Elder Causse

Hey Fam!

Unfortunately I will be back to my normal rushed self from now until further notice because the local library was finally finished with it's remodeling and now we are back to e-mailing here, rather than at the one computer in the basement of the church. Here I'm on a sign up sheet for a computer for a certain time slot, and the lady before me went over . . . .so here I gooooooo . . . .

We had a pretty good week. We got some good teaches, and some phone numbers. This week was splits, so Vanhin Peterson and Vanhin Gorringe (from my MTC group) came down ffrom Kuopio for the day. We all made bread together and started giving it away to some of our investigators and potentials, and a few members. It was pretty fun and a cool way to show our appreciation for these people. I was able to go out for a while with Vanhin Gorringe which was really nice. He's quite the awesome missionary. We were able to go home teach an older gentleman in our branch. Ahh, can't explain everything, sorry, but there's more to be said . . . all in all, fun splits.

Investigator 'N' is still doing really well, just can't get a baptismal date out of her yet, haha. She's basically a member. It's amazing in our teaches, sometimes it seems like she is teaching us, haha. Her family is being a huge burden to her right now. They don't approve of anything and can sometimes be really mean and hurtful. 'N' pulls through and its really cool to watch her withstand all the fiery darts because of the strong foundation on which she is built. Her member friend from Helsinki is coming up this weekend. He's the one that referred her to us and they are really good friends. We're going to have a teach with him there so toivottavasti we can get her pumped up and get a date.

This weekend Elder Causse from the Area Presidency is coming to FINLAND. He's doign a mission tour, so on Friday . . . . more travels . . . .we trek up to Oulu, hear from him Saturday morning, catch the next train. Stay the night in Kajaani with the Veljet there, then continute the trek home (missing church) to get back to Joensuu. Crazy stuff huh. Then next week I have Kieli Koulu in Helsinki, then the following week we have Zone Conference back in Oulu.

Saturday was a holiday here in Finland . . .Juhannus . . . .basically celebrating summer. Because everyone gets wasted and goes to the woods and parties and stuff, we had to go in early Friday and Saturday. In that time I prepared and wrote my talk that I gave in church yesterday! It was tough, but apparently I pulled it off . . .IN FINNISH . . .and still took 15-20 minutes, haha, WOO! I talked about Adversity and Personal Revelation. It went pretty well from what I hear. I was trying to direct it at 'N' who came to church, even after the rough weekend with her family, and she said she was glad that she came because she could calm down and feel the peace. :)

In the other free time in the Holiday Shutdowns my comp made some delicious banana bread and then we made some chocolate chip cookies together. We gave some to our whole apartment complex, haha. Basically doorbell ditched a few cookies and a note saying 'Hyvää Juhannusta!' at every door. A couple hours before we were supposed to head for the Holiday Shutdown, a member called us up and invited us to have makkara (hot dogs basically). We said yes, so he came a picked us up with his buddy and gave us a ride to where we thought would be his house . . . . oh no no nooooo . . . .it was a 20 minute car ride of death I tell you. He drove like a mainiac, running red lights, speeding through the city, through the center, and out to the country side. By this point we were confused and quite terrified, haha. They ended up bringing us to a spot by a lake with crystal clear water and we built a fire and had makkara, haha. It was awesome. But we needed to be in my 6, so we hurried, and he sped us home. We ended up being late a bit. No time to explain more . . . looks like you'll have to wait till next year, haha.

We have a bunch of potential investigators that we're striving to work with now, since 'N' is our only main one. We want to 'orchestrate their conversion process' as President Brown put it, and work them down the pipeline, so at the other end, out pops a baptism. We need to fill the pipeline here. We can do it.

random things that I don't have time to talk about:

-Naked Mummo . . . . .DON'T want to talk about it

-Gypsies

-Contacting into a famous German Artist, Peter Michael Tschoepe

-an investigator giving us an ornament and a doll

-gave a blessing to our branch president who wasn't feeling good

-yup yup

I love you all. Thank you for the e-mails and updates. It's always fun reading them. I really have to go. Eden, good luck! Mom, safe travels. Dad and Seth . . eat healthier, Layne has reported that your grocery shopping has left her with no options, haha. Tell grandma a letter will be on her way as soon as I can send it. Moi Moi

Vanhin Watson

opposition in all things

Terrrrrrrrrrrrve. . . . . . one of the joys of speaking Finnish is that we often get to roll our 'R's in intense ways. :)

It was really nice reading all of your e-mails just now. So peaceful, so comforting, some sadness, then some good laughs. Thank you.

