Changes

Well first off, be sure to send my love to Grandma. My prayers are with her. And Layne, my sista, you know me better than that, haha. You got mail coming. And the Germany Doctor, he's also our doctor, and his wife is Finnish AND they are in Joensuu this week visiting her sister, WHO lives in the next building over from us. hahahaha - Small world. We might go over and visit. I'll put in a word for ya Layne. :) Feel better.

News Flash: Change calls came! They were Saturday night and we thought there's no way we'd get called, since we are both new to the area. We made Makara, basically big cheese filled hot dogs, and ate some delicious Aino ice cream, and waited by the phone. My companion, MY TRAINER, is leaving me!! But, he's going to be a Zone Leader in Tampere, while I stay in Joensuu. My new comp comes in on Tuesday, Vanhin Falk. All I know about him is that he'll be District Leader, he was born in Russia, lived there till 12, then adopted by a Utah Mormon family and now, wahlaa, he's here. Should be pretty cool from what I've heard. So my comp has to pack, haha.

We had another District Meeting this past week in Joensuu. We continues talking about the topic from Zone Conference: Teaching towards the Investigators needs and adapting and adjusting to them. The Zone Leaders came the night before and slept over at our place. In the morning we got to have Language Study with them, which was cool because they both know Finnish pretty well. District Meeting was really good and that night after they all left we went tracting in some student housing and we got in and got a teach at one door! His name is Henri, and he was asking all the right questions and it went pretty good. We gave him a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment for tomorrow. So pray for that to go well.

We've been trying to visit all the less actives and the other night we got to get in and talk to a couple. They really have no excuse to not come to church. They are both awesome older ladies and really just stopped coming. So they need to be reminded and experience the feelings they felt at baptism and what is was like feeling the spirit and being a member. That's what we've been trying to remind all the less actives and members, the feelings they had when they joined the church and why they did so, and the related questions. So hopefully we can get some more people coming to church, because now there is only about 15-20 total.

Our less active, Toni, is doing well. We still teach him every week and he seems to be getting happier and more comfortable and friendly with us. We've been trying to get him to put uplifting pictures on his now bare walls and to listen to uplifting music, because now he listens to hard core rock and rap. Yesterday he came up to us and showed us a church picture book he just got and seemed excited to go through it. :) He's awesome. Pray for him. Being dependent on drugs for 10 years then just stopping is hard on anybody, so he needs to pull through it. I know he can.
Aaaaaannnnnd, my contact just fell out of my eye, hahaha, try typing with a blurry eye and a good eye. Random.

Our DA yesterday was at the church again because the lady lives too far away. She made us Tacos. :) We got to know her a lot better and she told us basically her life story. Sisar Kauppinen is so nice and good to us. She even gave us a bag of food to take home on top of the leftovers she couldn't take home with her on the bus.

Ahhh, never enough time here.

Random notes:
-Clay Holmes is now in the Provo MTC, going to Argentina, Buenos Aires. Sweet.
-I've had Lamb, Moose, and a mystery fish while being here.
-it almost hit 0 degrees celcius last week, but has since dropped to normal, haha
-I bought a shirt that has SUOMI written across it :)
-when Pres and Sis Brown got here in Finland, the stats were 1 investigator per comp every 10 months. In 2009 it changed to 1\comp\2 weeks. Already in 2010 its now .75 of an investigator per comp per week. Things are changing here in Finland, for the best. Europe's downward slide has finally started to turn up . . . .where it should be.

Gotta go. Man waiting for the computer. Moi

-Vanhin Watson