going to be pretty tired. Oh well. Missionaries are supposed to be tired. We'll take it easy topside.

Last Monday we did a lot of baking. Banana bread, cookies, and pizza. We brought the cookies to one of the training meetings and gave a loaf of banana bread to President and Sister Brown. Mmmm.

August 16, 2010

Family,

Soo another week. We were, as always, crazy busy with all of the different things to do. We had splits on Wednesday with the Espoo I elders and then again on Saturday in Hyvinkää with the Hyvinkää elders. On Friday was Zone Leader Council with all of the zone leaders and President/Sister Brown at their home. We always go to the temple that morning with the others. That's always an awesome experience. The mission is starting to cruise forward. The number of baptisms is going to be quite a bit higher than it was last year, due to the great training from Elder Causse (the French seventy) and with the Spirit softening up the Finnish people

August 9, 2010

Family,

Last week was pretty intense. We had a lot of stuff from zone conference to a baptismal service to attend. Zone conference was awesome, as always. We didn't have to do a presentation this time because it was President presenting a new teaching program that came straight from the First Presidency and Twelve. Preach My Gospel is still the same and we still teach the same things, but the program is to teach missionaries how to teach. I'm pretty excited for it to come into full action soon. It's a pretty big deal.

Our investigator wanted to visit someone else's baptismal service to see what it's like so we attended one in Haaga (it's in Helsinki) on Tuesday. It was really good and she loved it. She is still doing great. There's not much to say except for that she is a good example and inspiration to us and to all the members who meet her.