Rough week, splits, conference and jam

Dallin had a rough week but as always is optimistic.

Moriens

Alrighty another week down. Last week was probably the hardest week I've had since the start of my mission. We did a lot of work, went to a lot of places but our results were very limited. That's ok though because I have to remember that, especially as a missionary, we don't always see the fruits of our labors. In our book, Preach My Gospel, it talks about how no good work goes unnoticed. I guess those are just bonus points for the future or something.

This week should be pretty awesome. Last week we got the Suomen Valo, which is the newsletter that we all get with the change information and announcements and such. We are now in the Oulu district, the furthest north one. I'm with Elder Empey in the same district so I'll get to see him of Friday when we go to Oulu for a District Meeting. Our District Leader and his companion are coming down here Wednesday night to go on splits for Thursday. That'll be sweet because splits are always fun.

Church yesterday was awesome. We are really starting to click with the members so that's sweet. We've been tracting/teaching with them as much as possible. One guy is actually President Brown's secretary for this area of Finland even though he's only like 25. He actually served his mission in Denver when we lived there so he knows the area as well as the missionaries we knew (Elder Beckett...) He's a total stud so he's the best to go tracting with. I'm pretty sure he'll be the first Finnish General Authority someday.

Yeah so for Conference we got to watch all the sessions except for Sunday night because they don't show that here because of the time difference. We just watched it at the church. They had a room set up for English so we watched it and all of the youth (all 4 of them) came and watched it with us in English because they speak English pretty well. Yeah it was pretty sweet.

My Finnish is still coming along. I can more or less hold a conversation on my own, depending on the topic of discussion. I can't express myself fully by any means but it's coming along. We've been speaking Finnish much more often with each other too so that has really been helping a lot. Keep those prayers a comin'! Tell the rest of the family thanks for the spiritual boosters.

Yes in other news I now like a lot more foods I previously did not like. Let me list them: jam, bananas (just straight bananas), fruity yoghurt (not with chunks), that's about it thus far. Yeah crazy I know and my tolerance will only increase.

The Language is coming along

Letter from Sept. 28th:

Another week come and gone already. We were in Turku Wednesday night to Friday afternoon for Zone Conference. It was pretty sweet. Turku is quite a bit bigger than Kuopio and we were with the whole North Zone which was pretty sweet. There were about 20-25ish missionaries so it was cool. I got to see the Elders Ranzenberger, Empey, and Schoof. They're doing well as far is I could tell. Elder Ranzenberger is over is Vaasa, just across the water from Sweden, so everyone there speaks Swedish. He said he hasn't taught a single lesson in Finnish, only English. We had some cool meetings at conference and then we had a finding activity for a couple of hours. We were all assigned areas to go around Turku to do street contacting. The people there are totally different than in Kuopio. It was crazy. The craziest part is that I understood MUCH better what they were saying in Turku. In Kuopio I can get a vague idea of what's going on, with very few specifics. In Turku it was the total opposite. It was crazy and cool at the same time. Of course I didn't understand everything/everyone but overall my level of understanding was WAY more. They just speak differently. It's interesting. I think I mentioned it before but in Kuopio a lot of people speak ''Savo'' which is the accent spoken in the east. It's hard.

Letter from Oct. 5

We are also now part of the Oulu District, which is sweet because it's the farthest north district in the country. So for District Meeting in a couple weeks we get to travel up there to Oulu or maybe to Rovaniemi (where Santa lives). We're excited for that.

Conference was pretty sweet. We even managed to bring one of our investigators (who happens to be blind) to a session. She liked it so that was good. I'm already excited for the next Conference sessions.

Finnish is definitely getting better. We were in Jyväskylä on Friday for companion exchanges so that was really cool. Once again, I understood people WAY better there but it is coming along here as well. Thanks for the prayers, without them missionary work would not happen here.

First Area is Kuopio

Sorry for the delay in the update. Dallin's first area is Kuopio. It is about a 5 hour train ride north of Helsinki. We might as well let Dallin tell you about the area, so here are some excerpts from his last few emails:

This one is from September 7th:

It has steadily been getting colder and colder each day. It was rainy for a few days last week, including Sunday, so that was a party trying to stay dry while walking around. We do now have a couple of investigators! One is a former investigator that we found in the Area Book thing (it just has records of everyone in the area basically). She needs to stop smoking and then she should be ready for baptism so we'll have to see if we can't get that process rolling a bit faster. The other ''investigator'' is actually a little family we tracted to. We set up a return time and taught them the first lesson and gave them a Book of Mormon. They said they would read and pray about it so we'll see how that went next week when we go back. We're still unsure how interested they really are but if they read and/or pray about the Book of Mormon that should trigger something. We do have another appointment tomorrow with another lady. We also tracted to her and she said we could come back tomorrow (tuesday). What's interesting is that when she opened the door her countenance was totally different than all the other people we had talked to that day. She was basically ''glowing.'' Hopefully that's a good sign. It just felt good to talk to her so I'm excited for that tomorrow.