Today marks the first day of the new change in the Finland Mission. With it comes some new goals, new visions and desires, and . . . .as usual, a bunch of traveling. :) We had another District Meeting in Kuopio on Saturday, but this time Pres and Sis Brown were there. It was there that we learned that Elder Causse of the Area Presidency is coming for a Mission Tour in 2 weeks. So that means my Zone gets to trek back up to Oulu to hear him speak. yay for 10 hour trains. :) Then, the following week I have my 6 month Kieli Koul . . aka, Language School with my MTC group in Helsinki. (It'll be our last one). Then, the week after that we are trekking back to Oulu for Zone Conference, haha, yay for traveling!

We've recently been teaching a couple who are our 2 new investigators. They are quite the busy people though, so our teaches have been pretty short, and usually ne of them isn't there. But he has been reading a bit of the Book of mormon and is actually already in Mosiah, although he said he hasn't really been thinking while he reads, just kinda going through it I guess. He likes it though, said it's very similar to the Bible's text.

Last Tuesday a member randomly called us up and invited us over for dinner. We ended up eating probably one of the Finn's most favorite summer foods . . . . .Muikku . . .(google it) . . .it's a small fish that they just cook whole, everything still there, and just feast away! They are really good at taking it apart (bones, organs, scales, and all that) I think they had eaten 3 before we even finished our first one because we had no idea what we were doing, haha. YES, I ate them . . . . for all you doubters, haha.

Our awesome investigator 'N' is still doing great. The Adversary is very aware of her great faith and good choices, and is really trying to take her down. Basically all of her family and friends are extremely against her being converted. They send her Anti material, they text her, they call her, they scream at her, and this whole time (at least while around them) she's kept her cool and ignored ALL of it. The other night was especially hard on her because everyone was getting drunk around her and yelling at her and saying awful things. She said she cried all night. Yet, through all this she still knows the church is true, that everything they say is false, AND, she still loves and prays for all of them. How amazing is she?!! She wants so badly that they stop and see the light. Besides us and her member friend in Helsinki, we are all she's got for a support system, and the Man upstairs of course. We taught her after church yesterday and she prayed at the end, and in it she prayed for MORE trials to strengthen her faith. I'm telling you, she teaches us somethimes more than we can teach her. She still won't set a baptismal date though, is still waiting for the confirmation from God. But we seriously feel that when it comes, it could be within the hour that she's in the water. She still wants to be baptized in a lake, 'more natural' she says, haha. I could go on, but can't right now.

Another miracle we got to see was yesterday at church. 3 older couples from America (the men all former missionaries here way way back in the day) decided to visit. The miracle is that none of them coordinated it with eachother, and 2 of them used to be companions!! haha, AWESOME.

Low on time . . . what else is new . . . haha.

I love you all. Gotta send pics, so I'll go. Tell grandma I love her and I'll write her taas (again). Moi Moi.

-Vanhin Watson

kittos

Yay for pictures! :) Thank you. WOW. Niiiiice car. all week, every time I saw an audi I thought of my little brother getting to drive one, a convertible no less, and I wasn't. hahaha. I send my approval, haha.

Change calls came and went the other night . . . . . . . . I'm staying in Joensuu!! I'm excited. I must still be needed here.

This week was a bit slower going because our main investigator 'N' has been out of town in helsinki. But, no worries, she was with her member friend a lot and even attended a couple YSA activities and went to church on sunday too. :) We actually ran into her after buying our groceries last week. We were biking, with our groceries in hand, home and she just kinda popped out of no where. We walked and talked with her for a little bit. She said she felt impressed to go outside and boom, there we were. She's awesome. She comes back in a couple days, so hopefully we can set a baptismal date soon.

We had a 40 minute long contact the other day with a Helluntai. (its a Pentacostal church here that believes they all have the gift of tongues and much more) At the same time a break dancing party was going on behind us and the music was blasting. The contact got no where, turns out we have a lot of differing beliefs. Cool guy though, but Helluntais are sure hard to break, haha.

We tracted into a man from France with a HUGE dog. He just kinda goes with the flow. Really cool and nice though. He said 'why not' when we offered him a Book of Mormon. I'll send a pic.

