Busy Busy

Thanks again for the wonderful e-mails everyone. It's great hearing from all of you and reading the updates, advice, and uplifting comments.

As usual, I'll start out from where I left off last week . . . Oh, sorry this is late, Easter is a 2 day holiday here so everything was closed yesterday.

Last P-Day we went and checked out some of the local stores. At a popular one called DressMan, I bought some European pants and a cool tie, and it all cost me only 25 euros. :) The pants are quite tighter than the American style, but very trendy here, haha.

I had my 1st member teach of my mission the other day! It was with our investigator, Maire, an older woman. The teach went very well, and she almost got emotional again. We used the new agenda we learned in our last District meeting, where we share with the people we teach what we want to do and how we want to do it and how often and stuff. She said that she was interested and just today we had another teach with her, with the same member present, and it also went very well. Maire is a sweet old lady and today she got emotional when talking about the Plan of Salvation. She had a child die at birth and it hit her pretty close. Good teach.

We also had two other teaches last week which produced 3 new investigators! They came from tracting and let-ins. The first was a young man, Lauri. We heard from a member that the area where he lives contains a lot of mentally handicapped people, and we have our suspicions he might be, but we aren't sure yet. We used the new agenda with him too and he agreed to it and we went back again today. I was finally able to recite the 1st Vision in Finnish at our first teach with him, which I only just recently learned.

The other 2 investigators are Sari and Mikko, a couple we tracted into. They let us in and it went great! We also used the new agenda with them and they seemed excited and agreed to it. We went back today, and at the door Sari dropped us. Totally unexpected and kind of suspicious. I wonder what happened. :(

We had another event with that same member from 2 months ago, where she invited some nonmember friends and us over to talk together. She controlled everything again and we didn't get to do much, but the people she invited seemed to like us despite the awkwardness and uniqueness of the event. We watched The Testaments together and then talked for quite a bit and ate a little. The member had us read an article about the Devils Mark, or mark of the beast, spoken of in the book of Revelations . . . .awkward, haha. It lasted four and a half hours before we all finally got to leave. Good member missionary with a great heart and good intentions at least.

We had splits in Kuopio on Saturday, then, with the Savonlinna Elders too, we went to watch conference. Because of the time difference we only saw the Saturday morning session, then had to go home. Sunday morning we watched the rebroadcasts of the Saturday evening session and the Priesthood session, the only problem was that the English didn't work for the priesthood session, so we younger missionaries basically missed it, but our senior Finnish-speaking companions did fine, haha. We then got to see the Sunday morning session then we missed the Sunday evening session because it's too late here. I guess I'll have to wait for the Conference issue of the Liahona, which each companionship gets every Zone Conference. BUT, wasn't conference AMAZING??!! Here are some of my favorite quotes:

-Awaken the power of the priesthood of the Almighty -Elder Packer

-What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you speak. -Ralph W Emerson

-I made this my rule: when the Lord commands it, Do it. -Joseph Smith

-The only real control in life is self-control -Elder Holland . . .loved his talk

-No matter the size of the issue, how we respond sets the course for our lives -Elder Hallstrom

-MANY MANY more but I don't have time to write them all . . . .But, all in all, conference was amazing!

Well family, I have to go but thank you and love you! We have now heard from our leaders, but are we going to put them into action? Hope so. Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only. I love you all, I know this is God's work, and I am honored to be a part of it. My prayers are for little Jacob, hope he is alright. Oh, and can I have the birthday list of the family members that I requested? Kiitos, Moi Moi . . . Sorry if I am forgetting something.

-Vanhin Watson

PS. Random note, a bird today flew right over me and slapped my head with its wing, haha.