Our apartment is pretty small. Kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom. Pretty standard. I don't know when I'll get some boots. It's really an optional thing if I want to get them or not so we'll see if I decide that I really need them or not. My shoes have been great so far, though. I haven't heard anything from the other 3 yet. We'll see them at our zone conference in a couple of weeks though so that will be fun. Our car is fun. It's really small and a manual, like every other vehicle in Europe. We take turns driving and it's kinda fun. My US license is good for like a year so I won't need to get one for several months, luckily so in a year I'll get it, probably.

Yesterday was my first day at church in Kuopio. The ward was quite a bit bigger than in Joensuu and they were all nice. A family invited us over for dinner last night so that was nice of them. We had something similar to spaghetti, but with different noodles and different sauce. I started putting what looked like grated cheese (you know like parmesan) but it turned out to be salt. So I had a lot on my food but I couldn't just waste a whole plate of food! It was rough eating it but I made it ok. I ate a lot of bread with butter in between bites to help with eating the saltiness.

We have a super busy week this week. We have a lot of stuff to do, with District Meeting with President Brown and District Conference (it's like Stake Conference) and other appointments and stuff. I'm actually looking forward to it because last week we had no appointments or anything, just proselyting and trying to find people. We did go and help a Brother cut wood at his kesämökki (summer cottage). It was pretty fun. We're going back to help him on Friday and probably next week too.

September 14th (Cath's B-Day...great present!):

!!HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! Make sure everybody does what mom says and makes her do nothing that would be stressful!

This last week went by really fast which was nice. I think it's because we were so busy with meetings and scheduled appointments and stuff. We had our district meeting last wednesday and President and Sister Brown came in for that. Then on Saturday and Sunday was District Conference (like stake conference but ''district'' because we're not in a stake). President and his wife were also here for that. Conference on Saturday was pretty much all afternoon and evening. We had a couple meetings, ate dinner at the church with the wards, and then there was a ''talent show'' thing at the church in the evening. It wasn't really a talent show but some musical performances and poem reading. It was a lot of fun even though I didn't understand any of the poems, especically because they were mostly hard core ''Savo'' which is the dialect that is spoken in this part of Finland by some people. Yesterday (Sunday) was the last conference meeting and then we ate lunch with the ward again. We spent the afternoon trying to meet some people to teach. It was the birthday of a girl in the ward (from the family that we chopped wood for a couple weeks ago, which we also did last week too). So they invited us over for cake and to talk with them for a bit and then we went back out to go tracting and stuff. It was just a crazy week but it's good because it helps time pass and it helps us feel like we're actually accomplishing something.

The work in general is really starting to pick up. There's a chance we'll have a lesson every night this next week which would be awesome because we're usually teaching maybe 1-3 lessons a week. If we can get 5 or more that would be way sweet. We did get another investigator last week, the ''glowing'' lady I was telling you about. We had a good discussion with her about our purpose and the Book of Mormon and such. She did tell us that she is a strong Lutheran and doesn't want to change, but she's still interested and she said she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it so when we meet with her again this week we'll follow up with that. If she did read and pray like she said she would then hopefully she'll have that desire to change and learn more. As long as she's interested in what we have to offer than it's worth taking time to help her out.

So last Monday I bought 3 sweet Finnish ties for a pretty good deal. I got the three of them for 25€ (depending on the exchange rate that's about 30-35 dollars I think). They're pretty awesome. I'm actually wearing one right now.

So, this was the story of the week:

So here's the story of the week. Last night we were tracting and a nice couple let us into their house to hear our message. They were both Pentacostle and listened to our lesson without really any disputations or anything bad. They weren't very interested in the message itself but they loved the fact that two young kids were in a foreign place teaching about Christ and the Gospel and such. We were getting ready to leave and Vanhin Pettus asked the wife if she would say the closing prayer for us. This is the point of the story. So she starts praying fine (of course it's in Finnish so I can just get the vague gist of the whole thing) and it's going fine. But then her voice changes and she starts speaking something that even I know isn't Finnish. She kept repeating whatever she was saying in whatever ''language'' and she was getting quieter and quieter until she ended. We thanked them for their kind hospitality and then got out of there. Basically she started ''speaking in tongues'' during her prayer and it was...interesting. Elder Pettus said that that was only the second time he's had the experience to hear someone do that. But yeah. Creepy. That said, they were very nice people and it was just nice to be let into a home just because that does not happen often at all. So yeah, there's my experience of the week.

September 21st:

We spent the weekend in Joensuu so that was fun. We had a dinner appointement there and it was some chicken soup stuff. It was pretty good. Last Thursday we also had a Dinner appointment with a family in the Kuopio ward. They live like 50 kilos away so it took a little while to get there but they live in a way sweet area in the forest. There is an awesome lake right behind their house and their property is sweet. We had salmon and salad and stuff with them. It was the first time I have eaten fish here, but it was probably the best fish I've ever had in my life. It was sooo good.