We had District Meeting on Thursday in Savonlinna. It's quite the beautiful city this time of year. We all went contacting afterwards and dominated the city, it's quite small, with 7 Elders there all out stopping people. It was pretty fun. On the train back we heard a cell phone go off and just about everyone in the train cart started for their pockets and bags, looking for their phones. Looks like pretty much every Finn has the same ring-tone. :D

On Saturday a member lady invited us to her 85 birthday party with about 30 of her mummo friends, haha. We all sang songs and ate and stuff. It was pretty fun. Vanhin Ranzenberger and I even sang Happy Birthday to her in front of everybody because another member wanted us to. Hey, our options were either that or Home on the Range . . . .seriously. . .haha.

That same night we were let in tracting just before we were about to head home. This couple became our 2 new investigators. They love to talk, because we said at the door that our message will only take about 15 minutes or so, and an hour later we finally left. He is Orthodox and she is Buhdist, but they were really nice and accepted a Book of Mormon. Speaking of Orthodox, just yesterday while we were out contacting, we happened to see the HIGHEST member of the Orthodox church . . . . like the prophet. Apparently he was in Joensuu. We were walking and we just saw a bunch of fancy black cars parked on the sidewalk in front of one of our nicer restaurants. We didn't know what to do because there were body guards and guys in robes and hates and huge beards all around one side of the cars. So, we just went around on the other side of the cars on the street side and just brushed by the windows to get around. The whole time they were just starring at us, then we see a guy dressed up all fancy through one of the windows. Later we found out from a beggar we talk to a lot who it was. hahaha yup yup

Well, I gotta go, but thanks again for all your e-mails, updates, and pictures. As a parting thought I'll tell all of you how much I love Post-It notes, haha. I have a wall of quotes and scriptures on post-it notes. I've been finding a lot lately. (By no means am I saying 'send me some' . . .just wanted to share:)

My prayers are with you all, especially for Grandma Watson. Hope all goes well\went well. I love you. I miss you. I wish I could write all of you. and I really gotta go now. Hei Hei.

Vanhin Watson . . . . . woa . . . . I just realized that today is my 8 month mark . . . just hit me

MITÄ???!!!!!!!!

WHAT??!!!!!!!!!!!! Come on everyone, April Fools was quite a while ago. 2 new cars, AUDIS, and one a comfortable . . . .in the same day . . . . . . . . . . . AND . . . . . . .YOU DIDN'T SEND ME ANY PICTURES?!!!!! hmm . . . .i think as a consequense, which will take effect UNTIL I get some pictures, is shorter e-mails and NO pictures from me. Yeah, . . . . . .WHAT???????? Voi että perheni! hahaha, I'm in shock.

So, here's my week in a jist:

-On Tuesday we had 3 teaches. The first was with our less active that I've been working with ever since i got here. We followed up on the goals we set with him last week, and he's been doing pretty well with them. The second was with our struggling investigator 'M' who had a baptismal date. We dropped her in this teach, at least for a little while. There has been no progression for a while and she needs some time without us in our opinion. The third teach was with our awesome new investigator 'N'. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation. Afterwards we extended the baptismal commitment in our excitement of her awesomeness, and it kinda backfired. She wants to be baptized, but she doesn't know when yet and said she still needs time, but feels that it's close. We realized later in the day that we hadn't even taught her a single thing about baptism before extending the commitment. haha, whoops, a little bit against what PMG says. haha

-I finished reading the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants recently. I've read over 1000 pages of scripture on my mission so far and have learned so much. I'm going to start on the Book of Mormon again.

-On Thursday, we had another teach with investigator 'N'. She asked us to teach her what it's like to be a member, so we taught about that and some of the commandments and lifestyle of a member. At the end we asked her if she's ready to start living by them and 'can she?'. Her reply was 'Voin ja haluan.' Which basically translates to 'I can and I want to!' She said she was visiting her family during the weekend and was going to try and talk to them about her interest in our church.

-After that teach we packed and hopped on an 8 hour train to Oulu for Zone Conference, which was amazing, as always! Some things we talked about were Planning, the Plan of Salvation, and receiving Personal Revelation. Zone Conference is always fun.

-On Saturday we caught a 10 hour train home.

-On Sunday we found out how it went with investigator 'N' talking to her family. It didn't go to well and she didn't come to church because she was still shaken up about it. But she said for us not to fear though, she's still interested, just really wanted that her family supported whatever desicion she would make.

-Change Calls are this Saturday. I've been here for over 5 months now, and I love this place. Whatever God's will is, let it be done. I wouldn't mind another change in Joensuu though. :)

Well, thanks for all the news. SHOCKING my brains out, STILL. AHH!!

This is the Church of Jesus Christ. It says so on my chest. :) I love you all. Heippa.

-Vanhin Watson