We didn't get to meet with the "glowing lady" last week because she was busy but we're going to try to this week. We found another 2 investigators last week so that was exciting. So far the progress of the investigators is slow but that's basically because we've only been able to meet with them once. We keep trying to set up return appointments but they always want to do them like 2-3 weeks down the road. That's kinda how Finland works in general: slow motion. That's ok though, we find more people to teach in the meantime so we stay busy. Eventually it'll kinda roll over and then we'll have several more teaches a week. On average we're getting about 2-3 teaches a week. However, with the new mission plan that is being introduced to the stakes and districts here (and throughout Europe I think) we should be getting 20 teaches a week because the members will play a much more involved roll and we'll more or less just be the teachers. Hopefully it will catch on quickly so we can really build up Finland with the help of the good members here. They're all really awesome.

We have zone conference this week in Turku, which I am really excited for. It's the north zone so I'll get to see a lot of other missionaries including the ones in my group from the MTC. It's usually pretty cold now during the day. We wore our gloves for the first time this week and it was totally worth it.

Sorry there are no pictures yet. Dallin has not been able to transmit any. The computer they are using at the church is pretty old and does not allow he and his companion to connect their cameras. Hopefully, we will have some come in the mail soon.

Landed in Finland

We received a letter from Dallin's Mission President, David Brown. Enclosed was a picture of Dallin & President and Sister Brown. Looks like he got a haircut before he left the MTC. It is a fun thing, but Dallin's Mission President was our Stake President right before we left SLC.

Dallin's P-Day is Monday. We received an email from him and I have enclosed a few messages from that email.

Finland is an adventure, that's for sure. The people are very...reserved. That's not a surprise because we heard a lot about Finland at the MTC but yeah, it's for sure different. I still don't understand anyone. I can pick out 1 in every 7 or 8 words or so so that's good. Yesterday was my first day at church. Even though we live in Kuopio, we actually have another city called Joensuu in our area. It is our ''visiting'' city that we visit a couple of times a change. We went down there Saturday morning and we stay with the piispa (bishop) of the Joensuu branch. He and his wife are pretty funny. He speaks some english but I don't think his wife does. He liked to try and speak English to me but I responded in Finnish as best as I could. Elder Pettus does the same. It's good to speak to the members in Finnish, even if they speak English to us. The branch was a whopping 18 members, including us. It was a totally different experience but it was still good. The members are all nice and one lady even spoke nice clearly to me so I could understand. Piispa and his wife fed us so that was nice of them. Our dinner on saturday night were a slices of bread with mayonaise (how do you spell that?) meat and some sliced vegetables on top. They weren't too bad except we had no idea what some of the meat was on some of the bread. We ate it anyway, just quickly. Sunday dinner was a cheese pasta dish thing that was pretty good. They're the only Finns that we've eaten with so far. Apparently the Kuopio branch is only like 50 active members, maybe with a very high inactive rate so I don't know how often we'll be eating with them. For ourselves we just kinda make whatever. It's pretty similar to college like food but all the directions are in Finnish so I just kinda guess what they say and hope it turns out good. We drove back to Kuopio last night at like 7ish to get home by 9. It's about a 1,5 to 2 hour drive. The sun was setting as we were coming back and it was REALLY awesome looking. The sun was blood red and the sky was sweet. We got some pictures of the sky but we missed the sun. It was awesome.

As far as investigators go, we actually don't have any. There haven't been any in Kuopio for a while now so we are still looking. While we were in Joensuu, however, we tried to meet with someone we had on record in the area book. The area book said they were two guys from Afghanistan who were nice and interested. We went to check up on them but it was just one guy from Iraq this time. He was super nice and invited us in. He didn't really speak English or finnish but still let us in. He is Kurdish and Muslim. He gave us some way good juice and we tried to communicate for a bit until he decided to call his friend who speaks finnish and english. Basically his friend translated for us. We didn't really teach a lesson because of the communication barrier but he said he would like a Book of Mormon. We're going to try and find one in Kurdish, if there is one, and if not we'll get one in Arabic because he speaks that too. We'll bring that to him when we go back to Joensuu. I kinda want to focus on the inactives in Kuopio though because if there are more members, it makes missionary work that much easier, assuming the members help. Hopefully we'll be able to work with some less active members and/or find some investigators. All we can do is contact and tract and call people. We'll see what happens.

I'm still getting into the swing of things. I've pretty much got the schedule down, I'm obviously still working on my Finnish and I'm getting a better feel of when/how to talk to people. That's one thing I wasn't sure about and am still trying to figure out. I'm still somewhat unsure of who we're supposed to talk to and how many people we're supposed to talk to and how many hours a day we're supposed to do tracting/contacting. The first half of the day is scheduled study time so that's fine. So I'm still getting a feel for what is considered a great day of missionary work. Hopefully after a few more days it'll become clearer. We spend several hours a day tracting and contacting and such but maybe it's just different because we don't have any investigators. Only time will tell how things go I guess.

Temperature wise it's pretty nice here. It's getting cooler but it's not bad at all yet. It rained all day yesterday in Joensuu but other than that it's just been overcast, like in Seattle.

I have our email setup to alert me when I get a message from Dallin. I was able to send a few messages back and forth somewhat "live" with him on Monday. He does not have a lot of time, but it was fun to do that for a little while.

More updates later.

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.